Colt Knight: 00:19

Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. I am your host, Dr. Colt Knight. I’m an associate extension professor and state livestock specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. And today, I am joined by friend and colleague, Mari Glatter.

Mari Glatter: 00:35
It’s great to be here.

Colt Knight: 00:36
Mari and I have a really close relationship in Extension. Although, we don’t get to work together very often because she does a lot of behind the scenes stuff, and I’m more on the livestock side.

Mari Glatter: 00:49
I’m jealous most of time.

Colt Knight: 00:51
She’ll always come to me and ask me AV questions about microphones and cameras and stuff.

Mari Glatter: 00:56
Yeah. That too. For sure.

Colt Knight: 00:58
And then I go to her when I wanna complain about the inner workings of of the university.

Mari Glatter: 01:04
Don’t tell them our secrets.

Colt Knight: 01:08
So I get to vent and she gets to ask me technical questions.

Mari Glatter: 01:11
That’s right.

Colt Knight: 01:11
It works out quite well.

Mari Glatter: 01:13
And every once in a while, when I’m dying to get out to actually be with live animals, Colt takes mercy on me and lets me come out and play.

Colt Knight: 01:20
She likes my pigs.

Mari Glatter: 01:22
Uh-huh.

Colt Knight: 01:22
Yep. So, Mari, would you like to tell us what you do with Cooperative Extension?

Mari Glatter: 01:28
Sure. So I’m a instructional designer, which is kind of a fancy title. But basically in this role right now, take, content and learning from somebody like you, who is a subject matter expert and convert it into, right now we’re doing a lot of online based courses. Many of them are like asynchronous. So people could jump on at Saturday evening at 10PM and be in the course and learn everything they wanted to about, say, backyard chickens, which I really do actually wanna hit you up to make a course about that.

Mari Glatter: 02:03
Because they would recognize that you are an expert in it and they didn’t just want some garbage from a random person on YouTube. They wanted to really learn about it. And so I help our subject matter experts like you craft courses, micro credential courses. So these aren’t academically degree bearing, but they might have a credential of value or work towards a certificate of some kind. So, yeah, I’m the learning person and the people person, and I get to partner with our experts in the topics to help them make courses.

Colt Knight: 02:33
Mhmm. So how many of those type courses do we have through Extension?

Mari Glatter: 02:38
We have a lot. And we have a lot that we’re making. So, can I just, like, ramble off a couple of titles of things that we’re

Colt Knight: 02:47
into? Yeah.

Mari Glatter: 02:47
Tell us

Colt Knight: 02:47
tell us the most interesting ones.

Mari Glatter: 02:50
I’m I can’t say most interesting because I get to work with everybody and all of them and I can’t

Colt Knight: 02:54
pick Tell us who your favorite

Mari Glatter: 02:55
is, Mari. I’m allowed I’m not allowed to pick favorites though. When Colt makes backyard You have

Colt Knight: 03:01
favorites.

Mari Glatter: 03:02
Well, when you make the backyard chickens, then that will have to be

Colt Knight: 03:06
Administration doesn’t listen to this podcast. Had we had Hannah on the other day and she said she didn’t listen.

Mari Glatter: 03:11
That’s right. So pollinator friendly gardening. We are partnering with the Maine Business School and we have, finances in a flash and business resilience in a flash. These are, quick courses that folks, even some of your folks might be interested to learn more about, you know, how to manage their finances, how to get their businesses ready in case of natural disasters. Of course, we have our Master Gardener Volunteer Program and, there’s a Maine Horticulture Apprenticeship training, which a lot of our high school students are starting to take and they can get a full, they can partner with the course and then do an apprentice after that and receive that entire micro credential.

Mari Glatter: 03:53
We have a really big Maine gardener. We’re working on the Animal Health Hub with our friend, Rachel White, which is going to be this entire virtual field excuse me, a virtual field trip to do biosecurity. So we’re going go on three different farms, like virtually. So you can get into the farm and look all around and watch videos and click on things to see exactly what those farmers did to help keep their animals safe, which I think I think is pretty darn cool. Business planning for producers.

Mari Glatter: 04:23
That one has been do you help teach on that one? I can’t remember.

Colt Knight: 04:27
I have in the past set on panels and things, but that is not one of my program areas.

Mari Glatter: 04:32
Yep. We’re just getting started with Recipe to Market. So like, what do you you cook stuff too, don’t you, Cole? What else do you make? What’s one of your specialties?

Colt Knight: 04:43
I get recognized a lot for my barbecue.

Mari Glatter: 04:46
Alright.

Colt Knight: 04:46
I just in fact got back from North Carolina.

Mari Glatter: 04:49
Oh, you get to.

Colt Knight: 04:50
I was a guest lecturer for the North Carolina State Barbecue

Mari Glatter: 04:53
all over the place. You’re too cool for me.

Colt Knight: 04:55
That was a lot of fun. We got to meet world champion barbecue sauce producers, world champion pig smokers.

Mari Glatter: 05:04
That’s amazing. We had we

Colt Knight: 05:06
had folks that were on like Chopped and all those So famous TV it’s really funny. The audience may like to hear this. Yeah. Those shows are completely rigged. What?

Colt Knight: 05:18
No. They they film all three possible scenarios for everybody. Like your food is not good. Your food is okay. And your food is great.

Colt Knight: 05:29
And then the producers cut it together to make the story. It’s not who has the best food that wins.

Mari Glatter: 05:36
It’s more like the stories.

Colt Knight: 05:38
It’s however the producers think they can fit the story together.

Mari Glatter: 05:42
Oh, I’m crushed. I know And they’re I really paid

Colt Knight: 05:44
the same. Whether they so the real cooks are hoping they go home the first day.

Mari Glatter: 05:50
Oh, really?

Colt Knight: 05:50
Because so they don’t have to like be there and deal with the production on set and whatnot.

Mari Glatter: 05:54
Oh my word. So what was your was your role in that? Were you helping to talk about

Colt Knight: 05:59
animals smoking? Scenes for a lot of it, helping cook, prepare the food, and clean up and stuff. But, what I actually lectured on is I talked about kind of the history of the different pork cuts

Mari Glatter: 06:15
Okay.

Colt Knight: 06:15
From the animal Yep. And how to prepare barbecue pork ribs. That was kind of my my section.

Mari Glatter: 06:23
That was your section. Well, we have just started working on this recipe to market. And I think the level one badge, doesn’t get into barbecue sauce because that would involve, the next level up of skills.

Colt Knight: 06:36
I also judged the rub competition.

Mari Glatter: 06:40
Rubs would be in this first one, because that’d be a dry spice. Now, now remember I partner with people who are actually experts in all of it and I just help them with their people, like the human dimension. So I’m pretty sure this will be coming out at the end of the year, this first recipe to market. And have you made any rubs? Because you might be a good Guinea pig.

Colt Knight: 06:58
Yes. Okay. We actually did, it was called the barbecue cycle for the 4-H kids during the pandemic.

Mari Glatter: 07:05
Okay. Yes.

Colt Knight: 07:06
Where we got all the raw ingredients. We sent it to all the different 4-H that signed up. I showed them how to combine the spices and to make their own dry rubs. And then I showed them how to properly prepare and cook the ribs at the house.

Mari Glatter: 07:20
Perfect. Perfect.

Colt Knight:
 07:21So, yeah, I’ve got a little bit of experience with that.
Mari Glatter:
 07:24Yeah. So
Colt Knight:
 07:25I also just at the barbecue camp interacted with, one of the gentlemen’s that that runs AC Legg, which is probably the top spice manufacturer for meat processors.
Mari Glatter:
 07:37Okay.
Colt Knight:
 07:38They provided all the the spices for that camp. And he said that he’d be willing to do it here at Maine too. So he would send me, you know, like a 100 different spices and send an expert over so you could play with how to combine and make your own dry rubs and whatnot.
Mari Glatter:
 07:52Right. Well, you are not my exact target audience for the recipe to market because you probably already know too much. But let’s pretend that you were going to make your own dry rub and you wanted to learn about, you know, food sovereignty laws and different legal pieces, but also some about the business and some about marketing of this dry rub.
Colt Knight:
 08:12So the food sovereignty gets really complicated
Mari Glatter:
 08:14with non meat stuff.
Colt Knight:
 08:16We’re lucky in the meat world that it’s still USDA regulated. I don’t have to learn multiple different rules. But
Mari Glatter:
 08:24Yeah. So that’s what this that potential course could be. What would you name your, like, famous rub? Do have a name already? No.
Mari Glatter:
 08:32No. You’d have to come up with a good name for it. But yeah. And now I don’t know if you do anything with aquaculture, but we’re I do a lot with our aquaculture folks. We’re just about to finish a recirculating aquaculture system, helping folks who wanna learn a little bit more about aquaculture, where that food would come from, but also workforce development, like if someone was interested in that in that area.
Colt Knight:
 08:53I don’t know where it’s gonna be in the lineup of this podcast release.
Mari Glatter:
 08:57Okay.
Colt Knight:
 08:57But we do we had the folks from the aquaculture lab came in and did a podcast just
Mari Glatter:
 09:02Oh, that’s cool.
Colt Knight:
 09:03They just walked through the hallway and they’re like, what are all these shiny lights?
Mari Glatter:
 09:07I was like,
Colt Knight:
 09:07well, this is our podcast studio.
Mari Glatter:
 09:09And they came in and sat down and started talking to you?
Colt Knight:
 09:12That’s So we did a podcast episode with the aquaculture folks.
Mari Glatter:
 09:16Yeah. Now one that will probably be at least nine months from now in development is meat and poultry HACCP. So that’s more the food sanitation part of it for people who are processing, but it slightly touches in your world as far as yours is free.
Colt Knight:
 09:33HACCP is a big deal Okay. In the meat processing world because that is the standard operating procedures for safety of food preparation. Yep. And so you cannot get a new meat processing facility or process started without a complete HACCP plan.
Mari Glatter:
 09:52Right.
Colt Knight:
 09:53And it’s a hazard analysis. Yep. I don’t remember what all the other letters are because I’m not a food scientist, but Is it? Yeah. It is the hardest struggle within meat processors to get those produced and approved.
Colt Knight:
 10:06And they’re always begging for help with asset planning.
Mari Glatter:
 10:09So part of the point for this course that’s under development is to get our specialists here at the University of Maine and especially within Cooperative Extension and they understand and they would teach it. But instead of teaching one group of 10 folks at like in Augusta and September, you know, fourth, they could, we’re going to create this entire course so that any of these facilities or, managers who want to learn more or have their, employees learn more in as far as part of like this food sanitation pathway, they can get online and take the course. There’s videos and interactives ways to assess their learning, but fun. You know, we don’t want them to, you know, definitely assess what they’re learning and check that they watch things and read things, but always engaging, always to try to be as, I mean, I hate to be bored. I think you probably hate to be bored.
Mari Glatter:
 11:05So we want our folks to really learn in ways that will help them get that knowledge and be able to take it to their work, take it to their backyard to apply right away. Just a couple other ones that are, in development, poultry processing, just getting started, especially for Maine, under the thousand bird exemption. Tractor safety, we’re going to even have an entire virtual field trip where we go and they can kind of see and experience virtually in a three sixty environment, all the parts of a tractor so that they can kind of learn all of that before they maybe jump on the tractor, especially before they hitch anything on the back. Plant disease diagnostics with Alicyn Smart over at, the DRL Diagnostic Research Laboratory. We are just about done that one.
Mari Glatter:
 11:56And, food sanitation basics. So before, before the full, before the full HACCP, but learning how to write standard safety operating procedures, how to talk about good manufacturing practices. Yeah. Tons. I get a little excited.
Mari Glatter:
 12:11There’s so many, but, and then hopefully backyard chickens. That one
Colt Knight:
 12:17won’t be too hard because I think I have all the materials.
Mari Glatter:
 12:21We’ll probably see if we can get even some more exciting materials from you too. Cause I, everywhere I turn Colt, somebody’s talking to me about raising chickens in their backyard, but there’d be a lot of questions. Things like, can I do that? Like, I live in Orono. Am I allowed to raise chickens?
Mari Glatter:
 12:39Do you know?
Colt Knight:
 12:40You are. I don’t think you can have a rooster in Orono.
Mari Glatter:
 12:43And I
Colt Knight:
 12:44think there’s a limit to how many chickens you can have. I’m a bit of a libertarian on this issue. And if you want chickens, you should get chickens and then I would just fight the city later. But that’s not practical advice for
Mari Glatter:
 12:56the Oh, that’s not practical advice. And in our course, we would give the diplomatically correct advice for sure. So folks could do that. Yeah. So that’s a little bit
Colt Knight:
 13:07That’s why I live in the country.
Mari Glatter:
 13:08That’s right. So you don’t have quite as much
Colt Knight:
 13:10information. No HOAs or people tell me
Mari Glatter:
 13:13what But to before I did all of this work with online, which is wonderful because I get to take real, wonderful, amazing, rich content from folks like you and bring it to our learners anywhere in Maine and candidly, we’ve had folks from around the country and around the world take our courses. I actually was a 4-H professional in Aroostook County for Cooperative Extension for four years before I started doing this online coursework. So I got to go out and be with our wonderful four H’ers too.
Colt Knight:
 13:47That’s a good transition because I wanted to get to know Mari Okay.
Mari Glatter:
 13:51Yeah, that’s easy. Tell me.
Colt Knight:
 13:53So did you grow up in Aroostook County?
Mari Glatter:
 13:55I didn’t. I grew up in Sydney. That’s between Augusta and Waterville. And, I grew up with grandparents.
Mari Glatter:
 14:01My parents weren’t able to take care of me or my younger brothers. And so my grandparents did. And I’d call it a homestead. We had a 100 acres and we had Angus Hereford Cross that we raised for beef. I think, I don’t know, we had anywhere from like four to seven.
Mari Glatter:
 14:19It wasn’t like a, you know. And it was definitely not like my four H’ers who would show, like these were wild out, you know, out in the pasture critters that you, you could not pet. So, you know, we, we took a and we had a huge vegetable garden, spent a lot of my childhood and teenage life in the vegetable gardens and woods. We would, cut our wood for fuel. So kind of, I call it a homestead lifestyle, you know, where we’d then put up all the vegetables to get us through, you know, through the winter.
Mari Glatter:
 14:55And I always thought it’d be amazing to have a farm, but my husband, who I adore grew up in suburbia. So we’ve personally lived in suburbia, but whenever I can get back out onto a farm or, or a homestead or anything like that, I think there’s a part of my spirit that always leaps, you know, and I get to get out there. Just something about that, having grown up out there.
Colt Knight:
 15:18Yeah. I grew up on a small farm, but my wife is very suburban. Yeah. So it’s been a transition for her.
Mari Glatter:
 15:26Yeah, I bet.
Colt Knight:
 15:26To the pig farm.
Mari Glatter:
 15:27Yeah. Yeah. That’s a
Colt Knight:
 15:29I’m so proud of her though now. It’s like the pigs get out and she she knows how to instinctually move the animals with low stress handling techniques now. Which, you know, it probably took a lot of cussing on my part, but we’re we’re there now. It’s really handy.
Mari Glatter:
 15:44Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty amazing. So, yeah, I loved, I, you know, I was also a teacher at, you know, and did a lot before I landed at Extension. And, I What took did you teach?
Mari Glatter:
 16:00Well, I taught pre K through high school music. One of my degrees is in music. So general music, band, orchestra, chorus. You know, you can imagine me folk dancing around the room with four year olds and then helping the high school orchestra. So it was a wild ride.
Mari Glatter:
 16:19It was fun. And then I actually, I homeschooled my children and led co ops for, seven years. So then I taught everything middle school through high school. So biology, chemistry, English, history, art, of course, I just, you know, loved learning all about it. It might’ve been more fun if I’d done the early end of the homeschool world, but I did the second half of the homeschool world until they went off to college.
Mari Glatter:
 16:45So it was a lot of fun learning. I had to study chemistry at night in order to teach them the next day. It was a little bit of a wild scene, but
Colt Knight:
 16:53I know that feeling. I get thrown into those situations all the time.
Mari Glatter:
 16:57Yeah. You’re Let me learn
Colt Knight:
 16:59everything that there is to learn overnight and then I can teach the next day.
Mari Glatter:
 17:04What’s one of the most recent things you’ve had to study up on a little bit before you could talk on it?
Colt Knight:
 17:09That’s a that’s a great question. I’m trying to think what was the most recent one? Oh, or one. Here’s a here’s a good one.
Mari Glatter:
 17:16Yeah. Yeah.
Colt Knight:
 17:17Yeah. Here’s a this is kind of a funny story. I do a little bit with marketing, outreach, social media type stuff with And and so I got more and more questions on how to do alternative marketing and whatnot. And so I was working with some economists and some marketers on how to to help livestock producers with this question. Sure.
Colt Knight:
 17:44Well, someone heard my talk and they said, could you do an alternative marketing talk at the Massachusetts Maple Syrup Annual Meeting?
Mari Glatter:
 17:54No. Seriously? They did. So were you having to brush up on maple syrup or a little bit more about marketing or price?
Colt Knight:
 18:01I don’t know anything about maple syrup other than it comes from a maple I forgot
Mari Glatter:
 18:05to put it on my list. We’re doing a sugarbush management
Colt Knight:
 18:07I learned so much just sitting through that meeting that I I had no idea about maple syrup. But anyway, they asked me
Mari Glatter:
 18:14to talk. Can you grade it now? No. Okay. Okay.
Colt Knight:
 18:17No. But it was really funny. I thought I was just gonna be like one of what, 50 speakers that you’re probably gonna have at this like, no, I was the keynote speaker.
Mari Glatter:
 18:26No. Called you conference. Cool. I mean, you just are too cool for words.
Colt Knight:
 18:33And I was the only speaker other than them just going through annual meeting type stuff. And
Mari Glatter:
 18:40How’d it go?
Colt Knight:
 18:41Well, I was right after lunch. Uh-oh. So I didn’t have to worry about competing with lunch. That was good. But, I had my title slide up on the projector.
Colt Knight:
 18:50This was in a high school.
Mari Glatter:
 18:51Okay. Yep. And
Colt Knight:
 18:52we were using like, three generations back of technology. So I had to get, like, 37 dongles together to make to make my computer work It’s
Mari Glatter:
 19:02a better thing to make your PowerPoint work.
Colt Knight:
 19:03And of course, that’s too many dongles. So the screen was green and would blink. So you had to then you had to go jiggle the cords just right to get it all to
Mari Glatter:
 19:12Yep.
Colt Knight:
 19:13But finally got it all to work. Yep. And I had my title slide up there, which
Mari Glatter:
 19:16was like
Colt Knight:
 19:17alternative livestock marketing or whatever. Yep. And I overheard someone in the audience say, they must have run out of people to ask or something. Something along those lines.
Mari Glatter:
 19:31Did it get better from there or get worse?
Colt Knight:
 19:34It was kind of funny because that’s how I opened my talk was I hurt someone in the audience. They they must and then they all laughed. And then we had a we had a good time
Mari Glatter:
 19:43You did.
Colt Knight:
 19:44Telling stories and jokes and things. But Yeah. I that was something I really had to brush up on a lot of stuff. Not just marketing, but maple syrup, Massachusetts, because I’m again, I don’t know anything about Massachusetts either. I’m a southern boy.
Colt Knight:
 20:01I came up here to Maine for this gig.
Mari Glatter:
 20:04So That’s right.
Colt Knight:
 20:05I’m still learning all about New England lifestyle and and whatnot.
Mari Glatter:
 20:10Yeah. Little tiny bit faster paced than here? Massachusetts, just a little bit tinier fast. Yeah. Bit.
Mari Glatter:
 20:17Just a little bit.
Colt Knight:
 20:18Yeah. Yeah. And the music, you know, you mentioned music, the music’s way different up here than where I grew up.
Mari Glatter:
 20:24Yes. You have some pretty amazing music. Definitely.
Colt Knight:
 20:27And everyone played in Appalachian Mountains. Yeah. It’s like you’d go to there’d be a banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, lean, everybody’s Oh
Mari Glatter:
 20:37my word.
Colt Knight:
 20:38And the folks that could play generally could play multiple instruments, not just one. Yeah. I really missed the music aspect of leaving West Virginia because I’ve not been to many places that were had such rich music.
Mari Glatter:
 20:53I would a 100% believe that. Yeah. I would just, I can, I’ll have to go back with you guys when you all go home next time and just start going around to people’s homes and having them do some music. That’d be pretty amazing. Yeah, just
Colt Knight:
 21:09Well, like Memorial Day that just elapsed. They have a three day acoustic music festival on the lawn of the Capitol Building in West Virginia. Called the Vandalia Festival.
Mari Glatter:
 21:19That’s incredible. Just incredible. It’s actually some of my absolute favorite music. It really is. And I’m thankful that my kids were more than happy to also listen to that.
Mari Glatter:
 21:31I mean, they have their own favorites now as well, but yeah, definitely.
Colt Knight:
 21:35I know you sing, but do you do instruments too?
Mari Glatter:
 21:38I do. I actually play big brass instruments. So trombone, euphonium, which looks like a baby tuba, little bit of trumpet, piano. Unfortunately, I didn’t I’m not capable of guitar like you, though I think it’s pretty amazing. Or we have a beautiful banjo.
Mari Glatter:
 21:58Actually, Colt helped our family. My husband’s uncle in New York, I think was it back from the sixties? I I should have double checked it, but I didn’t think I’d be talking about a banjo on your show today. But,
Colt Knight:
 22:08this ’19 beautiful ’67 old banjo.
Mari Glatter:
 22:13Yeah. And Colt really was so special to our family and helped restore it. It’s just incredible. And then my husband started practicing it. And so we have a little bit of banjo happening at times.
Mari Glatter:
 22:26And, my sister came to visit from, and the kid, you know, my, like you said, leaning up in every corner. So of course in the corner of my house, there’s, there’s, there’s instruments leaning up. And so she got out, we got out the banjo and so she played it just a little bit. My husband did. So we were talking about you, if your ears were burning about a week ago.
Colt Knight:
 22:46I won’t play my banjo much anymore because there’s no one to play banjo with.
Mari Glatter:
 22:52It’d be better with someone else too.
Colt Knight:
 22:54You know, you can play guitar by yourself, but it’s there’s not much you can do with by yourself with the banjo. So I Yeah. Haven’t Yeah. I’ve probably lost all my ability to play at this point.
Mari Glatter:
 23:05I’m sure you haven’t. I’m sure you haven’t. You know, it’s interesting. I was thinking a little bit about learning, you know, cause that’s part of my world too. And, I think part of what happens is like, I have a chance to work with a subject matter expert, They are really researched in all things, say, about pigs or swine.
Mari Glatter:
 23:28And part of what I study of course is everything about like learning theory and cognitive science.
Colt Knight:
 23:34So I’ve got, you mentioned pigs.
Mari Glatter:
 23:38Okay. Yeah. Tell me about pigs.
Colt Knight:
 23:39Let’s do a learning example with
Mari Glatter:
 23:41Let’s do one.
Colt Knight:
 23:42What do you call a pig with three i’s?
Mari Glatter:
 23:46I I really have no idea.
Colt Knight:
 23:49A pig. Alright. Back to your
Mari Glatter:
 23:56Yes. Perfect. Yep. I’m afraid that’s really fun. So yeah.
Mari Glatter:
 24:02One of the great things about all of our courses is that I did say that they would be fun and interactive and high quality, but underneath all of them is some really rich research and things like cognitive load theory, where we talk about, you know, the complexity of the material or universal design for learning. We want everything to be completely accessible, for the learners. So different ways of representing information, different ways for them, multiple means of engagement. Of course, there’s all the best practices for, any individuals who might need it for screen readers, alt text, color contrast, all of those different pieces to meet standards. Everything’s built kind of in that backward design.
Mari Glatter:
 24:51So I would start by asking you, what are the big things that you would want someone to learn about if they’re going to raise backyard chickens? So what are the seven or five most important things that you can imagine? Can you think of them?
Colt Knight:
 25:06Yeah. We just did an entire podcast episode on this a couple weeks ago.
Mari Glatter:
 25:09Okay. So what are they? Can you just sort of so that
Colt Knight:
 25:12way So one, they need a clean, dry, well venerated environment.
Mari Glatter:
 25:17Yep.
Colt Knight:
 25:18You have to feed and water them every single day. Yeah. You don’t need a rooster to have eggs.
Mari Glatter:
 25:25Oh, I didn’t know that actually, Guy.
Colt Knight:
 25:28And you better have a plan for what you’re gonna do with all your eggs. Yeah. Because those chickens produce an egg about once every twenty five hours times however many chickens you have. Yeah. Times how many people in your household.
Colt Knight:
 25:43You quickly learn that you produce more eggs than you can consume. Yeah. And then you start looking for inventive ways to use eggs. Right. Or you start contacting your friends and neighbors saying to come and get these
Mari Glatter:
 25:55then you become very popular, I bet.
Colt Knight:
 25:57And then you start hoarding egg cartons, something that you may have never thought you would do. You’re you’re
Mari Glatter:
 26:03always You you have colleagues who bring you
Colt Knight:
 26:05in egg asking your your colleagues and friends and neighbors and stuff. Bring me your egg cartons. So you’ll have an assortment of Styrofoam cardboard, twelve and eighteen egg cartons on the counter. So there’s five. Do you want me to keep going?
Mari Glatter:
 26:19No, we’re just going use an example. So, then you would work with myself and then we have a wonderful colleague, Laura Wilson, who, really is the whiz when it comes to, thinking about micro credentials and how to work with the University of Maine system, to, to be able to think of what can, what are those things that your learners need to know? How can, what are the skills or the competencies? How can you verify that they’ve learned them? And then after we’ve kind of created that and worked on what we call metadata, which is the actual, I hope you can edit this out because my brain just hiccup for three seconds.
Mari Glatter:
 27:01We don’t edit. You don’t edit anything. Well, is really Laura’s
Colt Knight:
 27:06You’re asking absolute me to work way too hard.
Mari Glatter:
 27:09Well, want to be able to. So the metadata is the way that our folks, when they get a digital badge from you about learning how to raise backyard chickens, you’re going to teach them a ton of stuff and they are actually going to learn it because it’s going to be engaging, it’s going to be high quality and we’re going to verify it through assessments and interactives in manners. And so then the metadata sits at the University of Maine system badging platform and anyone that they want to share their digital badge with on LinkedIn or on their social media or their grandmother or their kid, maybe to show that, then that metadata page talks about what they’ve learned in your course. It’s verified skills and knowledge. And, after we’ve kind of identified that core, then you and I have lots of great conversations about, well, what part is going to be text?
Mari Glatter:
 28:00What’s going to be videos? How could we make those videos? Well, you would be wicked easy cause you make the most unbelievably amazing videos. And as a matter of fact, just for your listeners, you’ve taught me everything I know about making videos. So I think making videos with you would be pretty easy.
Mari Glatter:
 28:18But then we would take all of that content. We’d apply, some more learning. We talk a lot about your learners. Who would be your learners? Do you know?
Colt Knight:
 28:29Do you
Mari Glatter:
 28:29know who would want to take this kind of course?
Colt Knight:
 28:31On backyard chickens?
Mari Glatter:
 28:32Yeah. Backyard chickens.
Colt Knight:
 28:34That would be anyone that wants to keep backyard chickens.
Mari Glatter:
 28:37Yeah. But do you have any idea? Like, do they already have a backyard?
Colt Knight:
 28:41The majority of folks that we get for these these, like, new backyard chickens are our urban individuals that are moving from the city and moving to Maine because they don’t want to live in an urban lifestyle anymore. So they they want a lifestyle change.
Mari Glatter:
 28:57Yeah.
Colt Knight:
 28:57We get a lot of retired veterans or veterans that are coming to Maine that are wanting to start like the homesteading lifestyle. And then we also have your homesteaders type folks.
Mari Glatter:
 29:11Right. So then part of my process working with you, and I’m just gonna ask you right now, is what I think I hear you say is that they probably don’t have a background. They probably don’t have much knowledge personally. And they’re looking to you to help them kind of start from the beginning.
Colt Knight:
 29:27Yeah, beginners.
Mari Glatter:
 29:28Doctor. Just at the beginning. Are they nervous about raising animals? Do you have to kind of kind of coach them along? Are they too confident?
Mari Glatter:
 29:37Where are they at in that spectrum?
Colt Knight:
 29:38Doctor. The chickens isn’t too bad. When you get into the larger livestock species, that’s when a lot of the nervousness really kicks in. They’re usually generally very excited
Mari Glatter:
 29:47to get chickens. Yeah. Maybe more excited than they are knowledgeable.
Colt Knight:
 29:52Oh, way more excited
Mari Glatter:
 29:53than knowledgeable.
Colt Knight:
 29:54But that’s probably true on everything. Yeah. Whenever you get into a new endeavor, it’s hard to imagine the plethora of information that goes along with every topic.
Mari Glatter:
 30:06Yeah. Now I did hear your podcast on pigs, one of your most recent ones, and there was some strong caution about having really big plans before you got your animals. Talk talk to me a little bit about chickens. Do you have to be quite as cautious before
Colt Knight:
 30:21you get Chickens have a really easy entrance and exit strategy.
Mari Glatter:
 30:25Okay.
Colt Knight:
 30:26Okay. So if you get chickens
Mari Glatter:
 30:28Yep.
Colt Knight:
 30:29And you decide you do not like chickens, it’s very, very easy to give chickens away.
Mari Glatter:
 30:35Okay.
Colt Knight:
 30:36I mean, you’re not gonna sell them, but
Mari Glatter:
 30:38No.
Colt Knight:
 30:38No. No. Yep. You got 20 chickens and
Mari Glatter:
 30:40Right.
Colt Knight:
 30:41Say chickens aren’t for you, you could post on Facebook, say, I’ve got 20 chickens. I don’t want them anymore. You’ll probably have half a dozen people knocking down your door to come and get your chickens and take them off your hands
Mari Glatter:
 30:52with no problem.
Colt Knight:
 30:53The other benefit to chickens is you can just knock them in the head and eat them.
Mari Glatter:
 30:58You can if you understand appropriately how to.
Colt Knight:
 31:01You know, we can process a chicken very easily compared to other livestock species.
Mari Glatter:
 31:07And I don’t think we so part of what we talk about when we work on course design is what should be and what shouldn’t be. And I think poultry processing would not maybe be in the backyard chicken first course because I think most people would be a little bit squeamish. They wanna keep them alive. Most folks
Colt Knight:
 31:24are most folks that are getting into chickens are doing so for egg production and yard ornaments.
Mari Glatter:
 31:30Well, also the the the the what they can eat, like the insects. Right? Or are they not as good as guineas about ticks and things like does anybody get That
Colt Knight:
 31:38is a myth.
Mari Glatter:
 31:39It’s a myth. Okay. Then teach me.
Colt Knight:
 31:41Chickens are not an effective control for ticks.
Mari Glatter:
 31:44Well, that’s what I was curious. But guineas guineas are, aren’t they?
Colt Knight:
 31:47Guineas will eat more insects. So this is this is a little weird. Alright? So the study that was done Yeah. That shows that guineas control ticks
Mari Glatter:
 31:57Yeah.
Colt Knight:
 31:58Was done in Africa in a really desert Oh. Environment.
Mari Glatter:
 32:02Okay.
Colt Knight:
 32:02And so there’s nothing else for those guineas to eat except for the bugs. You may have heard that possums eat, like, five or 10,000 ticks a week or something
Mari Glatter:
 32:12ludicrous like that. Yeah. That seems like a huge number.
Colt Knight:
 32:15And and the that came from a study that quoted another study that just had possums in a cage and they fed them ticks. So they said, this possum ate x amount of ticks in ten minutes. So if we extrapolate that out to sixteen minutes an hour, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, therefore possums eat. And so but in their natural environments, they don’t really eat ticks at all. And so but people want to believe it.
Colt Knight:
 32:42And so therefore, they believe it. Yeah, we get that a lot in the livestock world.
Mari Glatter:
 32:47Right. Which is why a course where they realize that you understand about chickens, that you’re knowledgeable, you have a PhD, you’ve taught, you’ve researched it. They can kind of come along that journey with you. We talk a lot about kind of instructor presence and honestly, Colt, you’d be so much fun to have. Even if they never met you live, they would get to know you.
Mari Glatter:
 33:13Like we would definitely have videos where they would get to meet Doctor. Colt and I and have a chance to kind of feel comfortable. I had another course with, Ellen Mallory and about soil health a couple of years ago. One of the, one of the people taking the course never met her and yet they live, they never met her live and yet because of the videos, they, when they did meet her, were like, Ellen! And she, she was like, she’d realized she’d never met the person before, but they knew her because of the course.
Mari Glatter:
 33:43So you’d have a whole bunch of folks in Maine and beyond who would know you because they could kind of get a chance to connect with you, in that course and really have an opportunity to
Colt Knight:
 33:54I don’t know about this. The anonymity is way more important than that. No, it’s It’s funny you mentioned that. I think I’ve told this story, maybe not on the podcast before, but when I first got into doing social media short videos on the extension page and whatnot, I was doing a little experiment to see how often I needed to post to increase engagement on our social media
Mari Glatter:
 34:18page. And
Colt Knight:
 34:19so I did a couple months where I did one every single day.
Mari Glatter:
 34:23Oh my word, seriously. I made
Colt Knight:
 34:24a three to five minute video every day.
Mari Glatter:
 34:28That’s a massive amount of work.
Colt Knight:
 34:29It was too much work. So I went to business days. So five days a week instead of seven. And it’s really hard to keep up with that amount of content. Is.
Colt Knight:
 34:38Yeah. You wouldn’t think that making a three minute video
Mari Glatter:
 34:41would Yes, be I would. It’s a huge amount of content.
Colt Knight:
 34:44It works really good for about the first three weeks and then you run out of all your good ideas.
Mari Glatter:
 34:49Sure, sure.
Colt Knight:
 34:50And you’re like, now what do I do?
Mari Glatter:
 34:51So what did you learn about engagement? Because
Colt Knight:
 34:53It went through the roof. If you kept going. If you keep going. You gotta feed that algorithm. Gotta you’ve got to people have got to want to watch you for entertainment, not just education.
Colt Knight:
 35:07So if you’re up there delivering pure educational talks on a regular basis, you’re boring and it’s no entertainment value. And so you won’t get any engagement that way. So there has to be some sort of mix of entertainment and education to really get engagement on social media. There’s probably courses and degrees you could get in that that I just learned the hard way. But I remember I was in Aroostook County.
Mari Glatter:
 35:37Yep.
Colt Knight:
 35:37Just walking through a feed mill because I was doing a beef talk in a Holton. Yeah. Yeah. And I was early. And so I just walking through the feed mill and the guy guy that on the feed mill yelled at me and said, you’re a long way from home.
Colt Knight:
 35:50I didn’t know him from Adam, you know? Was
Mari Glatter:
 35:52like, who is it?
Colt Knight:
 35:53But he he recognized me from my videos and just talked to me like he knew me.
Mari Glatter:
 35:57Yes. Because he did know you.
Colt Knight:
 35:59And I get this at conferences all the time. Like professors from Yep. Twenty years ago. Yeah. Well, talk to me like we’ve been in contact.
Mari Glatter:
 36:09Because they’ve been watching your
Colt Knight:
 36:10videos. They watch me on social media. And then, you know, people get personal with me that I meet different places. And I’m like, getting a little fresh there. It’s like, wait.
Colt Knight:
 36:21No. I put this all on social media for the world see. Is my
Mari Glatter:
 36:25That is your fault.
Colt Knight:
 36:26Yep. But yeah, it really does.
Mari Glatter:
 36:28Well, but part of what I would want for your learners, at least selfishly, is that they do connect with you because then there’s a lot of myths out there, right? You’ve already talked to me about chickens and ticks. And I bet there’s a lot of other myths out there. Just YouTubers sort of saying whatever they might want to say. So I want your learners, our learners, our Cooperative Extension folks, those learners across the state of Maine and beyond to know I’m going to Colt.
Mari Glatter:
 36:58I trust Colt. Colt knows what he’s talking about. And that’s where I’m going to learn about chickens. And then when their neighbor decides, because, you know, they’re gonna, they’re gonna be great at raising chickens because they’re gonna take their course with you And their neighbor decides they wanna raise chickens. They’re gonna say, hey, you wanna learn about chickens?
Mari Glatter:
 37:16Go to Colt. And here’s a course so that Colt doesn’t have to go every single back road of every single part all over Maine, New England, and everywhere else to teach one at a time, we’ll make a course so they can jump on when they have insomnia.
Colt Knight:
 37:30That’s that’s what I did for the first five years I worked here.
Mari Glatter:
 37:34Really? Jumped in the car everywhere?
Colt Knight:
 37:36I went everywhere. I gave extension programs in every single county, whether it was two people that showed up or 50.
Mari Glatter:
 37:43Yeah. Which is amazing and wonderful. But we also can’t, you know, exhaust you to the point that you’re not able to do your research. Yeah, I
Colt Knight:
 37:51can’t keep that up anymore. It’s really funny how your responsibilities aggregate over time So in when you first start, no one knows you. So you’re not getting emails, you’re not getting phone calls. You can just say yes
Mari Glatter:
 38:07to everything.
Colt Knight:
 38:07And now
Mari Glatter:
 38:07the maple folks in Massachusetts Yeah. Are running
Colt Knight:
 38:10all to those things that you said yes to five years ago, well, now you’re in charge of them. And then, you know, now, then the phone calls come
Mari Glatter:
 38:17and Which then the is why, and that’s not just you though, are pretty darn popular also. But you know, all of our, all of our faculty and a lot of our staff, they’re amazing. They’re incredibly bright. They’re incredibly amazing and compassionate and caring and personable and funny. And so that’s one reason these courses have been so popular and helpful is that more folks can have an opportunity to kind of sit down in their living room with you.
Mari Glatter:
 38:51And we really get to just exponentially increase your sharing of what you know with folks everywhere.
Colt Knight:
 38:58And that’s something that I wanted to do when I first came to Maine was to create a series of of livestock courses, you know, like Yeah. Yeah. Big one zero one, beef cattle one zero
Mari Glatter:
 39:10one Sure.
Colt Knight:
 39:10Video educational course.
Mari Glatter:
 39:13Right.
Colt Knight:
 39:13And we really didn’t have the capabilities to do them when I first started.
Mari Glatter:
 39:16Yep.
Colt Knight:
 39:17Even the growing pandemic we realized we needed to transition more to online format.
Mari Glatter:
 39:23Yeah. Things.
Colt Knight:
 39:25And so we’re building the capacity now.
Mari Glatter:
 39:28Right. We are. We have an e commerce solution, discover.maine.edu, or you could just go and purchase one, at any time of the day or night and be in that course, like, just like that, which is great. Most of these courses that I mentioned, they’re all in production right now. We’re trying to make them as fast as we can.
Mari Glatter:
 39:49So that is a lot of content. We need it to be accurate and we want, I want them to always be beautiful and engaging. And, you said, you said educational plus entertaining. I don’t know if I’d use the term entertaining completely, but I would go, I would push into that. I would say that, that, that folks have choice with their time, their free time.
Mari Glatter:
 40:16And that’s what these courses are in their free time. And so I want them to want to be there.
Colt Knight:
 40:21Yeah. If you’ve got someone that’s monotone narrating over a
Mari Glatter:
 40:24PowerPoint, no
Colt Knight:
 40:26one’s going to watch
Mari Glatter:
 40:27this.
Colt Knight:
 40:27You know, when I first got and I fought this when I first got into making educational videos is you were supposed to stand up with a polo shirt and narrate a script over a PowerPoint or over a b roll that you shot. Yeah. And then everyone said, you can only make educational videos three minutes long because no one has an attention span.
Mari Glatter:
 40:50Well, that’s not actually true.
Colt Knight:
 40:51That’s not true. The the thing was is no one made any videos that you could listen to for more than three minutes with that old format.
Mari Glatter:
 40:59Yeah. And
Colt Knight:
 41:01I got called all kinds of things Well when I started
Mari Glatter:
 41:04Don’t making say any of those things now because you’re not.
Colt Knight:
 41:07I got called all kinds of things when I started doing
Mari Glatter:
 41:10Well
Colt Knight:
 41:10my style
Mari Glatter:
 41:11of Because you were were ahead of the crowd. You know, you were, you know, really at the front of that process for at least up here, right? Of really helping to push into what does it mean to teach? And I would say if we aren’t engaging our learners, whoever they are, if they don’t want to be with us in that learning capacity, because they’re bored or it’s dry, or it’s, it’s, it’s too high of vocabulary terms that they don’t under, or jargon that they can’t understand. We don’t unpack it for them.
Mari Glatter:
 41:45Then we’re not, we’re not teaching them. So then what are
Colt Knight:
 41:49we doing? At them.
Mari Glatter:
 41:50Yeah. And so just talking at them that, that, that would break my heart. Right? Like at the core, I want people to learn. I love learning.
Mari Glatter:
 41:59I just want people to learn. And I think if they’re going to come to you about beef, it’s because they, they want to learn, right? No, they’re not, you know, they’re not in high school having to turn in an essay for their teacher, though you have some amazing four H’ers who come to you because they want to, but, know, no one’s forcing them to come to learn this from you. They want to be there. They’re adults and they want to be there.
Mari Glatter:
 42:20So let’s meet them where they’re at and definitely never bore them.
Colt Knight:
 42:25Yep. That sounds like a good stopping point.
Mari Glatter:
 42:29Okay. Oh, so much fun. So much fun.
Colt Knight:
 42:33So you have anything else to add?
Mari Glatter:
 42:35I just actually want to say thank you. I mean, we’re sitting in this unbelievably amazing podcast studio. I did mention one of my degrees is in music before I went into instructional technology and kind of veered into that world and listening to your podcast is it’s, it’s like a masterclass in sound. And so I just appreciate that you’re also pushing the envelope to help us think about how to I’m
Colt Knight:
 43:00a bit of a tech nerd. So whenever, and it’s not just technology stuff, it’s anything interested in. Always get really nerdy, whether it’s the guitar building or technology or what have you. So that was one of the hesitations for starting the podcast. It’s like, where how can we record this and get good audio quality?
Colt Knight:
 43:25Yeah. Yeah. So some of my some of our earlier episodes were just recorded with a USB mic in a barn or out and about. And, you know, you can if you if you’ve got ideal conditions and you really test your microphone and you can get people to stand still so they’re the exact same distance from that USB mic, you can get some pretty good usable audio from that. But the problem is, is you never interview the same person twice.
Colt Knight:
 43:56And so it’s it’s a real hassle. You know, our first thought when we built when we found this space in this building, this was the only space on campus we could find that didn’t have like a register blowing wind through. Doesn’t have a radiator buzzing. It’s not 150 degrees in this room like some of the older campus buildings can get. We were like, we can make this work.
Mari Glatter:
 44:21Right. But so it’s really at the heart of extension. I think what you’ve done is you’ve taken this learning and you’ve made it both massively educational and highly entertaining, but you haven’t diminished the learning quality in any way. I think you’ve elevated it. So thank you for inviting me on.
Mari Glatter:
 44:42It’s really fun.
Colt Knight:
 44:44Well, it was good to have you, Mari. And if our listeners would like to learn more about our digital badges or micro credentialing, they can contact the podcast. If you’ve got other questions, comments, or concerns, send us an email at extension.farmcast@maine.edu.
Mari Glatter:
 45:16So much fun.