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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow

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Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Onto Unusual Animals that you farm.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 4: So I was in Cleveland over the weekend and I

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Speaker 4: was hanging around some buffalo and I was impressed by buffalo,

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Speaker 4: butly the thought about farming different different animals, and of

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Speaker 4: course Cleveland buffalo are very famous.

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Speaker 3: You can you get you get the.

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Speaker 4: Buffalo milk, you get the buffalo fetter ship, the buffalo

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Speaker 4: buffalo meat. But it just made me think about what

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Speaker 4: people are farming around the country, and the challenges of

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Speaker 4: farming different things, and why you farm something that isn't

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Speaker 4: just the standard cattle and sheep like you.

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Speaker 2: I had no idea buffalo farms existed, and I'm glad

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Speaker 2: they do. But remember there was a time where alpacas

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Speaker 2: was quite trendy. There was a lot going on with

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Speaker 2: the alpaca community, maybe because their wool was worth a

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Speaker 2: bit more. But one hundred and eighty ten eighty is

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Speaker 2: the number to call if you farm an unusual animal.

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Speaker 2: We love to we'd love to see I just.

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Speaker 3: Want to hear about it. Yeah, I found it uniquely interesting.

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Speaker 4: Imagine the challenges you know, from a from an abatoas

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Speaker 4: perspective and just a grazing perspective, and fencing and just

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Speaker 4: the logistics are very different from the tried and true

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Speaker 4: that have been done by so many people over the years.

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Speaker 2: Even deer would be considered, you know, slightly left field. Yep,

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Speaker 2: dead quite unique.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, a few people farming emo out there.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: I'll tell you what. Someone who was listening a little

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Speaker 2: bit earlier when she heard that you stayed at this

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Speaker 2: farm and saw the beautiful buffalo is Helen Dorristeine. She

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Speaker 2: is the owner of Cleveton Buffalo Company, and joins us

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Speaker 2: on the phone now afternoon, Helen.

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Speaker 5: Hi, how are you so?

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Speaker 4: You own the buffaloes that I was probably staring at?

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Speaker 4: Do you own the ones that are near the cafe the.

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Speaker 5: And here's a cafe, so we own We've got we've

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Speaker 5: got a large head and we have two farms, one

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Speaker 5: down North Road and one towards carcr ah right, what

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Speaker 5: about two hundred head? Oh you would have seen. No,

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Speaker 5: I raised the ones that are at a little cafe.

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Speaker 5: They were my they were my pits. They used to

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Speaker 5: follow me around the garden and then used we sold

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Speaker 5: them to the farmhouse.

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Speaker 4: The Farmhouse Cafe, which is a fantastic operation. Boy that

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Speaker 4: I mean that you have to book a table there.

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Speaker 4: It is a very very busy, great food, great great time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So what what what made you guys get into farming Buffalo?

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Speaker 5: Well, simply, we started the Farmer's Market, Cleveland Farmer's Market.

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Speaker 5: We still run it.

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Speaker 4: That's can I just compliment you on that. I was

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Speaker 4: at the Cleveland Farmer's Market. What a great, great set

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Speaker 4: up that is. It's just so cool, you know, buying

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Speaker 4: eggs that have been that are from the farmer.

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Speaker 3: That that that you know that.

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Speaker 4: I was going to say the farm that laid the eggs,

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Speaker 4: the farmer probably collected them rather than laid them. How

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Speaker 4: life should be going right bas wine from the wine makers,

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Speaker 4: eggs from the egg makers.

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Speaker 3: It's it's fantastic.

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Speaker 5: We've you know, we've eaten exclusively from the market for

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Speaker 5: the last twenty years and it's been an absolute pleasure,

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Speaker 5: you know, absolute pleasure. So we've got the many friends, sorry,

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Speaker 5: we've got many friends friendships that have developed from that process.

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Speaker 5: You know.

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Speaker 2: So going back to starting up the Buffalo farm, how

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Speaker 2: does one get a buffalo into the country.

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Speaker 5: Oh, we flew them in. They flew and lifthanza b buffalo,

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Speaker 5: Bogie buffalo. You know. They were in the cargo hold.

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Speaker 5: And actually we had one shipment, so we bought sixty

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Speaker 5: head and we were the first people to bring a

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Speaker 5: milking herd in. And it was we had to write

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Speaker 5: the protocol. Honestly, we were young, and we just thought

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Speaker 5: we were bullet proof. And you know when I say young, fortyish,

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Speaker 5: but we thought we were capable of anything. And it

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Speaker 5: certainly tried us. But so we wrote the protocol, got

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Speaker 5: them in. But the third shipment because we we bought

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Speaker 5: in sixty head altogether in four balls, and the third

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Speaker 5: shipment was just before Christmas, and they loaded them wrong

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Speaker 5: and they kicked a hole in the in the crate,

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Speaker 5: and the whole plane had turned around, and we thought

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Speaker 5: we were in for about three hundred thousand dollars worth

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Speaker 5: of plane turnaround. But it was their fault, thank goodness,

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Speaker 5: and we did get them in, and we got them

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Speaker 5: in just in the nick of time because to bring

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Speaker 5: in sufficient animals, we brought them in actually pregnant. But

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Speaker 5: you can only bring them in to a certain extent

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Speaker 5: of their gestation or you know, it's not fair. So

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Speaker 5: that was tricky. It was Christmas, the planes were shutting down,

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Speaker 5: and the animals were pregnant, and there were hundreds of

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Speaker 5: thousands of dollars in line. It was hair raising. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: so it was pretty exciting.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. So I think I interrupted you when you were saying,

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Speaker 4: when your answer to the question, why.

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Speaker 5: Oh, well, farmer's market. So, Farmer's market, Cornerstone. Farmer's Market

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Speaker 5: is everything you need for a good meal. You do

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Speaker 5: have to cook it, but a good meal, and cheese

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Speaker 5: is one of those things. And I had lovely cheese there,

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Speaker 5: but they wouldn't come on a wet day and they

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Speaker 5: went regular, and I needed that market to have regular cheesemakers.

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Speaker 5: So my husband said, I'll make you some cheese, darling,

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Speaker 5: and I held them so and we thought. We looked

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Speaker 5: at it long and hard, and we decided that the

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Speaker 5: only way to have an edge in a place, an

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Speaker 5: open market like New Zealand was to have a milk

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Speaker 5: that was different, where one of the requirements was the

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Speaker 5: freshness of the milk. And so Buffalo, we're not farmed here.

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Speaker 5: We'd been to Italy, We'd eaten Motsralla in the Bay

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Speaker 5: of Naples. We knew how good it was. You know,

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Speaker 5: anyone that's traveled through Pakistan or India will know how

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Speaker 5: beautiful the buffalo and mok products are there. And it

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Speaker 5: just wasn't happening here, and so we thought, well, we'll

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Speaker 5: have a go. And you know, six literally six days later,

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Speaker 5: we were in the middle of Darwin in a little

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Speaker 5: old jimney sort of tied together with string, going through

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Speaker 5: creeks full of salties, looking at these buffalo and I said,

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Speaker 5: I'm not milking them. It would take a crocodile Dundee moment.

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Speaker 5: And they were wild. So the first first year or

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Speaker 5: five milking was this was like the wild whist. They'd

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Speaker 5: jump around and turn upside down and climb out and

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Speaker 5: it was it was hell on wheels. But now we've

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Speaker 5: got a tremendous, milky, beautiful herd, and we've through sleeped

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Speaker 5: of breeding and ai from we bring the semen inform Italy.

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Speaker 5: We've actually got tripled our milk volume. Well, yeah, it's

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Speaker 5: now it's now looking viable, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well, I'm our producer. Andrew here is a

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Speaker 4: huge fan of buffalo milk. He said, there's no creamy

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Speaker 4: of milk in the world.

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Speaker 5: Oh, it's divine. I like to lay a track on

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Speaker 5: people and they come over to the house for you know,

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Speaker 5: we had we had a guy there this morning doing

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Speaker 5: some contracting for us, Derek. He's lovely and he I

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Speaker 5: gave him a fat white said and then I said,

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Speaker 5: it's buffalo milk. And they literally they, you know, because

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Speaker 5: I don't know why it's so creamy, but it's beautiful, beautiful.

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Speaker 2: A cup of coffee, we can you get it outside

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Speaker 2: of the Farmer's Market.

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Speaker 5: Well, we sell our cheeses throughout the country, you know,

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Speaker 5: wonderful support of places like more Wilson and so on

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Speaker 5: and through the New Worlds and pharaohs. But we also

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Speaker 5: sell hospital and too hospital about sixty percent into hospo.

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Speaker 5: But the farmer's market is where you'll get to try

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Speaker 5: the whole range. And we're there. We're there every weekend anyway,

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Speaker 5: and so I don't know if you know, but it's

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Speaker 5: actually Farmer's Market week coming up this Saturday. So if

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Speaker 5: you get on down to a farmer's market, nine times

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Speaker 5: out of teen, you're guaranteed to find someone doing something

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Speaker 5: really interesting. You know that you haven't tried before. Yeah, So.

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Speaker 4: Speaking of things you haven't tried before, what would you

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Speaker 4: say to people that are thinking of bringing in an

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Speaker 4: animal and trying to farm creatures and aren't the typical

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Speaker 4: New Zealand creatures to farm.

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Speaker 5: I would say keep your day job, because it's a

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Speaker 5: long time before you actually turn it around, like a

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Speaker 5: really long time. It's not that coin, you know, And

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Speaker 5: I'd say embrace it and be patient and have faith

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Speaker 5: in yourself and don't need I mean I had people

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Speaker 5: literally laugh at me when we were doing it. I

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Speaker 5: had one guy, I just laughs, what did you do

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Speaker 5: that for? It said, we just laughed at me, you know,

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Speaker 5: and I just think, well, yeah, you know, I'm probably

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Speaker 5: not the most sensible thing to do, but gosh, we

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Speaker 5: make grape cheese and we've had a lot of fun.

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Speaker 3: Good on you. It's a very cool thing. Yeah, and

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Speaker 3: it's exciting.

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Speaker 4: And you know, the challenges because those buffalo need to

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Speaker 4: be underwater part of some of the time, don't.

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Speaker 5: They They love to wallow. And actually that was one

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Speaker 5: of the hugest challenges because of course the farms, some

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Speaker 5: of the farms in Clevedon like parks, you know, and

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Speaker 5: so trying to because we wanted to keep the horns

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Speaker 5: on them, because they use them like a radiator, because

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Speaker 5: they have they have less sweat glands and a car well,

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Speaker 5: so they cover themselves in the clay from the from

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Speaker 5: the from the wallows to kit themselves call and keep

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Speaker 5: the pests off themselves. And so to try to make

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Speaker 5: sure that we could keep the horns on them, you know,

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Speaker 5: and say, well, you so do make holes, but we

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Speaker 5: will fill them on every year and so on, and

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Speaker 5: so you know, one of the dreams is one day

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Speaker 5: and we have our own farm, we'd build a beautiful, big,

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Speaker 5: permanent wash for them. And you know, because they love

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Speaker 5: they do love the water. They just love it.

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Speaker 2: What a great story.

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Speaker 4: I well, thank you so much for sharing that story

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Speaker 4: with us, Helen, and congratulations on your success with the

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Speaker 4: Buffalo and good on you for doing such a bold thing.

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Speaker 4: And also love the Cleveland Farmer's markets. Such a good time,

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Speaker 4: so cool.

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Speaker 5: Hey, thanks for coming to Cleveland. We're pretty we're pretty well.

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Speaker 5: We love it out there.

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Speaker 3: We'll be back, all right, have a great day.

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Speaker 2: By that is Helen Dorenstein, co founder of the Cleveland

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Speaker 2: Buffalo Company. What a great story, I mean, you know,

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Speaker 2: Key is like that taking a punt, and they obviously

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Speaker 2: took a massive punt and it's worked out phenomenally.

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Speaker 1: For more from News Talk set B, listen live on

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Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever

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