Tackling Sweet Gum Balls: A Homeowner's Dilemma Solved

This is episode number 304 of The Homeowner Show. Well, whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you could join us for another live episode here in the studio. How you doing, Kev?

Man, I'm doing pretty good. I'm messing with stuff over here.

So mess away, my friend.

Yeah, just working on our, you know, making sure we look good.

Cool.

For all the people out there.

I like looking good.

And I'm curious to know, did you watch the fight?

Well, somebody is not feeling good after that one, that's for sure.

I wanted to know if you saw what every— what I feel like every person our age, especially every male, for sure. Wanted to know whether or not—

whether or not the old guy still had—

yeah, whether or not Tyson had something left in the tank or if this was all just a show.

Spoiler alert, he didn't. No, he had 2 rounds of juice and that was about it.

Yeah, but I don't even know. I like—

He won the first 2 rounds.

Yeah, he did.

And like, look, when, when he came out that first round, there was a couple of times where I was like, ooh, that looks like Tyson. Yeah, he went after him and like, I was like, okay, like he's, he's ready to go.

Yeah.

And then he ran out of gas.

Yeah. So, so do you think that's what it was? Do you think he just ran out of gas or do you think it was staged?

No, I think he ran out of gas.

Okay.

I think he ran— I, I got— I don't— I can't imagine a scenario where, where Tyson's gonna agree to a staged fight. I can, I can look at a scenario and see where, where Paul would. Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, no question.

Um, the problem I have is that whenever you watch any of the And, and I understand anything that's on social media is what it is whenever it comes to the training stuff. But when I saw like Tyson training, uh-huh, dude was still fast. Yeah, like Tyson fast, you know. He was always just so stinking fast, you couldn't catch up with him.

No, no.

And he just seemed slow all night to me. Like even the first round or two, there was a couple times—

There was a couple times—

There's a couple times you saw it pop. Yeah. And then one, one time specifically where, where he kind of came in with a left and Paul like went down, dropped his gloves, and normal Tyson comes up and just lays him out with his right hand. Right. Uppercut, right hand. He's gone.

Yeah.

And that— but that was early and it didn't happen. So there was— there's parts of me that was like, okay.

Mm-hmm.

I didn't get it. I just didn't get it.

Yeah.

But, and, and whenever it was, you know, 8 2-minute rounds instead of 10 3-minute rounds, I felt like, I don't know, that— well, I didn't love it. I didn't love it.

It was— I think that was a concession on Paul's part in order to make the fight happen, because I think—

I'm sure—

I mean, like, look, he's 58 years old. Oh, I know. 3-round— I mean, 3-minute rounds.

Oh, that's a long round.

That seems like eternity.

Well, and then, and, you know, the commentators were like, Yeah, I don't like his legs.

Nope.

I don't like his legs. I do not like his legs right now.

Hey, look, you were one of the privileged few that actually got to watch the thing.

Oh, I know.

Like, there's so many people pissed off at Netflix.

That's a thing too. I mean, and what's interesting, because our friend Eric was like, man, I think if you had faster internet speeds, but I'll tell you, I mean—

I've got crazy fast internet.

I know. Yeah, I know a lot of people that have really, really good fast internet and it wasn't that. I think that they were just completely overloaded.

Oh, big time.

And were not prepared. I don't think they were prepared.

No. I don't think they, I don't think they were ready for the moment.

No.

To be fair, neither were the fighters.

No. I mean, well, the best fight of the night was the 2 girls.

The 2 girls. I mean, that was, that was a slobberknocker.

Yeah, it was really good.

It was a good fight.

Did you see their previous fight?

I had not. No.

Oh man.

I, to be fair, like, I'm like, usually even if it's like, if you told me the 2 boxers' names, yeah, I wouldn't know. Yeah. Like the really the only reason I was, I was here to see Tyson.

Oh, of course.

That was the only reason I was there.

Everyone was.

And it was like, I really hope he just knocks the ever-living snot outta Jake Paul.

Well, yeah, me too, man.

Somebody needs to.

Somebody needs to. He— I— look, I— so the only reason I saw the girls the last time was because I was waiting for another fight, the whatever the next fight was.

Okay.

And I saw them and it was a— it was a dang good match.

And so the 2 girls or the guys that you were waiting to watch?

No, the 2 girls.

The 2 girls. Because this is like the 3rd time they fought, right?

It is.

It is.

And they were— I mean, they were good then. And so whenever I saw that they were on the, on, on the docket again, uh-huh, um, I was like, okay, docket's the wrong word. The card. When I, when I saw them on the card, I was like, okay, that I, this probably would be good. And it was, it was really good. But then, yeah, yeah, I was disappointed.

Well, so here's what I'll tell you is I was disappointed. Like there was all this hype.

It was a ton of hype.

A ton of hype.

Yeah.

Um, and, and not only that, like, uh, I know a lot of people are talking about how like Jake Paul, like, it was really cool of him to like back off. Well, at the end. Yeah. And I, I get it. Yeah, I, I get it. But like overall disappointment.

Yeah.

Massive disappointment.

Yeah.

But I will, I will then add onto that an unpopular opinion.

Okay, bring it.

Um, so the, the Deadpool Wolverine movie is now on Disney Plus. which I have not seen yet, and I didn't go watch it in the theaters.

Yeah, either.

Um, I thought it was terrible.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I thought it was just stupid.

Yeah, because I— that, that is an unpopular opinion because most people loved it.

Most people. And I, I get why they loved it. Like, honestly, you— like, the reason they love it is because there's a lot of nostalgia.

Sure.

And like, even like, I get the whole fourth wall Deadpool thing. Um, I just thought it was dumb.

Yeah, so, so let me ask this question, because again, and I've not seen it, and I don't know that a spoiler would even be possible, but, um, is it like a lot of Marvel movies right now where just kind of like, that's not what I came here to find? Like, no, I think a lot of Marvel recently has kind of gone that way.

I think if you're a fan of Deadpool, you're gonna like it.

Okay.

I think if you— but like, a lot of it was just gratuitous to me and, and just like over the top, which again, like, I think that's Deadpool. That's a Deadpool thing.

It is.

Um, and, but I also thought that the story was stupid. Okay.

Um, and I mean, because you saw Wolverine, right?

Which one?

Like the movie Wolverine, like his, like his, like, like the prequel basically of, of like his backstory.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

All that kind of stuff. Like, I, again, I've not seen the one you're talking about, but I look at that and I'm like, that's the, that's the movie I want. Like, I, I wanted it was a lot of blood. It was a lot of like intense—

Are you talking about this one?

The Deadpool Wolverine? No, because I never saw that one. I'm talking about the, like, his backstory.

Okay, but have you, but have you seen Logan?

Yeah, I've seen that one too.

I thought, I thought that was the best one.

Yeah, it was really good too. My, my point is though, if you, if you bring Wolverine then in, like, after seeing that backstory, and now you bring him into this just kind of silly world of Deadpool, right? And again, I, I don't know what it's like. I can— this is why I didn't go see it in the theater, because I'm like, that doesn't— to me, something's gonna be off. But I, I don't know, it, it really plays into the whole multiverse thing. Oh yeah, everything's that right now. I mean, everything in Marvel's that.

So like, I mean, just for— so like, the villain of the movie is Charles Xavier's unknown twin sister.

Oh, where'd she come from? Exactly.

It's just like, one, just stupid right from the get-go.

Did you— did anyone know that he had a twin sister?

No.

You said unknown, but it's like—

I mean, that— but that's how they explain her in the movie. Um, and yeah, and, and then like the, the big fight scene at the end is like him fighting 200 other Deadpools from like other dimensions.

Oh.

And it's just—

It's dumb.

It's just stupid. And like, the whole movie is them like quipping at each other till they get so pissed off they just kill each other, even though like they haven't figured out yet that they can't kill each other because they just heal. And so they just really like just like bloodying the ever-living bejesus out of one another. It just gets old.

Yeah.

So I mean, like, the, the— here's what I'll say. The cameos were fun.

Sure, I believe that.

The cameos were super, super fun. Um, and like, those actually made more sense than the entirety of the film.

That makes sense.

Put together. So yeah, I didn't enjoy it.

Okay.

And it's just—

so since we're talking movies real quick, okay, do you remember seeing a trailer for a baseball movie, Little League baseball movie called You Gotta Believe? No. Okay.

To be fair, so I don't really have like TV or—

Sure.

Anything like that.

So I, I saw a commercial during like baseball season.

Right, right.

So, um, I, I thought, man, this looks like a really good movie. It's about this, this Little League team from Fort Worth that is like nothing of a team, and they got basically thrown into playing All-Stars. They should never have been in All-Stars to begin with because they weren't any good during the regular season. And then they wound up going to the championship game in the Little League World Series. Little League World Series.

Okay.

And the whole— I'm going to give a little bit away though. So spoiler alert, if you want to watch this movie that came out in August, this is middle of November, and you haven't seen it, then fast forward about 30 seconds. Um, because so, so the whole thing is the, the main coach winds up with cancer and his son plays on the team because that's the way Little League works. His son plays on the team and he winds up getting cancer really bad. And, and at the end, like, they lose the World Series and he dies.

Oh gosh.

That's the end of the movie.

That's the end of the movie.

That's it.

And what do we learn from this?

Right. Like, like my kids, I'm not kidding. We watch this on— so we do movie night every Friday night. I make pizza from scratch. It's phenomenal. And then we watch a movie.

Right.

And so my son had been wanting to see this. It's a Little League. It's right up his alley.

Yeah.

I, he didn't, he just cried all night. He literally just cried all night. And the next morning, uh-huh, he came and got in bed with us crying.

Oh geez.

Like he was just devastated because, are, you know, are, are you gonna get cancer and die?

Uh-huh. Like, I'm like, I was gonna say that could have gone one of two ways. He could have cried or could he, he could have asked you to coach. Right.

Wanna be my coach? Not anymore. But anyway, I was just like, we got done with the movie. We're all just sitting there.

You know how you've seen a movie and like, I don't know, you remember?

Okay. You remember whenever you're sitting in the movie theater and you're watching The Passion of the Christ with every other church member that you're with?

Yeah.

And at the end of the movie, everyone just doesn't move.

Right.

For like 30 minutes. And you're all just sitting there like, dang, that's how we all— We were all sitting on the couch going, what, what do we do now? It was the weirdest— anyway, it was— the movie itself was well done.

Uh-huh.

And, uh, you know, if, if it didn't end the way it ended, it would have been fine.

Yeah.

But anyway, so we watched that movie recently. But I'll tell you my favorite thing that we've been doing recently is, is When it's my turn to pick the movie, oh, I'm going old school.

Oh, okay.

But like old school Disney.

Okay. So like there's, there's people that could take that, the sentence that you just said, I'm going old school, which could mean the Will Ferrell movie Old School.

Oh, that's funny.

Which is hilarious.

It is hilarious.

I'm like, but no, everyone's like, why would you watch that with your children?

No, no, no, no. Old school. Like when it's my turn to pick, I'm showing them old, old Disney movies. Yeah.

Which could also make your kid cry because you could be watching Old Yeller.

Well, we didn't— no, we haven't watched that one yet.

Oh, you got to pull that Band-Aid off.

At some point we will, but we've been watching stuff like The Strongest Man in the World.

Okay.

Computer War 10 issues.

There you go.

Um, The Monkey's Uncle. Um, we watched Lieutenant Robinson Crusoe USN.

Come on, you got to throw like, uh, Nutty Professor, That Darn Cat.

Well, so That Darn Cat's coming. The Nutty Professor we haven't done yet, but we have done, uh, The Absent-Minded Professor. Oh, Absent-Minded Professor. Thank you. Yeah. So like, that's the one I think you were talking about.

It is. Yeah.

Not the Nutty Professor, which is Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy.

Don't watch that with your children.

Yeah. No, no, probably not yet.

I think it's the same premise.

Yeah. Well, that's Flubber. Flubber was the same premise.

That's the Robin Williams one, right?

Yeah. And then they had Son of Flubber, which was the follow-up. But like, the ghost admits you're a chicken.

Like, These are Don Knotts.

Yes. Like, these are, these are movies that we've been watching. The Million Dollar Duck. It's been really fun to show them. And what's really hilarious is my wife has not seen any of these movies. So everybody but me is sitting there watching and my kids are loving it. They're absolutely loving these old stupid movies. So they have all the same characters in them.

Well, yeah, that's true.

I mean, they're all the same actors.

So we went through a slew of the ones from the '80s. Okay. Which, like Flight of the Navigator.

Oh, yeah.

What's the one where the kid has the imaginary friend that's a secret agent? It's all filmed in San Antonio, too. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's not a Disney movie, though. Okay.

It doesn't sound familiar.

The kid's name is Davey.

Davey. Oh, man.

That's going to bug me.

All right, well, I'm going to look it up.

So, okay, while you're looking it up, since you mentioned Passion of the Christ, Have I told you my fun factoid about myself with that movie?

No.

So, I got to watch that with Mel Gibson.

What?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah. Like, before it ever hit theaters. At the time, I was a young adults pastor at a church. And I don't know, I think I was just one of the only guys doing that in the country.

at the time.

I was one of the few. I'm not saying I was the only one, but I was one of a few people that had ministries that were actually doing stuff. And I got this invitation in the mail to go watch it with Mel out at Saddleback Church in California.

Interesting.

And dude, I was not married and I was poor.

Of course.

And I was like, And like, I had the ticket to go see the movie, but I had to get to California.

Oh yeah.

Um, and so I, I kind of talked it over with my folks and I was like, look, I, I don't know that I'm ever gonna get to do something like this ever again.

Yeah.

I'm gonna go into debt over this.

Aha, do what I gotta do.

Yeah, so I was like, so I bought my ticket, I stayed in a cheap motel.

Nice.

And—

By yourself?

Yeah.

Oh wow.

Um, rented a car.

Oh my gosh.

I kind of drove the coastline for a couple days.

That sounds fun.

I was like, if I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go.

What year was that?

Oh, geez. Whatever. It was the year before The Passion came out.

Maybe '03 then. That's—

no, it had to have been like '04. It had to have been '04.

Okay. '04 maybe.

I got out of college in '03.

Yeah.

Okay.

Interesting.

It was like '04, '05, somewhere in there. But anyway, it was crazy, man. So the movie, he had the whole movie done, but it had no music.

Oh.

And so that's how we watched it.

Oh, that sounds even weirder.

It was weird.

Like, not in like a— I mean, the whole movie had its vibe to it.

Yes.

But with no music.

No music.

Because there's not really any talking.

I mean, there is.

It is, but there's not a lot.

But it wasn't in English.

No, exactly.

And so, like, and he really wanted us to give, like, feedback.

Okay.

Who's the senior pastor out at Saddleback?

Rick Warren.

Rick Warren. Yeah. So it was hosted by Rick Warren and Mel Gibson.

Interesting.

And there was probably like 200 or 300 of us that were in the theater together, and we got to do Q&A afterwards with him. It was awesome.

Yeah, that's cool.

It's like, when do I get to do that again?

No, you don't.

Um, so no, yeah, one of those weird experiences that I'm like, yeah, that's cool. I got to watch it before anybody else did. All right.

Um, well, so I did get the, uh, changing gear again. I did get the name Cloak and Dagger.

Cloak and Dagger. Thank you.

Yeah, I found it.

Yeah, yeah, because it's like, it's based off like a video game.

I never watched it.

It's such a good— like, okay, like it's, it's a little scary in some, in some spots. Okay. But like a great '80s flick.

Huh.

And it's got, uh, Dabney Um, Dabney.

I don't know.

I think it's— let's see, I'm looking up, uh, he's the imaginary friend, but he also plays his dad.

The IMDb. Dabney Coleman.

Dabney Coleman. Yeah. Um, great, great character actor.

Interesting.

Um, super, super fun film, but like, I mean, like, just odd that it was filmed in San Antonio.

Yeah, yeah, that is odd.

Huh. But like there's scenes in it, like there's, there's a lot of scenes on the Riverwalk in that movie.

That's cool.

Okay.

Well, now I need to go look at it.

Yeah, it's super cool movie. And I think, is that the same kid as Flight of the Navigator?

Um, that's why I was just about to look. Um, because that's, that's another one of those movies that's like, yeah.

Um, that's one I've watched.

He was in E.T.

E.T.

Legends of the Fall. Oh, that's Henry Thomas.

Henry Thomas.

Yeah, his name.

Dude, he's— yeah, dude, he's the guy that gets waxed in Legends of the Fall.

Oh yes, he does.

So, but he's Elliott. Yeah. In E.T.

Yeah, he is.

That's where I know him from.

Yep.

So, all right. So anyway, tonight we're doing Bag O' Nut.

We are.

But 2 things real quick. One, this might be coming up soon.

Yeah, I literally, whenever you were, go ahead and show that to the camera. Whenever you were, whenever I came into the studio, I saw that sitting on the table here.

Yeah, so we got this, we're gonna test drive it. It is the cheapest smart thermostat on Amazon right now.

Okay.

It is $39.

What?

And it does—

What kind of reviews does it get?

I, you know, look, varied.

Okay.

It has its own app, um, but it does, it does pretty much everything the Ecobee does.

Really?

Yeah.

Um, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you right now, one of the, my favorite things about the Ecobee is the auto setting.

Right.

Because not, not all—

Not all thermostats have an auto setting anymore.

Not only do they not all have an auto setting, many of them don't have a, a setting for auto where you can set both temperature points.

Right.

So like, you might— many auto settings is like, put it on 72 or put it on 70 or whatever, and it doesn't matter if it's hot or cold, it's gonna get to 70. But that's not the way I want my house. But if it's cold outside, I want my house somewhere between 68 and—

Yeah, you get to set a range on the Ecobee. Right.

You can do You can do 68 for cold and 72 for hot if you want. But it'll— and it'll never get in between those 2 numbers. But it's one of my favorite settings about the Ecobee.

Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. And you're right. Not a lot of thermostats even have that anymore.

Right.

In fact, this one that we have in the studio doesn't do that. And it's a mini split.

Right.

It's something it should have.

Well, yeah. I mean, to me, it seems very reasonable to have that sort of functionality. But—

Right.

Um, but no, they, they don't have it. So what I'm looking at just now, I went and looked at it. It's, it's, so it's $40.

Yeah. $39.99, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. It's 20% off and there's a $10 coupon, so it's actually cheaper than that. Yeah. It looks like.

But, um, that's part of why I got it.

Yeah. But it's got, you know, it's got 95 rating, uh, 95 ratings and 4, 4.2 stars.

Yeah.

It's, I mean, it's not, that's actually not bad.

It's not bad.

And it's got, I mean, it's got a C wire. It's got, I mean, it's, it, it's got everything you need.

Got everything you need. So, so we're gonna, we're gonna give it a, we're gonna give it a run.

Okay.

See what it looks like. Where are you putting it? We're gonna put it in the house.

Okay.

Yeah. We're, we're not, we got a Honeywell in there right now. We're not super happy with it.

And Brent, what happened to your Ecobee?

It broke. Oh, it died.

Okay.

I mean, like, I don't, I don't wanna be like, I, I like the Ecobee and I don't wanna like speak ill of it, but that's what happened. But you had it.

You had it. I had it.

The only thing that this one doesn't do that I've noticed so far that the Ecobee can do is The Ecobee has like the Alexa.

Oh yeah, the new ones do.

Yeah, it has like, you could just talk to the thermostat.

Yeah.

So this one doesn't have that, but I think it will resp— you can integrate it.

Okay.

With the whole Amazon system.

Okay.

So anyway, so we got that. And then I also wanna give a shout out to my buddy Dave Shannon, 'cause that's where we were at tonight.

Yeah.

At the Man Stuff.

Looked fun.

Um, so we, we actually got to hang out with a game warden from Montgomery County. Um, he brought a couple of roadkill deer.

Yeah.

And we were teaching, uh, men of all ages how to, how to dress a deer, how to break it down, how to skin it.

Yeah.

Uh, I took my son. It's the first time he's ever gotten to do that, which was great. I mean, sure. You know, 'cause there's guys that know way more than I am showing 'em how to do it.

Yeah. Right.

I got some really cool video. I sent you one before we got the show started.

Yeah.

It's just him just peeling the skin off a deer.

It's awesome.

And it's such a, I mean, like just good life skills.

Yeah. You need to learn to do that.

I mean, and like what was funny is on the way there, he's like, I don't wanna go. I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, I don't know. This is gross. And I'm like, well, one, you've never done it.

Right.

Two, but I'm like, dude, like again, this isn't something that needs to be your thing. It's like, look, learn a new skill.

Sure.

And as soon as we got there, man, his buddies were there.

So he got into it.

Oh, he got into it so quick.

Yeah.

Uh, and like the, the whole gross one, he, his cousin was there and his cousin was super grossed out. And I think he, I think he had more fun peeling the, the deer skin.

Yeah.

To gross out his cousin.

Yeah.

It's worth it. Than anything. And by the, uh, by the end he like, I mean like not to like gross people out, but he had like the, the severed deer head in his hand.

It was awesome.

And he was like, ah, you know? And he is like, well, can I take that home? And can I take this home? So I, I got like 2 quarters of deer.

Cool.

And what was cool, man, is the, the game warden was there showing everybody how to, how to dress the deer.

Yeah.

And, and break 'em down and then was signing, uh, warden tags so people could take the— really? Yeah. Because, because otherwise, well, yeah, you can get in trouble for having that deer meat. But like if the warden signs off on it that way, like if I wanted to, I could take what I have to a processor. Sure. And I have, it's actually, I think I have it here in my pocket. So what you get is, It's a donation tag.

Oh, really?

From the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Okay.

So, and he just signs off on it, the date and, you know, what all happened. Cool.

So when we, when, when I was born, we lived in Central Texas and my dad would go kill his limit every year. And that's, that was our food. Yeah. We, we would, we would, my, my dad would, string 'em up. He would do the whole thing, cut 'em up.

Do—

I mean, my, my mom and dad would process the entire deer.

Oh, wow.

And shove it into a freezer. Mm-hmm. They did all of it. And because we were, we didn't have any money and we were poor. I didn't know we were poor, but we were poor.

Yeah.

And, you know, my, my mom didn't work. My dad was a, you know, preacher and didn't make any money. And in fact, he, he drove some of the buses.

You got the makings of a good country song right there.

You're not wrong. But he, he drove school buses in the afternoons just to kind of help, you know, subsidize a little bit. But he'd go kill his limit. And, you know, we had, we had friends who would, you know, people that went to church with us who had a deer lease and like, come on out, and didn't charge us for it. So, I mean, yeah, that's what they did. And we would cut it all up, process it, and we just had paper wraps of deer shoved in our— Uh, in our freezer. It was awesome, man. I grew up on that stuff.

That's good meat, man.

It's great meat. It's great meat. My mom knew how to cook it.

So that's, that's the thing, man.

It is. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of people that have had venison, they're like, oh, it's gamey. Well, you're used to, you know, a cow. You're used to beef.

That's not the same thing.

You know, a chicken or something. Um, but you know, you soak it or you do whatever you need to do and, and it's good. So That's cool, man. It's good. It's a good skill.

And you knew— I knew that I was hanging around a group of gentlemen tonight when—

Oh, yeah.

No fistfight broke out over the backstraps. Oh, really? Yeah, it was very cordial.

Huh. There were only 4 of them.

There were only 4 of them. I'm not— I'm not saying they lasted long.

No, no, no. Those are the— those are the good— the good bits.

Oh, yeah. Well, let's talk about, uh, What we're here to talk about.

Let's talk about our problem. Let me talk about my problem. So let me set the stage here for a minute.

So what we're here for, Kevin, is solve your problems.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, when we moved to the property that we're at, it's about a little, a little less than 3.5 acres, but it's all maintained. It's not like here. I mean, y'all've got, I think we actually maintain more of our property than you do yours because all, all of mine is maintained. And, you know, you got more property, but you know, a lot of it's, you know, you don't have to maintain it the way we do. So, and I know y'all do maintenance, but it's not—

Listen, I put out 200 pounds of rye seed this weekend.

Yeah, that's, that's a lot. That's a lot. But anyway, um, the first year that we were there, I was like, man, I gotta, I gotta figure out what to do with all these leaves because I don't want it to just create, you know, a bed and then create mold and all kinds of other stuff. So I was like, I gotta figure out what to do. And, and, you know, a lot of people will mulch it and different things like that. Now, what— there's some really cool— there, there's a couple of really cool pieces of equipment that I'd really like to have that, that will mulch it and bag it and do the whole thing. Uh, but those are

like $3,500, right? $4,000. Uh, but they're amazing. Uh, one of these days maybe. But I bought— first thing I did is I bought a sweeper. Um, it's just a— literally just something you drag behind your mower and it, it'll, you know, sweep up anything. It'll put it in a big hopper and then you can dump it wherever you need to, which is great. It worked fine. But, um, we have a number of sweetgum trees.

All right.

And I'll tell you right now, I hate sweetgum trees. They're terrible. Uh-huh. Uh, the roots are shallow. Yeah, they're not great. I mean, if you cut them down, it's not like the best.

It's the worst firewood.

Yeah, it's not good for that even. Like, and they drop their sweetgumballs and they're everywhere. And those spiky things are just— they're terrible.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, like, I, I don't know about you, did you ever have sweetgumball fights growing up?

No, no.

I didn't either. I know people that did, and I'm like, you're an idiot, because those things hurt.

Like, I can't imagine you throw them very hard to hurt anybody. Well, I mean, you have to be pretty close.

Yeah, but I mean, if you get them not long after they fall, you can still throw them pretty good ways. But here's the big problem. So we, we have a zero-turn lawn mower, and we were having issues in the fall with the, uh, well, really more the winter by the time they actually drop. Uh, we were having issues with the, uh, the belts coming off.

Yeah, those sweetgumballs get up in the belts and knock 'em off.

That's exactly what happens. And I didn't know that that was happening, but those things are a booger to put back on and they're not fun. So—

No, especially if you— the drive—

That's, that's the one that was coming off.

You hope that the, the, the blade belt's the one that gets knocked off.

Right, because that's that's on top, the, the other one's on the bottom all the way through the back. It's, it's a, it's a problem. And so we were having this issue and I was like, we gotta figure out a, a good way to get rid of these gumballs. And the sweeper, the problem with the sweeper is it literally picks up everything.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, it's got those, those bristles on it and it literally picks up everything. And then you gotta, it's just a, it's a whole mess. So I went into a deep dive.

Uh-huh.

And I was like, how do I get rid of these sweetgumballs without— with the least amount of trouble for me?

Sure.

And I came across a product that I was like, holy crap, that's the answer. And, uh, if you want to go find it, it's at baganut.com. baganut.com.

Yeah.

And this company has figured out That, so the, the best way I can describe it without just showing it to you is if you've ever been to a, a driving range, a golf driving range, the way they pick up the golf balls.

Yeah.

Well, with the big, the big wheels on the front of the, um, on the front of the, a golf cart that everybody's like trying to hit. It's like, oh, they're going to get the balls.

Let's get him. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, That's basically what it is. It's these, it's, it's a, it's a big rolling wheel.

Yeah.

That whenever you roll over it, it picks these things up and drops 'em into a hopper. Mm-hmm. So what's interesting is that this company has, they've got pickers for all kinds of nuts, including, and golf balls. Oh, like they have 'em for golf balls too.

Okay.

But, um, but I, I'll just run through a, a list of what they have pickers for. Uh, acorns, almonds, black walnuts, chestnuts, English walnuts, golf balls, hazelnuts, hickory nuts, macadamias, pecans, pine cones.

Ooh.

Sweetgumballs, crab apples, and there's one for other nuts and things.

Other nuts and things. Yeah. So, uh, I really wanna know what those are now.

Yeah. Well, now that you say, I do too, so I'm gonna go look. But what's really interesting is what they've done is they've basically got, oh, there's a grass plug connector, a collector. So if you go and do a, if you aerate and pull the plugs or whatever, it'll pick up the grass plugs.

Huh.

Do you know what jojoba beans are?

Jojoba beans?

I do not. I don't either. Olives.

Ooh.

And tropical almonds. So the— let me tell you, I— so I did a deep dive whenever I, I, I called them.

Uh-huh.

I was talking to them. I was like, can you explain to me, does this thing actually work? Is that— here's the problem. They have realized that there's got to be a way to to pick up these nuts without, and sweetgums and things like that, without harming the nuts.

Okay.

Because they're using, they're producing these things for orchards.

Yeah, for harvest.

For harvesting.

Yeah.

And so they're, these are not cheap machines.

Right.

And when I call it a machine, it's, it is a machine, but, but it's a, it's, it's a, what word do I use? It's not motorized.

Okay.

I mean, it just, it works by—

It's sort of like a rotary grass cutter, but like, yeah, like the old school, like, yeah.

Yeah, that's exactly what it does. But they've got multiple different models.

Okay.

So they've got kinds that, and they've got different sizes. They've got them all the way down to like a 12-inch wide. Uh, they've got an 18-inch wide. These are push, you push 'em. And then they've got a 36-inch wide that, that pushes. And then they've got a, a, a 21-inch that has like collapsible crates on it and it, it like throws 'em into a collapsible crate and then you can stack 'em.

Yeah.

And then you can take 'em wherever you need to. So, so basically you can, Because here, here's the way they work. So, so whenever, whenever the, the wheel turns, it's got tines that basically plop 'em into the hopper.

Okay.

And then you gotta get rid of the, you gotta dump 'em once the hopper gets full.

Yeah. Okay. I was gonna say it gets full and then you gotta stop.

Then you gotta stop. And so if these, the one that has the crate on it, you can literally just take the crate off, drop it. put a new crate on and keep going and then come back later and pick up all the crates.

Right.

So, you know, to me, I'm looking at it going, okay, because that— you can pull it here. So now let me go back. Now they've got also, they've got pull-behind models. And so they've got— it is the most rudimentary, um, connector that you've ever seen. It's literally a, a wire, metal wire Mm-hmm. With a carabiner on the end of it.

Okay.

It's like you just wrap it around anything and it'll, it like, you can put it behind a golf cart.

Mm-hmm.

You can put it behind a mower. You can put it behind, but like, whatever.

Like you're in your scenario, wouldn't you rather like put it in front?

Well, no, not necessarily. This is a great question.

Why?

Let me ask it. Why are you asking that question?

Because You're running over the, the sweetgum balls, right? And if you have it out in front, you're gonna collect 'em before it has a chance to get up in your belt.

Well, yes, but there's, there's 2 ways to look at it. Number one, uh, if you're using a mower, you just don't turn the blades on.

Okay, I see. Okay.

Yeah. So if you don't turn the blades on, then it's not throwing 'em.

Not a problem.

Yeah.

Okay.

Gotcha.

That makes sense.

So you li— you lift up your, you know, your deck as far as it'll go. Uh-huh. And then you don't have to worry about it. But, um, my, my honestly, my favorite way to do it was with my golf cart. I could put it on the back of my golf cart and just, just go.

Well, yeah, because you have one.

Because I have one. If, if you don't have a golf cart, then obviously the mower is the best, the best way to do it. And, you know, the—

You have the other riding mower too.

That one's actually better than the zero turn.

Okay.

Because with the zero turn, you can turn so quickly that if you're not careful, Flip it or something like that. You can flip it or you could, you could jackknife the thing, you know, whatever. But I've got a, I've got a tractor ride-on and I've used it on that too. Um, but so they've got, they've got that model that just literally pulls right behind you. But probably my favorite one is they've got an offset.

Oh.

And so it literally is offset to the side.

Okay.

So that you don't run over whatever it is that you're trying to pick up so that whenever you're harvesting, now you're not running over the pecans or the walnuts or whatever it is and breaking them.

I gotcha. So that makes sense.

I mean, but now let's talk price for a minute.

Okay. Because I imagine the Offset's the most expensive one.

Well, of course. But they're all expensive. Okay. So let me tell you how badly I did not want to pick these things up. Like, and figure out how to fix this problem. Because, uh, the, the 12-inch push where literally you're pushing it and it— you're having to walk behind it, uh, this is for the sweetgum because that's what I purchased, $415.

Okay.

You go up to the 36-inch push and it's $730, and the pull-behind is the same price, $730, because really it's a It's a matter of putting a handle up top to push or putting handle toward the, you know, in a V toward the, uh—

Oh, for that amount, it should be like, it should be interchangeable.

Well, you know, I guess technically you could probably pull it if you wanted to, but, or, you know, but—

If it's a push, man, I think I could strap that thing to the front of my zero-turn.

Yeah, well, you might could. He's got it, you angle the handle, so Yeah, you could probably figure it out, but why would you want—

I know a welder.

Why would— yeah, you do.

I do too.

He was at my house the other day putting a new bumper on my trailer, actually.

Oh, nice.

So yeah. Um, but why would you wanna push it? Like literally when you can strap it onto something behind you.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, $730. But they've also got, and I did go ahead—

But how, how many, okay, at, at 36-inch, How, how many balls is it picking up before that thing's full?

A bunch. Like how many?

Like if you had to guess?

Oh gosh, 400.

Okay.

I mean, a bunch.

It's got— For most people, if you have like 2 or 3 sweetgum trees, that's gonna be your entire yard. Yeah.

I mean, oh yeah. So, so it's got, if you get the big, the big 36-inch, which is the only size that they've got for the, uh, pull behind.

Yeah.

Except if you go with the, with the, um, offset one. Mm-hmm. It's a 42-inch.

Oh, okay.

I'll get to that one in a minute. But it's got 2 hoppers that you literally just take out and they're, they're big, man. I mean, well, they're 18 inches apiece.

Yeah.

So, um, but they're really, they come out really easy. I'm gonna dump 'em. What my, again, what do you do with 'em? Well, for me, I just throw 'em into the, the woods.

Throw 'em in the woods.

Yeah. I'm like, well, they'll, biodegrade eventually.

I was thinking maybe you just burn 'em.

Well, I tried that. They do not burn well.

Really?

No. I mean, I'm talking a hot fire. They'll sit there for a while.

Huh. Yeah.

They do not catch or what? They just do not catch fire.

That's crazy.

It is crazy. Um, cuz that's, that was my first thing and I filled up my, you know, I, I was even putting 'em in kind of little by little.

Mm-hmm.

It was, it was a lot. And, and as many sweetgums as I've got.

Yeah. It's, uh, Satan's bean pod.

Yeah, it's awful. It's awful. But I'll tell you, like, again, stepping on a Lego, they're really, really bad. They can, they can do some damage.

Yeah.

But, and well, that was the other problem is whenever you're mowing, if you throw those things, you can like break a window. Like, I mean, it's bad. But so what I was doing is I bought like a half dozen 5-gallon buckets. put them in the back of my golf cart and I was emptying the, the hopper into the 5-gallon bucket and just leaving it and go. So it's the same kind of idea.

And I guess you can just bag them and put them out by the street, but—

Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, you, you can definitely do that. Now the offset, it, it comes with a different type of hitch. I mean, if you're putting it on the back of a tractor or something, I mean, you can put it on the back of a lot of different things, but you can put it on the back of a of a tractor. It also has the collapsible crates that you can, you know, use and all. It's sweet. It's $4,000.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. It's $4,000.

Significantly more. Yeah.

Yeah.

But you're, but again, well more than 3 times their top model on the other end.

Right. But again, if you're buying that thing, you're using business money with it.

Yeah, I think so. You know, you're harvesting some kind of production nut.

Right. And so I, so when I called, I was like, okay, this is not just a, a whim on Amazon. I'm gonna buy a $30 thermostat. Right? Right. I'm gonna have to explain this to my wife. Like, you know, so I called and I talked. Let me tell you that they answered the phone. Hey, how's it going? I mean, it's a family company.

Oh, cool. And, um, where are they based out of?

Uh, that's a great question. I, they told me and it's been so long. Oh, Jacksonville, Florida.

Oh, I lived in there for a spell.

Yeah, you did. But like, it's, it's free shipping over a certain amount, which they're all over a certain amount. And, and it got there in like 2 days. So it was very quick, uh, shipping. And so when I was, when I was asking her about it, I was like, okay, like, I believe you that it works. I watched quite a few videos and I was like, this looks like it works. Uh-huh. And she said, We have a— so, so you can return it within 30 days.

Okay.

But you have to pay the return shipping. And it's a— I mean, it's a big—

it's big, big piece of equipment.

It's a big piece of equipment. Um, and she said, except for the sweet gumballs. And I was like, really? She's like, yeah, 30 days or, you know, we'll, we'll pay to ship it back. And I was like, why? And she goes, nobody ships it back. She said, it's the one that like Because if you, if you know anything about sweetgumballs, they, they hold on.

Yeah.

So she was like, they don't, it just works.

Yeah.

She said nobody has ever shipped one back because if you need it, yeah, it, they, it kind of works together, you know, cuz it, it does, it kind of stabs 'em and it gets in between the tines or whatever. Um, but they hold on. So, uh, I'll tell you, man, it, It was, it was a lot of fun actually.

How long did it take you to do your whole yard?

My whole yard, uh, which there, there are certain places where it's thicker than others, and you got to remember, like, this was years of sweetgums that, you know, the grass gets tall and then, you know, but then whenever the grass dies, that's whenever you start seeing them all. I probably did the whole thing in a few hours.

That's not bad.

No, I mean And honestly, it was so satisfying.

Yeah.

Like, I was like, I felt like I was doing the Lord's work, honestly.

Well, so like, here's, here's what I'll say about sweetgum trees. When they get big, they're really nice shade trees.

They really are.

Yeah. And when, when people here in Texas say, you know, you never really get to see the seasons change, if you have sweetgum tree, yeah, you get to see the seasons change.

Yeah. Because they do drop everything.

They turn orange, they turn real pretty red. I mean, like, you you get a leaf, you know, like, yep.

So, and they're, and they're, they're a nice-sized leaf. I mean, they're not big, but they're kind of round.

I mean, um, so, so there's that.

Yeah.

When they get bigger, they can become brittle.

Yeah. And a little, and a little bit dangerous because they'll get hollow.

Yeah.

They'll hollow themselves out. And when they start dying.

Yeah.

And you won't know.

Right. But they're also notorious for putting out, um, 'Cause like you said, they had shallow roots.

Yeah.

They'll put out new growth on those roots.

Right.

And that's when you can kind of get in trouble.

Yep.

But they'll grow new trees really quick too.

They will. I mean, they grow fast.

They're not as fast as the chinaberries that we have here.

Sure.

Which those are notorious for like eating up fence rows and things like that. You know, and I kind of go back and forth as to whether or not I'd rather have a pine tree or a sweetgum tree.

Uh, yeah, they're both—

if I had to choose, I'd probably go with the sweetgum. Yeah, to be honest.

Well, especially if you had one of these things, man. Like, yeah, because this— I mean, I— it— now it was expensive. I'm not, not shying away from the cost.

Sure.

But you know, if you need something like that, it's worth it.

Yeah.

In fact, the other thing that I purchased— so it's $65, but they've got a handheld little stabber, and it's— I don't know how big it is. It's probably Uh, maybe, uh, 5 by 7.

Okay.

Uh, inch. And it's got the same tines on it. You just pick it up and it's got a little, it's got a little spring-loaded, uh, thing that just pops 'em out.

Oh.

So here's, here's the reason that's helpful.

Smaller areas where you can't get that thing into.

Yep.

Okay.

Where you can't roll like right up against the tree even.

Yeah.

You know, where you can't just roll over. that area, um, or if you've got a building next to it or anything like that, but you still need to pick them up. I mean, this thing, you literally just go pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and then, you know, yeah, spring load the thing into a 5-gallon bucket and you're good to go. It, it has been a game changer.

How often are you having to do it?

Uh, well, I only, so far it's just once a year.

So once a year?

Yeah. And you just, you know, yeah. And we'll see. I mean, cause I only did it the one time. Um, but it was, I was at my wit's end at that point. Um, but I, I don't know. I, my guess is that I'll probably have to do it kind of once they start dropping.

Mm-hmm.

It'll be, you know, a few weeks and I'll probably do it a little bit here and there.

Yeah.

If you do it a little bit here and there, it won't take as long. You could probably, you can probably get out there in 30, 45 minutes and just run over a bunch of 'em and you're good to go.

'Cause that, that's like my, one of my kids' least favorite chores right now. I've got the pasture broken up into like 5 different Quadrants.

Okay.

They're, that's 4. I understand.

Yes.

But anyway, 5 sections. Fine. Um, but, uh, they have to go out and cut all the scrub trees down.

Oh.

So like we do the fence rows, but then we also have like all the scrub trees that get in the pasture.

Ugh.

And, uh, I just have 'em go cut 'em down.

Yeah.

Um, cuz there's, there's some spots like where I can't get the tractor and between stuff and it's like just. kids, go out there and chop them down.

Right.

It's good for you.

Yeah. They hate it.

You can tell all of your children how horrible your dad was when you were older and that they don't have to go do that stuff. Although they'll probably make their kids do it too.

That's true. Well, I'm sitting here thinking like there's going to come a point where my son is old enough to like have his own truck, maybe a trailer. I'll be, son, take that thing and go make money.

Heck yeah.

Because you know how much, I mean, it would be fun for him to get out on a you know, drive a golf cart with that thing pulled behind it and he could spend, he could spend an hour or less at someone's house and charge them $100 all day long. Easy. All day long.

Yeah. You know, is it electric golf cart?

Yeah.

Even better.

Yeah.

Not having to buy gas.

Not having to buy gas. Yeah. And so, man, I, I, I think it, I think that if you are—

Did you, uh, did you tell, uh, Mike Faust about this the other day?

No.

No, you should have. I bet you he'd get a kick out of it.

Yeah, he probably would. I hadn't, I didn't even think about it, but I don't know why I thought about it the other day whenever we were literally sitting here going, what are we going to do if the show's over? I was like, we never did anything about this. But if you have an issue with, or any, I mean, I grew up in West Texas. I mean, there's a bunch of pecan trees out there. If you got, I mean, there's small versions of it. So if you're one of those people that you've got to—

I mean, I've seen one of the rollerball things to pick up pecans. And those work pretty well.

Yeah, because they're uniform shape and they, they work pretty well. Um, man, these would be some— this would be so much easier. I mean, it's, it's an investment. Yeah, but it would be a lot, it'd be a lot easier.

That is, that is one of the— like, I, if I can ever get the time to clear out a bunch of these scrub pine trees, I'd love to plant some pecan.

Oh yeah, for sure. Oh yeah, they're a great tree.

Why should I cut a few branches off and smoke a brisket?

That's what I'm saying. They're a great treat. But anyway, I, I, uh, I'll, I'll link it up in the show notes. I, if, again, there's not a whole lot else we can say about it other than it works.

Yeah, there you go. Check it out for yourself.

Yeah, check it out for yourself.

Call Jacksonville and get one out to your property.

Yeah.

I mean, because around here, man, I mean, like, they're, I mean, like, that's the thing is They are, um, they're a pretty tree.

They are.

They're like, they're, I mean, again, like, make me choose between that and a pine tree, I'm probably gonna pick, pick the sweetgum.

Yeah.

Just because of the look of 'em.

Yep.

And better shade.

Well, way better shade.

Um, so I don't, I don't know how long sweetgums last though. I don't, I don't, I know they don't, they probably don't last as long as oaks.

Probably not as long as pine trees either.

Uh, maybe not. I don't know. Um, That'd be a good little tidbit of trivia to look up.

Yeah.

We don't have time right now, but—

No.

But anyway, like, I'm probably gonna pick that tree.

Yeah.

You know, but like, I'm— and knowing that I'm gonna have to deal with the sweetgumball thing.

Well, but again—

I mean, and for like, for guys like me, like, that's one of the worst things you can do is to pick up your horse's foot and find a sweetgumball stuck in it.

Absolutely.

And that's not uncommon.

I'm sure.

Um, and it's, that can't be comfortable for them.

No.

I mean, like, they're not gonna complain cuz they're awesome and they're horses.

I mean, but he, people that don't know what a sweet gumball is, go look it up. But you know what a grass burr is?

Yeah.

It is a grass burr the size of a golf ball. Yeah. It is a grass burr the size of a, of a golf ball. And yeah, they're bad. I mean, I can see how a horse, I mean, what is he, he didn't know.

Yeah.

He's walking.

He just gets wedged up in there.

He's like, I'm walking here.

Yeah.

Like, come on, man. Yeah.

So there's gotta be something you can do with those things. I wonder if like, I wonder what would happen if you threw 'em like down a wood chipper.

That would be interesting.

Like just like a basket of 'em.

Like a shredder?

Yeah.

That might, I mean, yeah.

That might not make some bad mulch.

Well, that's what I was gonna say. If, yeah, it might. I mean, you could convince me to go buy a chipper at that point.

There's another YouTube rabbit hole for me.

Yeah, no, no doubt. But anyway, I, I, I would highly recommend this thing. And, you know, I'll tell you this, when, when my wife saw what the yard looked like afterwards, she was like, okay, it was worth it. You know, she didn't have to do it. But yeah, and that was the thing is like, you don't have to do it. Uh-huh. You're, you're not the one out there trying to figure out what to do with all these gumballs and Here's, here's where the rubber met the road on the price. We, I got to the point where it was so much trouble to fix the, the belt.

The belt. Yeah.

That was calling someone out to do it.

Yeah. No, it's a pain in the butt, man.

And it was, it was costing me $100 to get someone out to do it. And, you know, then you're out, you don't have a mower at that point.

Yeah.

You can't move it. And so, I mean, you literally can't move it. Yeah. And so, It's in the middle of the, it's in the middle of the yard till the guy comes out. He fixes it. It's $100. And I'm like, it's 7 trips before I've got paid for one of these.

Yeah.

You know, like, and now we've got a different mower. We bought a different mower. It's probably, it would probably do something different now because I've got a commercial mower now. Probably a little bit different, but I can guarantee if that belt comes off on a commercial mower, it's even worse. Yeah. You know? So I'm not taking any chances.

No, I've gotten pretty good at putting that thing back on. I still hate it every time it happens. It's awful because it's usually nowhere near my shop, right, when it happens.

Nope.

And then you got to pop the— like, one, like, it's not even worth it to pop it into neutral and try and drag it out. It's like, let's just go get the stupid tools.

And I know, I know. Yeah, it's a pain. It's just a pain.

But I've gotten pretty good at it. I, I, again, I hate it. It's the worst.

Yeah, that's terrible.

Give me a flat tire any day of the week. Right. Yes.

Well, that's easy. Flat tire, that's easy. All you gotta do is take the lug or inflate it, right?

Yeah.

Well, yeah, or just take the lugs off and put it back on. But no, I don't know. Plus, I feel like I'm gonna— I feel like whenever I have to put that thing back on, I'm gonna lose some knuckles. Oh, probably with that tensioner and everything. Like, I'm I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna kill myself.

So I, well, here's what I'll tell you, man. I, I went, uh, with airless tires on the front end. Oh, did you? On my zero turn. And I think I'm gonna go with airless on the rear ones. Have you seen those?

I have.

Those things are cool.

I see 'em most often on like John Deeres.

I see 'em on all kinds of different mowers. Yeah.

They, they look very, they look like something you'd, you'd find on like a, a toy. Well, but like a toy is what I think of.

Okay.

Like, Just cuz the way they're made, like the mesh kind of look. Yeah. They got that mesh look too. Yeah. But I, yeah, I don't have airless tires on the front of mine, but I think that would be good. Yeah.

It's not, they're, I mean, they're just, I don't even know what they're made of, but like, okay. I don't have to worry about going flat anymore. Yeah. So like beat the crap outta 'em. I don't care. Yeah.

No kidding. No kidding. Well, man, uh, you got any more questions? Are we good?

I think we're good.

All right. Well, thank you guys for Listening to today's episode, we appreciate you very much. And if you haven't already, please go to our YouTube channel and our Facebook channel. Give us a like and a subscribe. And over on the Apple Podcast, actually, there's a lot of places you can leave us a rating and review. Wherever. But anywhere you can, man, it really, really helps the show, and we would appreciate it very much. Until next time, we'll see you later.

See ya.