That Time We Talked About Banter

This is episode number 87 of The Homeowner Show. 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.

Welcome to The Homeowner Show, where Kevin still hasn't changed the intro because we're not together.

I mean, what am I supposed to say?

Like, we're together in spirit because that's— it's just not manly enough.

And across the internet is Craig.

We want to be in the studio together.

Yes, we do. It would be even better if we were at Disney Springs.

Yes, which— if we had the whole place to ourselves.

Well, that's so true. But if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see my background is something special. If not, well, maybe you should go find us on YouTube.

That's right. And I am just in the old fuddy-duddy studio with the wooden background over here.

Hey, it looks good.

Yeah.

I remember that.

The old shiplap.

Yeah. Well, um, so it has nothing to do with ships at all. But it does have something to do with laps. I guess, uh, just not—

maybe, I guess the wood took a couple laps around Route 66. I don't know.

Well, they lap over each other.

Oh, is that what it is?

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I guess I'm playing dumb.

But you play it quite well.

It's, it's my role in life, my friend.

Well, good. So, uh, we, um, as we were trying to figure out what to do tonight, I mean, it's a little bit difficult because, um, most of our guests, we, we could have them on calls like this. It could work. But we're finding that our guests really want to come into the studio, which is great with us.

Well, here, here's the thing. is they've— I think they've started talking to one another.

Oh.

Because there's, there's a certain amount of clout that you get by having your photo made in front of the giant Homeowners Show logo board, which is just outside. I mean, like, it's, it's right here on YouTube. It's like right over there.

Yeah.

Um, and it is cool. I mean, like, it's How big is that thing, man? I don't—

I don't know. It's probably like—

It's taller than both of us.

It's probably 8 feet in diameter, maybe 9.

Yeah, I mean, because I'm not, I'm not little, but like, it's, it's way bigger than I am. Yeah, I mean, we— I mean, it's big. I don't think we've had a guest that can like reach the top of it.

Well, it takes both of us to move it.

Yeah, it's huge.

It's really big. We're just lucky that our logo is, uh, you know, circular.

And black and white.

And black and white.

Because that could have gotten expensive to paint that thing.

No kidding.

No, but we had the hookup.

That's right. Well, so, you know, we, we've, we've had some, some guests that said, hey, can we push because we just really want to be on, you know, they want to come to the studio. Absolutely.

They want the full Homeowner Show experience, and we want to make sure that they want that, that's what they get.

Yeah, and I'm not gonna lie, I kind of want to be in the studio too, but it sounds like the, um, the viability of that happening is going to be happening maybe sooner than later.

So yeah, I mean, Texas, I mean, basically, what is it, the first Is that May 30th?

So I mean, not May, April 30th.

April 30th.

So Friday for us.

Friday. Yeah. So I mean, like, by the time this show airs, which is my anniversary, by the way. Um, so no, the anniversary, Brandon.

No, this will air, this will air before that happens.

Right. When this airs, it will be my anniversary.

Oh.

And then that following Friday, it will be the, uh, things will start to open up at 25% capacity.

That's right. I forget that your anniversary and my birthday are—

Your birthday.

Are so close.

Which, by the way, if you're a fan of The Homeowner Show and you haven't sent Kevin a happy birthday notice yet, you should do that in the most awkward way possible.

Please do.

Like maybe like a Shirley Temple photo. Or, I mean, like, what is something that you just really despise, Kevin? Is it like broccoli?

Spaghetti.

You don't like spaghetti?

No.

Dude.

I— let me clarify for a moment though. I don't like spaghetti, the pasta.

Okay.

I love spaghetti sauce and meatballs and all of that. I just don't like spaghetti.

Like, is it all pasta in general?

No.

Just spaghetti noodles?

Yep.

So like, what if we like reduce it down to like angel hair?

How you doing? Love angel hair.

Love angel hair. Okay, so like it's, it's more like that mid-range.

Yeah, because I also like fettuccine.

Okay, so you like the ribbon pasta?

Yeah.

How we doing on bowtie?

I like bowtie.

Okay, so there's like one one particular kind of pasta that you don't like. Everything else around it, you're good with.

That's right.

Okay. I'm glad we clarified because this, this could have like ended the show immediately.

Well, I mean, yeah, I get that. But I will tell you that it took me a while to figure that out. I mean, for a long time, I thought I just didn't like spaghetti.

Yeah. And see, this, this is always something— this is fascinating to me because people tell me all the time, I don't like this Most of the time what I find is that they haven't had it prepared well.

Sure.

And so I'm always curious as to what it is about that particular thing that, you know, pushes you away.

Yeah. So my sister-in-law actually made some spaghetti one time and I was like, I don't want that. She was like, she was like, why? And I was like, I don't like it. And she said, well, you haven't had mine before. And I said, well, I'm not gonna like it. And she said, she said, well, that's all we're eating tonight. So eat it or not. So I tried to eat it and I was like, this is really good.

What?

She was like, I did spaghetti. And I'm like, really? These noodles are different or something. I don't know. Something's different. She said, well, I used angel hair pasta. I was like, Oh, well, I love angel hair pasta.

Yeah.

Because I've had it in other dishes, right? And, and so from that day, I realized I like spaghetti as long as it's not— as long as it's with a different pasta than spaghetti. I like the things you put on spaghetti. Right? So yeah.

Well, yeah. And so like, what I'm asking is, is because like angel hair is, I mean, like, it's a It's the same exact ingredients as like regular pasta.

It's a different diameter.

Is that really it? Is it just like a different mouthfeel or something?

It is a texture thing of some sort. Yeah. It's a different, I don't know. I just don't like the thickness of that specific noodle for some reason.

Okay.

So which is weird. I get, I, okay, people, you're listening to this going, you're ridiculous, Kevin. I get it. I know that it's ridiculous. But I, I can't explain it. I just don't like— if it's the only thing we're gonna have to eat, I'm not gonna turn it down. I'm gonna eat it. I'm just not gonna enjoy it very much, right?

So that's me. This is like people that don't like avocados, but they like guacamole, right? Yeah, I don't, I don't get it. Yeah, so I'm like, like, as I, as I You know, as I dig into it, and like, I will always dig into it because I'm just, I'm not trying. And like, I think a lot of people take it as me being like, like judgmental of them. Yeah, I'm not. I'm just, I'm genuinely curious as to like the process of the brain that goes from, you know, that guacamole is delicious, but that thing that it came from, gross.

Yeah, well, I kind of had the same thing about ketchup. people that don't like tomatoes, but they like ketchup.

Yes.

I mean, to me, it's a similar argument. Now I get it. You make a vegetable into a paste, you might not like it. But I, you know, it's a similar conversation.

So have you found, have you found people that like tomatoes but don't like ketchup, or the reverse where people like ketchup but they don't like tomatoes?

That one. Okay. And specifically, My children are one of them. They love ketchup, but they don't really like tomatoes. My dad, he's the biggest one though. He likes to, you know, ketchup just fine, but he does not like tomatoes. Hmm.

So yeah, and my youngest has this thing right now where if we bring home fresh tomatoes, she will ransack the refrigerator.

Really?

Yeah. Now, I was like this when I was a kid. I'll eat them like an apple.

That's what I was wondering. How does she eat them?

No, I mean, like, she likes— the way she likes them is she wants me to cut them up in slices and put a little salt on them.

Yeah. Okay. I can do that too. I love it.

And she likes it with pickles. And so like, those are like, for like a 5-year-old, that's kind of like an odd— I mean, like most 5-year-olds, one, they don't tend to like pickles.

I assumed this was your older daughter.

No, no. Like, and that's, that's honestly the weirdest one. My oldest kid is probably my pickiest eater.

Really? But she likes to cook.

She does love to cook. Um, in fact, I mean, like, this is, and this is just one of those things, and I think this is kind of like the theme of the show almost, is we're kind of talking about our quarantine experiences. But, um, we, we tend in our household, we tend to eat keto or low carb. We just tend to not eat a lot of bread and carbohydrates and things. And not because we're like anti-bread or anti-carbohydrates, but like we just tend to feel better when we're eating proteins and fruits and vegetables.

Sure.

We just, we like eating fresh food and those kinds of things. Well, she, she found a recipe. I think she got it from my mom, actually. these keto lemon bars made from almond flour.

Oh yeah.

Delicious.

Okay.

Absolutely. I mean, because she had to like, I think she needed like 12 lemons in order to make this thing. So it was made from like, you know, fresh lemon juice and eggs and almond flour. And she's, I mean, she's 11, man. She knocked out these lemon bars. It's like, it's a pretty complicated recipe.

Yeah.

And we're like, well, dang, if you can do this, why aren't you making dinner every once in a while? And she was like, I would love to make dinner.

Boom.

So, so yeah, so that, I mean, and so, you know, this, this being at home and homeschooling and, and, and, you know, having more time has really given our kids an opportunity to kind of explore more of their interests and their curiosities.

Sure.

And mostly because we haven't stifled them from it. We haven't, you know, you know, we— I think, I think there's a lot of people that feel like they have to keep their kids on task.

Right.

Um, and, and that's fine if that works for your family. We're not that family.

Sure.

Um, you know, I, I'm kind of like this. I'm all over the place. Always have been, always will be. Um, and, and so my kids pick up on some of that. And so like, you know, they have different interests and different curiosities. Um, and, you know, allowing, allowing them to kind of explore those a little bit and seek after those has been really cool.

Yeah, no, that, that makes sense. Uh, you mentioned, uh, eggs. Have I told you my problem with eggs recently?

No.

So, okay, I mean, you know, I'm sure this is true all over the nation where the grocery stores have been an interesting place, right?

Right.

So you either do pickup or you go in the grocery store, or maybe you get them delivered. Uh, we tend to do pickup, but we— this is not a quarantine thing for us. We just do pickup. It's easy.

You were doing pickup before quarantine.

We've been doing pickup before it was cool. That's right. We've been doing pickup for probably 2 and a half years, really.

I'm a big fan of the pickup.

Yeah, me too. So we, we kind of got to a point where, I mean, we're— I've been eating, you know, a lot more keto type things recently too. And I just eat a lot of eggs when I do that. And so we had kind of gotten down to where we had like 6 eggs left. And so my wife went in and when she was doing the order, which right now, you know, it's gotten better. But like 3 weeks ago, you were a week out before you could get a pickup order.

Yeah.

So, so she put an order in and she put an order in with 18 eggs. So dozen and a half eggs, just one of those bigger cartons. But what she didn't realize is she forgot to take out the dozen eggs that she had also put in. Which is fine because, you know, 2 and a half dozen eggs, I can do it.

Yeah.

So, uh, you and I have a mutual friend who, uh, is a manager of a local restaurant, and he, uh, got— had a deal where he could order 150 eggs for $10 from the rest— from the restaurant. And so he was like, I'm, I'm gonna do that. Right?

Right.

So he told his cook, when you put in the order, go ahead and put in an extra 150 and we'll, we'll buy them. So his wife starts texting friends and said, hey, you know, we're gonna have all these eggs. Would you take some from us? So I'd already told her, yeah, well, you know, we'll take some. This is before my wife had put in this order. Long story short, the cook didn't get the order placed in time and they wound up costing $40 instead of $10.

Oh no.

So, but we'd already committed. Like I'd already told her, listen, we'll take some of these off your hand. And we even told her, listen, we'll pay, we'll pay for the eggs. It's not that big of a deal. So I said, but we don't really need that many eggs. And we just ordered some and we've got like 2 and a half dozen eggs at our house. And she said, well, I was hoping you would take at least 18 from me. And I said, okay, just put me down, put me down for 18. And I'll go ahead and come pick them up. So now instead of 2 and a half dozen eggs, we have 4 dozen eggs at my house.

Nice. So then, uh, quiche for dinner, my friend.

That's right. We— my neighbor is move— was moving. They have now moved, which by the way, the new neighbors that are coming in have like, they're doing all kinds of renovations to this house. which is kind of funny to me, a little side note, that people will spend money to fix up their home so they can sell it. And then the buyer comes in and spends a lot more money to rip out all the stuff that they fixed.

Right? Just fixed. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like this stupid thing. Like, people, why don't you just like put in a $20,000, you know, seems like y'all could have talked beforehand. Right? Put in a $20,000 renovation fee and just leave it at that. Anyway, so the day they were moving out, they rang the doorbell. We'd go to the door and they said, hey, by the way, we've got some stuff from our fridge that we're just not gonna, we're not gonna move. So we'd like to just give it to you. Okay, fine. I mean, there was like a whole thing of sliced cheese and some, some butter and some other things. Well, there was a carton of 18 cage-free eggs. Plus 6 loose eggs that they dropped the carton and the other 6 broke.

So we have 2 dozen eggs that they gave us. We now— Craig, count it— we now have 6 dozen eggs at my house. I'm not joking, 6 dozen eggs. And so we made a breakfast casserole, we did breakfast tacos. Like, we have been eating eggs. We've been making like all kinds of stuff with eggs.

Bro, if you need, if you need to hand off some eggs I'm your boy.

Okay, we've gone through quite a few.

I mean, like, I myself eat 2 pretty much every morning.

I'm with you. I eat at least 2 every day.

Now, here's, here's, here's the real question though. How do you eat your eggs?

I fry them over easy.

Over easy?

Yeah.

That's my man.

Yeah.

Anything on them?

Um, salt and pepper.

Salt and pepper?

Yep.

So I— so here's what I do is I do over easy, and just before they get to over easy, I put a little cheese on top.

Okay.

And then I throw them in the broiler.

Really?

And it never cooks the yolk, man. It just melts the cheese. You know, if you take them out, if you only leave them in the right amount of time.

Right.

And so you get that good runny yolk, but like melty cheese and salt and pepper and put Really? So good.

Interesting.

Now, and I usually, if I'm having like a breakfast meat, like, and it's typically like breakfast sausage for me. Yeah. Because I can cook that low and slow while I'm having my first cup of coffee. Yeah. So I'll cook my sausages before I throw my eggs in the pan.

Yeah.

I cook them in that sausage fat.

I do the same. I do that or bacon. And I Cook the eggs and whatever's left.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's fantastic.

Yeah.

So because it gets nice and crispy at the bottom and then you get that good runny yolk and—

Yes.

Nothing better, man.

No, I agree. I mean, I, to me, I would— that I could eat that every single day of my life and be happy.

Yeah. And so here's, and here's the finishing touch for me. And if you don't know about this out there, You're welcome, world. Um, Cholula chipotle hot sauce.

Yes, dude. Cholula, by the way, just Cholula in general. Yeah, good on so much.

Yeah, I don't know, is that, is that a Texas thing or is it available outside of Texas?

It's available outside of Texas.

I did not—

yes, I did not know about it.

And I mean, I assume you can order it on the internet, but I don't know if it's like available like in grocery stores. Like it is you know, in Ohio or something.

Well, I don't go to Ohio often, but—

If it's not, people, write your grocery store and ask them, Cholula hot sauce. This is not Tabasco that we're talking about here.

That's right.

This isn't— I mean, like, because here's the thing, man. Tabasco— this is my opinion, all right? This is food stuff, so it's subjective. Like, Tabasco is just heat.

Yes.

Like, it's good heat and it's not a bad hot sauce. It's great for like gumbos and étouffées and things like that. Great for that. But like, if you want like a hot sauce for like your taco.

Yeah.

Man, there is nothing better than Cholula. And like, and if you're a Cholula fan and you haven't tried Cholula Chipotle.

Yeah.

Dude.

Yeah, I'm 100% on board with you with this. I learned about Cholula in Colorado, so I wasn't even in Texas. I was on a backpacking trip with, with some other people. And our guide pulls out a bottle of Cholula. And he was putting it on his food. And I was like, what is that? And he said, I don't, I don't go backpacking without this. He said, I, I put this on everything at home. I'm not going backpacking without it. I said, I've never heard of this stuff. He said, dude, you got to have it. We were having Spam for breakfast. Okay? Which—

Yes.

By the way, I like fried Spam. I, I'll just put it out there.

Prepared, prepared correctly, there's nothing wrong with the occasional Spam.

I, I think so. Like, it's not something I'm gonna have every day, but you know what?

But by the way, shout out to our friends Bruce and Connie, um, with the Tonga toast, because apparently that is the appropriate way to have the Tonga toast over at the Polynesian, is with a little slice of Spam. Fried Spam on top.

Yeah, they just talked about it in their latest episode with Mark Daniel.

And when this episode comes out, because I, I know this because I was getting ready to do our Throwback Thursday episode, it will have been 1 year since they've been on the episode today.

Yes, interesting. Okay, well, that was, that was a fun episode.

Howdy, Bruce and Connie.

Hey, hey. So anyway, we, you know, we just sprinkled some Cholula on that Spam Oh man, it was good.

Yeah.

So yeah, no, I, I'm with you on the Cholula sauce, man. It's, it's good stuff for sure.

Oh man.

Yeah.

So if you, if you haven't caught on yet, this is, this is basically an episode of openers.

Yeah. So most of the time we banter about something at the beginning, right? And that's all we're doing. That's all we're doing today.

That's it.

But I mean, go ahead.

I know, I was gonna tell you, I mean, like, because usually one of the things that we talk about at the beginning of episodes is either projects that we've done, interesting things that have happened around, things that we've experienced with the home, all kinds of different stuff. And, uh, you know, I'll tell you one of the things. I, I finally got my, my propane pool heater to work properly.

We talked about that a couple of weeks ago, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's been a lot of adjustments and finagling and all this kind of stuff, and I finally found the sweet spot. Now, once I found the sweet spot, a leak sprung up, and so I've got to deal with the leak. But, you know, so, so basically, because our pool is under a roof in what we call the party barn, It's difficult to heat it. If you haven't listened to any previous episodes, you may not be aware of that, but interesting issues again with my home. The initial volley to try and get the temp up in the pool was to install a solar heater, which is basically thin black plastic tubing up on the— a series of black plastic tubing up on the roof that

is pumped up from the pool pump onto the roof and then pumped back down through the return. And, you know, the theory is that, you know, the sun will heat up that black tubing and heat up the water because of that and then heat the pool. And it does, it does. But like right now, Texas is being Texas, you know, it can, it can get down in the 40s and 50s at night until we hit full summer. And so like the pool has the, you know, obviously because of the temperatures, the the water temperature can drop pretty significantly.

Right.

So with the quarantine on, we wanted the kids to be able to swim. So we were looking for some other options to heat up the pool. So we found this propane battery-powered water heater. And what I really wanted to do is to find a way to run the water through the water heater as well as the solar heater at the same time. And, you know, sort of double my efforts in heating the pool. And I finally found like that perfect mix of pressure to— because you have to have a certain amount of water pressure going towards that battery-powered water heater in order for it to activate and light the propane.

Okay.

Otherwise it can— because if it's not pushing enough water through, it'll actually overheat and it has a smart sensor that'll shut it off, which thank goodness it does.

Okay.

Because, you know, basically it's, it's, if it, if it starts pushing water out at around 65 degrees Celsius, which is like somewhere in the neighborhood of like 150, 160 degrees Fahrenheit, it can overheat and burn the system.

Yeah.

Pretty, pretty quickly. Um, so it just shuts off. So you've got to have, you got to find that right, that happy balance of not too much water pressure, but not too little water pressure in order to continue the flow of water. Because what this thing is intended to be is a camp shower, is what it's supposed to be.

Sure.

So, but like just yesterday, I kind of found like the happy balance between the two. And right as I found it, like a leak sprung in one of the connections to the solar heater. So I've got to go, I've got to go address that. But that should be relatively easy compared to what I've dealt with with rest of the system. Yeah, so we've had that going on. I've had a new crop of bees come in. We actually have been dealing with a lot of them, like just in our business we've been dealing with a lot of bees. But we had a new crop of bees come on the property, and that's been interesting. This is honestly like the most docile group of bees I've

ever had.

Really?

Yeah, like usually, like if you're a beekeeper, you know that like when your, when your queen changes, the hive can drastically change. And so genetically, all these bees, I know they're coming from like the same apiary. And everybody's been telling me like this, this apiary has outstanding genetics. The queens that come out of here and the bees that come out of here are extremely docile. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, what everybody else is telling me. But like, no joke, man, like I can, I can open the top of these hives and like the bees— I mean, and there's, there's, you know, 30,000, 40,000 bees in these hives. And like, I'm used to like opening them up and like at least

getting swarmed by like 100 of them, you know, 50 to 100 bees coming up and getting in my business, getting in my mask, you know, just, you know, give me all the warning signals like, hey, we don't like what you're doing. But like these, I can open up and like nobody bothers me.

Really?

It's the weirdest thing. I still go out in my suit because, you know, I'm not gonna get stung in the moneymaker. But, you know, again, again, for like, you know, 10th time. But yeah, so like just extremely docile. And like just very low-key but like very productive.

Okay.

Very productive. And they— with them, there's been some unique challenges already, but all in all, really, really good experience. And I got them— I mean, I don't know how far back it is, but like I bought all these bees from Julie. I think that was like episode 6 or something like that.

Way early.

Anyway, Winding Creek Apiary, if anybody has any questions, Julie, Julie over there is fantastic, loves answering questions. She does like a free breakfast on Saturdays for like beekeepers. She had me out one time to speak about my particular method of beekeeping because it's a little bit different than other people's.

Sure.

A little, little out there, but really, really cool. Anybody's interested, Flow Hives. That's, that's my method. Yeah, I do traditional as well, but I love Flow Hives.

Simple, man. They're so simple.

Oh my gosh, yes. Like, when I, when I show guys who have been doing beekeeping for a long time one of my Flow Hives, you know, their, their experiences— and you and I actually have a mutual friend, Drew, and he does all traditional, and, and he's pretty good at it, and he's He's actually way braver than I am. He goes out there without a suit and opens his up all the time. I'm just like, no, can't do it.

Yeah.

But anyway, so the amount of time it takes him to collect honey versus the amount of time it takes me to collect honey— I'm done in 45 minutes.

Yeah.

I mean, like, for him to do like one hive, I imagine it takes him 3 to 4 hours. And he has, I think he's got 20 hives.

Goodness.

So, I mean, like, you know, that can take a while.

Sure.

I mean, that's, that's a pretty big— I mean, like, you could, like, if you batched it, you could probably knock it out in a weekend just because you're out there already, you've got the equipment and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, like, you're still looking at like a full 12-hour day.

It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work. It's a— I mean, like, the returns are good. I mean, goodness, we bought a— I think it was a 4-pound jar of honey the other day and it was $40. Wow. No, I mean, like, it's a lot of honey.

Yeah.

But still, I mean, like, that's—

That's not bad. I mean, that's a good— that's a good return.

Yeah.

So, okay.

And if you got If you got 20 hives, my expectation is that you ought to be pulling at least 70 to 80 pounds of honey out of each of those hives.

Wow.

That's, I mean, that, that's what I expect.

Yeah, that's, that's a really good return. I mean, yeah, it doesn't take long to, to pay for your bees and get a lot more.

No, but I mean, like, if I think a lot of people, if you If you watch any videos online, I mean, and there's a lot of bee videos on YouTube, but like if you, if you see somebody pull like a frame of comb out of a hive, it doesn't look that heavy. Those things are incredibly heavy. I mean, like that one frame, I'm guessing that one frame probably weighs 7 to 8 pounds.

Wow.

And so like, it's difficult to like fathom that that amount of honey can be in that small amount of space.

Sure. Yeah. Well, I am not a beekeeper. I let, I let other people like you keep the bees and then I will purchase the honey, uh, from a local beekeeper because you, you— I mean, there's varying theories about how far radius you should get honey from, but they carry a lot of helpful qualities.

Absolutely.

In them. Um, but I mean, you're close. You live close enough to me that your bees are probably good for me.

Oh yeah. I mean, you— because you're within what, Probably, yeah, it's close. Yeah, I mean, I think at some point in time, this, I mean, this is just, I mean, again, this is just an opinion, but like these are like a super easy thing to get involved with. I mean, like they're not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but when you think about like most people who live in a neighborhood, If you want to have a farm-to-table experience with your food, these are a really easy way to get that kind of experience for you and your family.

Yeah.

Because I mean, like, most people live in a neighborhood, they can't have goats, and a lot of HOAs are cracking down on chickens. Honestly, chickens are probably the easiest ones to do if your HOA allows it. And I mean, like, because you— I mean, depending on how many chickens you have, if they're healthy, You'll get an egg a day.

Yeah.

And so it's a good, it's a good relationship for your family to sort of experience that, that whole food process and the farming process without having to have a whole lot of land. But like, if your HOA is, you know, it's gotten pretty serious, most of them won't bat an eye when it comes to bees, mostly because the government wants to encourage people to keep bees.

Yeah.

They're very much proactive. And like, you can— this is something I found out not too long ago. I mean, like, you can go into downtown Houston, and I have a whole spiel I can do on bees in downtown areas in metropolitan cities. They're actually— just real quick, you can go find the research yourself— but like, bees are actually way healthier in metropolitan cities than they are out in the country.

Really?

I actually have, I have a whole theory on this. There's not, I mean, like, there's not any science behind it. I haven't done like any research, but like, there's a lot of people talking about it. Like, there's, it's a really interesting thing that's going on. A lot of restaurants and hotels have started keeping bees up on the roof of their high-rise. And a lot of people were like, well, that's a really bad idea with all the smog and pollution and all these, the bees are going to die. And come to find out, they're way healthier than they are living out in the country.

Wow.

So, and there's, there's, there's probably good reasons for that that, you know, I'm not going to go into now. But anyway, like in downtown Houston, if you go, I think I want to say it's the Hilton, it's whatever hotel it is that has the Texas-shaped pool.

Yeah.

That's by the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Right.

That parking garage actually houses I think 6 hives of bees.

Wow.

That you can actually go and view. There's like a glass viewing area where they have like an outdoor garden and there's just hives and you can go and watch them. And good healthy hives, whoever's taking care of them does a great job.

Yeah.

And so like this is, this is kind of becoming a thing where people can sort of experience that aspect of farm to table from their home, you know, with bees. And it's like once you have them, if you do a little bit of research and you're a little meticulous, you can actually keep them in your home and have them survive for generations and have that kind of farm-to-table experience without having to actually have a farm, you know, because you can't have a goat, you can't have cows, you can't You know, raise a pig or whatever in in most neighborhoods. But most neighborhoods let you have bees.

Interesting.

Sam.

Well, you know, like I said, it's just not my thing. Some things aren't my thing. And you know what one of those things is, Craig? Hmm.

Plumbing.

Plumbing is not one of my things. I would much rather call our friend. Paul the Plumber, because that guy knows what he is doing. And if you need some plumbing, you need to call him. I mean, he's gonna get to you quick. It's super easy to book him. And I mean, don't worry about that kind of thing. I mean, because at the end of the day, a bad plumbing job is going to cause so many problems in your house.

Absolutely, man. And you can, you can reach Paul at 832- 321-3252. And you can actually book them online. You can book them on Facebook. And when I was talking to Paul the other day, one of the things that they're working with right now, and this is something that they developed specifically because of what's going on with COVID is these virtual assessments of what your problem is. They're willing to get online either through FaceTime or Zoom or whatever it is and even just send pictures in and they can virtually assess the problem, send you a quote, and let you know what's going on and how they can help fix the problem. So cool, man.

I'm telling you, that is— that's so helpful on so many levels because, like, again, one of the biggest problems with plumbing jobs is depending on where your plumbing job is, I mean, these guys come with their truck and they got a lot of stuff on their truck, don't get me wrong, right? But I mean, they get there and you have some weird fitting or some, some crazy thing happened in your house. And let me just tell you, you probably do. Because every builder is different. And if your house is as old as mine is, mine built in '75, goodness, so many people have come through this place and they've done their own job, you know, and who knows

what's happened. And, you know, They may have had Joe the plumber come in and did a horrible job, but Paul can get on the phone, talk with what's going on, see what's happening, make sure he has the right parts on his truck whenever he shows up at your house, and that experience changes everything.

Yeah. I've personally referred him out several times and he's always taken it to customers of mine.

Yeah.

And he's taking care of them every time. So we have, we have no qualms about referring Paul out here on the Homeowner Show. So if you're in the greater Houston area and need a plumber, give Paul A Plumber the call. When you call the office, you'll talk to the lovely Deborah and she'll get you all set up.

Exactly. However, there's another thing that I've done recently. that I'm not about to try to tackle.

Oh yeah?

And that is trees.

Oh, that's right. Did you, did you finally find somebody to, uh, to deal with your tree issue?

Yeah, I, I don't know if I told you, um, Samir came and did it.

Oh yes. Okay, so Samir from Greenscape Solutions, man, that had to be like episode like 2.

Yeah.

Or 3.

It was one of our, again, one of our very earliest episodes. Um, back whenever we were, you know, recording out of your living room.

Yeah.

Yeah, so he really loves doing landscapes. He loves doing outdoor kitchens, those sorts of things. But he does— I mean, if it is yard related, he does it. I mean, he'll come in and clear land if he has to.

He does whatever he needs to.

But I called him because I had gotten a quote. What I needed done is I've got a— I had a big tree in my backyard is an oak and it died. I don't know. It got a disease and died. It thankfully is just kind of one of those deals where it was only that tree because it was kind of in a cluster of 3 trees that whatever disease it was only affected that one tree, hopefully. And it died. So I was gonna have to take this tree down. And on top of that, I had a couple of other limbs that needed to come down that were hanging over my house. And someone like Craig will tell you

limbs hanging over your house is bad. Not just because if a storm comes through, they might fall through your roof, which is definitely a possibility. But bugs like to live in trees and jump onto your roof. And if they go onto your roof, they're probably coming to your house, right?

Man, not just bugs, squirrels.

Oh my gosh, I hate squirrels. Hate them. Like, they may be cute and potentially cuddly for some of you people out there, but they're a nuisance is what they are, man.

Let me, let me tell you, let me tell you the running slogan in our business when it comes to squirrels.

Please do.

They're rats with better PR.

I have no doubt that's the truth. I mean, first of all, they're gross. Second of all, they're everywhere.

Yeah.

Everywhere.

And I've not experienced this firsthand, but I've heard that they don't taste too bad.

I, you know what? I've been told that as well. I lived in Arkansas for a while and, um, people, people have said they've eaten it and it's not bad. Uh, I'm not—

I gotta tell you, I told my wife when this whole coronavirus thing was going down, I was like, listen, we're not going to go hungry.

We got plenty of squirrels. So, uh, I actually called you the other day about squirrels living in a pillar in my, in my house. And I said, how do I get rid of this? And, um, you sent me an Amazon listing for a BB gun, which, um, I got, by the way. Did I tell you this? I bought one.

Did you, did you get it?

I bought one. I bought it from Academy. I did a pickup order and they brought it out to my car.

Awesome.

Um, I bought a Daisy Red Ryder, and let me tell you, man, like, I am so impressed with this thing. It is sighted in really well.

Yeah, they are.

It is incredibly accurate. So I, I just, you know, had a couple of squirrels running around, and I started picking those things off, man.

And like, Did you pick some off?

No, I didn't actually. I tried. I hit 'em, but it didn't kill 'em. They just ran away.

Yeah, you kinda gotta hit 'em in the back of the neck.

Right. I haven't killed one yet, but they jump up in the air like, like seriously, like 2 or 3 feet up in the air.

I know it sounds cruel, but it's funny when it happens.

It is so funny. Like, but you've seen it, like they jump like 2 or 3 feet up in the air and then take off running. It's like they do a backflip or something, take off. And, uh, but I have, I have yet to miss one. I'm not— okay, I'm not a horrible shot. I'll say that.

Right.

I'm probably not nowhere near a marksman. Um, my, my brother-in-law, you may remember him, uh, James Taylor, from, uh, an episode way earlier. Um, as well. Uh, we did a—

we did a, I guess, guns in the home episode.

Guns in the home episode. That's exactly what it was. Um, but he, he's, he's a marksman. But anyway, so I got one of those things. It's awesome.

So they're like $25, right?

Yeah, and they hold 300 rounds of BBs in them.

So anyway, it's It's a pretty cool— A lot of people know this by now. If they've listened to the show, like, I have a pest control business. And so like the cost between a Red Ryder BB gun and hiring me, I guess no question.

Right. And it's a lot more fun.

It is a lot more fun. Yeah.

The thing that I'm waiting is for like a neighbor to come out and be like, what are you doing with a rifle?

Yeah.

You know, I'm pointing it across the street. You're welcome. Sorry. You know?

Yeah.

But anyway—

It's a rabid squirrel, sir. Go back inside.

Exactly. So anyway, I had these limbs hanging over my house. And so I had gotten a quote to get the tree down and to get like 3 limbs removed. And, and I, I don't mind telling you how much it was. It was $1,200 to get—

That's not bad.

To get that. No, it wasn't bad at all. Um, and I was going to have to then, uh, hire a guy to come out and grind the stumps. I had basically the— it would be the stump from the oak, plus I had taken out— this is another big project that I did— I took out about a little more than half of a massive flower bed that I had in the backyard. It's— I say it's a flower bed, it was more than that. Had 2 big massive sago palms in it. And a sago palm, if you don't know what a sago palm is, imagine a palm tree that's short and stumpy. That's what a sago palm is. But they They normally just kind of grow up and out, right?

Well, this one had like 4 or 5 offshoots on it, and it just, it was crazy. It was going everywhere. And so I cut them down, I took it all out, made this flower bed a lot smaller, and I was going to have to hire someone to come in and get those stumps out, all that kind of stuff. Samir comes in with Greenscapes. He says, I'll do all of that. I'll take out the stumps and I'll sod it for $1,100. I can't, I can't beat that. So, man, I've been doing that with it. When the, when the, when the tree fell down, I got everything done. So, man, there's so many more projects that, that we could talk about. But, man, we're gonna have to wrap this up, dude.

There's, there's only so much we can handle in one episode.

I mean, we could— we're gonna have to do a follow-up to this one.

Absolutely.

Because I've got—

I mean, I mean, you, you and I are both— I mean, like, when, when we have time, it's not like we're sitting there binging Netflix.

No, we're working.

Like, yeah, we got stuff that we're doing. We got projects that we're on. And, and, and you and I both have been on— and like, I always— I was showing you one tonight that we didn't even talk about. So yeah, I mean, if you guys, if you guys have some ongoing projects, we want to hear about them. Send us some pictures, send us some photos. We'd love to feature you on our Facebook page, on our Instagram page, I guess on our Twitter page.

Oh, that's funny.

We'll put you up there.

That's right, that's right. Well, listen, hey, we will put you up on Facebook, on Instagram. Whatever it takes. But we're just glad that you hung with us. Thanks for downloading this episode. We're gonna, we're gonna follow up because we got more projects that we did and we've got more to talk about. But until then, we'll see you next time.

See you next time.