Bug Farm

[ambient music] ♪ - [Harp playing] - ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - [muffled music playing from the car] ♪ - Our morning karaoke session.

- This is how you drink coffee in a small town - I really want to YouTube us one day maybe have a little late night show driving and singing.

- I know, we just get a camera for the car.

- We need a selfie stick - We'll call it like Portia and Dorinda, Hotbox Inn - Ooh, I like that.

- Hotbox Inn Karaoke We sell to the local bait shops, the zoos in Tampa the pet place in Fort Myers, they buy from us also I heard they would be really good deep fried and smothered in chocolate.

I'm just saying that might be a Southern thing though.

Deep fry it, barbecue it.

It don't matter I think it's a high possibility that it's gonna become that new fad thing that everybody's doing.

And if it clicks, it clicks.

I don't know.

The rest of that would be like, pretty much in my opinion like in the world spread like to replace protein.

So I try not to think that far it's a little stressful but I mean, I'd eat the [shit] out some crickets.

First they were just like these little slithery worms you know I'd feed 'em And I did my job but I didn't really like care about them like that.

And then to see them grow up.

Like it is like it's emotional I would've never thought I could care about worms that way.

Like a child.

My daughter, she will not even walk in the building.

She's like, mom, it stinks.

Like when I come home, she was like, you stink you smell like bugs.

- Socially.

LaBelle is certainly not San Francisco.

I've been out here for about five and a half months now.

I'm in charge of technical development which really means to actually make sure that the tech we make is usable.

And I think it's really important that we have farm hands that have been farming for so long so they can tell me, Hey, this stresses out the crickets, this isn't working right.

And their input is super invaluable because I couldn't in a vacuum make tech that was actually usable for real cricket farmers.

I'd just be making something that looks good on Gizmodo or something.

- That's very hot.

- If you put a, if you put spit on it really fast it doesn't even burn tricks of the trade.

- It can continue to burn for up to a minute and a half.

It's kind of gross but it keeps your hands from getting burned.

So I do it every time - [on the phone] Holy cow it's raining.

Yeah, at my farm - It's [fucking] raining - I know.

Is she feeling better?

All right I love you.

Tell her I love her.

All right, bye - [sing-song] Rain, rain go away, come back another day me and Portia want to play, rain, rain go away.

- [crickets chirping][electronic music] - Mostly, I feel connected to the roaches.

I feel like I'm a Roach mom.

They're so sweet and animated.

And they're kind of the only bug that you can look at from a distance and see their face.

And they just have so many emotions having to do with burrowing and hiding and coming out and looking.

You can tell that this guy is male by the way that his last segment looks.

This is a really beautiful roach.

Look at his little face.

- We do use the word love a lot and I believe it's somewhat like a Southern hospitality thing, and it's a little weird but like I'm a firm believer like it's the same of when I make my sweet tea or when I make my ranch dressing.

Like I believe if it's just done a certain way and it's got that little extra it's better with love like my super worms, like when I'm feeding them and like changing their bins, like I really believe if is not done in that manner with love.

Like, it's just not the same.

They seem to grow better.

And like, I don't know it's weird, but I really do believe that - Coming out here, I was, I was expecting a lot of hostility and opposition because it's what I'd been told by the people in San Francisco.

But really everyone here doesn't want to get in your way and wants to make sure that you're being taken care of and have what you need.

- Good, how the worms doing?

- They're doing good.

- No gaps in production?

- The new worms look really awesome with all the new beetles you've added, they're really cool.

- Yeah they're great.

- They're starting to look like they did when I first started which is a really good sign - Great!

It's no hot.

No, I'm okay.

Yeah.

A little bit.

When I, when I was pregnant with the baby all the time, all the time Mucho Mucho, all the time Yeah.

Nothing was hot My little Mexican baby Well Yeah, what?

Yeah my husband?

Yeah Very much Well this my mother-in-law no English very well I know I should learn Spanish, but Right now.

English is hard enough.

- This job came in our life at a rough time and it pulled us out of a lot of darkness.

- No doubt.

- And so I think that's why it's really important to us to make sure it does good is because it did good for us.

- It was a turning point in my life to be responsible for something and be accountable for something and then do a good job.

- Because we do have a lot of things that are going on.

So sometimes we have to take a longer lunch to go deal with things or we have to do things or whatever and they're okay with it.

- And there's no other job that we would be able to get done in our personal lives, what we have to.

- Yeah like, have to, have to, not just want to.

- [crickets chirping] - [harp music] - ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [crickets chirping]