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| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
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| Cole Canyon Farms - more ChchchChanges | 31 Jul 2026 | 00:36:50 | |
Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farms. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company. 00:28 Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farms in Montana. Good afternoon, Morgan. How are you? Good afternoon. I am doing wonderful. I mean, it's 100 degrees here, but we haven't melted quite yet. Well, I'm glad you haven't melted. And in Minnesota, it is, I can tell you exactly what the temperature is because I'm sitting here holding my phone. 77 degrees right now feels like 77. Can I switch you? You come here and I'll go there. 00:56 No, I'm sorry. I can't do that because we had two weeks of dew points that were tropical and temperatures above 90. This break we've had has been beautiful. Yeah, I thought I moved up to Montana for it to not be Arizona weather, but here we are, 100 degree weather. I mean, it literally raises, you know, 10 degrees as you're watching it, you know, the time. So if it's seven o'clock in the morning, it's 70 degrees and outside 80 at eight. It's just wild. 01:25 em I'm shocked. I understand because I don't remember a time in my 30 years of living in Minnesota two weeks of that kind of heat and humidity. It's crazy. We've had high humidity here too, which is out of dorm, know, but it's destroyed crops out here. Hay is astronomical. can't even, I four times as much. I'm just like, all right, well. 01:53 I thought Montana grew a little bit better hay and wheat, we just haven't gotten the moisture. It's been really humid outside, but the rain is like coming later in the year. We normally don't get a lot of rain this month, but we have and it's way hotter than normal. Yeah, I don't like it. I would like things to go back to the night to 19. Honestly, if I'm being real, I'd like things to go back to 1985. You know, 02:21 I have heard that a few times that like the early 1980s to early 90s was like the time to be alive. I wasn't alive until 1994. So I missed that whole fun part. Yeah, I was like 15 or 16 in 1985 and I hated school, but I loved my life in general at that age. So it would be nice to revisit it. Yeah. You know, everyone said I was going to need all that, you know, all that school I was learning and like, well, I needed some of it, honestly. 02:50 wish I would have just started farming sooner. I understand why some kids would just drop out and go farm instead. Yes. And don't get me wrong. I loved my teachers. I loved learning. I didn't like the social aspect of it at all. Yeah, that's right. Because like I'm a social butterfly and over the years I've learned you're kind of a homebody hermit. like to be your space. I have been shy and quiet my whole entire life. I have been an extreme introvert and 03:18 I tell that to people in real life and they're like, no, you're not. And I'm like, you have no idea how hard I have to work to be social. You and my husband are scup from the same cloth. Let me guess your husband's a bubbly extrovert. He is most of the time. Yeah. See, that's funny. Opposites definitely attract. So he does your farmers markets, doesn't he? He's the one that goes and sets them up. Yes, he's very good at it. That's right. He was growing cabbage. How did that go? 03:45 That was our last podcast. talked about the cabbage and lettuce. it was. Yeah, it was cabbage. I think he's sold every single head of the cabbage he's taken so far this summer. See, it was smart of him to up his cabbage amount, but that's because you guys tracked your numbers and you knew what you guys were going to sell. We just started doing farmers markets and I've learned from what you guys told me. Well, you specifically, because I talked to you, not your husband. Well, you talked to him through me, but yes. 04:13 Yeah, of course, you know, and he he had tracked his numbers. So he went three times as many as that. Correct. I think so. Yeah. See, so I track my milk and I've been making goat cheese and I started making goat caramel also. And it's been helping. So this week I had to have like a break because of the extreme heat. get issues with the milk animals in general. 04:40 you know, cows or goats. They just have a really hard time with the heat. It kind of bogs down their immune system. It's also been really wet, which is like typical intestinal worm season. So we've just been kind of working through that and at a later time. So we had to take two weeks off and man, I felt it. I felt it in our wallet. I felt it. You know, I was like, I can't wait until you're back in milk. So I ended up buying a second milk goat just to try and keep up with the demand that were. 05:08 already having our first year at this Red Lodge Farmer's Market. Mm-hmm. So you said you're making caramel? Yes, it's called Kahita and it's a goat caramel. Yeah. It's so good. I sold out in my first 30 minutes when I took it to the first uh Red Lodge Farmer's Market. I was selling pints for 15. I'm going to up them to 20 just because supply and demand. It takes one whole gallon of milk, you know, to make six uh 05:38 I think they're half pints. Sorry, not full pints. They're half pints. it's it renders down really far. But I added in cinnamon sticks to the first half instead of adding an actual ground cinnamon this time. And I like figured out my own recipe. Like, know, you kind of take a base recipe, tweak it a few times. So this was my first time taking it out. And I did free samples and everyone who tried it bought a 06:07 bought a half pint of it. I even had two roommates and they were like, I'll fight you over it. They were going to just split it for their coffee. And they're like, no, I'll fight you over it. They were younger and they were real funny. So they ended up each buying a half pint and they wrote their names on them so they could keep them separate because it was so good. Uh huh. And the thing is not very, I mean, I am ruining this. Sorry. Let me try that again. That thing is Kehita or Kaheda, however you say it. Yeah. Is unusual. 06:35 not a lot of people make it. it is definitely a supply and demand thing. And I would pay $20 for a half pint of that because I'm only going to do it once a year and I'm going to enjoy it. And a lot of the people that go to this Red Lodge Market, it's a tourist town. So a lot of them are traveling. So a lot of the people, it's almost 06:59 I mean, there's a lot of normal farmers markets where they're not in tourist towns that I could go to, but my booth is $15 there. And so it's a very affordable booth and you constantly have a new crowd and every Saturday during the farmers market, they have some type of event that's either going on before it. have Zuma this weekend and a car show, or they're doing like something after like they did Shakespeare in the park last weekend or the weekend before that. 07:29 Like they do this really cool. If you look it up, you'll laugh. It's called the Iron Horse Rodeo out there. And it's a bunch of bikers that are doing the barrel racing and all those types of events, but on their motorcycle. So you get a new crowd every week and they have, they all have different things they're looking for. Or, you know, you're attracting a crowd that's maybe not used to some of the things that you're in the farmer's market doing. So having an item like I have, and also offering Chev. 07:56 um, which is just goat cheese. I didn't know that it's any type of goat cheese. I didn't realize that until after I started making it, um, was one of those things that it's a niche, not a lot of people are doing it. And so I had people showing up, you know, from an hour away just to buy goat cheese from me because it was closer than where I'm at in Laurel. So it's honestly opening up to a whole new 08:22 I guess you could say atmosphere of folks, right? Like I'm getting to see a different market every week. So I feel that tracking my numbers is really important. So I'm able to kind of watch all those different things, you know, because the Iron Horse rodeo, I didn't sell any goat cheese. I didn't have um a lot of the products that I had because my goat was taking a break, but I'm almost glad I didn't because of the fact that, you know, we... 08:50 I wouldn't have sold them. Nobody asked for them. I talked about them, but everyone was like, oh, goat cheese. There's this like weird stigma around Shev, around Kehita, um and goat milk in general. So it's one of those things. I mean, we've talked enough times about it. I'm very passionate about it. I'm very passionate about kind of breaking the stigma because goat milk is going to be something with the way hay prices are going that I think we're going to start seeing a lot more of because it's almost unattainable to raise a dairy cow. 09:20 Yes, I have talked to a few dairy people in the last few weeks and it is becoming impossible to get in to dairy work unless you are part of a dairy family right now. Correct. I've actually been looking at expanding into a dairy cow because I'd like to make my own cream cheese with goat milk, but it doesn't produce enough fat. It doesn't render enough. I actually went to my friend, so I want you to talk to her because it's really cool. She does dairy sheep. 09:51 Yes. The sheep milk is so good. was 40 % cream in it. 40%. Yeah. And it tasted just like goat milk. Like goat milk tastes just like cow milk. People are so shocked when I give them these analogies, but that's the reality of it is that it just tastes like milk, right? But I think we all have these weird stigmas about them. So I'm excited to hear that more people are looking in other ways to provide dairy for the community. 10:20 Because you are right. The fact is, is that if you're not already a part of a dairy family, it's really hard or you have to go buy these young bottle calves and you have to travel states like my friend Hannah Jones, who I encouraged her to talk to you also out here. She drove all the way to Oregon in the beginning of the spring and picked up these dairy calves and she got three heifers. She bought the whole group so she could get the heifers and she paid. 10:48 I don't know, $450 or something. I have no idea. But then she had a bottle feed them. So by the time this is said and done in these heifers or bread, they're going to be worth over, you know, her time alone, probably three or four grand, I would assume, with the way Hayes going before you even can breed them. And if she got them at that lower price, she made out like a bandit because they are so expensive right now. Well, and I think she got them that low because they went through an auction and they were bottle calves. 11:14 They're bottle dairy calves and a lot of people if you don't have dairy cows to feed the babies that you're bottling You know that you're feeding through the bottle. It's really expensive. So like I think since last time we talked did I had I gotten into full-size dairy goats? I Don't remember. I don't think so. don't think so. So I actually sold my whole herd of Nigerian dwarfs by the way Yes, yes all of them except for one princess Diane because she's just gonna live with me forever. She's my 11:43 She was a party goat. just, she's very sweet. I love her. And she's kind of goofy, right? So you always have one. 11:51 Yeah, she's your goat friend. Yeah, she's my goat friend. Like, literally, right? So I kept her around, but I bought bottle babies this year and I could not believe how much milk these little bottle goats drink. I was like, I almost need my own personal dairy cow just to feed these little guys. And it could have been justified because I had three gallons a day of goat milk that are the red cat milk that I was going through every single day. 12:20 gallons for like, I don't know, 10, 12 weeks of that. If you do the math, man, was definitely an eye-opener for bottle babies on goats and the cost of them and what really goes into it. How often do they have to be fed, Morgan? So it depends. You can go from, well, in the beginning, if they're on their dam, it's quite often, but most people will feed them three times a day. But bottle goats... 12:48 can get something called floppy kid syndrome because the ruminant kind of like cows. So you have to let them digest all of their milk. So I'd kind of look at them and see where they were at. Because we called it the milk zone. Like you do not want them to go into the milk zone. Milk zone means death is upon them because they're starting to curdle the milk in their stomach before like it's not emptying fully because they'll curdle it naturally. But they're not able to digest all of it before new milk goes on top of it. 13:15 which then means they're just making large amounts of essentially cheese in their stomach. So you typically feed them in the beginning three times a day unless they're hogs. So like my Lamatra boar crosses, which is a meat and dairy cross, um they eat a ton. And they were the ones that tried to go into the milk zone as we called it, because they're just hungry all the time. Now my other goats... 13:40 Some of them would eat, like my purebred Lomacha, some of them would eat three times a day religiously. Some of them would skip a meal during the day, in the beginning. That's the first like three weeks of their life. Then you wean them twice a day. And then if you're showing them, some people will keep them on a bottle all the way up until they're six months because you don't want going, you do not want them going through what they call the ugly stage where they become gangly, they go through the stress of being weaned, their body grows a bunch more because they're bringing in a different type of nutrition. 14:09 from grains and grasses and weeds. So it kind of just depends on whoever is kind of running their own system and it's going to be highly based off the goats. So kind of a loaded question. It depends on the goats and where they're at in the milk zone. So three times a day, ideally, some of them need it four times a day, smaller meals, but we just try to keep it to a solid three and we would give them cold milk because they won't drink too much cold milk to become in 14:38 like to go into the milk zone. It's so cold that it cools them down and they have to stop drinking it to be able to warm their body up. Therefore they're not going to over consume. So we learned that like two weeks into it to stop warming up their milk and it helped quite a bit. Good. Awesome. So, um, I want to jump in real quick and open up the discussion to, to shopping local for your produce and your meat because 15:06 You've been sick with something, a tummy bug. A of people I've been talking to have been sick with things. And I just heard on the news yesterday that there was a recall on eggs because of salmonella. And so I really want to encourage people to buy locally because a lot of the stuff that's happening is from the bigger producers. And if you're buying locally, you're not likely to run into as many problems. 15:37 Correct. Yeah, absolutely. So I've always been a big supporter of cottage farms, right? And that's something why I got into the Red Lodge Market was because there's a lot of bartering as producers that goes on. Like we bartered, you know, I've bartered for Native American jewelry. I've bartered for, you know, gluten-free bread while I've been there with my cheese products. And when you're shopping locally, even as a producer, because I know a lot of producers are listening to your podcast. 16:06 there's room for bartering, which as most of us know, bartering is the way of life when you're a farmer because we're all poor, we have no money, but we have a lot of items and things and goods and skills, right? And so as a producer, it benefited me to have the barter system that's right there at my fingertips. And when you're shopping locally, you're helping us as a producer to continue to do what we're doing because when your food chain is local to you, instead of it being 16:34 you know, a mass scale one like Walmart, if there's a trucking issue, which we've seen trucking issues, plenty of us, I know in Montana, we see it because of the weather, there's a gap in the community food chains, right? So you're depending on someone that's not local, therefore it's coming in, and it's not as good when it's a large scale also, such as we've seen with the lettuce issue that's going on. 16:56 You don't know your products as well, right? Like you're not hands-on, your family's normally not eating it. If you're a big producer, maybe they are, but I know a lot of those places, have heavy regulations. So a cottage farmer, it is gonna heavily depend on your guys' area and the laws in Montana, the Freedom Food Act made it to where producers could produce a lot of stuff and they just had to pay a fee and then submit their recipes. 17:24 So when you're buying from cottage farming markets specifically, you're able to get in season vegetables and fruits, which is really important because we stopped eating in season. And that's why you run into a lot of these issues. There's seasons where certain parasites flourish on certain products. And typically you're running into somebody that's going to be quality checking their own items. So we drink our own. 17:51 Right. I eat my own cheese. I eat my own caramel. I do all of that. So I'm always quality, you know, quality checking. To give you an example is if you're at a farmer's market, there's typically going to be somebody with milk products. There's a lady at our farmer's market and she always has the biggest line. She grows the best produce and she's able to sell it locally. Now it is going to be a little bit more expensive, but you're paying for a higher quality food that has had somebody. 18:20 that is actually tending to it. They're aware of the inputs and outputs. So there's a lot of strengths when you're going to be buying from a farmer's market. Not only is the money staying in your community directly, because people that are buying from the farmer's market, you're normally within a hundred mile radius. So your money then is gonna stay there because most cottage farmer producers are very... 18:44 I guess we're smart, right? Like in the sense that we're gonna find where can we find our fertilizer locally? Where can we find an alternative? What does it look like during this season for parasites or bugs that are gonna tear apart your lettuce or they're gonna tear apart corn specifically? And when you have that type of quality control, your product is typically going to be fresher. So instead of the tomatoes being shipped to Walmart and they're green, 19:14 and they're not even ripe, you're getting a red fresh tomato that has all the nutrition in it and is not gonna mold as quickly. Like, I don't know about you, but my strawberries, if I get it from a big box store, they mold within two days because there's no nutrition. I don't even buy strawberries from grocery stores anymore. I don't either. I refuse to because of that fact that it started molding. That's when I really started looking outwards because we, I mean, me and my husband are pretty... 19:43 well, educated in organic living soil, how plants are gonna fruit, where the nutrition is in the plant at that time, what is that gonna do for the product that you're getting and vice versa, right? So we've done kind of that. So when I started seeing the strawberries mold right away, because it's my son's favorite fruit, right? So it's something that he'll eat a whole canister of and when sitting, I was like, well, this is a problem because that means there's no nutrition for the mold to, know, for the organisms or the bacteria that's on it. 20:13 to eat that it's just molding right away because there's nothing in it. It's just, it looks like a strawberry, but they don't even taste like strawberries anymore. They just taste kind of fluffy, right? Like air. And so one of the things that I understood from that was that these are unripened strawberries that are being sent to us and it doesn't have the same nutrition value as if it was right on the vine. Yep. Exactly. The other thing is you were saying that uh a lot of the stuff at farmers markets might be a little bit more expensive. 20:43 How many times have you bought stuff at the grocery store and not even bothered to eat it because it wasn't very good and it just gets tossed? Oh, so many times. We just sold my son's pigs because he wants to move to a smaller one. And I'm so bummed because I don't have I don't have anything to help. You know, get rid of this waste. So now the waste is even more on my mind, right? Because I'm like, wow, I. 21:08 can't even really justify it if it goes bad right away. It still is upsetting to me, but I'm like, well, at least the pigs can get it. And then later on, the pigs would have fed us, right? But now there's nothing there. So now I'm even more attentive to this fact. So like I'm meal prepping so that I know what I need to get when I go to the farmer's market. And that's something that I'm encouraging people to do too, is that you have to... 21:32 You have to meal prep. There's more work that goes into buying from our farmers market, but the quality of products that you'll be getting is way higher. and if you're doing that, you're valuing what you're buying and you're going to eat it. Correct. Yeah. So there's a lot of there's a lot of love that goes into that plant. And I believe the energy is not lost despite anyone's religious belief or whatever. I just know the energy is not lost. It's been proven. Right. So if you 22:02 love these plants that you're taking care of the product that comes back from it is a lot better. I love my goat pearl. When I went away for two days, my husband had one hell of a time with her. Let me tell you, she did not want to let down her milk. She won't do all that. My husband loves her, right? That it wasn't a love issue in that it was that it was out of her routine. But when I'm there, she knows that I love her so much that she produces a lot more milk. And it you know, it's not that I'm doing anything different than my husband. 22:32 But I have that feminine touch. I'm going to sing to her. sing about how she's so great and she produces milk, right? And then I stroke her back just the right way because she doesn't like to be scritched with manhand. She wants, you know, gentle touches and stuff like that. And so that's where I believe that even applies with plants. They've done studies on talking negatively to a plant and what it does and talking positively to that plant and what that also does. Right. So. 22:59 At a farmer's market, you're not getting the same type of product. It's not just some worker, maybe even a migrant worker, because they work a lot of them, that is being treated poorly and below human standards because they don't make the same wages and all this stuff, right? Because corporation is about greed and money. Where at a farmer's market, you're dealing with someone's family and their income and typically they're the ones tending to it or their employees are highly valued because they're the backbone of that farm still running. 23:25 So you're just, getting a different quality of product all the way down to the energy that goes into it. Yes. And the other thing about this is that when our tomatoes start coming in, Morgan, please say a prayer or send a smoke signal or something that our tomato plants stay as good as they are right now. Cause we have a hundred and over 190. Wow. the garden and they've all set fruit. have all got tomatoes. That's so awesome. Like, wow. 23:56 when they start reddening up, my husband obviously will be selling them at the farmer's market. But the other, cool thing about this is if he sells out, he will be here on Sundays for people to just come and ask him to pick, you know, however many they need for candy. See, and that's, that's where it's at. Like that, making a community, being 24:23 Involved in your community when you have a community chain. That's really tight like a farmers market There's not months of delay for trucks coming in somebody can just go to the house because hey I don't I sold out on Saturday, but please come and like I think that you pick it is smart I brought that up a few times people are looking for things to do that Kind of get two birds stoned at one time right like they can take the kids there go pick some tomatoes and now they have fresh tomatoes because we all know 24:51 The economy is a little struggling right now. I mean, I'm not really into looking at the news and all that stuff and watching stuff, but I can feel it. Like my dollar doesn't go as far. So if I could go pick some tomatoes with my son, that is such a cool experience. And it's not something you get to do every day. Kind of like, you know, we still do the goat parties and we still do the events. And that's something that is valuable to people. want what they can't. 25:20 have at their own home. So many people are stuck in a rental situation. So if they can go out to your house and pick a tomato, man, that's a different, that's out of their norm, you know what I'm saying? So I find those kind of hands-on items very valuable to our community, almost more valuable than the actual food or item that it produces. Yeah, and I just, I'm so excited that people are going to be able to get a bunch of tomatoes and can them. 25:49 for the coming winter this year from us. Because we didn't have that last year or the year before because our tomato plants didn't do very well. Yeah, I remember that. you're like, we're not even sure if we're going to do them. I think we're going to give them one last crack and look at it. So I'll definitely send all the smoke signals and all the good juju your way on those tomatoes. We actually took the year off from planting just so we could get the milking. 26:14 essentially set up, right? Like I have all these babies for next year. I'm running two milk does this year. We're producing a gallon and a half with kids sharing on one of the goats that we just got. And that's something we didn't have last year. I mean, we had goat milk, but we weren't going to farmers markets. We weren't able to go to farmers markets because I didn't have the product. 26:39 Yup. it's just one of those things, you know, you just sit back. just had a moment where I was sitting back. I'm like, wow, we've actually like completed. mean, when I first talked to you, has it been three seasons now, I think? know, the end of August is the start of the fourth year. So three years in August. So yeah, I talked to you the first year, I think. Yeah. So you got to talk to us like from the ground up, right. And it was one of those things where 27:07 We, that was a goal of ours. So to know that before the five year mark, we've been able to hit every single little thing that we've wanted to do. It just, I mean, it takes in a lot. I don't know if I told you yet, or if you saw online, but we were voted number one and number two with both of the foreign names because Groovy Grazers is more about goats. Culcane and farms is more about farming, right? We're voting number one for kids, entertainer and educator. 27:34 of the year and it was people vote. So it wasn't like, you know, a committee that voted on us. It was the actual community that said we earn that. So it was really cool because that's what we want to be seen as. We want to be the educators. I think that if we can show people that your food chain doesn't have to be 20 links, it can be just two, you and the farmer. Yes, you're going to pay a little bit more. The product is going to be way better than what you're going to get out the big box store and 28:01 you're going to be supporting somebody in your community locally instead of corporate greed. Yes. Congratulations, my friend. Yeah, that was really exciting. Not expected. I just threw my name up there kind of as a joke, like, oh, all right, let's see what happens. And definitely wasn't expecting coal canine farms to be thrown in there. But I mean, it is what it is. was really cool to see my community really supported us and they support what we do. And it's because we're able to educate. 28:30 on what does food, like where does your food come from? What should it look like? And how can you go about getting it? I think a lot of people are really intimidated when they go to a big, go to a farmer's market, they don't know how to ask the right questions or they feel like, I don't know what to do, I'm not gonna go there. I don't know, a lot of people don't even know where the markets are or when they're happening. 28:55 And so I think if more people can start turning to these, I'm going to tell my friend about it. So people in general, when they experience something new, they tell three people about it, good or bad. It doesn't matter. I think I've talked about this with you before. So every person that comes out to your guys' house to come pick tomatoes, good or bad, they're going to tell three people. So that's three more chances you have at somebody coming to you that maybe most likely did not hear about you before. 29:22 Yeah, we had a lot of people three summers ago. Three, four. There were two summers we didn't have any tomatoes. So the summer before that, so it must have been four summers ago, we had people calling and asking if we had tomatoes. And then we did not have tomatoes at the farmer's markets last year and the year before, really. We had a couple, but not many. And people didn't call because they would say, you going to have any at the farm? And my husband would say, unfortunately. 29:51 no because of all the heavy rain we had in May and June. as long as you can get the word out whether you have a surplus or a deficit, it's great because we didn't have a bunch of people calling us last year and the year before and us having to basically want to cry every time we had to say no. because it's dollars that you're not receiving. because we're not helping. Because we're not helping. 30:20 More than money, it's just you're not helping. I mean, it's dollars that aren't helping you or helping them or helping the community because you're going to spend your money locally. So it just it's this huge gap in the community chain. You know, when people call me, hey, do you have milk? Oh, I'm out, you know, and it's like, well, man, that's one less person that's getting goat milk. That's one less, you know, that's three bales of uh small hay that I'm missing out on. 30:49 you know, that could be helping. it's just like, all right, it kind of helps you gauge though, where, what you need to do, right? Like I knew I needed to bring in a second milk dough this year on a whim. I was like, I gotta do it. I just have to do it because even one week down is 120 to $200 worth of milk products, right? And that's painful, but it's also more painful to me is that my community is not getting a product that they're asking for, right? 31:17 That means that they're going to have to go without this product. And even if it's caramel, that may seem a little over dramatic to some people, but some people can't have any cow product. Right. So that's one more person that's going to have to go out with, you know, without a joy of life of having caramel, which that caramel brings a lot of joy in my life and my husband's and anybody that's tried it to be real honest with you, it puts a big smile on somebody's face. And it feels good being on the receiving end of having someone 31:44 get your product and enjoy it and find joy in it, but then also too, being able to buy from other people. I have a lot of joy when I go in and I support other farmers at this farmers market, right? Or if I'm coming up to them and I'm like, I don't have any cash right now that I'm able to, because I got to make my hay bill, but I do for whatever reason have a surplus of this chef, can I trade you X thing? And I'll tell you nine times out of 10, they're excited because 32:13 It's one thing they're not having to spend money on. And if they take that piece of bread home, OK, well, then that's one more piece of bread they're going to consume that they already have. So it's really just an interesting way that money doesn't even play into farmers markets as much as people would think, as much as it just being the gratitude and being able to feed the community. Right. Money is great. Don't get me wrong. It makes the world spin. Sadly, I wish it would go away in some senses, other senses, not so much. 32:43 But it's being able to fill a need in the community directly that I think people need to take away from farmers markets. You're filling the need of the buyer or, you know, of the producer. And then they're feeling the need of you needing an item. So the way that works, it's just this, believe it, what is it called? Osmosis, where it transmutes back and forth equally. Symbiotic. Symbiotic. Thank you. I always say the wrong word for whatever reason, but that symbiotic like relationship. 33:14 is really more beneficial to your community. If your community makes more money, then they're able to do more things in the community. They're shopping more locally. They're going to invest in different projects around there. They're gonna invest in people that are around them. It's been proven that it helps your community. Every dollar you spend, one dollar is like $10 when you're spending it with a small producer. So that's a huge. 33:41 like benefit instead of spending $5 at Walmart and it really only being a dollar that comes back into the community. If I spend it with a local producer, that $5 then turns into 50 essentially with how they're going to use it and spend it and it's directly in my community. I am so glad that you are a proponent and a fan and an ag, ag, ag, can't say it, advocate for all of this because I'm right there with you, sister. 34:10 I know, yeah, it's been so exciting. What a season of growth. mean, we're still doing the damn thing, just like we always do, but it just changes. We just kind of, we see a need and we feel a need in our community. So instead of focusing so much on doing the agri tourism this year, and then gardening ourselves, we found that if we can fill this need with milk, it really is just, it's gonna help us in the long run farther. And that's sometimes hard, right, to give up my passion of gardening for our family. 34:40 to doing milk, I see the need is more with the milk and I'm able to barter the milk for the produce that I would be growing anyways. So I'm just helping out all around. It's a good feeling. And I encourage everyone like Google on Facebook or not Google, do the little search bar, like type in your city, type in farmer's market and see where it's at. I bet you there's a farmer's market, if not four or five that are going on every Saturday. It seems like more people, at least in Montana, are hosting farmer's markets. So I think... 35:09 I want to leave everyone on a challenge note up here, right? Cause I always tell people like your followers like, Hey, try something new. would like, I'd like for you guys to go to a farmer's market in the month of August, because that's when a lot of places are going to have the produce all around from Montana, all the way down to Florida and spend $10. That's all I'm asking. Spend $10 of your money in the community and watch how that producer feels at the end of that transaction. And then, then go home, enjoy your item and see how you feel after that $10 been spent. 35:38 And I would guarantee that it's a more satisfying feeling. And if you really like what you bought, go back next time and thank the person that made it or grew it. Absolutely. Yeah, I have people that come up to me, other producers, and they tell me how much they love my item. And it just makes me feel so good. Like, it's just a very positive atmosphere. So I'm super excited that you guys are doing well with the, you know, the cabbage and you guys have a bunch of tomatoes. So I can't wait to check back in in a few months and see where we're all at. 36:09 I think we're all going to be doing just fine. think the more local we live, the better off we will all be because you can't rely on your state or federal government right now. Rely on your local government and your local resources. Correct. And like uh some horse people will know her, but Trissa all 36:32 Trisha Aldridge, owns Audios Pantaloons, what a name, right? But he's a million plus dollars stud and what her Motivational Monday was is that no one's coming to save you, but also no one's coming to stop you. um
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| Zebulon Heritage Farm | 27 Jul 2026 | 00:30:47 | |
Today I'm talking with Ronel at Zebulon Heritage Farm. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company. 00:28 Today I'm talking with Ronel at Zebulon Heritage Farm in Tennessee. Good morning. Ronel, how are you? Good morning. Doing well. How about you? I'm good. Is it hotter than Hades in Tennessee this morning? It just about is. Yeah, I looked at the map that was on the news yesterday and the whole country was red. I was like, that doesn't happen very often. Mother Nature, what? 00:56 What got up your butt and irritated you? Because you're hot. There's something wrong. Right. It's been a hot month for sure. It's been hot month. It's been terrible. And like I said to my co-host on my other podcast, I have two. The other one is Grit and Grace in the Heartland. um I said to her the other day, I said, I'm trying to keep a really good attitude about this. 01:24 it's getting exceedingly more difficult with every day that the dew point is over 70 in Minnesota. That doesn't happen. Right. Cause that's a little different than here in the East where we have a lot of anyway. Yeah, absolutely. Minnesota is, is yes, close to a great lake, Lake Superior. It's right next to it. But last I knew great lakes weren't the same as ocean. 01:49 I grew up in Maine, so we had a lot of humidity in the summer in Maine. But you would not expect it to be this sticky. Well, I guess it is mid-July now, but usually we get the sticky in August. So it's been a bit much to swallow, Ronel. Let's just put it that way. I totally get it. I totally get it. Yes. So I would love for you to tell me a little bit about yourself and about what you do at Zebulon Heritage Farm. 02:19 Sure, sure. I guess, well, it's kind of a long story. mean, going back, I guess as a kid, I grew up on a homestead where we would bring you some bottle calves back then you could buy them for $5 from a dairy. And we milked some goats as a kid. I was never so fond of the goat milk though. So I guess later we got a family cow, I guess I was about 12. And my dad's like, here's a cow, milk her, take care of her, I want butter. 02:49 And then I milked the family cow for a lot of years. And I guess about 12 years ago, I decided at that point, I already had my own family. I decided I want to start a herd share. Some herd shares have been legal in Tennessee for quite a few years. So I added a second cow and then a third cow. And I guess over the past 12 years, it's just gradually grown and become 03:19 Well, full-time business. Very nice. So I know what A2A2 milk is. Is that what it's called? Right? Sure. Yes. But not all of my listeners will know. Can you explain what's special about A2A2 milk? Okay. So I guess there's a lot of different opinions, but I guess the short answer is it is the betacassin, which is the protein in the milk. 03:48 but I guess it's dependent on the cow's genetics. there are a lot of different variants. And I guess most people don't know that. Most people assume it's either A1 or A2, but there's actually a lot of different variants. And A2, A2, which is both markers are A2, is the desirable one. It is believed to be more digestible, associated with better health. And I do believe there's merit in that because I have more than one 04:18 hard to share member that has told me they had raw milk. mean, most of the time if people can't drink store milk, they can drink raw milk, right? Because it's more digestible, it's less processed. But I have a couple of share members who have told me that they reacted badly to raw milk that wasn't A2A2 and they are able to drink my A2A2 milk. So there is definitely something to it and it is definitely something that a lot of people 04:47 or after because it's associated with better digestion and better health. Thank you for explaining that because if I had attempted to explain that, I would have butchered it. It would not have been good. I was looking at your Facebook page and your website. Is it just jerseys that you milk or is it another breed as well? 05:08 Yes, we have only jerseys. I mean, we do have a beef herd too that we raise grass-red beef. But as for milking, we only have herded registered A2 jerseys. So it didn't start out that way. I just had some random jersey, you know, that I had no idea, you know, anything about her really, as far as this A2 registration goes. But I gradually, um I guess, built up to the registered herd. So I bought like one registered cow and then bred her and tested. I bred only two A2 bulls. 05:39 And the calves I tested and I got lucky in the sense that even though if I had 50 % chance, I ended up getting mostly A2 cuffers. So my herd became fully A2 very quickly. And then I just continued breeding to A2. So from there, we just went off with A2 cows. Okay. I'm going to say this for me. I would get nothing done if I had a herd of jerseys because I love their faces. 06:07 And all I want to do is hang out with them and kiss their noses and stroke their ears. They are so pretty. Sure. I'm biased too. mean, know every breed has their perks and they definitely have their place, but I'm biased too. mean, the jerseys are just super pretty and they're just so curious. mean, they just have personality and they can be different too. mean, some are definitely nicer than others, but generally speaking, they're just so like part of the family kind of temperament, know. 06:37 They always look like they're going to be really sweet. I'm not saying that every single Jersey cow is sweet, but they look like they're going to be very sweet critters. And they are. I mean, I think I've had ones with my kids were a little, it's like before I could stop them, you know, they would call them on the cow or crawl under the cow. I was like, Oh my goodness, you know, you shouldn't be doing this to a cow, but you know, this particular half-puff, she didn't care. Yeah. It's just that, um, you know, some of them are just really gentle. Some of them not so much. mean, most, most of ours are really. 07:06 well-behaved. I don't keep cows that aren't, but some are really friendly and they will be like upping your business. Yeah, yeah. I would love to meet your cows. I think that it's so fun. I don't have any cows. We don't have room. If we had room and I was about 20 years younger, we probably would have cows. Right. And I will say this to people starting out, cows are a digger. 07:33 You know, I never had any intention of having the amount of cows I have right now. It just kind of like every time a pepper was born, was like, I cannot sell her. You know, I have to keep her. And then I end up with, you know, 40 something calves. I'm going, okay, I got a problem. Well, if you're that smitten with the Jersey breed, you must be just absolutely beside yourself in love with the babies every time there's babies. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. They're just so cute. But I mean, they just look like a little deer. Yeah, I 08:02 I have a hard time every time I need to make a decision to keep one or not keep one, know. Yeah. Yep. And I can't believe that you remember when you could get a calf for $5. Do you know how much a calf is going for right now? Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I just sold one this morning. I mean, it's just a jersey bull. This one I sold, so they're not bringing as much, but the beef couch right now. Oh my goodness. They're, yeah, it's crazy what they're bringing right now. 08:28 Yeah, just a couple of years ago, I think you could still get a beef calf for like 50 bucks. Right. Right now. I heard the other day over a thousand dollars. Right. Nope. That's basically the heifers are going for a thousand and upwards. That's a hell of an investment. Right. Right. And I mean, haven't, you just a few years ago in the time that I was running a herd chair, if I sold an adult cow that was like 08:58 kind of a, you could say a call, you know, maybe when she wasn't breeding or whatever, but she was a nice, fat, healthy, otherwise cow. When you sold her, you would be getting like $200. I mean, I sold more than one that I got $200 for. And I'm like, those days are so gone. Yeah. And I'm really afraid that the days of owning cows and steers or bulls is coming to an end because I keep reading about how the 09:26 I'm going to say bovines. The bovine herds across the United States are shrinking because farmers can't afford to keep them. Right. Right. And that is a concern because it's so, mean, buying replacements. mean, initially it was like, you know, if a cow, if you didn't want a particular cow or there's something wrong with her, you just bought another, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't a big deal. But right now it's like, you have to, you know, you have to like take out a loan to buy. You know, they're so expensive, especially if you're trying to buy a nice one. 09:56 Yeah, it's hard to get started in the business right now if you don't already have cows because they're so expensive to get. Yeah, if you're not part of a family that is raising steers or dairy cows, trying to get in at 20 years old is almost impossible. Right, and I feel really bad because there are some people who want so badly to get into the business, but you know, it's so expensive to get started and then we're not even talking about everything else, farm regulating that. 10:25 farm related that is so expensive to get started. It's really tough. It's really it is. And it's really sad. like I said, my co-host and I talk about this all the time because she's a rancher in Nebraska. they raise steers for beef. They don't eat dairy. And she loves you dairy people. I swear she hugs every dairy farmer she meets. She loves you guys so much. 10:53 Well, we appreciate the beef farmers too. Like I said, I do have a beef herd too and it's been the same way with them. The prices are just crazy. Yep, and it's a lot of work and a lot of heart to put into it. So, um I know what a herd share is, but not all of my listeners do. And I want to preface this whole next line of conversation with the fact that Minnesota allows raw milk sales, but only on the farm. 11:22 Okay. They don't sell raw milk in stores here. It's illegal. So can you explain what a herd share is? Okay. So in 2009, herd shares became legal in Tennessee. So a herd share is basically um potential customers, you could say, or potential share members. um If they wanted to acquire raw milk, they needed to like buy a share of the herd or even the cows. So you can get a cow share too. So 11:52 they had to like put a deposit down or put like a payment down and buy the share of a cow. And that would like, um, allow them or entitle them to a portion of the milk. So I guess what it's basically comes down to is they're getting milk from their own cow, a cow that they own in part. And that way it's not like, I'm not selling raw milk. Um, I'm selling shares of herd and then people can get raw milk by buying shares of the herd. then they can get. 12:22 um a portion of milk that way. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, it does. It's kind of on the same idea as a time share, only you get better results. Yes, yes. And a lot of people do the shares because I think it helps the customers be a little more uh committed because they feel like they have a part in the herd. So it's not like... um 12:47 It's not like you're just buying milk this week and then not next week or whatever. You know, most of the share members, they um are committed to getting the milk on a consistent basis. Good, good, good. So, so I think I missed it when you're explaining this. Is, is raw milk illegal to buy in Tennessee unless you do it through a herd share? Um, yes and no. So I guess there's two ways that you can acquire raw milk in Tennessee, either through a herd share, which is what I do. 13:16 or you have to be licensed as a pet food seller. And then you have to get like a license through the state and then you can sell it labeled as pet food. mean, a lot of people do that even though it's not really their pets, you know, drinking it. I am my own. I am my own pet. I will drink the milk. Yes. Right. Which is a perfectly great way to, you know, sell raw milk too. But I personally chose the herd share model. Yeah. I found out last time we were in Maine. 13:44 or I grew up that raw milk is not illegal at all. The little general store down the road from where my parents live now, they sell raw milk in their coolers. oh And I was just like, wow, Maine is so progressive. Yay. Right. Right. And that is nice. Some states are definitely being much more um lenient than others. So that's really nice. 14:13 Yeah, I was surprised. I actually asked the cashier, I was like, how long ago did it become legal to sell raw milk at grocery stores? And she looked at me and the first question out of her mouth was, where are you from? said, well, technically Maine, I grew up here, but I live in Minnesota. And you should have seen her face grin from ear to ear. She was like, one of my friends is from Minnesota. She said, 14:40 I thought I picked up just the tiniest little cadence of Minnesota in your voice. was just so excited. She it up. That's fun. Yeah. And I said, I'm so confused that you picked that up because I try really hard not to sound like I'm from anywhere. She said, well, you don't sound like you're from Maine anymore. So check that off the list. I was like, uh-huh. Okay. Thank you. That's funny. So we had a whole long discussion about raw milk and that everybody loves it. 15:09 and that it's better for your stomach than pasteurized milk. It was a very interesting 15 minute conversation at the counter. That's great. That's great. So I want to hear a little bit about your beef cattle and then I want to hear about your class or whatever it was I read on your website. So tell me about your beef cattle. So I guess we have a small herd. I actually have a few of the last beef cows. have, Gary has. 15:38 Um, mostly Angus, Geltbee, um, the mixture of both, um, most people know Angus, but Geltbee is definitely a less, um, common breed. Um, if I had to sum up Geltbee, it would be like Angus, but it's a little bit bigger, um, than it looks a little different. So, um, the mix between the two seems to be a good combination. They are a little bit bigger. They grow fast like the Angus do, but they're a little bit more sized. And, uh 16:05 The mama cows have a lot of milk. So it seems to be a pretty good breed adapted for our area here. So we have heard of those and they just raise their calves. And we uh usually process the steers between like, you could say 20 to 24 months old um for grass-fed beef. And we have a customer base that we sell all that to. Either by the calf, the steer or whole steer. 16:35 Very nice. Thank you for doing that. That is, I feel like that's, I don't want to say harder than dairy, but it is right up there with dairy because there are so many regulations that go with beef. Right. mean, the day to day work is a lot less. Um, I feel like when there's an issue, it's harder to deal with. It's like, you know, a beef cow, you can't just walk up to her and say, okay, let's pick up your feet. Let me see what's going on with it. know? 17:04 You'd have to get her in the chute and she's fighting you. It's a little different. There's definitely more calving problems with the beef cows than with the jerseys. Jerseys tend to have no problems calving if you're breeding into a jersey. But the beef cows, especially the heifers, there's definitely more of struggle there. Sometimes they need help calving. So yeah, it's a different ballgame for sure. Yeah, I'm so impressed with everybody who raises the large animals. 17:32 We have chickens and we tried raising rabbits for a year that did not go well. Not every rabbit understands that they are supposed to screw like rabbits. Right. My daughter had rabbits at one point and there's definitely something to making them have babies for sure. Receptive, yeah. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes. And it's like the female, if she doesn't like the male, it's not happening. No, she has all the say as she should. 18:01 um But yeah, we have chickens, they're super easy as long as you have a coop and you have a source of food for them and a source of water for them. They do great. Rabbits are kind of touchy, finicky, fragile. And that's pretty much the only thing we've tried. And that's mostly because we don't have any land for big animals to graze. We have three acres, it would not work. uh 18:28 Well, chickens are a good start. mean, where we are chickens, the worst part of, or the worst struggle, I guess, with having chickens are the raccoons because we have a lot of raccoons. But besides that, chickens are, like they say, the gateway animal. You're getting with the chickens and then next thing you know, you want this and you want that too. Where's the goat? Where's the sheep? Where's the cow? Yeah, we have barn cats. We have a dog. We have chickens. I think we're full up on critters for where we can handle it. That's good. 18:57 But again, I have so much respect for people who raise large animals because you've got to be brave, I think. You've got to do a lot of research. You've got to be healthy and strong because just because those jerseys love you doesn't mean that they're going to move when you want them to move. So you got to kind of nudge them, right? Right. It's physically demanding. mean, there's definitely that. And there's, mean, it can be dangerous. I have not had the cow hold the jerseys hurt me. 19:27 not on purpose anyway. I sometimes they like, you know, knock it over by accident or whatever, but yeah, if you're dealing with large animals, some of you might get charged by the bull bull and that has happened. Ironically, it was my beak bull, not even my jersey bull, yeah, these things happen and they're hard to keep in. know, if they get out and you know, if a bull bull figures out he can walk through the fence, he's walking through the fence every time. So there's definitely challenges to it. There's definitely challenges and where we live, also have... 19:55 you know, a way out the boondocks. So finding a veterinarian to come out can also be a challenge. So that, guess that eventually just forced me to learn to do a lot of things myself. Which is probably good because then you don't have to pay the vet bills if you are skilled enough to do it yourself. True, Yes, yes. I mean, initially my hands were shaking, you know, if I needed to like set an ITV or something, because I had no idea what I was doing. But you know, after so many times you figure it out and you just know that, you know, this is you have to do because that's not available. 20:24 You know, a lot of times they're just not available. Yep. And sometimes, I've actually heard a couple stories like this, sometimes you may know something that the doesn't know because you learned it from somebody who learned it from their grandpa or their great grandpa a long time ago. Right. And that is another thing because I have a couple vets, but the one I have, I literally um felt that he had no experience with dairy cows. So if that had a problem, there was no 20:52 There was no use asking him because he didn't know. And it's not like I'm not shaming the vet, but he just had no experience with the dairy cows. He just had no idea. Absolutely. And that's kind of, this is going to sound funny. It's kind of fun that you have the skills to handle some of the things yourself. You must feel a great sense of pride in that. Well, it's taken blood, and tears in a lot of years, but I do, I do. And which is why I guess, um 21:22 I like to share that, you know, knowledge because I like to, I feel like it took me a lot of trouble and pain to learn it. And I would like to make that available to other people who want to learn so they don't have to learn the hard way and know the way I did. Which leads me to the last part of my question for you. I see on your Facebook description. says we also offer mentoring to family cow owners on school, S-K-O-O-L, at Homestead Family Cow. So tell me about that. 21:51 Sure, that's actually a little more recent. The school platform is actually a more recent venture. I've been mentoring, kind of like, cow people for, well, a lot of years. I guess for a lot of years. just like on Facebook groups or whatever, I would give advice if I could. But more recently, I started the platform on school. So that way, felt like if I'm making educational content, I can keep it all neatly in one spot. 22:20 so it's not like spread out over the internet. So that way I can make educational videos and put them all on the platform. And then if people want to join the platform, they can read through or listen through the videos and the educational material on there. And they can also ask questions and hopefully we will eventually be able to do like Q &A sessions to help people learning about family cows. 22:45 I guess back in the day, grandma and grandpa's, you a of people's grandparents knew these things, it's kind of disappeared for a while. But now there's a whole group of people or a whole bunch of people who is trying to get back into the family cow thing, but they're starting from scratch. So I think it would be great for them to have access to a lot of material where they can learn how to do it. Yes. And the school platform is fairly new, right? It's only been out for a year or so. 23:16 It's been a few years, I think. yes, it's not that old at all. Like I said, my group or my community school is pretty recent too. I just wanted something where I can put all my educational content in one spot and keep it easy to maintain. Well, thank you for doing that as well, because not everybody has the patience to teach. I don't. I'm terrible at it. I have a hard time with it. 23:41 That's why I chose to do a podcast because I know a little bit. I like talking about what I know. like talking with you guys about what you know. And then people just learn from the conversation. Right. Right. So if I wanted to find Homestead Family Cow on school, do I just go to school.com and type in Homestead Family Right. If you search it in the search bar, it should show right up. If you put in Homestead Family Cow, it should show right up in the search bar. And there's a picture with a banner. I guess it's my face with a cow. 24:10 So it should pop right up. Okay, I'll put the link in the show notes if I find it. If I can't find it for some reason, would you message it to me? Sure, sure. can definitely do that. I appreciate that. Oh yeah, I want to make it easy for people to find you because I know there's a lot of young people coming up or stepping into the role that their parents that have aged out or the grandparents that have aged out had. 24:40 and they're new. mean, if it's a family business, they may know a little bit, but I'm sure they don't know everything. Right. And most of the people that I have mentored over the year uh who are not coming out of a family business, they were coming in first generation, know, trying to get in and starting from scratch. Yeah. And it's so much easier when you have a mentor or a friend 25:07 Or I don't know, a complete stranger you met at the county fair. Sure. got talking and they were like, I can help. Right. I totally agree. mean, back when I started out, the internet didn't exist. You know, and I was like, we're getting books from the library and I made a lot of mistakes along the way. And I was also quite young, but I made a lot of mistakes along the way. like, I like to help people not, you know, make those mistakes. If I, if I had this information at, you know, at my fingertips, I would have changed a lot of things. 25:38 I always joke that if I had had access to the internet when I was 15, I would probably rule the world by now because I was a bookworm and a word nerd. Sure. Sure. And I spent a lot of time with my nose in books. Can you imagine me at 15 with access to Google? I would have been the biggest knowledge sponge on earth. I imagine that. Yeah, I look at my kids, my oldest daughter, I mean, my oldest kids are adults, but 26:07 I look at them and I'm like, oh my goodness, know, they just have a head start on knowledge, you know, and just this information that I had, you know, from an encyclopedia. Oh, yes. And I'm going to step out on a limb here that I don't know if I'm supposed to step out on, but I'm going to do it anyway. I was talking to my daughter the other day. She's 36. She's married and her husband is into guns and he likes to go to the range and target practice. And he's very curious about all the different kinds of guns. 26:38 And she has learned to shoot with him. And she called me, she called me the other day and she said, I got a question. And I said, what is it? And she said, what do you think of this idea? And she said, you know how women aren't necessarily brought up to handle firearms? And I said, well, they didn't used to be. I said there, there are more now. And she said, well, she said, I've been learning a lot over the last couple of years. And I said, yes. She said, 27:08 I have a TikTok account and I was like, yes. She said, I think I want to do some, some TikToks about gun safety and gun culture and gun stuff as it were. Sure. And, and my daughter is gorgeous. She's five foot nine. She has the most beautiful face and she just is so passionate about helping people. Sure. So, so she said, 27:34 She said, do you think that people would want to watch these TikTok videos if I do them? I said, well, you'll probably know within five TikTok posts, whether people are interested or not. So she's talking about doing that. And that's, you know, it's a little aside. Yeah. think it's great. I think that's great. It's a little aside from my topic on my podcast here, but 28:01 I think that women especially these days have so many avenues open to them to either teach or have a career that they love that they can just throw their whole selves into compared to how it used to be. Sure. And I think that's great that we have these opportunities, you know, and it's that's her passion and teaching people about, you know, gun safety. think that's great because 28:27 For a lot of people, they don't know anything about safety and that just makes it more dangerous than it should be. And if that's her passion and she can teach about it, I think that's great. think sharing our passion is really, I mean, that gives meaning to the life, right? And I guess that's why I do what I do. I not only love my dairy cows and I love milking, but I also love sharing about them and teaching about them. Yes, absolutely. 28:56 I am so glad that you do and I'm going to die on this hill. Without people like you, the industry might die and we don't want the industry to die if we like drinking milk and we like eating burgers and steaks. Right, right. And I'm grateful for the people I learned from, you know, because we all need someone to teach us some things. And I am grateful for the people I learned from and I hope to pass that forward. 29:25 Good. Please keep doing it and do me a favor. Smooch those cows for me because I don't know anybody with jerseys right now. Most certainly I will. All right. So where can people find you? um As in online or as... Okay. So I mean, besides for my Facebook page, which is Zebulon Heritage Farm, I also have a website, which is EvalonHeritageFarm.com. 29:55 I guess my farm is listed on multiple raw milk, I guess databases or places where you find raw milk. So the farm is listed in multiple places there too. And then like I said, my school uh community, which is Homestead Family Cow, that is for learning about family cows that is on the school platform. Fantastic. Ronel, I so appreciate your time. 30:24 And I say this to everybody who takes the time to talk to me. I know you guys are busy. You are being productive. You are helping in the world. So thank you for sharing your time with me and my audience. Sure, no problem. Thank you so much for having me here. I enjoyed talking to you. Good. As always, people can find me at AtinyHomesteadPodcast.com. Ronel, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you. You too,
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| Ryan’s Yak Farm | 03 Jul 2026 | 00:35:52 | |
Today I'm talking with Cody at Ryan’s Yak Farm. You can also follow on Facebook. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 I'm listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Cody at Ryan's Yak Farm in New York. Good morning, Cody. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. Where in New York are you and how is the weather? Are you part of the heat bubble that's going on? We are definitely part of the heat bubble. We are in Oxford, New York. 00:29 upstate New York. 00:34 It's a hot, hot, hot day, a hot week. Yeah. Yup. It sure is. um Upstate New York is all the way across New York. what are you, are you West or middle or East upstate? I'm going to say like East. Okay. I'm not really good with demographics. So that's okay. Don't worry about it. 01:02 My parents live in Maine, my husband and I have made the road trip from Minnesota to Maine a couple of times in 20 years we've been together. And we always drive the Northern route in New York and then we drop down to get down to Albany. And it is so beautiful. The grape arbors and I don't even know what else. 01:32 all the rivers that go along the highway and oh my God, coming into Albany, you go basically up a slight incline and then you get to the top of that incline and the whole valley drops out underneath you and all you can see is mountains and trees. So pretty, isn't it? Oh my God. The first time I took my youngest, we took our youngest with us to visit my parents. We came up over that, that hill and the valley dropped out. 02:01 And he's looking from the back seat and I hear this big gasp and he says, he says, mom, can I say a swear word? And I was like, yes. And he said, holy shit, it's so beautiful. How funny. And I'm crying. hadn't been home in years. It is so pretty out here though. Yeah. And he was like, why are you crying? And I was like, you know how you felt like you needed to say a big word you're not allowed to say? He says, yeah. And I said, 02:30 These are the big feelings that I feel like I'm not allowed to feel anymore. uh 02:38 Maine's so pretty too. Oh, it is. It's beautiful. Basically, basically we would hit Pennsylvania and I would be like, ah, I'm back in the land of trees. Yes. You know, cause I mean, Minnesota has trees, but it's very much Northern Minnesota that is like Maine. And so for me to feel like I'm quote unquote home ish. Yeah. I have to drive like five hours to get far enough North to be like, Oh, pine trees, many, many pine trees again. So it's. 03:08 It's hard, but I also love Minnesota. I've been here for over 30 years. I always have to say that because when I first moved here, I moved here kicking and screaming. Oh, really? Did not want to leave Maine. Yeah. And then after about 15, 20 years in Minnesota, I was like, you know, it really is nice here, too. I kind of love it. so I always have to reiterate that I love where I live. I have had the chance twice to move back and I have chosen to not leave. So I do love it here. 03:37 I love Minnesota. It is my second favorite home. So anyway, can you please tell me a little bit about what you do and a little bit about yourself? So I am a teacher during the day. I teach a barbering program at DCMO Boces. It's a career and technical school. It's not part of the cosmetology program. It's totally different. 04:06 the barber side of things. um I also work at a barbershop after I leave school. I go to the barbershop until like seven o'clock at night and then I'm finally able to come home for the farm. And then I'm on weekends. My family does a lot during the week for the farm while I'm not here. Weekends are my time to... 04:33 do everything I want to get done on the farm, spend time with the animals. I didn't grow up on a farm. I married into a farm, here 17 years. We've always had beef. This was my husband's dairy farm. Their family has owned this farm since 1906 and then my husband bought into it. 04:59 There was originally over 428 acres, but it got eventually sold off. And then my husband bought the farm. So, um, I've got three children, 16 year old, 14 year old, and a 12 year old. And we live here on the farm and now, now we're yak farmers. I am so excited to find out about yaks, Cody. I haven't talked about haven't. 05:27 talked to anyone about yaks yet in over two and a half years of doing this podcast. So, they're so good. They're so awesome. Yes. So tell me the different animals you have and then we'll narrow it down to my questions about yaks. What else do you have besides yaks? I have three baby Dalshi, four goats. They're like mixed mixed goats. I've got a Gnubian and Oberhalsi and some Nigerian Dwarfs. um 05:58 I've got, I think. 06:03 13 cooney cooney pegs. Okay. I have a mule and a horse um I Think that's it we did have these but I lost the hive over the wintertime. So I didn't get bees this year. I was too late That happens. Mm-hmm It's it's a very rewarding job to keep bees, but oh definitely It's also heartbreaking when you lose a hive because it takes a lot to get that 06:33 Worked up. Yes, and they're so expensive. Yeah, so to lose that My first year was that was that was rough, but I do plan on getting back into it. But good good I hope that you do because you already have this setup you might yes and the thing that's expensive about keeping bees is the beginning year as you discovered yes Definitely getting all this stuff that you need is definitely expensive 07:01 Yeah, all the supplies. I it's going to sound terrible, but I'm going to say it anyway. If you are someone who is buying more than an acre of land to get into homesteading and you think you need to make a choice between bees and chickens, chickens are actually cheaper to get. Oh, 100%. Yes. But if you're obsessed with honeybees and you really want to do the work and you want to lay the money out so you can have go for it because it's just as rewarding. 07:30 It is and it's so delicious. Oh my goodness. Yeah. We, um, we have not been doing a lot of honey lately because honey is very expensive at the store or through someone who is raising bees. Right. miss it. I really miss honey. Oh, it is so good. I don't, I've never liked honey either. And then I got my own bees and started doing it and started like separating the honey from the honeycomb and all that. And 08:00 got on my fingers and then I tasted it. was like, holy moly, this is so good. It's so different. m And we were getting our honey from Sam's Club. Okay. And we know someone who has bees and we haven't been up to see him in a couple of years. He has an apple orchard and of course has bees. Yep. And he sells his honey every fall and we haven't gotten honey from him in a couple of years. The difference between his honey and the 08:30 the real honey at Sam's Club, the difference in taste is, I would say, half again is good. His is half again is good. And we were lucky enough to get some of the honey he got one year from his bees. They had found a patch of wild mint. So the honey had a minty taste. It was fabulous. I bet it was. Oh, was so good. 08:58 I don't think he's had that kind since. They haven't gone back to the mint patch. ah I love that though, the mint patch. Yeah, I teased him. said, you should charge double for this mint. Yeah. Like I can't do that. That's not, I can't do that just because we locked into mint. I said, of course you can. You're the one that sets your prices. He's like, Mary, I'm not going to do that. I'm like, okay. 09:26 We're all going to benefit from your smart bees." And he was just laughing. I said, if you can find, I don't know, a tree that makes a strawberry flavor besides strawberries, strawberries that flavored honey would be really Oh, yeah. He said, you know that's not how it works, right? And I was like, yes, I know that's not how it works. Yes, I do. But it would be good. Yeah, strawberries, honey, that would be amazing. 09:55 Okay, so I didn't know that you had kept bees. I hope that you get back into it. Sounds like you really enjoyed it. So tell me about yaks. The thing in my head about yaks is that they are from Siberia or somewhere really cold and that the natives would milk them so that they had a source of milk. That's all I Yes, they did do that. They were from the Tibetan mountains, Himalayas. 10:25 They're just magnificent animals. They're big. I mean, they've got a lot of power on their backs, their necks. They use their horns over in the mountains to move rocks out of their way. But other than that, I'm still learning about yaks. This wasn't anything that we... 10:48 research before getting it just kind of fell in our lap and then I'm still researching so I know how to 10:59 Keep everyone happy, everyone healthy. I'm still in that process of learning because we just got yaks last year. 11:08 Oh, so this is new. Oh, this is so new. very new. OK, then let me ask you some specific questions because it would probably be easier for you. How many do you have? I have 12. And have you had have you had any baby yaks? Yes, we have had two yaks born on here at the farm. This year we lost one of the baby yaks. That was a really tough time. 11:37 We've tried everything to help her and save her, but she had some kind of a rumen issue in her stomach and she just wasn't growing and it was awful. But we have another little baby yak. Hopefully four more are born this year. ah So we have little Ivy. She's so sweet. 12:03 So yeah. So do you have like more than one male Yak or do you have males? Nope, we have a couple of males. um We have Jack. So Jack is who started all of this. um 12:20 Nothing. I didn't know anything about Yaks. Nothing. I didn't even know what a Yak was. And my husband went over to his uncle's farm who was housing Jack. 12:36 He was housing him because there was a case going on, an animal abuse case. And Jack was one of those animal victims that needed a spot to go. And my husband said, for the love of God, don't tell Cody that there's a yak that needs a home. Don't say anything to her. And then my husband comes home and he walks through the door and he looks at me, he's like, you want a yak? And I'm like, what is a yak? I don't even know what a yak is. 13:04 And I'm Googling it and looking it up and I saw a picture of him and I smiled at my husband. I'm like, yeah, I want to yak. So that's how we got Jack is we adopted him through the SPCA. ASA SPCA. adopted him. And then when I was doing research, he was previously left with cows. So he's. 13:32 We had cows here, but we kept them separate. But doing some research, they're herd animals. we got... 13:42 Um, I gotta think how many more we got since Jack. 13:52 Nine. We bought more Yaks. So this all started in March of last year. So not, not long ago. no. All right. I pulled up, I typed in Yak in Google cause I wanted to see a picture of one. And what it's, and what I, what I saw in my head here is that it looks like a cross between a 14:21 beef cattle animal and a buffalo. And it's funny because the taxonomy it says, it says belonging to the genus boss, BOS, yaks are related to cattle and bison. Yes. Go fig. They're part of the bovine. Yep. And the one they're showing is a dark one with the horns that curl up and he has like a heart shaped white spot between the horns. 14:49 kind of like what Jack looks like. He's black and has like a white patch and Ivy has the same markings as her dad. Nice. Okay, so in looking at this picture, they have very long hair or are there short haired? So Jack is, his upper body is short haired. 15:13 And then he's got a long skirt. The skirt and the Himalayas would protect the underneath during the super, super cold weather. I've got some woolies, so they're very shaggy and... 15:28 Alls I can think of is like a perm. You know, like my one bowl has a very curly top on his head. But they do come in a little bit of both. Okay. So does this, can the skirt hair be used for clothing? Like light sheep bowl is used for clothing? I don't, not a hundred percent sure, but I don't think so only because that's more of like a hair, their fiber. 15:59 We get the Ariaks fiber from their top half, like underneath their regular hair. Like it's, I don't know if I'm explaining that right, but it's so soft, so, so soft. I want to say it's probably just as soft, if not more than alpaca. So like an undercoat, like a dog? Okay. Yep. 16:23 And how is a yak's temperament? I mean, I'm assuming it depends on the animal. It depends on the owner, but... depends on the animal. general? I am currently yaks four, Cody zero. Oh, no. Yeah, it's not like they're trying to hurt me. I get in their space and they just move their head and I happen to be in that pathway. Jack is the sweetest yak that we got. 16:53 You could go in there, pet him, do whatever you want. He loves treats. em Some of them they want, they'll come up to you and take a treat, but they don't want to be pet. 17:04 Which is fine, but they're not aggressive animals by any means. Like I said, even though I'm four and zero, it's not out of aggressiveness that they're getting me. It's because I'm just being careless in their area. I'm too comfortable in their area, which I shouldn't be because they are intact bulls. They are a huge animal. I should always have my guard up, but I'm like, oh, they're so sweet. And I just love them. And I just want to be in there and pet them. 17:33 give them all the treats and there's times they don't want that. Please be careful, Cody. would like you to survive your love of Jack's. They are amazing. I do love them so much, especially Jack. He's just to know what he's been through. And I say this all the time on our page. I don't think we rescued Jack. We might have helped him, but 18:03 in a way like he saved us, he rescued us. I didn't realize that we needed to have the farm open. um We're open to the public and I never thought I wanted people at my place. I'm kind of private person, but now having Jack in our Yak page and open to the public, mean, everyone comes here and is able to brush Jack. 18:32 See all the other animals that we have and I absolutely love I didn't know I needed that in my life Yeah, it's funny how animals come into your life and you just your heart just bursts open you had No clue that number one you needed them and number two that you would love them as much as you do. Yep Yeah, we have a dog like that and I'm not gonna spend 20 minutes on her. I swear to God 19:00 She's my favorite pet I've ever had. Her name is Maggie. She's an Australian Shepherd. She's going to be six, the first of August. And I have fallen so far over the love cliff with this dog. It's ridiculous. And I said to my husband the other day, I said, don't think I want another dog after Maggie is no longer with us. And he said, why? And I said, because I don't think I can do it again. I don't think I have. 19:27 the capacity to fall in love like that again and watch the animal live out of life and I'm still alive when it dies. I can do it. Now that is one of definitely the hardest parts is losing a dog or anything, Cattle. mean, we lost Ivy or we lost Hazel and I was devastated. Yeah, it's. 19:52 I keep saying that grief is not about regret about the death. It's about regret over the potential of the thing that died. It seems like you're grieving the life they lived, but you're actually grieving the life they didn't get to continue to live. And I didn't realize that until a few years ago and my whole perspective shifted. And I was like, 20:23 Oh, duh. If I'm grieving the life that they didn't get to continue, maybe we make the life we're living better while we're here. Right. And that's probably what you think about the acts. probably have to make your life so much richer. Oh, definitely. I I love teaching to begin with. So when people come here and we can educate them with what knowledge that we do have and what we're still learning. 20:49 Just seeing people interact with the yaks or any of the animals we have here, I just love it. I think it's amazing to see Craig go, my husband Craig go up in the pasture with the yaks with a bucket and just have them all follow him and then see people's expressions when you see these massive animals either running behind him or walking behind him in a single line. 21:18 people's reactions is priceless. love it. I think there's so magnificent that people need to see them. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So how big do they get? I mean, how tall are they at the shoulder? Jack is 21:42 How tall are you? I'm 5'4". So, I mean, Jack's head comes up to my head. Okay. So their shoulders probably about five foot, maybe four foot 10. Maybe. Okay. So they're not super tall. No, not at all. Not super tall, just beefy um and powerful. Yeah. How much do they weigh, eh 22:13 Maybe 1200 to 1500 pounds. Yeah. So about the size of a cow. Yeah. Yep. 22:22 But short, but a short cow. But shorter, their legs are shorter, they've got that skirt, they've got the massive horns. um 22:34 Yeah, mean, just the muscle mass that they have is crazy. The power that they used in the Himalayas to move things and tread through all that snow is mind blowing. Yes, they're super amazingly strong and powerful animals. um I'm sure you don't want to eat your yaks, but I'm guessing that people eat yak meat like they eat beef. They do. They do. So that's one of the things that 23:04 We do plan on doing with our, if we get too many bulls when we start calving, that's probably gonna be some of the pathway that we lead to is just ethical breeding, but making sure that we utilize all of our animal. My one bull that I have, he's about three years old and he's supposed to be processed. 23:29 but I can't find anybody in this area that will butcher a yak because of the horns. Really? Yeah. They can't fit in the squeeze chute that they need, I guess, to be USDA. I can't. And I made sure that we bought some from the people that we got yaks from. They had some meat there and we bought some and it was delicious. It's so lean. It's so good for you. Yeah. Higher in the omega fats. 23:59 It's just, it was amazing. You just gotta eat it a little bit. 24:04 Rare, not rare, but. 24:08 medium rare, just so it's still juicy. But um that was our plan, but we still have Danny and he was originally our first yak to process and I can't find anybody that doesn't want to cut the horns off first. And I'm not doing that. I'm not, that's not anything that I'm interested in is putting my animal through any kind of stress before that because 24:37 I love them and I value them and I appreciate his time here and his purpose for us, but I'm not putting my animal through any kind of stress like that. Yeah. And I'm assuming that New York has laws just like Minnesota has laws, just like every state has laws. Yep. That you can't dispatch him on your property and then take him to the budget. No, and not to do USDA so we could sell. Yeah. 25:06 So, no. Huh. Well, that's an interesting problem. And I've called everybody. And as soon as they're like, yack, nope. Like, oh my goodness. I'm so confused because there's longhorn cat. Yeah, I even called a longhorn butcher. And I said, will you butcher a yak? He goes, nope. I'm like, why? Just won't do it. That is so weird. 25:35 guess it's meant to happen. know, Danny's meant to be here. So sure. But do the female cats have horns too? Yep. Well, the boys just have thicker. There's are a lot thicker, um longer. I think Danny's probably three and a half to four feet across with his horns. um The girls aren't as big, but they do have them. 26:06 The reason for not doing the females was to grow our herd. Oh, yes, of course. But I was just thinking that. definitely. For sure. We could. Yeah. As the females get older and aren't going to produce babies anymore. And it takes a long time to grow them too. Yeah. About three years to grow a yak to be from what we were told from the people that we got them from to be butcher size. OK. Because they grow slower. 26:36 Yeah. And it takes about two years for a cow. So that doesn't surprise me that it takes a little bit longer for a They're mostly grass fed. just it's more lean, but we do do a little bit of grain. Yeah. And now it's off of pellets. I'm just astounded that they won't butcher. They won't dispatch and butcher a yak. Yeah, no. I can't find anybody. 27:03 I was willing to travel to PA. I was willing to travel wherever just so we could start our meat production here. That's what we got the cooney cooney pigs for is meat production and breeding. 27:18 They also take a really long time to grow. my first one goes on the 28th of this month. I'm kind of really sad. They're so sweet. Yeah. Friends of ours got a couple of pigs a couple of, two years ago, I think, and they butchered at least one of them last fall. 27:42 She was concerned that she would be really sad too and she hasn't said anything about being really sad about it. No. I think it went okay. I think this pig will do okay because I knew his purpose this whole time but the babies, we just got seven more on Monday. And there's two that I have, one that looks like Chewbacca and just one that was a runt that we bought. I don't think I could let those two go. 28:12 They're going to be friends for life. They're going to be friends forever. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're just so sweet. Um, well, I'm still puzzling over the whole not butchering yaks. So if anybody is listening and knows anyone who does butcher yaks, please let me know or let Cody know. can email me and you can, assume I'll, I can, I'll put your Facebook page link. Yeah. 28:41 in the show notes when this comes out so people can get a hold of you. Definitely let me know, especially if you're in upstate New York. Yeah, or I'm trying to think. I don't know if I don't know how this works. What happens if somebody in Canada will do it and you drive your yak to Canada to be butchered and then it comes back? I have no idea. I don't know. Do I have to cross customs? 29:08 I don't know. think so. I wonder if that's a thing probably. I bet it would cost a ton of money. So maybe that's not even possible. But I'm trying to think of what's before New York because I'm looking at the map in my head and it's a little hazy. What is the state west of New York? Ohio? Yeah, it's down a little bit. But yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe Ohio. 29:33 Maybe Illinois, maybe freaking Kentucky. I don't know. even reached out to the, um, we follow this group on Facebook, um, the bearded butchers. They're in Ohio. I absolutely love them. And then I even reached out to them, but I didn't hear anything back. That would have been amazing. This is craziness. Yeah. I'm so sorry that you're having such a hard time with them. Oh, that's okay. I mean, just. 30:01 longer that we get to have Danny here and people get to see how amazing he is and how beautiful he is. Well, I love that you guys are doing this because yaks and reindeer are two of the animals that most people don't think of when they think of people who have farms or homesteads and ranches. And my other podcast, Grit and Grace in the Heartland with my co-host Leah, she's a cattle rancher. 30:29 And I interviewed a lady who raises reindeer with her dad. And Leah had her cattleman husband listen to that episode. And her cattleman husband said, $20,000 for a reindeer? One? That was what stuck out to him from the interview. That's too funny. Yeah. So how much does a yak usually cost, It depends on their temperament. 30:57 The place that we went to, there was a couple, but I think they did this price, there was $18,000. And I think they set it that high because they don't want to get rid of it. But I would say typically between three to $5,000 is normal. Especially with temperament, if they're super sweet, you can get more money because instead of like a wild one. 31:27 um We just got some, just got two new Yaks, Aspen and Ridge on Saturday. 31:39 They're the sweetest things. So sweet. So we have the vet coming out today to do a health check on them and then the babies to get them ready because we got invited to go to the Schenango County Fair this year. Oh, fun. Yeah. Not to be in with the dairy, the bee for anything. Like we won't be in their exhibits, but we'll have our own little tent and set up for our yaks. I think I'm going to bring three or four of them. 32:09 So the vet comes up today and we do checks and. 32:15 Get everyone all ready for the fair in August and it should be a good time. That's exciting. And the fact that they're not putting them with the other cloven-hoved animals leads me to think that they think that they are, there's a word and I had it before I started talking about it, exotic. Yes. Oh, for sure. For sure. Your special, Koda, you have exotic animals. Yes. 32:44 So exotic that insurance. Let me tell you, it was rough getting insurance because of the exotic animals. Yeah. So do you have to have like a special permit to own them? No. No permit. Okay. Cool. Which is weird. That's good though, because permitting can be really expensive too. Yep. No permits. Just have them here. 33:13 And I know this is new for you, but are there a lot of people in the United States that have yaks or is it a very unusual animal? There's a few in New York that I know of that I've gotten mine from. um I probably can think of four yaks. 33:38 Yak Farms. In New York alone. In New York. Yep. And people have been reaching out about buying some and I just, I don't have. 33:51 the amount yet to be able to grow our herd and we'll see with how many babies we have. Yeah. So. Oh, that's another question. With cows, if they have twins and they're male, female twins, the female typically isn't capable of reproducing. Right. She's called a free Martin. Do yaks have the same issue? That I'm not sure. You might want to check into it. 34:18 I do think that having twins is very rare for them, but they do have them. that part I don't know yet. Well, I'm glad I had the chance to talk to you so I could bring it up because now that we're Leah goes through that sometimes. Does she? They don't know whether the female is going to be able to have babies or not in that situation. And so she usually goes to auction and becomes hamburger or whatever because they can't 34:47 keep an animal that isn't earning its keep. Right, exactly. Yeah. So put it on the list, ma'am, to check and see about the free Martin situation with the eggs. Definitely. Try to help every chance I can, because I know just enough to be dangerous. And when I actually think that might be important, I'm like, hey, have you thought about this yet? No, that's good to think about. I try to keep these to half an hour. We're at 35 minutes, Cody. 35:14 Thank you so much for having me. Where can people find you? At Ryan's Yak Farm on Facebook. And if you go to the website, it's Ryan's Yak Farms with an S at the end of farms.com. Awesome. Thank you so much. No, thank you. I really appreciate it. As always, people can find me at Atty. Homestead podcast.com. Cody, thank you again. Love you. Thank you. 35:42 And I learned so many cool things today about an animal that I knew like two things about. So it was awesome. Have a great day. Thank you. You too.
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| Homesteading-ish 2025 | 03 Sep 2025 | 00:30:11 | |
Today I'm talking with Dawn at Homesteading-ish. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. 00:11 Today I'm talking with Dawn at Homesteading-ish in West Virginia. Good afternoon, Dawn. How are you? Great. It's nice to be here. Oh, thank you for being here. I appreciate it. So you are not the, I don't know, founder of Homesteading-ish. You are part of Homesteading-ish. So tell me what Homesteading-ish is. uh 00:39 um So I'm actually one of the organizers for the event. There are a couple of us that got together and decided that we wanted to bring something different to our community and trying to help people establish a homestead, know what to do, kind of help them build those foundational skills that they need in order to live off the land or be more sustainable, to work on things that they would like to do to help support their family, providing 01:08 food or um whatever other things they might need in order to make their homestead work. So we put our heads together and kind of decided that we would go this route by bringing some non-traditional resources to the table and bringing people from not just the talking head and university world but from real life experience to the table that could have an influence over how people view homesteading and small farm life. um So 01:37 That's how it was kind of born. uh it last year was our first year. It was a fantastic event. We had a great turnout. And one of the things we love the most is that we really wanted to bring a more intimate environment. Um, we were able to really bring people together, let them talk with one another, meet one-on-one, actually have real life conversations in real time with people that are living a lifestyle that they are seeking to be better at. So we were able to do that. 02:08 oh This year, I hope we're going to be able to bring that same kind of intimate atmosphere, the same kind of energy, the same kind of feeling to the table where people are really going to get to get into the bones of what they're doing and why they want to do it and how they can accomplish all of their goals. Awesome. And when you're referring to last year, last year was the inaugural conference for Homosteading-ish. 02:33 It was, it was our very first one. So we were excited that it was so well received to be able to bring it back again a second year. Okay. So when I, when I interviewed Troy last year, cause Troy is the one that, that kind of kicked this all off from what I've been told. He was just getting ready for the first conference and he was very, very, very excited and a little bit nervous. I am not sure that. 03:01 I'm not sure that he really knew what he got himself into, number one, and how it was going to go, number two. That's kind of what was coming through. And so how did last year go? it, was it well received? Were there a lot of attendees, that kind of thing? So we were all a little bit nervous last year, not really knowing what we were going to get ourselves into and what people were going to think or how the event was going to go. But honestly, um there was 03:31 It almost was, I hate to even say it, but it was almost flawless. It went so well. We had a lot of people that came from all across the country, people from as far away as California down to Florida. um I think at one point we had at least a dozen states that were represented at the conference. A lot of people were really hungry to receive the information that we were trying to invest in them. 03:57 people came and they loved it. They were screaming to come back and hoped that we would do it a second time. Again, it goes back to that kind of we brought people to a place where it felt like home, where they were comfortable and they could ask the hard questions and get the hard answers and dig a little deeper into topics that they were interested in and actually get to speak with our presenters one-on-one. In some instances, we had a lot of opportunity for them to be able to mingle with each other and really 04:26 You know, talk to people that were like minded be able to just make connections with people around here. The chairman of our board says that more gets done before and after the meeting than during the actual meeting. And so people were able to make meaningful connections with one another and then have those conversations even before or after the conference in order to follow up on topics that they were interested in or get more. 04:53 connected with someone that knew more than they did about something that they were working on. So was really, really great. We had a great turnout. People were really very interested in hearing from a different perspective. uh One of the things that we tried to do was to bridge some gaps in between, you know, the local community and then finding resources of help for them. So if you 05:23 catch the ish part of our home setting ish. That's the in search of help part where we're saying we want to help you because this is like, you're working on the home setting part. We're kind of in the ish part where we're here to assist you and help you. And so we wanted to be able to provide those services and bridge gaps between maybe some. 05:44 federal or state level government or whether it's a local partner or connection or another community partner or even just people in the communities that wanted to connect with one another to find better resources to help be more sustainable with their funding or with their product or just know more about what it was they needed to do next on their homestead. Everything from 06:07 how do you even locate the property that you want all the way through to, know, now that I have my property, I want to have a high tunnel or I want to have a, you know, work on getting things to farmers market, or I want to find finances and funding for my farm, or, you know, I want to raise livestock. Just a lot of, a lot of things that were able to be talked about and discussed and brought to light. Resources and opportunities available on all sides. 06:36 Okay, so I know that you have the second one coming up, the second year conference. And before we get into what's going to be new at that one, I have a question for you. During the year when you aren't doing the conferences, can people still reach out to you guys for information? Yeah, so one of the things that we're building for this year is just a network of community people where we can actually 07:04 um address some questions and kind of they can reach out to us and find us and we can help with resources. um For me personally, I work directly for the Conservation District here in our local area. So we are always available. know, every day we're here in the office working with people in our local community, with NRCS and with the Conservation Districts and opportunities for them to get technical assistance 07:34 to help fund financial assistance. um So we're always available and that's one of the great things about bridging some of these gaps is helping people understand what resources are available to them. We provide services for free to the public and to the community. We also provide financial assistance um in a form of reimbursement grants. So there's a lot of resources that are available and people can reach out to us. uh 08:01 anytime that they have questions and we'll try to hook them up with the correct resources. Fabulous. Minnesota's Department of Agriculture is really, really good. I'm in Minnesota. I don't know if you know that, but I'm in Minnesota. Minnesota's Department of Agriculture is super helpful. Every time I've had a question, I try to email people first because they can get back to me on their own time instead of having to answer questions on the phone. 08:30 And every time I've had a question, I have just emailed whoever is in charge of who would handle my question. And they get back to me within 24 hours usually. And it's so amazing to me that these state departments are so quickly helpful. Yeah. I mean, we have the same thing here. Our department of Ag is great to work with. They have, you know, a wealth of resources. 08:55 We also work with two local universities. So we work with WVU extension and we work with WVSU, which is Western U State University extension. they have extension agents there that were also working as partners along with our federal and state level partners that can answer questions or get into topics. And all of our presenters are very approachable as well. So if you are interested in a specific topic or you have a specific presenter or someone that you met, 09:24 They're all very, very approachable and very willing to answer any questions you have and get back to you just as quickly as they can, which is a great networking tool for all of the things involved. Yeah. One of the things that's wonderful about people who are in ag or in homesteading or farming or whatever, they all tend to be very helpful and very giving souls. And it's part of the reason I love my podcast so much because I reach out to people. I'm like, 09:51 I do this thing, would you come talk to me?" And they're like, of course. And I just love it because everyone is so willing to share what they know or dig into it and try to find answers for me if I don't know. Yeah, I mean, we're always happy to assist. em I think sometimes it's just important to us as it is to the other person that's asking because sometimes we want to know too. you know, one of the reasons why we... 10:19 get into the lines of work that we get into is because we do want to assist people. We do want to be available to help them, to make them, um you know, have the resources that they need so that they can move forward on their projects, whatever that might be. Yes, and you don't, okay, I was always afraid to reach out and ask a question because I wasn't ready to do the thing. I was doing research. 10:43 And I felt like I might be wasting someone's time if I asked a question, got the answer and then was like, no, I'm not doing that. That's what you guys are there for, right? You're there to help us figure out what the next step is. Absolutely. Yeah. mean that we, found that a lot of people have an idea, right? Just like you said, they have an idea there. They might be interested, but they don't really know what to do yet. 11:07 And then sometimes they get into it and they get in over their head or, you know, that's more than they thought it would be, or maybe they just don't have enough resources. And so we kind of want to be able to help assist them through those processes in order to not be overwhelmed and not just throw them the towel and decide they're going to quit, right? We want you to be successful. We want you to be able to do what you've set out to accomplish. And so we want to provide all the right tools to help, to assist you in that. 11:36 Well, let me say thank you because it's people like you that make things go, you know, we need that. mean, yeah, absolutely. For sure. We need people to start growing their own food or their own livestock or whatever right now. It's so important. And if you have the room, start something growing. mean, if you live in a Northern tier state right now, it's getting late in the season and you know, you could do cold weather crops, but 12:05 What I'm saying is if you have the means to start something growing that you can eat, probably ought to look into it. I think that's what I'm going to say for today. We just had that conversation actually. em And we had a committee meeting this morning for the upcoming conference and we just had that same conversation. Everybody can do something no matter how big or how small, like everyone can start somewhere. And I think that's the important part. oh 12:30 You may not be ready to tackle the big things, but you can certainly tackle the small things. Have a small backyard garden, maybe just a few herbs, or maybe you want to start with a couple of chickens, or maybe you want to start with something small and you can build your way up. I think that's the great part about the community of homesteaders and small farm operators is that we're always willing to help one another and we learn from each other. mean, we learn new things every single day. 12:56 I think helping people to understand what the expectations are, helping them to manage their expectations and understand what the balance is between where you start and where you see people are when they've been doing it for five or six or 10 years. There's a big difference in getting those resources available to fill in the gaps, I think is really important, but everyone can certainly start somewhere em and do something in order to make their journey better, right? Yeah. 13:26 I always tell people that when you start growing produce or you start raising animals, not only are you growing produce or animals, you're growing yourself. For sure. Absolutely. We learn something new every single day. um It's an amazing opportunity to really just get back to the way nature has intended things to be. um Growing your own food and providing for your family. 13:55 There's something special that happens in that circle um that doesn't come from the grocery store and that doesn't come from, you know, other places. comes directly from you and your connection to nature or you and your connection to the community folks around you that are doing those things. And I think there's something really special about that. is really special. And I have, I have such a hard time with the word special because people have overused it so much that they become 14:24 It's become trite, but in the truest sense of the word special, it is special when you grow your own food. um So I wanna, we've got 15 minutes and I wanna know, I have questions about last year's conference so that we can compare it to what's coming up for this year's conference. So how many um presenters did you guys end up having last year? So last year we had a little under 30, I think we had about 14:53 27. This year we actually have 31 total presenters. We have 36 different sessions that people can choose from to attend and that's over six different tracks. So you kind of have six different subjects and you can pick one of those subjects and stay with that whole track for the full two days or you can bounce around and pick and choose whatever session you feel like is going to best suit like your need or your information or your lifestyle or whatever. 15:23 it is that you'd like. So em I'm really excited about the lineup for this year. The schedule is fuller this year than it was last year. And there's really a lot of great information and really amazing presenters that are coming to the table. em I really think this year's going to be better than last year. And last year was going to be hard to top. I was going to say it's always better the second year because you guys were just getting your feet wet last year. Yeah, for sure. 15:51 For sure. You you learn from the first one. You figure out how to make it better. And so I think hopefully that's what we've done. We've um added some things this year, but we've also continued to keep that same kind of feeling of intimacy and that same kind of feeling of community that we wanted to continue to bring to the table. Okay. So I'm trying to, I'm trying to do a comparison thing here, but I'm failing at it. Last year. 16:21 Last year, what were the tracks that you guys kind of had in place for people? So last year, what we had on the table, we talked about land preparations and management. We had a homesteading uh Appalachian skills track where you could learn about different types of Appalachian skills. We had an Appalachian specific track. So things that were only specific to the Appalachian region, we had 16:50 talked about financial food and security or how about security like financially and like food security. We kind of put those together. We had a track on organic and then we talked about having an urban homestead. so this year, do you want me to talk about this year? Yes. So this year we kind of changed that up a little bit and I think we 17:15 Took all the things that people had from last year that they loved and then the things that they wanted to learn about. And we came up with six new tracks. So, um, we're going to have a farm and land management. Nice. Um, we're going to have an Appalachian homestead skills. So again, we're going to be bringing some skill to the table. Um, growing on farmstead. So are we talking about, uh, growing your gardens and maybe growing a market, um, those kinds of things. 17:44 And then we have a whole series on small livestock and remnants. So we're gonna be talking lot about small livestock. We're gonna be talking a lot about animals and their care and their maintenance on your homestead or small farm. We're gonna talk about building sustainability on your farms. That's gonna bring a lot of different topics to the table as well. um Funding and opportunities to find support. How do we make our farms sustainable? How do we continue to do this year after year? 18:12 And then we're going to talk about adding value to your homestead. So what are the things that you can do that are going to add additional value to your homestead or to your small farm? Whether that's through a value-added product, whether that's through an agritourism tract, or just things that you want to add that give your property value. So I think there's going to be a lot of really interesting things that we're going to cover on these new tracts. Awesome. I have a question about the small animal tract. 18:40 I'm assuming in that small animal track, you're talking about chickens, quail, goats, sheep, that kind of thing. Yeah. So we actually have a couple of tracks on sheep, a couple of tracks on quail, chickens, goats, pigs, all of them. We're going to cover all of them. Are rabbits included in there? So we did not include rabbits this year. It was on the um discussion table, but ultimately we need to find someone who can really speak. 19:10 clearly to that community. with all of the other ones that we already had on the table, there just wasn't enough room to add that. But it is something we hope to add next year. OK, cool. So I have a big question for you and it's something I don't know if you guys have floated it yet or not. next, like the third time you guys do this, any chance you would be willing to do an online version of it while it's going on? 19:36 Well, so we've kind of discussed that even last year, even as the first year into this year. Right now we don't have capacity to be able to stream or to be able to video record all of our sessions. But it is something that we're hopeful that we'll be able to do maybe going into next year or into the future if we can um secure funding that would support uh live streaming or that would support the opportunity for oh 20:06 You know people to view our sessions afterwards the the the caveat to all that really is that we're trying to build this community and when you do things online you don't necessarily get the same sense of community that happens when you're there in person and meeting people and having conversations with people and you know we have opportunity in between each of our sessions for people to you know get a little deeper in conversation so you miss out on a lot of that when you start going to the lot. 20:35 or to the live or an online platform. However, that being said, our real goal here is to make sure that we're bringing quality education to the community wherever that is. And so if we have an opportunity to do that and we can still provide educational resources and opportunities for people to learn things that are important to them, learn new skill sets and so on, we want to still be able to do that. So we're looking at that. 21:00 trying to figure out if that's an option that we can do for next year because I know that not everyone can travel to West Virginia, not everyone that might be interested in hearing what is being said has the opportunity to be available. So um I really wish that we had had the opportunity to record all of our sessions from last year and then to record them all again from this year because there was so much valuable information. 21:24 And if you weren't present, we hate that we missed it, you know, we hate that you missed it. So that is something we hope to be able to do. Cause I am not coming to West Virginia. I can't. I would love to, but I just, I don't have the fundage right now to do that. But I absolutely would sit down and listen to a presentation from 21:53 home setting issues conference. Well, that was a really weird way to say that. We do hope to provide that. I can't confirm anything just yet, but there are a couple of sessions from this year that I'm hoping we will be able to record and then those hopefully will be available um after the conference. So we're working on uh a small portion that may be available for the public to see if that's something that people will be more interested in. think there's what we've selected would be 22:23 Um, really great opportunity, um, for people to hear from more than one person, um, on the topics that matter most. Super awesome. hope that works out. Um, okay. So it's two questions. One is about price and days for this thing. And the other question is about, mentioned Appalachian skills, Appalachian skills, Apple Appalachia. What exactly is the region for that? 22:52 So um we live right in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains and the Appalachian region. So it stretches all over the East Coast. uh It actually starts in the southern part of the United States and Georgia and Alabama and reaches all the way up through way beyond us into the Northeastern states. So it's just the mountain trail. And a lot of people know it as the 23:18 you know, from the actual trail, the avalachian trail that runs, you know, over 2000 miles up and down our coast. And so um we really wanted to focus on the things that are important to this region and this area because it is so different from other areas of our country. If you are here in West Virginia, you're pretty much probably living on a mountainside or a hillside somewhere. And so you don't have a lot of flat land like you would in Minnesota to be able to 23:46 really have wide open spaces and wide open farms. So last year, know, for example, we had a track that Troy did that was pigs on slope. Like how are you going to raise pigs on a slope? Like what does that look like in our area as compared to someone who has a flat river bottom somewhere or somewhere where they would be able to be more expansive. So we really tried to bring some things that are specific to what happens in our mountainous region. 24:14 em in order to make it applicable em for the people that live here. I hope that makes sense. does, but I didn't know how far south the Appalachian Trail went because I grew up in Maine. read about the Appalachian Trail a lot, but I wasn't sure how far south it went, but I guess it's Georgia. 24:40 It does. Yeah, it goes all the way south to Georgia and Alabama is like the trailhead. And then of course it runs all the way up through the northeastern states. And so, I mean, it's a wide, broad range of area, but we're kind of right in the heart of it all. And so that's kind of where we wanted to start with that. And as far as the skill part of it, you know, it goes back to, you know, what I mentioned about the types of the terrain. And then there's things that are just kind of specific to 25:09 Um, you know, our culture that's here, um, you know, the Appalachian people have, um, sometimes have specific cultures in various different areas. And so I remember not too long ago having a workshop on heritage seeds. so there was a family there that was trying to figure out about a particular seed that that had been passed down through their family. And so there's a lot of things that happen and seeds that, you know, kind of. 25:38 become part of a culture. And so we were trying to help them trace like that seed back to where it came from. And it was an interesting path because it wasn't quite as straight and narrow as you would have thought. It was a little windy because, you know, grandma had grandma's beans and she called it one thing, but it's really part of this other bean family. That's like kind of a broader range. And so we just want to bring some, um, something. 26:04 to our culture and something to our people, something to the region that would be powerful and meaningful to them specifically. That is so fabulous. I love that. That's great. uh So what are the dates for this year's conference? So we are going to stick with until further notice, it will always be the second weekend in September. So this year it's going to be September 12th and 13th, which is Friday and Saturday. It'll be right uh 26:33 Just outside of the Charleston, West Virginia area, it'll be at the same location we were at last year, which is a beautiful location at Bible Center Church. It's like being in a camp cabin somewhere. It's just a gorgeous facility. And so it brings a lot to the culture or the atmosphere that we're trying to culture. Awesome. And how much does it cost for tickets? 26:58 So tickets right now, if you get your tickets early next year, tickets are $55. Tickets right now are $75. But because I kind of like you, I'll share my code. We do have a code right now that you can get, buy one, get one on tickets. So buy one ticket, get a ticket for a friend at half price. And so you can use code B-O-G-O-BOGO50. So B-O-G-O-5-0. 27:25 And that'll get you a one and a half tickets um for the conference. So that's a, that's a great deal, especially this late into the season. Is the B O G O all capital letters? Yeah. B O G O five zero. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. I like you too, Dawn. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, we're having a really good time. had a great meeting this morning, trying to wrap up all of our details and we're super excited. 27:53 Little nervous again, because I think there's always, you know, that the nerve not knowing what to expect. But I mean, we have a full slate with 36 different sessions. And one thing I'm really excited about this time that we did not have last year is we have each day we have two things that are going to kind of be a little different. One is a demonstration. So we're going have demonstrations live on the grounds. And then we're going to have a roundtable discussion both days also. So two days worth of 28:22 classes and two days worth of demonstrations and two days with uh really great roundtable discussions on topics that are going to be super important and valuable, I think, going forward. What are the hours each day? So on Friday, registration opens at 10 a.m. We start at noon and we'll end around 7 after the evening roundtable discussion and then on 28:47 Saturday morning registration will open at 730. We'll start at 8 and we'll end about 415 on Saturday afternoon. Okay, awesome. And where can people buy tickets? Can you buy them online? So you can find us on Facebook and Instagram and at our website. So the website is homesteading-ishish.com um and you can get your tickets there. Okay, cool. uh 29:16 want people who are in your area who can afford to go to go to the home studying is conference for 2025. But what I also want people to know is that there are conferences like this all over the United States all year long. So if you can't get to the one in West Virginia that Dawn is part of, find one in your area that you can go to because she's right. Dawn is absolutely right. The community that you find at these conferences. 29:44 where you can talk with people who are in the same place as you are with your journey or talking with the presenters or talking with people who are a little bit ahead of you can only benefit you. Absolutely. I agree. 100%. So, all right, Dawn, thank you so much. As always, people can find me at tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Thank you so much, Mary. It was great to be here with you. All right. Thank you.
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| Clear Creek Ranch Mom - Why Beef Is So Expensive, and Some Temporary Workarounds | 27 Aug 2025 | 00:46:28 | |
Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom about why beef is astronomically expensive right now, and some alternatives to get you through. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom in Nebraska. I was gonna say Arizona, I don't know why. And Leah's been a guest a couple of times on the podcast and she's here today to talk to us about the cost of beef right now. So good morning, Leah, how are you? 00:27 Good morning, Mary. Always good to visit with you. Thank you for having me. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for coming back. I love talking with you because you are. My dad would call you a no bullshit lady. You are. You are very, very forward and straightforward. And I almost blunt. Almost. I hate the word blunt because people tell me I'm blunt all the time. And I'm like, that's so mean. But you're very, very shoot from the hip. And I love that about you. 00:55 And if Maggie barks in the background, I'm sorry, we've got the farm stand open, we've got tomatoes in there and people keep pulling in for tomatoes. So. And it's International Dog Day, so she should have her moment. It is. Yeah, I didn't post on Facebook about Maggie for International Dog Day or whatever it is because I forgot that that's what it was. Yeah, I did too. I'll have to do it later. Be like, my dog's the best dog. I will die on that hill. 01:23 So, um Leah, you are a cattle rancher, right? Yes, ma'am. And you're in Nebraska, and you know as well as I do that beef prices have become astronomically expensive. And since you're a cattle rancher, I thought maybe you could give us all a little insight on what is going on with that. Yeah. Well, 01:48 It's a long and complicated story. Like many things that go on within our food chain. And even in 2025, the story in Nebraska has been a bit complicated. So when we had our cattle branding the first Saturday in May, I always call that our celebration, our first big celebration of the year. We brand those calves and get ready to turn the cows and calves out to grass. 02:17 But that day was anything but celebration. We were in a terrible drought in early May. And I have a couple of photos that I took that morning. One of the photos my daughter took of me. And I look at that picture of myself. I don't like it because the somberness was all over my face on what would typically be a joyful occasion. And it was me really evaluating the pasture conditions. we have been in drought. 02:46 on and off, some pretty significant drought really, since 2019, which was the last year of overabundant rainfall. If you want to back up even further across the Great Plains to 2012, we had what was called a flash drought across the Great Plains. What we saw then was the beginning of many ranchers starting to cut down on their herd inventory. 03:16 So 2012 was that drought. It was terrible in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. And Nebraska was plenty bad as well. And we included had to make some very difficult decisions that year as late summer came evaluating our pasture conditions and our feed and stock to see if we had cattle. 03:39 feed that would provide for those cattle and thankfully we did, but we knew if 2013 didn't improve, we were going to have to start selling down to manage our pastures well. Thankfully that turned the corner here, but that persistent drought did not get better in many places. And as fluctuations in inputs continued to plague ranchers, what we really saw as 2013 and beyond to the 04:09 it's really been the last 10 years, ranchers tightening those inventories. Couple that with the fact that ranchers continue to age and land transition plans have not been great. Ranchers don't have a child to pass that operation to and kids inherit and sell off and not necessarily not selling it into production for future ranching. 04:38 So the resulting effect is smaller numbers because of drought, shrinking numbers of ranches, which translates into shrinking numbers of cattle, cows in particular, which are the pipeline, if you will, for what becomes the beef in the stores, they're the mamas, make this all happen. And we won't even really get into the challenges of imports and tariffs and unrest. 05:08 and uh consumers making different choices about what they want to eat as far as their protein choices and those challenges, but the perfect storm of conditions. So here we are in 2025. Cattle inventory continues to shrink. We are historically at the lowest number in a very long time in the United States. That includes cows, the pipeline. 05:37 as well as the cattle in the finishing operations to be butchered to go to the grocery stores, historically low numbers, and the resulting effect is higher prices. Now- because when there's a lack of supply but the demand remains the same, prices go up. Yep. that demand has pretty much remained steady. 06:03 Our border is currently closed with Mexico because of the concern of the New World's screw worm. And if you haven't read up on the New World's screw worm, it is a real concern. I have read about it. I know enough from my grandparents era that when it was last here in Nebraska, it was bad and it was real bad. We do not want the New World's screw worm in the United States for a whole bunch of reasons. 06:32 But so we understand why the border is closed. We can have a whole conversation some other time about the need to import or not. I am a big fan of supporting American beef producers, if at all possible. I understand that people should be given choice. I'm a big fan of transparent labeling. But the bottom line is American ranchers also are really good at what they do. They raise high quality beef. 06:59 and consumers like choice, which means they want to be able to purchase the McDonald's dollar value, dollar, whatever they call their value meals. And that beef is generally not the quality raised in the United States. We raise better beef than that. Good, better, and different. That's the way it is. um So that's why we talk about importing beef of lesser quality. So we raise really great beef. The other part that doesn't enter into the conversation is 07:29 the cost of inputs for ranchers is also really, really expensive to raise this beef that you enjoy. And so while it looks like ranchers are making big money right now because your beef is expensive, it doesn't translate into us lining our pockets. That is simply not the reality for us. am so glad you said that because I was going to get to that. So that helps. um 07:55 That leads me to something I was thinking about last night and I was going to ask later about last now. um Once you sell your beef, your animals, and they're no longer your property, whatever people do with the meat that's produced from that sale doesn't impact your bottom line at all. Once you've sold the meat, that's it. Correct. That's absolutely correct. 08:23 One of the things that I want to tell people is if you go out and buy, if all you can afford is ground beef right now, and ground beef is even expensive, if you go out and buy in bulk and you actually package that up and put it in your freezer when it's on sale, you're going to help your bottom line. And I would highly suggest that people do that because we do a lot of burger-based meals in our house, unfortunately. um 08:52 Again, I am kind of burguered out. I'm over it, but my husband and my son are not. And so when we buy ground beef, we buy it in bulk, we package it up in Ziploc bags, we seal them, we stick them in the freezer when it's on sale. And that way we can continue to eat. you're talking and I don't know entirely who your audience is, but what you just shared, Mary, is what you and I consider normal practice. 09:22 starting with the fact that you're eating your meals at home. Yes. That doesn't resonate with a lot of people anymore. it needs to. It needs to. And I had this conversation with my 17-year-old last night on our way home from the college visit when we talked about this interview about where is it appropriate to go when talking about 09:47 the bigger picture here on the values of the American consumer. She said, well, I don't know how you think you can share something that may impact the value system of an American consumer. I suppose you can share your thoughts or ideas and they might be intrigued or make them question some of their thoughts or choices and do their own research, but you can't tell people what their values ought to be. 10:15 You can suggest it, especially if you're concerned about their health, the health of their family and the health of their bottom line. But are Americans really in a place today where they want to have someone suggest ideas to them? If they wanted to, they would. We talked about the Mel Robbins, let them kind of theory. I think it's a really interesting topic because the things that I do, 10:42 were the things that I saw growing up and the things my mom and dad saw before them. And making conscious decisions that were within our budget, for instance, or to be a healthy choice, that was always at the forefront of family living. And a lot of that has gone away now in our hustle and bustle. And then in some cases, it's because people are so busy working to try to make ends meet. What they sacrifice is 11:11 They don't have time to be home prepping a meal. And then it becomes this vicious circle where they are even saying, I don't even have time to look at the local grocery store ad for the week and choose the cuts of beef that are on sale because I don't have time to menu plan and I don't have time to prep my meals at home or I don't have time to eat as a family. Well, then we're just kicking the can further down the road. And so again, speaks to a bigger uh concern I have here. 11:40 Yeah, the costs of beef are really, really high. Beyond that, um can we adjust to living this way if we're willing to step back and say, there things we can do differently in our lives to make beef or whatever protein you love still be a really important part of our family living and be okay financially? 12:10 I think we can. I think it can be done with thoughtful, caring, devoted people who are willing to come alongside consumers and children. This kind of curriculum used to be a main staple in home economics, instance, 4-H programming. And then it was just what you did at home. it was modeled and you knew it and you took it with you when you were out on your own. we've lost so much of that. 12:40 and it really does have me concerned. what you do is what I do. It's normal for us. The question is, how can we help others normalize such behaviors? By talking about it on my podcast and hopefully people listen and go, how do you do that? Isn't it something that, mean, our grandmothers probably would be rolling their eyes and saying like, can't believe that you're having to even 13:09 suggest this, I do want to say I have friends um whose children have studied the meat science program at the university and something really cool they still do is they go to the grocery store on the weekends and they set up a table. And when people come down the meat aisle, they offer to help you talk about what you can do with different cuts of beef, especially the ones that are on sale. Their whole motivational 13:34 efforts of being there is to help encourage people to purchase, not just beef, they do the same with the poultry and the fish and even the unique uh cuts of pork and sheep and goat, lamb, that is to help inspire people to be unafraid to buy this cut of beef, knowing that you can take it home and do something manageable that is tasty and a good option to feed your family. And I think that's a win. 14:01 The thing that makes me a little crazy, Leah, is that humans are smart. I mean, there are people who don't have a high IQ. I get that. Not everyone is smart, smart, but humans are smart. If they can go to work and do their job, they can cook. it just, makes me crazy. And the other thing I was gonna say back five minutes ago is that you don't have to have meat at every single dinner. 14:29 You can always do a meatless dinner two nights a week if you want to not have to spend money on meat. It will not kill you to skip meat two nights a week. That's right. You can find lots of healthy protein sources that you do need protein. It's essential to live. But I learned from my mother in the very, very thin times in the 1980s how to stretch a meal. And again, you can learn how to cook. 14:56 And you can make black beans not taste like black beans. I saw my mother do it. And that could be quite delicious. And it's not hard and it's not scary once you get over your apprehension or your willingness to say, I'm going to put my phone down or I'm going to stop my distractions and focus on what really matters. We all have to eat like of all of the things you have to do in a day. Eating is one of them. It just requires that. 15:25 devotion to finding a way. That's why I'm so passionate about humans being involved in their own food security. It really does matter and it doesn't have to be in some huge big way. It's in small ways, like I said, just learning to be invested in feeding your own family because there may be a time that comes where you're going to have to pull yourself up. You're going to have to do it and boy, wouldn't you rather 15:53 find yourself in that position because you were equipped to do it rather than having to do it. yeah. Learning to cook when you don't have to is far better than trying to cook when you have to and you don't know how. You were saying something about black beans. um I fought the red beans and rice trend for a long time. People were telling me I should make red beans and rice and I was like, eh I'm really not into it. 16:23 And then a couple of years ago, I was like, I'm going to try making red beans and rice. I'm to look up a couple of recipes and see how you do it. And it's super easy. You make beans, you make the rice, you season it the way you want to. And tada, you have food. And I ended up making it with cumin and granulated garlic and some fresh onion and some sweet peppers and I don't know, stuff. And cooked it up. And it's basically like, like rice aromani, only way, way better for you. 16:53 And to this day when I bring it up, I say, hey, we should probably look at making that taco beans and rice thing again this winter, because we try to do it once a winter. It's not our favorite thing to make, but it's good. so I stopped calling it red beans and rice because we actually use black beans. And it's taco beans and rice is what we call it because of the cumin. Good stuff. 17:19 Yeah. And I don't know why I fought it for so long, except that I really wasn't a fan of beans. But then I was like, well, I like black beans and chili, so maybe I would like it in this. And it worked out fine. So. Sweet potatoes are another favorite here. make sweet potato chili in the wintertime. Yes. Sweet potato. Amazing. My daughter is a Taylor Swift fan. And the other comment she made last night was she's on social media just a little bit. 17:48 It's funny how teenagers have kind of moved away from it. She said it's interesting how, and she works in retail for her summer or for her job after school, how people are very happy to get online and complain about the cost of groceries. And I'll give it to you, they are very expensive. It's crazy. But she said Taylor Swift has a new album coming out in October and we'll have a concert lineup after that. And I don't think you're going to see people complaining about what they're going to shell out to get one of those concert tickets. 18:19 I just had the same conversation with my husband only about the Minnesota State Fair. Is it? The Minnesota State Fair is going on right now and they have opened up the city streets around the fair so that people can park and you pay $25 for the day. A full price ticket to get into the fair is $20. So you're looking at $45 just to get into the fair if you're looking at parking and getting in. 18:47 That doesn't count anything else. And I looked at my husband and I said, you know, there are people who can't afford to buy groceries, but 137,000 people were at the opening day of the state fair. It's just crazy to me. it's an interesting sociological evaluation in our country. And I'd be so fascinated to speak. 19:13 to people from other countries about this conversation in 2025 about our values systems. mean, Americans, thank you technology, but we have definitely become a nation of we want what we want when we want it. Our patience is thin. I mean, I had a friend talk about in the airport last week watching someone be late for their flight. It was their fault and they threw their water bottle at the flight attendant. And it was their fault. 19:43 Our patience is thin. I understand why. We're uh definitely a restless nation right now every day. It's like, what fresh garbage are we going to have to hear about today? um We're restless. Our patience is thin. We want what we want when we want it. And where are our priorities? What are the things that matter most to us? And I think most, if you had conversation, it's, want to be able to provide for my family. I want us to be safe. 20:12 I want us to have access to clean drinking water and good food. But let's be very, very honest, Americans value expensive entertainment. We want multiple cars and TVs and we want satellite uh channel packages of $200 and we want new cell phones and we want to be entertained and go to concerts and have all of these things and we don't talk a lot about that. 20:41 but we are sure ready to go on the attack about what we're paying for our groceries. Yes, absolutely. And I hope that you didn't take my question to you and messages about the cost of beef as an attack. just want to- Nope, I've been getting a lot of questions about it, like an explanation or a breakdown. people have actually, I've been very grateful to hear, please tell me that- 21:06 I'm paying whatever for this roast in the grocery store that some of this is getting back to you because I know during the very bad years, y'all were losing money every year. And I thought how interesting that you noticed. Historically, Mary, we only make money one out of every seven years as cattle ranchers. How many Americans do you think the grocery store worth are thinking? 21:34 those other years when they're getting a great deal. Huh, I hope the ranchers are okay. You know, I actually do think about that and have since I was about 15 because my grandpa's friends had a dairy farm and I ended up talking with Bea. She was, I used to think of her as aunt Bea, but she wasn't actually related to us. And I asked her one time, said, so if, if we're buying milk at the store for whatever it was, two and a half bucks a gallon. 22:03 back then. I said, what are you making? She just laughed. Just laughed. And I said, I'm not being stupid. I'm genuinely curious how this works. And she said, oh honey, she said, I love you. She said, just nobody thinks about this. It would be you who would ask me this. And I laughed and I said, well, seriously. And she said, we make about 50 cents a gallon. 22:34 the most grotesque story of how a group of American farmers have been marginalized historically, repeatedly. is what has happened to the dairy farmers of this country. It's sickening. It's just sickening. I said to Aunt B, as I called her in my head, I said, so how can you afford to do this? And she said, well, we really can't. 23:03 And I said, why are you doing it? And she said, because we love it. And the word love was so full. just, I had no other questions. I couldn't even think of any, because she was just like, we love it. Yep. I feel the same way. And so what most people do is diversify their risk. So we have row crops, which is a whole other conversation and how bad that is right now. And we have cattle and we have off the farm jobs. And that is the story of most of us. 23:33 And again, we look through our lens and forget about the lens of others like the cranberry farmers, the potato farmers, the wheat farmers, the almond farmers, every one of us going through our own seasons of awful times and then okay times and wrestling with the same struggles collectively. It's feast and then famine and then famine and then famine and then feast and then famine and famine. And you're hoping 24:02 that you can just hold on through all of those lean years, being hopeful for that one really good year or maybe two good years in a row. The challenge is we have such little control over our costs and that is getting to be harder and harder and harder. And that is why we're seeing people leave agriculture altogether because of those forces that we can't do anything about like skyrocketing property taxes. 24:32 um And a great reckoning is coming in this country because consumers are also being 24:44 illuminated by um seeing how other countries can use their pipelines to bring us food cheaper for a whole bunch of reasons that are maybe not as ethical when we talk about what they're paying their labor for. And they don't have some of those other challenges. We have our own set of problems in this country too numerous to list when it labor challenges, taxes, um water. 25:12 issues, water access. ah I mean, a great reckoning is coming and that is, again, going back to the value system. Americans, what role do you want to play in how you feed yourself? Do you care? Do you want this country to provide for you? Do you care where your food comes from? Do you want to be a part of it? And if so, if you decide so, 25:43 striking the right balance so that people who are doing the producing can make an honest living at it because by golly, it is really hard um without gouging the consumer. 25:56 It's a very, very fine balance. I have never met a farmer or rancher who said, I'm not willing to pay my fair share. But those who are actually the ones they'd like to make an example of saying, you know, they live high on the hog and get new equipment all the time and new houses and have XYZ, they're so few and far between. And they talk about, well, they're the ones, you know, getting subsidized and getting all this extra. 26:22 I I worked for the USDA and I have a lot of neighbors and friends and I work for a nonprofit that visits with people all the time. And I don't know who these people are. I'm sure there's some that exist, but by and large, most of the producers that I know, they're just getting by. And most of the time it's because they're, like I said, working off the farm as well. It is really not for the faint of heart and it's getting more difficult by the year. 26:51 Yes, and that actually leads me into another question about this whole beef situation. If the, let's call it inventory of cattle, at historically dangerous, I think it's dangerous, low, and it takes, it takes what, a year and a half to three years for a steer to be ready to be sold and butchered? Depending on what you do, but 27:17 18 to 24 months is probably considered more commonplace, depending on how aggressively you can push them. So if things don't improve, could we be looking at a cattle list United States in the next 10 years? 27:39 I've heard a lot of conspiracy talk over the last couple of years about what's the end game here. And honestly, I don't know, Mary. I can only speak about what's going on in my backyard. um And ranchers depend on the renewable resource, which is rainfall, to grow the grass that the cattle need. So our inventory is down here. 28:07 And that's because, as I said, we had to deplete some numbers because of drought. Our moisture has replenished those pasture conditions. So we're in a position where this fall, the females um will be evaluated and the best ones kept. And the hope is to keep more than usual so we can start replenishing those numbers. What that means for the consumer is those ones that would normally be called feeder calves will not be going on. 28:37 to be finished as beef. So we will keep more to start rebuilding our pipeline, which means in two years, three years, we'll start to do our part to try to send more towards that finishing point. But for the next two to three years, we're actually going to continue to shrink our contributions to what goes to be finished. There is talk about 29:06 And again, I say ranchers are real smart and very ingenious in their breeding programs. They are raising animals that feed more efficiently. They finish faster. They are growing cattle uh not so big, but appropriate to their frame size. So they finish faster, which means they're ready to go to be harvested sooner, which gets them to the grocery store sooner. 29:36 but that doesn't solve all of our problems. um The American rancher is one of the most resilient people types I have ever met. They will not go down without a However, they will need people to join the fight with them because there's not enough of them. Yeah, that's what I thought your answer was going to be. 30:06 In the meantime, for people listening, maybe we could all give the ranchers time to rebuild their inventory by maybe finding other protein sources and a really good protein source couple. Number one, fish. Fish is a really good protein source and you know, it only costs like 20 bucks for a fishing license and there's a thing called a limit. 30:35 And when you go fishing, you're allowed to catch a certain number of a certain kind of fish and you bring them home and you freeze them and you stick them in your freezer. And it's a per day limit, I think, or a possession limit, like total possession limit. And the other thing that is really dying in the United States is hunting for deer. My dad is an avid hunter. He just turned 83 and he went hunting last year. He did not get a deer, but he still hunts. 31:05 And venison is a really, really good alternative to beef if you can't get beef. so, and my point is, is that the kids coming up today are not deer hunting. has a plethora of extra deer in the state. So the point that there are places that are overrun. 31:30 Like they have special hunts in the fall so that people can take more than one deer to get the population down. So if you can learn to fish or you can learn to hunt, maybe that would be a way to give you guys a chance to build your stuff back up because we're not like screaming for beef every time. I think there are many creative solutions to our challenges. also wanted to mention our friends who raise poultry. 32:01 poultry numbers have also been annihilated because of the required um 32:08 um amount of animals that had to be destroyed because of bird flu. In many cases, whole flocks wiped, right? So you'll notice poultry prices are up as well. And I think that is a contributing factor to why those prices are up. But realistically, we need to support all of our protein producers. I have a dear friend who raises sheep. um I am not a huge fan of eating. 32:38 uh lamb chops, but I do eat them to support her. We have them for sale in our grocery store. I have another friend who raises meat goats and she actually has very, very high demand. And not just from our Hispanic population who enjoys using that meat in a lot of their dishes, but from others who are being more adventurous. There's game birds, the hunting and fishing, as you mentioned. I don't want to forget about our friends who raise pork. 33:08 There are so many viable options for us. And I also don't want to count out the opportunities do exist for people to buy a share or participate in a co-op where you can help raise and purchase directly from a producer. You just have to do your own research. And I have this conversation often. We again, we've become this. 33:33 this country of people like convenience. don't want to plan ahead. I don't want to make a list. want to wander around Walmart and just buy whatever I think I need. But if you want to be intentional and stretch your dollars and use a budget, you can plan for these things and stock your freezer, shop the sales, and you'll be all right. It just requires 33:56 shutting away those distractions that we all struggle with, myself included, and being really intentional in your decision making. And that is what we're all going to have to do to weather the storms that we're in and what we know we have ahead of us. absolutely. And that's part of the reason I wanted to talk to you because I knew stuff would come up like how to get around some of this pain point of how expensive things are. 34:24 I've told the story a couple of times already on the podcast, tell it in because it's true. We weren't going to get new chickens until this past May. We ended up getting them in March because I didn't want to pay for eggs at the grocery store that were yucky, that didn't taste right to me. And so we ended up getting chickens and we've been selling, we can't keep eggs in the farm stand this summer. We put two dozen eggs out there a day at $5 a dozen and they're gone by the end of the day. 34:52 that makes my heart so happy because that means others are recognizing the value of what you have in supporting you. it makes my heart happy too, because I would be swimming in eggs right now if people weren't buying them. But I just, could not look at another store bought egg. I was just like, there's nothing to them. They are actually lighter in your hand than the ones we were getting from our chickens last fall. And so if you have room, 35:22 And if your city allows it, or if you're out in the suburbs, most suburbs will let you get away with a few chickens. You can be having your own eggs from your own chickens if you want to. if we had room, we would probably have a dairy cow and a steer we're raising up for butcher, but we don't have room. So you can DIY this, you can buy into a herd share, you can buy 35:51 beef from the local farmer who has it in their cooler because that's how they do it. There are so many ways to get around this insanity about inflation on everything. It's not just beef or chicken, it's everything right now. you got to go look, you've got to do the research, you've got to find out how to get around it. And that's why I do the podcast so that can tell people things like that. uh 36:20 I'm a big fan of history and I'm a big fan of the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Me too. Her writings apparently now are not without some controversy and I'll set that aside and focus on the positive. One of my favorite books, I don't know for what reasons, has always been The Long Winter because it's truly a depressing story. I always like to refer to what Laura wrote of her mother. 36:49 In the long winter, by all historical actual actual historical accounts, people starved and they did die. But Laura lovingly referred to the efforts her mother made to keep feeding them through the very leanest of times. And her mother absolutely decided, I will not let my family starve. Now. 37:19 If you walk around in this country, at least to my eyes, I'm not seeing anyone starving. Do we have people who are food insecure? Oh yeah. Do we have real problems with what kind of food is available? Yes, that's a whole other conversation. But the message conveyed was she decided she found a way. And that is the message for all of us. 37:49 We have to decide. 37:54 what matters. Yep. And we have to decide what we're going to do about it. Yes, you're darn right. And it takes all of us to be intentionally committed to figuring it out. We are no longer given the luxury of, I'm going to sit on the sidelines and I don't have anything to add of value. I have nothing to say, I have nothing to contribute. We all 38:22 have the means to contribute something meaningful to figuring this out. Absolutely, we do. I just hope other people jump on board because we need everybody. We sure do. Well, I want to end this by saying that I think that people don't understand that once they are buying stuff at the grocery store, 38:46 The farmer has already been paid for whatever it is that they produce. So if you buy stuff on sale, you are not hurting the farmer. Don't worry about that. If you need to buy a burger on sale, buy it on sale so you can feed your family. The middle man is doing just fine. In fact, I have some concerns, some transparency issues, but we got to be real honest about that. 39:11 For every action, there is an equal reaction. what we are seeing is, even in my own local grocery store in Nebraska, we are on a surge, we're catching up with the push to raise the minimum wage. Again, a whole nother conversation, but you can't complain about the price of groceries when you're also saying we've got to increase wages. It's just the natural course of things. But you're right. The middle people, they're getting compensated just fine. 39:40 And whatever you're paying in the grocery store has nothing to do with what the farmer or rancher is receiving. I say this all the time, but I'm going to say it again. You guys learn to cook from scratch. You will save yourself so much money and you will eat better. 100%. 40:03 oh it's not hard, you just got to learn how to do it. Once you learn how to do it, you've got it. It's like riding a bike. You never forget how to cook once you learn how to cook. Yup. uh I love, I adore Jennifer Garner and she has a show on Facebook called her Pretend Cooking Show. I don't know if you've seen it. I have not. Her recipes are a little fancy for me. Sometimes her ingredients are things that I wouldn't say, quote, everyday people have access to and all. 40:31 But she is so relatable. She's so fun. She's pulling out old cookbooks that were her grandmother's, et cetera. And I adore it. And she is doing that. She's a Hollywood type. She could have a home chef. She doesn't. She is in the kitchen preparing her food from scratch and feeding her family. If she can do it, others can do it. So more of that. That's what we need to see. 40:59 Yes, and even if the thing that you cook doesn't turn out perfect, but it's edible, you can still eat it. made a loaf of, I tried to make a loaf of sourdough. Today's Tuesday, Sunday, and I'm not good at this yet. I've only made one. This is the second loaf I've made. And I followed the recipe with my active sourdough starter and it was not rising the way it was supposed to. 41:24 And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to bake it anyway. If it's a brick, it'll go to the chickens. And if it's not a brick and it's edible, I will eat it. And it was edible. It was underproofed because it didn't want to rise. And I ate some of it and it's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. When in doubt, bakers can always blame the weather, blame the humidity, blame the fog, blame the wind. 41:48 Well, I think what went wrong is it was only 70 degrees in my house because it was cold outside on Sunday. It only got to 67 degrees here on Sunday. think winter is coming early. I'm just having this feeling. We're about due for a hard winter and I don't want to be a worry ward, but I certainly want to make my plans accordingly. We always plan for it to be a bad winter and that way if it's a good winter, we're good. And if it's a bad winter, we're ready. 100%. Smart lady. 42:19 All right, Leah, thank you so much for coming to chat with me about this because I just, needed to talk to somebody who's actually in the business who could be honest with me. I appreciate it. Anytime. Well, I'm passionate about it. I'm not as informed on the actual statistics day by day of where things are and how they're going. I can tell you because I am a person who has to write a big check to pay the property taxes that at least here in Nebraska, as I said, 42:47 There is a great reckoning coming because while we have these really high dollars for cattle being sold at market, our inputs continue to skyrocket. And what I think we're actually seeing is the devalue of the dollar itself. m people aren't gaining ground. And we need to because one day the numbers are going to tumble, but the inputs are not going to. And then where will that leave us? And it breaks my heart to think that I couldn't. 43:17 positively sell this dream to another young person because it won't be possible. I mean, I just can't bear the thought that that optimism would have to leave me. So it's coming. ah It may be upon us already. um There are young people who are really intrigued and interested in this and 43:45 And being okay with the hard work used to be the biggest part of the battle. But now it is the capital outlay. Being able to manage the risk financially um has outpaced the worry about being able to get the work done. Yep, absolutely. All right, Leah, where can people find you? 44:10 You can find me on Facebook because I'm old fashioned at Clear Creek Ranch Moms. don't think Facebook is old fashioned. I just think the young kids want us older folk to feel old. That's what I think. I did hear. So we've been serving our students this summer and our students are between 18 and 30 years of age. They all say they get on Facebook as a source of reliable information. They just don't interact. They do get on there to find 44:39 credible information, which is interesting that that's the way they put it, but they just don't post, they don't share, they don't do that kind of stuff. But they still like to go online on Facebook to look for credible information. That really scares me. I don't like that at all. And maybe they were referring to posts made by about workshops and educational opportunities, which is where we share a lot of our things on Facebook about upcoming events and things. But yeah, I was chuckling. 45:08 for sure. Those kids have no idea what it's going to be like in 25 years for them. sake. I'm very concerned and I appreciate being able to have a real conversation with you because it is getting harder and harder for people to discern fact from fiction when they read what is created by chat GPT or an AI voice knowing are you even looking at something that is real or not. Yeah, it's another. 45:38 conversation for another day. Yeah, for sure. We should just like schedule a call every five, every week for five weeks to hit the five things we didn't talk about today. Anytime, anytime. All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Leah, thank you so much for your insight and your wisdom. And I know you said you're not an expert, but you are wise about this stuff. Thank you. You are a wonderful place for people together and to 46:08 and find community and support one another. Keep up the good work. I'm trying every day. And my podcast is two years old tomorrow. Can you believe that? anniversary. Thank you. All right. I'm going to catch you, You have a great day. You do the same. Thank you, Mary. Bye.
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| Music On The Homestead - Kerry Adams at Lagoon Records | 25 Aug 2025 | 00:30:22 | |
Today I'm talking with Kerry Adams about music, and why it's important on the homestead. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Kerry Adams at Lagoon Records. think it is in Michigan. Good morning, Kerry. How are you? Good morning. I'm fabulous. How are you, Mary? I'm good. So again, it's going to seem weird that I asked somebody who's into music to be on the podcast about homesteading, but music is a craft. 00:28 And music is a big part, has been a big part of Homesteaders for a long, long time. So tell me about yourself because people then understand why I asked you to be on the show. Wow. That's a big question. Well, yes. I've been doing this for about 50 years. So I started back in the Jurassic era and it's, I'm a guitarist or producer. I used to be on tour. 00:55 I managed a couple of different artists when we were on tour and I'd be their guitarist. um I've owned three recording studios. I still have one now. um And to me, the music is not a whole lot different than eh cooking the vegetables that you grow or being a painting artist or whatever. It's all art and it all kind of comes from the same place. So I love to play and I love to cook. So it comes from the same side of the brain, I guess. 01:23 Um, so yeah, I've been doing this since I was a kid. My dad was an amateur guitarist. Um, my sister was a published, uh, pencil and ink artist. So I guess it's kind of in the family a bit. Um, so that's my thing. That's what I know how to do uh and cook. know how to cook seven days a week for my family. And we try to do shopping locally and, and 01:51 I don't have enough property to grow enough vegetables and stuff to feed my family. So we do a lot of shopping locally and farmers markets and things like that. And to me, it's all kind of the same thing. And I've seen a number of your podcasts and I think they're very cool. So I'm honored to be here today. Thank you. Well, thank you for saying my podcast is very cool. I love it, too. uh So you said that you think it's something to do with the brain that actually leads me to it's something that I believe, too. 02:21 My dad was a bio med tech for years and he just turned, he just turned 83 in July and he's been retired for quite a while. And I know that you worked for Ford as an engineer and I feel like engineering or wrenching on machines is something that goes with music. 02:47 See, that's, uh, you know, we, I don't know that people know this, but we've kind of known each other for awhile. Um, you're one of the few people, there were old engineers that used to tell me, well, you know, if you're an engineer and musician, that's two different sides of your brain and they'll never connect. You can't do both well. Um, I believe engineering is artistic. Um, it's creative. Like any of those things. Um, if you look at engineering and you say, okay, I got, I either have some new widget I want to design or I have some problem to solve. 03:17 Yes, there's mathematics, there's trusted formulas, things you do. But before you even do that, you have to look at a problem and go, okay, what would be the best way to handle this? And so the artistic part is being creative before you even start a project. I think it all, even engineering comes from the same place and the same side of the brain. But having done that for 35 years and being a musician for 50, I think they're actually more similar than they are different. 03:47 Yeah, my dad played guitar for a long time and he is a natural tenor singing voice and his voice is beautiful. I don't know if you heard him sing a long time, but when I did hear him sing, it was gorgeous. So I think that music and engineering are tied together and I will die on that hill. Well, thank you. There's not a lot of people ascribed to that, but it's true, I believe. Yeah, I've known enough people who who wrench on machines, whether it's cars or 04:17 radios or copiers or whatever that have some musical talent that I really think there's a tie in there. So anyway, em I am assuming that back many, many, many years ago when people were starting farms that guitars were not exactly easy to come by. And that's why there's something called the flat top box. Yep. 04:45 Yes. Um, some of those instruments actually, speaking of being artistic and creative, some of those, uh, if you look at some of the early stuff from the twenties and thirties down in the Delta, which is where a lot of this music came from, um, it, you will see everything from, uh, a, a wash bucket with a stick and a single string. And mean, all those kinds of sort of cliche looking things, um, a lot of this stuff, and there was three string guitars and four string guitars. mean, people. 05:14 A lot of times built whatever they needed to do to make sounds, make music. So it's not like you walked into your guitar center and bought a really nice Gibson guitar, right? You had to kind of create something because a lot there, wasn't people making this stuff. So a lot of homesteaders, a lot of people down in the twenties and thirties in the Delta were buying old pieces of guitars or beat up guitars, or if they couldn't afford it, a lot of more making their own guitars. So. 05:43 And the same thing is true of basses and fiddles and everything else. There was a whole sort of underground thing where people had to build instruments if you wanted to play music because you couldn't just go down to the music store and buy one. So that's kind of where it all started, is people built these things. Yeah. And were the strings made out of like animal sinew or what were the strings back then? you know? Usually cat gut. That's... 06:13 But like violins and stuff and violas for years and years and years were cat gut strings, which is basically just cat gut and it's spun until it's really tight and that's what you use. I think guitar, the most part, were steel strings to a degree. There weren't many cat guts, but that long ago there wasn't steel strings. Somebody was making steel strings, so had to use something. Yeah. So cat gut as in intestines, is that what we're talking about? Yeah. Yeah. 06:42 And to make the bass string, it was just a thicker piece. Is that how that worked? Yes, bass strings are, and you're exactly right. Bass strings tend to be larger diameter and they vibrate at a lower frequency, which is where the bass is. So you would just make bigger strings and a longer neck because the longer a string is, the lower its frequency, even if it's the same diameter. So if I take a string with a given diameter, it's on a guitar and I made it another foot longer and put it on a longer instrument, wouldn't 07:11 create a lower tone. This is why I wanted to talk to you because you know stuff I don't know. I know just enough to be dangerous. Okay and also the reason that guitars and fiddles or violins were popular on homesteads is because they are eminently portable instruments. yes it's really hard to go around on Saturday night to the barn with a grand piano. It's just not easy to do. 07:38 Yeah, and pianos were expensive to have. Only the rich had pianos. Correct. Correct. So even if you could only afford a five dollar flat top box guitar, you could go down to Saturday night, you know, and have a campfire and hang out in the barn and play some music and everybody could sing along. that same thing is still true today. You know, there's 08:04 There are a few other options, like they have little mini keyboards that you could have speakers in them. You can kind of sit on your on your couch and play, which is a fun thing to do. But guitars still to this day are historically portable and relatively easy to play and work in almost any environment. So yes, they're it's just a pretty handy instrument overall. OK, can you explain for my listeners how a guitar works, how it makes sound? 08:35 Well, are we talking about an acoustic guitar? An acoustic guitar is just basically there's bracing and stuff inside which changes some of the tuning, but basically it's just an empty box. um And there's actually some guys who build to even to this day called cigar box guitars. So if you think about a box of wood, a box of wood has basically a kind of a fundamental sound. If you were to cut a hole in a box and yell into it, you would hear your voice come back. 09:03 If I take that box and I put a neck on it with some frets and I string some strings over it and I hit those strings where they vibrate, that wood box is going to amplify that sound out the sound hole, which is what you see on front of most acoustic guitars is a round hole in the front. That's where the majority of the sound comes out. So the box itself has some resonant frequencies, but inside of it, based on the volume, how big the guitar is, and there's different sizes guitars. um When you hit those strings. 09:30 that vibration goes into the box and comes back out the hole, but it's amplified when it comes back out the hole because it went through that box and it vibrated and that's how it gets boosted. So that's basically how an acoustic guitar makes it sound, which is not a whole lot different than violins and violas. You'll see what's called the F holes, which is the F shape cutouts in a violin. The sound comes out of those the same way because it's not a solid box. It's an empty box. So that's how the sound gets amplified and comes out. Cool, because 10:00 I know how it works, but I don't know how to explain it to make other people understand it. and so the other thing I wanted to ask you is when I was little, my mom says that I was singing before I taught and that didn't go anywhere. Cause then I got told, up a lot. But, uh, but if someone has a kid that is showing some, some interests or talent for music, 10:27 Should they? Should they encourage that? Should they give them all the tools or should they just let them figure it out? I would say give them the tools and here's what I and I've been. I'll I'll give you the example that I tell most parents of kids who are either showing a propensity or not showing a propensity for this. A lot of parents want to put their kids in a music class, right? Little Johnny should go learn how to play a guitar or a horn or something. 10:57 And what I do is when they used to come to me when I was teaching and they would say, Hey, I want my kids to learn how to play. let's just use a guitar, for example, because that's what I play. I want learn how to play guitar. Okay. So we go get him an inexpensive guitar. And then he would come to me and we'd start out with lessons and I would do that. And then, okay, I'll see you next week. And I'd give him some stuff to do. And he would come back next week and either know it or not know it very well. And I would look at mom and go, okay, what's going on? She said, well, I had to like. 11:26 lean on him all week long to practice. And he would rather go do whatever he wants to do, play sports, all this kind of thing. I really had to kind of beat on to practice the guitar before he came back this week for to go through the lesson. And if you go through that a couple of times, I would look at the parents and say, I'm going to be honest with you. If little Johnny would rather go play sports or your little daughter wants to go play hockey, whatever she wants to do, I don't care. Invest in that. Because if you have to force the kid 11:55 to play an instrument, to practice, to rehearse. It's not their thing. Um, when I was a kid, I was only eight or nine years old. My dad had a guitar and as soon as I picked it up, I had no idea what I was doing and I would just sit there and pick on one spring, just making that kind of sound. I'm sure I drove my parents nuts sitting in the den doing that, but I would fall asleep every night. My dad would have to take his guitar off me and carry me into bed. I would never put the thing down. I just never did. 12:21 And I'm not saying I was a musician. I'm just saying for some reason I was enamored with that instrument. um And if you have a kid that's showing that kind of propensity for that just can't put the guitar or the piano or whatever it is. um And they would rather do that than go hang out outside with their buddies three days a week. Then you invest in that child. Then it's worthwhile. You don't have to ask. You'll know. You can, you'll be able to tell. Yeah. If you can afford it. I are the reason. 12:50 Part of the reason that I never learned to play an instrument is because I was very interested in piano. And uh we didn't have the money for a piano. We didn't have the money for any kind of piano like instrument. guitar, I loved listening to my dad play, but the actual fingering positions and things for that, I just couldn't figure it out. And I asked him to teach me and he tried and I failed. 13:20 So that wasn't my thing. And so if any of my kids had had any interest in an instrument, I would have moved heaven and earth to get them an opportunity to go learn it, to have their hands on it. But none of them did. They all loved to sing. And two of them are pretty good and two of them are not. And I'm not saying which ones. Because they all love it. 13:46 Well, yeah. And the thing is, is nobody actually has to go up and try to be a professional. They just love to sing and every once in they get to sing in the bathroom or they show up at a karaoke contest or they're hanging out with their friends singing. Who cares? But, know, I just believe that, you know, and because I'm a musician, people can say, oh yeah, well, he's going to say that. I believe that music and the arts in school is dramatically important because I think it affects brain development as opposed to not doing it. So. 14:14 Yeah. And unfortunately, a lot of those programs have gone by the wayside. Unfortunately. Yes. Unfortunately. True. Some are coming back, but it's difficult. And I understand why they cut it, you know, but m there's plenty of studies that have shown the differences in development of kids who were exposed to arts versus those who have not. m So it's a pretty well documented thing at this point. So I would like to see it stay around. Obviously I'm biased. 14:44 Um, cause I think, uh, if you're involved in the arts, whether it's music or painting or cooking or I don't care what it, you know, whatever it is, but being involved in the arts, some metal shop, woodshop, build something, whatever you, like you said, use your hands. Um, I really think that the whole thing about, know, go get a master's degree at college. I think you really need to learn how to do something, you know, having some skills matters, think. 15:10 Well, the thing that that makes me crazy is the school that my kids went to. They well, Minnesota in general requires kids to take pre-calculus and trigonometry for their senior year. they but a lot of schools don't have music classes anymore. And I'm like, people, music and math go hand in hand. Why? get rid of music? Well, see, and you understand that because, again, as an engineer, I make that connection. 15:40 Music is math and vice versa, right? mean, music is rhythmic. So there's math to that and music is melodies and tones and harmonies and harmonics and there's math to that. So yeah, it's much more integrated than people think. But, but if you don't expose people to one without the other, I think you only got half the picture. So. Yeah. And from my listeners who don't know what harmonics are. 16:10 I could try to explain it and I would fail miserably. I know what it is because I hear them all the time in everything. But can you explain harmonics? Well, if you play a fundamental note, that note, let's say we'll use a guitar string that guitar string is vibrating at some frequencies and you hear it and you pluck the note and it goes and it plays some note. That note is not just simply that note at that frequency. 16:39 um That string also has other vibrations that are occurring inside of that note, which are creating even in odd order, what's called harmonic notes above that. And so what sounds like a simple single note isn't necessarily a simple single note, but it's an enriched note that has harmonic content to it, which is if you've ever heard a really good, really good band or uh Motown singers or whatever. 17:08 and they start seeing harmony, right? And so you have somebody singing the root, somebody singing the third and the fifth and all this kind of thing. You hear this beautiful harmony. Most notes on most instruments, even on a piano, when you press a key, it's not a single string. Most pianos, every key, there's three strings to that note. So it's creating harmonics, which creates a richness to the tone. And when they all stack up, like on an instrument, like a guitar, you got six strings, you strum a full six string chord. 17:37 There's not just six individual notes playing. There's hundreds of harmonies and harmonics that are going on, which is where all that rich tonality comes from. And which is why I love guitar music. other thing with harmonics is you people hear harmonics in everything everywhere. We have a Tulane highway out in front of our house and it's a long straightaway. So people tear through here like motorcycles love our road. 18:07 Yeah. And the things that I pick up on, my husband will never hear because his ears aren't good and he's not attuned this way. But I hear a certain kind of semi coming down the road and I'm like, oh, that's that one that works for whoever they have their name on the door. And he's like, how do you know that? And I'm like, because I can hear it. I know what it is. And ceiling fans have harmonics. Oh, it's us fans. I can't. 18:37 I can't be in a room with an exhaust fan and not hear stuff that no one else is hearing and they think I'm crazy. And you're not. And what you're hearing is if a simple fan is running in the room, let's say a ceiling fan, those blades are whipping around and they're making a little like a paddle noise. That's what that is. But because that air is being whipped and it rolls over the edges of the fan tips, that creates a different fundamental tone than the fan's blade itself. 19:04 So you're hearing the combination of all that stuff, which is what creates the sound of the fan. That's why it's almost like fingerprints. That's why when that truck's coming down a road or a car comes down the road and you just know, hey, I've heard that car yesterday. It's a Mustang. I just know what it is. That's why it's not because it makes a single tone. Even the tires rolling down the road aren't a single tone. It's a if you listen to the hiss of tires coming down the road, it's a combination of harmonics. 19:31 that creates sort of a fingerprint sound and some people aren't tuned into it, but your brain definitely is. So that's why you hear that. And that's why you go, oh, I know what the truck is. You have critical hearing and it matters. It's fascinating. And it's also incredibly irritating because when I say, you hear that half the people I say it to go, what? There's no sound here. And I'm like, ha, you're wrong. 19:57 Yeah, and so the best thing to do is not even argue the point. Just enjoy the fact that you can hear that. Oh, I. I wish I had sort of a half off switch for my ears because trying to filter sound sometimes is almost impossible for me. um And then harmonies themselves, like when two people sing together. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that when they sing together, there's a third voice that's the third third. 20:26 level it's created or three people sing together it's like six it's it's exponential right yes and again that's that harmonic structure we talked about where a single note isn't necessarily a single note so if i'm singing a note or you're singing a note there's other harmonies in there i don't mean sung harmonies like two people singing together but harmonic structure that note as your vocal cords vibrate they're not just creating a single note but there's 20:54 higher pitches and lower pitches involved in that note. So now your voice is maybe creating a half dozen different harmonics, which is called majors and minors or thirds and fifths all this kind of thing. Now you get two people singing together. So you've just basically doubled the whole thing. So you put three singers together. Now you got what 18 different sounds that are coming out of three people, which doesn't initially sound like all that. But when you go, why does that sound so rich? That's why it's, it's all that sort of 21:22 Because the harmonics that are in voices or guitar strings or a piano note when you hit it are basically subtle. They're not as loud as the primary, the fundamental note. So it's underneath. And so what happens is you get three people singing together. You know, they're singing a simple three-part harmony, but all that harmonic structure and all three of those voices and all those vocal chords is creating this really big rich tone. And that's where when you hear a band that I don't care whether you're Motown, Country, whatever, 21:52 When you hear people that are singing like that, that really know how to sing harmonies, that's when you go, oh my God, it just sounds amazing. And that's fine. Yeah. And harmonics are the thing that make people feel something when they listen to it. Absolutely. Yes. And a lot of people can't define what it is. just go, God, did you hear those guys singing? It was amazing. Yeah. Well, that's where it comes from. 22:17 Yeah, and that brings us back to the music on the homestead because a lot of farmers who have cows will have a radio playing in the barn all the time because it calms the cows down. Absolutely. And so there's a good reason to have music on the homestead. um Music is entertainment. You know, you have a couple of friends over, you got a fire going outside, you sit down around the fire, somebody brings a guitar and everybody has fun singing or listening. Yeah. 22:48 And even people that don't know how to sing love to do it. So you know what? Don't, don't criticize it. If they can't sing on key, who cares? Let them have fun. Um, that's the thing about it. There's no wrong. Just, just sing louder than they do and then you can't hear them. Right. Yes. Very true. ah Uh, it is a pretty amazing thing. Um, uh, not just music for music say, but when you look at the 23:18 sort of the mechanics behind all of it. It starts to make sense and you understand it because you can hear it. um And so that's a lot of what creates the sort of unexplainable stuff that people wonder about music. Why does it sound like that? How come it, how can it even, even tempos? m You'll notice that some people, and this has been studied even in animals um have what I call 23:46 an intrinsic or an inherent tempo. Some people like ballads, some people like a little bit faster songs. They don't know why. They personally don't know why. But that's why you'll see a lot of pop music is done right at 90 beats per minute, because that tends to be the sweet spot for people listen to pop music. Personally, I like people laugh at me because I'm 70 years old, but I still like hard rock and heavy metal music because it rips, it tears. As a guitarist, it's kind of a 24:15 default for me, but and I like up tempo blues and things like that. And some people listen to that go, oh my God, that's horrible. How can you listen to that? I would rather listen to something calming and relaxing. If I listen to a slow ballad after about the third one, I'm ready to like get my car and go 100 miles an hour down the freeway. I'm going nuts. So everybody has even an intrinsic or an inherent tempo and groove and feel. And they've proved this even with animals. Elephants sway to exactly one half their heart rate. 24:45 when they want to relax. I mean, it's all connected. People don't think about that, but there's sort of science behind all of this stuff. And so some people like more melancholy songs. Some people like faster songs and slower songs. They don't necessarily know why, but it's really kind of in your DNA and in your biology, why that stuff works. Yeah. I also think it's what you're exposed to as a child, as a young child. 25:14 Because I really did like very old country songs like Appalachian old because my dad would play guitar and he would sing songs like Tom Dooley and songs like that. Hang down your head Tom Dooley. And that's that's very, very old Appalachian ish country music. And and then every time we would go somewhere, he would have the local country radio station on. And this was in the. 25:43 late 70s, early 80s, because that's when I started really remembering music, you know, paying attention. And I didn't like that particular time frame for country music. And I would be like, can't we listen to pop? he'd be like, when you have your driver's license, you get to choose radio station. Like, oh, fine. So for me, country music was really fun in the 90s. I really liked what was coming out in the 90s. Now I listen to a country station for half an hour the other day in the car. 26:13 And I was like, what is this crap? This is not music. What is going on? eh Well, yeah, it's see, know, and people that actually listen and pay attention or hear these things. And like back when Shania Twain came out, Mutt Lang, producer and all this kind of stuff, you know, it kind of became rock and roll with a fiddle or steel guitar. And that's OK. I mean, I like that kind of stuff, too, because again. 26:37 it, most of it's up tempo and groove. And so I like it up tempo, whatever. Okay. People like, Oh, that's just pop with a fiddle. Okay. Maybe it is, but I still, it's, it still moves me when I'm driving down the road in the car, as opposed to listening to some really grindy old ballad. Um, but now there's a big movement of foot. Um, and it's a subtle kind of thing, but there are many, and this includes Jen's ears, believe it or not. So there's still hope for the world. Welcome. We can't hear. 27:06 classic country because it's this sure isn't it. So now there's this big movement of foot around the 18 to 25 year olds that are going. You know what? What happened to that Clint Black stuff and and that you know all that sort of famous artists that they're listening to. um And so now there's a big movement of foot and I've got. I've got a new client in my studio right now. Who was in Nashville for 20 years and he took a break. 27:33 And now he's just coming back and kind of starting his career over again. He's 40 years old. He is hardcore redneck old school country. So I developed a couple of music tracks for him for some lyrics he had written. And I sent him to him and he goes, that's a bit too rock and roll. Because that's, that's my DNA. So I had to sit down and try to come up with some really sort of classic hardcore country music tracks for us to put these songs together. And he fell in love with 28:04 Now here's a guy, four years old. He's been around this business for a while. He doesn't want to play all that pop country stuff. wants to that. Like you're talking about that really old school, what we call gut bucket country. That's what he likes. Right. And that's what he wants to do. And that's how he's promoting himself on his website is old school, Johnny little, you know, a classic country. Okay. That's cool. There's a big movement of foot now for people to say, we miss that music. We'd like to hear more of it. So it's kind of cool. Yeah. 28:33 Awesome. I can't wait to see something on your Facebook page about it. um So we have like eight minutes left. Where can people find you if they want to if they want to get in contact? Well, yeah, probably on my Facebook page is just Carrie Adams. K.E.R.Y. um I used to have a website. I took it down because I have more than enough work as a retired guy now. I don't need any more artists. That sounds terrible, but I have plenty of work in my studio. 29:00 Um, so that's good. basically on Facebook page, which cracks me up. keep threatening to quit Facebook every year, but the problem is, I, there's so much, um, so there's so many artists that have found me through there that, that if I could get rid of it tomorrow, I probably would, but there's people still find me on there. So I just leave it up. Um, and like I said, I got rid of my, my, uh, webpage and all that stuff for my studio simply because I had enough work and I didn't need to sort of be throwing the net out there anymore. 29:29 So again, Carrie Adams on Facebook, um, you'll see posts on there. put stuff up there about the artists I'm working with. And a lot of times I, if I'm bored, I come down here in the studio and I come up with a little two minute, uh, instrumental track and I throw it up on there just for people to listen to for free. So, my dad would call that noodling on the guitar. Yeah. So noodling is fun. If you can noodle and I've got. 29:56 literally hundreds of noodling tracks. So yeah, it's what I do in my life now and I enjoy it. Awesome. Kerry, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me about music because I don't think people know as much as they think they might know about it. And there were things that I didn't know either until I started looking into it. So thank you for your time. Thank you very much and have a day. You too. Bye.
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| Matt The Garden Guy | 22 Aug 2025 | 00:27:00 | |
Today I'm talking with Matt at Matt The Garden Guy. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Matt at Matt the Garden Guy in Wisconsin. Good morning, Matt. How are you? Hey, good. How you been? I'm good. Is the weather any improved in Wisconsin today? I mean, it's been raining like crazy. Fortunately, all that rain that hit Milwaukee and that flooding missed me, but 00:28 We've been getting rain like crazy every day and you know the bugs are destroying everything but I think the rain is holding off now. I woke up this morning and the sun was actually out and I was like, oh hello! Nice of you to stop in! It's not here yet, it's still cloudy and 70, I'm just still waiting for it to rain again but yeah we need the sun badly. Yeah, my husband dumped out the uh... 00:56 the rain gauge last night and he came in and he said, we got six and a half inches of rain from Saturday until yesterday. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. It's been terrible. I don't want to engage. Sorry. My range actually broke, so I got to try to fix it. So I'm like getting no nothing coming in, but yeah, you don't have any empirical data to work with. 01:22 I know. I'm kind of like, need to know how much rain I got, but it's a lot. That's all I got to say. Yeah. Last summer we had a terrible, horrible, no good growing season. this year it started out pretty good, but with all the rain and it's been so hot that we haven't been able to keep on. Our garden is slowly giving up the ghost. And I'm like, second year in a row, next year better. 01:50 We kind of, we kind of started out the same way. um, we, we, planted everything, but then we got some weird cold weather and then some really hot weather. like, I planted a bunch of beets and carrots and all of that and it came up, but then didn't do anything. but then like it started to, sorry, reseeded and then it started exploding. like I try to get. 02:18 I tried to do at least three harvests a year. So I started early as possible and, know, cover it up with frost blankets or things like that. And this year we're only going to get probably two. So, but that's okay. Um, my husband planted over 250 tomato plants. Whoa. And we thought we were going to be rolling in, in tomatoes by now, but because of all the rain and because it's so hot, we're starting to get the blight already. 02:47 And once that happens, we're screwed. so, and so, um, yeah, our hopes for raking in some money on tomato sales this year are now kind of down the tubes too. And I'm like, are you sure we're in the right gardening thing? You know, it's funny you say tomatoes. So like my wife looked at me, I think earlier, I know we were at our friend's house over the weekend and she's like, yeah, we don't have a lot of tomatoes. said, um, 03:13 We cut down our crop by half. So last year we had 10 plants. only got, well, we got six this year. She's like, Oh, that makes sense. Because like our, our like, I don't know, my, my, my dream or whatever last couple of years is really, you know, know, canning my stuff and then going downstairs and getting it. like that's been consuming all of our. 03:37 tomatoes and all that. But I also want to sell stuff too, but we're not able to do that because we just don't have enough plants outside right now. yeah, it was funny when you say that, you you guys have that many and I'm like, yeah, we had the same conversation, but it was the opposite. We didn't plant as many as we normally do. And then my wife is like, well, how can we not have any tomatoes? Well, because I cut it in half almost because you asked me to. It's really hard gardening with your spouse. 04:07 And I use the term gardening loosely because I'm not the gardener. husband. But I help him. I help him plan and I help him with, you know, he'll say, I'm thinking about getting this variety. I look it up and find out what's required. And I tell him, and then we make a decision together. he's the, he's the boots on the ground guy and I'm the logistical planning part. So she does all of our harvesting. 04:36 because so I'm, I'm colorblind. So for me, it's hard to really tell when those tomatoes are really ready to pull. I just, I just gave up. she does all the harvesting, but she lets, you know, the planning, the planting, the, know, I've been trying to take on the role of helping like store the stuff or do something with it. Cause a lot of times she was just cutting them up and freezing it. like, we got to look at other ways, but yeah, I like how 05:05 I like how spouses and that do get involved. For the most part, my wife likes gardening, but she can care less. She just wants to reap the benefits of the garden, I guess I would say. It's like I told my husband when we bought this place five years ago. I said, I am not going to be the one out there on my hands and knees with gardening gloves on doing the stuff. That's not my jam. And he said, that's fine. And I said, but I will cook or help preserve anything you bring in. And he was like, deal. 05:35 So we kind of jumped into the middle of this. Tell me how you got into gardening. Wow, man. Well, I started gardening probably about when I was 13, maybe 12, I don't know. So way back then, grandma lived with us and she'd always garden and I like, I want to try this. you know, I started doing that and then... 06:01 When I lived with my parents, I always had a small garden outside and then it just… 06:11 It just evolved to where it is now. So I I started at a young age. And I have two daughters and I try to instill that into them too. Like right now, my daughter, my oldest daughter, she's eight, goes on nine in January, but she grabbed some beans and she sprouted them and she's like, I want to plant these in the garden. 06:39 But yeah, I started, you know, early teenager and just always had a garden and then, um, just expanded and expanded to where is right now. It's taken up about half of my backyard right now. um, you know, we, we always had people, you know, ask me, how do you garden or what do you do with everything? um, you know, that's really what made me start Matt, the garden guy as well. Like, 07:09 We had some, we had some friends come over and they're like, Oh, I want to have a garden. How do I do this? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, let me, let me, let me help you out. And it just evolved from there. That's how a lot of things evolve with the people I talked to on the podcast. They basically it's this, it's the thing from the robots movie. think it was seeing or Raleigh maybe it's seeing need villainy. Yeah. Yeah. 07:34 Yeah, that's what I get a lot of with the people I talk to and it's fantastic. I love that people are so generous and willing to give of their time and their knowledge. It's really great because the world is kind of a topsy-turvy place right now. So it's great that I get to talk to people who are so positive. I also really like gardening too because to be honest, I am not a fan of what 08:05 the world is doing with our food. And, you know, where I live, can't have, I can't have livestock. I'd have to move to have livestock. And I would love to have livestock, but I'm not moving. My house is already halfway paid off. I don't owe that much on it. So I'm not moving. So I'm sticking with, you know, fruits and vegetables and we grow a lot. So, you know, the biggest thing, again, my driving factor too around 08:33 This is, you know, teaching people how to grow the food that they eat so that they don't have to consume food full of chemicals. that, that, that's a, that might be a touchy subject for some people, but that's what I stand by. you know, there's other ways to handle it. Now it's a lot of work, but, but yeah, that's just, that's another reason why we have a very large garden because we want to 09:02 consume the food that we're growing and we know what's in it end of the day. Yes, the only ingredient in a tomato should be a tomato. Exactly. Like we don't need to learn the other plastic or whatever junk they put on top of it to preserve it. Right. Yep. Absolutely. And, as for livestock, um, my husband said to me this morning, as I'm drinking my coffee and waking up, he's already had a 09:32 cups into him. says, remember I mentioned that I might want to look into getting meat chickens and like, yes. And he said, I've been doing some research and I was like, uh-huh. And he said, it'll cost us between two and $5 per chick. It takes eight weeks for them to be ready for butcher. And I was like, okay. And he's telling me all the things that he found out. And I said, here's my only issue. 10:02 And he said, I said, are we going to actually be able to sell the butcher's? Because once you get through, my friend calls it tic-tac-titioning, know, the book work, the numbers, the math on the cost. said, we're probably looking at $20 a bird at least. I said, do you think people will pay that? And he was like, well, if they want really good help. 10:32 chicken, then yes. My did that. She grew chickens and she was trying to sell them. And it's just in our area, nobody's going to spend 20 bucks at chicken. Yeah. No. So, you know, that whole chicken conversation to my buddy, he lived outside of town and he's got about an acre and he's like, well, I'm going to, I'm thinking about growing some chickens. said, well, can I do it with you? So maybe there's a 11:01 future of chicken growing, not in my house, but on my buddy's lot. going in together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're purely doing it just, I'm not in it. I'm not in this to sell things. I'm just in it to, put stuff in my body that I'm consuming or what I'm, you know, that I'm growing. Yes. Yes, absolutely. And we would keep some of the chickens for our freezers clearly, but 11:28 But he's talking about getting at least a hundred chicks. And I'm like, um, we don't have room for eight, for a hundred chickens in our freezers right now. And also, I mean, there are people in our area who probably would pay that kind of money for a chicken that was raised ethically and fed on good things and is going to be good for them to eat. But I am very hesitant to spend the money to not make it back. 11:58 And so, and so, um, I think that could go ahead. Sorry. So for anybody local who's listening local to me, um, email me or message me or whatever, and let me know if you would be interested in that price point, because then I might have some, some data to give back to the husband on this idea. I think ultimately that's what we need is data because like, you know, you probably could, somebody might buy one, you know, here or there, but you need people that are going to buy them, you know, 12:28 every couple weeks. yeah. Maybe you're right. Maybe the market is out there and we're just kind of shooting from the hip. No, this ain't gonna work, but maybe it will work. Yeah, gotta collect some data. Well, I've been hearing an awful lot about people buying chicken at the grocery stores and the chicken is gross. Like, it's stringy and it looks weird and it doesn't look like chicken is supposed to look and then it doesn't taste right. And if that's true, 12:56 And I don't even know what chicken is going for right now at the grocery store. But if that's true, they might be willing to pay a little more for chicken that's actually chicken. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Good idea. But anyway, you're not doing livestock. No, but I'll follow along and listen to you. If you ever get that route, let me know because I am interested in understanding more about livestock. I can't do it here, but my buddy wants to do it. So. 13:23 Yeah. And the thing is it's not hard to do, but it's an investment just like anything is. Yeah. And I don't want to throw good money after bad. that the right phrase? It is. I'm okay with it. Yeah. So, but anyway, so do you teach gardening? What do mean teach gardening? Like, one-on-one or what do you mean teach gardening? I know, I know you have the YouTube channel and you have videos there. 13:53 So, so my, the math, the gardening guy, the whole purpose of math, the garden guy is to help people grow the food that they eat. And that's my mission. Um, and the only way to do that is yes, to teach people. I have, I have YouTube. know, I have Facebook, Instagram and do a little bit on tick tock, but not a lot. Um, I do have a website, Matthew garden guy. And my, my, my hope is to build that out where I have courses. Um, so. 14:23 Like some courses that I'm actively working on is, you know, preserving and putting it more towards around like canning. I know canning, some people are scared to do it or just don't know what to do. And that's how I was a couple of years ago. So, you know, I'm just going to take my knowledge and put it into some courses and post them on my website. 14:48 Another thing that I do a lot in the wintertime. So obviously I'm in Wisconsin. I think you're in Minnesota, right? Yes. Okay. So we get the cold. So how do you grow all year long? That's my, that's my, that's my plan right now. So, um, I did that last year. I grew stuff downstairs. Um, the thing that I grew a lot was bok choy and some greens like that. So, so teaching people, um, one of my, one of my, 15:18 you know, past this year, winter time is going to be, you know, creating some courses on how to do indoor gardening. So I think all of my videos are geared around teaching people, you know, how do you do things? And I focus on one specific area in all of my videos. so, and it kind of goes in like, 15:44 spurts of what I'm actively doing. So right now, again, there's a lot of canning going on. I'm showing people in, you know, quick videos on how to can, but the goal is to have these on my website and have things in like a blog format where you can read it and then you can watch the same video that's attached to the content that you're reading. So that's kind of the structure that I'm doing when I'm creating these videos and stuff like that. 16:13 So that's fabulous. love it. Um, you, the thing with growing stuff inside, we, we start our seedlings inside every year at the end of February because most things that we're going to put in the garden require eight to 10 weeks before we can put them outside anyway. They're not ready for transplant. But, uh, the thing that we've learned is that, um, radishes don't need bugs to produce radishes. They don't need to be pollinated. Nope. 16:42 And lettuces don't and chard doesn't and spinach doesn't. And those are the kinds of things that you want in the wintertime. You want fresh greens. Correct. And we just put seedling trays on our kitchen table and we have grow light, a long grow light that we hang from our light fixture above our kitchen table. And so if we wanted to, we could grow radishes, we could grow carrots if we had a deep enough container. 17:08 We've grown lettuces anytime during the year because they just love being inside because they're protected. Yeah. You know, you can grow a lot of things inside. know, one of the things that we're talking about, you know, indoor gardening and that, I experimented with dwarf cherries over this last winter. Yeah. Sorry, cherry tomatoes. 17:37 You know, they're about a foot tall and they produce tomatoes. So you can, you know, even tomatoes, can grow those inside. You just might have to self pollinate them or just, you know, tap the flowers a little bit. yeah, there's a lot of things you can grow inside. Now it's just how big of an area or investment do you want to do? know, but yeah, all the greens. Yeah, no problem. Like I said, I grew bok choy inside. 18:06 in the basement or the winter time. And we were pulling bok choy and eating it in our ramen soup or, you know, stir fries all winter long. Yep. And it's such a pretty little plant. I mean, it's so nice to have a thing that's green. That's a new growing in the middle of winter. And that's really, that's my biggest focus this winter time. If I'm talking about garden is, you know, I'm going to grow the things that I know can grow, but I'm going to experiment with other things and I'm going to document it and I'm going to teach people and 18:36 You know, I'm going to throw that out on my website, you know, Matt, the garden guy dot com and put them out there. Like I have a section just for indoor gardening and all of my stuff, all of my courses, everything is free. I'm not really into this to make a buck. My whole deal is helping people grow the food that they eat. So, know, you go on my website, there'll be, you know, there'll be, there'll be the content out there. Um, you know, one thing with my website too, I don't bombard you with a bunch of ad pop-ups and all of that. 19:06 Like I know, um, you know, kind of switching gears a little bit, no, we do a lot of things. We do a lot of cooking with our food. And one thing that always annoyed me is when I'd go to a website and look for a recipe and I'd scroll halfway down and I'd get this pop up in my face and I couldn't read the recipe and I ended up just abandoning it and just, you know, got rid of it. Um, we decided not to do that when we, when we made our website. So, you know, there might be a couple of things on the side, but nothing will pop up in your face to say, Hey, do this. 19:36 or, look at this ad. um, well, yeah, the, the, um, indoor gardening, sorry, jumping back to that. apologize. I jump around all the, all the time, but I live with one like that. Indoor gardening. A lot of, a lot of people are interested about it. Hey, what is this? What can we do? So yeah, I'm really going to focus on indoor gardening, like training and teaching more people. There's a lot of things that you used to talk about grow lights. Well, 20:06 There are specific grow lights and the height above the plants and all of that. There is a science and if people want to put time into it, will, I'm willing to put the time and effort into teaching people. Um, the other thing that a lot of people don't know when you, when you grow inside is that you need to have a small fan that can grow across plants because if you don't, they get leggy and they fall over and they die because they have any, any reason to support themselves. 20:35 100%. And you know, I had a, I had another issue. like when I'm growing downstairs, like my basement is colder. So it's like, you know, mid sixties. I have them growing in, you know, the those indoor greenhouses. So I got the fan, but then I also have an issue with a massive amount of humidity. So I'm dealing with humidity and all of that too. So I really got to, I don't know. I might build an area downstairs. That's kind of. 21:04 blocked off and that has some, you know, ways to get the humidity out. But yeah, there's a lot of different things for indoor gardening and people might just be, Hey, you're nuts. That's way too much work. First of all, yes, I am nuts. And second of all, it's a winter time. What else am I going to do? Yeah, exactly. The winters in the Northern tier States are long and you will go insane if you don't have something to do. A hundred percent. People are like, well, get outside. Well, sometimes you can't when it's negative 50 and 21:34 Burn your face off. Yeah. Like that week in January we had last Wednesday. was real fun. I was going to say we actually put up a quote unquote heated greenhouse two Mays ago. Nice. And the reason I say quote unquote is because it's not exactly heated. we have the, I don't know what the hell they're called. The containers that people ship liquid in, the 22:05 Oh, there's a name for them. Five gallon or 50 gallon drum or no, they're like a they're like a cube and they're they're in. no idea. They're in a metal cage and I forget this name all the time. But anyway, we put water in them and the sun heats them up and then they disperse the heat. All right. right. And that did pretty well until we got below zero temps. That's the problem. Yeah. So like I have have a I have a house outside. So 22:34 Right. It's a, my hoop house is, um, eight feet, eight feet wide and 14 feet long. And it's just got plastic over it. So it's great until the sun goes away. The sun goes away. It, you know, it gets really cold in there. It's, it's the same temperature as it is outside as it is inside. Yeah. But it does, but you don't get those wind chills in there. So, you know, 23:02 You got a 12 mile an hour wind, you're not going to get that temperature inside. yeah, they're, they're. Heated stuff, right? I've always been trying to find different things to eat it. That water drum thing you're talking about might work. It does, but it doesn't work when it's, when it's a really long stretch. the other issue is, is if we have three or four days where it's not sunny. 23:31 that water doesn't stay warm. It doesn't absorb the heat from the sun. So we call it the heated greenhouse because it extends our growing season into December. And we have a place now for the baby plants to go out to sooner in the spring because it's warm enough in March instead of April. Same thing I do with the hoop house. I grow into it as long as I can. 23:59 And I start as early as I can. you know, if we get a couple extra weeks, perfect. And for us, the big deal is that we can have a place to put all of our seedlings in the spring because otherwise we would have seedlings on our kitchen table for three months. And sometimes I actually do like to use my kitchen table for other things. Well, when you grow 200 tomato plants, that's a lot. That's crazy. That's awesome. I love it. 24:28 Yeah. And the reason he planted so many tomato plants is because last year he planted three times. And I think we maybe can 30 pints of tomato sauce out of the tomatoes we did manage to get last year. So he over planted this year. Makes sense to me. I probably would done the same thing. Yeah. And we're starting to learn that no matter what we do, something is going to go right and something is going to go wrong in the same season. Exactly. You just got to get over that and just expect it. 24:58 And you got to pivot and, this isn't going to work this year, you know, and, and deal with, or, you know, work with what you got right now. But yeah, I think that's what gardening is. just gotta, you gotta be able to adapt. A lot of people say, well, it's supposed to be a stress relief. What is just don't let it get to you. Just, you know, that's how I de-stress. I go outside and work in my garden. Gardening is God's way of teaching you acceptance and patience. 100%. 25:27 Second thing is having kids, in my opinion. Oh, same thing. Raising kids is gardening. 100%. You're just gardening a human, that's all. Yep, yep, yep. Okay, we've got like four minutes left. Where can people find you, Matt? Yeah, mattthegardenguy.com. Matt the gardening guy, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Don't do a lot of TikTok, but I'm out there. You know, yeah, pretty much all those platforms. 25:57 where you can get me. if people have questions, can they just like DM you or email you? Yep. DM me. You can email me. It's mattthegardenguy at outlook.com. Best thing is just to go, you go on my website, you can send me a message or just go on social media and send me a message. I encourage people to message me. I love helping people. So don't be afraid. Shoot me a message. Awesome. I love that you are such a giving heart. And again, 26:25 People on my podcast do this all the time and I'm just so thankful that you guys come and talk to me and share your knowledge. Yeah. Happy to do that. Happy to be on this podcast. I'm really interested in, you know, seeing how those chickens work out for you. So let me know when you get something out there. If they work out. Yeah. If we do it. All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. 26:53 Matt, thank you for your time. hope you have a great day. And to my listeners, thanks for listening. Keep coming back for more.
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| Family Tree Food & Stories | 20 Aug 2025 | 00:38:36 | |
Today I'm talking with Nancy and Sylvia at Family Tree Food & Stories. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you use my link, https://amzn.to/4lDqg06, to buy the book, My Family Tree, Food & Stories: Your Personal Journal of Favorite and Memorable Foods, Recipes, and Stories to Remember and Share, I will receive a small commission. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:01 Today I'm talking with Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely. What a wonderful last name. Thank you. Family Tree Food and Stories. Sylvia is in Kentucky. Kentucky, you got it. Nancy is in Florida. There you go. So good morning ladies. How are you? Good morning to you and so good to be with you. I love your voice. Thank Doing good. Yeah. Thank you. 00:28 I always feel weird when people say that because I don't hear it the way other people hear it, but that is totally fine. And what a lovely compliment. Thank you. Sure. All right. So what's the weather like in Florida, Nancy? It is warm and a little sticky. It's August, but that said, we have lovely air conditioning inside. So the weather inside is beautiful. It's sunny outside. And what's the weather like in Kentucky, Sylvia? 00:54 I might say a big ditto. It's about 95. It's very hot. The weather's supposed to break. I wish I was in Minnesota where my son lives in Duluth. It'd be a little cooler. He says it's cooler up there. But it's coming our way. So that's good news. Yes. Fall is definitely coming. I heard geese honking the other day and our trees are just starting. The maples are just starting to change. Wow. That's early. 01:20 And it's been cooler at night. mean, the last couple of nights it's been warm because we've had rain and thunderstorms, but it's coming. And I'm not sad to see the summer go. It has been so hot and so muggy here. That's what Ross says too, up in Duluth. But you're around the Minneapolis St. Paul area. Is that where you are? I am an hour southwest of Minneapolis. Okay. All right. 01:44 Yep. I am where the Jolly Green Giant started out. yeah, that's right. how cool. That's right. We did some work on that, didn't we, Nancy? It's been several episodes ago. And frozen foods for sure. Yeah, exactly. ho ho, Green Giant. Well, you just gave me a perfect opening. Tell me about yourselves and what you guys do. All right, Nancy, you want to go first? Sure. So I'm Nancy May and I'm the co-host of 02:13 Family Tree Food and Stories podcast. And we are also the co-author of a book called My Family Tree Food and Stories, which is a book that shows you how to take all your family recipes or the recipes that you love, whether it's family or not, and write the stories related to the recipes. Some are good, some are like, yeah, you know, those flops actually make good stories and good fodder for future conversations too. And there's always a way to fix a recipe and a meal. But let me see. 02:42 I am not the best cook in the world, but I keep trying and that's half the fun. But food is an outlet to be creative and bring family and friends together at the table. In fact, we just had a nice gathering of some friends at our home the other night and somebody said, oh, well, I don't cook at home for friends. Why not? Because I much rather do that than meet somebody at a restaurant because that way you actually know who they are as people in your home and whether you want to invite them back or not. 03:11 So that's kind of our, we like them or do we not like them? And let me piggyback onto that. I'll tell how we came together, Nancy. That could be an interesting thing. How did Florida marry Kentucky? We came together because of a local podcaster here. 03:31 in Lexington, Kentucky, which is where I am based. And he introduced us in the rest of his history. We just started clicking together. I mean, I guess that's kind of the best word for it. We compliment each other beautifully. I don't cook. I so admire, I own a restaurant, Azura Restaurant and Patio here in Lexington. It's high-end restaurant, lots of seafood, steak, and that kind of thing serves the local racetrack. And that's where 03:59 My husband and I love the community of the restaurant. That's why we got into it. The stories that come in a restaurant and come together are just amazing. So I've enjoyed my journey with Nancy. We are coming up on a year, I guess, of our podcast. And our book has been out there for a little more than a year. So yeah, real exciting. I love it. Congratulations on almost a year. And what's the book? What's the name of the book? It's called My Family, Tree Food and Stories. 04:26 And it's on Amazon and it's a journal slash memory book really of being able to look at your family history in your trees. And really how do you pair those stories around meals that you had with grandma or grandpa or mom or dad or your sister or brother or even just friends who have become part of your family. And you put your history together in the book from appetizers on through to desserts and 04:55 even the scoops along the way. I actually teach storytelling for the Carnegie Center. I'm kind of a weird person. I'm a lawyer by profession. am a storyteller teacher and I own a restaurant. you know, I'm the master of miscellany, I guess. But anyway, the stories and we actually feature several tiny stories in the book because we want to show people and give them instructions on how to put a story together. 05:24 Because some people are just so like, I can't do that. I don't know. And yet, you know they know. You know that they know how to have a conversation. All we have to do, Nancy and I have to do with a guest is just mention food and they'll take off on a story. Most people think writing a story is some unique thing that not any mere mortal can do. And yet we want to show them that they can. So we did that in several small vignette stories in the book. Nice. That is awesome. 05:54 Nancy mentioned the litmus test for having people over to see if you want to have them over again. The litmus test in my house growing up is we had a cat and I think his name, oh, it's escaping me. We had two cats in a row that were almost the same color. The first one was Casper, but I can't remember the second. Jeff, Jeffy was the second one. J-E-F-F-Y. And Jeffy, if he didn't like somebody who came in the house, would 06:24 would howl at them, kiss at them, and run back to my parents' bedroom and not come back. And it was typically someone that he had not met before that we didn't know very well. I kid you not, those people he reacted that way to did not come back to our house. It might be a handy cat to keep around. Yeah, he died quite a while ago. He was old. Yeah, he actually died sleeping. 06:52 Yeah, he died sleeping in front of my parents wood stove in the mall. Oh, I think he was like 15 years old. Wow. Cats go a long time. I've got a 14 year old that's going strong. yeah, they're, they're good. barn cat by the name of Wonder Woman. Uh huh. My dad actually called just Puss Puss like dad. She's got a name. Nope, Puss Puss. And that cat would ride along in his shoulders outside. 07:18 Sweet. Yeah, cats live outside. lovers. Mary, we're animal lovers, you can tell. We are too. And I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole on cat names. But the two barn cats we have right now, the males, one is named Satan because he is pure black and he was pure spite. And then the second one we have, his name is Fluffy, but he will be a year old in September. is like a... 07:46 He's a golden beige and he was very long haired. And then he blew his coat this spring and he almost naked. yeah, of course he's fluffy, still fluffy, but is now ironic. We did an episode on Don Food a few episodes ago. then Nancy and I, as horrible coincidence would happen, we both lost our dogs about the same time, Nancy. Oh, I mean, it was horrible. We were both like. 08:15 lost at sea. It was awful. But we've since gotten new dogs. Nice. Yeah. Replacements just in addition. Just in additions. Yes, absolutely. You can't replace a dog. can only add a new one. We have a dog here. She'll be five. Well, she's turned five on August 3rd. I keep thinking it's July. It's August. And she's five. And I can't believe she's five. 08:42 I keep thinking she's a puppy and she's not. She's a fully fledged adult dog now. I know it. You just get so attached to them. Can I ask what kind? I'm sorry. I don't want to take us down that hole either. No, it's okay. She is a, well, she was told she was sold to us as a mini Australian shepherd, but I have spoken to people who raise Australian shepherds on my podcast. They're like, there's no such thing. She's just a small Australian shepherd. She weighs about 36 pounds. Perfect size. 09:11 Yeah, perfect. And she's not crazy. She's very, very go, go, go outside, but when she comes in, she just is calm. She's fine. She just wants peace. we picked the right dog. We got her when she was a day shy of eight weeks old. Oh, perfect. She was basically, if I put my two hands together flat, know, pinkies together, she was that big in my palms. Oh, sweet, sweet. I she was five pounds. 09:41 And I'll miss that puppy. I don't miss the craziness that comes with puppies, but oh. No, I'm. We're puppies. Both Nancy and I are in the throes of that. Yeah. Bibi of Brooksville, where we're deciding, is she really a Bibi or is she like dirt ball? Three months. Yeah. Four months. She'll be four months in the, on Wednesday. Oh, you are. 10:09 Yeah, I made it. I'm eight months with Ellie who's a Bernie doodle, but you know, I like the doodles because they don't shed You guys are brave women because I don't want another puppy when Maggie goes I want to get I want to adopt a dog because I don't want to go through the velociraptor stage where they chew on it Oh, absolutely, and they all have their own diet mine loves paper. She chews up paper 10:36 So far no shoes, but I just said that and that means she'll get shoes on it next but they have interesting diets when they're puppies Yes, they do and they will destroy anything within their reach even something that might kill them. So that's I don't want puppy. the older dog right now. Yeah Yeah, I don't want a puppy again. It was really fun. I'm glad I had the experience but I'm I'm good on puppies Okay, so we went way down the rabbit hole on animals. That's okay. I love animals, too 11:06 But you were also saying about family traditions and memories that food brings back. And I've shared a couple of times on the podcast about certain things that I really think of when I think of cooking with my grandma. And she used to make these amazing mincemeat pies with real venison, like from the deer that my grandpa or my dad shot. And when she got done, she would always have extra pie dough left. 11:33 and she made really nice preserves. And so she would let my sister and I work with her after she got the pies put together and she'd roll out the dough and she'd give us a hunk, you know, a ball. she'd say, she'd say, put your thumb right in the middle of it on the pan and press down. Uh One of my favorites. she put like extra sugar in her dough. I don't know why, but her pie crust was always sweet. Oh, yummy. 12:01 And so it was this very sweet pie crust and she'd have like blackberry preserves or strawberry or whatever. And she had these special little spoons. I don't know why they were small. I don't know what they were, but they were special. And she would let us use those to scoop the preserves into the pie dough thumbprint. And then they'd bake in the oven for however long, come out and cool down. Cause you do not want to those things right out of the oven. can burn your tongue for a month. 12:28 Yeah. Sugar and butter seem to go with grandmothers and cooking. Oh yeah, absolutely. Do you still have those spoons? No, I do not. I don't know who has those spoons. Don't you regret some of the things that like that iron skill that my dad would make cornbread in? Yeah. I wish I'd saved it. Never even thought about saving it. know, George Bernard Shaw was right. Youth is wasted on the young. 12:52 Yeah, You don't know that you want to save things and then by the time you realize you'd like to have them, they're already gone. I'm a saver. I'm a pack rat. And that's the hard part. When we moved from Connecticut down to Florida, we had to get rid of so much stuff because they were going to charge us by the pound to move everything. So I told Bob and his brother that they had to get a U-Haul and all the good stuff that I wanted was going in the U-Haul. 13:21 And all the stuff that maybe somebody else could break would be, you know, elsewhere. But still, like his anvil that he wants to, cause he does blacksmithing. Nope. We're not paying by the pound for that thing. But the other day as we were, I was sort of prepping and thinking about what to make for these guests. I ran across all the napkin rings. 13:42 that had been passed down through the generations of our family that we used as kids. And there was one that was always my sister's, there was one that was mine, there was one that was mom's, there was one that was dad's. We had extras for over the generations. But I said, oh my God, we haven't used napkin rings forever. We have to start using them and cloth napkins always. I'm still like a stick, paper napkins, no, not good. 14:07 But those napkin rings always told you where to sit and whose place it was. And you always felt odd sitting someplace else. Yeah. Yeah. You know, going back to grandmothers and memories, I remember the first thing, West Liberty, Kentucky is where my family was in tiny place in the middle of nowhere. And we'd get there from Ohio. We were so excited. And the first place we'd go was the cellar where for some reason my grandmother had put up, as they put it in the country, had put up grape juice. 14:37 in jars, had just stacks of jars of grape juice. And I understood later that they grew grapes kind of wild in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. It interesting to me that it would have happened that way, but it was so good. You know, you're just immediately headed for the cellar. I remember in college in Virginia, in the springtime, they had the wild grapes that were growing on the side of the road. And if you drove by with the windows rolled down, 15:07 you could smell those grapes. It was just amazing. I in the fall, not the springtime, in the fall when the grapes, but they were so rich. So there is a thing. There is a thing then. See, that's what they told me about in the hills that that's how they found the grapes. yeah, yeah, really good. Yeah, it smells like Walters grape juice. Oh, sweet. My other memory is, is the book, the story I have in the book, each Nancy and I each contributed our own story. 15:35 to the book again as an illustration, but my grandmother was a teetotaler from Eastern Kentucky. And at Christmas time, made a, we pulled a big trick on her. made a rum cake, didn't tell her what it was and enticed her to take a big slice and she ate every bit of it and said how much she loved it. And we were doubled over in another room laughing our rear end off. Yeah. Cake caper. Cake caper. Yes. 16:04 My grandmother was not a teetotaler. My grandmother made the rhubarb wine that we had for a while and was always brought out for special occasions, births, wedding announcements, whatever. And the last bit of rhubarb wine, my dad, yep, my dad, it was a giant cardboard. My dad brought it out of this cellar and it was my dad, my mom, my uncle Ken, which was my mom's brother, Bob and I. 16:32 We sort of announced, you know, we were getting married and my uncle Ken had said, look, do you two kids want to get married? He offered to give us his wife's ring. She had passed a number of years earlier and Bob and I had just been out shopping and he pulls out of his pocket under the table and says to my uncle Ken, it look like this? And he's like, oh my God. And my dad's like, what's going on? Well, out came the rhubarb wine and we drank the last. 16:59 batch of rhubarb wine. Oh, that's South Central. Wow. Hey, while we're on the subject of drinking, can I tell my drinking story? Sure. Okay. I was in Duluth visiting with my son and he insisted on going to the local bar in Duluth, Minnesota to watch the wild play. Now as a Minnesotan, you know what the wild is? Uh huh. That's the hockey team. 17:25 And so I was like, oh honey, it's like 10 o'clock at night. The thing starts and I'm, you know, I go to sleep. No, mom, please go. So we went, I had my one glass of wine. It's all I ever drink is one glass of wine. And I fell asleep. And suddenly I feel my son, mom, mom, wake up. They're kicking us out because they say you're drunk. 17:47 Oh no. mom got drunk in Duluth, Minnesota. It's a great story for my friends. They love it because I'm about as boring as you get, 70 something that I am. I drink the same glass for you. Oh my goodness. Anyway, I was starting out at a bar in Duluth, Minnesota. I'm kind of proud of that. kind neat. I would wear that as badge of honor. 18:13 The other story that I've told on the podcast is that my other grandma who lived in Illinois used to make Christmas candies from scratch. we always called them Christmas candies because she made them at Christmas time and would send us a box in Maine where I grew up. And she would make divinity, she would make potato stick candy, she would make buckeye candy, peanut Potato stick candy? I haven't heard of that. 18:42 It's, you know, the butterscotch chips that you can get that are like chocolate chips? Yeah. It's that and potato sticks and peanuts and I don't know. Just a mixture. Yeah. It's of like a Chex Mix kind of thing. Yeah, Chex Mix. But the butterscotch chips are melted so it's all over so it's a melted thing. that sounds good. Yeah. I'm coming to your house. That's where grandma's house. So she used to make those and oh my goodness, what else? 19:12 I can't remember. Oh, the coconut nougat chocolate covered bonbon candies. yeah, sure. Yeah, my mother loved those. She would make these from scratch and she would send like a 30 pound box of this to us in end of November, 1st of December for Christmas. Wow. Oh, that sounds good. I look for Nancy to try to make that potato stick thing. 19:37 Yes, it's super easy. I had a recipe, I would get it to you, but I don't have it. bet my mom has it. I will see if I can get it from her. anyway, like, God, I don't even remember what year it was. My grandma was staying with my parents because she had what they called dementia, but I think it was probably Alzheimer's. I don't know if dementia and Alzheimer's are different things. But anyway, she was staying with them and my parents were in their 50s, I think, and she was in her 20:06 70s, I think. I can't remember. But I got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted to make some of the candy and send it to my folks while grandma was still around to try it. Yeah. And I'm going to cry because it was a big deal. I made, I didn't make divinity because divinity is a pain in the butt to make. Yeah. And it's very temperature sensitive and it's very hot sugar. And I was just like, I don't want to burn myself doing this, but I made 20:35 Peanut brittle, made potato stick candy, I made the buckeyes and the coconut bonbon thingies. probably a couple other things. Fudge, mean chocolate fudge was a recipe I found. And I sent my parents a 40 pound piece of candy. Oh, that's so neat. And they got it. And my mom called and she's like, we can't. 21:02 Possibly eat all this candy. said I know give it to the neighbors give it to the people at Dad Works with Share it and So I said did grandma try it and she said yes She tried one of the Buckeyes and I saw and she said she didn't say anything but the look on her face was joy Was this joy? Was she able to help you at that point to tell you know I was in Minnesota and they were in Maine so I see I see 21:29 Because I have a similar story when my mother in her final illness I had forgotten that I had not learned from her how to make her prize-winning fried chicken Yeah, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it was November 19th. I remember it well It was her birthday. She died a month later and I went in and she was asleep on the bed I said mamma which was her preferred pronoun at that point. I said because of her she has two grandchildren that my boys 21:56 Can you come help me make fried chicken so I can learn how? Oh, she get up, she goes into the kitchen, she puts it on the first stage. And I looked up and I looked in the kitchen and she wasn't there. And I went back to her bedroom and she had gone back to bed. She had totally forgotten what she was doing. And so I never learned to make fried chicken. And that's a big regret because she had such a knack. 22:18 with fried chicken. You don't cook anyway, so you've got a restaurant. Maybe that's what happened. At that day I said, no more. I'm going to own a restaurant instead. don't know what it is with grandma's and fried chicken. The same grandma that made the Christmas candy, she used to make fried chicken, but she would use maple syrup in her batter. So it was a maple syrup fried chicken. And oh my God, we would go out and visit her. 22:47 and she would have it cooking because we'd in about the time it was dinner time. And we'd walk in the house and all you could smell was this maple syrup smell and chicken skin smell. oh my God, every time I smell something like that now I'm like, wow, that's grandma's kitchen. Yeah, brings it back. See, my grandmother was too ill when I was a kid. She passed away when I think it was probably just the end second grade. 23:15 But so I remember my grandmother in a wheelchair, yet taking her out to restaurants, my dad bringing the wheelchair up the stairs. This was before like ADA stuff and just the experience of remembering. can picture it like it was yesterday. Her sitting there and worried about the guys, you know, bringing her up the stairs, whether she was too heavy or not. Well, you know, didn't matter, right? know, they were, they were big guys. And, um, 23:41 Christmas time and I think was predominantly Christmas time and then my dad's birthday. She would send cases of tomato aspect and vichyssoise to my dad because he loved it. Wow. I remember the Campbell's, one was I think Campbell's and the other was sort of some other kind of brand. But to this day, I don't think I could eat any of that stuff, but he loved it. The cans of those stuff. 24:06 coming, dad in underwear. Underwear, good. And just seeing her smiling at the end of the dining room table when she was at our house for dinner. those are the stories that I remember my grandmother as far as food related stuff. Yeah. And these are the kind of stories that need to go in the book that people buy from you guys. Yes. That's what we want. We think this actually is a movement across the country. And you're kind of part of that too. 24:36 You know, looking at kind of, you know, they say we live in the age of loneliness, epidemic loneliness. And we think, and there's so many movements out there moving in this direction of cooking. I'm reading the biography of Jacques Pepin right now, because it's his 90th birthday, right, in December. And it's fascinating story, Nancy. I told you I had gotten the book and was reading it on vacation. And he later in life, after his accident, near fatal accident, 25:05 uh, actually founded a foundation that works with incarcerated people to teach them to cook because there's something about putting that food together and sitting around the table and conjuring up the stories. There's, again, people don't think they have those stories, but you scratch the surface and they'll start telling you stories about that time I was in an RBNB and Airbnb and the pan fell apart with a lasagna and we didn't know the pan was substandard. know, I mean, there's just. 25:33 all those things that we wish people would like capture and to enjoy food. Not necessarily even if you're not a cook. You know, we had a person on a young woman, Meredith, on our show in an early episode that had, this is a typical story too of 40 year old in today's world. She got married, mother put together the recipe book and her handwriting gave it to her as a wedding gift. That was Meredith's dream. She got it. She said, as she put it in our show, she said the, 26:03 The cookbook still exists or the recipe book still exists. The marriage ended in a year. So she's now a divorced 40 year old and was, bought the book and was filling it out with her own recipes. Then she called me the other day and said, okay, it's 2.0 now. She said, I'm having my mother write those recipes in my book, in the Family Tree Food and Stories book. And then I'll tell, I told her I would fill in the stories on the other side. So it's like this partnership. 26:31 between this 40 year old single, she has no children, single, and not in a typical situation in today's world. And she's got the book and she's cherishing the book. She's catching on and knows she wants, again, her mother's partnership on this. It's really beautiful. It is beautiful. That's, oh, my heart. You know, Mary, stories don't need to be food related stories, don't need to be always shared with family. A number of back, a group of 27:01 women that I knew, business women, we all decided to rent an Airbnb together and do sort of a business mastermind. And at dinner, what we ended up doing was everybody was charged with making a meal at some point in the course of our stay together of their family or something that was important to them. And one of them came from a Lebanese background and she talked about how you made the meat, this particular rose water and went on. 27:31 So we were able to actually learn more about one another through sharing of the food and the relationships that we had with our families, again, with one another. And we learned so much about the history and the background of each other in such a personal way. And yeah, a bottle of wine here or there doesn't help her either still. And so we were all in the same house. We were working together, but it was really fun to, to, you know, be charged with what's my job if I'm going to make Lebanese food. I don't know. 28:00 So we learned a lot about each other that weekend. I love potlucks. love it when people get together and bring something to share. Yeah, that is, that's what we're doing that this Saturday with our staff of the restaurant. Just let everybody bring something and not, you know, we'll buy the main course and let everybody come and kind of off the clock, have that opportunity to just have a great time. 28:30 one of our customers is going to donate his house and pool. Yay. That helps, right? But, you know, and the whole history of food is so interesting to us because we want to be tied always to tradition. But our traditions date back as we find out, you know, Ireland is full of traditions and mystical kinds of things. The story of salmon and all the kind of 28:57 lead into all the foods that we taste today. And I find myself, Nancy, I don't think I'd shared this with you, but I was always kind of interjecting, maybe I was being obnoxious, something that we had learned in the course of our work on the podcast. You know, like maybe it was a meal at a restaurant that was a Michelin one star restaurant. And we did that in La Jolla. And I was able to explain that because we did an episode on it. you know, it's just 29:26 It's interesting because it is, it does fill in some blanks on our traditions and how they've evolved over the years. And people, think, would find that to be interesting and how new traditions are evolving. Yes. And it can't be a tradition if you don't start it somewhere. Maybe you can start tomorrow. It doesn't need to start today. It can be just something you came and said, I want to do this. You know, my husband and I have this now a tradition where 29:54 we started, I think it was probably about 20 years ago, we figured we'd do a Christmas party. We'd never done a Christmas party in our house before. And we said we wanted to do a gift to friends where they didn't have to cook. So we did the party, an open house. It was the Friday before Christmas Eve. So whatever Christmas Eve fell on, I said, our gift to you is that you don't have to cook. Come to our house, it's a meal, we're opening our house. And that's what we did. We did this huge spread. 30:23 And so people would say, are we invited next year? They left that year before. like, you know, kind of like the other couple, I mean, we liked everybody who came last weekend, but there were some people who were like not invited back for good reasons. not in our house, right? Jeffy would have sniffed them out. Oh, Jeffy, right. Well, my stepson and his wife called my husband, the other, well, 30:53 last year in September and said, Hey, we're thinking about coming up for Thanksgiving. And they're in Nebraska. And I was like, okay. My husband relays the information to me and I'm like, okay, so what am I cooking? And my husband says, that's the beautiful part. What, do you want to cook for dessert? Because that's all you need to do. They're going to cook. Oh, That's great. So. 31:22 Um, my, my husband and his son, who basically is my son. just didn't carry him. He's the child of my heart, not my body. did, they, uh, did the whole turkey in the, the thingy outside with the oil. Oh, like the fried turkey. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. They did that. And, um, has my, my son's wife brought, she cooks stuff ahead, which is smart. You can do that. 31:51 She brought some fabulous garlic butter mashed potatoes from scratch. Yummers. And stuffing and I think it was green bean casserole that didn't really survive. kind of, it kind of didn't handle the weather on the drive up. So it got mushy, but it was good. And she does not get to cook like this very often because she has a big family and everybody else cooks. Oh, so she cherished it. Yeah. And she loves to cook and she doesn't get to. 32:20 And I understand that because I went through the same thing when I was her age. So it was this wonderful thing that they did for us. And I made squash pie and I think I did an apple pie. remember. Oh, you'll have to try the Z-apple. Is that what you call Right. I made what's called a Zapple pie this weekend, which was on one of our shows. it basically, instead of apples, you use zucchini. I didn't really follow the recipe 100%. 32:50 That's okay. I didn't even look at, oh, you got to peel it. My husband's like, you're supposed to peel the zucchini. So people don't know it's zucchini. He's like, well, it's just green apples, but it tastes pretty much like apples, believe it or not. like we just recorded an episode with one of our guests said, man, you've got balls to serve this to people. But it was good. I told Nancy that was among her many talents, balls. 33:19 Last Thanksgiving, I made a plan. I went to Duluth to join my son. He's a cook and he does such a great job and he has eight kids and six of them were there. And we cooked and we had the best time over the turkey. And then he's one of these people, he cooks his own broth and, uh, you know, all of it. I mean, he's just like a back to earth or kind of thing when it comes to cooking, but we did this magnificent dinner. 33:47 and we slaved all morning and we put it on the table. He has five kids under the age of eight at the time and not one of them would touch it. We could have killed them. But anyway, we enjoyed eating it and he froze a bunch of it, which he's very good at. So anyway, sometimes there are mishaps too. yeah, absolutely. But the reason I wanted to share the story about my daughter-in-law doing most of the cooking for Thanksgiving is that when you're the mom, 34:16 You guys know, you think that you're the one who's going to have to do all the cooking forever. And you got to make room for the other people behind you to do their thing too. That's what Ross and Ross is a very good cook. So I'm very proud of him. don't know where he picked it up. Too much micromanagement in the kitchen doesn't make everybody feel like they're welcome. 34:42 Even when we have guests, people say, can I help with anything? I'm like, mm, yes, you can. Here, unpack this one. Cut this, cut that. Right. So I love, I love volunteer sous chefs. Yeah. Right. Volunteer sous chefs. love that. I'm never on time with everything. So it's, it's okay. We're looking for a sous chef. So if either of you are interested. 35:03 No, yeah, everybody be waiting for a meal for a long time waiting for music. Two hours later, you have an extra that you'd be making all the money on the wine and the liquor at your restaurant with me. They say people are drinking less, you know, and we've seen the ordering of mocktails just explode. That's fine. And people want the mocktails now. And the beer. 35:29 And even a wine, I told them that if they served me that wine, just don't tell me it's not alcoholic. Cause I'll just like not like it from the get go, but I wouldn't mind trying it. It's more of a sparkling wine that doesn't have alcohol in it. we the no alcoholic beer or low alcohol beer. We've got one that's like 29 calories. so Bob ordered, offered it to one of our guests and she said, that's beer flavored seltzer. 35:57 Well, see, that's kind of the way I would be. I don't want to know if because I don't drink a lot but when I do, I want the real thing. I don't drink because the last time I drank, I thought I was being smart and I drank water in between each drink because I am prone to migraines and I really didn't want migraine the next day. guess what? 36:23 freaking hangover of my life. haven't really had any drink in 10, 15 years now. Oh, really? have a solution for some of that. If you ever decide to go back. had friends over the years who, as they were going through the early stages of menopause, they said, yep, it was the sulfates that they found out that was causing the migraines. So they discovered that you could drink champagne, which doesn't have the sulfates. 36:51 So that's how they got around it and they didn't get the migraines. if you decide to... I love champagne. I can't afford it. Oh, go to Sam's Club or Costco. can afford it. Maybe you're better off just doing a mocktail. But the thing about mocktails is they contain a lot of sugar. I'm trying to stay away from that. So I just drink water with lemon in it or something like that on the days. is hard when you own a restaurant not to drink. 37:18 and not to drink the wine. could come up with an excuse every day. Oh, I've had a terrible day. I need a glass of wine. Oh, I've had a wonderful day. I need a glass of wine. It doesn't solve the problems or it doesn't make the day better. But it tastes pretty good. It does. Anyway, that's the thing you grapple with now is, you know, what's too much of something and what's, whatever. Uh-huh. Absolutely. All right, ladies, I try to keep this to half an hour. We're at 37 minutes. So I am going to cut you loose. Where can people find you? 37:49 They can find us at podcast.familytreefoodandstories. uh, or just podcast.familytreefoodandstories. And if you look for my family tree, food and stories in Amazon, we're there as well. And you're on Facebook and Instagram. Is that right? are on Facebook and Instagram. found us on Instagram. Absolutely. Yes. All right. Awesome. Great. Thank you. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. 38:15 I hope you lovely ladies have a great rest of your week. And remember, every meal has a story and every story is a feast. Yay. All right. Thanks.
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| Raised Bed & Container Gardening with Mark | 18 Aug 2025 | 00:26:23 | |
Today I'm talking with Mark at Raised Bed & Container Gardening with Mark. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking to Mark at the Raised Bed and Container Gardening with Mark. And Mark is in North Carolina. Good afternoon, Mark. How are you? Good afternoon, Mary. It's good to be with you. It's good to have you. I love talking to people in North Carolina because you guys have the sweetest Southern drawl. 00:28 Well, sometimes I, my kids tell me I talk pretty country sometimes. It's really sweet and it's very easy to understand. Sometimes the drawl is so thick that I'm like, excuse me, what did you say? So it's great when I get somebody who sounds like sweet tea and a rocking chair on a front porch. makes me very happy. You said the weather has been raining there. Yeah, we've had a good bit of rain. We've had. 00:56 We had a really hot stretch during the summer and then some rains came in and it's kind of been cool for the last couple of weeks. as my grandfather would say, we had a zizzly zazzly this morning. It was, you could hear the rain just sizzling as it hit the ground. yes. I remember being a kid in Maine and we had a dirt road for a while and then they tarred it. 01:22 The first time it rained after they tired it in like August, it was so hot. I could hear it steam. I could hear that noise you're talking about, but I never heard it called a Zizzle Zazzle before. That's great. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, I am a, I'm a newspaper editor is my day job. I'm a sportscaster, which is one of the things I do for fun. And I, I'm a gardener pretty much, I guess it's in, it's kind of in the blood and 01:52 I particularly enjoy growing tomatoes. That's my big thing. My favorite food in the world is tomatoes. So a good tomato right off the vine is just the best thing in the world. So I stay really busy. Okay. How's your tomato season been? We had a really good season, but it came all at once and it was just... 02:20 Within two weeks and everything was done. don't recall having a season like that in the last few years, but it just, everything produced. They all ripened almost at the same time. We had some smaller like black cherry tomatoes that they lasted a little bit longer, but when the rains hit, it kind of ruined them. whatever was left there, they were done. Just got too much rain at one time. you know, sometimes those little tomatoes will 02:50 If they're near full grown, they'll pop open if you get too much rain. split. Yeah. Yeah. Our tomato season just really kicked in about two weeks ago and my husband planted over 250 tomato plants in the spring. So we are going to be swimming in tomatoes in a week. Oh yeah. That's awesome. Now what kind of tomatoes do you like to grow? He grows. Of course you asked me this and usually I can reel them off top of my head and now I'm like, what does he grow? 03:19 He grows early girls. grows, he tries to get sweet one million cherry tomatoes, but I think he just got sweet 100s this year. And the San Marzano tomatoes. I love San Marzano's. I have trouble though. I don't ever get any size on them. I wind up with a lot of kind of maybe they'll grow in two and a half, three inches long. 03:48 and be almost hollow inside. And I'm not really sure what's happening with mine on those. They taste great. They cook up well, but there's just not a lot of it. I'm not the gardener, but what I can tell you that I've observed with ours is that if it rains moderately and it's sunny reasonably, it seems to help them have more flesh on the inside. Okay. Because they need the water, but they need the heat too. 04:16 Yeah. The, uh, mean, San Marzano probably is my favorite tomato. It's such a good cooking tomato too, but it's got such a good taste because you just got all that flesh too. It's a, it's a good fleshy tomato. It makes something new. Go ahead. I'm sorry. It makes a killer sauce. Oh, it does. It does. Absolutely. Absolutely. I tried a new tomato this year. It was, I just out of curiosity. It's, 04:46 It was an Amish paste tomato and I bought the plants at the farmer's market and I paid a lot more than I wanted to for them, but I wanted to try them and they turned out really well. I'm saving seeds, so I'm hoping to have those next year, but they were a big thick plum tomato and it was about twice the size of the San Marzano, but really, really thick. we used to grow, or my 05:16 My father-in-law would grow something, he called it a hot dog tomato. And it was longer than a San Marzano and just there, you know how you got a little bit of a globe at the bottom of the San Marzano, not a completely straight tomato. This hot dog tomato was just completely straight and really fleshy. And I was hoping maybe that that Amish paste was, that's what it was going to turn out to be, but it didn't. I keep looking for that. And if I ever find that I'm going to grab some seeds because they 05:44 They're really productive. They're really thick and a good tomato. They're very, I would say they're similar to the San Marzano, but they're a little bit bigger. We've grown the Amish paste ones. They're really good tomato. If you want to grow something like a San Marzano, but you can't get it. Yeah. So, okay. So your place is called Ray's Bed something. So tell me how that started. Well, 06:14 I started looking at, I've always wanted to write a book. So I took this online class with thingspublishing.com. But one of the things that they suggested doing was starting a website to help you with promoting your book. So I have written a book called A to Z Beginner's Guide to Raise Bed and Container Gardening. 06:43 And so I, you know, the, the, uh, the Facebook page is basically, I use that to promote and I like to interact with people. And I'll be honest with you. I've learned as much from the people I've come in contact with who's kind of in the gardening field as I ever would have thought. I mean, I see somebody called a naked gardener and I'm, I'm just out of curiosity. I started following that person and they have. 07:13 All kinds of great and there's nothing naked about it. It's just, it's just nothing but tomatoes and cucumbers and you know, all good stuff like that. So I try to, I try to post. My goal is always to post maybe five times a week, just some, some little tidbit of information that I can get. I've not done a good job of that recently. We went on vacation, but I like to share things that I find out. And the other thing that I've found. 07:42 is I learn as much by kind of doing the research as I share. I like to learn, I like to find out more information and that's kind of what this has turned out to be. you know, got the book launched about a month ago. I'm still looking for people to review the book. So, and I've got some discount prices on Amazon right now. So the price is pretty low. If someone wants to go out and look at the Kindle and 08:11 I'd love to get some honest feedback and reviews on those. Well, I'll have to add it to my reading list. Yeah, I appreciate that. yeah, I guess one thing that I would tell you is my mother used to do a lot of genealogy research. And the one thing that I thought was kind of funny, 95 % of all Plemons, that's my last name, 08:41 our farmers and up until probably the 1960s or 1970s, it was almost a hundred percent farmers in our family. So as I say, the dirt and soil is kind of in my blood and that's kind of where we came from there. I can remember growing up being out in the field during the summertime, know, 5.30 in the morning, hoeing. 09:09 hoeing corn or hoeing beans or hoeing tobacco or whatever on the farm. you know, it starts getting, either the day we're already back at the house, time for us kids to play. but, so I guess the dirt's kind of in my blood. Yeah, absolutely. I saw your video of your unboxing of your, your, your paperback copies. How did that feel, Mark? It was, it was pretty awesome. I, I had, 09:39 I'd seen a proof copy of it prior to getting it, but you know, just to actually get it in your hand, you know, it's, kind of fun. It's not a big book. It's like 120 pages, but it's the second book I've written. wrote a short book about sports casting back in December. And it's really funny. Friends and family say, I want to, I want to autograph copies. So I've actually autographed a few copies. 10:07 which is kind of funny to me that someone would want my autograph. yeah, like say, I've learned as much from writing the book as, you know, as I'm I'm giving out. I've got a long list of references in the back of the book, which I would encourage people, particularly on individual issues, if they would... 10:34 If they have more depth to go and find out more because in them 120 pages in the amount of ground I tried to cover, you know, you just can't get into everything. uh, and the one thing that I've always known and I've from growing up on the farm is, you know, there, there are people who know more than what you know, and don't be afraid to lean on those people. Master gardeners in different areas. 11:04 the Cooperative Extension Service. I'm not sure if they call it that in Minnesota or wherever you may be, in North Carolina, every county has got a Cooperative Extension Service. And it runs through NC State University here. And so, you know, if you want new soil samples or if you need to, if you have questions about plants or you got something funny going on in your garden or, know, you can call up an agent there and they can kind of, you know, give you a good run now. Yeah, we have 11:34 We have Master Gardeners here and we have the Extension Services through the University of Minnesota. they will help you contact somebody who can answer questions. As a side note, son has a doctorate from University of Minnesota. Oh. He's got a, he did, I think it's, he's a chemical engineer, research scientist. he got a... 12:02 PhD in I think material science. you know which city he went to college at? He was in Minneapolis. I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, he was Minneapolis. We've been up there a few times. And in fact, I think he went back this summer to visit with some friends up there. But we loved Minnesota when we were there. It's very, very pretty. Yeah. Well, we were there in summer times and 12:31 Well, spring and summer, we weren't there during the wintertime. So we didn't see the snow or anything. Yeah. We're particularly happy that fall is coming because our air conditioner died yesterday. Like it is dead dead. It needs to be replaced. So the humidity will get you up there too, doesn't it? Oh yeah, absolutely. So we're going to, it's central air. And so we're going to put in a small window air conditioner downstairs and that should handle it for the rest of the summer. 13:01 Real thankful that didn't die back in July when we had six days of 95 degree plus weather and the humidity was tropical. That would have been really bad. It's miserable when that humidity gets high. We had some days here that the heat index was 110. I think the air temperature was 100, no, not 100, but it was 97, 98, something like that. 13:30 Yeah, it's, there's been some real hot days this year. I don't love it. I don't love summer. Never have. I love the growing season, but I just wish that it wouldn't have to get so hot to get those great tomatoes. Yeah. Yeah. I know exactly. One of the things I learned when I did my book and I probably should have known this, but it makes sense. We have a pretty long growing season here in North Carolina. Yeah. And one of the things I found in the research is. 14:00 You could plant multiple plantings. probably, here could probably do two plantings of tomatoes. I haven't done that this year. I may try that next year, but things like squash, beans, the cucumbers, things of that nature that have a little bit quicker lifespan or harvest time. Yeah. You know, can, you can back one right after another. And the key on that typically is. 14:30 Just replenishing the soil and, know, and knowing when to let go of a plant that's just this kind of barely hanging on. I have a tendency to, particularly with my tomatoes, I treat them like they're people, the plants, and I kind of feel bad about cutting a limb off of one of them or a branch or pulling them up. But I figured, I've kind of figured this out. You pull them up when they're not productive. 15:00 put something else in the ground and you can go from there. Yeah, it's like a working document. Anyone who's written a book like you have, you know that you start the document either in a notebook or in Word and you start writing it. It's a first draft and then you go back and read what you wrote and you're like, eh, that can get out and that can stay and I just need to improve this. It's the same thing with garden. Oh, absolutely. like I I'm 15:29 My daughter gives me a hard time about this because I want to let them go as long as I can. And realistically, I'd be better off, pull them up, replenish the soil, get another plant in the ground and get something going. realistically here, I've got a growing season until mid-October here. We're in the Piedmont. If I were up in the mountains, then of course we would have a 15:58 maybe a couple weeks less on both ends of the growing season. But, you know, realistically I could get two, two runs of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, something like that. I could probably get two to three and peppers, depending upon what kind of peppers you've got, you can probably get three different harvests off those. could probably do two here in the north. we put our, we put our, it really depends on, you know, 16:25 what ability you have to cover something up, how quickly you can get something started, or keep it going at the end. Yeah, our growing season is typically Mother's Day. That's when we tend to get our seedlings in. Through at worst, end of August, first of September. At best, we've gone into the end of October, twice. Oh yeah. Well here, it's... 16:56 It's hot through September here. Yeah. And by hot, mean, you know, in the 80s, October cools off really, really pretty quick. the, you know, the cold overnight temperatures is what you have to watch out for if you've got still some, you know, crops in the field. But it's, you know, it's really neat that you get what you can do if you you listen to people who know what they're talking about and 17:24 Follow their instruction and don't be hard headed like I want to be sometimes. But yeah, no one is ever a master gardener from the get go. Well, and you you're going to have ups and downs. Sometimes the weather doesn't treat you right. Sometimes, you know, the bugs don't treat you right. There's a lot of things that can happen. 17:52 Yeah, you just have to learn from it and move on. and it's the learning from it part that's hard because I'm going to say something not so great. I'm going to get myself in trouble. My husband is hardheaded and he's the gardener and he's got to do something screwy like three times in a row before he remembers that he shouldn't do it that way the fourth time in the garden. And so 18:18 There have been years where we've had really successful gardens and there have been years where we have had really terrible gardens. And I have started keeping notes in my head about what worked and what didn't. So that when he starts talking to me in January for the plans for the next year, I'm like, this happened when you did that last time. You want to do that again? And he goes, oh, I forgot. I won't do that. So I try really hard to help. Your notebook's a great idea. And when I researched my book, 18:49 I had not been keeping notes. I'm a runner and I keep notes for my running, but I had not done anything with gardening or anything like that. And one of the things I kept seeing in my research was take notes, just keep it kind of journal along with it and you can kind of follow along and you really can pick up a lot that way. Yeah. And then you don't do things like put 19:16 leaves and branches in your garden that have seeds from the tree still on them. And you end up with little trees in your garden, which is what happened to us one year. put, we have these sweet gums in our sweet gum trees in our yard and they're, they're just the devil. little, little, the little balls that come on, you step on them at a bare foot, you'll, you feel like, you know, you've got a knife stuck through your foot. I put those in the bottom and they will sprout sometimes. 19:46 But most of the time I could just pull those out. not, it doesn't come up to, you know, it's not to the point where you can't really, you know, you can't really work around those. it's just a thing, but I tried to, I tried so hard to explain to him, he didn't want to put ash tree leaves and sticks in the garden for compost because they still had the seeds on them and ash trees grow really quick. 20:12 And he was like, they'll be fine. They'll compost. And I was like, no, they won't. You're going to have baby trees in your garden. And he did it anyway. And we had like a hundred baby trees coming up in our garden. And I was just like, are we going to do this again? He said, no, we're not. said, good, let's not do this again. We all learned differently, I think. Yeah, I think so. 20:40 I do a good bit of composting and I think that's been one of the things that's helped my gardens more than anything is the composting. I figured out, you you figure out there's certain things that you can't put in there because it'll just cause you problems. You got to be careful about things that, we have raccoons here. So, raccoons want to get, they'll get in anything. They'll get in your trash can, they'll get into anything. 21:08 You got to make sure that you don't have anything in the compost that a raccoon might like. And I learned that the hard way. And the first composting ever did, I kind of dug a little pit underneath a tree and I was just throwing everything in it and covering it up with black plastic. And it worked really well until the one day I was turning it with a fork and it was turning it. 21:36 And there's a big black snake crawls out of there. I said, we're not going to compost on the ground anymore. But know, big five foot black snake came crawling out and he didn't like seeing me and I didn't like seeing him. And he slithered off down in the woods. Yeah, that's not a fun surprise. I keep waiting for my husband to come in the house with bee stings because we have great big compost vials. 22:03 I keep expecting him to come in because sometimes he'll throw like apples out there. And bees and yellow jackets love apples. And so far he's been safe, but I keep expecting every fall for him to come in after he throws some apples in the compost pile and be like, I got stung a hundred times. Okay, great. So, and it hasn't happened, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did. 22:30 I usually don't have too much apples left over because I love apples. I'll throw a core or something in, but whole apples generally don't make it But you're right about the yellow jackets. Yellow jackets are nasty. Yeah, we put in like 20 apple trees here when we moved in. And we have only had two crops come in. This is second year we'll have apples to actually pick and eat in five years. 22:58 And when we put the apple trees in, I was like, are we going to have yellow jackets all over the place? And my husband was like, I don't think so because there aren't any other orchards around. It's all cornfield and soybean fields. He said, and yellow jackets don't really love. Jesus can't think. Cornfields and alfalfa fields, they don't care. There's nothing there for them. And I was like, okay. And we haven't had any, any bad bugs here ever in five years. 23:28 So that's good. So I'm real happy to have apple trees for the first time in our life. That's been wonderful. We have three honey gold variety apple trees that are producing right now. We'll be picking them in a month or so because they're ready to be picked in at the end of September 1st of October. So that's going to be awesome. Make some apple crisp. Well, you know, what is there some the University of Minnesota actually 23:55 developed, I think it's honey crisp. Yes. That was actually a product of University of Minnesota Agriculture Department. Uh-huh. We have two trees, but they haven't actually produced anything yet because they're babies. Well, when they come in, you'll have something really good because that's a really, really good tomato, or really good, I started saying tomato, really good apple. Yeah, we've tried them and they're very sweet. 24:23 They're very sweet and they get really big too. Yeah. We bought a variety called a wolf river apple and those get, I have big hands for a girl. My palm is probably a good four and a half inches across. I can't even get my fingers all the way around these wolf river apples. They're humongous and they take a while to get established. Well, I live in the middle of it. 24:51 I live in the middle of town and we've got a guy down the street that's got, he planted a little small orchard in his backyard. I mean, he has maybe four tenths of an acre and he's got his apple trees are hanging full with fruit right now. And they're almost to the point of breaking the tree down. Yep. Apple trees are fantastic. It just takes forever for them to get established. I think he's on year. 25:20 three, maybe year four on those trees. takes a while, but once they get going there, they do great. Yeah. So Mark, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're at almost 28 minutes. Where can people find you? I'm on, like I say, I'm on Facebook with the raised bed and container gardening with Mark. You can find me on, I'm on Twitter at Mark Clemens. 25:49 Let's see, my book is on Amazon. So it's A to Z guide to raised bed and container gardening. if you Google my name, you're bound to find me. I'm out there. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I really love talking tomatoes with somebody who loves tomatoes. That was fun. That's my favorite food in the world. All right. As usual, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com. 26:17 Mark, I hope you have a fantastic day. Thank you again. Thanks, Maris. Good to be with you. Bye.
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| Taste The Local Difference | 15 Aug 2025 | 00:27:52 | |
Today I'm talking with Erika at Taste The Local Difference. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Erika at Taste the Local Difference. Good morning, Erika. How are you? Good morning. I am doing great. How are you? I'm good. Where are you located? I am in Michigan, just south of Ann Arbor. Okay. 00:26 Awesome. I'm going to be talking to an old friend on Monday morning for the podcast who lives right near Ann Arbor. So that's kind of funny. That's great. Yeah. What a small world. Yeah. He, he's a musician and he's, uh, older than me. I'm, I'm 55 and I know he's at least 10 years old than I am. So he remembers when, um, music was something you got on records and eight tracks and it should be really fun. Wow. That's cool. Very cool. Yeah. It'll be really fun. I'm excited. 00:56 Um, so what's the weather like in Michigan this morning? Thankfully, it is actually pretty beautiful. It has been quite hot and humid lately, so it's, it was nice. took a nice little walk this morning around my neighborhood and it was, it does seem to be getting a little bit cooler, but you know, what are you going to do? It's August. It's pretty normal for this time of year. Oh, for sure. And it's coming. 01:21 fall is coming. heard geese calling the other day. Some of our maple trees are starting to turn and that could just be the weather stress, but I really think we might be looking at an earlier fall. So that would be welcome after this very hot summer we've had. I'm in Minnesota, so it's been hot here too. Yeah, definitely. When I got up this morning, my husband had opened the kitchen window and the living room windows because our AC is broken. 01:50 Oh goodness. was awake at like 4.30 this morning because I get up early and I got my coffee and I was sitting in my living room, sipping my coffee and scrolling Facebook as I do. Everybody does these days. And I could hear the crickets chirping because the windows were open. It was just such a lovely way to start my day. Yeah, that sounds great. It really was because usually the windows are closed because the AC is running and you don't want to let the mugginess in. 02:18 when you're running an AC. So there's a blessing to our AC being out. I'm okay with it. It's true. Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and your role with Taste the Local Difference and what Taste the Local Difference is and what you guys do. Yeah. So I am the Director of Impact here. Which I love. I love that title. 02:41 Thanks. love it too. And, uh, so what we do is we do marketing for farms and local food and beverage businesses. And that also encompasses things like agritourism, farmers markets, restaurants, food trucks, et cetera, know, distilleries, craft beverage, anything along those lines. And, um, this is our 21st year. So. 03:09 We started in Michigan, but we work with businesses nationwide. We also have Michigan's food and farm directory, which is really cool. And we are just big believers in local food and local food systems, local food economies, and really uplifting the people who grow and make food and beverage for other folks to. 03:36 enjoy. And so we really like to be able to help them with marketing education and primarily marketing services. So folks can come to us for their websites, their e-commerce, you know, to do full branding, like if they need, you know, a logo and a brand kit, we do marketing strategy, email marketing setup, social media, pretty much the whole gamut if it's under marketing and 04:05 Then what my role overseas is, um, I do a lot of the marketing education here as well. So I just was teaching a webinar last night for one of our partners. And, uh, we also do what are called food systems impact partnerships. And so I will work with folks that are from like nonprofits. 04:30 governmental organizations, economic development agencies, universities, et cetera. And we partner with them to help support the folks that they work with. So a lot of times these are organizations that are supporting farmers or small food producers. And they will work with us to help either like subsidize marketing. 04:57 what is called in the industry, like technical assistance, which is basically marketing services and or marketing education. So that's what I do. So like right after this, I have a call with somebody who is in Vermont at a nonprofit that helps farmers and they have a farmer education program. So that call will be all about seeing, you know, if there's a way that we can partner together to help support the folks that they work with. 05:24 Okay, since you mentioned that, how much time do you have? Because I don't want to go over. Until about the half hour mark. Okay, cool. All right. Minnesota has a website that they use to promote local produce growers and some makers, actually, people who make baked goods or like soaps or things like that. It's called Minnesota Grown and it is through the state. 05:53 So is your thing with Michigan, is it for the state, is under the state umbrella? It is actually not. It is ours and we've had it for, you know, I don't know how many years now. I know many, many, many years that we have been doing it. We have also put out a local food guide for 06:17 a very long time. For most of our existence, we put out an annual local food guide. This year is the first year it is all completely digital. And that really goes hand in hand also with our directory. But the nice thing about our directory is it's entirely free to join, to set up an account. no, we run it, we manage it, and we actually have licensees in 06:46 currently in three other states and we are always looking to expand on that as well. Okay. So is your organization nonprofit? So interestingly, we started as a nonprofit. So we were born out of a nonprofit that still exists that we work with on a lot of different projects that are food systems related still. 07:12 And then about, I think it was about six or seven years ago now, for a few reasons, it just made the most sense to form, like to basically move away from that nonprofit formally and become an LLC because, you know, moving into the world of doing marketing services and a few other things. 07:40 We wanted to be really like nimble and agile to be able to, you know, flex with the market so that we could serve our clients hell really quickly with what they needed. And so, yeah, so we are now technically an LLC, but for most of our existence, we were a nonprofit. Okay, cool. 08:03 All right. So if someone wants to avail themselves of your services for marketing and all the other things that you mentioned, I need to know if it's affordable for someone to get help from you or if it's not, because a lot of people who are starting small businesses are not flush with cash as you know. Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the things that we really try to prioritize 08:31 is affordability of our services. So we, when we look through our service offerings and we price them, we price them as affordably as we can in order to be able to, you know, metaphorically, as they say, keep the lights on for ourselves. Uh, and so, yeah, so we really do keep that in mind because we know the folks that we're working with, most of the, like a lot of the people who 09:00 are on our team have either farmed themselves or been very adjacent to the world of farming or worked in small food industry and things like that. So we definitely get it. We understand. we keep our services as affordable as possible. Obviously, affordability is a spectrum. So one of the things that we also have a resource 09:30 for on the site is there is a, one of our like blog posts is a resource that is about grant funding. And so one of the things that we encourage folks to do, and we do this a lot is whether it's grants or other alternative forms of funding, such as like micro lending and things like that is if, you know, if there are resources near you that you can 10:00 look into, whether it's through your chamber of commerce or economic development agencies, things of that nature is see if there are programs that you can tap into that meet, might be able to help to subsidize some or all of what you need. So like I said, we partner with a lot of organizations where let's say like a small food producer, 10:28 is going through their business bootcamp. And then as like a incentive for completing all of that programming, that person gets a stipend to come spend with us. And, you know, lot of those comp or a lot of those organizations feel comfortable partnering with us because we understand and we are trusted, you know, with, um, like local food specific. 10:57 marketing, right? So we get it. We have a proven track record within the industry. And so they know they can trust their investment in partnering with us if they give us a stipend on behalf of one of their program participants. that is one option. Another option is if you are applying for a grant or some kind of other business award. 11:24 You could always, folks can always come to us, talk about services. We can get you a proposal and then you can use that proposal in your grant because having a very specific list of services that you are going to use the grant on and the price point and everything helps whoever is doing the grant, fulfilling the grant, helps them feel more confident that you 11:51 have actually looked into it and are taking it seriously rather than just giving some arbitrary number of what you plan to spend on marketing. Okay. Phenomenal. I love that. I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but- No, no, no, no. We love to talk about it. It's not something that we shy away from because we absolutely get it and we totally understand. And one other thing we have because we know that 12:20 You know, for some it's just, that is still not going to be a possibility or while they are, you know, waiting to hear on funding, there's still things that, you know, they need to do in the meantime, or they're going to want to do, um, or, and, or, you know, some folks just really want to DIY or they, they really want to have a better understanding of their own marketing. we have a couple of things. So we have one that. 12:48 thing that is a really low cost, but super high quality digital course called Local Food Marketing Academy that folks can go through on their own. you register and you can go through it, you know, from your own home on your own schedule. has templates, has worksheets, it has a lot of things that are going to walk you through the fundamentals of 13:16 marketing your food business. And then, and that is going to be something, you you can go through it again and again and again, and really feel comfortable and confident in doing your own marketing on your own. And then another thing that we have that is completely free is we have tons and tons and tons of high quality free resources. So on our website, so localfoodmarketing.com forward slash resources, we have 13:45 a lot of articles, we have downloadable guides and we also have all of our past webinars, the recordings, and then any upcoming webinars we have that you can register for. so that is something that we are always adding to and there's tons of good stuff already there. even if you're like, okay, yes. 14:10 You know, what you have is affordable in terms of services, but you're still not there yet. We, we also have alternatives as well so that you're not stuck waiting in the interim. I love that you are making it so that people can get started. And it's so hard to get started when you have this thing, this dream. Um, our dream, our dream was to have a farm to market garden, a big one. 14:39 And we have that now. And it is, I don't even have words, Erica, for when I look out my living room window and see this beautiful, thriving garden that has managed to support a few people in our community the last three years because we sell at the farmer's market and we sell from our farm stand on our property. And I didn't have somebody like you. 15:06 So we had to figure it out ourselves. Luckily, I have some marketing in my background because I worked for a friend who had a marketing and PR company. So I kind of knew how to do it, but a lot of people don't and they find marketing really scary. so, so since we're, I'm talking to you. 15:27 I have like three things that I would say you should do if you're starting a small business to get people to know about it. What are three things you would say right off the top of your head? Yeah, so I would say that it is really, really, really good to, you know, when you're thinking about all of the places like that you could, you know, show up. 15:55 digitally, right? So I was just teaching on this last night, actually. When you are thinking about your social media platforms, because a lot of times people will set those up first because it's a bit of a lower barrier than trying to figure out how to set up a website. We are huge believers in having websites, but I know people usually will first go to setting up a Facebook business page and Instagram and things like that. 16:24 Um, make sure that in your bio that it's that you use all of that space to be very clear about, know, uh, like what it is that you sell, where are you located? Um, any other info that a potential customer might need, don't just assume that people will know. Right. So. 16:49 Um, take advantage of that and any like links of places they might be able to find you shop from you, contact info, whatever the case may be, take advantage of that. The other thing is, is I would say, um, you know, let your network know already, right? Don't assume that your friends and the people in your community know. I would. 17:16 go around and let people know. Let your friends, let people... If you're in clubs or other groups and things, know. Tell them about your products. Tell them what you're selling. Give them little samples or whatever it is that have your contact info or website or ordering info, whatever that might be, so that you can start getting the word out in a really grassroots way. 17:45 And then think about ways that you can partner or collaborate with other people or businesses where your target market is already showing up. So rather than having to do a lot of that heavy marketing lift yourself is kind of go where your people already are and try to get in front of them first. 18:12 As a bonus to that, would really recommend if you're getting set up with an email marketing platform, there are some free ones that you can get, if you're below a certain amount of people on your list or very low cost when it's below a certain amount of people. Already getting a newsletter sign up going with some welcome emails and that way when you're 18:40 when you're out and about, when you're doing different things and people can get signed up, they can maybe like get a coupon and then you can already start capturing that info so that you can re market to them again and again. Fabulous. I was, I was not actually going to touch on any of those three. I was thinking more low key for my things. So here's my things. Are you ready? Sure. Number one, don't forget that you are always the 19:08 face of your brand. When you are out in public or if you are on say a podcast like I am, always remember that your attitude and your energy about your business is what people are going to react to. Yes. you cannot be a jerk in public and expect people to want to work with you through your business. Totally. That's my first one. You are the representative of your brand. 19:37 The second thing is, yes, tell your friends that you're doing this because people who love you want to tell other people what you're doing if it's Always, always talk to your friends. someone said, if you meet somebody new and they say, what do you do? I always say, well, if I, if I had a jobby job, I don't have a jobby job, but if I had a jobby job, I would say I work at from my day job, but. 20:06 what my passion is, what I love to do is, and this is what I love doing and I explain it to them. Like I love my podcast. I could talk for hours about my podcast and people would probably fall asleep. So always, always, always when somebody says, what do you do? Talk about your baby. Talk about your business. And there was a third one. was it? Um, Oh, 20:33 always label your stuff with your business name. Get some pre-made stickers with the name of your business name and your website or your phone number or however you want people to get contact with you and slap that sticker on everything that goes out the door that somebody takes with them. Because if someone happens to see it, they might have it stick in their brain and they might be a future customer. 20:59 Definitely. I would agree with all of those. And I feel like, I feel like ours really overlap because I feel like it's the same, like why even thought, you know, with social media is like, honestly, you know, if it, if it's like stresses you out, like it's one of those things, like it's not even 21:20 It's not even like necessarily mandatory. It's just, it's the thing that I always think to mention only because it's the thing that people always think about and get really stressed out about. um, but it's, it's also the thing of like, you know, kind of like you said with the labeling, it's the same thing as like using all the digital real estate of the bio, right? It's like, you want people to be able to like attach, uh, 21:48 all of the info about you and your product together, right? Wherever they are experiencing you and or your product, like you want them to make that connection so that they can buy it again, right? Or that if they see something and they're like, that looks interesting that they know where they can find it, that kind of a thing. Yep, exactly. So if you blend what you said and what I say or I said, 22:14 you've got a pretty good marketing plan right there. It's just a matter of knowing how to do it. Definitely, definitely. And I know we have a really cool, I don't know exactly what date, you know, this episode is going to go live, but in about a month from the day that you were recording this, so on September 17th, we have a totally free webinar. 22:39 that is essentials for an effective holiday season. And honestly, even though the focus on this is going to be holiday, this is going to help you year round. Q4 tends to be a really, I don't want to say easy selling time for food businesses. It's not necessarily easy on the entrepreneur. It's very busy on the entrepreneur. 23:08 But it's typically an easier time to get people to buy because people are anticipating spending money anyways. So we want to really make sure that folks are set up for success. And so it's entirely free. It's on localfoodmarketing.com forward slash webinars. You can register there and in case you're listening to this. 23:36 after that date and it's already passed. Again, all of our recorded past webinars are on localfoodmarketing.com forward slash resources and then just scroll down to the webinar section and it will be there. Do you happen to know how many webinars are listed there? You know, I could look, let's see. it's, I know we have, 24:07 Actually, you know what, goes to, uh, pops over to our YouTube channel as well. So if you are somebody that likes to hang on YouTube, um, that is where they all populate to as well. Um, if you just look up taste the local difference on YouTube, they'll be there, but yeah, we have like, um, agri, uh, we have one on agri tourism. That was, uh, one that we did, um, 24:37 And that was recent. That was really great. One that is farmers market focused, building a website, branding, AI marketing. We have a lot. There are quite a lot. And that doesn't even include our downloadable guides and then just our other blog post type articles that we've written. 25:05 plenty, plenty, of good stuff. It's really a priority for us to have high quality, free resources for folks too. love that, Erica. If you are a small business looking for information on how to market your business, you need to go to Taste the Local Difference and check out all the free resources. And then if you need more help, you can always hire them to help you further. Erica, 25:33 I don't want to keep you too long and we're at like 25 minutes. tell me the places that people can find you the easiest online. mean, you've said it, but say it again, please. Yeah. So truly the best place is if you go to localfoodmarketing.com, that is going to have everything there. It's going to have the resources. It's going to have a list of some of our services, uh, like a few examples of our past work. It's going to have more info on our. 26:03 impact partnerships that worked at my role overseas. And then it also has a place on there to fill out a marketing inquiry form. what that is, is you just put in a little bit of info and then it sends an email to our team. And then one of us, know, within a few business days, we will get in touch with you and we can set up a phone call or a video meeting and we can talk. 26:31 about your business, your goals, services that might be helpful. We can put together a proposal for you. There are no strings attached. It's totally free to chat with one of us about some services and to just get a no obligation quote. And we would love to chat with you. Erica, thank you so much for your time today. You and your business are an invaluable service to people like me. 26:58 and my neighbor who has goats and a garden and duck eggs for sale and Hi Tracy, she listens to all the time. And I just, love what you're doing. And I know that it's not free, but you are providing a service that a lot of people need and they don't even realize that it's out there for them. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. 27:22 Yeah. Thank you for having me. We, we love doing it. Like I said, our, our primary goal is, you know, uplifting local farms and food producers. And it's, it's why we do what we do. And we absolutely love being able to do it. Great. All right. As always, people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com Erica. I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope your webinar gets filled up really big. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye.
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| Her Wholesome Homestead Life | 14 Aug 2025 | 00:28:03 | |
Today I'm talking with Helana at Her Wholesome Homestead Life. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Helana at Wholesome Homestead, and I don't know what state you're in. I'm in Michigan. In Michigan. So good morning, Helana. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. I'm really excited to have you talk with me because you said that you're new at the homesteading thing. 00:28 So first off, how's the weather in Michigan this morning? It's beautiful this morning. It's been really hot here lately, but yesterday we got a nice rainy day, so we definitely needed that. So yeah, today is beautiful. Here too in Minnesota. I mean, I'm kind of your lateral neighbor. We're a couple states apart, but good morning neighbor. It's sunny and it's cool. Thank goodness. So it's a great day. I love it. Our weather lady said that she wanted to call it a top 10 weather day today. 00:57 Yes, I can agree with that today. Yeah, so I hear a little one in the background cooing. Do you have a new baby? Um, yes, he's only a couple months old so he's new Nice and you have another one, right? Yes. I have a daughter who is a toddler Okay. Well, hopefully they'll let you chat with me without making too much noise Notice how I heard the baby cooing and I turned my voice down. That's really funny 01:25 Okay, so tell me about what you do at your homestead. So I am just getting started as we talked about. So basically I just have a garden and this is our second year doing it. So we're in a learning curve with what grows well here. So that's been fun. And then I've also dabbled in making sourdough bread. That's definitely what got me started in the whole homesteading thing. Like they always say, once you start doing sourdough. 01:54 You kind of go down that road of getting into everything else. So yeah. How is it going with the sourdough? The reason I ask is I have two sourdough starters on my counter downstairs and they didn't rise for like four days, even though I fed them and they're a good month old at least. And I was like, what am I doing wrong? 02:17 And then the temperature in the house went up and I fed them and they doubled. And I was like, oh, it's too cool in my house. That's what's going on. So how are you doing with it? I'm doing well. My sourdough starter, I started in February of 2023. So it's two years old now. And yeah, they're definitely very finicky with the temperature in your house. I've always found that if I feed it and I put it in the microwave, 02:45 and just let it stay in there. Then I usually have better luck with it rising when it should and all of that. I'm going to have to try that trick this winter because I know it's not going to be warm enough in the house. just know it. I always feel like such a dork when I notice that it's doubled in size the way it's supposed to. It's risen double. Because my sourdough for some reason, I started it from scratch. I built this thing. 03:10 There's so many big bubbles that you can see on the side of the jar on the inside. And every time I see that, I just have this big note of happiness ring in my head because it works. Yes. It's so exciting when it goes how it should because it's definitely a craft. And especially when you are making like a loaf, that's definitely a craft and a learning curve to like getting the bulk fermentation and everything right. Yeah. And it takes such a long time. 03:39 If your loaf comes out like a brick, all you want to do is cry. Yes. It's awful. I haven't had that happen. I've only made one loaf and it wasn't a brick, but it was definitely bagel texture. Yeah. And it tasted great and I love bagels. So I was quite pleased that I didn't come out with a brick. As long as it's edible, that's all that matters, right? Yeah. Yeah. They always say just bake it anyway and see what happens. And I'm like, I'm gonna stick to that. That's good advice. 04:07 So what made you get into homesteading? Like what was the impetus that sent you down this path? Honestly, it was when I was on maternity leave with my first child. I just like started going down the rabbit hole of being more natural living and trying to make as much as I can myself. So I know exactly what's in everything so that I feel more confident feeding it to my children and my family. So that's kind of what. 04:34 started the whole thing and like I said it started with the sourdough and it just kind of blossomed from there. I'm really proud of you and you're not the first person to tell me that they got into this because they were having kids because kids change your whole perspective on the world they really truly do. They do for sure. Yeah I had my daughter many years ago she's 35 now and I was brand new I had just turned 20. 05:03 10 days after turning 20 when she was born. And I don't know what I was thinking, but I was just like, oh, it'll be fine. Everybody has kids, it'll be fine. And after she was born, I was just so on eggshells for the first month, because I was like, I'm going to break her. I'm going to ruin this child. I did not. I did not ruin her. She turned out to be a fantastic young woman, but... 05:31 There's just this shift that happens where you're like, Oh, I am responsible for another human being. Yes. It is very, very intimidating. The moment you leave the hospital, you're like, Oh wow. Like I'm the one that has to take care of this little person and no one to feed them and all of that stuff. It's definitely a big learning curve, but it's amazing. It is. It's wonderful. And the one thing I remember from when she was little, you know, baby little, 06:00 is she had a horrible time cutting teeth. And we lived in an apartment building and there were five other apartments in the building. And we knew our neighbors and they knew we had a newborn and they knew she was teething because she was very loud when she cried. And two of my neighbors on two different days came over at about 10 o'clock in the morning because they could hear her crying. And I could not get her to stop crying no matter what I did. And they were like, would you like a break? Would you like me to walk her for you for a while? 06:31 And of course, being exhausted and a new mom, I broke down in tears both times and said, thank you so much. And they would stay in my apartment and just walk her. And the change in body rhythm and the sound of their voice was enough to get her to stop for a while. That's so amazing that they were willing to help you like that. New moms definitely need that. Yeah, and they were both moms themselves, you know, of older kids. So they remembered too. It's hard work and it's hard learning. 07:00 but it's wonderful. so again, really proud of you for taking the steps to provide a safer environment for your babies because that's impressive. Thank you. Yeah, everybody should do that, but not everybody knows how and not everybody has the courage to step into it. For sure. And it definitely is. It's a lot of work sometimes like when you could just go to the store and conveniently buy something that's already ready to go versus 07:29 starting it from scratch at home. So I can see why some people don't do that or they don't have the time. Yup. So do you cook from scratch? I try to as much as I can. Obviously there's sometimes I'm not able to. I do also work part-time as a nurse. So some days that I'm actually that I'm at work, I have a little bit harder of a time being able to cook completely from scratch. But what I can't cook from scratch, I buy organic from the store. 08:00 Nice. Awesome. Um, I'm assuming there's a daddy in the picture. Yes. Okay. Good. Good. Good. I always worry when I ask that question, I'm going to open a can of worms. So yay. That's, that's working out. Good. Yeah. My husband and I actually met when we were in high school. So we're high school sweethearts. We've been together for, well, let's see what almost four, it'll be 14 years this year and we're 28 and 29. So wow. Wow. 08:28 I love high school sweetheart stories. That's great. Yeah. So is he, again, I don't want to sound rude, but I want to know, is he hands on with the kids? Oh, yes. He's amazing with our kids. I'm very blessed. You are. You absolutely are because that's not always how it goes. My husband, my current husband, he's my third husband, was very, very into the kids when they were little. 08:57 And we share a baby together. He's 23 now. And he would, I would be laying on the couch because it was nighttime and baby was moving and I'm like, I need him to calm down. Cause we knew it was a boy. And he would come over and kneel down beside me on the couch and put his head to my belly. And he would talk to that baby inside of me. And I remember him singing to the baby through my tummy. And it's one of my favorite memories. That's so sweet. 09:27 Yep, and he absolutely was changing diapers. He would give our baby a bottle if the baby needed it because I nursed, but I would also express milk for the baby so my husband would have chance to feed him too. Yeah. He was just right in the trenches with me the whole time that they were little. And it's such a blessing because moms get tired. And when you have, it's hard enough when you have one baby. 09:51 but then add in other kids and you're like, wow, I'm going to die of exhaustion at some point here. Yeah, we have two under two over here. So it's been a lot and he's been an awesome help. I definitely wouldn't be able to do it without him. So I'm very thankful that he's as hands on as he is. Yeah. Is he, is he on board with the homesteading lifestyle? Yes. Yes. And he's helpful in those aspects too. This year when we planted our garden, 10:20 He pretty much did all of the planting for me since we have two little ones and I was stuck inside and he goes outside every night to water the garden for me. So yeah, he's super helpful. Awesome. Awesome. You guys are a team. Um, so what are you growing in your garden this summer? Oh, we have a lot of stuff. So we have, um, beans, have peas, we have corn. Um, I have some sunflowers, musk melon, watermelon. We have tomatoes, but we 10:48 We didn't get a good yield with the tomatoes this year. Um, I figured out that they got something called Fusarium wilt. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, but it's something in the soil that there's nothing we can do about that killed all the tomato plants. So that was unfortunate, but, um, we've gotten a lot of pickles. So I've got to can some pickles for the first time, which was fun. Um, what else? 11:14 I think that, we have some asparagus growing, but we planted that last year and it has to, we planted it from seed. So it has to take a couple of years to get a good patch going. But yeah, it's fun to watch everything grow and see what you make from seed and all that. It's, really cool. If you love asparagus, make sure that when that patch really starts to produce, you only take a little bit that first year when, they start putting up shoots. 11:43 Because the less you take the first year, the better it does the next year. Awesome. That's good to know. And value that patch with your life because we have one and I love it. We got our first really good yield this year after four years. And it is so good. It's so sweet. I love asparagus. Yeah, me too. It's like I grew up on the East Coast. I'm in Minnesota now and I call it landlocked lobster. 12:13 because I eat it the same way I would eat lobster. steam the asparagus and then I dip it in melted butter and a little bit of salt and pepper. And so that's my version of lobster because I don't want to buy lobster in Minnesota. No. I'd rather grow my own asparagus. We only had to pay for the crowns once. Right. Exactly. So how big is your garden? Do you know how many feet it is? Oh, my husband had it written down on paper and I cannot remember. 12:42 Exactly. But I want to say it's like, I'm looking at it right now. I'm going to try to guess. I feel like it's like 40 feet by 20 feet. So it's like a good, it's a good size garden. That's a good starter garden for a small family. Absolutely. Ours is like 50 feet by a hundred feet. Oh, that's awesome. And it's almost too much work because my husband is the gardener. I am not. And he has a full time job, but he wants to garden. 13:11 That's his habit. So every day after work from May 15th till it's done, whether that's September or November, he's out there doing something in the garden. Yeah. Yeah. It is a lot of work, but it's definitely very rewarding. It absolutely is. And for him, he gets to have quiet time. That's where he's then out in the garden after he's done that's very true. 13:41 And then he gets to eat whatever I cook from the garden, because I'm the chief cook and bottle washer. Yeah. That's great. I keep hearing your little one in the background. I'm so jealous. I haven't seen a little baby in a long time. I have him in the baby carrier on me and he's just snoring away. So cute. We should just make a whole five minute stretch of him making cute little baby noises in the background. 14:08 It's the best noise to listen to, I swear. Yeah, the second best is chickens cooing and clucking at each other in the coop. Oh my gosh, chickens! That's what I'm trying to convince my husband to get us next is chickens. Well, how big is your property? We have like two acres. Oh, you have room for chickens? Yes. 14:33 You should just tell him that the lady you talked to on the podcast today said it's not that hard. Get chicken. Okay. Yeah. He's nervous that it's going to be a lot of work. And I was like, yeah, well, we'll be, we'll be able to figure it out though. Well, how many chickens would you like to have to start with? I don't even know how many I would like to start with. I don't know what a good amount would be, but I told him that it would be a cool thing to be able to have, um, egg laying chickens and meat chickens. So that way we don't have to buy chicken from the store anymore. 15:04 You are not wrong, but, and there's always a but or a, or an it depends. If you're not really into the whole butchering the chickens for meat, do some research and see if there is a traveling butcher, cause that's a thing here for chickens in Minnesota. And there's a guy who actually lives in our town who comes to your property. You pay him. 15:29 He butchers the chickens. I swear he said he wraps them in freezer paper too. I can't remember. But either way, look into that kind of service because that would probably help with the first year or so if you don't want to really dive in whole chicken as it were. That's amazing. I didn't even know that there was something like that that existed. Yeah. And I don't know if there is in Michigan, but there is here. So maybe somebody is doing it in Michigan too. And as for egg laying purposes, 15:59 Chickens lay one egg every 24 hours. So you have your husband and you and a toddler and a baby. So I'm assuming you would want at least two eggs for you, your husband and your toddler each a day. So that would be six chickens. Okay. And so what I would do, and I mean, we've done it a bunch of times, is I would actually get probably eight or 10 chickens. Yeah. 16:27 and then you would have eggs to give to family or to sell to people. Yeah, that's a great idea. And it's really not that hard. The hardest part about having laying hens is that you have to clean out the coop at least once every two weeks in the summer because it will get stinky. Yeah, I can imagine that. But in the wintertime, the thing that works out really great is that if you leave their bedding in and you just keep adding straw or shavings, 16:55 it composts and it throws heat so that it's not so cold in the coop in the wintertime. That's very clever. And you can use that and put it in a compost pile in the spring if that's allowed where you are, I assume it is on two acres. And you can use that six months later to put on your garden over the winter and it will compost down even further and then you have great fertilizer in your garden in the spring. Yep. See, we need chickens. 17:25 Now, I don't know if you have a building that you can use for a coop already in existence. No, we would probably have to build one. So that's going to be the probably most difficult part. Yeah. And that doesn't have to be difficult either. And I didn't know I was going to give a talk on how to do chickens today. It's totally fine. I'm going to do it anyway, because you really want chickens. What you can do is if you have a place that gives away pallets, wood pallets. 17:54 You can make a small coupe with the sides made out of that. And then you put plywood on the outside. Brilliant. And then you would have to figure out a way to roof it. And I would just put up beams and put the tin roof stuff. I don't know what the hell it's called. Lake siding, but it would be for a roof. Yeah. 18:18 I know what you're talking about. don't know what it's called either. Yeah, and it's not cheap, but people sometimes have scraps left over and they list them on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or if you have a next door app on your phone. People have scraps left over from projects all the time and you could do that and that would keep chickens dry. So you could do it on the cheap for now and then if you wanted to improve it, know, later you could. 18:46 Yeah, but basically they just need a place that is ventilated and warm and dry and warm is relative because chickens adapt. We don't have heat in our coop and they handled minus 30. Um, wow. Last winter for a week and none of them, none of them really suffered for it. They were fine. Okay. That's good to know. Now I have more stuff to convince my husband to get us chickens. Yeah. And don't drop a ton of money. If you don't have it, don't. 19:16 don't overextend yourself because it's not worth it because those first eggs are like hundred dollar eggs, you know? Yeah. But there are ways to do it on the cheap and still do it so that your chickens are taken care of correctly. And if you like chickens, you can always hang out with them and pet them and talk to them. That's up to you. I love all animals, so I'm sure that I would be doing that. Yeah. There's just there's so many ways to do it as a homesteader that 19:45 I'm sure other people have made coupes out of other things, but I know you live in Michigan and it gets damn cold in Michigan in the wintertime. It sure does. And in the summertime, what we've learned is that if you take like ice packs or ice packs work best, like the ones you get at the store for your lunch pail. Yeah. 20:08 If you can find some of those for cheap, I don't know, we haven't had to do that, but you can freeze those and just put those out in the coop and they will go sit on that to cool down. Aw, that's a great idea. They sound like such fun little creatures to have around. They are, and they're stupid, but they're not stupid enough to die on purpose, usually. Unlike quail. Quail apparently have a suicide pack. They like to... 20:36 kill themselves for no reason. Oh really? They startle really easily so if their coop isn't tall enough they will they when they startle they go straight up and they will break their necks. Oh my goodness. Yep and lots of people have good luck with quail. I'm afraid we would have terrible luck with quail so we haven't tried it yet. Yeah. But anyway chicken education 101 here today. I appreciate all the information. 21:04 Yeah, and if you want anything else, just message me and if I have an answer, I will give it to you, I promise, because we've had chickens for over 20 years. Okay, thank you. And a laying hen, a young laying hen right now costs us $23 per bird. Okay. And if you get the laying, I'm not saying it right, if you get chicks, if you order chicks through the mail, they're going to cost you anywhere between 21:33 $3 and $10 a piece. Okay. And then you have to wait at least 20 weeks before they start laying. So you're feeding them for that amount of time before you get any return. Is that how you started was chicks through the mail? Absolutely not. We have a friend, we have a friend who has laying hens and she raises them in late winter to sell them in the spring. So when we get ours, they're about 18 weeks old. 22:02 Oh, that's amazing. I'll have to see if I can find somebody like that around here. Oh, I'm sure you can. Michigan seems like a great place for people who are doing homesteading stuff. Yes. So you could easily start any time as soon as you convince your husband that it's okay to get them and you find a place to buy feed and a waterer. You would be set. And I'm not pushing you to get chickens. Honest, I'm not. But I know. But if you want chickens, there are ways to do it that will not 22:32 break the bank too bad. So that's great to know. I really appreciate it. Okay. And I didn't realize I knew as much as I knew about this. I'm so impressed that I could talk to you about this. You're very knowledgeable about chickens. Apparently might be the only thing I'm really knowledgeable, knowledgeable about, but that's not a bad thing. Yeah. And you're knowledgeable about sourdough. So you actually helped me a little bit too. I'm happy to Yeah. 22:58 So you want to get chickens, do you want to get anything else like, I don't know, goats or sheep or a milk cow? Well, I do think that goats would be a cool thing to do in the future. Eventually, our goal is to build behind my parents' house. They have some acreage and they're going to give us some, so we would have like three acres. And I think once we move out there, we'll probably get goats. Awesome. 23:28 I assume you said you love all animals. you ever seen a newborn goat? No. They are the sweetest thing ever. Oh, I'm sure they are. I don't have any. We don't have room. don't want any. Neighbors have some. And my best friend in high school, her parents raised goats. And so she would call me every spring and be like, your mom bring you over? Because there's brand new baby goats here. Oh, that's awesome. 23:55 I would go and hang out with the baby goats. It was so amazing. My friend actually just bought a month or so ago, she was bought an eight week old buck to extend their breeding genetics for their herd. And she stopped by and he was in a crate in the back of their truck. So I got to pet an eight week old baby goat that day. Oh, it probably made your day. Oh, I loved it. I hadn't pet a baby goat in so long. I was like, oh, I forgot they're really shy. 24:25 Yeah. He was also hot and he didn't want to come over to me and I just slid my arm right into the crate and I was like, you will eventually come say hi to me. Yeah, you'll warm up. did. He was just as cute and soft as the ones I remember. So it was really fun. But there's so much good in this lifestyle. And if you don't have people in your life who are doing these things, get some, make some friends. Yes. 24:51 Do you have any yet? 24:56 I would say I have one that I met through work who she kind of does some home studying stuff. Like she has the sourdough and she has a garden, but she doesn't really have much. Oh, she has chickens too. So I forget she has chickens, but yeah, she's shared some knowledge with me on things and yeah. Nice. I need more though. Yeah. I was going to say keep reaching out, keep, keep trying to find people who are local to you because they're going to know things that you don't know. 25:25 You're going to know things that they don't know and you can help each other out. Yes, share the knowledge. We just got a mama cat who's pregnant from friends because we needed more barn cats and it's easier to just have a female that produces than it is to spend $50 per barn cat every time. And she spent the night in her crate for two nights when they brought her over and we let her out yesterday morning. 25:52 have not seen her since she must be exploring her property. hopefully she's not, hopefully she'll stick around and we'll have baby kittens here soon. How many acres do you have? Three. Okay. We have three, but the garden takes up a good percentage of what isn't, doesn't have buildings on it. Yeah. So, so anyway, um, uh, I don't know what else to ask you cause you are, you're very new at this, but I can hear the excitement in your voice and I'm 26:22 So excited to kind of keep track of your future and see how it goes for you. Thank you. I'm really excited to see where this journey takes me as well. Yeah, you sound so happy and you sound way younger than 28. Well, thank you. When you started talking, I was like, she sounds like she's 20. And then you said 28 and I was like, oh, she's got one of those voices. You're going to sound like you're 20 for the rest of your life. Well, that would be amazing. Yes. Yes, it would be. 26:52 All right, so where can people find you, I have just an Instagram page right now. It's called Wholesome Homestead. I had to have my username be at her wholesome homestead life. So if anybody would like to follow my journey, feel free to follow my page. I think that people should follow your journey because you are a willing student. I'm assuming that you will take information about homesteading from anybody and vet it and then use it. 27:21 And as someone who's brand new, you have all the potential in the world to teach other newbies how to do it too. Don't think you don't know enough to share because you do. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and I really appreciate getting to hear the baby noises in the background. Yeah, they're very soothing. They are. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. 27:50 Helana, I hope you have a great day and kiss those babies for me. I will. Thank you so much for taking the time to let me be on your podcast. Absolutely. It was a joy. Thank you, Helena. Bye. Bye.
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| Stephanie's Dish - Stephanie Hansen | 12 Aug 2025 | 00:42:17 | |
Today I'm talking with Stephanie Hansen at StephaniesDish. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Stephanie Hansen at Stephanie's Dish in Minnesota. She's local, yay. I love it when people are local. And good morning, Stephanie. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. And I would normally ask about the weather, but I'm guessing you're in Minneapolis area? I am in Ely, Minnesota today. Oh, you're way up there. 00:29 of the true North cabin cookbook. It's where I wrote it. Um, we have a summer home here that's on an island in a middle of a lake. And so I kind of do the reverse commute and go back and forth. My husband stays up here most of the summer with our 92 year old mother-in-law. Oh, okay. So you're way up there. So how's the weather up North? It's nice. It's nice today. A little rain's coming in, but it's been a weird summer though. Uh, 00:57 lots of smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I'm a gardener and the garden has started out real slow. I'm finally starting to get beans and cucumbers and tomatoes and those kinds of things, but just kind of a weird summer. Second one in a row. Yay. I'm so sick of it. I'm praying. Like I spent the winter praying that this year would be moderate and it's been better than last year, but it hasn't been the three summers ago summer that was so beautiful. So 01:27 I don't know. We're all just going to do what we do. it's funny how it seems like September is like the old August where it's super hot and dry. That's also, summer is extended in some ways, but maybe starts later. Yeah. don't know. Climate change, global warming, weather patterns of 01:51 Billions of years, who knows? Either way, we're just all going to still keep trying to grow things because that's what we do. I'm in Lassour and it is sunny and cool. Thank goodness because our compressor on our air conditioner died yesterday. Oh, I did that last week. Got a new air conditioner and furnace and a home equity loan. Yeah, that's what we're looking at too. You're in Lassour, the home of the green giant. 02:21 Yes. And Sprout. Yes. Yes. We have the new billboard up that has the green giant and Sprout on it. I was driving back and forth to Jordan when they took the old sign down and put the new sign up. And every day there'd just be a little bit more of each character building on each other. That's great. It's fun. And it's so silly because every small town has something like that. 02:46 I didn't know that the Jolly Green Giant started out in LaSore. I had no idea and we were driving down here for the move. I was like, oh, oh, okay. And I had no idea that the guy that started the Mayo Clinic lived in a small house in town in LaSore too. Yup. So there's a lot of history here. And I grew up, I grew up on the East coast. So when I moved to Minnesota, like 30 something years ago, 03:14 I was like, ah, there's no history here. My history back home beats the history in Minnesota. And then when I started learning about Minnesota, I was like, um, I'm going to have to amend my opinion. Yeah, no offense, but it's very, uh, common to get sort of the East coast, West coast vibes of the Midwest. And then people come here and they're like, Oh, this isn't just flyover country. And particularly when you think about like the food scene. 03:43 We are the bread basket. know, much of the grain is grown in the Midwest. Much of the animal husbandry happens in the Midwest and a cheese making culture happens in the Midwest. So while we laud the fancy restaurants from both coasts, when it comes to like actual food production, we're doing pretty good. absolutely. And I'm not dissing on Minnesota. I've lived here a long time. It is beautiful. 04:11 And I had the choice five years ago when we were looking for a new home to decide whether I wanted to move back to Maine. And I was like, I don't want to. It's expensive. I'm already settled in this state. I know how to behave myself now. I'm just going to stay here. So it all worked out fine, but very disappointed to find out that we're going to have to drop probably five to $6,000 on a new air conditioner here in the next week or two. That is not a welcome Monday morning surprise. No, but 04:41 The good news, well, you're kind of, I mean, we're probably gonna get, cause state fair always gets super hot. For me, like getting the furnace done now, I was like, well, at least it won't be 30 below when I realized my furnace doesn't work. Yeah, we've done that before too. That is not a fun surprise either. Okay, so now that I've bitched about my AC problem, cause I knew I was going to, tell me a little bit about yourself, Stephanie, because you are a woman of many talents. Yeah, so I started, 05:10 out, I guess my career, I started out in advertising long ago, working in the newspaper business. And then I got into the radio business. I owned a direct mail and a printing company and all the way along the through line was sort of media. And I really loved food. And I can remember when the Food Network first started and people were all excited about these shows where people were cooking. 05:39 Um, so the food network started and all the way along, you know, we watched the, the Julia child show and we would watch the frugal gourmet on PBS. And as the food scene kind of was building, I said to my, um, station that I worked at my radio station, said, Hey, can I have a radio show about food? And they thought it was kind of fun and said, sure. So I recruited my partner who happened to be the food editor of our city magazine at the time. 06:09 And we, 18 years ago started talking about food. The show started out as an hour and then it went to two hours. And we talk about restaurants. We talk about the home cook. We talk about our cideries, our distilleries, our breweries, and just like food as community, food as culture. And it really has just been a joy over the last 18 years. And as I leaned into that and sold some of my other businesses, I ended up. 06:37 Uh, just like, what am I going to do now? And food just kept coming to the forefront. So I decided to write a cookbook called the true North cabin cookbook during COVID. Um, our radio show was completely changed in that we were still recording it, but instead of talking about restaurants and all the community pieces of food, we ended up really talking about your pantry and cook things. And that was the space that I was most comfortable in anyway. So we really leaned into that. 07:08 I decided to write the cookbook. I wanted to write a book that chronicled this place in Northern Minnesota because it's a pretty unique place. But also I wanted to document a lot of our family's recipes that people would request when they would come to the cabin. So I did that and it sold really well and people liked it. And there was a kind of heavy narrative arc to it. And the book went from May through September because 07:34 We pretty much opened the cabin from Memorial Day to Labor Day. So after working on the book and having it out for about a year, my publisher came back and said, well, what are you doing the rest of the year? What about October through April? And I really like soups and stews and braises. Me too. I a real Midwestern gal in that way. So I said, sure, you know, I don't know that the through line of the cabin is there. And they said, yeah, it is, you know, that's kind of in you. 08:03 And we do come up here in the winter time. It's not as much as the summer. So that book comes out September 2nd. It is available for pre-order now and it takes you from October through April. So I did sneak one rhubarb recipe into April, which obviously is a little bit early, but it's funny when I was working on the second book, it wasn't so much my grandma's this and my mother-in-law's that it was more of what I cook at home. 08:29 So in some ways, the second book is more of like my true cookbook and the first book is kind of more of a family heritage book. Nice. Um, rhubarb is great coming out of the freezer in April, so it can be an April dish. And one of the things I learned about rhubarb, my mom used to blanch rhubarb and then freeze it and come to find out you don't have to blanch it. The freezing breaks it down for you. Yes. And there are certain recipes. 08:58 I probably have a single subject rhubarb cookbook in my future just because I it so much. And there are recipes that work better for frozen rhubarb. So like the April recipe that I have is a rhubarb almond bread, which works great with like the broken down flesh of the rhubarb versus like my rhubarb custard bars. I really think that's best when you have the firm, fresh rhubarb. Yes, absolutely. So what's the new book called? It is the True North Cabin Cookbook. 09:28 Seasonal recipes from a cozy kitchen. It's a volume two. Volume one is true North cabin cookbook as well. They liked the idea from the publishing standpoint of having the full 12 months together. Maybe someday it'll be sold as a set or something. But I took all the pictures in both books, wrote the narratives, wrote the recipes, and it's been super fun. Awesome. I love that. 09:53 I used to giggle a little bit about the cabin thing too. I don't now because I have friends that have cabins. The cabins that I grew up being around or being in, they were actual little tiny cabins on lakes in Maine. And then people were like, oh, we're going up the cabin. I said, how many square feet is the cabin? They're like, oh, 3,000. I was like, excuse me, that's a... 10:20 big house and they're like, no, that's a cabin. And I'm like, okay. So there are all these cultural things that you have to learn when you switch from, you know, one side of the country to the other, or move from either side of the country to the middle. Cause things are different. Yeah. Even like, so our cabin is it's on a four acre Island, but the cabin itself is two bedrooms and it was built in the seventies and it has a porch all the way around the outside. 10:49 It is very rustic. it has an outhouse rustic. Nice. When you're in Wisconsin, they call cabins, cottages. Okay. So even like it's been interesting to translate from the true North cabin cookbook culture to the cottage culture. And when I'm like doing Wisconsin public radio or any of those opportunities, I make sure to talk about cottages because it is different in their brains too. And you know, a lot of the big lakes in Minnesota. 11:18 You know, Lake Minnetonka that started as cabin culture has now kind of morphed into more exclusive homes. Um, but up here in the North on Burnside Lake where we are, it's still very, very cabinet. Okay. Awesome. So there are little bitty cabins too. Good. I'm glad because there's such, I don't know, they're so cozy and, and homey and kitschy. And I love that about the little cabins. Um, so about. 11:48 20 years after I moved here, finally decided to learn how to make turkey wild rice soup. I had never heard of wild rice soup growing up because it's not a thing. And I was like, it doesn't look that hard and I know how to make a roux. I think I can do this. And I of course decided to make it when I was having friends who were born and bred Minnesotans over. And one of them tasted it and they were like, have you made this before? And I said, no. 12:18 She said, this is some of the best turkey wild rice soup I've ever had. How many, this is the first time. I said, yes. She said, no Maynard should be able to make wild rice soup this good. And I almost fell down. literally bowed and said, thank you. So what would you get to claim as a Maynard? Like blueberry season, maybe? Yup. And lobster rolls or lobster bisque. And I never made lobster bisque. Lobster is. 12:45 It's not as expensive in Maine as it is in the Midwest, but it's still expensive. So we didn't really do that. Yeah. I love lobster. I miss lobster so much. I could cry. That's funny. I love lobster too. And I love lobster bisque, um, wild rice, you know, and there's a couple, like there's cultivated wild rice and then there's like wild wild rice. It is interesting because using them is a little bit different. 13:13 One of my probably most popular recipes at Stephanie's dish.com is my wild rice recipe that you make in the instant pot. Instant pot is really great at cooking wild rice. And then in my second book, the book that's coming out, there's a beer cheese wild rice soup. I really love beer and cheese and rice. So strangely all those things together make a very delightful soup. 13:39 Well, the thing that's lovely about wild rice, even if it's cultivated, is that if you make it in a pan on the stove and you're letting it cook down so it pops open and gets all squishy, it smells nutty and warm. And I love cooking up a pound bag of wild rice in like November when it's the first really cold, sleety day outside, because it warms up the house and it smells so good. 14:08 I had an opportunity to record a television show. So one of the things that's happened more recently in my career in the last three years is I've started a show called Taste Buds with Stephanie. And it was started by the Fox local affiliate here in Minneapolis. And we were just going to do a 15 minute shows. 14:30 that we're gonna air as segments in a lifestyle show and that happened and then it went to YouTube and then they started making half hour episodes and in September of this year, it will syndicate into 82 markets. So all of a sudden this like little teeny food show that we were doing is now in 58 % of the United States, which has been super fun. And one of the shows that I did was with Sean Sherman who is the sous chef. He's a native American chef. 14:59 cooks only with Native American ingredients. And we did a Thanksgiving episode where he really taught me about some of their native foods that would be in a traditional Thanksgiving. And we cooked only Thanksgiving recipes that were native. So, you know, we weren't able to use any processed sugar and we made a really delicious wild rice stuffing that went in a squash that was super great that had, you know, cranberries in it and hazel nuts and things that would be indigenous to our region. 15:29 It was a really fun episode. loved making that episode with him. That sounds delicious. And I actually made stuffing with wild rice thrown in and some smashed up walnuts or pecans. I can't remember a couple of years ago. And I just wanted to try it and see what would happen. Cause I'm one of those cooks who learned to cook later. think I was in my late twenties when I learned to cook. And once I got the basics down, was like, 15:55 You know, I think this is like art. I think you can experiment. think if you like certain things, you can maybe try them in other dishes. And when I did that wild rice nut stuffing, it was amazing. And we took it to in-laws for Christmas, I think it was. It wasn't Thanksgiving. And a couple of the girls came over and said, what did you put in there that's different? And I told them, and they were like, that's so easy. I said, guys, it's an art. 16:24 And if you have like gluten free people, a wild rice stuffing is a great option to add to the table because a lot of people will eat it. It's very delicious, but then you don't have to deal with the bread and the stuffing piece. Yeah. And the other thing that I did that year is I used asparagus instead of green beans for the green bean casserole. Oh, yum. And I didn't tell anybody. I didn't even think about it. And one of the brothers-in-law came over to me after and he said, he said, what? 16:55 I have never liked green bean casserole. What did you do?" And I said, used asparagus instead of green beans. He was like, I thought that's what that was. And I said, yeah, he said, I love that. So you can surprise people with food. And it's really fun to see the joy on their face when they hear what it was. It's funny because I have literally like so many green beans right now, because they just came in in the garden and I have just bags and bags of them. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with them. 17:25 And I was thinking, I should just freeze some and use them in a green bean casserole at Thanksgiving time. Yep. Absolutely. It's always so much better if you make your own green beans instead of the canned. I kind of love canned green beans because I know some people feel like it's super nostalgic. Well, my mom used to can green beans from our garden and she would use those. So they're not the metal canned ones. They're the jar canned ones. And she actually sent me home. 17:54 And when we visited, sent me home with like 15 pints of her canned green beans. And my oldest son ate like eight of them. He had a pint of green beans a day for a week and a half. That's funny. I said, you're going to be a green bean. He was like, no, not, not how it works. was like, okay. Well, and the dilly green beans are always so good too. So I love this time of year because things are really, really coming in. 18:22 I've said a billion times in the last six episodes that we have tomatoes coming in and we are almost the tipping point of being swimming in them. My husband planted 250 tomato plants this spring. Holy cow. That's awesome. And he's already been asked at the farmer's market if we're going to have enough for people to buy for canning. And I'm pretty sure we're going to have enough for canning. Yeah. I'm finding that the tomato season this year is a little slow. 18:52 Yeah. Yeah, I, I, okay, so in the spring, I plant all my seeds, and I have to be really careful because I only have 60 day growing season here. So I plant all the seeds and they got waterlogged, there was a storm, and I wasn't home to bring the trays in because I was hardening them off and they had an inch of rain on them. So I lost a bunch of seeds there. So then I went to the garden center and bought a bunch of things. 19:19 And I've planted everything and with the smoke, it's just been slow. And now I barely even know what varieties I have because I have such a mishmash. So, you know, every summer I usually can a ton of tomatoes. do a roasted tomato sauce. I sun dry a bunch. I don't know what I'm going to do this year. I think I might just make like a giant vat of sauce and mix them all together and just call it a tomato sauce here. You're going to drive to LaSore and get some tomatoes from me. That's what you're to do. 19:48 Or it's my favorite farmers market, right? 19:53 Well, you're always welcome to come visit here. Always. So you, you have the podcast, you have the radio show, you have your TV show and don't you guest on, um, on Jason's show now and then. it's kind of a funny story. Um, so one of the reasons why I guest on his show is we're friends. Um, but we weren't friends in the beginning. 20:23 We literally so when I was starting out in radio, I started out having my own radio show with another woman and it was an afternoon show and it was talk show. And after about a year and a half, she got fired and they called me in and said, well, we don't really want to fire you, but we don't know what to do with you. So I was like, well, what are my choices? And they said, well, we don't know yet. So just keep coming to work until we tell you what's happening. 20:50 So for about six weeks, I came to work every day and I would fill in with whatever producer was there. It was very hard actually, because it's hard to do a radio show with people just random every day. And finally, after about six weeks, they called me in and they said, well, we hired a afternoon show and we hired Jason Matheson, but he doesn't want you as his radio partner. And I was like, oh shoot. So like, does that mean I'm fired? 21:18 And they said, no, we just don't know what we're going to do. And that was how I asked for the food show. Yes. So my food life in terms of broadcasting sort of culminated with Jason's becoming, um, on our television or excuse me, on our radio show. And I was a little salty about it because I felt like, gosh, you know, I got fired for him to get the job and. 21:43 So like in the beginning we were sort of like ships passing in the night at events and we were civil and cordial but then I actually like heard him and I started to listen to his show. And he was so much better at it than I was and it made so much sense why he got the show so I kinda gave up some of that and then I got to know him as a person and he's so generous and so lovely and he really like during. 22:11 Right before COVID, we had started doing TV segments together and it turned out we ended up having a lot of chemistry, which neither one of us would have thought we would have had. And he and I have done a lot on his show. He's certainly helped me at Fox with my own show. He's been super generous. He's the kind of person that really has the ability to shine the light. And he does. And both of us kind of do that in our own ways, but 22:38 Yeah, he's become like a really, really good friend and been so helpful to me from kind of weirdly auspicious beginnings, right? Yeah. And that happens. It's so weird how, how you get pitted against each other through no fault of your own. And then you're like, no, I like that person. Yeah. And he's just so generous and, uh, he's been so kind and so great. So I used to tell the story a lot. I try not to tell the story as much anymore, just because I don't want him to feel like, you know, 23:08 there's this essential eternal payback because not he's paid me back 1000 times and more. Oh, yeah. I just I love that. He is really someone that if he sees something in you, he will help you develop that and I like to be that person too. I've helped a lot of makers along the way and I really get just jazzed. So I like podcasting. I love talking to small business people. I love talking to people that are building and making things. It's just so fun and so interesting to see how people get started. 23:39 You and I are going to be best friends because that's why I started mine too. Yeah. I wanted people to have a stage for half an hour at least to talk about what they do because it is so hard when you're a small business to market yourself in a public way, a big public way. And that, that was originally like my first podcast makers in Minnesota. We would have these people on for 10 minutes on a radio segment that, know, maybe they make hot sauce. Let's just say, so you talk to them about like. 24:08 why their hot sauce is unique, why it's different, how they packaged it. But it felt like we were only just scratching the surface of their stories by the time we had to wrap up with them. So I started that podcast so that I could spend more time with people in the food space and makers in general, because it expanded after that. But just to figure out like, how do they do their business? What's important to them? How does it all work? And that show was great. I had it for five years. I had over 300 and some episodes. 24:36 And then I just felt like I'd kind of been there and done that. And the stories were feeling same. So I was getting bored with it. I was like, what am I going to do now? And I was working on the cookbook. So I thought, well, I'll just change it to dishing with Stephanie's dish, which is a little more generic. And then I can talk to cookbook writers and still people in the food space if I want to just on their journey and what that feels like. So that's kind of how things have evolved. 25:01 Yeah. And the best thing about a podcast is it's yours. You can do whatever you want to do. Okay. So I try to keep these to half an hour, but I have more questions. much more time do you have? Oh, I'm good. Okay. Cool. Um, so cooking is like something that people are diametrically opposed about. They either don't want to do it or they're obsessed with it and they love it. So 25:29 How do we get people to come into the middle on this? Because I feel like cooking is such an essential skill. once you get the basics down, you can like expand exponentially forever if you want. So how do we get people into the middle? 25:47 It's a couple of things. I think one is probably talking about what's in food. Um, I have a sister who is a terrible cook and she really, and I, I use her as an example when I write my books and I write for her because she really knows nothing about food. She doesn't know about ingredients. She doesn't know about what's healthy, what's not healthy. And so she goes into a store. 26:15 And she'll buy something that is natural, right? And she'll think like she's buying a good product for her or her family. And she doesn't know like when she reads the label, all the yucky stuff that's in the food. I, we can directly trace obesity to the 1970s when we started having a revolution in packaged goods. Oh, yes. And some packaged goods are great. 26:43 And it's obviously convenient and I don't want to make people feel bad about cooking. But I think in the opportunities that you have to make something yourself, you're just going to A, save money, B, have a better product, C, it's going to be better for your health and your family. And for all the amount of time and energy we spend talking about people's unhealthy lifestyles and obesity and what's in everybody's food. If we just cooked, you can't put. 27:11 Even if you cook with like conventional ingredients, you can't put more bad things into something than if you bought it on the store shelf. So just think talking about how do you want your family to eat? How do you want you to eat? You might be eating super simply. That's OK. You might like only have 10 things you can really cook. But if you can learn how to roast a chicken, you know, you've got three meals out of that chicken. At least, yes. 27:39 Yes, you can make soup, can make chicken salad, you can make a chicken salad wrap. Just the roast chicken on the first day you have it. like when you go to like the store and you buy the, you know, like if you go to Costco, they have the roast chickens for like eight bucks or whatever. know, I like a roast chicken from Costco. I'm not opposed to it. I eat those on occasion. 28:03 But if you can make your own, you can just taste the difference. The salt is so much less because it's not injected with chemicals and the skin is different, which I love chicken skin. That's probably like my weakness. It's different and it's better for you and you can feel better about eating it. Yes. And the same thing with beef. If you like beef, if you get a decent roast and I mean, you can make a crappy roast taste good. It's just hard to do. 28:32 It takes time and patience and knowing what you're doing. But if you can get a really good roast, put it in a crock pot for, I don't know, six, eight hours on low and throw in some veggies and a little bit of water and some seasonings. Let that thing hang out all day. Your house is going to smell good when you get home or if you're home, you're to want to eat it in two hours. That doesn't work. And you have some of that for dinner with the veggies and some potatoes or bread or whatever you want to do. That's one meal. And then you can make, um, 29:01 beef stew out of it. And beef stew is one of my favorite things. You can't make good beef stew without making a good pot roast is my theory. I do think like the advent of, I mean, our moms had the pressure cooker, but it was so dangerous because they didn't smoke good, right? I think the advent of like the instant pot, the crock pot, the air fryer, the ninja blenders, like we do have all these great 29:29 gadgets at our disposal that really make cooking a lot easier. Even like one of my favorite gadgets is my Cuisinart, because you can just whip up a pizza dough, or you can make a pesto like super easy, or any kind of sauce. I think we just make cooking super complicated, and it doesn't need to be. And just trying to like simplify ingredients to my refrigerator is literally just full of like condiments. 29:59 because I cook all the time, but I do use a lot of condiments. So that's primarily what's in my refrigerator is condiments and produce. What's in my refrigerator is food from yesterday and the day before because my husband really likes something different every day. Oh, is he a mad leftover person? He is, but not the next day. Yeah. And so I'm always making something different every night. So he will nosh on something from the day before. 30:28 like later in the evening, which I wish he'd stop doing, but I can't get him to stop. then whatever's left on the third day, we freeze. So we have it for the winter time. Yeah, I am a freezer hoarder. I'm not going to lie. the good news is we actually use it. So I have to force myself because there's just two of us and I still cook. I've always cooked for like six people. It's just the way I do it. I don't know why I try to make less and it always ends up making more. And I end up 30:58 freezing a ton. And also like when you're developing a cookbook, you're testing recipes. When I'm doing stuff on the Jason show, I'm bringing food home because we generally don't have enough to like feed the audience. So I just bring that home. I wander around the neighborhood with food, you know, show up with zucchini, I show up with like, whatever I made on the show that day. And if we're making show for the taste buds with Stephanie show or making food, a lot of times we have one already made. 31:25 just to speed up time. When the crew is there, we're maximizing our time. Cause we really filmed that show in my real literal kitchen. So we're, just always, I have so much food and always just hoisting food on people. I love that your neighbors must love you. They do. have a single, she's not a single mom, but her husband travels and she's got two small kids that lives next door. I feed them a lot. And then I started feeding kind of another family. 31:55 My husband and I are just single people together, so how much food can we eat? I do have a daughter that's 25 that will come over and raid my house for food, particularly proteins and meat products. That's fabulous. I love that. Okay, so I ask people who cook this all the time, and I'm going to ask you too. 32:20 What is the simplest way to get started to learn to cook? Like the basics. 32:28 Ah! 32:31 I think doing it. Well, sure. Yes. Like the idea of just actually getting started. I think it starts at, you know, some people are good about meal planning. So if you're not a cook, I think it feels sort of daunting. So maybe just pick like one recipe or two recipes you want to make a week. Most recipes have enough leftovers where you can get another meal out of it. 32:56 So if you cooked two things a week or you batch cooked on a Sunday and made, let's say a soup, a protein and a grain, you'd have like grain bowls. You'd have burritos. You'd have soup. If you just pick two things a week that you want to cook and pick your favorite cookbook or pick a cookbook or go online, whatever works for you. I have tons of recipes at Stephanie's dish.com. can try. I think that will get you started. Just two things a week. Okay. Um, 33:26 I always say when people ask me, I'm like, number one, if you're not comfortable trying something to cook something by yourself, find a friend who knows how to cook and ask them if they would let you come be in their kitchen while they're cooking. Because that way the pressure isn't on you. You get to see how it's done. You get to help if you want to. And people who love things love to teach the things that they love. Yeah. And maybe like 33:54 Also, I think sometimes when I go on Jason's show, those recipes are mostly assembly because we don't have a professional kitchen there. So maybe you add another recipe to your repertoire each week. That's just an assembly recipe, meaning you buy all the separate ingredients and throw that together and that makes something. So whether it's like a grain bowl, a burrito, salad, um, finding ways to extend the life of the things that you have. 34:25 Also, I think it's funny, but a lot of people that don't like cooking do like baking. They just for whatever reason that's their jam. So I tell people sometimes maybe start with like baking, like start with cookies, start with cakes, start with something that you think you would really want to eat. And that will maybe spark a love or a joy of it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, 34:52 The other thing that I've told people is if they're serious, if they really want to learn to cook, the first thing you want to do is get a saucepan, put some water in it and make it boil on the stove because that is one of the most important parts of cooking to me is knowing the difference between a a rolling boil, a simmer and just warm water in a pan because you're going to use that a lot. And I also, I also say learn to scramble eggs. 35:20 Once you scramble an egg, that's cooking. You have accomplished the objective. You have learned to cook something. And then if you really like that, you can move forward. Yeah. I think for me, a roast chicken is a skill that I think everybody needs to master. When my daughter was in high school and getting ready to go to college, I was like, okay, do you know how to roast a chicken? Do you know how to make rice? Do you know how to make an omelet? 35:49 You know, just can we, can we show you how to make a simple fettuccine, like a pasta dish as it were. Yeah. And with those skillsets, you can really build on them. The funny thing about my daughter is when I asked her, like, what are her favorite dishes that I make? She will say like, well, mom, never made the same thing twice. So she doesn't have like those memories, but she has memories of me cooking all the time, but not like her favorite thing. And the way that she cooks now. 36:19 I don't love project cooking. Like I don't love something that takes a couple days or that you have to have a like a skill like filling dumplings for instance is like, man, that might be a little putsy and probably something I wouldn't do. But she does all of that. Like she'll make bagels from scratch. She does all those project based cooking. That's really interesting. What does she do for a job? She does Rover. So she takes care of dogs. 36:49 She does events and she is on my show on taste buds on occasion. We have her in the last episode we did, we took a knife skills class together. And I always assumed she had really good knife skills because she likes knives. She's liked knives since she was little, which I know sounds weird, but she did. And I have just terrible knife skills. And it turned out we both learned a lot just by taking a basic knife skills class. Yeah, my knife skills have a lot. 37:16 to be desired, but I don't realize it. when you watch yourself on TV or you see yourself and you know, you just are like, Oh, how I'm holding the knife isn't like how trained chefs are holding knives. And I used to be very intimidated about cooking in front of like TV because I was like, I'm just a home cook. Like I am not a chef. And when people call me a chef, I'm like, no, just a home cook Sally over here. 37:42 Because I think, you you go to school, you learn these skills, and I don't want to take that away from anybody. That's hard work. I just I like home cooking and I like cooking just for food that tastes good for you and your family. And that's kind of my point of view. I'm the same. I never wanted to go into restaurant tour stuff. I had no interest. I wanted to raise my kids and feed them good food. So I'm a home cook, too. 38:08 But taking a knife skills class probably would not hurt me because I'd probably be a lot safer with a knife in my hand and I'm not terrible at it. But you know, you know, you took the class and it's hard. Yeah. Like, cause you have to kind of practice. So I now have some basic skills, but I still default to my not so good skills just because time energy, you know, but I, I, it's interesting. I do know now when I'm using the knife, like, Oh, 38:37 this isn't the best and so I'm trying to practice to do it right more. Yeah and the one thing that I will add to this and then I'm gonna ask you how we can find you and I'm gonna cut you loose. Speaking of knives, you want to use a sharp knife. not, don't be fooled, a dull knife will hurt you worse than a sharp knife when you're trying to cook. the smooshing of the food. Yeah and the slipping of the knife. 39:05 If you try to cut into something that needs a sharp knife, that knife is going to slip if it's dull and you can poke the hell out of your hand and it hurts. sharp knives are great. And the problem is, that most knives that are affordable for home cooks don't hold an edge for long. And so I'm always asking my son and my husband, I'm like, can you please sharpen the knives this weekend? Cause they're getting dull and they're always like, yes ma'am. 39:32 That's part of the skills class to like how to use a hone, how to use, um, what's the other, the round one. I can't think of the name of it. Steel. Yeah, the steel. And then there's also this company that I took the class from. He's an entrepreneur. Uh, he owns a store called Vivrant, V I B R O N T and he's created this thing that's he's got a mobile sharpening truck, but he's also got this envelope. 40:00 that you can go on his website and get called the sharp how and you put your knives in this special envelope and you ship it to them and then they sharpen them and ship them back to you. The number one reason people don't have sharp knives is just the barrier of having someone professional do it or not wanting to do it yourself apparently. Yeah, exactly. And I just I wanted to get that in there because I my mom. 40:26 I've had this conversation with her like 10 times in the last five years about the fact that her knives aren't sharp. And she's like, I don't need them sharp. They work. They're fine. And I'm like, mm. Yeah. think before I had sharp knives, I didn't realize the amount of progress that a sharp knife makes, but also like just if you're doing repetitive tasks, like I was getting a sore arm. 40:53 And it was because I was having to work so hard away from my body with that knife versus if I had a sharper knife, I could use half the pressure. Yeah, exactly. It makes it so much easier. And again, the right tool makes the job easier. It doesn't matter what you're doing. As long as you're the right tools, you're going to be more efficient at it. Amen. Okay, Stephanie, thank you so much for your time. Where can people find you online? 41:20 Yeah, so Stephanie's dish.com is probably your first stop there you can find all my recipes links to my books, links to any events that we're doing because we're getting ready to go out on a book tour. All the shows that taste buds with Stephanie episodes are linked there. And then on any of the socials. So I'm at Stephanie's dish is really where you can find me on tik tok on Instagram, I do have a YouTube channel where I do cooking. 41:48 And the TV show has its own YouTube channel, Taste Buds with Stephanie, but Stephanie'sDish.com is probably your first stop. Fantastic. Thanks for having me. was a blast. Again, Stephanie, thank you so much. As always, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com. And thank you for listening. I appreciate it so much that people listen to this show. You have a great day, Stephanie. Thanks. Appreciate it. Bye.
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| Dave Jackson at the School of Podcasting - why a podcast is an excellent way to promote your small business | 11 Aug 2025 | 00:39:32 | |
Today I'm talking with Dave Jackson at the School of Podcasting. You can follow on Facebook as well. “The School of Podcasting” Is a podcast that helps you discover the power of podcasting. It helps you avoid the common mistakes that podcasters make. From planning, producing, and promoting your podcast along with all the tools and techniques. If you're looking to start a podcast or a veteran podcaster, you can catch some great insights with this free podcast." "The School of Podcasting is for the person looking to launch their own podcast. They want to do it right the first time. They want to be seen as an expert, reach a global audience, make more sales, know their audience, meet like-minded people, and grow their community. I have great step-by-step tutorials that will show you how to use podcast software titles like Audacity (a free software package), Adobe Audition, Sound Forge, and more. These tutorials walk you through the entire podcasting process." If you use my affiliate link to join the School of Podcasting, I will receive a small commission.If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting in Akron, Good afternoon, Dave. How are you? Mary, I'm doing great. Happy to be here. Good. I'm so glad you could come talk to me. And I'm going to preface this whole thing by saying that it probably seems odd that I invited basically a podcast coach to 00:29 visit with me on a tiny homestead, but some of my guests have asked, you know, have asked me about how to get started because they've expressed interest in wanting to start a podcast of their own. And so it does tie in also because podcasting is a craft and I talk to crafters and it's an art. It takes practice and it takes creativity. So it's an art and a craft. So having said all that. 00:56 Why, Dave, is a podcast a great way to promote a small business? Well, there's a few reasons. Number one, I always say when you start off, like time everything you do. And that way you can say, oh, wow, this took, you know, 10 hours to do a one hour podcast. And then you can go, do I have 10 hours a week to do a podcast? And if not, either make it shorter, or you're not doing a weekly show you're doing every other week or whatever it is. 01:24 So when you can come up with a schedule that you do on a regular basis, you become part of their routine. Like I listen to a show every Friday night. They drop it somewhere around two in the afternoon. And by six o'clock, I know it's going to be there. And I'm off to, this is how I party. I go to Walmart and I do grocery shopping. So, you know, that's how I'm rocking out on a Friday night. But I'm also listening to Adam Curry and Dave Jones on Podcasting 2.0. So you become part of their routine. And I've had people say, 01:52 because I publish every Monday morning and they're like, Dave, you're with me on the way, you know, you're with me on the way to the feed store. Or one guy said, I shower with you every Monday. And I go, that sounds a little weird, but okay. So that's one. So you're seen as reliable. And then when you give them content that they can use, they're like, oh, I, I like her. She's really helpful. He's great or whatever it is. And then if you can make a point with a story about whatever you're in your life, then they kind of get to know you. 02:22 So now you've got the whole no like and trust factor going. And so when you say, oh, I've got this new soap or I've got these new fragrances or whatever it is you're selling, they're like, oh, I'm going to check that out because you kind of start this law of reciprocity, which just basically means I've scratched your back with my podcast. Now you scratch my back by buying my stuff. But it is one of those things. know one time when I was married, I had a 16 year old. 02:50 who was dying to get his driver's license. And I found out within 20 feet of that kid, hey, can we go driving? Hey, can we go driving? And so I always say, in that example, I said, when you start a podcast, you need the passion of a 16 year old wanting to get their license. And so I had people email me, they're like, oh, I have one of those too. She almost killed me last week, you know, that kind of thing. So it's just a way for your potential customers to get to know you. And then 03:17 sometimes behind the scenes stuff, you're like, Hey, we're trying this, this new product, we're not sure if it's going to work. I know the there's a software company called Evernote, and they had a podcast where you had the CEO, the main marketing person, and I think the community manager all doing this podcast together. And how often can you send in a question and have it answered by the CEO of a company? And it was interesting because they had a segment like 03:47 tell me how you're using their product. And people would leave a voicemail and without knowing it, it got to turn it into a commercial. Cause they're like, oh, I tried this new thing and I didn't realize I could do this. And then the note would do this and there it was on my phone and this is amazing. So it's built in testimonials in some cases. And I know for me, I've had people that have just emailed me and said, wow, that really helped me do blank. 04:14 Or, hey, will you talk about this? So sometimes you get an idea of like, oh, I didn't realize that my audience wanted this. So it's just an open communication with you and your potential customers and you're building trust and reliability along the way. Okay. I agree with everything you said and I have a couple other things to add because I've been doing this for almost two years. And what I have found is that number one, you are in control of the information that goes out about your business. 04:45 And you are the one who's excited about your business and the infectiousness of that is so great to come out of your own voice for people to hear. And I feel like that's really important too. Yeah. The actress Aisha Tyler, she was on Friends. She was the voice, one of the voices in the Archer TV show. She's producing now, but she did a podcast and she did the whole thing. Like she recorded it. She edited Naudacity. 05:13 She published it and she was speaking at podcast movement. And she said, you know, the one thing I really love about my podcast. And we're all like, what? And she's like, it's mine. She goes, it's a hundred percent mine. She goes, if I want to make it longer, I can't. If I want to make it shorter, she goes, and people go, well, you have your house. And she goes, do you really? She goes, cause unless it's paid for, it's still owned by the bank. And she goes, and if you're married, it's yours and your spouse's. She's like, this is mine. It is a hundred percent mine. And she goes, there's very little you can say in life that this is mine. 05:43 And so she just loved it and you are in total control. And that's why I always tell people they, they kind of get stuck or they get worried about changing things. Like, your podcast is a recipe. It's not a statue. So if you want to make it shorter or you want to do gas, you don't want to do gas, whatever it's your show. can do whatever you want. Absolutely. And considering that I spent good God, 20 years living in a little small house, raising four kids and 06:09 trying to keep my husband fed and in clean clothes for work the next day. Having something that's mine as a woman is amazing. It just, you're right. It's mostly women. Women don't have a lot that's just theirs. We share almost everything with someone. And so having something that is just mine, wanted to feel bad about feeling selfish about it, but I don't because... 06:37 It makes me a better person and what I do helps other people. So there's nothing selfish in that. Absolutely. Okay. So I want to ask you a question that maybe no one's asked you yet, cause you're always talking about how you don't get very many new questions. I'm going to try. Who do you think in the world of people whose voices have been recorded, who do you think has a really good voice? I have a reason for asking when you're done. 07:05 Boy, that's a great question. I mean, there's, I think his name was Vince Fontaine. He was the in a world, you know, that guy. Yes. So everybody jumps to that. Who else do I think has a great voice? When I think of talking, Howard Stern has a really deep radio guy, but that's kind of one of the reasons why podcasting took off is when it first started back when I started in 2005. 07:32 People weren't talking like this, everybody. All right, let's do it. Traffic and weather, like we talked normal. So that's one of the things. Those are two people that jump out. I'm trying to think if I listen to anybody else, there's a friend of mine that does the real Brian show that just, always comes across, you know, it's butter for your ears kind of thing. But those are a few off the top of my head. Okay. Well, I think that people think of James Earl Jones. I think that they think of, oh, 08:00 I had his name this morning because I was thinking about this. Morgan Freeman. People like Morgan Freeman. was going to get to him. But is it Tommy Lee Jones that played in... He was in The Fugitive. And Men in Black. Yeah. Love his voice. And Helen Mirren, the actress. She has the most beautiful voice to my ears. And the reason that I ask is that you don't have to sound like those people to have a podcast. 08:28 No, I remember Dr. Dave from Shrinkwrap Radio. was at an event and he was in the line behind me. We started talking and Dr. Dave sounds a little bit, there's a basketball coach named Doc Rivers, but they gotta sound like this. And Dr. Dave from Shrinkwrap Radio, goes, who's gonna listen to me? I sound like this. And I go, dude, the beautiful thing is that's your natural voice. That kills me to do that. But I was like, I go, you sound like that naturally. And I go, and nobody sounds like you. 08:59 You know, Todd Cochran from Geek News Central. This is Todd Cochran. goes, look, I don't have a radio voice. This is the way I sound and this is what I'm going to do. So welcome to Geek News Central. I'm glad you're here. This is Todd Cochran. And he said, look, that's how I sound. so the, know right now, authentic is a word that everybody's throwing out, but that's because there's a lot of fake stuff out there. And when it's authentic, it really resonates. And so, yeah, you don't have to sound. I know people say, oh, you have a radio voice. And I go, it's just what. 09:25 The good Lord gave me, I didn't do anything to, you this is the way I sound. You can take my mom and dad, but other than that, it's, it's really more the content than how you sound. mean, if as long as it's not distracting and what's even more interesting about that, um, there's a guy named Michael Hyatt that did a show with Michelle Kashokton. was great. And Michelle, unfortunately kept battling cancer and eventually had, I guess, cancer in her tongue and they, and they cut half of it out. 09:55 So when Michelle came back and I'm not making fun, but she had that S's saying, so where it sounds like this. And I thought, I'm never going to be able to listen to a podcast like this. And it was just a weird thing where after about two minutes, your brain just ignored it. And I was like, well, good on you. Cause I could see where a lot of people like, I'm not going to do that. sound, my S's are kind of different now. I'm like, they're different, but I can, you know, I'm not hanging up on you. You know, it's not something where I'm like, oh, my ears, can't take it. 10:23 You know, we all, mean, people from the South sound different than people in the North and people from Africa. all have different accents and all. It's not a big deal. And, uh, I'm a big fan of all sorts of accents. It's so much fun. mean, one of the things I love the most about doing my podcast is I talk to people everywhere. I talked to two or three people in Canada last month. I've talked to people in Australia, in England and Australia. I always try to make sure that I hear their voice before I confirm I'm going to chat with them. 10:53 because if their accent is too heavy, it is really, really difficult to understand. And so I kind of vet those because I'm like, if I can't understand them, sure as hell people aren't going to be able to understand them any better than I can. Um, so yeah, you don't have to be a certain kind of voice. You just have to have fairly clear diction. And sometimes you don't even have to have that. And you have to have heart and you have to be genuine, I think. And so. 11:22 I guess my next question is how easy is it to start a podcast? I know how easy it is because I had no idea what I was doing when I started two years ago and I figured it out. But go ahead and tell me how easy it is. it's it's you have a lot of the skills and and one other last thing on your voice, you're going to hate it because when you talk, you listen through your ears and your skull. So your skull, the technical term is bone conduction. But when you hear your 11:49 voice through just speakers and not your skull, it's going to sound less bassy. And so you'd like, not bad. It's just different. But in terms of easy, you buy a microphone, you have to figure out what you want to talk about. And people like, I don't know anything about audio. And I'm like, okay. Um, do you, have you ever used Microsoft word? And they're like, yeah. And I go, so if you have a sentence and you don't want it anymore, what do you do? And they're like, well, I highlight it and delete it. go, well, guess what? In audacity, if you 12:18 see something you said and you don't want it, you highlight it and you delete it. I go, if you're in the car and your jam comes on, so you crank up the radio and then the phone rings, what do you do? Well, you turn down the radio if you're in a state that you can answer the phone and you answer the phone. And I go, congratulations, you know how to mix audio. Cause you had to turn down the radio enough to where it wasn't, you know, if you're letting it play in the background, cause it is your jam, you know, so you can turn that down. If you've ever 12:46 attached a photo to an email, then you can upload an MP3 file to your media host. So I'm not saying that there is no learning curve. I'm just saying it's not half as hard as you think it is. really isn't. Yep, exactly. Is it, again, I know the answer. Is it expensive to start a podcast? I always say it's about the price of an Xbox. The microphone, 13:12 that I recommend a lot is this is a Samsung Q2U that goes for around 70 to 80 bucks. And then you throw in, and it always depends on what you're doing. If you are, have more than one person in the same room with you, I recommend a piece of equipment called the Zoom Pod Track P4. That's around 160 bucks. So I usually say it's, it's about the price of an Xbox to start. And then the beauty of it is the longer you do your show, 13:41 you know, now it's like, oh, I spent $300 the first year, I spent, you know, you know, $20 a month the next year, and that was it. So over time, it starts to, you know, not so much depreciate, but you know, the the artwork I designed, I don't know, probably five years ago, you know, and at the time it was I hired a real graphic artist, and I paid him, I think, two or $300. And that was a chunk of change. 14:09 But that was five years ago. So now it's down to $60 a year for that artwork. So it's, like anything else. I mean, when you start up a business, you've got to put money out for, you know, a display case maybe or whatever it is. There's always money to start. And then from there, hopefully you bring in some results so that it pays for itself. Okay. Well, I only spent about, I bet I only spent about $50 total when I started mine. 14:39 Yeah. And I probably have spent, I would guess $400 in two years. Yeah. I mean, if you're doing a solo show, you know, you buy that microphone, there's your 50, 60 bucks. Um, you can use free media hosts. Not my favorite thing. Cause free is a horrible business model and they tend to go out of business, but there are places like red circle that have a free option. I'm really not a fan of Spotify, but I love them as an app. 15:06 And I love them as a music service, but as a podcast service, I wish they'd kind of go back in their lane. But Red Circle is a media host. My favorite media host is Captivate and that's 19 bucks a month. If I go month to month, and I think it's 17, if I go, if I buy a year's worth of hosting. But if you're doing a solo show, that's it. You could use Canva, which is free to make your artwork. And you, most media hosts have a website built in, which is okay. It'll get you going. 15:35 I'm assuming you already have a website for your business so you can just embed the podcast into that. And yeah, so you can easily get going for a hundred bucks or less. Yep. And that's why I love it because I needed a project two years ago and I didn't want to spend tons of money and I didn't want to spend tons of brain space and time. And I was like, I'm going to start a podcast. And my husband looked at me like I was nuts because he's like, don't even like your voice. And I said, 16:04 No, but it's a challenge and I need a challenge right now. And he said, Oh yeah, you always do better when you're focused on a project. And I was like, yes, yes, I do. Maggie is barking in the background. That's my, uh, my mascot. And since it's a tiny homestead podcast, we don't, we don't get bothered by Maggie Barking. We're used to dogs barking. Yeah. And, and roosters crowing. 16:29 and birds singing and frogs chirping and it's all good. just, it's so, it bothers me more than I think it bothers my listeners. She's such a good watchdog, Dave. I love her so much. That's what you mean. I talk about her all the time. It's sickening. Um, okay. So what else was it going to ask you? Like I said, I was very nervous about chatting with you because you are a podcast coach. And so 16:58 Now I'm all flustered. have a friend of mine. She's known as grammar girl and there's nothing more nerve wracking than sending email to grammar girl the whole time. You're like, wait, do I use a comma here or a semi colon? So I know how you feel. Yeah, it's really weird. I haven't been this jittery about a podcast recording in, Oh my God, a year and a half. Um, so she's going to keep barking. Somebody's probably at our farm stand buying, 17:24 tomatoes right now probably that's probably why she's barking her head off. A full disclosure Dave is my coach. actually finally invested in myself so I could learn some things I didn't know because one of the things I've discovered over the last two years is that sometimes you can do it yourself and as a homesteader we do a lot of do it yourself but sometimes it really helps to have a fresh set of ears or eyes on what you're doing and gives you an honest opinion back. Yeah absolutely. 17:54 Instead of just mom. Well, yeah, I, uh, I just hired a coach. do occasionally off and on. I'll, bring somebody in just because I mean, I'll give you an example. I had a member of the school of podcasting email me and she said, Dave, you know, I love you, but, I'm like, oh, that's, that's not good when there's a, but after that, and, uh, she's like, you have a typo in your show. And I'm like, well, which one I have like for podcasts. And she's like, no, no, in the school of podcasting. And I'm like, 18:23 wait, but what episode? She's like, no, no, it's in the show. And I'm like, no, there's no way. And so I went in to look at it and there it was school of podcasting planned launch, grow and monetize. And I'd forgotten an E and I was like, I can't believe I never saw that. And I was like, well, congratulations, Kim, you're, you're now in every, you know, presentation I do about that. So yeah, you don't know what you don't know. And a lot of times you're too close to, to see it. So it's always good to have a 18:52 another set of eyes to look at to check things out. Yeah, and we're all our worst enemies and we're too close to the things that we love to do. And so you put those two things together and there's always going to be something you miss. mean, I've made a cake before and forgotten to put the sugar in and I cook all the time. Yeah, that would be different. So it happens and it's ridiculous. And you're like, how was I that dumb that I didn't put the sugar in the cake? Not so. 19:20 You're a coach and your rates are incredibly reasonable for what you're teaching, especially the fact that people can get hold of you and ask a question at any point in time. Coaches can charge anywhere from $50 an hour, which is too little, I think, to hundreds and hundreds of dollars an hour. And you don't do it that way. Well, I do. just, if you're smart, you would never 19:48 buy my services that way. If you want to hire me, it's 200 bucks an hour. I love my backgrounds in teaching. I've been teaching people technology since the fax machine, basically. it was just one day I was, you know, I'd go and I'd knock on doors exactly, well, you know, electronic doors, you know, via email. And I'd, you know, I'd answer a bunch of questions for people and then they'd 20:13 Finally, eventually they would hire me for an hour. I'd answer every question they have and I never hear from them again because I solved their problem. And that's fine. But I, my favorite thing being a teacher that you want is a willing student. And so I was like, well, I love to coach. And it dawned on me that my quote high ticket item, right? My one-on-one coaching really wasn't that high ticket. Cause by the time I knocked on that door and answered a few questions and answered a couple more questions. And then they finally, it's like, 20:42 You know what? It's, yeah, it's 200 bucks an hour, but it wasn't an hour. It took me three hours to get them to hire me for one hour. And I was like, well, that's dumb. And I was like, let's raise the price of the school of podcasting a little bit and just offer unlimited coaching. Cause that's what I love to do. And so it's worked out great. People stick around maybe a little longer than they used to. They typically don't leave anyway, but if you want to, of course you can always do that. There's a 30 day money back guarantee, but I get to coach now right before I was on this interview. just. 21:12 was helping Nancy do some stuff and captivate that she didn't know was there. And so to me, that puts more gas in my tank than money in the bank. I got money in the bank. I'm not starving by any means, but to me, I've always been a person that just loves to help people. And I remember there's a pretty popular podcaster named Jordan Harbinger, and we were sitting next to each other at an event and this guy came up and 21:40 I had a couple of questions and I answered them and he looked at me and goes, wow, he goes, that is just your jam. And I go, what? He goes, you really just love helping people. goes, you totally lit up while you're answering that guy's questions. And I go, that's just, I don't know where that gene came from. I go, but that's what I just love to do. I love that you love to do it. And I love that you want to help people with it because you can love to eat chocolate cake. It doesn't mean that's going to help anybody. Right. 22:08 Well, I think part of it was when I was growing up, my dad was a long distance truck driver. So he wasn't, he wasn't missing, but he also wasn't there. He would get home on Thursdays and leave on Sunday. So he was home part of the week. But I remember once I was at a church event and it was a whole thing. If you remember where you would tie your inner legs together and then you would race together. I had a three-legged race. I think that's what they call that. And all the kids were doing this with their dad. Cause I think it was father's day or something, some sort of picnic thing. 22:36 And I just remember sitting on the sidelines going, how come I'm the only guy here without a dad? And, know, I want to have a pity party and go eat worms. And so I just remember that feeling of being on the outside. so anytime somebody's like, well, I would, I would love to start a podcast, but who would listen to me? Like, I'm just, you know, and I was like, Oh, I know that attitude. Somebody will listen to you. And so, uh, you know, and as I get older now, I have more respect for my dad than I did when I was, you know, 18. 23:05 Cause I'm like, as I travel around, I'm like, Oh man, I can't believe he did that as a living. But nonetheless, for me, I don't want anybody feeling like they're on the outside. Right. Exactly. And that's what makes you the person that you are. And I appreciate it. And I know that the people that are in the community at the school of podcasting appreciate it too. Um, so the great thing about podcasting is that it doesn't have to have a certain format. 23:33 You can do a solo episode and talk about whatever you want to talk about. You can do it like I do it with interviews because I don't want to talk about myself. I really do like feeding off the other person's answers. You could start a podcast reading the encyclopedia, literally the books, the last version that was ever printed out loud into the mic and use that as something that people have put their kids to sleep with. 24:02 You know, you could do anything. And if you hate it, you just don't do it anymore. Yeah. I mean, it's, as long as it's not copyrighted, you're, good to go. And that's why a lot of people now are taking books like Winnie the Pooh, which is past its, you know, whatever, statute of limitations or whatever they call it for a book. And like that's allowed now to be read. And so people are doing that. And yeah, it really is open to do whatever you want. And 24:32 I've started probably in the 20 years I've been doing this, probably over 30 different podcasts. And yet I'm doing four. So that means 26 of them, either A, like I did one show for about 10 years. I did another one for about 12. But I remember I did one for about six episodes. It was called the customer service show because one of my backgrounds when I'm not teaching is in customer service. And I had this idea of, I'll start a customer service show. I'll put myself out as an expert and I'd won awards for my customer service and blah, blah, blah. 25:01 And I did about six episodes and it dawned on me customer service was my job, but it wasn't really my passion. And after about six episodes, I just sounded like a grumpy old man. I went into McDonald's today and nobody even said hi, wah, you know, just complaining about everything. And I was like, yeah, okay. And so that's when I learned. Yeah. Sometimes your passion isn't your job. So you don't always have to do a podcast about your job. I did one show. 25:27 that was gonna be based on audience feedback. It was called the Dates From Hell Show, where you would share your horrible. And somebody dared me to do it. It was myself and my ex-wife, and we had this conversation. And somebody said, this would be a great podcast. Well, we both had maybe three stories. And after about six episodes, we started finding other people's stories and we're telling them like, hey, here's the phone number, call in your thing. And then it dawned on me that what's that number one fear among humans? Oh, that's right. 25:55 speaking in public and oh by the way while you're here can you throw yourself under the bus because you had this horrible dating experience and so we just didn't get hardly any feedback and that that show just died because there wasn't any content but I was like okay note to self if you're gonna do a crowd you know basically a show that's based on crowd feedback you need a crowd first so you kind of there's a great quote I think it's 26:23 Nelson Mandela that said, either win or I learn one of the two. so, you know, in some of these cases, you're like, oh yeah, that doesn't make any sense. So, and then you don't beat yourself up. You're like, okay, well, let's, let's pivot and try it a different way. And the Nelson Mandela quote reminds me of something that I say all the time and that failure is not failure. It's a learning opportunity. Yep. And if you can't learn, why are you here? Right. 26:53 Because otherwise you're just doomed to repeat things over and over and over. You know, why don't we touch the stove a second time? Yeah. We learned. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The other thing that's great about using a podcast to promote a small business is that if you're like, we are here, we are a seasonal business. Right now, we have tomatoes coming in and we're going to be drowning in them next week. They just started ripening up last week. And I literally do. 27:23 I put out an episode every morning, Monday through Friday at 7 a.m. And I try to work in what's in season and what's in the farm stand. So lately it's been, oh, we have tomatoes in the farm stand. Oh, we have eggs in the farm stand. And people who are local who listen know and they come and they buy their eggs and their tomatoes from us, which works out great. But if you have a new line of something you're producing, if you have a book coming out, if you're going to be on the local TV station, 27:52 You can say all that on your podcast and it is totally free game. Absolutely. There's a, if you come to Akron, Ohio, where I'm based, there is a ice cream stand called Stricklands and it's about, I don't know, four blocks from my house. And they now have a website and you can go and see what, cause they change their flavor every day to something new. And I would love if they had a podcast that I could subscribe to and they're like, Hey, welcome. It's. 28:20 You know, August 9th, 2025, this week we've got, you know, Oreo cookie on Monday, pineapple on Tuesday, you know, just to keep me informed. Now that audience is never going to be ginormous, but it's not about having a big audience. It's about having the right audience. And so, like you said, your local listeners will subscribe to your show because you're saving them, you know, time. They're like, oh, tomatoes are finally in. I know here in Ohio, there's Dussel's corn. 28:48 And we're all dying. Like, is the corn in yet? Is the corn in yet? Well, if you had a podcast saying, hey, guess what? Corn's in. You know, then I know it's time to drive out to Hartville and get some corn. Yep. Absolutely. It's, it's, it's one of the best ways to communicate information real time, quote unquote, there is right now, because I used to be able to get my news from our cable TV provider, but then they decided that 29:15 We didn't need cable TV anymore. So it's really our internet provider. And they were like, your network stations are going away. We're not offering that anymore. And I was like, what, really? Okay. And we didn't even want them to begin with when we moved here five years ago. They were just part of the package. I know some businesses, especially real estate people will start a hyper local show about just their small community brought to you by them. 29:44 Basically, they're their own sponsor and because they want everybody to know that, if you are buying or selling a house, you know, go talk to Jim or whoever. And so they'll do this hyper local show because the only people that would listen are people in that area, which is great. Cause that's who he or she is trying to get ahold of. So yeah, there are lot of different ways you can, can use this. It all doesn't have to be like, hi, I'm, you know, Sheila, the real estate person today. We're to talk about real estate. Well, is that what your target? 30:14 customer would listen to, know, maybe make it more about, you know, the area. And then the other thing you can do is if you are doing something, maybe you're selling some sort of canned goods that have a shelf life, you can say, oh, the peaches are in the cans. Wait till you see these are delicious. You got to see them. We've got pictures on our website. Well, now you've created a brain gap and a brain gap is where your brain hates it when somebody goes bump, bump, bump, bump, and you're like, 30:42 please say bump, bump, that's how that ends. And so when you give them something and they're like, oh, it's, know, they're perfectly orange with a little bit of red and the fuzz and whatever it out, you're, you're describing this. You're like, really just got to go to the website to see it. You can see it at whatever your website is. There are going to be people that like, I've got to see the end of this. I got to go see what these look like. So it's another way to drive traffic to your website. It sure is. And in the selfish space that I find myself in a lot with my podcast, I 31:11 didn't have anyone to talk with about homesteading because I didn't know anybody who was homesteading. And once I started asking people to come talk to me about what they did at their homestead or what they bake or what they make, I could geek out with people of like minds and oh my God, what a gift. Oh, absolutely. When I always say if you do a solo show, 31:36 you grow your influence. And this is where you just talk to your invisible friend across the desk that you're excited to tell them that tomatoes are in or whatever it is. So there's that. And then if you do interview shows, you grow your influence. And this is where, like you said, like for me, who else can I geek out about podcasting with? Some of my best friends are quote my competition because they do the same thing I do. But when we get together, we're like, Oh, have you heard about this new microphone or whatever it is? 32:03 And so, yeah, you grow that, that network and that really comes in handy. Cause I don't know if you've ever run into a situation where you run out of something and you can call up another farm and go, Hey, we're out of so-and-so. Can I borrow, you know, such and such from you? And, know, it's always great to have that network of friends that you can rely on. And especially if somebody comes to you and says, Hey, do you guys sell this kind of product? And you go, no, but my friend does, you know, so it's, it's not always. 32:33 What you know, it's, or how's it go? It's not always who you know, but who knows you or something of nature. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Yeah, that's it. And so, you know, and there are people that when I first started, my very first podcast was for musicians. And I just started reaching out to people that I grew up listening to thinking, oh, they're not, they don't even know what a podcast is, let alone they're not going to come on mine. 32:58 And one of them was the drummer for Rod Stewart and he was the drummer for Ozzy Osbourne and all these other people, really famous guy, been doing it forever. And he just put up a website that would teach people how to drum. Well, I had a bunch of drummers in my audience and I reached out and I said, Hey, I do this podcast thing and I see you have this thing. I think my audience might be interested in that. And the next thing I know I'm on the phone with them, recording an interview. So it's amazing. You would think. 33:25 And they would, if I didn't have a podcast, he'd be like, get out of here, kid. know, Hey, can I talk to you for 20 minutes and pick your brain? He'd be like, get out of here, kid. bother me. But if I say, you want to come on my podcast and get in front of my audience of people that you're trying to get in front of? They're more than likely to do that. So, and if they say no, that isn't always no, it's not now. I have a friend of mine named Pat Flynn and he had the nerve to keep having children. And every time I had asked him to come on the show, he's like, ah, I can't really book anything because 33:54 you my wife's about ready to give birth and I was like, Oh, okay. And eventually he had a product come out. He wasn't giving or his wife wasn't giving birth to anybody and he came on my show. So sometimes if you get a no, it's not a no, it's not now. Yup. My dad's favorite joke about people, about women being pregnant and he would never say it to the people that were with the impending baby. He would say, don't they know how that happens? 34:21 I'm like, please don't ever say that to the people that are expecting because you take all the joy out of their impending childbirth. don't. It's like, would never. And I'm like, well, you probably shouldn't even be saying it out loud because the minute you say something out loud, you're probably going to say it at the most inopportune time. Well, and that's the beauty of podcasting. People worry about, oh, I'm going to sound stupid. Well, only if you don't edit out the stupid stuff. 34:47 So I'm not perfect at all when I record. There are times when my mouth decides to leave early and I just, you know, I pause for 10 seconds and then say it again and cut out the bad one and keep the good one. And, you know, so, and sometimes I'll interview somebody that's, I thought they were going to be a great guest, but they weren't. And I'm like, okay, well, we'll keep the good stuff and leave the bad stuff. So, you know, when you're putting your tomatoes out and some of them have a 35:13 weird black hole in it and you know they're just not really okay you edit those out you put the good ones out it's kind of the same thing. Yep when I when I'm done talking with you my husband went to the farmers market today to sell some of our tomatoes and I said please either buy or trade for cucumbers because all our cucumber plants died this year because it's been so wet and he came home with six cucumbers so I bet you can I bet you know what I'm gonna be eating after I get them talking with you. There you go. 35:43 Yes, I am. I'm so excited. I haven't had a garden fresh cucumber since last year at this time. I'm so excited. Yummy. Yeah, I we live. We live the life here. What what you hear on my podcast is our life. And it's so fun. A friend of ours has a mama cat who is pregnant right now. And she was my friend was just going to bring us three kittens back a couple of months ago for barn cats. And 36:12 They didn't socialize the kittens. They haven't been able to catch them. And so she's bringing me the mama cat who is due with babies in a couple of weeks. And mama cat's gonna have her babies here, which is totally fine. That gets us some more barn cats. And I said, do you want the mama cat back? And she's like, no, we have three females. You can have one of them. And the female cat's name is Smokey. I haven't ever seen her before. So we're gonna have a new cat arriving here tomorrow. 36:40 And the reason that I share the story is our dog has experienced three barn cat litters in the last two years. And there have been no kittens here this year. And this spring, she was looking at the pole barn like, are my friends? Because every time they come out of the pole barn, that's when she gets introduced to the new babies and she's very much a mama personality. And the kittens love her. So my dog is gonna be really happy in about three weeks. 37:08 Yeah, when there's new kiddies around and these are the stories that I tell and it's our life And when I ask other people about their lives and how they do it I get to hear other stories like that, but they're always Different and that's what makes it so fun and so special Yeah, and the only people that know what it's like It are people that are doing the same thing you are. I had of a friend Haley Radke does a show 37:37 It's called adoptees on and it's all about being adopted. And she was telling me once how she goes, well, if you watch the afterschool special, you know, the, people are looking for their biological parents and they find them and it's this, Oh, I've been looking, you've I've never, I've thought about you every day kind of thing. She goes, that's not always the case. Sometimes they'll spend three, five years tracking down their parents only to be rejected again. And that hurts just to say it. 38:04 And she goes, and the only people that understand what that's like are people that have gone through it. And so the only people know what it's like to be a homesteader are other homesteaders. Cause you can try to explain it to it, but until you're down in the trenches, you know, you just don't know what it's like. And then there is that, I don't know, I guess peace did like, okay, I'm not the only crazy person that's out here chasing chickens around the yard or whatever it is you're doing that some days when you're like, Oh, why am I doing this? 38:33 And you see, I did that. Here's the trick on how to catch a cat that you can't get to or whatever it is you're doing. Uh, it's the same thing with podcasting. Everybody thinks we're, we're weird nerdy geeky people. And then you get together at a conference and you're like, Hey, look, it's a whole bunch of nerdy geeky people. I don't feel so weird right now. So yeah, you, you, you love that connection to people that, that get it. Cause there's only way to get it. And that's because they're doing it too. Yep. Absolutely. All right, Dave, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're like. 39:02 Ten minutes past that by now. When we're done recording, don't leave because I need your file to upload. You know how this works. tell me where people can find you. Yeah. You can go over to schoolofpodcasting.com is my main website. If you want to see everything I'm doing, you can go to powerofpodcasting.com. Awesome. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And thanks, Coach. I appreciate you visiting with me. Oh, thanks for having me. This was great. All right. Have a good rest of your weekend.
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| Farm Country Candles | 29 Jun 2026 | 00:41:15 | |
Today I'm talking with Jillian at Farm Country Candles. You can also follow on Facebook. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jillian at Farm Country Candles in Belle Plaine, Minnesota, which is just up the road from me. Good afternoon, Jillian. How are you? I'm well. How are you, Mary? I'm good. And it's a beautiful day in Minnesota. It just kind of clouded in here a little bit in Lasur, but it's still beautiful. It's not hot. 00:27 and everything is so freaking green right now, it's ridiculous. Yeah, everything is blooming. It's a good time to visit Minnesota. Yeah, I always say May, first part of June, or September, first part of October, because any time in between those two times, it's just hot and sticky, and I'm like, not going to enjoy it if you come any time other than that. Yes, absolutely. But there's always something to do, so. 00:55 Whatever works with anybody's schedule still come visit Minnesota. Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous any time of the year It's just that you have to you have to understand that Minnesota is I would use the word volatile when it comes to weather You never know what you're gonna get and you can't Plan on it being the way you want it to be so be flexible and enjoy whatever mother nature gives you 01:24 Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better. Yeah. And I mean, I grew up in New England. It's the same thing. I made a lateral move over 30 years ago and I was like, Minnesota is not that different from where I grew up. There's just no mountains to my west, you know, half an hour, 45 minutes, and there's no ocean to my east, half an hour, 45 minutes. It's more like day trips to get there now. Yes. That is a big change. 01:51 Yeah, but the weather itself is kind of the same. And honestly, my dad and my mom, give me weather updates when I talk to them. Oh, they're still in England? In New England, in Maine. New England. In Maine. Oh, sure. And my dad will say, how's the weather been? And I tell him, and he's like, okay, well, I know what we have coming in three days, because basically whatever we get three days later, they get. So he said, you're better than our local weather reporter. I'm like, yeah, weird how that works. 02:21 So that's awesome. What? That's awesome. So anyhow, I would love it if you would tell me about yourself and what you do, Jillian. Absolutely. Well, I'm Jillian and I'm the owner of Farm Country Candles. I started this business, gosh, was it a year and a half ago now? Oh, that soon. That it wasn't that long ago. It was not. It kind of happened on accident. 02:51 To be honest, ah my parents owned a candle company. ah It was on a smaller scale, but they started that around 2008. So they've had all the equipment and uh now they were like, well, Jillian, do you want to have our equipment? We're kind of downsizing. And I was like, sure. Yeah, this sounds like fun. It'd be a hobby of mine. love the candles and this way I could have it for myself and maybe gift a few. 03:21 to family and friends. But then eventually people wanted to buy some and I was like, okay, maybe I should turn this into a business. So I did, I rebranded the company and I called it Farm Country Candles, because it's the area that we live in, right? Farm Country. uh So it had just a good ring to the name. And now it's just kind of grown into what it is today, which still have the soy candles. 03:50 but we also have fire starters and small space diffusers or car diffusers. uh And those additional products always came by kind of, again, on accident and they all have funny stories behind them. So I would love to share those as we continue our conversation today. Well, go ahead. Tell me the funny story about the car diffusers first. Okay, absolutely. So the car diffusers, uh I don't know if people know what they are because I didn't. 04:19 Okay, so they're just little vessels that have the fragrance and a diffuser base and you can hang them in your car. So if you look on social media, they're known as car diffusers, but I love them for any of my small spaces like bathrooms, um offices, mud rooms. You could put them in your benches because shoes kind of get stinky after a while. I know some people 04:47 by family and friends, have them in their fish houses, their campers, their side by sides. Pretty much anywhere you can't have a burning candle, you can put this diffuser. So it's portable and you just take off the plastic stopper, put the wooden cap on it, turn it upside down, let it saturate in this wooden cap, and then it hangs wherever you like to put it. So it just, again, flameless candle, you can put it anywhere. 05:17 And so how this happened was one day one of my coworkers, she's like, well, Jillian, you make candles. Can you refill this thing I have? This is like a smelly little thing. And I was like, okay, I don't know what you're talking about, but yeah, I could probably look into that for you. So a week later, she's like, yeah, like this is it. Can you refill this? And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, sure. I've never seen anything like that. So I was able to fill it for her. 05:46 It did it smelled amazing. So I'm like, okay now now I need these so something I never thought I needed I needed and now it's a product that I carry and it's it's a big hit so if anybody sees me at the Vendor shows are out and about and people ask I do call them the flameless candle nice and they remind me of the the little glass jars that you can get and you put the fragrance oil in the bottom and you put the 06:16 the little wooden sticks in it? Same idea? Same idea, but the wooden cap replaces the sticks to the diffuser. Yeah. And then is there a funny story with the fire starters? Yeah, the fire starters. um So the fire starters came from a little family embarrassment on my end. um I was at my parents' house and it was just the immediate family and I wanted to start a fire. So my dad handled me a 06:44 one of those wood shaving fire starters and said, here you go, use this. So I tried and I couldn't get this fire started. And I mean, it was dry wood and everything. So it was all on my end, I was never a girl scout. So let's just start with that. So I think I was already at a disadvantage here. So I asked my husband to help me. And then all of sudden my brother comes over and chimed in. You even had a fire starter? 07:11 I felt like super silly and I was like, okay, I just like walked away. And I thought, well, if I struggled this much on starting a fire, maybe somebody else does too and maybe I could make a product that can make it this easier. So today, every time I just like make a batch of fire starters, I always think of the way it started, which was my brother asking me, you couldn't even start a fire with a fire starter, but now I can. 07:41 because these fire starters are amazing. They're really, number one, I bet they work great, but number two, they're really beautiful. I feel like it would be really nice as a, like part of a centerpiece at a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. They're that pretty. They are. However, I always say, again, if you see me about at vendor shows, I'm like, this is not a candle. We should start by saying that because it's all highly flammable material, right? We got pine cones. 08:10 We got wood shavings in the wax. We got a paper cupcake liner. So all of this stuff is very flammable. So yeah, you would not want to light that at your centerpiece. Yeah, no, I'm not saying light it. I'm saying they're really pretty. They would be really pretty as a visual addition. Yes. I just had to put that in there just because I wouldn't want people to mistake that. But it is very beautiful. And they smell good because it's all natural material. 08:39 you know, outside. It's pine cones. It's, it's Frasier fir or blue spruce, um you know, branches. Yeah, they're gorgeous. And I was looking at your Facebook page today and I was looking at all the different candle scents. How in the world do you keep them all straight, Jillian? Oh my God, there's so many. Yeah, so I kind of went overboard when I'm like, oh, I should try this or I should try that. 09:07 I like, I want to try to blend this and I kind of been experimenting. So now I have some like house blends actually, which is pretty cool. ah The three house blends that I have, my first house blend was Northwoods. So it's a mixture of blue spruce and Fraser fir. It just gives you that deep woods smell like that, you know, that Christmas tree smell, but then just blend a little bit with the blue spruce. It's very, it's very pleasant. ah 09:37 The second house blend I did was the Armoretto Sunrise. So that one you get the almond top, like top note of it. And then you got a little bit of vanilla in there. And then the base is in you get like the orange zest to it. So that one is, you know, pretty strong. It's probably one of my strongest candles has a nice cold throw and as well as a warm throw. So hot throw when you light it. And then my third house blend. 10:06 which we just created, I would say maybe 10 days ago, is called Minnesota Prairie. So if you enjoy like outdoorsy, fresh, clean scents, this one is gonna be for you. So there's five different fragrances in it. It's Tienese, Lillia the Valley, Bergamot, Casimir Cedar, and then just a splash of fresh cut grass. And it is 10:36 been a big hit. Let's just say I just wanted to do uh a small batch and all of a sudden it was gone. I posted on Facebook, like you said, and then it was gone. So I had to make a second batch already. Yes, I was reading the sentence for that one. I was like, oh my God, that's got to be amazing. And anyone who's listened to the podcast knows that my favorite flower is peony. 11:01 Oh, really? I was like, and I love it when my husband, Moissa Lawn, loves the smell of cut grass and oh my goodness, that must smell so good. This one will be for you then. Uh-huh. Oh, I'm sure all of them would be for me. I used to be a candle fanatic. The minute it got cold outside in October, I was like, it's candle season. Yay. And oh I laugh because I say the same thing. And a lot of people say it's always candle season, Jillian. And I'm like, 11:31 Maybe you're right. Maybe it is always candle season because there's a scent for every season. There is, but I have so many windows in my house and I'm really grateful for that. We have lots of windows. We have so much daylight. It's amazing that it feels weird to light candles when the sun is just pouring in the windows in the summertime. So I rarely ever use candles in the spring and the summer, but in the fall and the winter I am all over it. 12:00 Yeah, and that's kind of another interesting thing that people ask me. They're like, you must burn candles all the time. I make candles almost every day. Yeah. So I don't burn any because I always smelly whatever I'm creating or making. Right. So and that stays in your home for a good 36 hours, I would say, depending on the strength of the scent. So I rarely burn candles. Not only does it stay in your home, it stays in your nose. 12:30 Yes, we do go nose blind if you make multiple sends at the same time. Yeah, we did make candles a couple summers ago and we made quite a few and we sold them at the farmers market and we still have some and we sell them in our farm stand. And every time we would make them, I would go to bed and all I could smell like in my nose was whatever candle we had made that day. And when it was coffee or lavender, 12:58 or lemon or orange, was like, oh, that's so good. But we had a leather essential, not essential oil, fragrance oil. That one gave me horrible headaches and it was not a great scent out of the bottle. And, oh, rough. That one was rough. It makes a really nice scented candle. But when you're making it, it is hellacious to smell. I would 100 % agree with you because 13:27 I was making that for the first time and I could barely stomach it as well. However, now that I came back to it a year later, it's okay now. I don't know why. I must have changed a little bit through the other scents that I create. that one, um and I get all my fragrance oils from really well-known suppliers. this one, this leather actually was okay that I was like, okay, I can actually do this. And it smells just like a saddle shop. 13:57 And funny enough, it works really well when you see me at Pioneer Power. People come just for that leather candle. Of course, that makes complete sense. ah People loved the coffee and the leather not together. The coffee candles, the leather candles, they really liked them. And we're not going to be making them anymore because supplies are so expensive now that we can't, we just can't sustain it. 14:26 It's just too much money. So we are no competition for you, not that we ever were. But I welcome it. Everybody should do what they love to do. And this is just something that I love to do. So it works. I'm normally at shows with one, maybe two other candle vendors. it's you know, they have different different sense, different styles. So it's all OK. 14:55 Yeah. And I just, we have to make them in our kitchen because we don't have any place to make them anywhere else. And my husband said, are you kind of tired of having your house to be turned into a candle factory? And I said, do you want the truth? And he's like, yeah. And I said, yeah, kind of am. He said, well, I'm kind of tired of spending inordinate amounts of money for the fragrances and I don't feel right charging people what it would cost us to keep doing it. 15:25 He said, and there's lots of other candle makers in the area. I was like, okay, let's not do candles anymore. So we made the, the not unilateral. There's another word means both of us. came to the conclusion together that we are done with candles. And when they're gone, they're gone. But it was, not going to let your husband talk to my husband then. But it was fun. It was really fun. And I just talked to somebody this morning on another interview and they make soaps. 15:55 And they were talking about all different scented soaps they used to make. And it reminded me of when we bought sample packs from, think it was Bramble Berry of the fragrance oils for Christmas for candles and soaps. And I was just in heaven, brought that box in, opened it, started opening the vials to smell the little two ounce bottles. And I was right in. 16:22 Christmas mode and it was August when they came in. Well, that's what I'll start making. August, September is the time that I'll start making my Christmas candles too. yeah, yeah. I called my mom and I was like, I am so high. All I can see is your living room with the Christmas tree in it. She said, what is wrong with you? It's August. And I explained what was happening and she's like, 16:48 Oh, I love that Christmas smells remind you of the old house with the Christmas tree. was like, yeah, that's where I am. My mind is right there. She said, those are good scents. You're going to want to use those. I was like, ah, yes, I am. And there's one, I can't remember the name of it. And it smells just like when you step outside, when it first starts to snow. That real tingly little minty scent to it. Yeah, like a 17:14 Silent snowfall or something? Along those lines. So good. So good. And I am olfactorally driven. I love scents. So when we were doing the candles, it was really, really fun. 17:30 But it's always fun to experiment and get that delivery because you never know what the scent is going to smell like. It changes per, you know, vendor too. So you just never know. Yeah. It's always a surprise and it's a really nice surprise except for the 1 % chance that it's not. There have been a couple we've gotten here like, no, that is not what we want to be doing for candles. I don't remember. And then I have to be a chemist and mix it with some other stuff to create it something that is actually going to be 18:00 worthwhile to make. So that's kind of another challenge. Yeah, I don't know. But it's kind of fun. Yeah, I don't remember what ones we got. There were a couple and we opened them up and they were just little sample bottles. So it wasn't a big deal if we didn't like them. And I was just like, I don't think I like that one. Do you like it? And he took a sniff and he was like, no, you and you is not a word you expect to hear out of a dude. Right. 18:28 And it was very much the girl, eww, and I was like, oh, that's not good. If you're saying, ew, we're not using that one. And it's always fun to watch other people's reactions to this stuff. When he's at the farmer's market, he has a sign that says free sniffs for the soaps and the candles. And people see the sign and they laugh. And he's like, no, really. If you want to smell the candles, feel free. And people are funny about it. They kind of... 18:55 It's almost like they're tiptoeing to the edge of the table. And then they very gently pick up a candle and they sniff it. And the one they always go for is the coffee one. And he's like, honey, he said, it's almost like they can't believe that a candle could smell like a cup of coffee. He said, they look skeptical and they smell it. they're like, Oh my God, this smells just like my kitchen. My coffee's brewing. And he's like, yes, that's what we want. 19:25 And then it's a whole conversation. So it's just fun. um So go ahead. I do have a funny story about Vending. And this one gentleman came over and he was kind of puzzled by what was all in my mason jar containers. And because it's white, I don't add any dye color to any of the candles. They just are the sarwhack. oh 19:50 then the fragrance. So sometimes they get a little bit darker depending on the fragrance. But again, it's just white otherwise. And he comes up and he's like, there's so many different flavors of chicken Alfredo, Alfredo sauce. And I was like, no, no, no, sir. These are candles, soy candles. He's like, oh my gosh, I thought these were Alfredo sauce. I was like, no, not today. So you just never know who's going to come up and 20:19 That is what it looks like though with the soy wax. That's funny. It does. Yeah. was great. But I also do make all these candles in my kitchen. So I understand your feeling of like, yeah, kind of taking over. um This is kind of taking over, you know, I guess, extra room that we have. um We have like a formal dining room that we don't use as a formal dining room. So that's not my candle room where I put. 20:48 majority of my supplies. But yeah, it kind of sneaks into the kitchen a lot and it kind of sneaks in other places depending on if I'm getting ready for anything. And we recently um just got a fundraiser in Birchwood. um Birchwood, Wisconsin would like to bring back free movies to the park. So I partnered with a resident there that she's a Birchwood native. um And she was like, I have this really cool idea. 21:18 Do you think we could use the candles as a fundraiser opportunity to, you know, they need equipment, they need to do some licensing. And I was like, absolutely, let's, let's make this work. And we created six different labels that are like birchwood, like branded. And then we create, you know, we agreed on six different cents for these labels. So then I went to town and started making candles, you know, every single night I would just. 21:48 candles, candles, But yeah, 360 candles went out two weekends ago to Birchwood. So they are actively in their fundraiser right now efforts of trying to get free movies to the park. So kind of a cool kind of a cool thing that we've started doing and just kind of, again, saying yes to my friend with the car diffusers, you know, my coworker and friend slash friend. But then also, like when an opportunity like fundraising comes up and like, absolutely, we can do that. 22:17 Why not? It just, feels good to give back. yeah, absolutely. I, that's great. ah Did you say that you have your candles in some local stores? Oh yeah. So that's been also kind of fun. ah You know, as I started this like 18 months ago, ah I never knew that this would like grow into what it was. ah And my first actually store that I was in, 22:46 ah I'm not in currently, but the first place I was in was actually in Belle Plaine here at Riverview Coffee. And it was just kind of like something that was so cool. Like people can come in, get their coffee and, you know, maybe smell some candles as they wait or whatnot. And they've, they switched ownership. So we are not in there anymore. But then it was like, Oh, maybe I should go and start talking to people and see if we can get these products elsewhere. So um to date, 23:15 We are in Rust in Luster in Chaska, Minnesota. ah Cattle Fish Brewing in St. Peter, Minnesota. Mankato Vintage Market is carrying the car diffusers. Signature 3D Ink is also carrying the uh car diffusers. But we also, since they're a 3D Ink company, they are creating, I call them 23:43 accessory tops for these card diffusers. So they have um 3D prints made of cowboy hats like dog paws, hearts where they have a butt frog. So it's a little green frog with a little butt on the back. um They made crosses, dragonflies, and they can custom make pretty much anything. um So if there's something that somebody wants, you can just reach out to ask. But they have a variety of the diffusers there. 24:12 at their store and the Mankato mall, as well as their 3D prints. So they just put a little hole on top that can sit right on top. it makes it kind of makes it a little bit more fun and you can switch out the tops too. So that's That's and then I know right. um Then we're also in at Drummers Garden Center and that's also Mankato for the car diffusers. We are at Schills Lake Cheesecake. 24:40 in Lonsdale, Minnesota. They're a new storefront. They make the most amazing cheesecake. So, shout out. you're the third person that's mentioned them to me. Oh, really? On a podcast? Yeah, they're really great. So, definitely try them. um And they have a little merchandise, a little section that carries all of our products. So, that's pretty cool that they're allowing us to do that. 25:08 And then we just got into Mabel Mercantile in Newall, Minnesota. And they have our fire starters right now. And then we are going to go into a new storefront in Birchwood, Wisconsin when they open that. So we're just in talks about that right now. So it's kind of fun. Super cool. You are moving up, lady. Yeah, it's. 25:37 something that I never expected, but here we are, I guess. It's so fun and it's so cool that you're doing something you really enjoy and you're having success at it. Is it your only job or do you have like a jobby job? A jobby job. That's cute. ah I do have a jobby job. I work in healthcare. My husband and I call it the jobby job because it's the job that you work to support the 26:06 hobby that you have? Yes. Yeah, that is definitely, yeah, this is definitely a hobby, ah but is growing, you know, obviously, hopefully into something bigger than I expected. But yeah, my jobby job, I've never heard that. I just love that. Yeah, I work in healthcare. I work in St. Peter at Rivers Edge Hospital. Okay. So shout out to Live Well Fitness Center. I always 26:36 I always say like, anytime I'm about like, come check out the gym down at the hospital. You'll see me. Do you love that too? Do you love that job as well? Oh gosh, yeah. Everybody's, I mean, it's a community gym and then we also have a cardiac rehab program. So we can help people after a heart event, which is probably one of the scariest times of their lives, right? 27:04 And to see them build back their confidence is amazing. And then they just continue with us. So it's just awesome to be able to hear their stories and then see them progress and get back to their lives and enjoy their hobbies, you kind of like this. Like that's their goal, to try get back into doing what they want to be doing. You are blessing the world on two counts. And as a mom, you're blessing the world on three counts. So you're doing a great job of everything. 27:32 Well, thank you. Sometimes it's hard to tell when you're doing all the things, but it's just the candles came at a time in my life where I needed something when we, we just, mean, it's a, there's a big story to this, I guess. But I, when I said yes to the equipment, my parents gave us, you know, we were, we're new to Belle Plaine. we just moved here three years ago and maybe three and a half now, but 28:01 I didn't know anybody and as a small town, like it's, you know, everybody's pretty darn close. You walk in places, people kind of look at you like, oh, that, person's new. And that's how I kind of felt. But the candles actually made, you know, me get out of my shell, get out of the house, right? My kids are so tiny and I felt like I was just, you know, going to work and then coming home and parenting and then going back to work. But the candles made me. 28:27 um gave me an opportunity to do some shows and get to know people. And I feel like finally I'm starting to grow roots. Like, okay, like I know people. I asked somebody for something and oh, yep, it's so and so and yeah, here's their number. And it's just, it feels like now I'm in the community, not just living here. So that's really cool. And yeah, it kind of seems like, that, wow, Jillian, how do you do it? You know, you're working, your job, and then the candles. 28:57 But really, it's a full circle thing where now I can use the candles as an avenue to give back, right? Like the fundraising opportunities we can do. I have some more ideas up my sleeve that I'm not quite ready to disclose yet, but it's just more opportunities to get more into the community. And that's what's nice about having businesses in towns. You need to support. You live there, support the rule. 29:26 the rural businesses support each other. It's pretty cool. Yes. And I, this is going to sound really Pollyanna, but I do not care. When people make things themselves, there is magic in that. And I don't mean Harry Potter magic. I mean just specialness. And if you're going to give someone a gift, don't you want to give somebody a gift that is special? 29:56 that isn't just something you picked up at Kohl's. Absolutely. And that was, it's funny you say that, I actually, this last Christmas, I was telling, you in the gym where I, my jobby job, I was like, I'm going to make homemade gifts for everybody that I give presents to this year. And it was so cool to just try to like find things. And, and I'm like, wow, now, now it's like something I just do in my, you know, everyday life. Like, 30:25 I was making my own spices and gifting them and it's it's those types of things. It's like, well, I don't have to buy that. It's way better when you just make it on your own. is. And that, that passion and that love that you put into the thing that you make, you can't, you can't make that out of factory. It comes from you. 30:51 And I have a story about the whole making things and giving them as well. think I've told it once in two and a half years on this podcast. Back when we lived in Jordan, oh my God, 15 years ago, 20 years ago now, we had learned how to make cold press lye soap, cold process lye soap. And our families found out about it and we let them try it and they liked it. 31:19 to the point that they would call or text and be like, we really like this. I'm like, okay, great. So we literally made a whole bunch of different scents and we went to Christmas that year and we had a box of all the different kinds of soaps in Ziploc bags, which is really terrible plastic, blah, blah, blah, not good for the environment, but that's how we did it. m 31:43 We basically, when it was our turn to give presents, we were like, do you see this box? And they were like, yes, in the middle of the room. And I said, when you have a minute, pick out whatever soap you would like to take home with you. Merry Christmas. And the smiles on their faces were priceless because we didn't pick out the soaps for them. We were just like, take what you would like, whatever sense you like, take them. They were thrilled and they wanted more. 32:12 And more and more after, you know, my father-in-law still gets soaps from us. it's really neat when you find something that people love and you can just share it with them. And it's really neat when you turn into a business, but that first blush of uh recognition that you've made something that people really enjoy or they benefit from is very special. 32:40 Yeah, I mean, and people see that they are like, well, you can go buy something, but you made this and it probably took you hours upon hours potentially, you know, so it does it does mean a little bit more. And it's fun. Let's let's not lie here. It is so fun to make stuff. And I really wish that everybody could have at least a moment of creating something from scratch where they get that bubble in their chest of 33:10 Oh my God, I made this and it turned out right and it's good. Whatever it is, whether it's food or soap or candles, I don't care. It's just, there's so, it's like being a little kid again when you're in art class and the art teacher is like, okay, today we're gonna learn how to paint a leaf. And it's really simple. But I remember being a little kid in art class and learning how to paint something. You know, with paint, a brush and a piece of paper, that leaf was not there. 33:39 when I started and it looked like a birch leaf when I was done. I thought I was the bee's knees. I thought I was great. 33:50 That's awesome. Yeah, it's, it's the little things, isn't it? It always is. It always is. And it's so frustrating to me that the world has become click and you get the thing that you want or need. And there's no effort. And yes, I understand to make money, you have a job and you're putting an effort, but there's no creativity of your own to get the thing that you need. And 34:20 Also, when you make your candles, Jillian, you get to start and end and have a finished product. And it's one of the things that I hated about my jobs when I had a job. I was only one little piece of the product, the finished product. I never got to see the beginning and I never got to see the end. 34:45 Right. Yeah, that's, that's, it is really cool. Like you have, you know, all these supplies and like I said, it's all over my house, but wouldn't I? Yeah. You have all the supplies and then you have your final product and it's all together. It is pretty cool because it is, it's something that you're, yeah, you're proud of. Um, and it takes time. And I mean, that first batch, you know, I didn't have it all together, but it didn't turn out the greatest, but because I kept, 35:15 saying, I got this, I can do this. You know, I was able to figure it out. ah And I just said yes to the next opportunity, even though I didn't have it all figured out, I would say. ah It just it's the same. It's the same. Yes. I think it's really the the go getting attitude and to keep going and keep striving. And you got something that you love and people can sense that and 35:44 And people, you know, love to hear the stories. And that's what I love what you're doing is just like letting everybody have an avenue to do that is pretty amazing. So thank you for having me on. oh absolutely. And Jillian, I cannot lie to you. I enjoy these conversations so much. They are the highlights of my week because you guys love what you're doing or what you're learning or what you're providing. And 36:11 Things are so crazy in the world right now that any positivity or love or kindness just makes me feel like there's hope. 36:21 So thank you for doing what you're doing. Well, I appreciate that. I mean, I couldn't have done it without everybody else. mean, too, it's like the support of my family and my friends and the motivation. Like, I really thought I had to have this all figured out and perfect, perfected before I like started at all. I was like, well, I can't do it. I can't do a show. can't. I can't put it on a Facebook page. I can't do all that. And somebody was like, 36:50 you're never going to have it perfect. She said, just start, just, just, just start, begin. And that's where it'll all come together. And I was like, okay, maybe, maybe she is right. So if anybody, yeah, if anybody listening in there just like, I don't know if I should do something like this or, you know, start a passion or maybe even put it in a business. You don't have to have it all figured out. 37:19 That's one thing I should say. You don't have to have it all figured out. It will come. Yes. And I'm always saying start small, dream big. I'm also, I'm also always saying, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Yes. So yeah, if you have an interest and you have that little thing in the back of your head saying, I'd really like to learn how to do 37:48 whatever it is you want to learn how to do, take it one step at a time. And if you get four steps in and you're like, this is not for me, you don't have to keep going. You can stop. It's fine. Right. Yeah, I absolutely agree. That's the first thing I always say too when I'm, you know, talking to somebody like, you don't have to like my product if, you know, if you don't like the smells, totally fine. But 38:15 you know, maybe there should be a scent that you like, because I typically carry like 50 cents every time I go to a show. I'm kind of ridiculous, to be honest. I'm like, hey, why don't you just come over and smell some candles with me? Here, I'll talk to you about my passion. I'll tell you why my candles are presented the way they are. So it's just really funny to see like people's reaction. But people are always just like, yeah, like, let's just have a conversation, you know? And I think that's too, instead of being behind, you know, social media and our phones. 38:44 People still really like that. They like to have that face to face and, oh my gosh, that smells like you were saying, like, oh, my grandma's house or this memory. And that's what it's really all about. When they come up and they're like, wow, this truly smells like my grandma's kitchen. I'm like, yeah, I mean, it really brings you back and you can see the smiles on their faces. Have you had anybody burst into tears when they had something or a mind? 39:12 had one of your candles remind them of something? Yes. mean, it was just a little tear, but it was just it was the sweetest moment. uh It was just like two uh sisters that were out and about shopping. And they came and spent hours just going through the candles. I won't. That's probably an over exaggeration. But I would say it was a good half hour of them smelling. They went shopped a little bit more and then came back. So it felt like a long time. And they just 39:42 all the memories and those that have passed away, but they still have those memories of the holidays or the summer evenings. ah It's truly nostalgic. Yeah, olfactory scent is one of the strongest things that makes you remember. And music is also one of them. Hearing music will bring back a memory immediately. 40:09 I'm huge on candles. I'm so glad you had the time to talk with me today, Jillian. Where can people find you on Facebook? It's, uh what's name of the company? Yep. So it's Farm Country Candles. So I do have a Facebook. I have an Instagram and then I just launched on Shopify. So I have, I mean, I have a ton of cents, but I do have 20 cents listed on Shopify. So you can actually order online now and I can have them shipped to you. 40:39 And it does include my three house blends. So if you want an exclusive farm country candle scent, uh those three again are the Minnesota Prairie, the Northwoods and the Armaretto Sunrise. But otherwise I have 17 other scents right now available and I'll be adding more scents as the days go on. Fantastic. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. 41:07 Jillian, I'm so glad we finally found a time to talk. This was great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great day. You too.
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| Practical Prepping with Mark Lawley | 08 Aug 2025 | 00:38:02 | |
Today I'm talking with Mark Lawley at Practical Prepping. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Mark Lawley at Practical Prepping in Alabama. Good morning, Mark. How are you? Good morning, Mary. Doing well. How's the weather there this morning? This morning, it is fairly nice. We're at 83 degrees right now, which is a whole lot better than that 98 we were at last week. 00:30 Oh yeah, no doubt. It is exceedingly muggy in Minnesota this morning to the point that we had ground fog in our door yard this morning. We have had the exact same thing. I just looked over here at the weather station and we've got 76 % humidity here right now. Yeah, it's so gross. I can't wait until mid-September. Yeah, I'm ready for Thanksgiving. 00:55 I'm not quite there because I really do want our tomatoes to keep producing because we are going to be swimming in tomatoes by midweek next week. Well, we have some grandsons playing football and it's just not some, there's something not right about sitting at a football game wearing a t-shirt. You need to be wearing a jacket. And so I'm looking for football weather at least. Yeah. It's been. 01:21 I mean, I don't want to spend 20 minutes talking about the weather because it's boring, but the last two years have just been insane. And I really, really, really would like Mother Nature to become more moderate for next growing season because it has really messed with our farm. Yes. And not just the growing seasons and such, but you look around at some of the things that have happened this year. The floods, the earthquakes, the 01:50 The fires, the wildfires are somewhat normal. We're accustomed to having those. But we've been having more floods. We've been having, and in places that never flood, we've had hurricanes 200 miles inland that have caused floods, caused major power outages that have lasted four to six weeks in some areas. 02:16 And that's one of the reasons that we are trying to get people to be prepared. Yes, absolutely. And since we're talking about the weather, that actually was a really good lead-in to this particular episode. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, I'm retired law enforcement and have a long history of being involved in disaster relief. 02:46 I talk disaster relief, I've been on many disaster relief scenes coming in, in a number of capacities. And one of the capacities is chainsaw teams and mud out teams and such as that to help folks to recover afterwards. And what we actually do is we teach people how to be prepared for life's emergencies. That's what we do. Yep. 03:16 And really what we do from a prepping standpoint and you do from a homesteading standpoint is we live like our great grandparents and grandparents did in a lot of areas. Now, they didn't have all the modern conveniences that we have, but they prepared food for the winter. They had tools if something happened. 03:41 I have a house on the old home place where my dad grew up and where I grew up as a small kid. And when dad grew up, that was a working farm. When I grew up, it was a hobby farm. you didn't, if something broke, you didn't just jump in the truck and run to the store. You had to have on site what you needed to fix it or to deal with it. And it was just life for them. And so what we try to do. 04:12 is pretty much have everything that we could need. Well, to give you an example, last year I had a limb fall, poked a hole through the roof. So I got my ladder out, I got my things out, I went up there and I patched the roof. And about six months later we had a new roof put up. But I had those things to be able to do that. Something breaks, I want what I need here. And I learned some of that from my dad. 04:39 You need to have whatever you need to fix a problem at home. If it breaks at 10 o'clock on Tuesday, on, Saturday night. And that's plumbing, that's electrical, that's whatever. But I also have the skills to do those things. Yeah. I'm going to jump in just for a second. I am so baffled by the fact that so many young people don't have. 05:09 this information, you know, as part of their upbringing because I'm 55. Okay. My dad just turned 82 on July 30th and he acts like he's 55 still and he still acts like he needs to be ready for anything coming down the road. And he does, everybody does. Right. And they taught my siblings and I how to prepare for things that we couldn't see coming. Right. 05:39 And I taught my kids because they watched me do it when they were growing up. how in heck did we lose this? Well, we're two generations into soft. Let me call it that. We're two generations into being able to just call a plumber, call an electrician, call somebody, go to the store and get it, you know, whatever. 06:07 but we're into the quick fix. I joke about, we live in a microwave society. When my dad popped popcorn, that was a 20 or 30 minute process for us to have popcorn once a week, one night a week. And it was good. It was good popcorn. Well, today we have these packets of popcorn that are not all that bad, but you pop them into the microwave for 90 seconds. 06:37 And you know, that shortcuts the process quite a bit, but then here we are, we get impatient with it taking 90 seconds for our popcorn to get ready. So that's why I call it a microwave society. We're into instant gratification and we want that popcorn right now. We don't want to wait that 90 seconds. Yeah, which is just crazy. I, I understand that this is a thing that, that people 07:06 do. And we used to have an air popper, you know, the one that you plug into the wall. And I don't like it that way. I like it in a pan that has oil in the bottom and a little bit of salt and some corn kernels and you throw them in and you put the lid on and I like listening to it pop. And that may just be me, but it tastes really good when it's done. I think it tastes better. I really do. the, and Krista and I will do that once in a while. 07:36 But more often, if one of us wants some popcorn, we'll pop one of the little mini bags into the microwave and do that. Yep. I don't do that because there's stuff in there that I don't really know what it is and I don't want to put it into my body. will pass. I'm becoming more and more that way, but I've not completely made that transition. 08:02 Yeah, and it probably won't kill you, but I just, don't know. I like doing things from scratch and that's just, it's just me and my family. I was gonna say that I was listening to your podcast, one of the newer ones about food storage, you know, for having stuff for three to seven days or whatever it was. And one of the things that I didn't hear in that podcast is where 08:31 you can store stuff. Have you covered that on your podcast? We have covered that. We, when Krista and I first married 10 years ago and moved together and we were more or less starting over, we lived in an apartment for a couple of years and we did an episode on prepping in small places. And one of the things that we did in that apartment is we stored under beds, 09:01 We stored literally behind the couch, we had two of these columns that we had used in a display somewhere and we had a large glass top that went on top of those. So we put that behind the couch and Krista put a cover over that and we slid the couch back against it. And so we had all of that room under that particular table to store things. 09:28 We did the same thing with the round table that our television sat on. We put a floor length covering on it and we use the area under that table. But under bed storage is great. We stored in pretty much every corner in the closets. We stored things in the top of the closet. Some things we actually stored in the back of my pickup truck that was in 09:57 the parking lot, like 20 pound bottles of propane. They got real snippy about you having 20 pound bottles of propane at the apartment. I bet they did. I stored those. I had a locking cap on the pickup, so we stored those in there. And they just rode with us anywhere we went. We found all kinds of storage places. You can store under furniture. 10:26 I've known of some folks dedicating a couple of drawers out of dressers or chest of drawers and using those for storing food. You can store a lot in a small space. I didn't go back far enough in the episode to find it, but I just wanted to ask because that's a big thing for people who live in smaller spaces. Oh yes, definitely. And the other house that we have that's on the 10:53 old home place, the entire house is only a thousand square feet. and I raised a family there, but we had to have kind of unthought of storage. We stored a lot of things under the back porch. Now it was enclosed. Now I say the back porch, it was closed in, but we stored things under there. We stored things in the top of the closet in the laundry room. So, 11:22 You just have to get creative with it. Yep, absolutely. And I just wanted to hit on that because I lived in a really small house with my four kids and my husband up until five years ago. And we always bought things extra and put them away in case we needed them. Because Minnesota gets real cold, real icy, and real snowy in January. And sometimes you can't get out of your driveway. And so we've always planned ahead. We've always been. 11:51 Preppers in the true sense of the word, we are preparing for stuff that is going to happen. Right. And in Alabama, it doesn't take inches. Half inch of snow and the city shuts down, but we're not equipped to handle it. And it happens really rarely. Okay. It's not like this happens every year. Right. But every five to 10 years, we'll get one that will 12:21 have a lot of ice in it and maybe we're stuck inside for a week. So we were like you, we want to be able to not have to try to get out. Yep. Absolutely. And the other reason that I was very much looking forward to talking with you is I saw on the news either yesterday or today, I can't remember, that because of the tariffs that are going into place, coffee is going to go up. 12:51 And I, I am a coffee fiend addict. Pick any word that says I love coffee. I'm right there with you. Yeah. I don't measure what I drank by cups. No. I drank a pot in the morning and a pot in the afternoon. I used to, I have no cutback. I drink about a half a pot in the morning and a cup in the afternoon because 13:16 It was starting to make my stomach hurt and I was too jittery and I'm like, nope, I'm not young enough to keep putting away two pots a day. I promised the sheriff that I would never see the public without having had at least two cups of coffee. So that's, that's how people stay alive. Yes. Either way, anyone who loves coffee should probably start buying an extra bag or two when they go shopping. Cause you can still get it at the price it's at now. 13:45 Another short period of time. Yeah. period of time. Yeah. I'm very sad about this because I don't want to give up coffee if I don't have to. Well, that's one of those things that I will find a way to afford the coffee. They're just certain non-negotiables. Good coffee. And I want the good stuff when it comes to toilet tissue. don't want the cheap stuff. So we will find a way. 14:15 Yup. I'm also concerned about salt and sugar because salt and sugar are really, really important things in your diet. They make food worth eating. And I don't know if there is a really good sugar, cane sugar producing place in the States because I'm not, that's not what I focus on. And I don't know about salt, but I'm guessing we import a lot of salt and sugar. We do. 14:44 Now I do know when I was a kid, there were a number of folks that raised sugar cane and they actually had the cane mills at home that were driven by the donkey and they would make sagam, we called it, sagam syrup. And it makes a great sweetener. does change the taste of some things, but 15:11 grandmother used to use it all the time when she was cooking cakes. She would use that instead of sugar. so there are some alternatives, but I don't know about salt. I don't think we produce any salt in the United States. Yeah, I'm going to have to Google it. I could be wrong on that. Yeah, I don't know, but I... 15:38 really feel like we all should maybe start stocking up on the things that are everyday usage, like coffee and salt and sugar, because it's going to get real spendy here real soon. And that's what we've said for years. We talk about storing food and we say over and over and over again, stock what you eat. That way you will eat what you normally eat. 16:08 Rather than going, and I don't have anything really against the emergency foods, the freeze dried, they have their place, but that you don't want to have to dig into that because of a tariff. You don't want to have to dig into that because of a 10 day snowstorm. Right. Or a week long snowstorm. When we wrote our second book, Practical Prepping for Everyday People, 16:36 was doing some research and at that time, think this has changed now because people are waking up, but at that time, 45 % of households in America did not have three days worth of food in the house. Yeah. That'll get us in trouble. That'll get us in big trouble. Yep. I can't imagine that. We haven't lived that way in over 25 years. I can't. 17:06 I cannot begin to imagine that we have, I don't want to go into too much detail, but we probably have enough food to last at least three weeks, if not a month. And that's just because of the way that we do it. It would get really old and really boring after the first two weeks. Well, it wouldn't for us and we could go a lot longer than that, but it would not get boring because we store what we normally use. 17:35 And Christa can make things from scratch using what we have. She can pull out a recipe book and she can pull out canned vegetables. She can pull out, you know, dried meats or canned meats, things like that. So she can feed us what we normally eat. And here for a while, what we've been doing, we've been trying to eat through some of our preps and 18:03 One of the things is she's pretty much when, when she does grocery runs, she's buying perishable. She's buying bread and fresh fruits, fresh vegetables. but we do have those things canned if we could not go. Yep, absolutely. And we have, we have some things canned. we don't can a lot of green vegetables because my husband doesn't eat them. 18:29 And so there's always some for me, but we don't do a lot because he's never gonna eat them and I can't eat enough of them to rotate them out. But yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. It doesn't really matter. I just feel like there are so many things up in the air right now in the world that if you aren't thinking at least a month to six months down the road right now, you're kind of doing it wrong. Yeah. Yeah. 19:00 If you have to go to the store when they mentioned the snow word, you're doing it wrong. Yeah. Unless it happens to be the day that you go to stock up every two weeks and then you're doing it right. Well, when we go to stock up, we're down to where we normally are. when, um, Krista and I were both diagnosed with COVID at the same time, early on, and the county said, 19:29 You can't come to work for five days and Krista couldn't work for five days. And so we looked at each other and said, wow, we're stuck in the house together for five days. And it was a bad case of sniffles is really what that particular one was. Now I had, I think I've had it five times, something like that. But the first time in December before they really identified it, I was pretty sick with that one. 19:59 My son and I were too, actually. But a couple of times there, it was like, oh, okay. And one time they had to tell us we had COVID and I wondered if the test came preloaded with COVID, but that's a different discussion. Uh-huh. But we didn't have any problem during that. mean, us going five days without going to the grocery store, that was nothing. That really, I mean, it's just, okay, what do you want to eat today? 20:29 And we had what we'd normally eat stocked up. So we advocate and I tell folks, know, FEMA and what have you recommend three days. Red Cross recommends having three days, 72 hours. And 72 hours is a good start. But if you go back into the fifties and early sixties, the civil defense had a program called Grand Malice Pantry. 20:58 And they encouraged every family to have two weeks worth of food. Now, where did we drop off of the two weeks? And I understand what that program was for. And it was really to show the foreign actors that, hey, America is preparing to survive a nuclear war. had the duck and cover drill, so you're not quite old enough. 21:27 probably to have done those. I actually got under the desk and put my hands over my head, my rear end sticking up in the air. And that's how we joke about, I bought a nuclear shelter and it's an old school desk. But what it did is it said, hey, we're preparing to survive a nuclear attack. 21:56 Yeah. It wouldn't do any good if you were anywhere near the blast, but if you were certain distance away in school and all it did really was blow the windows out, you were kind of protected under that desk. You really were. So, you know, if they dropped it 75 miles from you, 50 miles from you, it might actually protect you. But we joke about that today, the duck and cover. 22:24 and Burt the Turtle. And if your listeners aren't familiar with Burt the Turtle, go to YouTube and look up Burt the Turtle. It's cartoon things that we actually watched in school and it was about surviving nuclear attacks. have a question for you. That was when you were a kid. That was when I was a kid. Did it give you nightmares? No, not really. Okay, good. And here's the 22:52 One of the reasons behind that is that my dad was good about saying, look, this is probably not going to happen. But on the other hand, they're teaching us what to do to stay safe. So we were old enough to understand that we're doing something to keep us safe, but we weren't old enough to understand that getting under the desk is useless. 23:22 Uh, we, we did not have nightmares. I don't know of anybody that actually had nightmares about that. Okay. Well, I feel like I grew up in the golden age of being alive because I started kindergarten in I think 1975, 76, and I graduated in 1988. And I, I mean, we talked about the cold war, but that was starting to ease up. 23:49 There were no getting under the desk drills. had fire drills. Everybody does, but that wasn't scary because that was just like, okay, yeah, we're going outside. It's a drill, whatever. The thing that was scary for me is when my kids started having to do the lockdown drills at school and that will scare the living hell out of you as a parent, especially when it's not a drill. When you get the message that your school is actually under lockdown, whether there's an active shooter or not. And so. 24:19 Like I said, I feel like I grew up in a golden bubble of feeling like the world was safe. And it probably wasn't any safer than it is now, but it felt that way. Yeah. I don't know that it's any safer today. Probably the closest we've ever come was the Cuban nuclear, the Cuban crisis. And I do remember that. Yeah. I had already graduated high school when you went to kindergarten. 24:48 Yeah. But, um, yeah, I'm old. Okay. Um, some of the guys that I used to work with. not old, you're experienced. Well, yeah. Some, some of the guys I used to work with thought that I was in, thought that I was in the revolutionary war. And they joked around. I told them when I went to the police academy, they taught us where to park our horse when we got to the car. And, you know, very important. 25:17 tie up your horse so he doesn't wander off. Yes. But that, I do remember a lot of things that a lot of this generations today may have studied in school or may not. In fact, one private school has me come and talk to the history class because I actually did duck and cover drills and they don't 25:43 Even their parents didn't do that. They have to go back to their grandparents for that. But I have a, you know, I have a granddaughter that turned 33 yesterday. So yeah, I'm kind of on the old side, but it's fun getting old fun. Old folks and clowns can do a lot of things that general public can't get away with. That is true. And. 26:10 getting older is a privilege denied to many. I hope to get old someday. Yeah, I'm shooting for 106. We'll see how it goes. Yeah. I would tell you what my dad is shooting for, but I don't talk politics on my podcast. I will tell you afterwards. He me the other day and I was like, that's not a long time to shoot for. You want to live to be like a hundred, right? He said, 26:37 If I manage to get another three and a half years, I'll be thrilled. was like, okay, good. As far as politicians, if I could live long enough to see an honest politician. That would be sweet, wouldn't it? What would I be 500 years old? I hope it's sooner than that. I really do. Yeah. All right, Mark, I try to keep these to half an hour and I want to make sure that I get your 27:02 what you're doing to get the information out to people. So you have your podcast, you have blog posts, what else? We have a Facebook group with 115,000 members in that and it's called, it's called Practical Prepping. That's a free group. We have a newsletter that will go out later today. That's a weekly newsletter. 27:27 We've designed courses to teach people to be prepared, how to do things. One that we're finishing up now is building a get home bag. We have built a getting started in food storage and coming up in September, September the 4th, I believe it is, we're doing a live webinar that is teaching you how to get started in prepping. 27:57 And building a 72 hour kit. Now this is not a get home bag. This is not a bug out bag. This is how to build what you need to survive 72 hours at home. This covers the power being out and the snow storm and you can't go out. That's kind of the idea there. I asked the question of people you wake up tomorrow morning, there's 48 inches of snow on the ground. No power. You're not going anywhere. 28:26 How long can you keep your family fed and warm? And that's what we're about. And everything is at practicalprepping.info. Just one word, practicalprepping.info. And you can sign up for the newsletter there. There's a waiting list at practicalprepping.info forward slash workshop. 28:53 because the registration for that will open August the 14th, I think. But you can get on that waiting list and we'll email you when we do that. So we're just trying to get folks to be prepared. You have a very good heart and so does your wife. Well, thank you. I want to have you back when Krista has time to join us because 29:18 Your wife has the most beautiful voice and I think that people would love to hear her thoughts on all of this too. Not only does she have a beautiful voice, she is a lot better looking than I am. So those that do video really prefer having her than me. I was going to tell you before we started recording that you two are a very handsome couple. photo on your Facebook page. was like, wow, are they cute? Well, thank you. 29:48 That was shot at the Huntsville, Alabama Space and Rocket Center under a Saturn rocket. Nice. And that was actually a selfie and it turned out to be one of the best photographs of the two of us ever made. It looks like a studio portrait. Well, I did photography for a number of years, so I'm pretty good with Photoshop. I can put hair on me and I can take wrinkles off women. 30:16 I can take 20 pounds off of anybody. So I didn't have to do much to her at all, but it's almost virtually unretouched. She did some things with the background, but we do appreciate that. She would enjoy this and you would enjoy talking with her. She can talk more about the food storage and what we store and how we store and how she rotates. One of the things that she does, now we 30:46 We call it our prepper room. It's just a closet that was built so that the air handling unit for that heating and air unit could be in there and not be right out in the public area of the house. And it's just a large closet. So she uses that, there's shelves in there. And so she has her small pantry in the kitchen that is her kitchen pantry. 31:13 And when she runs low there, she shops our prepper pantry. And so she goes and she gets what she needs there. And then from the store on the next trip, she'll replace the things that she used from the prepper pantry. And it goes to the back so that it's first in, first out. It rotates and she'll rotate through it in well less than a year. Probably every six months or so that everything in there. 31:43 Almost everything in there turns over. There's some things in there that we don't have to. Some rice, some beans, things like that, that will last almost forever. Infinite shelf life. That's actually a good tip if you're going to start storing food for prepping. You want to make sure that you actually use it as you go because stuff will go bad. 32:12 It will. And, you know, they call it a best buy date on the can. That's when it's supposed to be at its peak. Yeah. But can goods even will last years beyond that date. And a lot of people don't realize that, but it will last years beyond that date. Tomatoes or high acid food is one of the exceptions. You don't want to go too far past that. No. 32:42 No, you do not. reasons is the acid will eat into the lining of the can and you wind up with other issues. you know, we've got a lot of that kind of information on our website as well. I love it, Mark. I'm so glad that you were willing to come chat with me because all of this is really important and it's so sad that we've lost all of this history and skill regarding how to take care of ourselves. Yep. 33:12 Exactly. And being self-sufficient. Now we're not really homesteading here. We have grown some of our own food. We actually did not do a garden this year because of some other issues, but we're about to build a greenhouse and Krista wants to try to grow some winter vegetables in a greenhouse. So we've got the space here and we've got a 33:38 concrete pad that's not being used and it just looks like an ideal place to put a greenhouse. So that's one thing and next year we're planning to have a large garden here. Our in-laws, my in-laws, this was actually their house. They passed away a number, several years ago and we purchased the house from the family and father-in-law had a huge garden out here. I mean, he fed everybody he knew. 34:06 out of that garden and it was just the two of them here. But I don't know that we're going to go that big. mean, he had about a third of the property in garden and we just, you know, we want to do a small garden for us and family and start putting some things up that we can, that we grew. And then like you said earlier, you know what you're eating. The ingredients are beans and water. Yep, exactly. 34:36 Okay. Tell me your sort of tagline about no zombies, no whatever. Oh, oh, the introduction to the podcast. And Krista always does this, but it's the podcast where there's no bunkers, no zombies, and no alien invasions. And then we drop a little, when no bunkers, you hear this door slamming, no zombies, you hear this zombie squeal. 35:05 Uh huh. And no alien invasions. That is actually a little clip from one of the 1950s alien movies. So it's just a real cute thing. And then she says it's just practical prepping because we're not prepping for zombies. Right. If we ever do have zombies, we'll address it. We'll deal with it. I can only hope it's the slow walkers, not the runners. Oh, you and me both, darling. 35:36 But it just, you know, it's about the practical stuff. We prep for next Tuesday. We don't prep for, you know, nuclear holocaust and all of those kinds of things. The reason I asked you to tell me is because I heard it and giggled, but mostly because if people want to learn about practical prepping, you can go to practicalprepping.info and get information without feeling like the world is going to end. 36:02 tomorrow, and that maybe you'll be prepared for something that is going to happen tomorrow. Somebody said one time that, y'all just pedal fear. You haven't listened to the podcast or looked at the website. No. We don't pedal fear. We pedal peace. We want people to have the peace. It's like when we had COVID, we went, When the shelves were empty, okay. You know, we've got what we normally eat. 36:33 That's just, it's personal responsibility is what it is, Mary. Absolutely. We have to take care of ourselves. Yes. Because help's not coming. And if it does come, and in a lot of disasters, it is coming. But I can tell you, you're on your own for the first 72 hours anyway. I've even heard FEMA say that, you're on your own for the first 72 hours. So we've got to be our... 37:02 our own providers, we've got to be our own first responders, we've got to be our own medics, we've got to have the things to address whatever could happen to us in a disaster. Absolutely. All right, Mark, thank you so much for your time. Again, people, if you want to learn about prepping, go to practicalprepping.info and you can find all the Mark and Krista Lawley stuff you ever wanted. And you can find me at attinyhomesteadpodcast.com. 37:32 Thank you so much, Mark. I appreciate it. You are very welcome. And if people have questions, drop us an email. We're glad to answer questions. There's even a way to put up an audio message on the podcast if you want to ask a question on the podcast and we can answer it there. But we communicate with people all the time answering questions. Glad to do it. All right. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you, Mary. You have a great day too. All right. Bye.
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| Wild Roots Nature School | 07 Aug 2025 | 00:36:47 | |
Today I'm talking with Miss Jenny at Wild Roots Nature School.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Miss Jenny at Wild Roots Nature School in Indiana. Good afternoon, Miss Jenny. How are you? I'm wonderful. Hi, Mary. It's such a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to have you. The reason I'm calling Miss Jenny Miss Jenny is because I'm sure that's what her little 00:28 humans call her at school. Or Miss Jimmy. Those that can't quite pronounce Miss Jenny, they'll say Miss Jimmy. I love it. love what you're doing because I love little kids. Teenagers are a whole different ball game, but little kids are adorable. Yes, they are. My little sprouts make every day so much brighter. But I have a teenager too, so I'm balancing both of them. 00:58 in life right now. So yeah, and they both have their stellar moments, but teenagers are hard. It's really hard to know what kind of mood they're going to be in, what kind of reception you're going to get to something you say. It's just a whole different thing. It sure is. So anyway, what's the weather like in Indiana today? It's absolutely gorgeous. So it's a little bit of a breeze, the sun shining. 01:26 The birds are chirping. It's great. It's not so humid and hot as it has been over the last couple weeks. So I think things are cooling down a bit. Yeah, the Midwest has gotten its butt kicked in the last couple of weeks with temperatures and humidity. I'm in Minnesota and it's still muggy here, but it's not hot today. So that's helping. Yes, it's quite a relief. Yeah. 01:53 have said before and I will say it until the day I die. hate high summer. And for me, high summer is mid-July till the end of August because Minnesota is so crazy from in that timeframe. We never know what the weather is going to be. We could have the most beautiful 65 degree day with a breeze or we could have 105 with tropical dew point or we could have a tornado. You never know. 02:21 So summer is not my favorite season. Spring and fall are my favorites and I wish that we could just do six months of spring and six months of fall. That would be perfect for me. And the mosquitoes add a whole new challenge to being outside all day. Yeah. And the black flies. We don't have too much trouble with that, but the mosquitoes run us out of here sometimes. We have black flies every spring and 02:49 my husband will come in and he'll have blood dripping down the side of his neck because they bite him behind his ears. Oh no. Yeah. And they don't, they have, they must have some kind of anesthetic thing in their saliva because he never realizes he's been bitten until I'm like, um, you might want to go get a wet cloth and wipe your neck. And he's like black fly. Oh my goodness. So yeah, it's, uh, nature is wonderful. It really is. But there are things that you have to deal with to 03:18 get that wonder. So, absolutely. right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am the founder of Wild Roots Nature School, which is a nature-based home school nestled right in my own backyard, right here in Indianapolis. It's a play-based 03:43 program where kids are welcome to be wild and free and barefoot and kind of have the freedom to choose how they want to play most days. So it's a emergent type curriculum where I follow the lead of the child in the interest of the children. so if we find 04:13 a caterpillar that will lead to discussions on the life cycle of a butterfly or right now you can probably hear them. They're very curious about the cicadas and lots of lots of cicada shells in every pocket that I find. So yeah, it's a mixed age group of kids ages three to six. 04:43 And it's just, you know, I grew up like the barefoot running around with my friends and my sister in the fields making friendship soup out of weeds and pine cones. And I think that not many kids have that opportunity to learn and play outside every day anymore. 05:10 Um, there's such a big focus on kindergarten readiness and, um, academics that they just can't play anymore. There's such a, so much pressure to be prepared for school. So we slow it down a bit and focus more on just playing and learning through play and, and they're learning all the time. And it's, it's just beautiful. Lots of giggles and, um, 05:40 Yeah, they just have a blast. Lots of light bulb moments too. Oh yeah. Yep. So we have chickens and kittens and currently we found three black swallowtail caterpillars when we were harvesting our carrots in the garden one morning. So we've put them in an enclosure and we've been able to observe the life cycle and 06:09 Unfortunately, we were on vacation last week, but we came home to three chrysalises. So we should have some butterflies emerging soon. So that's exciting. We talk about the life cycle of lots of animals and plants quite often. So that's really cool. I love that. Yeah. I was outside all the time when I was a kid. My mom in the summer, 06:39 Basically, she would be like, go out and play, come back at dinner. Exactly. You'd hear the whistle and you'd have to run home. Yeah. And you could do that back then. And I grew up in a little tiny town in Maine. So we weren't too worried about us kids getting into trouble when we little. And it's funny because we had a big old swamp behind our house. It was like, I don't know, maybe a quarter acre of forest. And then there was a swamp. 07:08 And behind that swamp was more acres of woods and then there was a lake. And as a mom of four grown children, I don't know that I would have been comfortable sending my five-year-old out the door where there was so much water, but we all survived it and I loved it. knew the difference between a red pine cone, I'm sorry, red oak acorn and a white oak acorn because my grandpa taught me that white oak 07:38 Acorns are edible and they actually taste good. Don't eat a red oak acorn because you will pucker up for a week because of the tannins. Good to know. Yeah, and you can make flour out of either acorn. I don't know enough about the red one to tell you, but the white oak acorn makes excellent flour. And I got to see deer just walking through the woods. I got to see bunnies. 08:07 I got to see porcupines, because there's porcupines in the woods in Maine, and you really don't want to get up close and personal with them, but they're really fun to watch. And it was just a wonderful way to grow up and to learn. And even as a teenager and a young adult, I spent a lot of time outside. So there's something really special about nature. because you're doing this, do you know any of the scientific backed stuff about 08:36 what nature does to kids? definitely research is showing that being outside and grounding yourself as a child is definitely decreasing obesity and depression. I know when I get out in nature, I'm always much happier and 09:04 very active. so those are two huge benefits to being outside in nature most days. And again, the more and more research is coming out regarding all the academic pressure that children have to be prepared for kindergarten. And it's just, it's showing that it's not necessary and their, and their brains really aren't ready to hold a pencil or to start reading. 09:34 or you have to build those fine motor skills. 09:40 in your hands before you can pick up a pencil and write. So we still, we still learn the ABCs and one, two, threes. It's just not heavily focused on in my program. They have so many, many, many years to be in school and learn. And they learn a lot of that when they go into kindergarten. um, yeah, I think there's tons of benefits to a nature-based program. 10:10 For sure. So how many hours is, are the kids at school a day with you? You know, when I might, I have a teenage son who's flying the coop here in a couple of weeks, he's, he's going to college, but when he went to preschool, it was so difficult to find a preschool that worked within 10:40 the eight to five hours. I know most of the preschool programs here in Indianapolis, they start at nine and you have to pick up at 3.30. And I'm just like, how in the world do parents juggle it all? And so I really designed my program to cater to the working families, the eight to fives. So a lot of my students are here all day. 11:09 arriving sometimes at 730 and stay until 5, 530. So the days are long for me, probably not for them, but most of them don't want to leave when it's time. yeah, and I think the parents are very grateful for the flexibility and the hours that I provide for them. So is it just you? It's just me, yes. 11:37 It's me and it's a micro school. So I typically only have around six children at a time. And my husband is so supportive. He works outside of the home, but the work is never done. And so he's always ready and willing to help wherever he can and puts up with all my crazy ideas. And I tend to... 12:07 tend to go all out when it comes to birthdays and holidays. it's late nights hanging up decorations and all the things. So he's wonderful. I could not do it without him. OK, number one, that is fabulous. Keep him, husband. I'm sorry, let's change that. Spouses that support each other are a miracle. There are so many people who don't have that blessing. 12:36 And number two, your students must feel so special and so loved if you put that much energy into this. I hope so. And I think they do. I have had one student with me for almost four years. So it's kind of bittersweet. Today is her last day. She's going to public school, kindergarten tomorrow. 13:06 And so she will be leaving. So it's going to be kind of a sad afternoon to say goodbye. But it's never goodbye forever because they always come back and visit and on their holiday breaks and such. But yeah, there's so much love and you can just feel it when you come here. It's just a magical. It's just magical. It's like I said, most kids don't have the opportunity to learn. 13:35 and grow up like this. And the small class size helps with that close knit community feel and we're like a big family. 13:49 That's so awesome. I love it. I love what you're doing. little girl is going to go through so much culture shock in the next week or so. Oh, I know. She's going be like, aren't we going outside? No, not yet. I know. I know. And it really is quite sad that they only get, I don't know how much actual time kindergartners are spending outside, but it's probably not much. Maybe 30 minutes a day. 14:20 And even some preschools centers here in town are only allowed an hour, which is just. 14:30 Yep, I have to be really careful about what I say next because I didn't really appreciate the public school system for my kids. And I have to be careful about what I say because I respect teachers so much. It is such a hard job and I think it can be really thankless some days and that's terrible. But I also think that 14:58 The system put in place to educate our kids from first grade through senior year is not correct. I feel like if a kid is good at something, they should be allowed to pursue that thing, whether it's singing or math or writing or lawyering or doctoring or whatever. And our public school system is 15:27 basically trying to churn out people that are sort of, kind of half-assed prepared for life. I don't feel like that really serves anyone. When I was in school, I had the same teacher for freshman and sophomore year for my English class. And she was fabulous. And she knew that I had a talent for writing. 15:54 I did not choose to go to college because I was so burnt out on trying to get straight A's in advanced placement classes. I could not stomach the idea of rolling right from high school into college. And she caught me in the hallway one day at the end of senior year and she said, I would be happy to make you or write you a recommendation for Thomas College, which was a famous college in Maine, still is probably, for people who wanted to pursue writing. And I politely declined. 16:24 And she said, why? And I said, because I'm not going to college. And she had tears in her eyes when I told her that. And she said, why? And I said, because I can't do it. I said, I have been pushed and pushed and pushed and I have done my absolute best to get the best grades I possibly can. And I am just burnt out. I can't do this another year in a row. And she said, I understand. Still had tears in her eyes. 16:53 And I didn't go to college and I don't regret it at all. I'm good. I learn so much from books and from people and from the world that I feel like I've gotten three degrees in something, but I just don't have a piece of paper to prove it. So it's, it's hard with my kids. They were all very bright people and I can still remember my youngest. He's a boy. 17:22 We went in for a parent teacher conference and his teacher, he was in third or fourth grade, was like, he is not at grade level for reading. And I said, that doesn't surprise me. And he said, why not? And I said, because it takes a special book. There's a unique book for every kid that hooks them into reading. And then all of a sudden, all the synapses go, hey, this is fun. And they start becoming avid readers. 17:52 I said, I went through it in first grade. My daughter went through it in first grade. My oldest son went through it in sixth grade. Oh, wow. I said, I think boys come to reading, loving reading a lot later than girls do. And I they all learn on a different level at a different time. It does eventually click. Yeah. And so the teacher was like, well, we should probably get him on an independent education program thing. 18:22 And I said, absolutely not. And he looked at me like I had lost my marbles. And I said, I am the mother. This is my child. I said, you need my permission to get that started. I said, I do not give you my permission. I said, he will probably be reading at grade level by next year. And he said, OK. 18:47 He said, I'm just telling you what I'm seeing. And I said, I'm just telling you what I've experienced in raising four kids. I I appreciate your opinion. And if I really thought there was a problem, I would be all for this. said, but I don't think there is, and it's not going to hurt him to not be on an IEP program. And he said, okay. And I said, okay. So the following year, my youngest picked up the book, Aragon. 19:15 by Christopher Paolini, I think is his last name. And he sat down and he opened the book and I said, you're ready? And he's like, why? And I said, this is gonna change your life. And he looked at me like I was not. And he started reading and he devoured that book. And after he would close the book, after he read some, I would say, tell me about the story. And he would tell me the story. I'd already read it. He was comprehending it. He was getting it. He was loving it. 19:44 and he's been an avid reader ever since. In the process of him reading that book, he had chosen that for the thing at school where they get points for something to keep track of their reading level. Like, book it, I think. Yeah, something like that, yeah. And he ended up getting all of his points for the rest of the year, which was like five months, you know, it was five months left to school. All of his points for the rest of the year. And at the end of the year, he got a little certificate. 20:12 that said that he was the highest, I don't know, he was the one who had come the furthest in reading that year. And he came home just waving that thing at me. And I said, did you take this to your teacher from last year and show him? said, I sure did mom. Good for him. I said, good. And I called the next day and the teacher happened to be the one from the previous year. And I said, I absolutely am not calling to say I told you so. I said, because that's rude. 20:42 I said, what was Cameron's face like when you saw that certificate in his hand? He said he was glowing. said, sometimes mama intuition is true. He said, that's better than I told you so. I said, yes, it is. that's awesome that you advocated for him. And I have a similar experience with my teenager. He went through public school and had an individual education plan. And yeah, I just. 21:10 I'm with you. mean, the teachers are overworked and underpaid and the system is broken. And I have a five year old who's in a student at Wild Roots and currently and going through that with my first born son, I said, not again, you know, we're not doing this again. So he'll be home with me and we'll home school and he's excited about it. 21:40 Yeah. And like I said, I wanted to be really careful about how I frame that because I have the utmost respect for people who teach. is an amazing skill that I don't really have. I mean, I try, but I'm not set up to teach a bunch of people at the same time. just not, it's not in my, it's not in my blood. It's definitely not for everyone. Yeah. It's a hard job and it's a special skill. again, 22:10 utmost respect. I have a problem with the actual education system. Yes, I have referred to it as state mandated daycare for a long time because that's how it feels to me. Yep. and yeah, it's so regulated and you don't have the freedom to follow the child's interests and build a curriculum based off what they like or have them choose what they want to read and 22:40 Uh, yeah, it's just... 22:44 It's unfortunate and hopefully they make changes in the next couple years to make the system better. until then, Hudson will be home with mama. Good. You do what you need to do for your child because that's most important thing. Also, what was I going to say? What's the feedback from the parents in your program? 23:14 Oh, they're all just so grateful to have me and the dedicated. They see me, they appreciate me and our communication throughout the day and even through the evening and on the weekends. It's very, we talk a lot and, you know, we talk a lot about the day and what they've done. send lots of pictures and they just, they love that. And the reason why I 23:44 started my business 18 years ago is because I didn't want to be away from my child every day. And I just can't imagine how difficult that is to have to trust somebody to raise your child all day. And so yeah, they're forever grateful for sure. Do the kids go home and tell mom and dad or mom and mom or dad and dad or just mom or just dad because that's how families are now. Yes. And I'm not being a smart ass. That's how families are now. Did they go home and tell mom and dad about the 24:14 the butterfly chrysalis or the frog that they caught or do you know? You know, this age is kind of, you'll ask them what they did today and they'll be like nothing. But I do think that because I do share so many pictures with the parents that they can prompt the conversation with, oh, it looks like you did this. And then that will prompt a conversation about what they did today or what they learned. But yeah, they. 24:44 I hope they talk about how much fun and how much they learn on a daily, but I haven't really gotten a whole lot of feedback about whether or not they do share with mom and dad or mom and mom. Yeah. Okay. I was just curious because I was one of those kids that I would come home from school or from an outing or whatever. And I would be like, did you guys know? And then tell them the thing I learned. Yeah. And no joke, like five out of 10 times. 25:14 my dad, who I consider to be the smartest man I know, would look at me and say, no, I actually had never heard that before. Tell me more. And whether he had or hadn't heard it, I don't know, but he would either feign interest or he would actually be interested and want to know more. And that was really great. know, I'm aside with, you know, I'm learning aside with them. We learned this 25:43 stuff, the life cycles and being able to identify trees and we learned that maybe in third, fourth grade, but you forget it, you know, so it's so much fun to relearn all of, I mean, there's so much to learn. There's so much knowledge identifying mushrooms and trees and it's just, it's really fun to learn again. Yeah. And it's funny to hear you say learn again, because I am 26:11 Like I always say I have got to know ITIS. Like I have perpetual curiosity. Yeah. And so for me, I'm always, always, always learning. Like there is no, again, it's just a continuous cycle of information in, oh, that's cool. What else is there to know? It's for you. And it's part of the reason I started the podcast because I was like, Hey, if I talk to people who are doing stuff in nature, I'm going to learn all kinds of things I don't know yet. And I'm 55. I want to learn until I die. And an empty nester, right? 26:41 Almost. Okay. Yeah, the youngest, he doesn't like me to talk about this, but he has a mild form of epilepsy. And so he cannot be by himself. Yeah. And so he's still here and I'm okay with that. He's great. He loves to cook. He earns his keep by helping out on the farm. He's great. So it's one of those things. Yeah. 27:09 It's so helpful because I'm 55, his dad's 56. And we had a whole bunch of logs brought in to be cut and split for our wood burning boiler for heat in the wintertime. And he's been out there just busting his hump helping dad with the wood. And he gets the eggs from the chickens and he puts them in the farm stand for sale. And he does a whole bunch of chores for us, which is so helpful. Oh, I bet. Yeah, it's exhausting work, especially at 55. 27:39 Yeah, and I know it's nice to have that help Yeah, and I mean if I had taken better care of myself in my younger years instead of being down on the floor with four kids playing Are you there? Oh, I'm here Okay, if I hadn't spent like years raising kids and being down on the floor with them on my knees playing blocks and Legos and stuff I probably would be in better shape, but I don't regret doing all that at all. Yeah So it's just it's great to have an able-bodied kid 28:09 who's here all the time and he's a terrific cook. He makes, makes, what is it? He debones chicken thighs and then he fries them like fried chicken and I won't do it. I hate working with hot fat. It scares me and I watch and I make sure that I'm there, but he does such a great job and I don't even like chicken thighs, but he makes them so good that I will eat them. 28:36 That is too funny because my oldest who's 18, that's his specialty too. And he just cooked the same thing a couple nights ago for us. And I'm with you. I don't really like handling raw chicken and I'm not, I don't really like to fry things, but when he takes, takes the lead and cooks for us, it's so good. Yeah. And it's so, I don't know. I have such pride that I did it right. Yeah. 29:05 Yeah, it's nice to be served every once in a while. Yeah. And the thing is, I invited all of my kids into the kitchen when I used to cook. I'm a little teary. I just wanted them... The rule in my house was that they needed to know how to do their own laundry. They had to be able to do dishes by hand and get them actually clean. And they needed to be able to cook at least one meal and one dessert that they would be proud to serve to their friends before they moved out. I love that. 29:35 And all of them can do it. Even my daughter who decided to go vegan for a while, she can cook a good dinner and a dessert for her friends. That's awesome. We cook, we're in the kitchen quite often and we try to use our produce from the gardens. We have an overabundance of cucumbers and tomatoes right now. So think everybody's a little tired of the cucumber. 30:03 cream cheese sandwiches. I'm jealous because all of our cucumber plants died. Oh no, you didn't get any? Nope, they got the blight because it's been such a weird summer here again in Minnesota. been so bizarre. Yeah, it's been rain for three days and then hot sun and then three days of rain and then hot sun and cucumbers do not do well with that. They get wet and moldy and they blight and they die. 30:31 Mine are on their way out, but at least we a pretty good harvest beforehand. Yep. So I've given my husband notice that if anyone at the farmer's market this weekend when he's there selling our tomatoes has cucumbers, to please trade our tomatoes for cucumbers. Because I have not had a garden fresh cucumber yet this summer. Oh my goodness. We need to change that. Yeah. I love cucumbers. I was so looking forward to the first cucumber. 30:59 And he came in the other day and he said, we're not getting cucumbers. I said, I said a bad word. And then I said, excuse me. And he said, they're dead, honey. He said, they're, they're not going to produce this year. He said, I know you're going to cry. And I'm proud of myself. I didn't cry. I didn't slam cabinet doors. I didn't stomp around. didn't act like a toddler. I just said that that's okay because somebody will have them at the farmer's market. And I love a good trade. 31:29 Yeah, he grandies that I'm so proud of you. He said, I knew you were going to be able to handle it. I'm like, yep, that's fine. But it's the second summer in a row with no cucumbers because last year was bad too. I'm like, last year it was bad for us too. So it's a thing and everybody tells me and I tell everybody gardening is a crap shoot. You just don't know what's going to happen. It really is. We started seeds in a greenhouse for the first time this year. 31:58 And that was so much fun because you got to kind of get started a little bit earlier and harvest happened a little bit sooner than if we would have waited. So it was really fun to be able to watch the kids plant the seeds and then be able to watch it grow and grow. Yeah, kind of like they are. They're just growing too fast. Yeah. 32:25 I know and it's it's a blink in the eye miss Jenny. It really is. know. I know. I But I have to let them fly. Yeah, it's so hard. I don't want to cry on my podcast today. I'm trying really hard not to. But it's so hard. And when they get married, it's like what? Oh old enough to be married? That's crazy. So and I don't. 32:52 This is sound really dumb. have a grandchild, but she is a step-grandchild. Love her like she's just my own biological grandchild, but she's not related to me biologically. And she's 12. I never saw her as a baby because my stepson hadn't met her her mom yet. Yeah. So I haven't gone through any of my biological children having babies. And I don't think I'm going to because the other kids don't want babies. 33:21 I'm actually good with this because it hurt enough to let my own babies go. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to be like, oh my God, my grandchild is having babies. What? You know? I don't even want to think about it. It's just not. Time is so weird. coming back to little Leonora, who's leaving today after caring for her for four years, when any of my preschool kids 33:50 leave and we have to say goodbye. There's one of my favorite books. I usually gift them and it's called Miss Maple Seeds. And there's a line in the book that our conversation reminded me of. And it says, take care, my little ones for the world is big and you are small, but never forget even the grandest of trees once had to grow up from the smallest of seeds. I love that. 34:18 Yeah, I just, really speaks to my heart about just really how much care you have to take with these tiny little seeds, these little kids that you're molding into little humans. And I'm just so proud of each and every one of them when they, when they walk away, it's like, I did that. I helped do that. You know, it's so, it's such a rewarding job. 34:49 I love that for you and that is not the snotty, I love that for you. I absolutely love that for you. And I'm so proud of you for what you've chosen to do. It's a beautiful location. Thank you. It's definitely tiring, but very rewarding. And I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life. And not everybody can say that. So I'm just very grateful. 35:14 Yeah, you've found your calling and you are living it and you are helping other people to become functioning adult good people. Yeah. So keep doing that because we need more of those. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do. All right. Where can people find you, Miss Jenny? I am on Facebook. You can look up Wild Roots Nature School and you can check out the magic there. 35:41 I'm kind of behind on the times when it comes to social media and such. But I'll get there one day. You're too busy raising little human beings. And every time I touch a computer, it just doesn't cooperate. I've learned what I'm good at and what I'm not good at and stay away from the computer as much as possible. I understand. I am learning. I am learning. Yeah, it took me a long time to figure out things on the computer. And then it made sense and it was OK. 36:11 Computers are finicky beasts when they work great. They work great when they don't they really don't and thankfully my very supportive husband who I've already bragged about today is in IT so He can help me with all things computers, but For now, I'm gonna stay as far away as possible That is very convenient and very helpful. Yes. All right, as always people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast calm 36:38 Ms. Jenny, I appreciate your time today. Thank you. Thank you. It was such an honor to be here. Have a great day. Thanks. You too.
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| Cookies In A Bag by Danette | 06 Aug 2025 | 00:36:07 | |
Today I'm talking with Danette at Cookies in a bag by Danette. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. 00:11 Today I'm talking with Danette, well Danette, at Cookies in a Bag by Danette in Kentucky. Good morning, Danette. How are you? I am fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. And it is Danette. It's not Donette, right? My mother actually born and raised Danette, because I was going to be Dan if I was a guy, but I'm not. So I was Danette. But I actually am kind of. 00:36 I a bit when I was about 18. I went off to college and I changed it from Danette to Dinette. So just the same name but just slightly pronounced different. yeah, so, Dinette. Cookies in a bag by Dinette. I just hate it when I pronounce people's names wrong because I have very Oh, you're so fun. I have very easy names. I have Mary, I have Evelyn for my middle name, and I have Lynn for a nickname. And those are all really easy. 01:04 That is. Okay. So what's the weather like in Kentucky this morning? Fantastic. Absolutely beautiful. It poured and rained all evening yesterday. Um, but it's fine. It was in the evening and that means I don't have to water plants today. Um, but I love the rain in the evening and at night because it just makes everything green and lush and beautiful. And we've had a great week here in Paducah, Kentucky. So no complaints from me. Good. Cause I know it's been really hot. 01:33 everywhere and I'm in Minnesota. It is a lovely day outside. is sunny. It is cool. There's not even a breeze. don't think. Great. That's awesome. I'm happy. for us. gardening. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I really wanted to talk to you because you do cookies in a bag. It is a really simple concept. It really is. But I had never thought of putting it in a bag. 02:03 I had heard about the jars, but I hadn't thought about a bag. So tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, if you look at my bags, they're actually shaped like mason jars. So this really is sort of what you said. This is a very simple concept, but hopefully done well. And it has just surpassed my wildest expectations. went into business. Well, actually about 2004, I was like a big 02:33 PTO president at my children's elementary school and we had this fundraiser called shop till you drop. It was brand new and you know the first year for anything is the hardest. And so we were trying to get vendors to come into our gymnasium and pay $50 for a table. And you know, like we had the local Pampered chef lady and then we actually had businesses. We'd reach out to like a local gardening center and have her bring her stuff in. And so, you know, I was. 03:00 just using my very best persuasive skills and it was going pretty good but we had a few empty spots and several of my friends said, oh my gosh, Jeanette, why don't you set up a table? You're a fantastic baker. And this was in between Christmas and Thanksgiving. So like a week after Thanksgiving. So three weeks until Christmas. And they're like, why don't you sell your cookies and cakes? And I was like, well, I appreciate the fact that you think I'm good enough to do that, number one, but nobody wants. 03:29 cookies three weeks before Christmas, you know? They want them at Christmas. And so I was like, gosh, how can I give people what they want, but when they want it? And I'd always seen those little glass jars, you know, like the, I want to say they used to sell them in our farmers market. There was this Amish lady there who always sold baked goods. 03:52 And so I was like, oh, that's cute. I could kind of do something like that, but I really don't want to deal with glass jars or anything. That seems like a pain and things could break. And I was like, how can I do this in a more simpler manner? And so I came up with these little cute clear plastic. Actually, my colors are all red and white with polka dot and stripe. And so I came up with these cute little plastic bags, not the ones I have now, but they were just like a cellophane bag. 04:21 with a flat bottom and I filled them with my contents. Like these are my homemade recipes. Like literally I created or came up with or my mother handed down to me every single recipe that I sell. And so I just had four or five recipes and then I would put the chips on top. So I mixed everything in. It wasn't like the layers like the, that used to be in the glass jars. I mixed everything together and then I put. 04:47 the chips or the toppings or whatever on top. So it would kind of look cute. And then I had this adorable little red bow and I set up, I don't know, I made a hundred or something and I was like, oh my gosh, how's this going to go? My kids were all in elementary school. They kind of helped me at the sale and it went great. They sold everything out and I was like, oh my gosh. I think at the time they were like $5. This is like 2004. 05:15 people after it was over with I was like, okay, well that was fun. And then people started calling and they're like, I loved those. Can we get a Miss Teacher gifts? know, and anyway, so it's sort of, we sold several hundred that season and I was just kind of like, wow. And so we came back and we did it again the next year and I did that for about five or six years while my kids were at Clark Elementary. 05:38 And honestly, was a real business. I had a business license, but it was very part-time. It was just seasonal and it paid for Christmas. And, you know, cause I was stay-at-home mom at the time and my kids, you know, it was just kind of fun little thing to do. But it sort of started picking up and it was kind of taking away from a little bit the joy of the holiday. Like I was making cookies and setting up mixes late at night, quite a bit after a couple of years. And so when my kids, 06:08 I finished elementary school, I went back to work and I was like, okay, cookies are done. We put it to bed and I went back. a teacher, I still am actually, full-time educator. I just kind of put it to bed and I was like, well, that was fun. That was a little entrepreneurship thing I had for a while and I went on with my career and things went great. All of a sudden, about three years ago, a lady downtown, I'm sorry if this story is really long. 06:38 So there's a lady downtown in Paducah, Kentucky. name's Susie Koiner, sort of a mentor of mine. She owns a fantastic, unique, everything you didn't know you need. It's called Barbecue and More. It's a spin-off of the barbecue festival that she started here in Paducah, Kentucky that's kind of turned into this big, enormous event. But anyway, she has a store called Barbecue and More on Third and Broadway downtown. And she was like, Dinette, you need to bring your cookies back. Now, mind you, I'm now... 07:08 you know, at the time, 52 years old, very well established in my career, trying to become an administrator and my kids are gone. You know, I've sort of found the freedom and the fun of an empty nest and I'm like, what? Oh, you're cute. Like, thanks, but you know, I'm good. Like I'm very busy and fulfilled with my career. And she just, every time I would be in her store for like a year, she's like, Danette, you need to bring your cookies back. Nobody had cookie mixes like you did. She said, I've been looking for them. 07:38 For different things that would be equitable and she said it just doesn't exist and I was like, huh? Ah, know, okay. Well, thanks. I just took it as a compliment and a couple months later another friend of mine who had kind of been on the Who had been one of the vendors of very long time ago in 2004 her name is Christie Brinkley She owns the silver chicks also real close to me lives in my neighborhood She is in Paducah and she was like you need to sell those cookies again. They were so 08:07 And I was like, that's so weird. But I was like, you guys, you're sweet. And I just kind of blew it off. And so then the third, the straw that broke the camel's back, who a girl named Brooke Grace Riley, she's out of Mayfield. She owns an online boutique, but she's also a business coach. And I'd been following her just a tiny bit online. And she sent this email that I felt like she was sending just to me. You know, she said, 08:37 God has given you a gift and you are meant to pursue the gifts that he has given you. He wouldn't give you something that is not purposeful and of value. It's like sort of stop running away from it, stop fighting it, but like go for it. know, like you only live one fabulous, wonderful life. And I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, why is this happening to me? I'm living this. 09:06 Fabulous fun life and my husband and I are you know We had three great kids but they were grown and you know now we could Travel and do whatever the heck we wanted to and I was very invested in my career and all this just kept you know popping his head up and I was like What is God trying to talk to me about? Why would he want me to make cookies in a bag again? But anyway, so I clicked on her link and I was like, oh should I join her class and I didn't I was like 09:33 I'm just gonna, she said, I only accept people every six months. And I just was like, oh, I'm just not ready. And so I clicked the six months and it's ridiculous how long it took me. But anyway, the next six months came, the email came and I was like, I'd been thinking about it and people had still been talking to me about it. And so when she popped up again, I'm accepting people. I was like, oh, okay, I don't understand this. I really don't understand this. What is the... 10:00 purpose. Like, God placing this on my heart? Is he placing people in my life to keep telling me about this? I don't understand, but I'm just going to move forward in faith and we're going to do this. It's just cookies. So it's just cookies. What could possibly go wrong? And so I started, I'm a different person, you know, like I'm 10:21 I'm grown, like it's 20 years ago since I had this little cookie thing and I was like, I'm just a more mature person. I'm gonna go on social media. I really need to not rebrand, but sort of. Like it was much more professional and serious and it was my product was going to go into a store, not just me selling it out of my kitchen. And so, and I had to get a commercial kitchen. mean, I have the state came in and actually, 10:50 I'm considered a manufacturer, so I had to have people come from the State Department and inspect my kitchen and all this stuff. This took three months of paperwork. I designed my product. I found those cute little adorable bags that I just love, and they're a resealable Ziploc bag, which I'll talk about in just a second. I love those bags. They're so cute. I love them. And so I came back with my traditional, my triple chocolate chip cookie that I'd always have. 11:19 I had my oatmeal cookie, this time we turned it into an oatmeal caramel crunch. And then I had developed a new recipe, my double chocolate espresso, which I think is the hidden gem in my business. It's the most fantastic cookie. I absolutely love it. It's my son's favorite. And I started with those three and I had to buy a box of, this was in April, two years ago. So I'm a little over two years old and I had to buy a box of those bags and there were 1200 of them in that bag. 11:47 And at the time I was like, oh, sweet, Jesus, please be with me on this venture. was like, the lady who, Susie wanted three dozen in her store, which was very gracious of her. And I was like, wow, it's gonna take me two or three years to sell this box of bags and use them all up. I have 1200 of them. And so we put them in the store. I jumped on social media. I listened to my business coach. I post four times a day. use 12:16 Facebook, Instagram, I had a little bit of TikTok, but I really don't mess with TikTok much. Anyway, and I just started posting about my three little cookie mixes and talking to people and showing them all you have the entire batch of cookies is in the bag. I use great ingredients. I use Ghirardelli chocolate and just quality, know, Dutch cocoa, just good stuff the way I would want to eat. Like these are the cookies I feed my family. And all you have to do is add a stick of butter and an egg. 12:46 That's it. You dump it into your mixer. literally takes two minutes and you have cookie dough. And then you can do whatever you want with it. Make little ones, big ones, pan of cookies, whatever. And so it's the simplicity of the product, but they actually are quite delicious. And so we put them in her store. I jumped on social media and I will tell you within two months that box of 1200 were gone. That is amazing. 13:16 Mind-blowing and I was like no way and people started coming out like people who used to buy it in 2004 they were like, oh my gosh, tonight you're doing cookies again I loved them and I was like no way I couldn't believe people remembered first of all, I was so it was so humbling but I was just honored I was like, wow, I never thought it would be and I was like, that's cool. That's great So, you know, we'll have a little paducah cookie business 13:45 And I would go down to hand out samples and people just kept buying them. And then all of sudden other businesses in town were like, we love those. Can we carry them? I was like, okay, I guess so. Take my, give me your money, please. Yes. And so then towns around and then all of sudden, like a lady out of Alabama wanted them and a lady from Vermont wanted them. And I was like, where did you see my stuff? And they're like, Facebook. was like, wow. And it's free. Facebook is free. 14:14 You know, like people complain about sometimes, oh, the algorithm and, you know, doesn't show me what I want and all that stuff. But for me, it has been the greatest success. I have been very consistent. I try to put information out there that people want to see and hear. It's a little difficult. You have to be brave to get on there and do lives. But you know what? Like, so what? Like, just do it. People. 14:41 You know, we just love authentic people and whatever, you know, and people have been so gracious and kind to me. And I have gone from zero followers to 75,000. Wow. In the last just a little over two years, I've had a few reels like take off and just do really well and you you pick things up, but oh my goodness, like I cannot, it's just astonishing really. And I feel so blessed and my product is in 15:11 probably 30 stores, primarily in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, my area-ish. But it is in, like I shipped some off yesterday to Vermont, a home garden center in Vermont that had heard about them from Montgomery Gardens right here in Paducah. They're just friends and they talk and I'm just like, this is wild. And from that first year, I started in March or April. By the time we finished Christmas, I had sold 7,000. 15:39 of those little cookie mixes. And the reason why you and I love that little bag, I love how it looks, but also the mix is in there. You just add a stick of butter and an egg, dump it into your mixer, and then I actually make my dough into dough balls and I put them right back inside of the bag. The bag is a resealable Ziploc bag and I throw it in the fridge and I love to use chilled cookie dough because 16:03 So many wonderful things happen to chilled cookie dough. It gives your butter a chance to set back up. It also soaks up your sugars and your flour. that sort of makes for just a very mellow, even textured cookie. And it just kind of develops the caramelization flavors. And it's just, love a good chilled cookie. I just let it sit there in the refrigerator for a few days before I bake them. And so that bag is actually useful. It's cute and it's useful. 16:33 Yeah, baby. That's my story. And I love that you just talked nonstop for about, oh, I would say 12 minutes because it shows how passionate and excited you are. And here's what I want to tell people about your product. I haven't tried it. I've never met you before, but basically what your product is, like the box cake mixes at the store. 16:59 You know, you buy a box of cake mix, you throw an egg and some veggie oil or whatever in it, and you make a cake. The difference is that you don't have a whole bunch of preservatives and flavors and stuff that's not good for you. And I love that because there's so much crap in manufactured It's a clean product, very plant-based, honestly. I use the best ingredients that I can find. 17:28 But the chocolate makes a difference as well. And then I always whisper to people, use salted butter. I'm a huge advocate. I know like all these fancy bakers will, you know, use unsalted butter because you can control your salt. But gosh, I love salt in my sweet. I like flake sea salt on top of stuff too. I love it. So I use salted butter in all of my cookies. I tell people that when I'm giving them samples. 17:55 you're tasting what you're tasting is made with salted butter. You can do whatever you want. But you know, most people have salted butter in their house and this, my product is delicious. It is easy. It is the cleanest. think no, you know, the chocolate chips are not old. There are no oils in this. There's no preservatives in it, but you're getting sort of like, you're just getting a clean product, but it's just, it's simple. And so people already have salted butter. So that sort of 18:25 blends in with the simplicity of the entire thing. You have to go buy anything special. And the other thing that I love about this is you don't have to deal with a glass jar when you want to make, if somebody has grandkids and they want to make cookies with your ingredients, you don't have to worry about a glass jar on the counter. Yes, you're exactly right. And nobody wants to deal with that later. So yeah. And this is the perfect 18:54 like stocking stuff or gift at Christmas time because you know that you're going to have your grandkids on spring break or your kids even. And you get this at Christmas time. It's good for a long time until you open it. is. have a shelf life of a year. They have a shelf life of a year. All of them. I'm going to send you some. You're going to send me your address and you can try this. I would, I would be happy to try that stuff and actually do a podcast about it with you again. All right. 19:24 But point being, was going somewhere with this. Oh, not all schools have spring break in the same month. I know when I was growing up, we had February break and we had April break. And so if you give these to people at Christmas time as a stocking stuffer, or you give them like eight of them in a box and wrap it up as a present, you've got a variety of things that you can do with the kids when they're on break and you're not... 19:50 having to spend the time measuring all the ingredients out and making a huge mess. And that is a bonus. That's true. And I have, I do have a website. It's just cookiesinabag.com. And people, ship all over the United States actually. So you can order them and I will ship them straight to your door and you can give them a try as well. 20:14 I am typing in your website right now because I want to see it. www.cookiesinthebag.com and now we started out with three and then we've added several cookie mixes since then because my original store, Susie was like, we got to keep spicing it up and we added one at Christmas. So my originals are triple chocolate chip, which just means it has three different kinds of chocolate in it. My oatmeal caramel crunch, which I love. It's my best raw cookie dough. I don't know if people are... 20:44 reject eating raw cookie dough but I love it. And then my third one is double chocolate espresso and then since then, we've added a peppermint crunch. It's a chocolate cookie with Andy's peppermint crunch in it that was for Christmas. After that, the next spring, we added a sugar sprinkle lemonade. It's like a – it's a it's a lemon sugar cookie with sprinkles in it. So cute. That's the one I want. I love lemon cookie. 21:12 And then recently we added strawberries and cream and it has real freeze dried strawberries in it with white chocolate chunks. Fantastic. Just a whole different vibe. And then I do have one brownie mix. It is called a chocolate fudge brownie. It's made with sweet Ghirardelli cocoa. It's excellent. You melt your stick of butter with an egg and I, there you go. So I have six cookies and one brownie. And I'm working on working on two right now. 21:40 to maybe roll out at the holidays. you know, just always a little something, but it's cookie fun. Yeah, absolutely. And what I love about this so much, Danette, is that this is so simple. I I know it takes time. I'm not saying that you're making tons of money doing nothing because you are absolutely not doing nothing, but it's a simple concept. actually helps people. 22:09 It gets kids in the kitchen with their parents and grandparents to learn how to cook. I mean, it is very simple cooking, but it is definitely teaching them about the chemistry of cooking. is because they get to unwrap the stick of butter, they get to crack the egg, and they get to dump the ingredients. And that's really all we really want to do, isn't it? Yeah. Like you want to just crack the egg with butter, and then you don't have to measure out the baking soda and the baking powder and... 22:37 You know, it's all there done for you and that they get that's the best part about it The stories that make me smile are when people come in and they say I gave this as a gift and or I received it as a gift and I absolutely loved these but though the ones I really love are the ones where the kids bake with mom or grandma and families are spending time together in the kitchen creating good memories Like I had when I was growing up and like I got to experience with my own kids. So that's 23:08 That's what I love, love, love about it. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sitting here being like, why did I not think of this? And I could still do the same thing. We sell stuff at the farmers market. I don't think I could ship it because I don't think we can ship anything from Minnesota until 2027. I think they finally changed it. 23:34 But I could do this and I wouldn't be any competition for you. Our local people would be thrilled. They'd love it. So it's something to consider amongst my podcast and my cleaning the kitchen and cooking dinner for the family and keeping clean clothes happening. You know, I have things I got to do, but it's certainly something that I would consider doing. But point being is that this is an excellent gift for anything. I mean, you could do this for a young 24:04 couple who are getting married. could gift it as birthday present, anniversary present, don't know, Easter, anything. Anything that requires a small, fairly inexpensive gift. This is perfect. absolutely. And Susie Coyner, Barbecue and More, downtown, she does individualized 24:26 Baskets that she puts together for people you come in you're like, I have a friend who loves strawberries and then you get a little Strawberry tea towel to go with it and you she wraps everything up and she does exactly what you were talking about but yeah sky's the limit like if you love cookies and You know, I these are all my recipes. They're my original recipes. I'm going through the process of getting my my company's being trademarked Yeah, you know just doing all the things here but sure this is not 24:56 I did not invent cookie mixes, the concept of a cookie mix. I just made them my way with my recipes and it has just been the most phenomenal blessing and people have been so gracious and it has just been just a really fun little experience with entrepreneurship and being a little local business and women supporting other women. Just met a lot of really great people through this. 25:25 And it's been a lot of fun. I'm just following what I feel like I've been called to do. So. Well, huge congratulations on this, because it sounds like you were mildly reluctant to take the step, but it's a good thing you did. The other thing that I want to say is that cooking is not just a women thing. Men cook too. Boys cook too. And I say grandmas and moms. 25:54 but it could be grandpas and dads too. Yeah. So my son can make his own cookies, you know? Yeah, absolutely. With this. Yeah. And honestly, can do all the things men can do if they want to. I think the only thing that men can't do that women can do is actually give birth to babies. Yes. This world has become so much more 26:23 big and open to everybody being able to try everything and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. 26:31 I agree and I appreciate you doing what you're doing and bringing light to some of us little business people out there. So I'm so happy to talk to you and meet you. I am really happy to meet you and talk to you too. And thank you for saying that because I started the podcast partly because I needed a project. My youngest was going to be moving out youngest of four and I was like, I can't go through empty nest syndrome without a project. I can't. 26:59 But I also really wanted to give people like you and homesteaders and crafters a floor, a stage to be able to tell about what they do and why they do it. And it has been the joy of my life for over 300 episodes to be able to talk to people about what they do. Nice. I love it. Yes. Be brave. Love it. Be brave. You get one wonderful, beautiful life. Just go for it. 27:28 Go for the friendships. Go for the experience. Take the trip. Eat the cookie, I say. You love the outfit, do it. If you wanna go try something, go on a trip. Do bungee jumping. Be brave. Whatever it is you feel called to do, you really have one shot to do it. when my mother passed away several years ago of cancer, and so we had her. 27:57 four intentional months with her when she was passing. And I remember she was really happy with some of her life and then she had many regrets. And I didn't do this and I didn't do this and I took her on a couple trips when she was sick and she had a little scooter and everything, but we did it. And I just thought that was seven years ago. And I was like, I don't wanna be that person when I have lived a full 28:28 blessed life and hopefully helped a lot of people and just, you know, enjoyed myself and had purpose and done what, you know, God has called me to do. And I thought, I don't want to, I don't want to, when I'm passing, like, I don't want to have that conversation that my mother had, like, I wish, I wish I had. I was like, you know what, you just, you do have to be brave. And like on social media, I mean, I am, my face is on there. I'm talking to people, I'm talking to. 28:56 Thousands and thousands of people and I don't know them. I don't know how they'll react and you know what but I'm not doing anything wrong I'm trying to be kind and share and you just kind of had to go for it and people are generally so kind and gracious and You know, that's just what you just got it. Do it Be brave if you're listening to this and you're on the fence do it. Yeah, do it Absolutely. Try it. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. But it does work. It might work big 29:26 With the whole eat the cookie thing, I'm going to make a suggestion. Eat the cookie, yes. Do not eat 100 cookies at once because what happens is you get sick and you will never want to eat that cookie again. Well, and you might get FAT, which is not really fun. I'm far more concerned about being sick on a food that I liked because I've done it twice and it took me years to try those foods again. 29:53 Don't OB on your favorite thing because you won't want it again for a long time. I'm going to take a second because we're talking about cookies. My husband brought me home some lemon cookies from the farmer's market two weekends ago. And I keep meaning to mention this on the podcast and I keep forgetting, so I'm going do it now. Our local farmer's market is fantastic. The lady that he got the cookies from, her business is called Spare Time Baker, think. 30:22 He brought me home these little tiny lemon cookies. There were six of them. And he knows that I love lemon, everything lemon. And I was like, okay, they better be good. Because if it's not good lemon, I'm going be very sad. And he just laughed because I say this about everything that has lemon in it. Because sometimes it's good lemon and sometimes it's chemical lemon. that's gross. Right. Yes, yes. And so I bit into one of them and he watched me and I smiled around the bite. And he's like, oh. 30:49 I take it she's good at lemon cookies. said, yeah, I bet she's good at all cookies. So for the record, everybody who's local to me who listens to the podcast, if you have the chance to get cookies from Spare Time Baker at the Lowest Sore Farmer's Market, do it. It'll be worth it. Nice. I actually found, took a long time developing my lemon recipe, but it's actually dried ground lemon in mine that has the lemon flavor because I agree there's 31:18 This fake lemon is not good. It always smells like it's going to be good, but you taste it you're like, this is not real. Yeah. It's gross. No. Yep. You're right. So I just wanted to give her a shout out because I was so excited to have lemon cookies because I don't eat cookies very often, partly because I don't make them very often because they'll be gone. My husband and my son will eat them and I don't buy cookies because cookies at the store. 31:47 are never very good and they're always way more expensive than they should be. are. Really, it's the quality of the ingredients though that concern me the most. Yeah, yeah. yeah, I understand. And I have one more question before I let you go. How many cookies, like average size cookies, does one of your bags make? Great question. Get that all the time. Each bag makes a batch of cookies, but I say about 14. 32:17 large bakery style cookies that you would go to a bakery and get, you know, like five, four to five inches in diameter, four inches, so about 14, 15 of those. Now you can make little teaspoon cookies and I can get like 70 little party cookies out of one batch. If you make those great big gourmet, thick, huge seven ounce, you know, six ounce cookies, you're only gonna get like six out of a bag. So it just depends on what you have going on. 32:46 Okay. The reason I ask is because I know how much your bags of cookie ingredients costs. you willing to share that? Because I want to say something about it. While they sell on my website for 10.95. I think so. Yeah. 10.99, something like that. Yes. The reason I want to make the point here is that that is a really reasonable price for a batch of cookies. Like really reasonable. Because you're paying less than a dollar a cookie. 33:15 Yes. if you go to a bakery, yeah, you're not gonna, you're gonna pay a more than that, You absolutely are. And you don't know what they put in it. With this, I'm pretty sure you have a label that says exactly what the ingredients in that bag are. That is true. So it's all good. Everything here is good, Dinette. I love it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right. So tell me where everybody can find you. 33:42 Well, I am on Facebook and Instagram and just type in cookies in a bag by Danette. That's me. So just the whole thing. No spaces, no dashes, cookies in a bag by Danette. You can come follow along and I share recipes. I love to share old recipes that are about cookies that I don't make, but I share techniques, fun things you can do with my cookie mixes. Like you can turn them into, you know. 34:09 bar cookies or you can turn them in. you sometimes I'll make a peach cobbler and I'll take my oatmeal caramel crunch cookie dough and put it on top of the peach cobbler or of the peaches and turn it into a cobbler. Like I just give you fun tips about what you can do with my mixes or how to make cookies, even just how to use how to chill cookies or just, you know, what the best pans are like just anything to do with cookies. I just have all kinds of fun information if you are interested in baking. 34:39 It's all there on Instagram and Facebook. And then my website is cookies in a bag dot com. And you can order any of my mixes and we will ship them directly to you. I just got to order this morning from a company in Louisville, Illinois, called Glamour Farms. And she runs a boutique, an online boutique. And she picked up my mixes about a year ago and 35:04 They're doing fantastic with her. So when people are buying clothes, they're buying cookie mixes, too So we're shipping out a couple hundred to her pretty soon So there you go cookies in a bag by Danette try it Yeah, this was such a joy You are so bubbly and and the love that you have for what you're doing is just coming through so strongly I have I have loved this conversation 35:34 I'm a teacher so you know we always have to kind of keep it keep it keep it pumping for the sweet little children so they're always interested. Oh yeah but if you didn't love it it wouldn't be ringing like it is so I'm so happy for you. Well thank you. As always people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Donette thank you again for your time. Thank you. Thank you for listening I appreciate it and everybody have a great day. 36:03 Yes, happy baking. All right, bye. Bye.
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| Hillside Harvest Farms | 05 Aug 2025 | 00:30:58 | |
Today I'm talking with Brittany at Hillside Harvest Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. 00:10 Today I'm talking with Brittany at Hillside Harvest Farms in California. Good afternoon, Brittany. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I'm good. I had to think about whether it was morning or afternoon because you're in California. Yes. They're an hour behind us, so it's afternoon now. We're actually two hours. And I was so nervous. I was not going to figure out the time change. But it's 11 o'clock, so we're still morning here. 00:36 Okay, well good morning to you and good afternoon to me. How's that? Thank you. Perfect. How's the weather in California today? We have actually had like a fairly mild summer. So it makes me a little nervous what our August and September is going to be like into October, because we'll be like 110 into October. So I'm a little nervous, but the summer has been great so far. Awesome. My daughter used to live in LA. lived there for 01:06 like over three years. then she made a lateral move to Florida. Oh my gosh. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Well, you'll still have oranges and lemons. That's good news. Uh huh. Oh yes. It is kind of a gray day here in Minnesota. It's overcast and it's not really muggy, but it's not really not muggy if that makes any sense. Uh huh. Uh huh. And it's not hotter than hell. So that helps. 01:35 That's always nice. Yes. After the week we put in last week, I'm very happy to have it be cooled down. Yes. Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, we live in Paso Robles, California. We moved here about three years ago. My husband and my two boys. 01:57 We're, my husband and I are both from California, but we went to school in Utah and lived there for quite a few years. And then we're able to move back here to California, which we were really excited about. Um, we don't live in typical California. We're very rural. Um, and just, it's, it's so beautiful out here. about an hour from the coast in central California and wine country. And just love being out here. We're on about three acres and. 02:26 have goats and chickens and pigs and ducks and about an acre garden and a little farm stand down at the bottom of the driveway. And we just have so much fun doing all that. Very nice. And California is an odd state because you've got high fashion, you've got Silicon Valley, you've got the, assume the wine industry is pretty big. You've got. 02:54 citrus fruits that are pretty big. And then you've got all the agriculture. Yes. So there's so much agriculture. I love it. We actually just went to Tahoe over the weekend. It's about a six hour drive. And besides just the quick drive through Sacramento, we were just driving through orchards and vineyards and just it was almost completely agriculture and it was such a fun drive and I love it so much. 03:24 I forgot a big one. have movie production out there too. Yes, we do. Uh-huh. I know. It's so, I love how diverse the state is. And it's really cool. I love being in a small town. It's about three hours to our closest international airport. It was really funny when we moved from Utah to California, everybody was like, what are you doing? 03:47 Like it's just, you're just going to be moving to the city. And I'm like, I don't think you understand where we're moving to in California. Like it's so much smaller than where we're living now. I don't, I don't think you quite understand where we're going. Yeah. And I'm, I don't necessarily want to make the podcast all about Mary today, but Minnesota is, is odd like that too. When you hear Minnesota, when anyone hears Minnesota. 04:16 They make Minneapolis St. Paul, which are the two biggest cities in the state. And they're right next to each other. But southern Minnesota is cornfields, soybean fields, and alfalfa fields. And northern Minnesota is pine trees and the boundary waters and cabins. so it's funny to me when people immediately assume big city when they hear Minnesota. like, no, there's... 04:43 There's very little acreage that is big city in Minnesota. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It's so funny. Yeah, but it's great. We love it here. Last year, we opened our farm stand for our first year, and that was so much fun. And it was just a little trailer last year. And this year, we built a greenhouse and a little shed. So that's been a lot of fun. 05:10 I do a lot of canning and preserving and we grow a lot of our own meat and my husband's family, have a 40 acre avocado ranch in a little town called Cayucas that they have, they raise steer. So we have our own meat, our beef cows that we raise. so it's, it's a lot of fun. do you have access to avocados whenever you want them? 05:38 Yes, and it's glorious because where we're at in Paso, it freezes and during the winter not a ton, but we do get into those freezing temperatures every so often. So we can't grow avocados here, but when we go down to the beach, we will snag avocados every chance we get. am so jealous. It's amazing. I haven't bought an avocado in probably a year because they're expensive. Oh my gosh, I know. 06:07 I might have to add that to the grocery list for the weekend because now that thinking about it, it would be really nice to have some avocado and salad. That would be great. I know. It's so fun. I'll just grab a grocery bag and just fill it and then give it to all my neighbors when they come back. It's like paradise out here. I love it. I'm so glad. I love it when people love where they live because for the longest time, I did not love where I lived. I lived in town, in a small town. 06:34 right off of Main Street, and I've said it before, it was noisy, it was dusty, and it was busy. And I'm one those people who really loves quiet and peace. So when we moved, we moved to a three acre acreage, four miles outside of a town half an hour away. And yes, we have big semis that go by during the day because we're on a main stretch between two towns. And right now everybody's getting ready for corn harvest. Oh yes. 07:04 But that's different noise than ambulances and church bells and the train going through town. Oh yeah, for sure. We've lived all over. My husband's in construction and so we've lived in Las Vegas and we lived in Salt Lake City and we've lived in lots of different cities and I do not like it at all. My dream has always been to 07:32 live on a farm. grew up working on my uncle's dairy farm in Idaho and always begged my parents to have some sort of garden. And I was an FFA and just always dreamed of having some sort of farm that I was able to live on. And it's just something I always dreamed of. It was funny when we moved to our first house in Utah, we were on a little half acre. 07:59 and I was so excited to finally have my dream garden and we moved in December of 2019 and I'd been planning for this for years and that spring of 2020 when I could finally get my garden in was of course when COVID hit and I had to make sure everybody knew that I was not doing this because of COVID. I was not jumping on the bandwagon. I had been planning on doing this for so long. So it wasn't just because of COVID that I was doing it. 08:28 And so it was quite the experience. Well, even if you were jumping on the bandwagon, it's not a bad bandwagon to jump on. It really isn't. you've been, sounds like you've been an agriculture girl from the get-go. So good for you. Yeah. It's been so fun. So what do you grow? I grow just about everything. 08:55 I go through all the seed catalogs and I just want one of everything. I initially when I started was only interested in growing vegetables and fruits. And then my sister wanted, she lives in Utah. So when I was planning out my garden, she really wanted to get into it with me as well, but she wasn't as interested in the vegetables. She really wanted to do flowers. So she and I started doing flowers as well. 09:25 would do cell bouquets. And so she really got me into flowers. So I also do flowers as well. And I sell bouquets and centerpieces. And so she kind of got me into doing that. So I really just have an assortment of everything out in my garden, which is, I just love it. Do you grow wild flowers or do you grow like, tall cutting flowers? A little bit of 09:54 everything and I really just let everything I'm really my big thing is I let everything go to seed. really just like everything going crazy. So there's wild flowers and cut flowers and just a surprise and so there's things that you know they pollinate and I just don't ever know what's gonna come up and what it's gonna look like. So every year it's just kind of a surprise. 10:24 And, but then of course I plant, I'll start plants from seed in my garage. then, so I have things that I know that I'm going to get. And then I also have all my surprises because I just let everything go to seed. Because I'd rather have those plants coming up than weeds coming up in the garden. For sure. Yes. Oh my God. We have been fighting weeds like you wouldn't believe this. Oh my gosh. It's ridiculous. 10:53 Yeah, they killed our cucumbers between the constant, well, I don't want to say constant rain because it's way better than it was last year. But we've had like two or three days of sun and then two or three days of off and on rain and then two or three days of sun. the cucumbers really hate that kind of weather. We will have no cucumbers to sell this year. I'm so sad. However, the tomatoes are doing fantastic. We're going to be swimming in tomatoes in about a week. 11:20 We're just starting to get ours. I just got my first big harvest of tomatoes and I'm so excited. We keep getting people asking for when are the tomatoes gonna be ready? So I'm excited to get those out in the farm stand today probably actually. You will probably relate to this story then. I have been waiting as patiently as I am capable of for the first six tomatoes to come in from the garden. 11:49 that I could make the first batch of bruschetta this summer. my gosh. Yes. We had that for dinner last night and my husband happened to pick up a watermelon when he was shopping. Oh my gosh. had bruschetta and then watermelon for dessert last night and I am not kidding you. My heart was so big. I was like this is is living. are rich. It's heaven. There's nothing better. Yep. And I think 12:18 I think that it's wonderful that you grow produce, but you also grow flowers because produce feeds the body, but flowers feed the soul. yeah, most definitely. Nothing makes me happier than just coming in with, know, you have your food, but then just the beauty of the flowers just makes you so happy and seeing all the different colors and the varieties and it just 12:48 It feeds your soul. Like you said, it makes you so happy. actually have a weird question. don't know. I don't know what California is like when it comes to perennial flowers. Here, we start out with tulips and daffodils and the little short iris varieties, they come first. And then those kind of die off and the peonies start to bloom. And they have like, I don't know, we had a month. 13:16 of bloom time this year because of the different varieties we have in. then the lilies start to bloom after the peonies are done. And then the hostas start to bloom around mid-August. And that's about a three week bloom. And then we're into fall. Does California have that kind of progression or can you grow pretty much anything anytime? So what's crazy about California is you pretty much 13:45 have every single zone in California. so the zone, I am in zone nine. And I'm still I were in our third season of growing here and I'm still learning. I came from zone seven in Utah and I'm still trying to learn it's crazy. So I have plants that I thought were annuals that are here are perennials like my snapdragons and 14:15 um, stock and just a whole bunch of flowers that were annuals in Utah here are perennials and they will just grow all winter long. And so it's, it's been such a learning experience to figure out. So I will get it barely have, I barely have enough chill hours for tulips. Sometimes like this last winter we didn't get as many freezes. So my tulips didn't do as well because they didn't get enough freeze time. 14:45 But we will get some winters, we'll get enough freeze time for tulips. My daffodils, I did get some daffodils, which was awesome. Like I said, I'm still learning in this area, but it's so funny because you just go 40 minutes towards the ocean and it's like zone 10. And so it's just so all over the place here that even within our county, there's like four different zones. 15:14 So it's just such a learning. Even where I'm at in Paso Robles is so different than where in the city of Paso Robles. It's just so different. So it's just a learning. You just have to learn where you're at. So I'm still learning, even though we're in our third season, I'm still learning for exactly where my house is, how everything grows. 15:43 And so, and it just depends on the year too. So hopefully this year will get a little bit colder of a winter so I can get more tulips. Because tulips are some of my, just my favorite flowers. And that's one of the things I do miss from Utah are the tulips. So I'm really hoping I can get some good tulips this next season. Like I said, the daffodils did pretty good. The summer, my zinnias do amazing. 16:11 The Zinnias just love it because we do get really hot summers all the way into October. Like we generally don't get our first freeze until the end of October. Yep. And so the Zinnias do really well, Dahlias do really well all the way through the middle of October. And yeah, I just lost my train of thought. Hopefully that answered your question. I'm not sure if it did. I just kind of started rambling. 16:40 No, that's fine because I didn't, I mean, I know that California has some really diverse climate situations going on, but I didn't know to the extent that you just told me. So that's awesome. learned something new today. Also, our zinnias did not come back this year. We had a bunch last year and they didn't come back. And I think it may be that it was too wet. I don't think, I mean, we've had a few, 17:10 heat wave streaks like three to five days where it's been really hot. But I don't think they like Minnesota as much as I wanted to think they like Minnesota. I it stays hot enough long enough. Yeah, the Zinnias definitely like dry weather and where we are at, we basically don't get any rain from April until October, which is one reason the grapes do really well here. 17:37 So, because when it rains real heavily, the grapes will split. So the grapes do really well here because we basically don't see any rain from, like I said, April until October. Which is crazy to think about. think that the good news on that is if you need to water, you can. Two springs ago, know, so 2024. 18:06 It rained and rained and rained all of May and two weeks into June here. my gosh. And they keep saying you cannot pull the water out of the ground, but you can water when there's no water. Yeah. So our garden was just a terrible fail last year. I am so excited to be able to have tomatoes for our community this year because we had not nearly enough. 18:32 last year. can't even imagine having to, yeah, it's so nice being able to regulate the water and just water when it's needed and then just turn it off. It's quite nice. It's a gift. And honestly, I've said this so many times in the last year since all that rain fell, but our garden was soup for about a month. You couldn't 19:01 You could not go out there and put your foot into the actual garden because you would go up to your ankles. my gosh. It was disgusting. And we were very mad. We were very, very mad about it. Oh, I bet that's awful. Yup. And this year my husband has been, he's the gardener. I always give him all the credit because he's the one does all the work in the garden. I help him plan it, but I don't do the work. He has been just happy as a pig in mud. 19:31 this year because there hasn't been a whole lot of mud. Uh huh. Oh, perfect. So yeah, it was, it was a very, very long, miserable summer last year. can't even imagine. Yup. And he, we still had stuff to sell at the farmer's market because we make things too. And people would be like, are you going to have tomatoes for canning this year? Cause the year before we were selling hundreds of pounds of tomatoes and he had to tell them, no, 20:01 And every time you told them no, he said it's the same face every time, honey. He they just look at me like, ah, nobody else has them either. You know, it's so sad. And it's just something about those tomatoes. That's just what everybody, they just want those tomatoes, man. Like there's something about those garden fresh tomatoes that everybody looks forward to every year. Well, they taste good. I know they there's nothing like them. 20:31 That's for sure. The other thing about tomatoes is that they're so versatile. mean, you can make salsa, you can make tomato sauce, you can make tomato paste, you can make spaghetti sauce and can it so that all you have to do is warm it up. Yes. We have struggled. My youngest, he has really struggled with eating. He's very 21:00 He gets very nervous about trying new foods, but he loves my canned spaghetti sauce. And so that has been a lifesaver of one of his quote unquote safe foods that he will eat is the canned spaghetti sauce. Funnily enough, he will eat most things that come out of the garden, which has been just amazing seeing him get excited about like, are the peas coming up? 21:25 He gets excited about the carrots and he loves going out and picking the strawberries. And so that has been so fun watching that because he just gets, it's been so hard with him getting so nervous about trying new foods, but he does get so excited about the jams that we make and he loves helping out with that. And I don't know where we would be with his eating if it weren't for the garden and his excitement with. 21:54 with seeing it grow and the process that it takes to make these things. It's just been, like I said, I don't know where we would be without it. It's been a huge blessing is what it's been. yeah. Oh yes. And that is phenomenal. And he likes your homemade spaghetti sauce because mom's love is put in there too. Yes. That's for sure. Blood, sweat and tears, Yeah. People joke about 22:22 love being the secret ingredient. it's not a joke. It's for real. It really is. The passion and the time and the love that people put into making things from scratch is a real thing. It really is. And I will die on that hill. I promise you. Yes. 22:46 I can't stand the spaghetti sauce that you buy at the store. will never eat it again. I know. I couldn't get to canning last year. had a death in the family and so we just ran out of it and we had to get some from the store. I like, can't do this. We're just going to have to wait until I can make some more. We're not having spaghetti for the rest. Until the tomatoes come again. 23:15 I cannot do it. How old is your son, the one who's hard about eating? He's seven. he's been getting better. We've gone to a few different therapists, but it's been really difficult. But yeah, he's seven now and it's been a very difficult journey. Is it a texture thing that gets him? 23:45 No, it's funny because there's no rhyme or reason to it. think just what it is, is he has a desire, he wants to eat and try new foods. But when it comes down to it, he just is just terrified to try it. Like he just gets scared. And it's almost heartbreaking because I am such a food is just life for me. just food is everything. And so it's been so hard. 24:15 watching it and not knowing how to help him because it's really just all fear-based because he'll talk about it and things he wants to try and then just when it comes down he'll have the spoon in his hand and ready to try it and he just is just it's just a mind like he just gets scared to try it but luckily he likes pretty much something in every food group 24:44 So he's, he hasn't had any like growth, like impairments or anything like that. So he's been fine there. But like I said, it's just, it's just like a mind. Oh, just a mind scared. So it's just really trying to work through that is, is where we've, what we've been working on. the good news is that he will probably outgrow it at some point. 25:14 I don't know if you've tried this, it's something I learned with my fourth kid when he was, you know, a year or so old. The rule with that one, because I hadn't thought to try this with the other three, was that he had to give it a fair shot of a new food. And if he genuinely did not like it and could not swallow it, he could politely spit it into a napkin. Or if we were at home, he could just get up from the table, go to the trash can and spit it in the trash. And he was the most 25:43 Venturous eater now. Oh my gosh. That is awesome. I know we've tried. I'll have to try that Yeah, because if he felt like he didn't have to actually swallow it he was okay with it Yeah, but if we were like no you have to swallow it. He wouldn't do it It's to the point that he would to the point that he would throw up. Yeah, I'm like this is dumb This does not have to be a battle like it's it's been quite we've tried so many things we we haven't tried that 26:12 He'll have his drink that he can have. So he's gotten real good about just taking his drink. Like I said, we're making progress, but it's been such a journey. Well, if you can handle letting him have that choice. I know. That's a good idea. 26:35 being able to get it out of his face the minute he realizes that this is really not for him. It might make him less afraid and it sounds like it's a fear thing. it really is. And like I said, it's just been so hard to watch. never thought, because neither my husband or I are picky eaters at all. And I was like, our kids won't have any problems with that. But. Uh-huh. That's not how it always works. Same as last words. Has he had a chance to try pesto yet? 27:04 hasn't and I've made it. I need to try it this year because our basil looks so great right now. So I need to pick some and try it. But we'll yeah, I need to we'll try some basil pesto. That's a good idea. We'll have to try some of that. That's one of those pasta dishes that you have like once in a great while. And because it's such an unusual taste, it's really good. 27:31 like once every six months, you wouldn't want to it every day. That's a great idea. He's so funny with pastas because he likes spaghetti. We're really trying to get through like pasta in different shapes. It's the same thing in just different shapes, but he hasn't gotten past like he'll eat spaghetti, but he won't eat bow type like any other shape. It's just spaghetti. Like that's the only shape he'll eat. So we'll have to try that. 28:00 pesto with just the spaghetti. I'm going to tell you a secret. I'm 55 years old and I don't like the thick spaghetti. I like the angel hair spaghetti better. So funny. So I mean, I'll eat thick spaghetti, I don't love it. I really like the angel hair and part of it is because it cooks quickly, but it's also just a lighter feeling in your stomach when you eat it. That's true. So 28:28 And I'm so thankful that I get to talk to people on the podcast about their kids because I have a granddaughter, she's 12, and she lives in Nebraska and I don't get to see her very often. And my son grew up with all my tricks. So I don't really need to teach him any of the secrets that I tried on them because he knows them. So it's always nice when I get to share something. I love learning. I always am trying just any tricks. just, mean... 28:57 all the tips and tricks. So that's awesome. feel like I'm the fairy grandmother to a bunch of kids I've never met. It's perfect. I love it. It's kind of great. It's kind of great because I don't have to change diapers and I don't have to cook for the kids, but I can at least help the parents. It's kind of a win-win right there. I really do love it. I'm kind of poking fun, but it's always nice when something I learn can help somebody else. That's great. 29:26 All right, Brittany, I didn't realize we're going to get into a food discussion. I know it's It's perfect. It's totally fine because it's about produce and it's about making things. So we're on track. Where can people find you? I'm on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. We're trying to get a website put together. but yeah, right now I'm on those social medias and yeah. Alrighty. 29:56 And I meant to ask 15 minutes ago when you're talking about the flowers, I scrolled down into your Facebook feed a little bit, but I don't remember seeing pictures of your flowers. Do you have pictures of your flowers? Yeah, there should be pictures on the, I know we posted some of like the zinnias and some of the bouquets on that should be on that Facebook and Instagram page. So people, people want to see your flowers. can just go find them. Okay. Cool. All right. 30:24 fantastic as always people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com and that's probably going to be changing by next week because I'm trying to revamp our tinyhomestead.com website so I don't have to have two separate ones. So for now you can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com but starting a week from now it might just be a tinyhomestead.com. We'll see how much I get done. Thank you so much for your time Brittany I really appreciate it. for having me. 30:54 Have a great day. You too. Bye.
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| Apocalypse Acres | 04 Aug 2025 | 00:35:30 | |
Today I'm talking with Jess at Apocalypse Acres.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismarye 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jess at Apocalypse Acres in Florida, and you can hear the birds singing in the background. How gorgeous is that? Good morning, Jess. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. Thank you so much. How's the weather, Jess? Right now, it's beautiful. It's the perfect temperature to go outside and get stuff done, but that doesn't last very long. 00:27 probably have like another half an hour before it's almost unbearable to be outside. you're killing that half hour with me. I'm so sorry. Oh, no. That's okay. It's worth it. Okay, good. Um, I'm in Minnesota and it is cool and sunny and like a tiny little breeze happening. So that's kind of a welcome relief. Nice. We always have a breeze because we have, we have a big like 40 or 50 acre 00:54 pasture next door to us and it just happens to be that the wind is always blowing across that. So even when it's not really windy elsewhere, we always have a breeze. And so even when it's really hot, it still feels pretty good here. must be nice. It's been real sticky hot in Minnesota up until yesterday. Yesterday was gorgeous and today's looking to be pretty nice too. Okay. So why is it called Apocalypse Acres? Well, when I first moved here, 01:22 And I've been here for five years now. I was travel nursing up in Wisconsin actually, and I lost my travel nursing contract because of COVID. So when I moved in here, it was about two, not even two or three months after the COVID lockdown started and happened and all of that was going on. And it felt very like post-apocalyptic kind of at that point, or like things seemed really crazy. people still weren't going out in public and people were still really focusing on like trying to 01:52 try to homestead for a purpose of not, know, because the shelves were empty in the stores and things like that. So Apocalypse Acres just ended up kind of making sense. And the reason we chose that type of a name is because growing up, my grandparents had a 10 acre farm called Pickery Acres. And so we kind of just put a spin on that. Okay, um, on the whole COVID thing. 02:17 I was talking with a friend like six to eight months into it after lockdown started in March of 2020. I said that it was the quietest apocalypse ever. I had no idea the first apocalypse I experienced was going to be so quiet. In a good way. It was nice, wasn't it? Yes. And I've said this a few times on the podcast, but I'm going to say it again. 02:46 COVID was a horrible thing to have happen, but there are so many amazing things that came out of it. And I hear about them all the time from people on the podcast. Yeah, things have changed for sure. It was like a weird tipping point for everybody. Hold on one second. I'm so sorry. Alexa, stop. And I hear about things all the time and there's negative things too, like some stores and pharmacies and things like that not being open 24 hours and not planning to ever open 24 hours again. 03:16 Um, but I think that there are quite a few positives too, that kind of outweigh, you know, some of those negatives. Yeah, it was the craziest time and I'm glad that we're mostly through it. I actually had COVID diagnosed for the first time in January of this year. That was not fun. And, uh, I slept like 18 hours a day for four days in a row, and then I was fine. So I got the very pale version of COVID. 03:45 Yeah, for sure. I had the bad one, but then I had it most more recently too. And I also had it when I was pregnant, which was really scary. Oh, not good. Yeah, but back to kind of the apocalypse thing, I think. We, my wife and I, we go to Wasteland Weekend, which is out in California every year or every other year as we can. And it's a five day it's kind of like Burning Man, but it's post apocalyptic. 04:13 Costumes are required. It's fully immersive. No one's really on their phones and you go camp, primitive camping in the desert with like 1500 other people and it's fully like Mad Max, Furiosa, like, you know, a dystopian society. And so we want our farm to be kind of like that. So we've actually filmed a couple of movies here on our property and we've, we actually won an award for like set design and production for a movie that we filmed here called Hinders. 04:44 That is so fun. You're very talented. And I had no idea that you did that. That's amazing. I would love to talk about filmmaking. And if I was a filmmaking podcast that I would have you back, but I'm not. what, so what do you do at your homestead? Well, our main crop, I guess, is super hot peppers. So we grow super hot peppers, and then we make hot pepper jelly. And then we make spicy fruit 05:13 jelly also. like peach Carolina Reaper, we have one called the hateful eight, which is eight different super hot like Carolina Reaper style, like super high Scoville rating, I have to cook it with a respirator on or I'll have an asthma attack, kind of super hot peppers. So we grow those, we have a bunch of them, we have a growing clientele that likes to come get them from us. But we also have like a co-op in town that wants to carry them as well. 05:42 And so we're trying to branch out into some more like mid-level heat that are tolerable for most people because the super hots are tolerable for like 1 % of people. And then we also have chickens for eggs and we're growing some other vegetables and things like that too. And then we also have some rescue animals like our wild boar who we've had for almost five years now, but we got him when he was about two days old. So we're just, we kind of have our hands in. 06:11 a few different pots over here, but the peppers is the main thing. Okay. Regarding the hot peppers, my son would love your jellies. I would die if I ate them because hot peppers make my throat close up and I can't breathe. Yes, I have asthma and they really bother me too. I can eat up to a certain spice level, but the super hots, I don't even taste my jelly. I have people that do that for me. 06:41 Yeah. Yeah, a couple of years ago, I was eating something with just fairly mild jalapenos in it. And I felt really weird, like my lips got cold and then they went numb. And then I felt like I couldn't breathe and I had no idea what was going on. So I just kind of put my head down, tried to breathe and I was fine. I came out of it. And then a week later, my son had made something I didn't know, but he had put, um, 07:11 ancho pepper powder in it and same reaction and I was like oh my god I've developed anaphylactic shock reaction to hot peppers this is not great and so I went about a year and a half without eating even barbecue sauce because I didn't know what was gonna cause it to happen again and about six months ago I tried barbecue sauce again and I could eat it and I was fine so I think I may be 07:39 getting through whatever that is. But it is really disconcerting as an adult to find out that, I now have another thing on the list I cannot eat or I will die. Yeah, that's really scary, especially like you said, having something that you don't even know has that in there or not even knowing for sure what it even is. I mean, it could be like the actual capsaicin oil, which would be interesting, but I've not ever heard of that happening. That's so, so weird. 08:07 Yeah, I was not impressed. And I remember the second time it happened, my husband was sitting across from me and I was like, I feel like I can't breathe. And he's like, you're talking. And I said, yeah, but I feel like I'm hitching in my chest. And he was like, stop eating that right now. And I did. And he said, put your head down like you did before. And I did. And he said, just try to breathe in as much as you can. And then. 08:36 blow it out and I was like, okay. And that one scared the hell out of me because I actually for a moment or two could not get my breath back in and I was like, okay, is this really how I'm going to go out? Wow. Yeah, that's something I'll have to ask around and see if anyone else has that experience with. Yeah. And I've had weird things happen all my life like that after my second child was born. 09:04 I developed an allergy to strawberries of all things. Could not eat strawberries for like two years. That stinks. So I don't know what is with me, but I have very strange biological makeup apparently. Yeah, that's frustrating. It's very frustrating and thank God I'm not allergic to dogs or cats because that would be the saddest thing ever and I am not. So if I have to be allergic to food, there are workarounds, but I can't imagine not having my dog. 09:32 Yeah. Okay, sorry. didn't mean to make that all about me, but yeah, allergies can come on even when you're 53, which is what I was when the pepper one happened. So do you sell your jellies? Is that what you said? Yeah. So we used to do a lot of farmers markets in the area. And for a while I was doing like contract nursing because I'm a full-time hospice nurse. 10:00 And so for a while I was doing contract nursing and working part time and then doing a lot of farmers markets and things like that. And it was going really well. Um, and I don't want to like be depressing or anything like that, but about a year and a half after moving into onto apocalypse acres, my husband died. Um, he was 34. was 37 at the time and he actually took his own life. So that kind of threw a wrench in things in a really big way for me. 10:29 because we've rented this place for five years. And so the plan was to move on to it during COVID and buy it as quickly as possible and tear down the house that was on here and build a new one. Well, we got the appraisal on this place probably three weeks before he died. And then after that, I was like, oh my gosh, I don't even know what to do anymore. So him and I made a lot of the pepper jelly together and recipes and hot sauces and things like that. And then I just had to take a break after he died. 10:58 Understandably. Um, so within the last year and a half or so, I've been trying to get back into it, but it's kind of slow going. So we started out with spicy honey, which is another thing that we do with the peppers. Um, and, but I started working full time, so I don't have as much time now. I wish I did. Um, yes. And so on to a better topic. Um, I'm really trying to kind of. 11:27 ramp up our pepper production and get back to making pepper jelly because it really did really well. We had an Etsy page, we sold a lot online, we shipped a lot out, but then we kind of lost our momentum when that happened. Well, yes, I'm sure that that was hell for you to go through and I am so sorry for your loss. And honestly, I hate that statement. I like the Jewish blessing of may his memory be a blessing. Yeah. 11:56 I like that. So yeah, I really like that one and I'm not even Jewish, but I heard it and I was like, that's beautiful. I like that one much better. Um, okay. So I'm trying to think of things. You're in Florida and I know you guys have alligators or crocodiles. One of them. We have alligators. Yes. And we have water on our property. So we have a creek that runs through our property pretty much right through the very center of it. And then at the front of our property, we have like a little retention pond area that looks like a green swamp. 12:26 Um, we, our property is actually in the green swamp, which is the main Florida aquifer that free that feeds the Everglades. So the aquifer is here. And then when the water comes out here, it flows south to south Florida and fills up the Everglades. So we live in that swamp. And so we've had some crazy stuff happen. Um, like during hurricane Milton, our property flooded somewhat bad. Like when we got home, we couldn't get up to the house. We had to kayak. 12:53 the animals that we had taken with us on the kayak back to the house. And there was fish swimming in our yard. But thankfully the part of our property with our house on it and all of our animals stayed dry, it's up by the creek that floods a little bit. But yeah, there's alligators and otters and a lot of snakes. We haven't seen too many venomous ones, but we've seen coral snakes and water moccasins. But the alligators are a very regular occurrence. 13:23 So do you just get used to having them around? Because if I had an alligator go in my yard, I would freak out. Well, I love it. So prior to this and prior to nursing, I was actually a vet tech and a zookeeper. So I used to work at Gatorland in Orlando as a zookeeper and I learned how to wrestle alligators and care for venomous snakes. so being out here in the country where that stuff literally lives on my property is like the coolest thing in the world to me. 13:54 And so I get like the best of all of these worlds, like all kind of wrapped into one. And I know I mentioned earlier that we rented this place for five years, but it was a five year struggle to buy it. So we actually just closed on it in June and it is now ours and we don't have to go anywhere. Congratulations. I know how that feels. Um, we're coming up, well, July 31st, five years ago, we closed on our place that we live at now. And I actually posted about it on Facebook. 14:24 because it was a big deal. We worked and saved and scrimped and planned and manifested for like 15 years to finally find our place. And we've been here for five years and we love it. So I understand how you feel. Yeah, it was really, really hard. We literally, it took us a year from the time that we first got our pre-approval till the time that we closed. It took us 11 months. 14:49 And it was the biggest nightmare. was so scary. And we thought for most of that time that we were going to have to leave and try to figure out how to take our whole homestead with us when there is nothing else available here to rent or buy. Like it's just, it's not out there. This is the perfect spot. I'm like, I want to spend the rest of my life on this land. I do not want to sell it. So I mean, buy it. I don't want to leave. I don't want to go. I want to stay here. And so we ended up being able to finally make it happen. 15:18 Two years ago, I married my wife and she so my husband died by suicide and her partner died by suicide and her and I have known each other for like 12 years. So one thing led to the other and things have been perfect since and now we have a 16 month old son and our little family because I have a 16 year old from before. yeah, so everything's good and now we own this and we don't have to go anywhere. you know, 15:47 Gosh, it's been quite the adventure getting here. I am sending you the biggest hug from Minnesota to Florida. Thank you so much. So you said, did you grow up in Wisconsin? Yeah. Yep. I'm Ojibwa. And so I grew up in Wisconsin, but my family all lives on an Indian reservation in Northern Minnesota, actually, in Duluth. OK. OK, actually. 16:13 So my sister and my mom just moved there last week and I'm kind of jealous because I wish I was up there a little bit, but only at this time of year when it's nice because I don't want to go back to the sun. So I to the snow. So I moved to Florida when I was like 19 or 20 and I just never looked back. I love it. The hot, I love the tropical. I love the snakes and gators and the fact that there's lizards and tree frogs everywhere. I think all that's great. 16:39 You've ended up exactly where you were meant to be. I'm so excited for you. The whole alligator and snakes thing. Do you lose your chickens to the alligators or do you have them fairly well locked up so they don't have any chance to get hurt? The creek is probably a hundred yards from the animals. And so my water buffalo goes and swims in the creek, but the gators are smaller than him, so they don't bother him. 17:07 and they don't come up by the chickens, thankfully. We do have a bobcat here and there once in a while, so we do have to be really careful about the chickens, but I've never ever lost a chicken to a gator or a snake. But I do have snakes that go in my coops because, and they eat the eggs once in a while, and I just call it my egg tax because they keep the rodents away. So we don't have any rats, we don't have any mice, but we have snakes. So that's totally fine with me, it's just not fine with most people. 17:37 Mm-hmm. Well, I'm kind of impressed because we have, well, for the first time ever in five years, we had a mama raccoon with three babies show up a couple weeks ago. they ate four of our chickens. Raccoons are terrible. Raccoons. Chickens, yeah. They're brutal. So raccoons ate our chickens, but you have not lost a chicken to an alligator. So how dumb is that? Well, we did just lose a chicken and a duck to a raccoon not long ago, which 18:07 was really irritating, but it happens. Yeah, I had heard of it happening, but I didn't believe it. Another crazy thing was that we have silky chickens and silkies are just really known for being dumb. chickens are dumb in general, but silky chickens are even dumber and they were free ranging. And now we can't let our silky's free range anymore because the vultures were picking them off. And I didn't know vultures ever ate live prey. I thought they just ate dead stuff. 18:37 No, I think they actually fall under raptor definition. think I didn't know that until they ate a couple of our silkies and I was like, where are our silkies going? And then my daughter caught the vulture actually sitting right over by the coops, like waiting for them to come out. So that was a surprise. But the chickens are all much safer now. Now that we know. Good. We have we have ospreys we have 19:07 bald eagles, have hawks, we have turkey vultures. I don't think we have just regular old vultures. We have turkey vultures here. And we had a litter of like seven barn kittens born a couple summers ago. And then there were five and then there were four and we couldn't find these kittens. And we think that probably one of the raptors picked them off because they were little and they had just started coming out of the barn. Oh, that's so bad. 19:38 Yeah, so raptors will go after the most, I don't know, convenient, easiest food source that's in front of them. Yeah, and silkies can't see above them. So they just don't have many survival mechanisms. And so now they stay in their run and coop all the time. Yeah. And are silkies the ones that have the feathers on their legs? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we don't have those fancy ones. We just have the ISA brown. 20:07 laying hens. Oh, they're good layers though. They are. They're really good layers. My son went out and got the eggs yesterday and he came in and he was like, one of our chickens laid a golf ball and the egg looked completely round. He says, he says, how does this happen? I said, I don't know. Mother nature is crazy. I don't know everything. Well, that's what keeps it interesting. Sure does. Um, so is your 16 year old part of the homestead? Yeah, she, uh, 20:37 chose to take care of all the chickens as her main chore. So I was talking to someone earlier this morning and they're like, yeah, our teenagers like to try to make the chickens like them more. And that's what she does. She'll buy them treats with her own money and she'll go sit in and take a chair in the run with the chickens and just sit in there with them and let them eat out of her hand. She loves the pig. He's like 450 pounds, wild boar, big old tusks. And she goes and plays with him and you know, 21:05 She was in his mud puddle with him the other day. I'm not even joking. There's like a whole photo shoot of it. But yeah, she likes it here most of the time. 21:17 Okay, cool. Um, I always ask because kids aren't necessarily as into it as their parents are. And we didn't get our place until my youngest was in 19, I think. And so, um, the older three never have lived here on the property with us and they've come to visit and they're like, it's really pretty. And my 21:44 my, I always stumble over this. He's my stepson, but he might as well be my son. He and his wife just moved to Nebraska two winters ago and they now have their own one acre place that they're quote unquote homesteading. And this is the first summer he's been able to start a big garden and he's so tickled with it. That's great. And then you guys have more stuff in common. you, do you talk more or talk about it? 22:10 I swear he calls his dad like two or three times a day. gosh. love that. That's great though. Yeah. And I, it's funny because I will, I will interject into the conversation after I ask if I can hijack it for a minute because he's on speaker. Oh my gosh. And, they're like, yeah. And I ask him questions or I tell him something about here and he's like, that's so cool, mom, blah, blah. And then I'm like, okay, I'm out. Keep going. And they will talk for an hour and a half at a shop. 22:38 Oh my gosh, that's awesome for them. Yup, and considering that that particular child of the four was difficult, it's the nicest word I can use, he had some things going on and it made him more difficult and he knows that. He came to me and apologized when he was an adult because he was kind of a pain in the butt. I hope my daughter does someday. I'm holding a pope. 23:06 Yeah, but it just, made it hard to be close back then in teenage years. And so I'm so thrilled that my husband and his son have this really tight, really close relationship. It's so good for them. I love it. So they're bonding now more than they did then, but hey, better late than never. Oh, absolutely. If you can bond with your parents at any point in your life before they're gone, do it. It's really important. Um, 23:35 Okay, so what's the nearest big city in Florida near you? Oh, Orlando. We're actually, we're really in a really nice location. So Tampa is almost exactly an hour and Orlando is 45 minutes. So we're really centrally located to go to either of those places. And then Gainesville is about an hour north of us. So I love where we live. We're in Orlando pretty regularly and we're in Tampa pretty regularly. Okay, awesome. So you're not 24:05 It's not like you're off-grid stranded in the middle of nowhere. And for the people who enjoy that lifestyle, good. But I worry a little bit about people who are way, way out because if something happens, if that's bad, it's going to go real bad. That's true. I'm grateful that we're not. My wife is just born and raised in the city in Orlando, so I don't know that she could handle that. This was a perfect compromise. 24:33 So I've lived here for five years, but she moved in two years ago just after we got married. And it's been like a whole culture shock for her, but she loves it. And most of the chickens are actually hers. But yeah, so we're, have like a gas station about two mile, two and a half miles away. So we're not out out, but it really feels like it where we are. Like from our house, we can barely see another house. 24:59 Which is nice because we only have five acres so we don't have another property right next to us. Yeah, we can only see one house from our property, but our nearest neighbor is actually a quarter mile away. The reason we can't see more than one house is we're surrounded by a 10 foot tall cornfield right now. Oh my gosh. That's cool. Yeah. And it's funny because the corn has never grown this tall in the five years that we've been here and they just started planting corn three years. It was alfalfa. 25:28 And the corn has done exceedingly well this year in this field. And I wonder if they tried a new variety because this is craziness. My husband was over by the apple trees and that corn is a good three feet taller than he is and he's five eight. That's nuts. Cause I grew up next to corn fields too. We don't have corn down here. It's really weird. 25:54 Having grown up in I think it's weird. It's too hot. I've tried planting corn and it just shrivels up and dies every time I try, no matter what I do to it. I was gonna guess it's too wet, but yeah, the heat makes sense, because it doesn't really know. Yeah. hot heat, yeah. And when I've tried growing corn in the past, it's actually gotten dry, just because even though it's wet, 26:16 It's so hot during the day and then it'll downpour in the afternoon. But like the heat during the day and the beating sun just like shrivels everything up. All of our tomatoes died this year and I was talking to some other farmers in the area and they're like, no one has tomatoes. I don't know why it was just too hot, too dry for too long. I wish you live closer because I could give you tomatoes every day until mid September at this point. It's my husband planted over two months. 26:43 My husband planted over 250 tomato plants this year. That is insane. Drowning in We're going to be swimming in them here in about a week and a half. we have people who want to buy pounds and pounds for canning. So it's all going to work out. But last year our tomatoes did terribly because of the weather here in the Midwest. It's a crab shoot. Yeah. It's such a weird gamble. Yeah, it really is. 27:15 But either way, it's a worthy gamble because I am so excited that I get to have my first batch of bruschetta probably tomorrow. Nice. Yeah, that's exciting. With our own basil and our own tomatoes, and that is always the best kind. Yeah, for sure. I don't have basil. I'm not really great at growing herbs, but I know people who are, so that's fine. 27:41 We have a really nice community set up here with people that try to barter as much as possible. And we're trying to intentionally just build community, the whole apocalypse acres thing. Like, I do think that in our lifetime, the crap is going to hit the fan and things are going to get crazier. And so I have people that actually have directions to our house printed out in case they can't use their GPS that are planning to come here if they have to. you know, we're not 28:09 preppers by any means, but the option's always there. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with being a prepper. I, I have such a hard time with this because preppers are people who prepare and that can mean preparing for a snowstorm in the middle of winter in Minnesota and not being able to get out your driveway for a week, or it can mean going much, much further and prepping for an apocalypse. 28:39 And I think that everyone has to come to their own definition and their own way of prepping. So it's okay if you're a prepper. Jess, it's fine. Be a prepper. I love it. That's a good way to put it. We don't let it control our lives. But obviously we have hurricanes here and the last hurricane last October, Milton, hit us really hard. We're still cleaning up from it. 29:08 So we know what it's like to not be able to even get to our property because the power lines were laying over the front of it like we couldn't get home at all. So yeah, there's definitely a little bit of what if we know we need to be able to survive for about a week on our own out here with no power and no water because our well pump doesn't work when the power is off. 29:28 Yes, my daughter lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. Oh, and when the hurricanes, yeah, when the hurricanes came through last summer, last summer, right? Last fall. Last fall. Yeah. The second one or the first one, she called me and she was like, so just so you know, we're probably going to get hit by the hurricane. And I was like, yes, are you ready? And she's like, oh yeah, it'll be fine. And I said, 29:57 I would say her name but she doesn't like it when I do that. I said, daughter of mine, I said, you were raised in Minnesota with blizzards and ice storms and terrible thunderstorms. I said, what do you think maybe you should be doing right now? And she said, probably going to the grocery store and stocking up on things that we can cook without heat or without power. And I said, yes. And she said, and probably getting some bottled water in the house. And I said, yes. 30:26 And she said, probably some other stuff too. said, yes. Do you want to go do that? She was like, yes, I will talk to the husband right now. We'll go stock up. said, that would be good. Make your mother's heart stop racing. Please go do the things you know you're supposed to do in case of emergency. And she was like, I will. I said, OK. And she's 35, Jess. She knows this. Oh, yeah. But you don't want to have to go to the store. You know it's when you guys are getting a blizzard. You don't want to have to go to the store when everyone else is panic buying everything too. It's awful. 30:56 Yeah, and the worst experience I've ever had with that, and I've told this story too, but whatever. they did the, I swear it was March 30th of 2020 that our governor said, hey, really don't go anywhere if you don't have to. And if you do wear a mask and wash your hands and blah, blah, blah. And we shop every other weekend and stock up because it's Minnesota. You don't know what's gonna happen with the weather and you don't know if you're gonna be stuck in your house for a week. 31:25 And so we were very used to that and we went to Sam's Club and I'm telling you the panic and the anxiety all through people's bodies at that store that day. It was just, I don't even have a word. It was unnerving. That's the closest I can get. And you could hear people talking amongst themselves, you know, their shopping groups saying, what do we do? What do we buy? 31:54 if we're going to not be able to be shopping the way we usually do. And I looked at my husband and I said, I think we should probably just get our stuff and get out of here. And he said, he said, me too. We got out to the car, looked at each other and I was like, we are one step away from people rioting. This is really scary. And it didn't happen, but people were so upset and didn't know what to do with themselves. It was awful. 32:24 Yeah, I think it was a really eye opening moment to realize how precariously our society in the United States is balanced. And how one thing, even if it's not a big thing, could throw everything off to the point where people do start wiring or doing who knows whatever else. So it was eye opening for us. And so that's, yeah, kind of how this all started. Yeah, and there's 32:51 Okay, I want to reiterate there's nothing wrong with being prepared for things that you can't see coming. And there are things coming that we don't know about. That's how the world works. And if you're smart in this day and age, you will know your local growers and producers and be able to buy within a five to 10 mile radius of yourself. If the supply chain goes down, that's those are the things that I really want to hammer on for today. Yeah, that's a really 33:21 concise way to kind of put it and so we had yesterday we had a farmer over at our house who's starting a community exchange in a CSA who wants us to have our peppers and things in the CSA and pepper jelly. Who is trying to do that within five to 10 miles I think is pretty close to his radius that he wants to do. Just starting more community and being more intentional about actually seeing people in person and not just interacting on social media. 33:51 because we've gotten really complacent. 33:56 Yeah, absolutely. So where can people find you Jess online? Yeah, we're doing mostly everything right now on Facebook. So apocalypse acres on Facebook, our logo is a little calf in a gas mask. And we also have a TikTok account which went crazy viral with a spider video that I hope I never have to see again because I've seen it like 200,000 times it's been viewed by like 18 million people and it's been shown on like 34:24 other podcasts and things and I'm so sick of hearing it. But our TikTok, if you search Apocalypse Acres on TikTok, we're on there too. We also have an Instagram, but we don't use that quite as much. And we're trying to figure out like where best to put our pepper jelly online because Etsy is not the greatest spot for something like that. So we're figuring it out, but it'll be on one of those places. Oh, awesome. So you'll be able to ship it. Awesome. Great. 34:51 All right, as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. thank you for taking the time to talk with me this morning. And I, you work nights, so I was very excited that you said yes. Yes, it was perfect. I drank lots of caffeine and I'm still up. actually made bread after I finished working at eight o'clock this morning. So I'm about to go in and have some fresh bread that's hot, still out of the oven. And it was a pleasure and I really appreciate you asking me. This is really fun. 35:21 All right, have a great sleep, Jess. Enjoy your sleep today. Thank you so much. Have a good day. All right, bye. Bye-bye.
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| Wildflower & Bone Co. | 01 Aug 2025 | 00:28:41 | |
Today I'm talking with Lauren at Wildflower & Bone Company.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismarye 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Lauren at Wildflower and Bone Company in Oklahoma. Is that right, Lauren? Yes, it is. Okay. Good afternoon, Lauren. How are you? I am great. How are you? I'm good. What's the weather like there? We are actually extremely hot right now. think we've... 00:30 for the last five days. 00:34 I am so sorry to hear that. Today is the first day in probably five days that it hasn't been unbearably muggy in Minnesota. Oh my. So I'm taking a big deep breath of much less wet air today. Yes. Yes. We, my boys want to go outside all the time and I hate having to tell them not right now. Yeah. Unfortunately tomorrow we're going to be under a, a wildfire smoke. 01:04 thing again from the Canada fires. Oh no. Yup. So you you can't win for losing, but I guess you take the gifts you're given. If that's a gift, yes. Well, today is. Today is really beautiful and not hot. And I don't have to have the AC running in my room right now where I'm recording. And that's a good thing because otherwise you would just hear the hum from the air conditioner. 01:34 Right now our air conditioner cannot keep up. Yeah, we had a day like that a couple weeks ago where it was set for 72 and the house got to 78. Yep. It's ridiculous. I think I have it at 70 right now and it's 75. Yeah. I'm not gonna lie. I love spring and I love fall. And if we could just stay, you know, have six months of spring and six months of fall, I would be thrilled. 02:04 I agree with that. So I'm, I'm very much looking forward to September. I just have to get through August to get there. That's all. Yes. Okay. So you're a crafter. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Okay. So I am 29 years old. Um, I taught elementary school for about six years, um, resigned. And then I'm currently going back to school. 02:32 to be a speech pathologist. So about 10 years ago, I picked up my first skull. We own a ranch or partial owners of a ranch. And I painted one and then just put it to the side. probably five years ago, I had someone reach out to me asking me to paint something for a silent auction. 03:00 for a cancer patient. And so for the last five years, I've done that. And then I had so many people reach out after this last silent auction that I decided, let's go out and make it a business. So I'm going to school full time, a stay at home mom of two and starting a business. an artist who's starting a business. Yes. Very nice. 03:30 I have a quick question about your speech pathologist thing. a speech pathologist someone who does speech therapy with people or what did you do or what do you do? Yes, it is for speech therapy. Okay. And is it, I don't know how to ask the right questions about this. Is it for people who have hearing loss? Is it for kids that have tongue ties? How does it work? 03:58 It kind depends on the area you specialize in. Generally, a speech pathologist will work with all sorts of patients. So elderly with hearing loss, children who are born deaf, tongue ties are very common. 04:17 The audiologist side, which is a whole nother degree, are the ones who really work on the hearing. A speech pathologist basically makes it just so they can communicate in everyday life, whether that be AAC, which is assistive devices, or teaching them how to speak. 04:45 Okay, well, as someone who started a podcast almost two years ago and is highly entertained by the way that people talk and how they pronounce things, the minute you said speech pathologists, I was like, ooh, what an interesting job. Okay. So, um, a podcast that's only audio is terrible for, um, talking with crafters because crafters want to show 05:14 the things that they make. But if people would like to see your work, they can go to your Facebook page and I would highly recommend that because the skulls that you paint are beautiful. Oh, thank you very much. I do have an Instagram as well, but it's also wildflowerandboneco. I do post there quite a bit as well. Yeah, the photos that you have posted on both Facebook and Instagram are just stunning. 05:44 I saw the name of your business on Facebook, that's how I found you. And I was like, wow, Flora and Bone, what's that? And I scrolled down and I was like, oh my God, I wanna talk to her. Okay, so what, like I'm terrible about these crafter interviews because I'm not an artist. I used to draw, I used to paint when I was a kid, but I haven't done it in forever. 06:13 What kind of designs do you do? I will honestly do absolutely anything. One of my favorite pieces that I've ever done was for a friend's late grandfather. And it was one of his pictures that I pasted onto an Aztec skull. I have created an Oklahoma State University. I just finished up with 06:42 an OU one. I do a lot of floral, pretty much anything. 06:50 Okay, um, I, when I saw them, I thought that a day of the dead, um, steer skull would be really cool. Cool. 07:03 That would be really cool. Because they're so colorful. Yeah. And it is the skull of a dead seer. So mean, Day of the Dead would be appropriate. Yes. So maybe you'll get a request for that sometime. I would be happy to. Have you always had a talent for painting? 07:26 Painting started in college. I've drawn since I was really little. have an aunt who is insanely talented and she actually got me into it. So I've drawn for a very long time. And then I started painting in college for fun. 07:51 Okay. Um, I have a little tiny aside story I would like to share with you. My dad used to draw and he used to do charcoal drawings. Oh my gosh. And he's, I don't think he's done it in years. He's 82 tomorrow and he did this absolutely gorgeous drawing of a hawk and 08:16 You know what a hawk looks like. There's all the gradations in their feathers of different colors, the beige and the brown and the black. Yes. And he did it in charcoal. And I swear to you, your brain would tell you that it was all the gradations of color, even though it was only charcoal. That is amazing. Yeah. My dad is so talented. It is ridiculous. It's like when God created him, when his mom and dad 08:45 managed to conceive him, God said, let's give him every good thing possible. Oh, I love that. He sings, he plays guitar, he's an artist, he used to tie fishing flies and they were beautiful. I mean, this man has had more artistic outlets than probably anybody I know and never really went anywhere with them. He just did them because he loved them. Oh my gosh. 09:14 Yeah. And his job was entirely technical. He was a biomedical technician, which is someone who basically works on the machines that keep people alive at the hospital. Yes. That was his job. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So, um, engineering and artistry go hand in hand in the brain. And so I feel like if you have any artistic talent, you're probably good at engineering. And if you are good at engineering, you probably have artistic talent. 09:44 could see that. I've noticed it with a lot of people in my life. I had a friend who was a lawyer and lawyering is not engineering, but it is word engineering. And he played guitar beautifully. I have another friend who used to work for Ford Motor Company. Again, fantastic guitarist. Oh, wow. So yeah, there's something in the wiring of the brain. 10:12 where those two things go hand in hand a lot of the time. It sounds like there's some sort of connection there. Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't, I can't say scientifically that it's there, but in my lived experience, it's something that I've really noticed. 10:31 So, but anyway, I think that artistry and crafting are just beautiful things to be blessed with. Had I had the chance to be taught by someone in art beyond high school, I think that I might have pursued that a lot more. I'm one of those people who can draw anything once. 10:59 But if I try to do it again, I can't do it again. But there's a thing for that. You're one of the kinds. Mm-hmm. Yep. So instead, I started a podcast because it's a lot easier and a lot less expensive. 11:17 It does sound like a fun job though. It is fun. It's really fun. I really love talking with you guys. Okay. So I don't want to ask a rude question and I always feel like I'm being rude when I ask certain things. Does this business support itself or are you still in the red? I am currently still in the red, which this 11:46 didn't fully take off until I'd say March around there. okay. So it's fairly new. I'm still very new. And I made a big purchase on the Longhorns, which I'm still trying to recover from. 12:09 Yeah, um, again, I don't want to ask a rude question, but what does one longhorn skull cost you? They range. So if I were to go buy a single skull today, depending on their horn length, so their tip to tip length, you're looking anywhere between five and a thousand dollars. Wow. I purchased nine of them. 12:40 So I, and I cheat myself for sure on the price of my Longhorns specifically. So right now I just finished up this OU custom and it is, I believe it was 60 inches tip to tip and it is $600. Wow. Okay. And, and for anybody who's bad at math, 60 inches is five feet. 13:08 It's my longest that I own right now is 81 inches tip to tip. Wow. Wow. Are they heavy? They are very heavy. So we actually take. OK, so on skulls, the horns you see on the outside are called horn caps, so those are just a protective cover inside their horn bone. 13:37 is generally as long, maybe a few inches shy of their horn cap. So to cut out weight, we do cut their horn cores just to make them a little bit lighter. And then you have the sanding and polishing, which on a long horn set takes somewhere between four and five hours just to get them pretty. 14:07 Uh huh. And then the painting time and... 14:13 There's a lot that goes into it. Well, yes, it wouldn't be called artistry if it was easy. I am blessed with a husband who does help me a lot. He's actually the one that does the horns. 14:30 He's been the biggest help. That's a good one. Keep him. Yes. Okay. I had a thought and oh, if someone had, okay, I grew up with hunters. Both my parents hunt deer and I'm married to a hunter who hunts deer. And I have a kid who's the youngest who hunts deer. If someone had a deer skull, 14:55 with antlers that they wanted you to paint. Is that something that you would do? Yes, absolutely. So. So it's a commission kind of thing, right? I mean, they bring you they bring you the skull and they're like, I would love to have you do this. And then you quote them a price. Is that how it works? Yes. So I've done I've actually only done one deer and it was a floral piece. But it was the gentleman's own skull and he brought it to me. 15:26 and I think I had a three day turnaround on it. 15:32 Three days, that's all? Three days, yes. Wow. 15:37 Like how many hours a day of those three days did you do? Collectively, that one probably took me four to five hours. And I mean, I have a two and a four year old running around. So my work is very spread out. Uh huh. Yep. That's what happens when you have kids. But what a great outlet for you. Yes. 16:03 because I remember when I had a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 4.5-year-old, and a newborn, and I didn't really have an outlet. And my outlet was basically crawling into bed and trying to get to sleep and reading a book to drop off. Yep. That was what I had back then. They're all grown now, so I sleep a lot better. I can't say I'm not looking forward to those days. 16:28 Yes, and I'm going to tell you the same thing. I tell everyone who has little ones, enjoy every minute of it. I know it's really hard being in the trenches, but you'll never get this time back. just, just try even to suck up the not so great moments because you will miss them. four year old actually starts school in August and I can't say it doesn't make me hurt a little bit. Yeah, it's amazing how 16:57 fast it goes. So weird question, is the four-year-old curious about what you're doing when you're doing your work? Oh, yes. Will actually, he goes with me to, we call it skull hunting, and he'll go with me to go through our pastures and stuff. And honestly, he'll sit next to me with his little watercolor palette and paint alongside me. So. 17:24 He's definitely interested in the art side of things. I love that. That is so sweet. And obviously the reason I ask is because kids want to model what their parents do, what they see their parents doing. Yes. Good job, mama. He actually told me the other day, he's like, well, mom, you sell the skulls so I could paint the leg bones and the jaws. 17:55 And I said, you do what you want to do, Bubby. Bubby, I love it. Bubby. I miss my kids when they were little. Like, I'm glad I don't have to be up in the middle of the night for two hours keeping a seven month old entertained because he won't sleep. I don't miss that at all. But I miss the funny things that they say and they do. 18:20 He came up to me, I was painting horseshoes yesterday and he came up to me and he goes, oh mom, these are the best ones you've done yet. Cute. And he means every word of it. Oh yeah, he's told me that he doesn't like, there was a skull that I did. He's like, yeah, I don't like that one. Uh huh. I said, they're honest. it doesn't stay here, so. 18:47 Yeah, kids are so honest. It's like you want them to gain a filter, but before five years old, you're like, huh, maybe you don't need a filter right now. 18:59 Once they hit their teen years though, you know, it's good if they have a filter. Yeah. Yeah. I had to work on that a lot with myself and with my daughter. For some reason, we girls tend to think in words, many more words than boys do. Yes. And I think we have a harder time tamping them or, um, as a word I want. Honing them to the point where they're not quite so sharp. 19:29 I guess dulling them, actually. Dulling them so the words aren't so sharp. Yes. I was terrible. I had such a sharp tongue when I was a teenager. I should not have said half the things that came out of my face when I was 15 to 18. I tell my mom all the time how sorry I am. Oh, I do too. I do too. 19:55 There have been so many times that I have called her out of the blue and been like, I was thinking about this thing that I did when I was 16. I'm really sorry. And she's like, I have completely forgotten it. I don't remember it. Yes. Say, I think every kid says that at some point, but the first time my four year old told me that he hated me was like, so that's how that feels. And yeah, it called my mom and I was like, I'm so sorry. 20:24 Yeah, I had to explain to one of the kids that basically when you say you hate someone, it means that you wish that they weren't alive, that they had never been born. Yep. And they didn't understand what they were saying when they were saying it. And the minute I explained it that way, it never came out of their face again. I mean, you try that one. Right now he tells me that I'm not his best mommy anymore. Uh-huh. 20:52 Which is the equivalent of saying, I'm disappointed in you, mom. I'm like, that's fine. At least I'm doing something right. Yeah. Yep. Being a mom is the most wonderful, thankless job on the planet. Yes. And I loved every minute of it and I still do. And I probably will until the day that I die. So we're gluttons for punishment, I think sometimes. 21:19 But I love that he is interested in what you're doing and that he's trying to be like you, because you're setting a great example for him with your artistry. Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, and you're giving him as much of an outlet as you get out of it. Yes. And kids need something creative. They really, really do. Yes, they do. I feel like, well, just in teaching experience. 21:46 Kids don't have any imagination anymore. They've all been lost in the technology and. 21:56 They can't just sit and play anymore. 22:03 Yeah, and it's the same thing with the grownups too. Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, go ahead. 22:14 Go ahead Lauren. Oh, it's instant gratification. mean everything is at our fingertips now and we can't just be in a moment. Yeah, I mean my husband is the gardener here at the homestead and I am so thankful for the 100 foot by 150 foot garden that we have because otherwise he would be watching YouTube videos 24 hours a day. 22:43 And when I watch him work in the garden, I see his body relax. I see his shoulders come down. And he takes a moment when he's done doing whatever he's doing and stands back and just gazes over the garden. I'm so thankful for that because that's so good for him. Yes, it is. 23:10 And YouTube is great and podcasts are great and movies and books are great. Yes. But not if you are constantly bombarding your brain with it. I agree with that. And I don't want to bash technology. I am sitting here in front of my computer talking with you in Oklahoma and I'm in Minnesota. Technology is amazing. Yes. But I don't think that we should overdose on it. 23:39 100%. So, and I know what it's like to create. I used to crochet. I used to make scarves for my kids. I used to do cross stitch and cross stitch is so Zen. Just, that repetitive motion and seeing a picture come to life from string and a piece of cloth is amazing. Yes. I have a niece that is 24:08 into those sorts of things and she brings it to church with her even and just sitting there watching her it's amazing. and the thing that's funny about cross stitch is it's great until you screw it up. Oh. And then you have to pick all those stitches back out to get back to where you were and that is not fun. But nope. I don't have the patience believe it or not for 24:38 those kinds of things. Well, I didn't think I did either, but funnily enough cross stitch and crochet are very quiet activities and raising four kids, my house was always really noisy. Yes. So if I had an hour where I was still awake after they were all in bed, it was really nice to just sit down and do something quietly with my hands. Oh yeah. 25:08 And anybody who's listened to the podcast knows that I really do love peace and quiet because I also grew up with two siblings. And so anything that gives me a chance to breathe and have quiet is always welcome. I'm missing the days where I can go to bed with the quiet reading a book. Right now I'm until midnight or after on homework. So. 25:34 Yeah, and like I said, enjoy every second of it because it's gone so fast. I mean, I don't want to pound on that too hard, but I'm telling you, you will miss it. I swear to you. It feels like I blinked and my baby's turning five in a month and going to school. 25:53 Yeah, it's crazy how fast time goes. Now on the flip side of that, you have a beautiful outlet for a business. when your kids hit teenage years and they're off doing their own things, you will have a thriving already grown business, because you're growing your business while you're growing your kids. That is the hope. Oh, I think you will. 26:21 That is definitely the goal. Yeah, because I feel like art never goes out of style. mean, the style of the art may go out of style, but people always want something pretty or beautiful in their home. Yes. So your job probably won't go anywhere. And I don't think AI can paint a seer skull the way that you can. I... 26:50 Some of these AI images are getting little scary. 26:56 Yes, but it will never have the heart that you put into it. 27:02 Say the blisters from cleaning, cuts. Yeah, and AI doesn't feel. There's no love in AI. Yes. So people who bake things, there's a certain magic in really good baked goods, and it's the love that the baker puts into it. And the same thing with art. I agree with that, yes. 27:31 So you have set yourself up so that when your kids start leaving home, and I don't want to make you cry, you won't hurt quite as bad with the empty nest syndrome because you will have grown another baby that is staying with you and it's your art. 27:48 I like You know? Yes. So keep doing the thing and keep putting your beauty into the world because it's really important. Yes. And we are at 30 minutes. Lauren, where can people find you online? You can find me on Facebook at Wildflower and Bone Co. and Instagram also Wildflower and Bone Co. OK. Thank you so much for talking with me about how 28:17 you do this and why you do this because I was looking at the pictures and I'm like, how in hell does she do this? And now I have the secrets. Now I know how you do it. as always, people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com Lauren. hope you have a beautiful day. again, thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. All right. Bye.
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| Farm Fresh Wife | 31 Jul 2025 | 00:35:36 | |
Today I'm talking with Julia at Farm Fresh Wife.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismarye 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Julia at Farm Fresh Wife in Pennsylvania. Good afternoon, Julia. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What's the weather like in Pennsylvania? Is it hot? Oh my goodness. It is think around 90 some degrees, but the humidity has been around 95 to 99%. So it is 00:29 kind of gross. I'm so sorry. The good news is it has finally broken here in the upper Midwest in Minnesota. So maybe in a couple of days it'll be bearable in Pennsylvania. Uh, it says next week it's supposed to be around 70, like upper seventies and a little bit of rain hopefully tomorrow. So I'm looking forward to that. I think the whole freaking country is ready for it to not be so hot and sticky. 00:55 Yeah, my kids have been spending more time inside. They go from the pool to the house. That's about it. Yeah. And let's just start this off with congratulations on the newest baby. Well, thank you. 01:09 I saw pictures on your Facebook page and he is adorable. He is really good. I can't complain. All of my kids have been really good sleepers and babies and so far he's been really well behaved for us so I can't complain. You are so lucky. My youngest kid, I birthed three and I have a stepson. My youngest baby that I birthed did not sleep through the night solid until he hit kindergarten. 01:39 Oh my goodness. My little brother was like that. He was the worst baby. And of course, my room was next to my parents' room at the time and he would wake up like every half an hour. So I dreaded that when I wanted to have kids, but I can't say much now. Like I know I'm lucky. Yeah, you really are. And I mean, we're all lucky to be privileged to be moms, but if you get a baby that sleeps through the night, you are very blessed. Absolutely. Okay. So. 02:07 Tell me a little bit about yourself and Farm Fresh Wife. So I am 29. My husband and I have known each other for 13 years. We've been married for five years as of July 11th. We have a farm out in Jonestown, Pennsylvania. We raise beef cows. I have obviously the dairy goats. But actually before I started my business, I worked in healthcare. 02:38 After we had our second child, I was working full-time nights and I just kind of got tired of it. I came home one day and I said, I'm buying Dairy Goats. He goes, do you have a plan? I said, no, not really. I said, but I found two on Craigslist and I'm going to go pick them up next week. He said, okay. Then I started making soap in our garage and I watched a lot of YouTube. I talked to a lot of people. I even took a couple classes. 03:07 That's just kind of how it started. was really just on a whim that I was like, I want to do something for myself. I grew up in a family of business people. My mom used to have a garden center and she does gourd crafts and she's been doing that for 20 some odd years. And my dad has done construction and landscaping for a very long time since he was like 16. So having a business or like 03:36 being business oriented has always kind of been a part of me. I worked for both my parents growing up. So it just, kind of was more appealing to me than having to wake up every day and work for somebody else and leave my kids at home. And, you know, it was kind of like, it turned into like a vicious cycle where everyone was tired and, you know, they needed mom and mom wasn't home. I was working 12 hour shifts. 04:02 And then it was like, hi bye to my husband. You know, we weren't going to bed at the same time or we weren't waking up at the same time because we worked opposite shifts. So it was kind of just like taking a leap. know, at this point I'm three, almost four years into it. And now I'm referred to as like the goat soap lady and I love it. It like, tickles me pink that people actually know who I am and they come looking for me at craft shows and stuff now. And it's actually, it's helped. 04:31 you know, cover a couple extra costs here and there. And I get to be home with my kids and do extra stuff here on the farm too. That is amazing. And the entrepreneurial, that's a hard word to say for anybody, is strong in you because of your parents. And that's great. Um, when you said that you've been making soap for four years, almost everybody I talked to on the podcast makes some 04:59 form of skincare or soap in, you know, whether they do it to sell it or whether they just do it because they like to do it. I'm astounded that Procter and Gamble is still in business. Yeah, I, it was funny though, cause COVID was, you know, that was kind of the turning point. That's when my oldest son was born. And like I said, it was just, I worked in healthcare for a long time. I started in the nursing home, went to the hospital, but it just, really took a change. 05:28 and a turn for me because I did nursing classes in college and I was just about done. And then I decided I was like, just, I don't love it like I used to. And I needed something that kind of gave me that spark back. I mean, I love being around people. I love helping people. I actually had a gentleman come and find me at a show recently and I do make other products. I make tallow because we have the beef cows and that was kind of just a spin off of my other 05:58 stuff that I was already doing, but this gentleman came up to find me and he had a skin issue that developed from taking medication and he said he was like, I just love this stuff. He goes, buy every other week from the lady that sells your stuff at the market and I just had to meet you face to face. it just, it really made my day. And it's kind of funny because the things that have happened in the last year, mostly has been such a blessing. 06:28 I couldn't have asked it to happen any other way. I've met so many incredible people just through craft shows and even my neighbors. We have a couple people that work bees out at our farm and I've just become really good friends with him and his wife. And I use a lot of her beeswax and her honey and some of my products and she takes stuff to market for me because they go around and they sell all over the place. But I've grown to be really close with them. 06:57 And then funny story, she was actually at a market and unloading some of my stuff and she dropped a whole case of tallow that she had bought from me. And she had messaged me that night. She was like, I'm so sorry. Do you have like extra lids? Do you have extra labels? And I'm like, I'm really sorry. Like I can replace the labels and you know, but I can't really do anything else because I didn't have extra stuff that day. And about a week or two later, I got a very random message. 07:27 And this lady just so happens to live like three minutes down the road from me. But she messaged me and she said, Hey, she said, very random. She goes, but I found a jar of your tallow next to my van at church this past Sunday. And she said, if someone comes and tells you that they're missing one, please tell them I'll reimburse them because I've used all of it. And I'd love to buy another one. So, and she actually just opened a farm stand. she has. 07:52 you know, since then has reached out to me and she has put some of my soap in her farm stand. So it's just when I say that I couldn't have asked for a better outcome this past year, I truly, truly mean that. And I mean, I thank God every day that things have happened the way that they have because it, it really has changed the dynamic of my home. And with my kids, my kids get to see that I work really hard every day and I, try to put my best foot forward and it's. 08:21 a lot of it's for them, but a lot of it's also for me because it makes me feel good. So if mom feels good, everybody feels good, right? Yeah, happy wife, happy life is kind of the same thing. I'm really glad that you shared that story because the world is so stressed out right now and so chaotic and everything seems like it's upside down. So you just gave an illustration of the fact that there are still really good people in the world. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it 08:50 It baffles me a lot of the times, you know, when you have an off day that it seems that somebody manages to step in at sometimes the worst, but the best times. And again, like I, I just, can't stress it enough. mean, I, put a lot of my faith into God and I, truly believe that he's always listening. So a lot of these things could never have happened without that. Yep. Absolutely. Um, 09:18 So what other, you said you have beef cows. What else do you have? So we do raise chickens. I have a donkey. We have a pony. Mostly we started with just the beef cows and doing hay. My husband actually grew up on our farm. So he's been here his entire life. About three years ago though, we switched gears a little bit because we had a lot of older cows and we used to raise primarily Angus, but we went to Semitols. 09:47 Um, this last time when we bought, um, and we really, mean, I, I like them, their temperament has been great. Uh, they calve fairly easily and we've had the last three years of having the herd that we have, they've worked out pretty well for us. So we're, hoping that we can grow, you know, more for the community and for family and friends and be able to. 10:15 get to a point where we can butcher some more and provide meat in our area. 10:21 I love that. I really stress on the podcast very, very often, probably too often, that people who grow things need to, I mean, I don't want people who grow things to give them away. But if you grow a garden or you grow animals and you have extra, selling it to the local community is the best possible thing you can do because that gives the community a chance to find out about you. 10:49 and it gives them a chance to support you. And it's a symbiotic relationship that really needs to happen. Oh, absolutely. I'm a very big believer in small business, supporting other small business. And that's what makes the world go round. And you think about it, like back in the day, was so many mom and pop shops. And you had to rely on your neighbor to get through. And I wish it was more like that today. 11:16 And I'm hoping from what I see anyway, our community around here has been fantastic. Like I said, the people that have bees out here, they're great people. They're super nice. They also work super hard. it's, they have that understanding of, you know, what it's like to be working day in and day out. And same with the lady down the road. She makes sourdough bread, but she works very hard as well. I mean, she's working night and day and she also has four little kids. So I. 11:45 I can totally relate with her on that. But it's funny because we all found each other kind of on a whim. And it's just the relationship that has blossomed over the last couple of years and even the last month or so that I've known her name's Bethany who lives down the road here. It's just, can't stress that it's been really good for me and for my kids to meet these people that also work. 12:15 very hard or do similar things because I want my kids to grow up also knowing that things aren't handed to you. That it's, you definitely have to work for, for things that you want. And it makes you a good person to know that. Well, yeah. And it, it's more than just being a good person. It's, it's knowing that you're capable and having a giving spirit or heart or however you want to say it. 12:45 that's really important for self-esteem. Oh yeah, absolutely. I agree with that 100%. And shout out to Bethany from a tiny homestead podcast and Mary and Julia, thank you Bethany for being awesome. Um, hopefully she'll listen. That would be fun. Uh, you mentioned that you sell your soaps in a local store. I actually have never looked into that for the stuff that we make here. 13:12 Are there laws in Pennsylvania that you have to abide by to sell in a store or do you just have to do a contract with the store? So I know there's, it's kind of touch and go. Like you have to stay up to date with things. I know when I started initially, like the labeling requirements were different. You have to have certain things on your label to be considered, like able to sell. 13:41 The one store that I sell in, it's a farm store. But as long as I follow the guidelines for the labeling and there is no set in stone FDA guidelines, then it's okay. But we are looking into possibly getting into our local grocery store, because it's a very small family-owned store. So that is something else that I'm looking into. 14:07 But like I said, it's kind of touch and go because since I've started, I know a lot of things have changed as far as the labeling and the handling. Like you have to make sure obviously like you're in a clean area and the sanitizing and I know it's different all over the place. Like when I was started too, I looked into just laws all over the world because I was curious and like in England, they have to have every recipe tested and approved before they're able to sell out of their home. 14:38 So it's kind of funny how it varies from place to place. But it's fairly, I would say, like an easy, simple process as long as you are following. You you get on every couple months and you're like, okay, maybe I need to change this or maybe this is out to date. I can update that. It hasn't been very hard. Yeah. We have... 15:03 We have a really robust farmers market every Saturday starting in June and I think they're running through October this year. And so we sell our stuff at the farmers market and out of our farm stand on our property. And we're almost out. Like my husband just made two batches of unscented cold process lye soap two weekends ago because he was like, we have sold almost all of our soaps. I was like, Oh God, no, because that takes four to six weeks to cure. Yep. 15:32 He said, yeah, I'm going to be making soaps over the next couple of weekends. I said, I'm okay with that. And I said, are you going to make the coffee scented one? He said, not, no. He said, making the unscented first. said, cause I haven't made any in over a year and I'm out of practice. So he made unscented and I'm sitting here looking at them on the drying rack as we speak. love that. I made soap today, this morning actually. 15:58 I'm trying to, I have some shows coming up, but they're fairly close together in the next couple months. So I figured when the baby naps and the other baby naps, I can try to get some of my work stuff done in between being out in this heat and little kids cooperating. So I try to squeeze that in when I can. Do you just have the two? No, have four. There's, yep. My oldest just turned six and then the second one just turned four. 16:28 And then the other one is one and a half. And then our youngest is going to be two weeks tomorrow. You are unbelievably busy. I can't believe you're awake enough to put a sentence together. Lots of coffee. Lots of coffee. Yep. I survived on coffee, um, with my kids after I stopped nursing them. Um, I don't know what the, I don't know what the doctors say now, but 16:57 they told me that like one six ounce cup of coffee a morning was fine if I was nursing, but anything above that was not good. Yeah, they change that all the time, but I drank coffee throughout my pregnancy, which I know a lot of people are like, I would never, but I didn't overdo it. It was like one cup of coffee and I started drinking coffee. I think when I was 15, 14, actually, I used to. 17:25 I worked on a dairy farm, but our milking time was 3.30 in the morning. So I needed something and that was before energy drinks and all that stuff. But I rather drink a cup of coffee than the other stuff that they have out there. Well, coffee doesn't have all kinds of chemicals. You can't pronounce in it. That is true. I really, okay, I'm going to make a very strong statement here. 17:54 hate energy drinks. To me, they smell like a compost pile smells. And my sons, all three of them love them. And they crack those things open and all I can smell is compost pile. I'm like, take it out side and drink it. Yeah, they have page done a lot. I can't stand it. I'm like, why can't you just make lemonade or iced tea? And they're like, because it's not the same. And I'm like, no, it's better. 18:25 That is true. Yeah, I don't know. My husband likes those Celsius drinks, but I've been on him about that too, because I'm like, you know, you're not a spring chicken anymore and you shouldn't be drinking all this. But yeah, no, spring chickens probably shouldn't drink them either. But I get on with it now. I was like, we're a little older and we have kids and you know, I don't, that stuff always worries me though too, especially 18:50 working in the hospital. We had some fluke situations where people have heart palpitations because they're drinking energy drinks and it's 100 degrees outside and they didn't drink water that day either. So they're pumping themselves full of caffeine and then they fall over in their yard and yeah, I get on him. He says that my cure for everything is drink water, drink water. I said yes, I know. I tell you that for everything, but it does help most things. 19:17 You tell him that because it's true. Yes. And I have a story about energy drinks that I will share. My daughter was like 14 or 15. She's 35 now. And she had had, she drank like three or four energy drinks in one day. Oh wow. And she, she ended up in the emergency room for six hours because of what was in those energy drinks. She got herself 19:45 She got herself dehydrated. I don't know how that worked with energy drinks, but there was something in the energy drinks that she reacted badly to and because she drank so many of them, she was passing out. Oh, wow. Scared the living hell out of me. I thought she was going to die. Yeah, that is scary. But I've seen that more times than not working in the hospital and these young kids, especially young kids, because they don't know. 20:14 the risk factors with this stuff. And it's just, it's crazy. That's like the, the vaping thing that was, that was scary too. We've had numerous patients come in because they can't breathe because they get so much moisture in their lungs because they're vaping. And it's just, it's crazy. I mean, these things that they put out there for young kids to be having access to it baffles me. And I think sometimes I 20:43 I try to remind myself not to be a helicopter parent, but I also like to use caution. And if there are things I can talk to my, especially my six year old, like she's at that age too, where she has questions about everything. Like for example, we, my husband's grandfather used to smoke. So she was like, what is that? You know? And it was more so like, okay, well we stand outside when he's doing that and it's not really good for you, but. 21:11 Um, it was, you know, you can't tell an 80 some year old man to stop smoking after he's been smoking since he was 14 or 15 years old. but yeah, telling him he's going to kill him is probably not going to hold much weight. No, he, he told us during COVID cause he ended up very, very sick. He told us that whiskey and a cigarette was the cure for all. So very stubborn old military man. I said, well, if I said, if I end up with COVID, I'll 21:40 I'll take that into consideration, but I don't think that's going to work for me. So yeah, yeah, I kind of take a live and let live approach with people like that. And I'm sure that he has redeeming qualities and he is a decent human being. But for me, I would be like, yep, I will take that under consideration. And that would probably be the end of that discussion. Um, okay. So. 22:04 So really quick, because we're already off track, but we'll just stay off track for another minute. Your 29, was DARE, the DARE program, was that still in school when you were in school? Yes, it was. OK, so I remember it being a big deal. We had a little unit on it in health class when I was, I don't know, 15, 16. And it was all about don't do drugs. And really, I wonder if maybe the DARE program should now have 22:34 don't vape and don't overdo on energy drinks included in the DARE program. Probably. I feel like they should add in some things back to school. just I have younger brothers, they're 10 and 13 years younger than me. And just some of the stuff that they tell me at school, like they kind of, they went off track with a lot of that stuff too. Like they, some of their courses, I feel like don't even pertain to real life. I really wish that. 23:01 They would do more in school, even as far as like agricultural stuff. When I went to high school, our school didn't offer like the 4-H and stuff like that. So actually when I got started into my animal stuff, I had to go to Lancaster, which is 45 minutes from where I grew up. And I was actually a part of the fiber arts 4-H and I used to do the sheep to shawl at the farm show. 23:28 And I went to sheep shearing school and I did a lot of different things, but like my parents always had at least chickens or like a random pig that we would raise for a couple months and then we'd butcher it. But we weren't really big into ag, but I always really liked it, which is why I've started milking. I used to walk to the farm up the road and I milked for them because I couldn't drive. So it was about two, three miles up the road. I'd walk up there or the other boy that I milked with, used to pick me up, but 23:58 My mom actually, she wanted Angora goats in the worst way. So one of my 4-H leaders, actually, she had Angora goats and she had Angora rabbits. So she went away for a week or weekend and asked me to feed for her. And I said, okay. I said, well, don't pay me. said, do you have any goats for sale? And she was like, yeah, I have like one or two. And I said, listen, I will feed for you. And if this weekend's not enough, I'll feed for you another week or weekend. 24:28 I'd really just like to get these goats for my mom. And she was like, okay, you know, that's, that's cool. So I worked for her and I got my mom, her first goat, she got freedom. And then the other one was star because they were born around like fourth of July. But I started my mom off with her first two goats. And then about a year or two later when I could drive and we had a trailer. 24:55 I found a cow and a calf pair, a Jersey cow, and I went bought my mom a milk cow. And now she has three Jersey cows that just had three calves and she has, let's just say a handful of the Angora goats. Because girl math, you buy one, you end up with 10. Yeah. So I kind of got her started on her stuff too, but it's funny because 25:24 We just, we relate on a lot of different levels. Obviously she does like the fiber and I do the milk goats, but it's, it's fun because we compare notes a lot of the times and it's something else that we've been able to bond over the last couple of years. I mean, she has a small farmstead and well, I say small, but my mom works really hard and her garden is a hundred feet by a hundred feet. 25:49 that woman would be out there on her hands and knees covered in dirt all day every day because she loves it. But I guess I can get it legally because she's hard-headed and works very hard and I think I get it from her. You come by it honestly. I do. I was just talking with my dad this morning and they have five chickens right now. And he said a couple of them are getting old. 26:16 And I said, oh, well, you're going to get some more laying hens. And he said, I think I'm over it. He said, I'm 82. He said, getting down the hill to feed them when it's icy is getting to be dangerous. I was like, really? You're going to get out of them. You're over it. He said, I think so. He said, I think when they're done, I'm done. He said, I will just get eggs from the neighbor. And that was hard to hear. Yeah. You know? what? 26:45 Yeah, I completely get that. My husband's grandmother is actually going to be 87 tomorrow. you know, she cracks me up though, because I feel like our kids keep her young. She literally lives right across the yard from us. So they go over and see grandma and she rides around in her golf cart. And that woman, mean, now, again, like I said, she'll be 87 tomorrow, but the heat gets to her. 27:12 So like before the kids go over and bug her, I'm like, maybe we should call her first and make sure she's not napping. But kind of the same thing as my husband and I, were like, you know, she kind of did slow down in the last year and it's, hard to see that. Um, especially cause she has all like, since I've known my husband, I've always just known her one type of way. And that's just like, she's been cruising around, doing her thing, gardening. Um, she loves her flower beds. She loves flowers in general. 27:42 She has the greenest thumb in the entire world. That lady was like literally stick a stick in the ground and a tree will grow. I'm like, Oh, okay. You know, but yes, I love the older generation and especially talking about things that have to do with farming. we have a lot of people around us. Like I said, the community here is great, but we have a lot of older farmer friends that are just fantastic. And it's just funny. 28:11 to hear their stories or to hear how they think about things or how you should do certain things. And I always have to tell my husband too, though, I said, you you have to sometimes keep up with the times. Like sometimes it's okay to let that old tractor go because it doesn't quite run like it used to. And sometimes it's okay to change the way things are. And, you know, you have to do what you have to do. But some of the old school ways, I mean, they still hold true. So I do respect that, but it's. 28:40 It's just funny to see how different things are from then till now. 28:47 Absolutely, and one of the taglines that I play with all the time is doing old-fashioned things in newfangled ways. And I think that's what you're doing and what I'm doing. And my dad is still doing old-fashioned things in old-fashioned ways, and I'm really proud of him for that. So I try to keep these to half an hour, but I have a couple more questions if you have time. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, okay. I don't want your husband to be... 29:12 saddled with the babies for too long. God bless him for giving you time to talk with me. What do you sell for products? Because I would like people to know what they can get from you. mostly is the soap, the goat's milk soap, then the tallow. I make chapsticks, bath soaks, and some odds and ends things. I started making some beeswax melts this year too. And sometimes I make bath bombs. They're not my favorite. 29:42 They're not my favorite either. I started with those and I really like them and then it was kind of like, don't love them, so why am I still making them? And I think that also kind of changed my direction with some things too because you don't want to do things that you don't like because then you won't want to do them. 30:04 And that's kind of where I got to like, it's okay to say no, I do have people that are like, can we get bath bombs or, you know, can you make this and sometimes as a business person, you do have to say no. I mean, there's times where you can save no for a better day, but I've just learned to that when you do work for yourself, in order to keep it where you like to work for yourself, and you like to make the products that you make, it is okay to kind of change things up a little bit. 30:34 I also make sugar scrubs. So I try to keep a variety of things just because I know that you're not going to want to buy 10 bars of soap at the same time unless you're stocking up for something or Christmas. I know that's a big thing where people want to buy some stocking stuffers. So I tried to keep that in mind too when I started making extra products. But primarily, like I said, it is the soap. 31:03 And I really enjoy that. So. Okay. I got a couple of things based on your answers. Bath bombs are a pain in the ass to make. They either turn out exactly right or they fall apart. Yes, absolutely. That's, uh, yeah. I tried, I tried twice making them just for the hell of it. And I was like, absolutely not. This is not something I want to screw around with because the, the, 31:30 Return on investment is just not good enough. No, and it's hit or miss. I've had days where I have made 80 and they all turn out great. And then I have days where I'll make five or 10 because it's something I wanted to whip up quick and then they all blow up, like you said. Or I had an issue where they actually got so dry and I don't know why, but they got so dry from sitting that they just like crumpled. And I was like, oh, yeah, OK. 31:59 And then that's all product that you have to throw away. And it's terrible. It's kind of like when I first started making soap, though, like I would cry after every batch until I finally got it. Like it's one of those things that you do have to practice. And it's like science. It's a lot of fun. But when I kept screwing up over and over and over again, like I knew it wasn't going to come the first time. But like it was like every time I tried, I'm like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. And 32:27 But it's funny because I look back now and I look at when I first started and I'm like, oh my gosh, my soap was horrific. It looked terrible. But I thank my friends that bought stuff from me to support me because I don't know that I would have continued if it wasn't for them. But it looks a lot better now. So that's, that's all the practice and the crying, I guess that got me over that hump and I figured it out. the stick to itiveness and the determination to get it right. Yes. 32:56 Oh, I don't like to be wrong. That is one thing that I mean, I can admit when I'm wrong, but when I want to be good at something, I will keep trying and trying and trying until I'm really good at it. Yeah, I understand. Okay. And then the tallow is the tallow tallow lotion or is it more like a sap? So I do a tallow balm and a whip tallow. Primarily the whip tallow. So it's more of like a lotion. 33:25 But that has, I started with the tallow balm. I really liked it, but it seemed to be more of like a fad and a request for the whipped tallow. And actually the more that I've made it, the more I've also fallen in love with it. But it also helped with like my collaboration with the community as well, because I started adding the honey in it from the bee people here. So it's kind of, 33:55 It's cool that we can support each other that way. And I found more ways to do it. I also use her beeswax and her honey and some of the chapsticks, uh, as well as, uh, like the sugar scrubs. And I make a soap with their honey in it as well. Nice. Awesome. Can people, will you ship if people want to buy it from you? Oh yeah, absolutely. And you're on Etsy? Yes. It's paused till August 1st. So. 34:23 two days from now, but yes, I have Etsy as well. Okay, I'll make sure I link that in the show notes or the show description, whichever one makes more sense to people listening. I heard the other day when I was learning about podcasting, because I've been doing this for almost two years and I'm like, I still don't know enough, is that people get confused about show notes versus show description and they're the same thing. So I will make sure that it's linked to your Etsy shop. Thank you. 34:51 Yep. And where can people find you online? So I do have Facebook. don't really, I don't use Instagram all that often, but it's Facebook or Etsy. Um, and we are working on a website, but that is not currently in the works right now. All right. This was fabulous, Julia. And again, congratulations on the baby and the fact that he sleeps really well for you. I'm so jealous and, having three other kids and 35:21 staying a sane human, sane question mark human. And as always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. I hope you have a great day, Thank you. Thank you too. Bye.
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| Sow The Land | 30 Jul 2025 | 00:38:14 | |
Today I'm talking with Jason at Sow The Land. You can follow on Instagram as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismarye 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jason at Sow The Land in North Carolina. Good morning, Jason. How are you? Good morning. Doing well. Thank you for having Good. Thank you for being here. I know that you all are very busy people and I really appreciate the fact that you take time to talk with me. How's the weather in North Carolina this morning? 00:29 This morning early this morning. It was very nice Before the Sun comes up, know or right before it's about to come up. It's really nice But like right now we've had a pretty good heat wave here this week You know, I think high of 95 which that's pretty hot for us because I'm we're kind of more in the mountains And humidity is there still 00:55 But other than that, know, it's sunny. We got a little bit of rain, maybe five minutes of rain yesterday, which we needed. But other than that, it hasn't rained here in a good week or two. Okay. Well, I'm in Minnesota and it's been very hot here and we've gotten over five inches of rain in the last four days. Which I mean, it's better than last year because last year it was a drought by now. We had hardly any rain. Yes. 01:23 That was us too, I believe. Yes, that was us too. We had quite a bit of rain in the beginning of this summer, which was nice. I think that was kind of like normal. But yeah, I remember last year we had a good drought. Yeah, and the thing is the rain has been fabulous for our over 250 tomato plants. I just ate the first tomato yesterday and they are so sweet. They are fantastic. Yeah, nice. But... 01:48 but all the off and on rain pretty much did in our cucumbers and we have no viable cucumber plants this year. I'm so sad. Oh man, I know. Yeah, it's always sad times. So I begged my husband the next time he's at the farmer's market, because we sell our stuff at the farmer's market. I said, next time you're there, trade tomatoes for cucumbers, please. And he said he would. So we're good. And it is the first day in 02:15 Oh, a week or so that it hasn't been sweaty, sticky hot at 5 a.m. So I'm counting my blessings. Yeah, that's wonderful. It really is. I record in my upstairs bedroom and I can't have the air conditioner on when I'm recording because you would hear the hum. Oh, yeah. And the last few interviews I've done, I've been like, oh my God, it's so hot upstairs without the AC. So thankful that it's cooled down finally, because it's been gross. 02:45 Yeah. Okay. So tell me about yourself and about Sow The Land. Yeah. So we have a homestead farm in Western North Carolina. We as in me, my wife and my daughter, she's now a We've been doing this since 2016. We first started when we first moved out in North Carolina, we started at one and a half acres and then 03:15 lived there for six years and now we're on 14, which we've been here about three years now and where we grow a lot of our food, not all of it, but you know, currently we have a 72 foot high tunnel that we grow in plus a 1200 square foot outside garden and then some raised beds. We also have raised pigs, cooney cooney pigs, which 03:45 If you're not familiar with them, they are probably the cutest pigs that you'll ever see. And they're very easy going. If you're new to pigs, they're a great pig to start off with. And they're very gentle on the land. hear they're sort of friendly too. Oh, they are. You could train these pigs easily to follow you around. You know, we butcher them for meat. I mean, that's a little hard because they are cute. 04:15 You know, but we breed them here too. And we've had them since we lived here. So I guess in three years, we have a breeder pair and we breed them. then we also had two, we raised two steers here. do, geez, this year, think we've almost 300 meat chickens this year that we're raising. 04:43 You know, we have 40 egg layers and we move everybody around on pasture, in the woods, constantly moving these little pig and chicken structures everywhere. And we also have our own YouTube channel and the whole time while doing all of this, we film what we're doing. it's kind of been, you know, as we're learning this lifestyle, 05:13 kind of sharing what we're learning and just documenting that for folks who want to watch what we're doing. Well, good on you because trying to video the things that you're doing takes time and patience and skill. So I'm really proud of you for sharing it. It definitely does. It's a whole other aspect that some people, know, when you're watching us doing something, you kind of don't realize that that's what we're You know, and it's just so, you know, 05:42 Editing videos, it takes time, filming, a camera around. It's definitely not easy, but I've grown to love it. It's just another aspect of what we do. Yes, I feel like once you get the system down and it becomes second nature to you, it's a lot easier. But what I want people to know is that being a content creator and 06:09 trying to do that around homesteading or farming is a whole different ballgame. There's so many pieces that people do not know, number one, about homesteading and farming, and number two, about content creation and the skills that it takes to do both. Oh yeah, you gotta be the one-stop shop pretty much. I film myself, I edit the videos, I still do that. 06:39 the actual raising the animals, moving the animals, growing the food, building the things that need to be built and fixing things and filming yourself doing it. And then figuring out like, you know, platforms to use and figuring all that side of things and how often do you post and what do people want to see? And, you know, it's just, it's like, I'm the marketer also, you know. You have three full-time jobs. Yes. 07:08 I have a quick question about the content creation stuff and then I want to get back to your story of how you got here. What's the shortest video you've done on YouTube that you've posted? Well, they have YouTube shorts now, so it's like a minute long if you count those. I remember when we first started, I was doing YouTube shorts before there was shorts. I was kind of treating YouTube as kind of Instagram stories. I would just go around. 07:37 you know, really quick with my phone and just a little clip of something like me moving a chicken tractor, which is like 30 seconds or 50 seconds or something. And I would just post that. I would say those earlier videos are probably the shortest ones I've done and I still have them up on my channel. Other than that, would be the YouTube shorts that I do every now and then. Okay. Well, let me ask the opposite question. How long is the longest video you've done? 08:06 Longest video I believe is almost two hours. So what I've been doing for the last few years, well more than that, probably like last five years or so, I'll do like kind of like a, I guess a best of like catching people up at the end of the year of like what we did throughout the whole year. I'm kind of in one big giant like movie. And I'll do that at the end of the year and those videos 08:35 do really well for me. And it's just kind of taking all the footage that I've done throughout the year and footage that I've already posted in a video or and some of it I have not. I just never made it to a video. And so I would just put it all together and like I think last year was almost two hours long that you're just making like one giant movie. I like doing but it's just 09:03 It's like I start editing it in October and I have it out by January 1st. That's how long it takes me. I was going to say an end of year recap is a perfect example because I was going to ask you how many hours it takes to get that finished two hour video. Oh yeah, start in October and I'll have it done by like end of December. You know, I'm not working on it 24 seven, you know, it's just kind of off and on. can try to get to it. 09:31 It just, takes much longer than the two hours that people see is what I'm trying to get at. yeah, like a typical video, like on a, just a regular video, it'll take me maybe four to six hours to edit that one, like what, 20 minute video? So. Yes, exactly. It is a skill and it is work and it is time and it is passion. And I want, I want listeners to know that this is not just fun. It is fun. 10:00 But it's work, it's real work. know, if everything, yeah, I say like I've said this before, like it's the most hardest and the most rewarding thing I've ever done. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm not going to sit here and lie to you. When I do the podcast, I do very little editing because it's just a conversation. Unless someone says something inflammatory or uses one of the bad swear words. I don't have to do a whole lot of editing. 10:28 My time is involved in finding people to talk to. that takes time. It really does because everyone is living very full, very busy lives. And I feel honored when people say yes, because I'm nobody. I'm just me. If you want to spend 30 minutes yapping with me about what you do, I'm thrilled to have you. That's great. OK, so now we've talked about all that. How did you get here? 10:56 How did you get to where you are? Because I know your backstory, but not everyone does. Um, so me and my wife, my wife and I were originally from Southern California, which is just outside of LA. And we lived there our whole lives. And we met in high school. Um, it never lived anywhere else. That's where all of our families from and still live. And, um, it was, I had just turned 30 years old, which is now she's 11:26 I it's like 15 years now. I had just turned 30 and I think it was in 2010 and I got diagnosed with cancer and that was the reason that what started all of this, where we're at today. And I don't think if it wasn't for cancer, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing now. I don't think we would even know that this whole other life would exist for us. 11:55 And that kind of like changed our mindset of like, how do we want to live, you know, after getting a diagnosis like that, you know, I did six months of chemo, lost my hair and everything. And after that, I was in remission ever since. And, you know, no crazy surgeries or anything. And that was just so totally unexpected. It was during that time is when we 12:26 started talking about nutrition and, man, should we be eating differently and all these things? prior to that, we just kind of had the, you know, grew up the standard American diet, you know, just regular folks, not just doing our own thing. And, you know, I worked in an office job. I was a computer drafter. So I draw up blueprints for a company and my wife, she worked in the fashion industry. And so it was during that time. And then 12:56 You know, when I was going through chemo, we just started looking at just different things of what we should be doing better. And I remember the last oncology appointment is when I had my last final CAT scan to determine like, you're officially on remission, you no more chemo. So I asked the doctor, I was like, okay, so what now? You know, it was such an emotional roller coaster time. 13:25 Cause you just don't know what's, you know, very question. You don't know what's going on. You're just kind of following whatever the doctor's saying. This is what we got to do. And so much emotion that at that time. And so I always thought like, that's it. You know, am I supposed to be taking, I don't know, vitamins or follow a nutrition plan or something. And the doctor just looked at me and was like, no, you don't gotta do anything. You know, just go. She said, go back to your normal life. 13:54 It'll be like never happened. And it was almost like, I looking back at it now, it was almost, I felt like we were, we wanted a doctor to tell us how to live, you know, like how to, I want that doctor to tell me how I should be eating. after she said that, it just didn't make sense to us. Like, there's no way, like, just go back. 14:23 Like it never happened. so that's when we started to kind of figure it out for ourselves of what we should be eating and not eating and cutting out of our diets and, you know, we should be more active. And that kind of snowballed into wanting to grow our own food because we never had done that before. Didn't even know anybody who did that. Honestly, I don't think we've had friends or family that had any kind of garden. 14:50 Definitely no kind of farm animals, no chickens or anything like that. So we just figured if the only way we're going to really know what's in our food, if we start growing it ourselves. we had a backyard and we had a of a couple of raised beds and there was some, know, bought some plants, tarts and started growing our own food. you know, growing that first tomato plant was like amazing. It was so empowering. And, know, and then when you 15:16 have it when you eat it, you're like, oh my gosh, this tastes nothing like the grocery store. It was amazing and we fell in love with that and we just kept on trying to learn and figuring it out like how to grow food and growing cucumbers and growing kale, know, and just stuff like that. Then we had our daughter right after that and you know, we would kind of joke around. I remember joking around like, you know, we had like six raised garden beds and 15:45 We ended up getting two chickens for eggs. And we is pretty cool. Like raising a couple of chickens, we have a little garden. And then we started joking around with like, wouldn't it be cool to have more land? You know, we're like, yeah, maybe we could, I don't know, raise a couple of cows or something. I don't know. And it was like, kind of like a joke that we would say because, you know, we're in kind of LA and it like, there's no land around here. 16:15 During all that time of questioning our food, we were kind of questioning our jobs. What we wanted to do, like, was this job, this is it? I went to school and I got a job because I went to school and my wife was in the fashion industry and she eventually quit to be a stay-at-home mom. And so she was already at home and 16:42 And me, I wanted out of my office job. I was there for 17 years of doing the same exact thing, sitting down in front of a computer, in the office, in a cubicle. And that was kind of eating away at me. And slowly, I didn't want to be sitting down anymore. I wanted to be working with my hands in the soil or building something. And so slowly, 17:09 Probably a good six years after from 2010 to 2016, we started getting rid of our stuff. Like we collected a lot of things and we weren't living very minimally. But as we started to talk about this, hey, we might get land somewhere. I don't know where or if that would ever happen. Because also our family lived, we all lived like 30 minutes at least from each other, right? Like there was no way we're going to move away from them. 17:39 That's why it became kind of like a funny joke, but slowly we started to get rid of stuff because it's just stuff didn't matter anymore. What mattered is our health and us being healthy and happy as a family. so we started getting rid of stuff. We had bedrooms of furniture that we never went in. We got rid of furniture. We got rid of things on the walls, collections that we had. And next thing you know, we 18:09 pretty much just had maybe a couch and a kitchen table. And when we got rid of lamps, we got rid of everything in our house. we said, okay, I think we're pretty serious about possibly moving somewhere for some land. Because we also went down to one car, we were trying to live more minimally, try to get out of some debts that we had. And we're like, all right, let's sell this kitchen table. 18:39 And so we did and then shortly thereafter, we sold our home. And that was the first home that we bought together after we got married. And we're like, okay, we're going to, the plan was we're going to go, because my mom lives like kind of on the next street over. So we're going to live with mom for a year and we're going to continue to save and figure out where we want to be as far as. 19:06 We knew we wanted a little bit of land, even just an acre we're looking for. And we're going to go look and see what we find. And that took a big step because, you know, I didn't want to move back in with mom, right? I feel like we were taking a step backwards after all this, you know, this college and having careers and stuff. And so that's what we did. We sold that house and we paid off some debts. 19:34 with that money that we had saved and we had money saved and lived with mom for a year. And during that time, we kind of like looked around. We wanted to stay in California because that's where all our family and friends were. And that's really what we knew. And then we started venturing out. We'd take a little vacation throughout the year, know, New Mexico, Arizona, just kind of just looking around. And, you know, we came to realize California is super expensive. There is no way we 20:04 we could have afforded anything. And at the same time, I wanted out of my office job and I didn't know how to do that. Cause I wanted to, the plan was I wanted to be at home, like kind of working on our own business. don't know what that was, what that would be like at that time. And we kind of wanted to work for ourselves and be at home. Cause my wife, also wanted to homeschool our daughter. 20:33 Okay. Can I, can I stop you for just a second? When you were living with your mom, was your daughter already alive? Yes. She was, uh, three and we left when she was four. So she got a whole year spending time with grandma. Very nice. Oh yeah. Yeah. That was hard too. Like when we left California and we're taking the granddaughter away too. So that has been difficult. Yeah. 21:01 But the memories that were made are so special, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, my mom, she she loved us having been there, you know, like she was like, stay longer. So after, I don't know, it was, mean, that whole process was like, of getting rid of stuff, you know, after, after chemo to sell in her house and then looking for a place is like about six years. then around 20, end of 2015, we knew, 21:31 family that moved out to the Asheville, North Carolina area to kind of do what we wanted to do was like grow food, have a little farm. And we had never been past New Mexico, you know, like we've never been on the East Coast at all. And so they would tell us about this area and we're like, oh, we have to go visit. So we went to go visit on vacation for like a week and we didn't look at even look at properties. We just went to just go see 22:00 what was going on in North Carolina. We had no idea what the weather was like or what. So we went to go visit and we just fell in love with the area. Even the short times we were there, the people that we had met and just the community that was there. mean, a lot of people doing what we wanted to do and a of little small farms. I think it was just so much different than California as far as weather. There was water everywhere. There was no droughts. 22:30 You know, super green. And so, we came back home in California and I think six months went by and we're just still not sure what to do. We did not want to move that far away because we'd be that's like the furthest you could possibly go of moving away from family and we didn't want to move away. But you know, was, we felt like we were just drawn to move out here. And so, another, you 23:00 my job's like, okay, what am I gonna do with my job? Like I gotta work, like when am I just gonna quit? And so, you I looked for places or do little jobs out here while I was in California and I couldn't find anything. Nothing was coming up and it was just kind of frustrating at that time. And so I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna quit. I'm just gonna quit. Like I could do that. I'm an adult. I can make these decisions, right? 23:29 And so that took a lot of just man, I guess guts to trust in the process. so I eventually quit the job and with the very little stuff that we had, well, I should go back to that. All these are like happening on all these steps that had to happen. So before I quit, 23:58 I told my wife, I was like, okay, we're never gonna really know if we're gonna even find anything over there in North Carolina. So, I'm just gonna go for the weekend and go look at properties. So, she trusts me enough to go by myself. Like on a weekend, I saw like 15 properties and I saw one that was one and a half acres. It kind of checked everything off the box that we were looking for, you know, it was affordable. 24:27 The only thing it had a single wide mobile home on it, which, it was abandoned, know, it needed a ton of work. And, but it was kind of everything else was, was what we wanted. And so we eventually bought that and then came back, quit my job, put in my two weeks. And with this little stuff that we had, we, moved all three of us, we moved out here and. 24:57 The plan was just we'll figure it out. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. At that time, like YouTube, like filming ourselves wasn't even in my radar. Like I didn't even think that was a thing. All I knew is we wanted to work from home somehow and I didn't know how to do that. And so I maybe I'd do, I liked woodworking, like making things and you know, that might be a thing. 25:27 that I do and it has been. And so, eventually I thought, well, know, eventually the reality is I'm gonna have to go find a job somewhere. So, we had about six months of savings where I knew like if I didn't work for six months, we would be fine. And so, I think about three months went by, you know, after coming from a job that you got paid every single Friday and you had, you know, paid vacations, 25:57 paid sick leave, paid insurance and all this stuff and all of a sudden that was gone. And three months went by and I did not not got paid. Trying not to freak out. And so I went to go look for place, our job and you just can't find anything really. So it was during that time, our family was super supportive of us moving out here. 26:27 But also at the same time, I felt like they really didn't understand why. And so, I would take these little videos with my phone and like email mom, email grandma, hey, this is our garden or here's our daughter. Like she's starting her own little garden, you know. Just kind of what we're doing for the day. And then that kind of got old after a while. And so, I thought, how about I just put it up on a YouTube channel? I'll just put these little short clips or whatever I video and... 26:57 that'll be, they could watch it whenever, know, mom, here's our YouTube channel, go ahead and watch whatever, you know, stuff I post. And then it just kind of grew from there. Like other people started watching us, which was wild. Um, and I think we started the YouTube channel maybe a year after we moved here. Um, and that kind of grew to what it is today. And then, um, yeah, we just sharing what we're doing and, and we, 27:26 The plan was we didn't want to, I didn't want to work for somebody else. We wanted to work from home and work for ourselves and we wanted to grow as much food as possible and just be healthy. And we've been doing that ever since. Okay. So you ended up moving to 14 acres after that. And are you selling what you're growing? Yeah. Last year was the first year we started selling 27:55 like a pastured poultry or chicken meat. And then we started selling pork too. So at the end of last year, we started doing that, just growing, you know, just raising some extra than what we're doing for ourselves. And then this year, we started, you know, we're starting getting more into selling chicken and also turkeys. So pork, chicken, pork and turkeys right now, we started growing a little extra. Now we're not going... 28:23 I'm not going super crazy and doing thousands of chickens or anything like that. It's just, you know, maybe a hundred or two extra a year and just try to sell that and see where that goes and see how that works and, you know, see if we even like doing it. Mm hmm. You are the first person I think I've talked to, Jason, who basically jumped off the cliff praying there was a river underneath of it. That's what if I for a long time, 28:53 It felt like I was drowning where I'm like lost at sea and there's nothing around and I'm just like trying to tread water here. I'm just trying to float and then just grabbing onto things that go by and seeing if that's the thing I'm supposed to be doing. And it was really just I said yes to a lot of things like everything that came my way I'd be like yes, I'll do that. 29:21 you know, or just like spread the word around. Cause we didn't know anybody out here. We didn't have family out here. So just trying to latch onto something to help us grow, you know, to help us figure out what am I supposed to be doing here? Like what am I going do for work? Like that's, you know, reality is yes, I have to, we have to pay bills. Like we have, we have those things. So it's just trying to say yes to everything and just seeing what works and 29:50 It's still kind of like that. mean, I'm saying less yes to things, but I'm still saying yes to a lot of things. 30:00 keep saying yes because that's where the beauty is. Yeah, I think it was within those yeses that kind of you understand or for me I understood like what I like doing, what I don't like doing, what's working, what's not working and I'm still saying yes to things and just trying to figure that out because I also feel like it took a lot of effort, right? Like it took a lot of effort to move out here. 30:26 Selling all our stuff and just quitting our careers and just leaving. That took so much emotion and physical effort. Then once we got here, it was I felt like what now? Uh-huh. Like is this it? We did it? Like okay, we could just live happily ever after? Like I feel like no, that can't be it. Like we still need to live and figure this part out. 30:55 And I still kind of feel that way. Like I'm still trying to figure it out. Like is there something else I should be doing out here? Like the reason why we move or is doing these videos, is that the thing? Is that the reason? Yeah. Yeah. And you made a huge leap and I can completely relate to the we did it. Is this it? Yeah. 31:22 Because almost five years ago, we left a home that we lived in for 20 years to move out in the middle of the cornfields and soybean fields. and the day that we actually were officially moved in, I went outside and looked around at our 3.1 acre property and went, Oh my God, we did it. What now? It was that big, weird, hollow chest thing of 31:52 Holy crap. Yeah, we did the thing. What now? I know it's such a wild feeling. I mean even for the longest time to a few years after we moved out here. I felt like I did something wrong. You know, like I felt like almost I had this feeling that someone was going to drive up on my driveway in the yellow and tell me like how dare you do that? How dare you just leave? 32:17 you know, that's so irresponsible of you. Why would you move your four-year-old daughter out here and not know anybody or family? Like, I had those thoughts in my brain and slowly, you know, I just, you know what? There's just, why are we here? We're here to grow food. Like that's initially why we're here. And so I think just the act of just living our day and just not forgetting the why. 32:47 has helped me get through that. I don't think that way anymore, but I think that helped me get through that part of it. It was like doubt, right? It was doubt telling me, no, you can't do this. How dare you? Yeah, I went through a feeling of being selfish because part of the reason that we moved is because we lived right in town, in a small town. We were a block and a half off of the main street in a small town. And it was 33:16 noisy and it was dirty and it was busy and I am not that person. I need quiet. need peace. So 20 years of my life, I lived in a place that I really didn't want to live in, but it was really great for raising kids because everything was within walking distance and the schools were good and we had four kids. And so when we decided to move, I was like, it has to be outside of town. I cannot be a townie anymore. 33:46 And we had really good friends in that town and we still do. And some of them come visit us. And when they first came, they were like, Oh my God, it's so pretty. And it is pretty, but I don't really care that it's pretty. I care that it's quiet. And so I had, I had a good four or five months of feeling really selfish and privileged because we were in a position to get the thing that I 34:16 really needed. Oh yeah, I understand that. I know, it's such a weird feeling to you. Yeah, I think after a while, you know, our family, they visit us now. Now they're like, I think the first couple visits, they're like, okay, I get it. You know, after the good food that we have, that we've raised and they eat that and it's like, oh my gosh, this is it. You know? But it took a little while to get there. 34:42 of uncertainty when we first moved out here of like, this going to work? I don't know. But you know, slowly we're just, you know, you just got to keep at it, keep moving forward. And I also can relate to your family starting to get it because they ate the food that you grow. My husband talked to his dad this past weekend and one of the first questions his dad asked was, 35:07 How are the tomatoes coming along? Because my father-in-law loves bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwiches. Nice. Yeah. So he is ready for the first two tomatoes that we can spare. Right. I know. One time we're cooking a half a hog that we processed here ourselves. And we raised this pig ourselves. And my dad was like, are you going to cook that half a hog? He's like, he lives in Arizona. 35:33 I'm like, yeah, we're gonna do it on this date. He's like, all right, I'm flying over just for that weekend. He was literally here for like two days just to eat this half a hog. And he flew back and it was kind of fun but it was cool. That's adorable. I love that. Okay, so Jason, I try to keep these to half an hour and I knew this would probably run long because you have a big story behind your life and I wanted to hear it. 36:04 So here's the thing, cancer is a big, scary, awful thing to go through. But I feel like in your case, it was a beautiful wake up call. Yes, it was. And like I said, I mean, I don't think we would be living this lifestyle at all if we didn't get it. And so I thank God for cancer every day. But at the time, know, at the time it was very uncertain and very scary. 36:33 It was just trying to keep moving forward really and just figuring it out. Yeah, it has led us to beautiful things in what we're doing today. I am so happy for you and I'm so glad you're still in the world to share your gifts with your community and your family and especially your daughter who is what? 17, 18 now? No, she's about to turn 14. Oh, okay. Well, either way, good. 37:02 Good luck with the teenage years with a girl. It's not as hard as you think it might be. Yeah, it's been fun raising her completely different environment than what me and my wife were raised, you know. But it's been fun and she loves it. mean, this is all she knows now. yeah, she's grown up with the chickens. I think that's gorgeous. I think that is a wonderful thing. All right, Jason, where can people find you? 37:32 You can find us on sowtheland.com. We're on Sowtheland on all the things. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. Yeah, and our own website, sowtheland.com. I also have our own podcast. I do with two other guys and it's called Homestead Shop Talk. Oh, okay. I'm going to have to go find it. Yeah. 38:01 Awesome. All right. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And Jason, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It was fun. All right. Have a great day.
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| Thrifty Homesteader | 29 Jul 2025 | 00:33:43 | |
Today I'm talking with Deborah Niemann at the Thrifty Homesteader. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Debra Neimann at the Thrifty Homesteader in Illinois. Good mor- well, it's noon. Good day, Debra. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me. Ah, thank you for being here. Um, what's the weather like in Illinois today? Insanely hot. 00:26 Um, we actually have this really horrendous thing called evapotranspiration. Um, Illinois is actually more humid this time of year than the Gulf coast because of corn sweat. Um, all of these billions of acres of corn and soybean are drying out in the fields, releasing their moisture into the air. So, um, we have a heat advisory today, even though it's only like, um, only supposed to be 90 degrees. 00:55 But the heat index gets dangerously high because of the high humidity. Yeah, we're here in Minnesota, where we live, around my house. It's all corn fields and there's a soybean field across the road from us. And I can remember my dad and my mom mentioning corn sweat when I was a kid and being like, that's gross. I don't want to know about that. That sounds terrible. 01:22 Yeah, I swear to you it is hotter on our property than it is in town, which is four and a half miles away when it's like this because of that trans evaporation or whatever it's called. Yeah. Evapotranspiration. Yep. Crazy. Yep. But it's summer in the Midwest. So there you go. Yep. It's pretty brutal. Yeah. Somebody told me that 01:49 When I moved to Minnesota, they were like, oh, you live in the Midwest now. And I thought, you know, I don't think Minnesota is Midwest. And I had to look it up and it's upper Midwest. So I learned something because somebody was like, oh, you're a Midwestern or now you're a flatlander. I was like, um, okay. Cause I grew up in Maine. Oh yeah. And my dad called people in, in the Midwest flatlanders. 02:17 and goat ropers. And I was like, you know, that seems really mean. I don't think that you should call people names who live in other states just because you're so in love with yours. And my mom would laugh and say, he's right. It is pretty flat in Illinois. I'm like, oh, okay. All right. Well, the weather here is not as miserable as it was yesterday, but not as lovely as it's going to be tomorrow. 02:44 Nice. Hopefully you're sending in the nicer weather our way. Supposedly it's going to cool down toward the end of the week, but I'm not sure I trust it just yet. Yeah. Cause you know, weather, who knows what it's going to do. Exactly. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, uh, we moved to the country in 2002 to grow our own food organically because 03:14 I wanted my family to eat healthier and get natural exercise. When I was growing up, I ate lots of fast food and convenience food and I was sick all the time. And when I got pregnant the first time was when I learned about the connection between your diet and your health. And that was such a wildly revolutionary idea to me. Like, oh my gosh, so like, if my kids have a healthier diet, maybe they won't be sick all the time like I was. 03:43 And so that was where it started, you know, and we were originally shopping at health food stores all the time, spending a lot of food on money because I had started reading labels. And finally, in the early 2000s, we started looking for a place in the country because I realized the only way I was going to be able to get the kind of food I really wanted to feed my family was for us to grow it ourselves. And so we did. 04:09 Um, we ultimately found 32 acres on a Creek in the middle of nowhere, about a hundred miles Southwest of Chicago. Um, I always say we're an hour from everything. Um, but anyway, we started, we were so clueless. I had this crazy idea that people have been growing their foods since the dawn of agriculture. So how hard could it be? Right. Um, cause everybody would ask me like, Oh, did you grow up on a farm? And I say, no. 04:38 And they're like, well, how do you know what to do? And I was like, oh, it's not that hard. Like, I seriously thought you just plant some seeds in the ground, come back a few months later and harvest dinner and that any mammal, every mammal lactates and they're all just gonna let you stand there and take their milk. it was so unbelievably naive when we got started. 05:04 Okay, so I don't want people to think that it's extremely hard to do this though, because it's not. But you do need to do a little bit of learning and research and hopefully make a friend with a farmer who can tell you the secrets. Yeah, and read books and stuff. I was very adamant. I knew just enough to be dangerous, honestly. I was very adamant that our chickens were going to be free-range. 05:34 which is a great goal. But if your chickens are free range, then you need a fence around your garden. And I didn't realize the first year, I couldn't understand why we weren't getting any tomatoes because all I ever saw were green tomatoes. And I'm like, why aren't the tomatoes ripening? They're always green. We had had a garden in town and we did get some red tomatoes. So I thought I knew how to grow tomatoes. 06:01 And it actually wasn't until the second year that I saw chickens eating the tomatoes. And that's when I realized like, oh my goodness, we should put a fence around our garden so that the chickens can't eat the tomatoes and so that the geese don't eat all of the lettuce and all that kind of stuff. there was, was, it was interesting. If I had done more research before I got started, it would have been a lot easier. 06:30 Well, I think that can be true of almost everything. And for the listener who doesn't know, chickens are very drawn to anything red. And once they get a taste for tomatoes, they will destroy your tomato crop. Oh, yeah. Chickens are great. I love them. We have 21 of them right now and they give us wonderful eggs, but they are in a run. They do not rearrange because they would eat our garden because our garden does not have a fence around it. 07:00 Yeah. Yeah. So you need to have a fence somewhere between the chickens in the garden. Yep. Absolutely. You do, or you will not have a garden. They also really love lettuce. Yeah. Just, just a heads up to anybody who thinks about doing that. Cause they do. They love lettuce almost as much as I do. Yeah. Okay. So the reason I was so excited to have you come talk to me is because you've written like three books about homesteading. Um, six. Six. Okay. 07:30 But tell me about that. Well, I got started. My first book was called Homegrown and Handmade and it was a little bit about everything. I called it a, I would tell people, oh, it's kind of a DIY book on steroids. Like I don't just tell you, I don't just give you a recipe for pizza. I tell you how to grow the tomatoes, make the pizza sauce, can the pizza sauce, how to raise the goats and milk the goats and make the mozzarella and how to. 08:00 raise the pigs to make the sausage for your pizza and then how to grow all the other stuff in the garden to put on your pizza. Like basically how to really make pizza from scratch, you know, from the very beginning or anything else that you want to do. You know, I'm always, I always want to be really clear that you do not have to do everything. And I thought I did. And so that's why in the beginning, 08:26 Um, we did try to do everything and that is exhausting and we never could have done it if there had not been five of us. So once our kids left home, we started cutting back on a lot of what we did because we realized that we not only could we not do it all with only two people, but we didn't need to do it all. And so we cut way back on that. Um, I it's funny, I say I accidentally became a goat expert because my goats were dying and nobody could tell me why. 08:55 And this was back in the early 2000s. And weirdly enough, back then, even veterinarians thought that goats and sheep were pretty much the same, that they had the same nutritional needs, that their drug dosages were the same, that they handled parasites the same. And so there really had not been much research done on goats because the number of sheep in this country had been a lot more. Like the number of sheep in this country started to go down. 09:24 50 years ago, but prior to that, we had millions of sheep in this country and we've never really had very many goats. And the reason for that is because if you try to raise goats like sheep, they're going to die. Um, and what I learned in the early 2000s, because what I ultimately wound up having to do after going to a lot of different vets, including a university vet school and everybody going, I don't know why your goats aren't, are dying. I don't know why they're not getting pregnant. 09:52 Um, I eventually figured out by diving into the research that was like just being done at that time that, um, goats actually had a really high need for copper. And back then none of the goat minerals had enough copper in them. The goat feeds didn't have enough copper in them. And on top of that, we had sulfur in our well water and it smelled so bad. Um, we had an apprentice about 10 years ago who called it fart water. Uh huh. 10:20 like really bad sulfur and sulfur is a copper antagonist. So our goats had both primary and secondary copper deficiency. Primary copper deficiency means they weren't consuming enough because the minerals in the goat feeds back then didn't have enough. And the secondary copper deficiency means that you've got an antagonist that is making it impossible for the goats to absorb enough. they were double whammy for them. 10:49 So we started supplementing them with copper. They stopped dying. They started getting pregnant, having lots of babies. And by the time I figured out what I needed to know to keep my goats alive, I had enough information to write a book over 300 pages on how to raise goats. Wow. So you wrote one. Yeah. So I did. Nice. So OK. So what are the other four books? 11:17 Homegrown and Handmade was expanded and revised about six years after the original one. So in the second one, I expanded it to include pigs, which I felt I did not feel I was qualified to include pigs in the first version because I still found pigs really challenging, even though we'd had them, you know, like for the whole time almost. We still struggled with them a lot. And so I didn't feel qualified in the first book. By the time I did that one again, 11:47 we did, we were being very successful with the pigs. So in addition to updating everything in the first book, I also added chapters on pigs and maple syrup and lard and homegrown businesses because we'd also started our own goat milk soap business and egg business. sell eggs at a grocery store now. So we added all of that or I added all of that. I've written them all by myself. 12:17 And then Raising Goats Naturally was published in, originally published in 2013. And there is always so much research being done about goats. And so within five years, I told my publisher, I really want to update this because there is so much more stuff that needs to be included. And there are recommendations that have been changed in the last five years because of new research. 12:45 So this is why when people contact me and they're like, your website says this, but this website says this. I look at the website that they're referencing and I page down and I look at the bottom and I'm like, yes, this website is from 2003. And that's what everybody believed in 2003, but we now know that is incorrect because unfortunately nothing online ever dies. you think like, 13:10 You find something at Purdue University's website and you're like, oh, this is, this has got to be good. It's from a university website. Well, look at the references. Like every university is going to have references. And if you look at the references, sometimes there's still stuff up there that has ref the references are from the nineties. Um, and so that's not up to date. There's a lot of dangerously outdated information on the web. And if, if you don't know that and you're not checking the publication date. 13:40 then you could be using the same kind of information I was back in 2002 when I got started. So that was why I wanted to update the second book and then, or the goat book. And then I also wrote a book called the Eco Thrifty, which was basically my attempt to help people like, okay, so you don't have 32 acres on a Creek in the middle of nowhere. Here is how you can live a greener lifestyle. Even if you're in a 14:08 condo, like it doesn't matter where you are. it's all about a third of that book is actually about food, about how you can eat a more natural diet simply, you know, by cooking from scratch more and avoiding processed foods and stuff. And then a lot of it is just on replacing common chemical products, you know, like one of the 14:35 favorite things I used to talk about when I did like the morning shows promoting that book was, did you know that baking soda makes a fantastic facial scrub? Like is 100 % natural. It costs you next to nothing and it leaves your face feeling like as soft as baby skin, you know? And it doesn't smell yucky. Yeah. So I love that book. That book is out of print now. It was published in 2012. 15:02 I just love that book so much because it was like super simple things that anybody could do regardless of where they lived. And even like how to have like a salsa garden in a very small space, you know, like in a four by eight raised bed. then my last book is called Goats Giving Birth. And I actually started out as a blogger. Remember back in the early 2000s when everybody was like living their life online on blogs. 15:30 I was. Yeah. I did that for 10 years from 2006 to 2016. I kept a farm blog where I wrote about almost every single birth that we had on our farm. So there are hundreds of birth stories on there. And obviously after, you know, 10, 20 years, you look back at some of those stories and go, Oh man, I wish I wouldn't have done that. Um, or wow. 15:59 that was rough, was nothing I could have done to get a better outcome there. And so what I did in Goats Giving Birth was I went through and I read all those birth stories and I pulled out the ones that I thought would help people get the most secondhand experience about goat birthing. so I talk about, so they've got the original blog post completely unedited. 16:26 Even though I had to argue on that one, my editor's like, we gotta change that. like, no, it isn't. I want these original blog posts to be completely unedited so that people know exactly what I said when it happened. And then after every one, then you've got my reflections from the time I wrote it now. Here I am now, 10, 15 years later, looking at this and saying, okay, this is why this happened. 16:53 Um, this is what I should have done differently. These are the things that wouldn't have made a difference and all that kind of stuff. And it's got tons of photos, color photos in it. So it's very graphic. So people can really see things because a lot of times people get really worried about they, like they see a bubble. looks like two bubbles and they get really worried. Like I've seen three or four bubbles coming out at the same time. Like I think the, the goat amnion is the most. 17:21 fascinating thing. It's just got layers and layers in there and pockets of fluid get pushed out in various bubbles. Yes, it is possible to have two kids trying. It is possible for two kids trying to be born at the same time. However, that's really rare. We're up to like around 775 births now. It's probably only happened two or three times. 17:48 So usually when you see multiple bubbles, doesn't mean anything worrisome. It's just a little extra piece of the amnion that's coming out with some fluid. So. Yeah. It's just a little bit of extra. That's all. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. And honestly, biology is so incredibly fascinating. It doesn't matter whether it's humans or animals. 18:16 thought about being a doctor when I was a kid. And my dad actually worked on the machines that keep people alive at hospitals. That was his job. Oh, cool. was was a biomed tech and he would come home and tell us stories of things that he had heard and seen at work. And he never said names because, you know, HIPAA wasn't a thing then, but it certainly was his take that people's privacy was very important. And he would tell us stories about people. 18:45 dying, know, doctor had done everything they could and the person died. And after those stories, I was just like, I can't be a doctor. I will feel so terrible every time a patient dies that I will not be able to continue. So I'm fascinated by it, but I would not have made a good doctor. Yeah. Yeah. That is one of the hardest things for people to deal with is death anywhere on the homestead and at any time really. most of us in our modern world are very insulated from death. 19:15 We, most of us have never seen a human die. Most of us have never, maybe we've seen, you know, a pet dog or a pet cat die. Um, by the time we started our homestead, um, we had had one cat and one dog that, um, we had asked the vet to put down because they had cancer and there was no hope. You know, they were very, very sick and suffering. Um, and that was it, you know, like. 19:44 In my whole life, I was 39 years old when we moved to the country. And in that whole 39 years, I had only ever seen two living creatures lives and in front of my eyes. Um, and when you, when you're not familiar with something, it gets really, it's just really scary. Um, and so there was a lot of stuff that, that you don't understand and you, and a lot of times people think it's going to happen when it's not. 20:13 Like that's one of the biggest things is a lot of people think that, you know, oh my gosh, it's going to die. And it's not like, no, what you're seeing is completely normal. Like it's fine. It's all fine. yeah, I think the hardest part about death is the people that are left behind alive. The person or the creature that dies, that's it. They don't, they don't have any future in this realm. 20:43 to look forward to. I really feel like the experience we have as humans with death is the end of the potential of the life that was supposed to go on. And so it's hard for us humans because we spend our lives planning for the future. When there's no future left, it's like, what? Yeah. So, but yeah. 21:10 another philosophical statement from Mary on a, on a Monday morning. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. You wind up confronting a lot of things on the farm that you did not experience when you lived in a cozy little suburb or, you know, condo in the city or whatever. Um, and you've, and also with farm animals, it's very different than it is with pets and especially with goats because they just, 21:40 don't, it's getting there, we're getting there. It is so much better now than it was 23 years ago. But there was so little research on goats, you know? Like I shed so many tears and I had so many goats die because in addition to the copper deficiency, we also had a problem with complete dewormer resistance because this was back in the day before they knew about dewormer resistance and it was like, oh, give your goats a dewormer on a schedule and 22:10 The first thing, the first time people started talking about pasture rotation, they said, deworm everybody and move them to a clean pasture. Well, now we know that is really terrible advice because now you're taking a hundred percent of the worms you are taking to that new pasture are resistant to the drug you just used. So you're going to accelerate dewormer resistance if you do that. But that was the information I had. That's the information everybody had when I got started. 22:39 And thank goodness we are doing more research now, but it's so hard to get that information out there. Um, and that's one of the things that, that sets me apart is one of the things that makes me different from a lot of people who talk about goats online. Cause a lot of people are just talking about like, Oh, this is what I'm doing with my goats. Kind of like what I used to do with my old blog from, you know, 2006 to 2016. Um, and what saved my goats was. 23:08 digging into the science and going, oh, this is why this happened. And that's why that happened. And we need to understand the why behind what's happening because otherwise then you get somebody out in Arizona in the middle of the desert who says, oh my God, I have never lost a goat to parasites. I give them a dewormer every month. This is how you keep them alive. 23:37 And it's like, well, no, actually, if you're in the desert, you're wasting your money on the warmers because you don't have you don't have grass to get. where the worms get where the goats get infected with the worm larvae. 23:57 So it's, sorry. No, that's okay. I was going to say it's interesting because back in medieval times, humans used to be bled as a form of medical treatment. You know, we'll just bleed them and they'll be better. And we now know that that's a terrible thing to do. So why would animal science be any different? It changes. Right. Yeah. 24:25 Exactly. more we know, the more we know, the more we learn, the more we know, the more we do differently. Yeah, exactly. I know. I always tell people, would you like to go to a doctor who graduated in 2000 and never did any continuing education on the human body? No. Because that's, unfortunately, that's where some vets are. They just, they graduated from vet school back then and yeah, they have to get continuing education. But if, know, 75 % of their practice is dogs and cats, 24:54 That's where they're going to get most of their continuing education. then another 15 % is cows. Now that's going to have priority too. You know, if they only see a dozen goats a year, they're probably, they're like, Oh, it's the same thing as cows. You know, it's the same thing as sheep. I don't, I don't need to update my information on goats. Uh-huh. Wrong. Wrong answer. Exactly. Well, the other thing is, is that people are funny about things because 25:24 We have barn cats here and there are people who think that it's terrible that we have cats that don't come in the house. These cats get fed, they get loved on, they're friendly, they come up, they visit, they purr. And this morning my husband came in with his cell phone and said that one of the cats did his job last night and showed me a picture. it was my husband's foot on the grass and a 25:52 creature that looked suspiciously like a mouse, was way too big to be a mouse, dead next to his sneaker. And I said, that's not a mouse. He said, no, that is a rat. I didn't, we have not actually, I have not actually seen any rats on our property ever since we moved here almost five years ago. I've seen lots of field mice and I said, why did they not eat the rat? Cause they will usually eat anything that they kill. And he said, 26:21 I don't know, maybe it was just too much of a snack. You know, they eat the mice because the mice are little and I was like, yeah, true. But the point of the story is that the cats have a job. They keep the mice and the rats and the snakes and the frogs down. So they're not in, in, um, where I want it. Can't think of it right now. They're not eating the chicken food or the scratch grains or the cat food that we need to feed our critters. Right. Yeah. 26:51 Yeah. So livestock is very different than pets. You're right. Yeah. And that's an interesting adjustment that people have to make in their minds. You know, a lot of times, and I was the same way. I went out and I bought the first three goats that I found because like I said, I thought if it was a mammal, it could make milk and it would let me have its milk. You know? And so I went out and bought the first three goats that I found. knew nothing. 27:19 about what makes a good milk goat or anything. And of those first three goats, I ultimately sold two of them. In fact, I keep saying one of these days I'm gonna sit down and see if I can count up the number of goats that we bought in the first three years. Because from 2002 to 2005 is when we were building our herd. And I'm sure I sold at least half of the does that I bought. I wound up selling them because either they were not good milkers, they were drying up by the time they were six months post-kidding. 27:49 or because they were impossible to milk. Like they just didn't have the personality and we were not very experienced and we were, you know, fighting with them. And so we ultimately gave up and we only kept the goats that had, you know, so we wound up keeping the goats that had good milk production that would stand quietly on the milk stand and let us milk them. also to mother nature called our herd. So we wound up with goats also that were 28:17 very naturally parasite resistant because the dewormers quit working. But a lot of people think, because with dogs and cats, we always talk about the forever home because they're becoming a part of our family. But on a homestead, they're your employees. They're not your family. You may love them. You may have an employee that you really, really love. But they're not. 28:44 going to be part of your family just because you bought them. so sometimes, you know, so if you're not buying goats that have like a great lactation history behind them, there you don't know what their mother produced or their grandmother produced or their sire's mother produced. They may not be a great candidate for a milk goat because they may not give you a lot of milk. They may not be agreeable. They're 29:10 Teats and udder may be difficult to get the milk out of. There's so many variables. I could just go on and on about that. But the bottom line is that if you had an employee that wasn't doing their job, you would not keep them. And if you've got a goat that can't do their job or any other animal, know, cows or whatever, then you may not want to keep them either. you may sell them to some, they may, you may send them to another home. 29:40 I'm always super honest with people because, know, I, you know, if I had a goat that we couldn't milk, I would tell people like, okay, well, we're selling her because we can't milk her. Um, and we would either sell her to someone who had a lot more confidence and experience that we did, or somebody who was just like raising goats for pets and wasn't planning to milk the goat. Um, you know, cause I always feel like every animal has their ideal home out there somewhere. 30:08 And we need to be really honest and tell people why we're selling them so that they go to the right home. Absolutely. All right, Deborah, we've been talking for 30 minutes. That was really fast. I have one last question and it's probably a big one. When you bought your 34 or 36, 34 acres, you had basically no experience and you said that you were really naive. 30:38 Do you love what you're doing now with your homestead? Oh my goodness, yes. I have loved it from day one, even through all of the challenges and tragedies and everything. Like our friends in the suburbs thought we had lost our minds when we told them what we were doing. And I think they all expected us to be turning around and coming back to the suburbs within two or three years. And over and over again, through the years, the early years, we would hear people saying, man, I can't believe you're still there. 31:07 That's amazing. Like you're, you're doing this stuff and you're having these challenges and you're not giving up. Um, and the bottom line is it all goes back to the fact that we absolutely love the lifestyle. We love living in the country. We love living as lightly on the earth as possible because we really care about the earth and we don't want having, we don't want a bunch of chemicals dumped on the earth to feed us. 31:34 We don't want to have animals living in abusive situations to feed us. And so if I'm not growing it myself, I'm buying it from a farmer that I know, who I know like, yeah, they're not dumping tons of chemicals on the earth. They're not mistreating their animals so that I can feel good about what we are consuming from other sources. But you know what? 32:01 It all goes back to loving it, know, like just loving all of it, loving the natural exercise and loving the animals and loving how it all comes together. 32:13 I figured that was probably going to be your answer, but I wanted to hear your answer. Where can people find you online, Debra? You can find me all over the place at thriftyhomesteader, thriftyhomesteader.com, Facebook, thriftyhomesteader, Pinterest, thriftyhomesteader, Instagram, thriftyhomesteader. And then I also have a podcast and YouTube channel called For the Love of Goats, which is all about the goat stuff. I interview vet professors and researchers so we can stay. 32:42 stay on the cutting edge of this and like go right to the people who are actually doing the research. And then I also talk to successful goat business owners because most of us get to the point if we really love our goats, we're gonna wanna buy more and more. And then we're like, hmm, you guys are gonna have to start helping to pay for the feed bill. How can I do that? So for the love of goats and thrifty homesteader. 33:05 Fantastic. Deborah, this was a joy. I love talking with people like you because you started from zero and you have surpassed a hundred. I can hear it in your voice. And it's so great to talk to someone who started out from very beginning, is living it and continues to live it and love it. So thank you so much. You're welcome. It's always fun talking about this. It was great talking with you today, Mary. Well, thank you. 33:34 always people can find me at at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Have a great day Deborah, thank you. Thank you. Bye.
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| MeanderingCottage Homestead | 28 Jul 2025 | 00:35:24 | |
Today I'm talking with Deb at the MeanderingCottage Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Deb at Meandering Cottage Homestead in Michigan. Good morning, Deb. How are you? I am fantastic. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Michigan? It is entirely too warm and very muggy. Same in Minnesota. 00:28 literally under a heat warning, excessive heat warning for the whole day today. Yeah, you know, you live in a northern state, you don't expect it to get this hot. This is just not right. 00:42 You would think that it would not happen, but global warming apparently is an actual thing, climate change. So we're experiencing that. guess that's what it is. My dad says that there are seasons and cycles to weather, and he's not sure that we're actually suffering through anything new or different. It's just the seasons and cycles. But I have no idea because I am not a climate scientist. 01:10 Tell me about yourself and about Meandering Cottage Homestead. Well, geez, I don't really know where to start. My parents moved up to Northern Michigan from like the Ann Arbor area when I was 14 years old. And I watched them build their own house. They saw their own lumber and everything off their property. 01:38 built their homestead from nothing. And I was so intrigued and impressed and just all the things with that. yeah, it just kind of happened from there. I mean, after I graduated, I thought maybe I might want to go back to the city. So I went back to Ypsilanti. That lasted about, I don't know, maybe six months. And I came back home. 02:07 I just, didn't want to be in the city anymore and here we are. Okay. Why is it called meandering a cottage? Well, the little house that I have, it's a, I'm sorry, my cat wants to play right this moment. It's the little house that I got. It's, it reminds me of a little cottage. I used to go camping and, 02:35 do little cabins and things like that with my parents when I was younger, the whole family did it. And I don't know, I just thought it was always so neat being in a small little space just always felt so comfortable and cozy. And I also like the idea of like little paths around your property. You just have all these cool little nooks and 03:01 just neat little places tucked away and out of the way places on your property. I thought, you know, meandering cottage just sounds like where I want to be. I love that. And I know exactly what you're talking about. When I was growing up in Maine, people had homes on lakes and here in Minnesota, it's a big deal to go up to the cabin up north. And a lot of those. 03:28 going up to the cabin spaces are actually big homes. They're not cabins. And when I was growing up, these were actually little lake cabins and it felt like being in a dollhouse. Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of, I mean, I decorated my place. It's, it's, um, you know, it's not your typical little cabin looking place. I don't know. just. 03:56 In my mind, I just wanted something that was very, I like being hugged when I come home. So, you know, I just, I guess I wanted to do that and make that the vibe. 04:11 Very nice. I'm thrilled that you are embracing the cozy theme because cozy is so nice. And especially on a day like today when it's so hot, our house feels, our house is pretty big. It's over 1400 square feet on the inside, but it's warm and it's welcoming and it's cozy and it's comfortable. as long as I don't actually go outside, I can pretend that it's not 150,000 degrees outside. 04:39 Oh, absolutely. Watch a Christmas movie. Yeah, I made them. I made tortellini salad yesterday because I knew it was going to be super hot today. tortellini salad is basically a cold pasta salad. And it is waiting for me at about 11 o'clock this morning to dive into. I'm a little bit jealous. 05:02 It's super easy to make and that's part of reason I make it. takes like the time it takes to boil the water, cook the tortellinis and then, can't talk, slice up an onion and of sweet bell pepper and dump a can of quartered artichoke hearts in it and some zesty Italian dressing, some balsamic vinegar and whatever seasonings you like to put in your cold salads. That's pretty much it. Oh yeah, that's easy peasy, isn't it? 05:32 Yup. I, when I was making it, I was like, it's hot today. I don't want to be cooking today either. This was yesterday. I thought, I thought when I went to bed last night, I thought I'm going to be so grateful that I did it today, which was yesterday instead of this morning when it's already hot outside. So, Oh yeah. Yeah. It hit 71 here by, geez, I think it was seven o'clock this morning. It was already 71 degrees out and like, Oh, come on. This is crazy. 06:02 So yeah, I'm not cooking today either. 06:08 Yeah, it's supposed to be cooler on Tuesday. The temps are supposed to drop, so I'm just holding on till Tuesday. So what do you do at your place? 06:22 Um, as far as like, like business. Do you grow a garden? Yes. So my property is on a hillside where I have my little house sitting. So it was the soil here is super sandy. So I built Hugu culture beds. I'm not for anybody who's not familiar with that. It's. 06:50 basically building a forest floor. So you're adding like, like let's say a fallen tree. And then on top of that, you have the bigger branches and the smaller branches and then the leafs and then any other little fodder that happens to fall. So you're building that to build up your soil. So you're not actually depleting your soil. You're adding to it. So I built my gardens in something like that. 07:17 I skipped a couple of stuffs. You also add like compost and things like that on top of it to help your plants grow. But you're not taking anything away from the soil. So with that, also, since my property's on a hillside, I needed a way to stop the water from washing everything away. Cause when I did landscaping, my property was vacant. So when I did landscaping where my house is sitting, 07:46 It was completely sandy. was nothing here and I had had to dig into the hillside. So yeah, it was like Lake Dub going on out here. I did the hugo culture beds and built them up enough to where I've kind of got. It's a kind of like the Aztec thing. So it like steps down my hillside. So I grow my gardens in that. So I have some vegetables, but I'm. 08:14 mostly at this point focusing on fruit. So I've been putting in like pears and plums and peaches and apples and all the fruit things. So that's really what I'm doing at the moment as far as gardens go. And then with my animals, I have bunnies and with them I use their little poopy presence for fertilizer in my garden. And 08:43 then I only have two of them. And then I have chickens and they give me eggs and I sell those at a farmer's market to help feed them. I have a small herd of Nigerian dwarf goats. I have four does. Well, I have two dollings, two does and a buckling at the moment. And I make goat's milk soap that I sell at the market to help feed them. 09:13 And I make cheese and stuff like that with their milk. So you're, are you running it as a business? I'm trying to, I'm just getting started. I just bought my property four years ago. we, know, the first year was completely focused on the house and the barn and getting all that stuff set up. And then the last three years has been about, you know, the gardens and all of that stuff. And during that time. 09:43 My mom got sick with cancer and I lost her and then her boyfriend got sick with cancer and I helped him through that and he's fine now. But it's been a serious roller coaster the last four years so I'm trying to get on my feet and get a business going. So I'm hoping that's the end goal. 10:04 Okay, awesome. I'm sorry about the loss of your mom. That's terrible. Yeah. I'm glad that her boyfriend survived and it sounds like you like him. So that's good. He's such an amazing guy. He honestly is. I have to tell this little story because it's kind of cool. He has an old sawmill. It's like this huge old thing. It's amazing this thing even runs. But he had a bunch of lumber sitting out in his yard that he had cut with it. 10:34 And it had all the saw marks and everything in it, which I personally think is just fascinating. And I was trying to build my house as frugally as I could. And he told me that I could have it all to burn or whatever I wanted to do with it. And I was like, well, I'm to put it up on my ceiling, Alan. And he says, oh, you can't put it up there. That just looks so terrible. And he like poo-pooed the whole idea. And I did it anyways, of course. 11:04 So when he came over and he actually saw it up there, he just, he was so shocked at how it looked. He just could not believe that I had taken just lumber that had been sitting outside and refurbished it, which I did very little to it. I just bleached it out and gave it a light sanding. Cause I didn't want to lose all of the sob marks, you know? I mean, he's like in his late eighties at this point and things like that don't last forever, you know? So. 11:34 I just thought it was a cool kind of story. absolutely. And you are cementing something that I say all the time. Homesteaders are absolutely ingenious at taking things that nobody else wants and turning it into something beautiful. Oh, girl, my whole house. I host so many things from like Habitat for Humanity. did a shower, like the back wall in my shower. 11:59 I couldn't find enough tile to do the whole thing, so I just busted up a bunch of tile and did a mosaic. So, you know, you got to work with what you have. That's just the best way to do it. You're not, you know, don't know, catering to the big corporate. 12:18 Yeah, and it becomes a one of a kind. It makes it unique and special. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I there. I mean, of course, I'm probably biased because this is my place and I love it so much, but there will never be another place like me in Dern Cottage ever. And and I'm so excited about that. And it's all still so new. I'm I keep telling my daughter all the time. I'm like, man, I can't wait to see this place in 10 years. If it's this far in four. 12:47 10 is just, it's gonna blow my mind. I'm excited. I can attest to that. We bought our place in August of 2020, so it'll be five years coming up here real quick. And basically there was nothing here except a big old ugly pole barn and our home and three acres. And it was a blank slate. And in that almost five years we have put in 13:16 a 100 foot by 150 foot garden. Oh wow. Which we grow, we grow produce in obviously. there's like three or four other little small gardens because we're like, oh, we need to put something in over here. Oh, we need to put something in over there. And we've also put up a heated greenhouse. We have put up a cute little barn red farm stand. Oh cute. 13:44 three years ago, three and a years ago. And best thing we've ever done with about $3,000 because people come and buy our produce and our eggs and they visit and they love it. And it's so funny because we moved from in town to outside of town because it felt like living in a fishbowl when we lived in town. Oh, absolutely. 14:10 And my husband is the social one of us. We, I am not, I do not like being out with people. It makes me anxious. Right. And he's the one, he's the one that goes to the farmer's market. And he tells me all the time about how people say, Oh yeah, I drive by your place all the time. I see you guys working on stuff all the time. And it doesn't feel like a fish bowl because they're driving by. They're not literally in the yard next door. Right. Yeah. 14:40 Yeah, I, when I got this place, um, so I divorced like 11 years ago and I moved into, used to own a store in the town that I live in. So I had to move into that cause I didn't really have anywhere else to go. So that's where we went anyways, me and my daughter and I lived there for, you know, until four years ago when I bought this place and 15:06 I was right on the main drag and I'm not kidding you. Oh, hey, I saw you out in your yard doing this. And the only thing that ever went through my mind is, you know, you could have stopped and helped. know, that would have been cool of you. But I know the fishbowl thing is ridiculous. And when I bought my property, I wanted as far off the road as I could get without condemning myself to getting stranded all the time, you know, because I just, don't. 15:35 I love my privacy. And it's so hard to get these days because everybody, people are just so nosy. But then when you get to like your farmers market and stuff like that, it's like a whole different scene because now you're excited to share your life and you want everybody to know about your things and it's all great and everything like that. But my home, my home is like my serenity. And yeah. 16:03 I could not do the town thing. I agree with you on that 100%. I hated it. Yes. And the thing is with my husband, he is so social that it really does his heart good to have people comment on what they see him doing and they're smiling and it's, it's like such approval for him. And I love that because it matters. 16:33 Oh, it makes you feel good when you can. mean, not only are you doing something that's good for your soul, but you're helping other people be, you know, healthier in their lifestyle. That's just and if they see you doing things, maybe it's encouraging them to do something to instead of sitting down. They see other people moving forward. It helps them move forward. It's, you know, it's hopefully a cycle. 17:02 Hopefully. I really hope so because we need that cycle to grow right now and forever, but really right now. You mentioned that you've been putting in fruit trees. The best thing about fruit trees is that they bless you twice. When they bloom, they're beautiful and they smell good. And then in the fall, they put out whatever it is they put out, you get to eat it. know. I know. I'm so excited to. 17:32 So in my hugo cultures, along with the garden, gardening thing, I'm trying to do a food forest. So I'm planting the fruit trees and then beneath the fruit trees, I'm doing berries and my berries are starting to produce now. So I'm kind of, I'm getting to kind of walk around. And so the goal is to live my life like an old bear and just kind of walk around my yard and graze. that's, that's like my life goal is to. 18:02 Ultimately be an old bear and just roam around my yard and eat food That's a fabulous goal what kind of berries do you have I have blueberries three varieties of blackberries black raspberries red raspberries golden raspberries Goji berries mulberries Did I say blueberries yes, okay 18:30 strawberries. I have three varieties of strawberries. And currants and wild autumn olive. 18:45 What is that? Bottom olive? It's actually, an invasive species. It's horrible here, but I love it because it brings in all kinds of birds and wildlife and stuff. But the berries, I want to say it came over. I don't even want to say that it came over from China, but I think that it did. But it gets little berries on it and it's like, they're almost like a silvery. They get like a silvery 19:17 speckle on them. And if you wait until after a frost, they're actually sweeter and better. It's like a little red berry and then the later it gets into the season, they start getting like a little silver speckle on them. But they're definitely worth looking into because especially if you're in a northern state, they're probably growing wild around you. 19:39 Autumn olive, I've never heard of it. I'm going to have to Google it. Yeah. And you can mix it with like the wild blackberries and stuff makes really great jam. It does have a seed. It's okay. I'm going to look it up later when I'm not quite as enamored with the idea of eating when I get done talking. how big are the berries? Oh, they're tiny. They're maybe... 20:08 maybe the size of like a pencil eraser. And they do have a small pit in them as well. So you'll have to more like a jelly berry than a jam because you know, it'd be pretty crunchy. Yeah, let's let's not have crunchy jam. That would be gross. Yeah, right. I can I can do raspberry jam with seeds in it, but I still don't love the fact that it crunches. It bothers me. Oh, yeah. 20:38 So we're working on building our food forest here too. And we have two elderberry trees that I still have not managed to keep the birds from getting to before I do. And I just talked about somebody about this on the podcast the other day. We're going to get some of the bird netting and put it over the trees in the spring. And maybe that will keep the birds from getting to the berries before we do. We have wild plum. We have 21:08 black raspberries and then the stuff that we put in, have strawberries, have honey berry, we have apple trees, we have peach trees, we have cherry trees and we have rhubarb and we have asparagus, which isn't a fruit, but it's something that takes care of itself, which is kind of the goal with the food forest is to have it just, you just start it and then it kind of takes care of itself. Yeah, I have. 21:34 I have the asparagus, which I forgot. I have four different varieties of grapes. I also have elderberries. And then I have pear trees, plum, peach, a couple different varieties of apple. 21:55 trying to think. I have a kiwi. 22:00 Oh, nice. Yeah. I'm trying to think of everything I have because I just it's this last four years has just been such a whirlwind. It's like I'm finally and finally at a point to where life is starting to kind of calm down. The barn's done. The animals are set. You know, I can start doing the farmers market. And it's almost like, you know, as I'm talking to you, it's like, wow, yeah, OK, I have that, too. I forgot about that. But I've also put in a lot of different herbs and stuff, too. So I probably have 22:31 over I know I have at least over 40 different kinds of herbs planted here too. 22:39 Okay, I don't know if you mentioned this in the beginning, how big is your property? I have 10 acres. I homestead. And how much of that is growable? 22:57 Geez, I am gonna have to say I may be doing what I'm doing on... 23:07 I would have to say maybe a quarter of an acre. Maybe. Wow. Okay. But I also am planting things like. 23:19 or not necessarily planting things, but I also wild forage a lot too. I didn't wanna, I'm trying to keep my property as natural as possible. So I didn't wanna encroach on, I'm gonna say maybe seven acres of my land is hardwoods. And then maybe a half acre to three quarters of an acre of that might also be pine trees. So I have all these different kind of diverse little systems going on my property. 23:49 and where I'm at is kind of at the front of the property, but I'm only growing. I don't have a huge vegetable garden because I, I, in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, if I grow fruit, fruit, can barter that for any vegetables that I need. I'm just one person. I don't need to, I don't need a huge stockpile. And I only have my daughter and she's like 28 years old. So she's not. 24:18 You know, we don't have a big family, so I don't have to grow these huge gardens. And when you put in one zucchini plant, you can feed an army with it. So I guess in my mind, I'm thinking, OK, I'm just going to take up this small space. I'm going to use it for fruit. I'll grow a little bit of vegetables because I like my fresh stuff here and there. But like to have a big corn patch and a vegetable garden just didn't really make sense to me. 24:47 to have to weed it and upkeep it and do all the things. When if I can just grow really awesome fruit and barter that out, it'll work itself out. Absolutely. And did I see on your eBay page description that you live in a tiny house? I do. Yes. Can you tell me about the tiny house? Sure. My house is finished less than, well, let's see, it's probably 25:18 I'm trying to remember the exact square footage. think it's 233. Oh my goodness. 233 square foot finished. Nice. Yes. And that does your daughter, does your daughter live with you or does she live somewhere else? No, I inherited my mom's place and she is living in that. And that's another acre. I'm, I want to turn that into a whole other. 25:45 fruit property, but that's a whole other story. Well, that's okay. I need all the stories I can get. So I want to say this about tiny houses. When my husband and I were talking about our future, and this was a good 15 years ago, he was very interested in a tiny home because we lived in a house that was only about 850 square feet anyway with four children. Oh. 26:13 And so we were used to making small spaces work with six people in 850 square feet. And the more I looked into tiny houses, I was like, think a tiny house is a thing for a single person or for a young couple who really, really just wants to see each other naked all the time. and I said to my husband, I said, this is not a good plan for us. And he said, why? I said, because I said, you. 26:43 like your space and so do I. I said, do you understand that we're gonna be basically on top of each other in a tiny house in our late 40s and early 50s if we do this? And he went, oh, I hadn't even thought of that. And I said, yeah, no, we can't do a tiny house. So I love the idea of a tiny house, but I think that in practicality for us, we would probably be divorced by now. Well, I guess I... 27:12 You know, going back to when I was little and doing all the little cabins and stuff with my family. I knew also going into doing all of this that I really wasn't going to be in my house a whole lot, except in the wintertime. So I do have little outdoor spaces. And I, I don't I guess I don't I do spend time inside, but also it's just me. 27:42 But... 27:45 And having a family and doing a tiny house, there's absolutely no way I would have done. No, I would not have done a tiny house. Not something this small. Absolutely not. I have seen some that, I mean, they do set them up really nice and all that kind of stuff. But if, mean, if you live in a nice climate and your family can be outside a majority of the time, that's cool. But living in a Northern climate where you're indoors four to six months out of the year. 28:15 I'm with you. Yeah, I really, I mean, I don't want to belabor this too much, but I really did have to pull the two yeses are a yes and one no is a no card on him. was just like, I don't want to live in a tiny house. I have lived in what I consider to be a very small house for 20 something years. I would really like more than 850 square feet in the next home. 28:45 And he said, but it's only going to be you, me and the youngest kid. And I'm like, I know I cannot live in a tiny house. This is a deal breaker. And he was like, Oh, and I said, yeah, I said, I have very few deal breakers with you, but this is one of them. And so we compromised. And when we looked for our place that we bought almost five years ago, the, the rule was that it had to be bigger than a thousand square feet on the inside. It had to not be a fixer upper. 29:13 You know, if it needed a couple things fixed, that was fine. But not a fixer-upper. And it had to have a place for a garden. And all of those things came true. Deb, I'm so thrilled with where we live. cannot tell you. Yay! 29:28 So we have a couple more minutes and I have a couple more questions. Well, at least one more question. You said that you make goat milk soap, is that right? Yes. OK, how did you decide to do that? Because normal people, and I use that term loosely, don't just go, hey, I'm going to learn how to make soap. 29:51 So story time. My dad, when my dad was alive and I was younger and they were doing their whole home studying thing, he taught me how to use like all the old hand tools and all that kind of stuff. I don't know, I guess from just a young age, I've just always been intrigued by just the old ways, I guess, say. And I wanted to learn how to make my own lie from 30:19 the rainwater with the straw and the ash and all that, which I have not done yet, but it's on the agenda. But I just, I wanted to make all of the things. I don't want to have to go to a store and buy everything. And one of the biggest things that you use in your home is something to clean with. And if I could figure out how to make goat's milk soap, 30:49 or any kind of soap, lye soap, anything like that, that I'd be able to do my dishes, do my laundry, shower, do all the things. And that would be one less thing or several things that I could take away from having to purchase from a store. Well, then I started doing research because when I was younger, I wanted, or my dad was into dairy cattle. So that was where 31:20 I started getting into the whole idea of dairy and then goat's milk. So started getting into the mainstream. So I started looking into that. And at the time that it started going mainstream, I was just not in a position to be able to make it myself. But I always wanted goats and I always wanted to be able to be as self-sustaining as I possibly could. And it just kind of went hand in hand. So it was just 31:50 one of those things that. 31:53 just kind of came with the territory, I guess. Okay, that is a great answer. And the reason that I asked is because I'm sitting here in my room in front of my computer talking to you staring at the rack where we have our unscented, um, cold process, lye soap drying on a rack. And honestly, it's, I think that people think that making soap is hard. Baking bread, 32:23 is hard. Growing a garden is hard. It's not hard. It's time and intent. It is. It takes it takes time. Yeah. And that's the thing is that's that's what happened is society just decided that, OK, I'm I'm I'm just going to go work this eight hour job for somebody else. Eight to 10 to 12 hour job for someone else. 32:52 And then I'm just going to go buy my bread and I'm going to go buy this and whatever. And then there's the other kind of people who do not want to work that eight to 12 hour job and slave for somebody else and wants to make their life as self-sustaining as possible. And that's the category that I think me and you fall under. I don't want to live that get up in the morning and go. 33:20 hate my life and even if you do love your job, which I've had jobs that I love that are 9 to 5, but it's not this. It's not 33:30 the animals and the air and the sunshine and it's not the soul that you get from being here. 33:42 Agreed. And what I will say, and pretty much this is it for the podcast today, is that when you work a nine to five for a corporate company, you don't get to see what you create from beginning to end. You don't see what your part in it is from beginning to end. And I think the joy of homesteading or farming is that you see it from beginning to end. I agree. So. 34:10 Deb, this has been a lovely conversation. Thank you for brightening my Sunday morning. I appreciate it. Where can people find you? They can find me on Facebook at the Meandering Cottage Homestead. And I am also on TikTok and once in a while I do stupid stuff on there. and I'm in the Meandering Cottage on there as well. And people can order things from you on eBay. Is that right? Yes. 34:36 meandering cottage on eBay as well. have a small store. It helps me get money to feed my little animals here. 34:44 And do you sell your soaps on eBay? do, yes. Yep. And I'm going to be coming out with a few more here within the next couple of weeks. There'll be new, I don't want to call them fragrances because I don't use any fragrances or dyes or anything like that in my soaps, but there'll be new scents coming out. Let's put that way. New formulations? Yes. Yes. Within the next few weeks. 35:10 All right, awesome. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Deb, I hope you enjoyed the very end of your weekend, because it is Sunday. Yay, thank you. You too. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
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| Halfhacked Homestead | 26 Jun 2026 | 00:46:59 | |
Today I'm talking with Heather at Halfhacked Homestead. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Heather at Half Hacked Homestead in Kentucky. Good afternoon, Heather. How are you? How are you? I'm good. You were telling me it's really freaking hot in Kentucky. Yes, it is disgusting hot. It is. Today will be, um, 00:29 indexes will be over 100. Some talks of areas being pushing 110 with we've had humidity levels this week of anywhere from the upper 60s to over 90s a couple of days ago. So it's just hot and wet and miserable. the dew point yesterday, I think at 630 in the morning here in Minnesota was 65%. Yeah, that is 00:55 Tropical and it's worse than tropical for Minnesotans because we're not used to that kind of heat, right? But back in January or December or whenever the heck it was because I don't remember We had a week this past winter where it was minus 25 real temp for a couple of days The day I was like, this is some crap. I don't like this any better than 65 dew point either 01:24 So we'd love spring and we love fall in Minnesota because the weather is temperate in those two seasons. wish Kentucky had more of those. We either have uh hot season or mud season. There's really not a lot of in between. We have allergy season and we have cold season. That's why Minnesotans sound like they talk through their nose a lot. Okay. Well, 01:52 I put up yesterday and it's still my unpopular opinion that I would much rather do all of this in the cold than the heat though. Yeah, definitely. I don't know that anybody will ever convince me otherwise. Uh huh. Exactly. All right. So I have to know why is it called half hacked Homestead? Well, a couple of reasons. Um, one, my initials are HAC. Oh, okay. Yep. So if you, if you, anybody ever sees me refer to as hack, that's, that's me. 02:22 Um, the other thing is when I first started this adventure, I was actually a hotel manager. I have almost 20 years in hospitality and corporate structures and things like that. And so when I started, I really didn't have a lot of time, but that business side gave me a lot of experience in working in systems and developing efficiencies and 02:51 really analyzing, you know, data and systems and all the things that go into how things operate. And so because I was only able to focus on my personal life about half the time, um everything just kind of became half-hacked and it became a running joke because sometimes, you know, I do things that are unconventional or a little, you look at it sometimes and you're like, what the heck is she doing now? 03:21 That's half-hacked. I love that. That is brilliant. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at half-hacked Homestead. So obviously in the last few years I have left the corporate life and I work part-time retail now just to support some of the things. My Homestead does support other parts of it with different things but I have 03:50 An entirely too many amount of animals right now and more on the way. So I think my latest count was about 82 animals. Wow. How much land? Five acres. Oh, you can you can handle that many animals. That's okay. uh Most of them are chickens, rabbits. got meat rabbits, Rex's back in December. 04:15 which was very exciting. And then just a couple of months ago, I got started on my quail. 04:25 So I have the quail, the rabbits, the chickens, and then of course, you know, there's the outdoor cats and there's a couple of dogs and. 04:39 Any goats? No. I don't have goats. I have a very I have to be strict with myself that I have a no pet poll. Like I'm full on pets. um So everything I have has to have some kind of use now because the cats and the dog um take up the freeloader status. Yes, they're very good at that, but they're worth it. Yeah, I don't. 05:09 don't foresee myself wanting, I don't like goat meat. And I don't see myself wanting to raise them for dairy, because I don't want to have to worry about keeping them in kid or milking them several times a day. So it's just, they're not my thing. I'll let other people have all the goats. are a homesteader who knows her limits and I'm proud of you because 05:36 There are a lot of homesteaders who get into this and they're like, I want all the animals and all the produce and all the fruit trees and all the asparagus and all the strawberries and all the rhubarb. And you cannot do that unless you have like a whole team underneath you to help. Right. And fortunately I have met some wonderful people out here in Western Kentucky who do have the goats and the dairy animals. 06:01 and the pigs and we have created this wonderful bond and network of people so we don't have to do it alone. Right and that's really smart because many hands make light work. Absolutely. Alrighty so how is your rabbit adventure going because our rabbit adventure lasted a year it did not go well that's why it lasted a year. uh It's going really well so far. uh 06:30 told you I tend to do things that make people go, oh man. And that's I have a colony set up. And so I started out with a trio, with two does and a buck. And they have now, I'm on my third litter from each one. And there have been, there were some challenges. The very first litters that I had, I didn't quite know they were pregnant because again, being in a colony situation, 07:01 don't have them separated. Right. So I didn't know that they had come of age and that they were about to kindle until that week that you were talking about where it was negative in Minnesota. It was also uh pushing zero here. And of course, that's when they kindled. Of course, because that's how mother nature is. Exactly. So first time mothers didn't pull enough fur. um They didn't know what they were doing. And I woke up and I went, oh, there's babies. 07:31 So did you manage to rescue them? We did. So the first, um I had both does kindled within a couple of days of each other. And oddly enough, I had a chicken go broody and also hatch out eggs during that time. So in a week, I had 28 babies born between the three different moms. um And everybody, I did lose one of the rabbit litters. 08:02 Um, because despite checking on them multiple times a day, I, one of the rare days that I had to go to work and I came back and I was like, Oh, the whole nest is now frozen. So I did lose the whole first of one of the does, but the other doe raised her rabbits, uh, successfully. So half a bed. 08:28 Absolutely. And if it was the first time you've ever done it, congratulations. You learned something really important on the fact that not all mama animals really know how to be good moms. No, and in fact, the one that lost her entire litter, um she lost her second one as well to a completely different circumstance, which was the spring floods. we um 08:53 I let her choose her own spot and I was like we're gonna do this as natural as possible we're gonna see what she's gonna do and she put them in an area that I could not reach underneath a set of concrete stairs which I've chosen to leave because it's a nice cool place for them in the summer and the rain came and it ran 09:19 just slightly downhill underneath the thick layer of straw that I have in their pen and where she had dug out the little bowl for the nest, retained water. 09:32 It happens. It is not your fault, just in case you're feeling bad about it. It is not your fault. So I rescued one of them. were able, I found it. It had washed out and was covered in mud. And the second time I rescued Kits from the same mom. And now she's on her third one and she had 13 and eight of them are still alive. So, and we are at four weeks now. So I think her third time she's finally figured out. 10:02 how to do this. Sounds like your buck has figured out how to do this too. Holy crap, that's a lot of babies. Yeah, they both give me very, very large litters. The other doe that I have has managed no less than 10 and she gave me 13. So out of these two, I have 16 four week old grow outs now that just came out of the nest and are running around. Your rabbits are really healthy. That is incredible numbers. 10:32 That is amazing. have a very, I'm very proud of them and I'm very thankful to the woman that initially raised these rabbits. Yes, very good quality. I would say so. Like I'm actually flabbergasted at how many babies these rabbits are putting out. um For the listener, the deal with the colony style raising of rabbits is you don't have your rabbits in cages. 11:02 You have them down on the ground where they can burrow, right? Correct. Okay, so that leads me to a question because that's not how we did it. We had cages for our bunnies. When the babies are born, how do you know they've been born if they're burrowed? So they, these guys, the mamas have not dug deep burrows. oh I have several totes and places and things for them to hide. 11:31 When they're not kindling, it's a lot of enrichment and ways for them to get away from the buck and to have their own little sort of spaces. Because despite the fact that they like being social and around each other, they also like their space. So that's where they tend to build their nest at is in these totes. Okay, so you can get to them. Okay, we have a neighbor down the road from us and she has a colony style. 12:01 rabbit thing. What's the word for it if it's colony style? Is there a word for it or just colony style? think it's colony style. I refer to it as the bunny pin or when I'm being funny, it's Bunningham Palace. Well, whatever. I'm guessing there's probably some term besides colony style, razing rabbits, but that's what she does. And her rabbits are literally, they literally dig burrows and dens and 12:31 She doesn't know how many babies she has until the babies come out. You big enough to come out. So I don't want to do rabbits again, but if I did, I probably wouldn't do colony style because I would be like, can't see the babies. And if there's a dead baby and a nest, it will kill the other babies if you don't get it out. Yeah. And that's what happened with the first one is I think one of them passed and the whole nest got cold. um Now I do have... 12:59 what I call the maternity cages that are set up that I can separate if necessary. Nice. So I have that just as a backup, but I will probably be now that the weather is a little bit nicer. I think I am going to burrow a nest box sort of in the middle of the colony because I've seen where people have done that. They have the pipe and then the box down in the ground and just a little hinged lid on the surface that they can lift up. 13:29 So I'll probably be trying that in a couple of spots. That's a really cool idea, because then Mama Rabbit can do what she naturally would do, but you can still do what you need to do and make sure they survive. Nice, brilliant, fantastic. See, homesteaders are amazing because they come up with all these hacks just like your name. And it's great that we're all able to share those now. ah Immediately, yes. 13:59 Yeah, this age of information I think is wonderful. A lot of people talk about, you know, historically in the old ways and the ways their grandparents did it and it's, we don't live in that time anymore. No, and okay, so here's the thing. Back in the old days, we need to remember that families weren't just a mom and dad and like one or two kids. Families, aunts and uncles and grandparents and the parents and a whole 14:28 hassle of children. So a home was a community in and unto itself. And there was things that were inherited, whether it be the property or the tractors or even the animal sometimes, and the knowledge just, it was all passed down and passed around. Whereas now everybody seems to be having to start from zero. 14:55 Yes. And the other thing is, that back in the old days, most people in America attended a church or they went to the town social every month or something where they were with the other people in the town that they were part of. And if you needed to raise a barn, you let people know a couple of months ahead of time and said, we're going to be raising a barn on this date in this month, show up. 15:26 and people would come and help their neighbors raise a barn or harvest the crop or whatever the project was that needed more hands. And we've gotten so far away from that that the internet has become our community. I'm telling you Heather, if you've got rabbits you need butchered, don't have any way to get to you to help from the As much as I would love to. 15:51 You know, and that's why I think it's very fortunate that we do have the ability to connect. it's it's not been until the last, I would say, year, year and a half, though, that. I'm finding more and more of us here within a couple of hours of each other. You know, there's the person that just had chickens who thought they were insignificant or just that person who had a couple of quail that they didn't feel like they were much. But when you put all the puzzle pieces together, now we have a whole community and we have a whole network. 16:23 Yes. And it's part of reason I started this podcast because I was like, I need to talk to other people who are doing this stuff and I want to learn from them. But I also want to share the information with other people who want to learn from them too. And I think the desire is there and I'm seeing it more and more every day where people are and whether it be starting to bake their own bread or to can or to get livestock or to 16:51 to just any little thing to do on their own. There's a desire for it now. Thank God and the stars above because we need people to learn how to take care of themselves again. uh My husband brought in some asparagus a month ago. We had a really short asparagus season this year. They went from little tiny nubs in the ground to already 17:20 leafing or seeding out within a week and a half. It was so hot they bolted. But he brought me in so I could have some because I freaking love asparagus. I hated it as a kid. Discovered a love for it back probably 15 years ago. And this is the fourth year on our asparagus patch that we put in. There is there is nothing better than literally picked 10 minutes ago snap. 17:49 put in a glass bowl with a little bit of water and microwave for three minutes asparagus from your own garden. I about cried when I ate it. 17:59 I understand that I was 17 the first time I tasted a fresh green bean. And I went, what is this? It's the most amazing thing I've ever had. Why do we eat these mushy things that almost have like a metallic when we can have this? And I would agree with you, except that I don't like fresh green beans because they're fuzzy on my tongue. 18:29 It's the same principle of uh anything. Yes, yes. And I mean, I don't necessarily like eggplant either, but I'm sure eggplant right out of the garden cooked the right way is amazing. Oh, probably. I haven't found anything yet that I don't enjoy fresh. Mm-hmm. Yep. And my mom, I've said this before a couple of times on a couple of episodes so far. 18:58 My mom used to can green beans right out of the garden and actual canned green beans, the way that people used to do this, you know, the canning process, love those compared to the ones that you buy at the store in the aluminum cans. Yes. And canning is actually where I started this entire adventure. Good. Tell me. So I have 19:26 um You know like anybody else again a corporate world doing all the things Thankfully, my mom had you know taught me how to shop sales and things like that when I was younger um And I had an entire freezer full of meat and the freezer went down oh Probably two thousand dollars worth of meat in one day. Mm-hmm, and I this is ridiculous. I never want to experience this feeling again And so I learned how to can 19:53 And because I, you know, again, I do things unconventional, I started learning how to can meat. And it has progressed into literally everything. I'm sure somebody at some point has brought up the concept of rebel canning. I have been a part of that from the beginning, thankfully. And so now I, I even can my extra eggs. You know, most people with chickens this year, they talk about. 20:21 water glassing or giving them away or feeding them back to livestock. And I can them so that I have shelf stable hard boiled eggs ready whenever I need them. Oh, OK. I was going to say, how does that work? But that makes sense. they go in in the shell and they go in fresh. And when they come out, they are in the shell hard boiled. And it makes meal prepping and cooking so much faster. And I was able to take that concept. 20:49 of shopping sales and shop seasons. And because I could make everything stable and preserve the expiration date of things to many years out, know, including things like milk and butter and eggs and you know, my meats and the vegetables. um There's very few things that I found that I don't like canned. But it allowed me to start almost this little 21:18 investment snowball into my life, which was you buy things seasonally and yes, it looks crazy going and buying, you know, 100 pounds of potatoes when they're cents a pound. But then I didn't have to do that for the rest of the year. And I was able to take that money that I saved and sort of reinvest it back into myself and into my pantry on something else. And that is not crazy. That is smart. 21:49 And so now that has turned into, I think I started learning to can in 2013 or 2014. 21:59 Yeah. Very nice. That's rolled into me having 82 animals. 22:05 You're doing all the things. You are definitely a homesteader. I looked at your Linktree thing on your Facebook page and it says consultations. Do you teach people this stuff? Sometimes I do. The consultations part is more, it's a little bit um of a side John. It's where I do, I take what I've learned in the corporate world and big business and the accounting and the marketing and all the things. And I actually, um 22:35 help people do. Oh, okay. So it's not necessarily homesteading. It's more teaching them how to set up systems and things. Or doing it for them. Yeah. So any sort of virtual assisting or plans or any things that people might need assistance with. I do. 22:54 And a lot of times it's, you know, with small businesses and people who aren't even, you know, micro businesses really that they just have no clue even how to, you know, set up a budget or keep track of their finances to see if it's profitable or what they're producing. Yup. Super cool. I always feel weird because I'm doing old fashioned stuff like making bread or canning or making 23:22 you cooking from scratch or whatever it is that we're doing that is an old fashioned skill, a homesteading skill. But I decided to start a podcast, which is definitely higher tech, two and a half years ago, almost three years ago. And I always feel weird because I'm like, okay, I'm going to go make dinner here in two hours and it's going to be pasta with a garlic sauce. But I'm sitting here talking to you and you're in Kentucky over a computer. ah 23:50 It's just crazy to me. It's awesome. I think it's fantastic. And I said, I think it opens up a lot of possibilities for all of us to, to learn how to do things. There is somebody on the internet who will teach you literally anything you want to know. Oh, yes, absolutely. And whether that's over the phone, over zoom, just through videos they've posted. What a time to be alive, Heather, I swear to God. 24:20 It is so cool to me because I am so curious all the time. Had the internet been what it is right now, when I was in high school from 1984 to 1988, I would have ruled the freaking world by now because I would have ingested every piece of knowledge I could have gotten my eyeballs on. is as I'm a very curious person, obviously, and there's almost too much some days because 24:49 What do you where do you start the executive dysfunction kicks in sometimes so there's so much information that where do you start? But if it wasn't for the internet being what it was I Wouldn't be here because I'm self taught in my canning I taught myself how to crochet and how to knit and how to spin wool into yarn And I had never seen a live chicken until I got them that day. I had never seen a rabbit until I got them I 25:18 None of these things had I experienced before I said, is what I'm going to do. Wow. That is awesome. I love that. uh I was the girl who my parents had bought a full set of encyclopedias when I was probably 12. I read those encyclopedias from beginning to end from A to Z. You and me both. had the entire 28 volume Britannica set. Yup. I was. 25:47 Like, I didn't even know they were going to get them. And I don't know if they bought them new or somebody had a set, but they were within a year of printing, you know, that year. they had them on a bookcase at the end of the hallway outside our bedroom door. And if I didn't have a book, I would just go grab one of the volumes and just sit down and read it. 26:14 My mom said to me one time, she said, so what have you learned? And I just grinned and said, everything. The most random, useless, you are wonderful at trivia information you could ever. It was so fun. And I thought then what a time to be alive. But man, at 56, I'm like, what a time to be alive. This is amazing. 26:44 It is it is incredible the information out there. I said there's there's always somebody to teach you how to do things which which I think is fantastic because coming into this and I live in a very big agricultural area. The county that I live in produces the most wheat in the state of Kentucky. It's big ag a lot of big players here and in my retail job they come in and I talk 27:12 very openly about everything I have going on because I found the more you talk, the more it opens up dialogue and conversations. People get curious. They ask questions. And in some instances, some of these old farmers come to me with criticism and they say, that's not how you do it or you can't do it this way. And I just say, watch me. Yeah. And then they come back later on and they're like, yo, how's that? How's that going? Or how's this going? And a couple of years ago, 27:42 I looked at one of these who he kind of been lightly mocking me in a playful way for most of the summer. And I said, my little 600 square foot garden that I have, which started as solid clay, they had excavated the topsoil off, has produced 750 pounds of produce this season. 28:07 And he wrote, what? 28:11 I'm over a pound per square foot. Yeah. 28:17 without bringing in anything extra as far, you know, I didn't haul in topsoil, didn't haul in compost, I didn't use all of these synthetic fertilizers and things. It can be done with a little time and effort. What did he say after you told him that? He didn't have much to say. He just said, wow, good job, kid, and kind of walked off. Oh, so at least he complimented you. That's good. 28:45 Yeah, he kind of did and I was like, yeah, don't don't tell me I can't do something again because those are like fighting words to me Yeah When you tell someone like you you can't do that The answer for you is always gonna be watch me And keep doing that cuz I'm gonna quote my dad, but I'm not gonna use a swear word my dad say opinions 29:13 are like buttholes everyone's the only opinion that is worth anything in your case is yours absolutely and if I can do it other people can too yeah absolutely and it doesn't take it doesn't take a lot of money or things you just got to get really creative yes and creativity is fun that's why people end up being actors or actresses or musicians or singers 29:41 or artists or I don't know, fiber people who make clothing. It's fun. And it's also hard, know, not Taylor Swift did not become Taylor Swift by just like opening her mouth and singing. There's a lot of work she has done. And there is, there's the sweat equity. Yeah. And I use her as an example because there are so many little girls in the world who just idolize her and 30:09 I'm really hoping that the parents of these little girls explain to them how much work has gone into making Taylor Swift who Taylor Swift is. Well, I'll tell you something that really gets a lot of people when I talk to them on this topic is. And my data is outdated. I've looked up the current, but at the time when I started, really, which was about 2019, I sat down. 30:38 looked up on all of the the government websites and I said how many hours a week do I have to work for somebody else just to feed myself? And the answer then was about 10. 30:53 10 hours out of a 40 hour work week, which is our standard full time, 10 hours, that's an entire day of working for somebody else to buy food. Yes. And I think, and that was assuming, if you look at the, I used the median numbers instead of the averages. The median was that, the median household spent $400 a month on groceries and made $30 an hour. 31:22 And I live in a very poor state. I made 12. So if $30 an hour got me 10 labor hours, my wage is half of that. It cost me 20 hours of working for somebody else just to eat. I'm glad that you brought that up because I wanted to jump in and say, I just saw yesterday on the news that the inflation rate for the month of May 31:52 was over 4%. And I'm assuming that's on everything because that was a government number that they were reporting. um The smartest thing that you can do if you live in America today is number one, if you have any way to grow any kind of food where you live, do it because you're going to make money by doing that. You're going to save yourself money and you're going to eat nutrient dense food. 32:22 that will make you healthier and stronger. that's where I teach if somebody can't at least start canning that way you can shop price point to price point. Yeah. And I always say if you can't find the people in your area who are doing it and buy your fresh food from them because the food at the grocery store, the produce, you don't know how old that produce is. You have no idea. 32:51 how long it took to get to your grocery store shelf. And every day from the day that that produce is picked or harvested, you lose the nutrient density of that produce. When every day goes by, it becomes less good for you. One of the things that I saw was like onions. Commercially, onions are harvested about September, October? Yes. 33:20 So if you were buying them in the summer, those have been sitting in storage since the previous fall. Well, I think it depends on where the onions were grown as well. Majority of them are, you know, it's those things are sitting in storage in a lot of instances. Yep. And it's kind of crazy, but they I just can't imagine spending 33:48 And now I'm sure it has to be even worse if I were to look at the actual median numbers of what the average person spends on food and what the income ratio is. Even with everything that I do with my garden and I'm building a food forest, uh my plan's for about a half an acre food forest, which is gonna be super fun. um And I have the livestock animals, they're small, but they're there. They'll produce a lot of meat for me, enough that I need. 34:16 can't imagine that taking 10 hours of my week, 20 hours of my week. And that opens up free time to do more, to actually live and experience my life versus being somewhere making somebody else $100 for every hour they want to pay me 10. Yes, and you're enjoying the work that you're doing at your Because there's nothing more fun than going and hanging out. 34:46 and a mass of 30 rabbits all hopping around and wanting your attention. Yes, and even the hard yucky work like mucking out the freaking chicken coop. It doesn't take that long. And I always think that once you do the cleanup work and everything is back to spruced up, there's such a, I don't know, there's a word. Number one, satisfaction. 35:13 but joy in knowing that you have given your critters a nice place to live again. Absolutely. Which is where a lot of us, especially around the online homestay community, um raising meat for food, people really get upset over the rabbits. They get very upset. But it's hard. Raising meat for food is hard. Yeah. We know from the time it's born, 35:43 what is going to be. And we're still out there in the middle of the night, bottle feeding babies, trying to save rabbits, dealing with chickens who just want to drown themselves or escape and possibly, you you get eaten by the pack of coyotes down the road. We're out here at all hours doing all these things knowing that's what's going to happen. That's the end goal. Yeah. But all of us also know 36:14 that we are giving our animals and our quality so much better than industrial commercial livestock operations. And you were saying that's really hard. You get a hard time about rabbits. Let me tell the listener. Rabbits are just really cute chickens. Yes. The meat is almost exactly the same. It tastes the entire rabbit taste. 36:42 like chicken breast. tastes like, it's white meat. Yeah, it's really good. lean, yeah. But everybody looks at them as these cute little pets and they absolutely can be. There are people that have pet cows, they have pet chickens, they have pet goats, they have pet sheep. Every animal on this planet can be a pet to somebody. And that person can think they are the cutest thing in the world. Yes, but in Asia people eat dogs. They do. 37:11 In South America, guinea pigs are a highly sought after delicacy. They raise them as livestock. Yes, and I'm sure there's somewhere in the world where cats are seen as a food source too. That's also Asia. So it's yeah, when you when you're looking at producing the most calories per per square foot. 37:36 animal food always produce more. And if it means going hungry and starving, or consuming this animal, people are going to naturally choose to not sacrifice themselves for a cute animal's life. yes, and I was reading something the other day. It's a book, you know, it's like a fiction book. And one of the quotes in it from someone who was religious, 38:06 was that the good Lord provided animals for us to eat and survive. And I was like, you know, that's probably true. And I have never thought about it that way. is an interestingly enough, I was just sort of touching on this conversation that I've had, because I spent four years being a carnivore. health wise, it was the best. I won't go off on that one. But 38:35 A tomato plant has more biological defenses than my rabbit. The contact dermatitis, the bioavailability of the nutrients, all of the anti-nutrients. They're minor reactions, but depending on how much you consume, you can't just go eat the leaves off a tomato plant and you're very likely to have some sort of contact dermatitis. Whereas if you go eat a rabbit, you're 39:05 You're going to be fine. There's really not going to be any side effects. And if you think about cucumbers, cucumbers have all those little prickles on them. Yeah. Yeah. Plants have... They don't want to be eaten. We do. and, know, in terms of the big ag and, know, I get into these conversations a lot. You can produce more square foot on on worse land when you... 39:35 when you eat meat versus all of the land and resources that are needed to support an all plant diet or mostly plant diet. Yes. I, my theory is that we're supposed to eat meat and vegetables. You don't have to share my opinion. Listener, you eat what you want to eat. You want to eat McDonald's hamburgers every day. You go do that. That is fine. I am not telling anyone how to eat what I am. 40:04 telling everyone is that if you want to be able to eat in this country in the next year or two, you might want to learn how to grow some produce. You might want to learn how to grow some meat animals. And you might want to learn how to cook because I don't see this getting better anytime soon. The cooking is the other part that I am seeing is difficult for people because I meet a lot of people who don't know if it doesn't come with instructions on a box, they don't know how to cook it. 40:33 Yeah, isn't that ridiculous? Just about a month ago, I was having a conversation. Somebody came into, I said I work part-time retail, they came in looking for a box of cornbread mix. And I said, we don't have this, but we have cornmeal. Yeah. Well, I don't know how to make cornbread with cornmeal. 40:53 I don't want to be mean about this. I'm not going to be mean. I'm not going to be disparaging. If you don't know how, that's fine. But you can learn. Absolutely. And so I did have to show them. said, there's a recipe on the back. 41:09 And he went, is it good? I said, yeah, it's good. Try it. Give it a try and let you know, next time I see you, let me know how it was. And he did. And he said, he liked it. He said, I think I might need to find a little dis of recipe, but, but it was good. said, see now you know how to make it without purchasing this convenience box that's overpriced. And if you want, I'll give you my recipe and it's probably much better anyway. Yes. And the other thing that's great about learning to cook is 41:39 those little packages to make cornbread have a ton of sugar in them. If you don't want a ton of sugar in your cornbread or your corn muffins or whatever you're doing, if you learn how to make them from scratch, you can take a little bit of the sugar out so they're not so sweet. And a lot of people don't realize that those little boxes have more flour than they do cornmeal. Yeah. 42:06 So it's not even really a true and that's, know, people are so used to that now that they're like, well, I don't like, I don't like this cornbread. I'm like, but that's actual that that's cornbread. The other thing is it's a corn cake, you know, and us people in the South get really defensive over what is what. I'll tell you what I will eat cornbread no matter where, how it's made, because I really like cornbread. 42:31 But I really like people who really know how to make cornbread because it's the best. It's a little something different. But it's again, it's the principle and the concept of these small things. Yeah. And I go and I talk to people about making homemade pasta or gnocchi or the fact that, yeah, I've gone out to my garden and I've picked a bunch of vegetables and I made the fresh pasta and a fresh 43:00 Pasta primavera with fresh noodles and fresh squash and vegetables and tomatoes and it's the best thing ever. It really is. And if we can just keep talking about this with people in our lives and getting them curious enough to start trying things, we'll have a better situation. um The last thing I want to say, because I'm going to be making this in about an hour and a half, two hours. 43:30 I guess two and a half hours, sorry it's only two o'clock. I'm gonna be making an Italian sauce, not Italian sauce, sorry, garlic sauce for the pasta tonight. And tonight it's gonna be butter and diced garlic, sauteed in a pan. That's just gonna go get mixed in with the pasta, because we're doing really easy tonight. But I learned months ago. 43:57 that I don't have to go crazy on Alfredo sauce. All I have to do is make a roux and then put whole milk in until it's thickened up and then add a little tiny bit of real Parmesan cheese and some diced garlic. And that is Alfredo sauce. You don't have to be a gourmet chef to make something yummy. don't. you I have you ever tried lemon pasta? No, I have not. 44:27 So do do like a butter noodle with a very simple splash of even just the bottled lemon juice. A lot of places in Italy, they'll serve it with, you know, fresh squeezed lemon and a little lemon zest. It really gives it that little bit of extra. A very simple, just a little splash of lemon juice and the butter, little fresh Parmesan if you want. But it is it tastes high end gourmet. 44:56 I think I will try that some night when my husband's going to be late from work so that if he doesn't like it, he can make something else. is very interesting. some people, know, it doesn't take much. Again, it's that creativity and just that little bit of play and experimentation and just knowing if you know how things work. 45:21 then you can figure out how to make things different. No, no, no, it does. It does make sense, at least to me. All right. So where can people find you, Heather? So I am pretty much just on Facebook right now. I am in the process of building my own website because some of my adventures are taking me in places that social media does not like. OK. And so we'll be having a 45:49 I'll have my own website here. Hopefully in a few months I'll have it all completed, but who knows what will think. Yay. I wish you luck with that. love websites. I hate building them. Yeah, it's been interesting. But there's an entire piece of this closed loop system of my homestead here that nobody really, nobody likes to talk about and they don't like to deal with. 46:16 but um I find it to be absolutely critical and social media does not like um waste products and end products or what people would assume are waste products. But we make use of every part of everything that we can. So. From the snout to the tail. Absolutely. And everything in between literally. Good. 46:43 Awesome because we have gotten away from that too and that's important as well All right, heather. Thank you so much for your time as always people can find me at a homestead Podcast.com. hope you have a great day heather. Thank you. Thanks, Mary you too
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| Stonehedge Farm Produce | 25 Jul 2025 | 00:27:03 | |
Today I'm talking with Adrienne at Stonehedge Farm Produce. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Adrienne at Stonehedge Farm and her three little kittens in the background. Good morning, Adrienne. How are you? I'm doing just fine. Awesome. You're in Kentucky? I am. Okay. How's the weather? Hot and humid. Here too in Minnesota. It is disgusting. Yeah. 00:29 Yep. You walk outside and immediately start sweating. Yeah. And, uh, I got a double whammy going on because our corn is, is tasseling and putting out the silk on the ears. So I have an allergy to that. And so I am just a disaster this morning. My head hurts. My head hurts. My nose is stuffed up. like, Oh, I'm going to sound amazing on the podcast. It's going to be great. Okay. So tell me about what you do at Stonehedge farm. 00:58 Well, in a nutshell, we raise vegetables. Nice. What do you raise? A little bit of everything. start our markets generally in April with like lettuces and green onions and spring turnips and radishes and peas and that sort of thing. And then we continue through the summer with squashes and eggplant and peppers. And that's where we are now. And then we pick up the 01:26 winter squashes like the acorn and butternut and spaghetti squash. do them a little earlier in the season because they're so good as a cold soup or on the grill and so I like to have them available in the summer. yeah, absolutely. So why is it called Stonehedge Farm? 01:50 My late father-in-law named it because it is bordered on three sides by the old stone fences. Nice. So it is a play on Stonehenge, but it's Stonehedge. Yes. Great. It sure is. So this is a family farm? My late 02:13 in-laws bought it in the mid-90s. So it's been, you know, it's been in my husband's family since then. But, 02:24 So it's not really a family farm. I do come from family farming though. Okay, tell me about that. My mom married my stepdad when I was six. My stepdad's dream was to be a cattle and tobacco farmer. So at six years old, I was plopped on a tobacco setter and taught how to set tobacco. And I was tied to more calves than I can remember. 02:54 you know, taming them to be able to be walked on lead. And grew up with a huge vegetable garden and then tobacco went out of fashion. So my dad took the tobacco buyout and we started raising vegetables together. 03:14 Awesome. So you're a country girl. Yes, I am. I am an old farm girl. Nice. OK. So do you grow your produce just for you or do you sell it at farmers markets or to restaurants? We sell directly to some restaurants. And then our main outlet is the Lexington Farmers Market in Lexington, Kentucky. 03:40 We sell there four of the five days of the week that it's open. The guys, know, some of my employees do the weekday markets and instead of paying them by the hour or, you know, per market, you know, a lump sum fee, they get half of the sales because I feel like that incentivizes staying on your feet and engaging with potential customers and, you know, the more 04:09 The more the farm makes, the more they make. So. I think that's more than reasonable. That's a great marketing plan. Yep. And it seems to work. But and then with our leftover vegetables, we have a table at our farm gate that we call the pay what you can table. 04:33 There's a little drop box there you come and you get you know, you get your peppers in your eggplant and or your bag of lettuce or whatever and then you drop whatever your budget allows in to the cash box and then that gets that gets given to the crew Fantastic. So you're helping the community and the crew gets paid. Yep Love that. That's great. So I have a question about 05:02 the produce that you sell to restaurants. I don't know what the regulations are here in Minnesota, so maybe I'll look it up later because we don't do that with our stuff. Are there certain things you have to do to sell to restaurants? Not really. Be eye-catching. That's about all I can come up with is to catch the chef's eye because the chefs come to the farmers market. 05:32 I have some chefs that have been buying from me for years, you know, through multiple restaurants or through beginning as, you know, as a, as a line cook coming along with the head chef to now they're the head chef, but there's really no state or local regulations. It's good to have your produce safety. 06:03 your FSMA training done, but it is not a requirement. 06:11 Okay, I still have to look into what they are here because we're gonna have metric but tons of tomatoes coming in in about two weeks. My husband planted over 250 tomato plants this year. That's a lot of tomatoes. Uh-huh, and I don't wanna have to throw out a quarter of them, so I'm gonna look into it and see what's required to see if restaurants want them, because they're going to be amazing. 06:40 And I don't want to throw them out. So maybe some restaurants in the area need to start running the caprese salad. Yeah, absolutely. Or bruschetta. Bruschetta is amazing too. Yes. I'm dying. I can't wait for our first tomatoes to come in because with our first tomatoes, we always make a batch of bruschetta. it's like... 07:06 It's like cold food. mean, yes, you toast the bread to put the stuff on. No, but it's cold food when it's 9 million degrees outside. Yeah. And it's like, it's like in May when the first rhubarb comes in, I get strawberries and I make a strawberry rhubarb compote to put over ice cream. And then when tomatoes come in, the first thing that I eat with tomatoes is bruschetta. Like these are traditions that are long held in our place. That's wonderful. 07:36 I wish my husband would eat a vegetable. Uh huh. I wish my husband would eat more vegetables. I don't know what it is about men and not wanting to eat vegetables. I don't get it. I don't understand. Now right now my grandson will eat vegetables. If we're eating them, if mama and Gigi are eating them, he'll eat them. 07:59 So, he's so cute though. So you're Gigi, not grandma? I am Gigi. I love that. have not had any grand babies. I have a grand stepdaughter who I met when she was six. So I haven't had any grand babies. I've got a grand kid. Yeah. So nobody's named me yet. My nickname is Lynn. 08:27 And that's what family knows me as. So she calls me Lynn. So I'm not even grandma Lynn. I'm just Lynn. Just Lynn. Yeah. I can live with that. That's okay. Yeah. Okay. So are you the gardener or are you the director of the gardens or how does that work? I am a little bit of both. I have some things like the eggplant that I just picked though. I'm going to be out of town for 08:54 almost a week, so I'm going to have to teach somebody how to pick eggplant. But I have on any given day between five and eight employees. Okay. I have a couple that I can call in clutch. So that have worked for me for a year. Well, one of them is my daughter. She's worked in a garden since she was four. So. 09:21 You know, I can call her in to help if we have a particularly big harvest day or if some of my regular employees are out of town. See, I employ two sets of brothers. So when something in the family goes on, I lose both. 09:40 Yep. How big is the farm, Adrienne? The farm is 198 acres. And is that, how much of that do you grow on? We run cattle on the majority of it. Some of it is wooded, know, kind of as a nature preserve that we've left it wooded and we've cut out the invasive honeysuckle and the other invasive plants and left, you know, planted. 10:10 native plants instead, you know, planted golden rod and cone flowers and butterfly weed and native plants. So we've left it natural except for that. And then about three acres is garden. Okay, cool. So it's not like you have 40 acres of crop fields. You have a garden. No. Okay. 10:36 We intensive garden about three acres. Very nice. That's a lot of work. It is. A lot of hand work. Yeah. Especially since our tractor has been down or in the shop since late May. So we got the garden in before the clutch went out and now it's been in the shop for two months. 11:06 Oh no, that's not great. No. Okay. So you said you run cattle. Are they your cattle? No, they are. We lease a lot of the property to two 30 something guys. They also rent a house from us, but we lease some property and they run steers. They bring in feeder steers when they're just weaned or just a little bit older. 11:36 and raise them until they're ready to go out west to feed lots and slaughter lots. Okay, so you're diversifying your sources of income from your land. you have to. Yeah, I was going to say I would recommend that to anyone who has more than 10 acres. There's a lot you can do that you don't have to do the work for. My parents have 14 acres and they have 12:04 two fields, one in front of their house and one behind their house. And they don't actually rent out the land, but there's a guy who comes and cuts the hay on both fields. he barters with them. He either gives them beef or venison every fall. So there are lot of ways to make your land work for you. Yes, there are. There are more ways than you can think of on your own. 12:34 Yep. We're trying to figure out a way to hire a couple of teenagers next summer or actually the summer after this coming summer. Maybe not, but the two summers from now to help us pick black raspberries because we have black raspberries growing wild in our tree line and inevitably it is really hot and gross when they're ready. And my husband has a full time job and I don't pick black raspberries. I'm not going out there. It's not my job. 13:03 And I told him, said, I said, I have things that I am doing, but could we maybe figure out a way to barter produce or pay a couple of teenagers from the high school to pick black raspberries in the mornings when it's cool? And he was like, that's a good idea. Let's look into that this fall. said, okay. So maybe we can find some, some, uh, enterprising young people to come do some of the work. My suggestion is the FFA chapter at the high school. 13:33 Uh huh. Yup. And then he can teach them a little bit about gardening when they pick berries. Almost all of my employees have started work either while they were still in high school. I have one that's, that's just about to turn 16 and, or just after high school, the summer after high school. 14:01 Yup. it's so, this is going to sound really self-serving. It is not the way that I mean it. It is so good for kids to be exposed to this stuff in their teens because I like it plants seeds in their heads about what they might want to do when they get to be a grownup. Yes. Yes. I made a Facebook post about, you know, us not just raising vegetables, but raising young men of women too. 14:31 Uh huh. Because they have, I have watched them mature. 14:38 much faster than their peers just by the sheer amount of hard work that they're putting in. comparing their take-home pay to their friends' take-home pay at McDonald's, my crew is doing just a little bit better. Good. Because I pay them adult wages. They're doing adult work, so they get adult wages. 15:08 Good, and I worked at a McDonald's when I was 18, 19 years old. I would much rather work outside than working at a McDonald's any day. Me too. That constant grease smell about killed me. Yeah, worked in, well, while my kids were little, you know, I was trying to raise three kids on my own. 15:35 I worked as a bartender or as a server. I ended up at an Italian restaurant. The smell of garlic still turns my stomach. 15:48 That is so sad because garlic is God's gift. It's not fair. No, it is not fair. I still use it and I still eat it. It still tastes fine. It's just the smell of it. Like when I'm cooking, you know, and I have to put the garlic with something else. I cannot just saute garlic by itself. 16:11 It's so strange. It's a food aversion and it happens. It took me 20 years to decide that I liked cherry tomatoes because I ate too many of them when I was little and got sick to my stomach on them. took me 20 years to finally try one again. So yeah, it's a thing. It's definitely a thing. 16:34 stuff imprints on you. It's amazing. The weirdest things will make you think of other things. So, okay. So do you sell your produce at your property too? Or you said you have the pay what you can table? Just pay what you can table. We do bags of produce on Monday and Saturday. So that's the way a lot of local folks 17:02 that don't want to come to Lexington to the market will get produce from us. It's just a surprise bag. On Mondays it's $10 and it's a bag full of groceries and then on Saturday for Saturday it's 25 because it's fresh from the field. The Monday bag is the things that are left from the market. 17:30 from the Saturday and Sunday markets. That's phenomenal. How far are you from? Is it Lexington that's the next biggest city to you? Yes, we're only about 25 minutes, but traffic and parking for the farmers market can be a pain. So a lot of folks just go to the Woodford County market, which we don't participate in because I don't have the 17:59 I don't have the folks that want to do market consistently available. Understand. We're really lucky here because we live in a very small town. Well, we live outside of a very small town and where the farmer's market is, it backs up to a parking lot that is huge and it's usually pretty empty. So if people want to drive to the farmer's market, there is a parking lot right there. We're so, so blessed on that one. 18:29 Very, very blessed. 18:32 And it's a really thriving farmers market. It didn't used to be, but over the last four or five years, the people that run it have brought in a whole bunch of interesting dynamics. had, I think they had a painting thing for kids this past weekend at the farmers market. Fun. Yeah. And I know they brought in master gardeners. 19:00 back in June, I think, so they could answer questions for people. So they've been trying to be really creative on having something to draw people to the market besides just produce and meat and flowers. People want to make the farmers market an event. Yeah. And that's perfectly fine. That's wonderful if it brings them out and gets them shopping local. 19:28 Yeah. And the other thing is, that it's, it's basically right in town and it's right across the way from the grocery store, which I think is funny because we're basically competition for the grocery store. But if people are coming in town to get bread and milk and they want produce, they, go to the store and then they go to the farmer's market after. Yep. Um, on Sunday where we have our farmer's market, it is in the same parking lot as a butcher shop. 19:58 You know, it's a grocery store, but mainly it's a butcher shop. It's in the same parking lot. And then just across the street is the grocery co-op. So everybody comes and gets their produce, gets their meats and gets the rest of their groceries just all right there on the same corner. Exactly. It's a one stop shop. Awesome. Great. 20:27 Do you have any animals on your property other than the cows? than the cows? We had a barn cat who is now an office cat with her kittens. Yeah. 20:43 I have a pet pigeon. I used to raise quail. I have one remaining quail rooster. He's very lonely. His buddy died about two weeks ago. Oh no. Yeah. And a fish tank. No chickens, huh? No chickens because we have a red-tailed hawk who nests right in the middle of the farm. 21:13 who would love to eat chickens. Yup, that's a good reason to not have chickens. I want chickens so badly. I love chickens. 21:28 Yep, but it won't do any good to get them if the hawks gonna pick them off. Yeah, I'll just pick them off because she's a very good huntress. And how great is it that you have a hawk that you can watch? have a hawk, have foxes, we have coyotes, lots of raccoons, unfortunately. Lots of snapping turtles in the pond. 21:58 Yep, just an update for anybody who's been listening lately. We think that our raccoons have vacated the premises on their own. We had a mama and three babies show up a week or so ago. Oh no. And we got rid of the sources that we thought they might try to get into and we shored up our chicken run and chicken coop and we have not seen the raccoons for at least five mornings now. So I think maybe they moved on to better sources of food. I'm hoping. Hopefully, yes. 22:28 Those babies, oh my god, so cute and such little mischief makers. Yes. I personally do not like raccoons because they're destructive just to be destructive. They'll kill chickens and not eat them. 22:52 Yep. We lost four chickens to these guys, so that's why I'm doing the update and why I'm thrilled that I think that they have moved because I didn't really want to have to shoot these guys because they were really cute. Okay, so the mama cat that you have. she a pet or is she an outdoor cat? Well, kind of a combination of both. If you're sitting out on the patio, she'll come over and jump in your lap and want some attention. 23:22 But my husband is violently allergic to cats, so she can't be an indoor cat. 23:30 Okay, and I'm assuming that I'm assuming the litter was a surprise. Yes, very much so. aren't they sweet though? They're adorable. How old are they? About five weeks. Oh, so they'll be ready for homes here in about three weeks. Yep. I've started posting pictures of them on my Facebook. Yeah, I wish you luck because I don't know what kind of kitten season Kentucky's having. Oh. 23:59 I have seen so many posts of people having kittens since May that are ready to go. Yup. Yup. It's been like that here too. Yup. And we were going to get some kittens from a friend, but they can't catch them because they're, they're barn cats. Yeah. And then they had a line on three from a guy whose cat or his barn cat had kittens. And then they decided they wanted to try to find people who would take them in as actual house cat pets. 24:27 And I was like, no, I'm not looking for a house cat pet. have two outdoor cats and I want at least two more. And I said to my husband yesterday, said, you know, maybe we just stick with the two male cats we have this year and we look at kittens next year. He was like, that's okay. They're keeping up with the mice. I said, okay, we're just going to stick with the two. We're going to stick with the two guys. Yep. One of them we got at the Humane Society four years ago. 24:55 And they told us that he was feral, he was mean, and no one would ever be able to touch him. And he's my son's best friend. And then the other one is almost a year old. He's from the last litter we got from the mama cat that disappeared last year. Yeah. And his name is Fluffy Butt because when he was a baby, he was exceptionally long-haired. And he blew his coat this spring and he looked naked. 25:24 And he's super friendly too, so we're good on cats, right? They may be my favorite thing outside. We have a dog too, who is my favorite creature that lives inside. She's a pet. She's a watchdog. Yeah. But the cats, I just, love watching them play. They just, they eat the hell out of each other and then they curl up and take a nap. Yep. 25:53 Yep, the kittens are at that stage where they'll, you know, they'll bite hard enough that they'll make the other one squeal. And, but yeah, they're, they just absolutely beat the heck out of each other. then, you know, curl up a nap, curl up the side mama. All in a ball. Yeah. It's crazy. Okay. Well, 26:20 Other than that, I can't think of any more questions, partly because my nose is driving me crazy and my head hurts. I'm sorry. Where can people find you, Adrienne? They can find me on Facebook, Stonehenge Farm Produce, or Instagram at S.S. Produce. Okay. Or they can find me at the Lexington Farmers Market. Awesome. 26:47 Thank you for your time today. really appreciate it. No problem. as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Thanks again, Adrienne. Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Bye. Bye.
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| Dawn's Dirt teaches us about farming | 23 Jul 2025 | 00:33:22 | |
Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt. She's running me through a sample coaching session. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like to attend Dawn's webinar mentioned in the episode, click this link, Homesteading Masterclass.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt in Alberta, Canada? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I couldn't remember. I've talked to a few people and I'm like, oh no, I'm going to screw it up again. Dawn is going to run me through a basic coaching session because that's what Dawn does. Dawn coaches people on how to start. 00:28 farms or homesteads or something where you grow things. So go ahead Dawn, let's do this. Now I feel a little nervous actually. just act like I know nothing. Well, but that's not the truth though. You've got a homestead going there and I think it's a pretty good one. 00:50 I guess what I do with my clients, first I jump on a jumpstart call just to get a feel for who they are and what their goals are. So I guess that would be my first question is what are your goals with your homestead? To keep it. 01:05 Okay. What are the blocks and barriers from you keeping it? We need to figure out a way to have better systems. Like my husband started growing a garden four summers ago and it's a hundred by 150 feet now. And he started out growing all the things. And as we've gotten further along, he's now whittling it down to the things that sell like tomatoes and cucumbers and cabbage. 01:35 And so I think that was a smart thing to do, but do you think that's a smart thing to do? I absolutely think that that's a smart thing to do. So when I had my farm, I was a farmer for many years. I had a 36,000 square foot greenhouse and I did 20 acres of garden and people would ask me what I don't grow. And there was a handful of things that I didn't grow. So I didn't grow asparagus because I just didn't get it established. I just never went down the asparagus route. I didn't grow, um, 02:04 Peas didn't really grow on my farm very well. And so I stopped growing them because they didn't produce very well and they just weren't effective. I didn't grow garlic because again, garlic, I just never got it figured out. And ironically enough, I didn't grow carrots and people go, why wouldn't you grow carrots? Like they're one of the biggest sellers. And the reason I didn't grow carrots is they didn't grow super well and they were super labor intensive. And so by the time I... 02:32 planted them and weeded them and harvested them and packaged them. It just took so much time that it didn't really pencil out very well and it wasn't one of my high, it was a high cost item for low net margins. Like I didn't make as much money on it so on them so I just quit growing them. So I think that's super smart that you're gonna grow the things that sell the best. 02:59 and grow the best and are easiest for your customers. good. So we've got that knocked, I think. And you'll be happy to know that since we last talked, all, well, over 250 tomato plants are still growing and they are loaded with green tomatoes right now. So we should have, but tons of tomatoes in August. I love it. 03:26 How many leaves do you have on your plants right now? Are they full of leaves and green tomatoes or are they full of just green tomatoes and a few leaves? Probably right in between the two. My husband's been pruning them and tying them up. Okay, perfect. Yeah, because that's how I got more production out of my tomato plants is I actually pruned them. And so I took all the suckers and shoots off and then I stressed my plants out. had a client a couple years ago, she said, 03:55 Dawn, my tomatoes are all green and the plants look big and beautiful and healthy, but these tomatoes are green. I've got some flowers, but I'm not getting red tomatoes. And I said, that's because your plants aren't stressed out enough. And so if your husband goes through and kind of takes off a lot of the bottom leaves, opens up the green tomatoes to the sunshine, you're going to get more production. It's going to stress your plant out a little bit. And a stressed out plant is going to want to produce a seed and a seed is a red tomato. And so 04:22 When I had my farm, and again, I was in perfect growing conditions. So perfect watering, perfect temperature, perfect sunlight, perfect, perfect, perfect everything because I was in an enclosed space. But you can still take the principles and move them outside to your garden. I only had 12 to 15 leaves on my plant at any given point. And so I don't think you should go that 04:51 far into stressing your plant out, but I do think, yeah, it's not going to hurt to take a few more leaves off and you'll get a few more red tomatoes. Awesome. I have a question actually. I was told that tomatoes don't like to ripen unless it's below 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If it gets above 80 and it gets really hot, they stop trying to ripen until it cools down again. Is that true? 05:15 Don't know about that, but I do know that if it gets too warm, you need a difference between your daytime and nighttime temperatures in order to set the fruit. I do know that, but I don't know about the ripening process. Although when it's warm, they do ripen a bit quicker. They ripen with the sunshine and with the warmth, not with the cool. So people always tell me, oh, I pulled all my green tomatoes off and I put them under my bed in my basement. And I'm like, that will preserve them, but that's not going to ripen them. 05:45 ripening them is where you take them out and you put them in your living room where you've got a south-facing window and the sunshine and the heat will actually make them turn red. Okay, the reason I asked is it's gonna be really freaking hot here in Minnesota this week. We're already at 80 degrees right now and the humidity is disgusting. And I was like, well, it's gonna be another week before those things ripen because it's gonna be hot, but maybe not. Maybe the heat will make them turn red. I don't know. 06:14 It might make them turn red, but it's going to make your plant slow down and it's going to make the fruit production slow down a bit because the plants aren't going to like that. The other thing is, is when I, when we had hot days and it got warm in the greenhouse, um, my leaves didn't grow as big. so when my leaves didn't grow as big, uh, we, slowed down on our de-leafing and pruning because you still need leaf, you still need leaves to keep your plants growing. And so. 06:42 I know that he kind of slows down your vegetation. It just slows the whole plant down. It doesn't like being too warm. And so sometimes maybe a shade curtain or things like that, that can help. Okay, awesome. I will share this with the hubby because he's the gardener and I'm the researcher. I'm the one who's like, let me ask people who know things and I will tell you. The other thing is that because he is the gardener, it's his baby. 07:12 He's very protective of his baby. And I have to be real careful about how I broach things to him about his gardening, because he thinks I'm being critical and I'm not. I'm trying to help, but he perceives it as being critical. And so I keep suggesting to him that he choose more passive things. Like we do have an asparagus bed that is established and it did great this spring. 07:37 It's only been in for four years, so it's gonna probably be two more years before it can really sell asparagus. But it's doing great. And we have a ton of strawberries that he just picked up at the farmers market, the plants themselves, and he's gonna put those in. So asparagus and strawberries and fruit trees tend to be pretty passive growing situations, right? Yes, because they're perennials. Sorry, not annuals, they're perennials. 08:07 And so that's the thing with the perennials. You still have to look after them, but once they're established, you're going to get things year after year after year. And so perennials are such a good idea because you're not relying on seed, you're relying on the plant and then you can transplant and make new patches and things like that. those are great, great options for, right, passive things on your homestead or on your small farm. And then I personally like the quick things. 08:35 Now lettuce in the heat of summer is really hard, but lettuce is a quick crop. So you can do early crops of lettuce and spinach and you can do late crops of lettuce and spinach. And what I find or what I found when I did farmers market, now our zone, growing zone up here in Alberta is a little different than yours down there. But the principle still remains. You just have to watch your seasons and adjust the months of the year you're doing that. But what I found was I had earlier, 09:03 spinach and lettuce. So I had earlier crops than most home gardeners would. So they always planted a little later than I did. And then I would reseed and I would have late crops because what most home gardeners do is they plant one time in the spring, they harvest their lettuce and spinach and they don't think or don't know to replant. And so that's where you come in. 09:28 You can replant your spinach and lettuce later in the season when it's going to be cool or you can put some shade cover on or things like that. There's tricks that you can do to make that stuff grow. And then you will have lettuce and spinach and your cool weather crops in seasons when they don't. And that's how you're going to make more pennies and nickels and dimes as well. Exactly. And our farmers market ran through October last year. So we're hoping to do that. We're hoping to get some greens in the ground so we have a fall crop. 09:59 Perfect. That sounds amazing. know, fall was always my favorite time. My favorite time of the year on my former farm was when I had almost everything. I had greens and I had beets and I had potatoes and I had corn and I had almost all of it. you know, that month of August. For me, it hit about August, late August and the very early September. Those were my, excuse me, those were my very 10:28 best weeks on my farm because I had it all. The other thing that you can do to make extra money at the market is I never sold items by the potatoes cost this much and the tomatoes cost this much and the beans cost that much and the lettuce cost that much. So people would pick up a bag of beans and a bag of lettuce and they would grab their two items. That's not how I sold. I didn't sell it by the pound. I sold it by the 10:57 item. So I made up bags or packages or whatever you want to contain your produce or measure out your produce. And the weights can all be different depending on the item. A package of pea shoots is going to weigh way less than a bag of potatoes. But I priced it all the same and I did a mix and match thing. So my pricing was one for six or five for 25. And what that did was it let your customers 11:26 who only wanted three items, then you can say, for two more items, you, you know, it's this much and they'll buy more. And so was kind of more of a one-stop shop. And so I almost not tricked customers, they were, they were, it was a, it was a relationship and they, they bought from me. 11:46 It's a marketing tool. It's not, it's not a trick. Yes, exactly. 11:54 Yep. We did grow potatoes two years ago and the year three years ago. And I love when we grow potatoes because I love when you pull the plants out and the potatoes start rolling out. It's so cool. But potatoes take up a lot of room. And so there weren't enough people interested in buying potatoes. We don't grow them anymore. Okay. 12:20 So that's a smart technique as well. You're using your space that you have effectively and growing what people want and what you're going to get the most margins out of. And you're correct, potatoes do take a lot of space, whereas a bed of lettuce, a two foot bed of lettuce, you can put four rows in there and get a lot of lettuce out of a small space. People don't use their 12:41 space effectively. They think, oh, I put in one row of carrots and then three feet over, I put in another row of carrots. And if you're using your garden space like that, you're right, you don't have enough space. But if you're planting your rows a little closer together and having, you know, minimal walk paths and just doing, just planning out your space effectively, and that's what I do in my coaching program. So I am a garden coach in the spring, and then I'm a business coach through the rest of the year. So I teach people 13:08 not only how to grow their gardens, but then how to turn that into a business and maximize production and get money off their small farms and homesteads. yeah, I forget where I was going with that. But the point is using your space effectively that you have to maximize production to get the most money back out of your garden space. out of all the work you put into growing that stuff, Yes. So I have a question. Yes, ma'am. 13:38 It's a ton of work for sure, absolutely. Do you have irrigation? Do you have irrigation that you can just turn valves or on a timer that it's irrigating or do you have to go out and like manually irrigate? He has sprinklers set up that he just goes out and turns on. Okay, okay, for sure. 14:01 So tomatoes don't super love top watering. that would be another suggestion of mine is if you can at all get drip irrigation under your tomatoes and peppers, that would probably help your plants more than overhead sprinkler system. Okay. Good to know for next year. We have had such a beautiful growing weather this year. 14:25 It's been sunny for like three days in a row and then it's rained for like three days in a row. So it's been very up and down. And so we really haven't had to water this year, which has been wonderful. And the reason that he put in so many tomato plants is that last summer we had terrible luck. It rained for six weeks from May until mid June. Our garden was soup until mid July. 14:53 He managed to get some tomato seedlings in. They died. He planted again at the end of June and those died. And he planted again in, I think it was the second week of July. We didn't have our first tomato until September last year. And we were not the only ones. No one had good luck last year. And so he over planted this year on the off chance that this was going to be a pattern. 15:21 And he's had so many people come up to him at the farmer's market and be like, so what's the ETA on tomatoes this year? Cause I know it's going to be a good year. Nice. That's amazing. Perfect. You know, and that's the thing. And that's where, that's where people need to realize and understand farming and agriculture. That's what you're doing is, is small scale farming and agriculture. It's gambling. It's a gamble. It's high roller goal gambling. so. 15:48 Yeah, like you can have a bad crop or you can have a bumper crop and it can be anywhere in between there. And so that's where diversifying your farm or your small homestead is such a good thing. Now not diversifying, the biggest mistake I think people make is they get the goats and the ducks and the sheep and the chickens and the... 16:08 pigs and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and they're not choosing breeds based on, you know, what's going to sell best or what's going to produce best or what's going to be cost effective. They just go up based on what's cute. And then they add their garden and they want the fruit trees and the strawberries and the asparagus and the potatoes and the carrots and the ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. And they get too many irons in the fire. And once you get that happening on your homestead, 16:37 You're not. You've got lots of irons in the fire and nothing's being done well. However, having said that, because you're gambling, right, with your tomatoes, you had a bad year that last year and you're going to have a good year this year. If you're growing, you know, the top few things, if you have the top few animals, and if you really focus on those few things and do it well, something will hit. You know, if it's not a good tomato year, it's going to be cool and wet. 17:06 and that might be a good lettuce and spinach year. And so if you're diversifying your warm weather crops and your cool weather crops and then diversifying your animals, you know, to the top few things that are going to work best for your property, that's how you're actually going to make the money. But I see it on Pinterest and Instagram and all the things so often, and people are getting animals just for the sake of having an animal for a picture. And, you know, that doesn't pencil out. I have a 17:35 I have a potbellied pig in my backyard that's just taken up space and room and you know, she's a mouth that I have to feed now, but she's not going to make me any money other than for a picture. that doesn't really, when you're thinking of a business scenario, that doesn't work. 17:53 Yeah, exactly. And the reason we don't have livestock, we have chickens because we want eggs and people want eggs, they buy our eggs. But we don't have goats or pigs or anything. And part of it is that it would cost us more to feed them than we'll ever make back on selling the meat. And number two, if the garden dies, it sucks. If a goat dies that you love, it hurts. Yes, for sure. Absolutely. I mean, 18:21 I'll be honest with you, there's a little more farmer in me. I have two goats right now and I don't even have them named. I really actually like the one. I don't love the other one, but I really like the one, but they don't have names. I don't know what their names are. I've not named them. They're not really super my pets. I pet them and I love on them and I take good care of them, but they're not my pets. They are there to produce milk for me and my family. I don't sell it because that's illegal in here in Canada. 18:48 but they're there for a purpose, for milk, for my fridge. yeah, that's, you kind of have to separate yourself. When you're a homestead or a farmer, you have to think like a farmer. And I know lots and lots of farmers, big farmers, and they don't name their cows. I sell eggs and chicken at a farmer's market and people say, oh, what's, and I sometimes I'll bring a chicken to the farmer's market and they'll say, oh, what's the chicken name, chicken's name? And I'll say, 19:18 number 139, I said, I got too many, I don't name them. They're not my pets, they're for food production, right? And they go, oh, that makes sense, yes. And so that's the thing that people really need to understand. If you're gonna get a property and if you're gonna homestead, which is small scale farming, you have to kind of somewhat separate yourself. And if you're gonna have livestock, you're gonna have dead stock, it's just the way it is. And you have to, of course, grieve and have a little cry if you need to. 19:46 Um, but realized that that just happens. Absolutely. When we got our first four chickens, when we lived in town, my neighbor said, so what are their names? And I said, A, B, C and D. And she said, what does that stand for? And I said, pick any name, Annabella Caradela. I, it doesn't matter. They're not named. And she laughed and she said, so D is D all of the above. And I said, sure. Yes. So we never named it. We never name our chickens. 20:15 Right? because they they things shit happens. Sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to say that on your show. It's fine. Things shit happens like, you know, animals get sick, they die, they break their leg, you know, something gets them a kite, whatever like that's part of being in the country and being on a homestead or farm is things happen. And I this is what I get a kick out of is I've seen I saw some people a couple years ago and they 20:43 moved from the city out to the country and they got all these chickens and they were going to be farmers. They went higher scale, like bigger scale right off the bat. And next thing you know, I'm seeing all these posts and all this poor chicken and I had to bring the chicken home and I brought the chicken to the vet and all these things. And I'm like, oh my goodness, no wonder you're not going to make money on your farm because your vet bill on your chickens is so high. 21:11 The best thing you can do for a sick chicken or a broken leg or something like that on a chicken is you tactician the map on that and you realize you don't bring that bad boy to the vet. You put her in a soup pot. you know, that's going to be the best use and the map for a farm, which is a business. Like your small homestead and farm is a business now. It's not just a hobby. I mean, if you have a hobby and you want to do that and your husband works in town at a great job, sure, go ahead. 21:40 But if you're wanting to do it as a business, don't go to the vet for a chicken. You might go to a vet for a cow, but you're not going to go to a vet for a chicken. No, because that chicken is never going to earn enough money to pay back the vet bill. It's just not. never. Right? And that's, I mean, it's a hard reality and it's sad. it's, you know, like if you're an animal lover and you've got a soft spot for animals, for sure. But 22:09 But then I would question, and this is what I do in my coaching, I would question if maybe animals is not your best bet. It's not the best way to go, you know, for your business. Maybe you should focus on vegetables that when the crop dies, it hurts, but it's not the same sadness. Absolutely. I could not agree with you more, Dawn, because I don't want to have to deal with sick animals. And I'm glad that our place won't support them. I mean, could we? 22:39 Could we finagle it? Yes. Do I want to? No. So we don't. We grow produce, we grow fruit, we grow sunflowers and peonies. And we have two little wildflower gardens that we put in that are just fun. And we have sold wildflowers before. Love that. And that's so perfect to diversify your small farm and homestead and make money off of what you have, you know. 23:07 The flowers are enjoyable in your backyard. Perfect. Like when you sit on your deck and you enjoy your flowers with a cup of coffee, I'm sure that is so lovely. But then also taking those flowers, turning them into bouquets, bringing them to the farmer's market and making a couple of bucks off them. That's even better. You just paid for your time to, you know, plant and weed those flowers. Well, the great thing about wildflowers is they don't really need to be weeded. Okay. 23:36 I actually don't grow flowers. I have a couple of annuals, but that's about the extent of flowers that I do. I do food. That's what I've always done and that's what I focused on. yeah, for sure. wildflowers like competition from the weeds. Oh, interesting. Yeah, they do really well. I have package of wildflower seeds. Maybe I should throw them in. Well, if nothing else, they'll be very pretty. Yeah. 24:05 Okay, well, I'm going to turn this around. I've got a package of wildflower seeds and some trees and bush around my place. Maybe I should just scatter them in there. They will need sun. Oh. I'll put them on the edge of the bush, self-basic. Yep. They'll need like six to eight hours a day of fairly direct sun. They'll get that. I know the perfect spot. Okay, cool. You're going to have to do that. Let me know how it works out. 24:35 Well, they probably won't do much till next year though, I wouldn't think. It's late, yeah. might maybe wait until spring. Spring, yeah. And check the package because I don't know what you have for that mix, but some of the wildflowers, need a winter in the ground, the seeds. Oh, okay. I'll look. I'll read the package. 25:03 That'll be fun. And if it works, you'll have to send me pictures. son actually dug up a bunch of sunflower seedlings from last year's plants, and he put them in a whole bank of like a row, and they've become this sea of sunflowers, and they're so gorgeous. Love it. I love it. You know, that's amazing. I have a friend, he owns 25:29 Bowdoin Sun Maze and that's how he diversified his farm and diversification on a small farm is really, really important, especially from a business standpoint. So he planted fields of sunflowers and he's got different plantings of them and he does sunflower mazes. And so people come and they pay him to come onto his farm to take pictures in the sunflowers. 25:55 brilliant, brilliant business opportunity and business that he's made out of it. So that's another key thing with your homestead or your farm is figuring out what's going to work for you to diversify and get some extra dollars through the door. I'll tell you what, if it was just my say so, and it's not, my husband and I are a team, we have to compromise and we have to work together on what we want to do. If it was just my say so. 26:23 This place would be asparagus, strawberries, tomatoes, sunflowers, peonies, and that would be pretty much it. That would be what we would be growing. You know, that's not bad. That's still what I think five things and that's five things that you can do and do really well to sell at farmers markets. Now you might not make the bank with that, but you know, you never know. 26:49 If you've got lots of outlets, you never know. I know some big farmers around here, vegetable farmers, and they've formed a co-op actually. And there is a lady that she does asparagus and peas, and then she does a few other things. Another one does carrots and cabbages and broccoli and cauliflower. And then she does a couple other things, but they have main crops and that's what they do. And they do quarter sections, 160 acres of 27:18 Wow. Peas or carrots or whatever it might be. And then they sell at farmers markets that way. Nice. I see. I feel like that's what our farmers market has become. I mean, I wouldn't call it a co-op, but I feel like it's the same idea. Yeah, for sure. When everyone can do what they do well. Now, the only trouble at farmers markets that I've run into up here in Alberta is when you have people that grow a little bit. 27:46 Which is great. I'm happy that they grow a little bit, but then they also buy and sell a whole lot and that's tough competition. And I don't really think that's fair competition either, especially for the farmer that's growing it. It's not. And we don't really have that problem with our farmers market. The people that run it are pretty good about making clear that they would really like it if people who are going to sell actually make the things that they sell or grow the things that they sell. Yeah, for sure. 28:16 Well, and you know, in my last year that I was, the last couple of years that I was growing, I had too many tomatoes and I wouldn't have, it wouldn't have been bad if I didn't have too many tomatoes and they still had tomatoes because if I was selling everything, that would have been different. But because I wasn't selling everything, then competing against tomatoes that were being bought and sold, that really, it stings and it hurts. And you know, when I'm feeding tomatoes to the chickens that could have been sold at a farmer's market. 28:44 But because my competition was buying and selling them, you know, it just makes it really hard. And I try not to look past or look past to the past or back to the past to get, get frustrated or angry. It's just, it's a fact. Truth is truth and facts are facts. And that's just a fact of what happened and part of my story and my journey with my farm. And when you're saying buying and selling tomatoes, they were buying tomatoes outside of their place and then selling them as if they were grown at their place. 29:15 Yes, essentially. don't think that they necessarily lied about it, but they, it just, the optics of it, when you go to a farmer's market, you think you're getting from a farmer. And so the optics of it, there's just a lot of unspoken, right? And so, yeah, they were buying from a big warehouse, a large warehouse, and that large warehouse provides tomatoes to all the grocery stores right across, you know, Alberta, for sure, and then Western Canada. And so 29:44 That's just a little bit, and I don't think they were being malicious about it at all. They were just trying to make their business go. But yeah, it just is really hard for, so that's, guess, if you're a farmer's market manager, make sure that you do your homework on the farm. Ask how many acres someone has, how much crop do they grow? Like how big is their greenhouse? All the different things, because there's a huge difference between growing it yourself 30:13 and buying it and selling it. Exactly. Okay. Before we started, you said you only had about 35 minutes and we're at 30 minutes now. So you have a webinar for your coaching coming up. I do. I do. So on this Saturday, I have a webinar. so hold on, I'm just going to pull it up so I can read off of it. I have a webinar. So for my coaching, I actually teach people how to 30:42 grow gardens, because I'm really good at that. And then I also, my free webinar, it says, do you want to make an income from your homestead or small farm, but don't know where to start? Join me for a free masterclass. It's an online masterclass. So I don't care where you are in the world. You can join my free masterclass. And so I will tell my story of how I took 43 acres of land and turned it into a million dollars per year in farm to table revenue. And then I sold my farm. And I'm also going to tell 31:11 how I took 0.5 acres, so half an acre this season. And I will generate about 25 to $30,000 in about four months. And this time around, I'm doing chickens, not vegetables. And so it's Saturday, May 26th at 10 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. I don't care where in the world you are. If you can join me, great. If you can't, there will be a recording sent out. So just sign up anyway. So yeah, if you'd be willing to share that link on your podcast, that'd be amazing. 31:41 I'm going to do exactly that. And I'm going to share your post from Facebook on my Facebook pages too. Amazing. Thank you so much. I want you to be successful. I know how much it killed you to sell your farm and you're trying to grow something new and I want to help. Oh, thank you so much. Absolutely. It did kill me, but there's a reason for everything. And I think with my personality and my heart, I love people. 32:07 more than I love life itself. The reason I'm really enjoying what I'm doing with my chickens this year, it's not even so much for the chickens and what I do here at my little small place. It's when I went to the farmer's market and I shook the hands of people and I built those relationships again, people drive me. I love people more than I love life itself. And so if I can take all of my knowledge and all of my experience and turn it into helping people, I really think that is the ultimate reason. 32:34 why I had to sell my farm and where I'm headed to next because yeah, I can help others get money, make money and save money off their farms. Awesome. So people can find you at Dawn's Dirt on Facebook and do you have a website? forget. I do. My website's not that great, but Facebook and Instagram, Dawn's Dirt and then I have my own podcast too. I love this back and forth that we're doing actually and so Dawn's Dirt is my podcast as well. So thank you so much. 33:03 You're welcome. And as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And Dawn, I love talking with you. I love your energy. I love your heart. And I hope you have a great day. Oh, amazing. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Really appreciate it. You're welcome. Have a good day. Bye. You too.
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| Brownies For Breakfast | 21 Jul 2025 | 00:26:30 | |
Today I'm talking with Lynne Bowman, author of Brownies For Breakfast. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Good morning, Ms. Lynn Bowman. How are you? Well, like you. I'm ready to roll, but prepared for all kinds of crazy stuff today. How about you, Mary? It's already been crazy stuff. Lynn and I have been trying to get Zoom to work for last 10 minutes. We are not technically broken. 00:29 but you would think we didn't know anything about technology. Well, to me, it's always the fault of the UX engineers. Always. It's not my fault. We'll blame it on them. Okay. So today I am talking with Lynn Bowman and she is the author of Brownies for Breakfast. And the reason I wanted to talk to Lynn is because my kids used to get brownies for breakfast two days after their birthdays. I made them brownies for their birthdays. 00:59 A swell way to celebrate. my brownies are as brownie as brownie gets. Difference is, Mary, they are made with no sugar. They are made with pumpkin, nut butter, cocoa, let's see, baking soda, eggs or egg substitute if you don't eat eggs, and know, salt, couple other little things, cinnamon. 01:27 But it's all whole food, good food, real food. And I guarantee when you set them down in front of people, they will look exactly like a quote, real brownie because they are real. Then what happens is somebody eats them and they go, oh my gosh, that's the best brownie I ever ate. is a, just don't ever tell them there's no sugar in them. Because when you do that, they go, oh, no thanks. Right? 01:58 Yeah. But there is something called Alulose in them. Terrible name, terrible name, wonderful product. It's real food. It's one ingredient. Uh, it doesn't give you tummy ache. It doesn't leave a funny aftertaste. And that's what I want everybody to know about. There is a way you can quit sugar because yes, you need to, you know, you need to. 02:25 You can quit sugar if you have a couple of tools like one, Alulose. You will never miss sugar if you have it. have to look this Alulose up because I listened to your interview with Amy Fagan on Grown It in Maine and you mentioned it on her podcast too. I meant to look up Alulose yesterday. I got busy and didn't do it. So shame on me. Shame on you. You did not do your homework, girl. I didn't. 02:53 It was terrible. I'm sorry. But you know what? And I know I sound a little crazy granny here because yes, I am. having spent most of my life, nearly all of my adult life trying to stay healthy and on my feet and may I say succeeding, I know some stuff about how to eat really well if you're diabetic, if you're trying to avoid chronic disease. 03:22 If you don't want to carry around extra weight, all the things, if you don't want to have heart disease, if you do have heart disease, all the things are really not complicated to deal with if you know a few things about how to eat. Really easy. You probably already know, but are you doing them? Real food, whole food, mostly plants. You can eat some other stuff, but mostly plants. Okay? Work together. Oh yeah. 03:52 I love a good salad. I do. And I absolutely love like steamed broccoli and steamed green beans and steamed whatever green veggie there is. okay, but what I'm talking about too is sneaky vegetables. You know, vegetables that don't come onto the table screaming, Hi, I'm a vegetable. I'm good for you. I like things that come onto the table like my brownies going, there's some vegetables in here, but don't worry about it. 04:20 Oh, like, like covert veggies. Kind of. Yeah. And if you've got children, the way of course to get kids to eat veggies is to have the kids raise the veggies. If you have any dirt, if you have pots, they love growing vegetables. Two, having the kids cook themselves, you know, with their own little darling hands, starting very, very young. If they cook it, they'll eat it. But 04:48 The recipes in my book, a lot of them are, they're vegetable forward recipes, but they're not salads, particularly, you they're not like a bunch of raw vegetables with some stuff on it. They're, mean, here's soups. Let's talk for a minute about soups. Um, Americans don't eat soup. Do you eat soup? Oh, I make, I make soup, let alone eat. Yeah. Good. Okay. That's great. Because it's a super way to. 05:18 Eat up what you have to use what's in the fridge to not waste food and to take what you have and make it something fabulous and then turn it into something a little different every day without a big deal. mean, my superpower, if I have one, was making dinner in 15 minutes. know, I'd come, like moms do now, you'd come screaming home with people yelling and dogs barking and the phone ringing and everything. And you needed to have something on the table. 05:47 Although now, now so many parents and people, other people are driving through, right? So that's your dinner. You have a bag of stuff. Okay. So, but back in the day I would drive home and in 15 minutes I had to have a meal on the table. So that's where I'm coming from is simple, easy, fast, cheap, but healthy. Yep. Absolutely. 06:17 And I know that you've done a whole lot of talking on a whole lot of podcasts about this whole topic. So what I really wanted to ask you about, and I want to preface this with the fact that I am not a doctor of medicine, and I'm assuming you are not a doctor of medicine. 06:34 I am a grandma. exactly. So I just want the listeners to know that neither one of us are doctors of medicine, but we're both grandmas. think Lynn has more experience with it than I do, but that's okay. What I want to talk about really is food is wonderful, but food can also be really difficult for people. And you're one of them. The reason you wrote the book is because you have type two diabetes. Is that right? Right. That's right. Yeah. 07:02 And you said that you had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. And they told you that you had a high likelihood of, there's a word developing, developing diabetes as a, you know, later in life. And I looked that up this morning and yeah, 50 % of women who get gestational diabetes are prone to diabetes in later life. I didn't know that. And I want to tell the story real quick. And then I have things I want to ask you about. My, my, one of my sons, 07:32 was nine pounds, 12 ounces effort. And I brought him in for his checkup and I was good, he was good. We were both really healthy. Went in the elevator to leave the hospital and another OB-GYN walked in. The elevator took one look at my son and said, I don't know you and I don't wanna be rude, but I have a question. And I was like, what? And he said, 07:59 Did you have gestational diabetes with this one? And I'm like, I've never had gestational diabetes. We're all good. He said, how can he be so big? I said, well, I lived on veggies and meat the entire pregnancy. And he was like, no. I said, yeah, craved vegetables every morning, noon and night. He said, I have never heard of that. And I was like, okay, well, no, I didn't have it. 08:29 So point being, I just want to share that, food can be really hard. It can be really hard because you have diabetes. You have to really watch what you eat so you're not passing out or dying. People use food as a way to cope with stress or depression. People use food to put on weight to use as armor because they were abused as younger people and that's how they protect themselves. 08:59 So what do you say about to that, any of that? What I say is, of course, it's also pretty well known that in this country, we have a bad relationship with food. It went awry in the 50s and 60s. And big food took over. And our moms were so thrilled that they did not have to spend their lives in the kitchen with an apron on. 09:26 that they could open a box and throw something out there and again, then they could go have a Pell Mel and a bourbon with their friends. Um, which I don't mean in a disparaging way. I mean, that's, that's what they did. That's what my mom did. Um, and, um, so we, we in this country sort of went off the rails with food, um, somehow along the way there. And that's a whole other show. That's, uh, another topic, but what 09:56 What I'd like to say to anyone who feels that they are having difficulty with food is I want you to enjoy it more. I want you to eat more joyfully, more happily. I want you to eat without limitations. And the way to do that is to eat whole food, real food, et cetera, et cetera. 10:24 Because when you start eating real food my brownies for example, mm-hmm What happens is one you fill up? It's nutrient dense food that hits your body and goes into all the right places and you get the signal. Okay good I've eaten yes, if you have a food problem I can almost guarantee it's not a carrot problem not a lettuce problem not a 10:54 whole meat problem, your food problem probably has to do with processed food. Because processed food is by intention and design addictive. And I don't mean that in a metaphorical way. It is as addictive and there are studies to show it's more addictive than heroin. yes, absolutely. So when we say quitting sugar, it you know, yes, it's simple. 11:23 You drop it like a hot rock, but your body does kind of go, wait a minute. What, what's going on here? And it takes about three weeks, according to what I've learned, um, to come off of it. And then your saliva has changed. You chemically change so that your taste buds are buds are different. the things taste different to you. And. 11:52 And all this time your body's trying to deal, you know, and if you've been under nourishing and overfeeding your body for some time, you know, it takes a minute to get over that, but that's what you've been doing. And when you start nourishing your body with what it really needs and wants, you have a different relationship with food. You become happier with you, you know, it's, don't feel. 12:21 Deprived you should not I don't want you to feel deprived. I'm a grandma. I want you to be happy And and you will not feel Deprived if you're eating good high quality food The only problem with that is you can't get it driving through honey, you know And you can't even really get it from most restaurants because you don't know what's in that food, right? 12:48 Restaurants are in the business of getting people to eat their food happily and greedily and so on. And so it's got stuff in it that you wouldn't do at home. I mean, you know, a little more sugar, a little more oil, a little more butter, little, you know, stuff. Um, because I am type two diabetic and I still say that in the present tense, whether I'm testing in that territory or not, because I do watch myself carefully and 13:18 Um, I am older than dirt, so it becomes even more important. But, um, your, your relationship with food needs to get better and not worse. mean, I want you to love everybody you eat. I want you to be happy. You've eaten. I don't want you to be hungry. And that's what this book is about. The book has lots of soup recipes, lots of sort of comfort food recipes. 13:46 the kind of thing that you don't want to live without, pancakes, donuts, cookies, all the things, but they're made with real nourishing food. I need to get a coffee. I need to go buy a coffee when I get done talking to you. Thank you. I want everybody to have it. I wish I could just throw them out there. And by the way, this is not a, shall we say, lucrative 14:14 thing for me to do. I lose money on this book. It cost me a fortune to produce it because it's full of pictures and you can see them, Mary, but your readers, your listeners can't, but it's a picture book too. It's beautiful. Because thank you. But to me, what I wanted was for, and my dishes, aren't they lovely? They are. I want people to know that I took these on my iPhone 14:44 myself and no stylists were harmed or yelled at in the process of doing this because I wanted the food in the book to when you make it, I want your food to look like my food. I don't want you to be disappointed because it's the wrong color or shape or whatever. So these are very ordinary recipes except maybe simpler and they don't take a lot of time or effort. 15:13 and I want them to turn out like the pictures in the book. Well, I'm going to have to get the book. I'm going to have to make some of the recipes. I'm going to have to take photos and send them to you and also post them on Facebook along with photos that you could send me that are the same recipe. We'll see how they compare. that would be really cool. I love that. I live for that and I have a substack now. So yeah, if you go on my website and everything's there, 15:42 Um, and you can sign up on my list there, but you can, you can find the Substack and it's just Lynn Bowman at Substack.com. And I send stuff out of a week. Um, it's, it's just ordinary things. Oh, do this, you know, take these three ingredients and put them together and you'll love it. Um, I'm, I am an impatient, sloppy cook. And my assumption is that most people are the same way, right? Most of us don't want to spend. 16:11 hours and hours in the kitchen. mean, there's exceptions to that. I've met some people who spend time in the kitchen, love it. It's a hobby, but not me. Yes, my son, he's 23, informed me a while ago that he no longer likes roast turkey, like actual turkey in the roaster Thanksgiving style. And I was like, okay, fine. You don't have to eat it if I make it. Well, I haven't made it since he said it. He went out to the freezer in the barn yesterday. 16:41 And he's like, there's two turkeys in the freezer. He said, do you want to make a turkey? Cause basically it's free food. And I was like, you said you don't like turkey. He said, it's free food. He said, I will eat it. I was like, okay. So I'm going to send his cute little butt out to the barn here in a little while to get a turkey to bring it in. And I am all about free food. Okay. I'll tell you how geeky we are about free food. My husband and I actually watched a documentary the other night. 17:10 about the forgotten vegetables from the Depression. we are going to watch it again because it was fabulous. And the Brit, we loved his accent, of course, because he pronounced it, rutabaga. Right? Ruti-baga? Rutabaga. Instead of rutabaga. It's rutabaga. And I thought, okay, I will eat a rutabaga. And it was so fun because 17:37 During the Depression, everybody was eating free food. We've forgotten that we can go out in the dirt and pull out dandelions and eat them, and they're fabulous, and they're free. And you can plant root vegetables for practically nothing and pull them out of the dirt all year long for free. Beans, we grow fava beans here on my place, and they are the most delicious food you can imagine. 18:08 and you pull them off the plant fresh, cook them in five minutes. I mean, they cook up so fast and little lemon, little butter, maybe some chopped parsley on top of them, high in protein fiber, and they are free, essentially. They cost nothing to grow. Our property has wild black raspberry plants on it. 18:35 And I know that fruits can be a problem because of the natural sugars in the fruits. No, no, no. Okay. Yeah. If it's real food, whole food, and you don't get crazy. mean, are you going to eat 10 servings a day? No, would. Yes. But most people won't. Well, but eat, eat fruit. I love my fruit. have pears on the property, apples, berries. Yes. And 19:04 As I said though, if you're eating real food, it's hard to overeat. know, can't, you, how many apples can you eat? You know, at a same. Yeah, exactly. And if you, if you, and we dry them too, and they're wonderful. And I give them as gifts a lot. My friends enjoy that. But if you're eating some nuts, some protein, some other stuff along with your fruit, you're not in trouble. You are not eating. 19:33 processed sugar and in that bunch I include anything like white flour. It's processed sugar essentially. Just as long as you're eating great high quality full food with hopefully one ingredient or two or three. And most folks now have access as I do have to drive a little way to the bakery. 20:01 Companion Bakery in Santa Cruz, California is my fave. And the bread there is made from local flour, not over processed. It's einkorn wheat. Most of it. Yeah. It's got nuts in it. It's got seeds in it. It's absolutely wonderful food. But if you're unwrapping your bread in cellophane and it has a list of ingredients on it, you're eating the wrong bread. 20:30 Yes, absolutely. Yes, you are. And we eat it anyway. But that's okay because I don't have diabetes and I don't have to worry about it this very second. I'm considering, I'm very much considering looking into everything you're saying because it makes a lot of sense. It does make sense, Ann. And you may not have diabetes today, but any kind of chronic disease that you can name quickly is improved. 21:00 or is prevented by eating this way. Yep. I'm gonna have to spend the money and buy your book because I need to show this to my husband because he's actually the one who drives what we eat and he needs to read the book, I'm telling you. And you and I both know if we are especially married to someone of the opposite sex, 21:30 They don't want to go to the doctor. In fact, they, they have a million different reasons why they can't go and get their checkup until they have erectile dysfunction. Then suddenly they're interested. And one of the first indications of type two diabetes is erectile dysfunction. Unfortunately, by the time that happens, you're way far along in the process. 22:01 So ladies, if you want to encourage your sweetheart to go get himself checked and tested, all you have to say is, know, by the time you have a rectal dysfunction, it's too late. You might want to go just get tested now, honey. Uh-huh. Yes. And if they're anything like my husband, they'll be like, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm fine. 22:29 So anyway. answer to that is not yet. Not yet. Exactly. All right. I don't know how long we've been talking, ma'am, but I only have 40 minutes because I do not pay for Zoom. I can't afford it right now. Does it say on your screen how long by chance? Anywhere? No, it doesn't. I am not impressed. OK. Well, if we get cut off, it was very nice chatting with you. 22:57 and I appreciate your time. Thank you so much and your patience for trying to connect with me through all of this, my storms, my power outage, all that. And maybe we can do it again. I would love to talk to you after you have the book and after you've maybe changed some of the things that you're doing. And I don't know what your situation is, whether you're... 23:25 If you feel like you're too thin or you've got too many pounds on you or whatever. The last thing I want to be sure we at least mention is strength training for women. Uh-huh. Because now that I am this age, of course, I'm very interested in not falling and not hurting myself and in bones being one of the kind of dumb things that I learned in the process of researching this is women get injured in falls. 23:54 not because their bones are brittle, but because their muscles are weak. Yep. 24:03 We're always hearing about how our bones get brittle. You know, so, uh, I am happily working out four days a week and doing strength training and seeing big changes in my body. Uh, and I haven't been scanned since, but I think it's an important thing now that many of us are getting a little older and living longer that, uh, we understand how to stay the heck out of the hospital. 24:34 I agree. Hospitals are no place to be if you don't have to be in them. They are no place to be. And it's going to get worse before it gets better, I'm afraid. yeah, if you are doing what you should be doing to prevent falls and so on, instead of taking one of those medications that build bone and don't actually build bone, there is now science that as an older woman, can 25:04 maintain bone and even possibly build a bit of bone by doing strength training and with hormones. Yep, absolutely. So, okay, well, another show. Yes, absolutely. Let me try to figure out where I'm going to find the money to buy the ebook because I'm not going to get the book book because I will not use it ever. I will use my phone always. 25:33 I love books, but I have just become so, I don't know, acclimated to using my tablet for recipes that I will just do it that way. It's a great way to do it. And the book is available on Audible too, which a lot of 25:49 people have told me, for one thing, it's read by me. So you get a lot of extra Grammy stuff in there along with the written text. But people seem to like driving along and hearing the recipes that are only like two things or three things. So they go, oh, I can do that when I get home. Yep, absolutely. Okay, Lynn, I'm gonna let you go because I don't want to get cut off. I'm afraid it's gonna be like, no, you're done. So 26:15 I really appreciate your time and yes, let me get my hands on the book and like in a couple of months, I will, we'll figure this out better next time. Great. Okay. Okay. And don't actually leave me when I stop recording, please. Okay. All right. Thanks.
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| Annie's Homestead | 18 Jul 2025 | 00:35:00 | |
Today I'm talking with Annie at Annie's Homestead. You can follow on Instagram as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Annie, Annie's Homestead in Idaho. Good afternoon, Annie, how are you? Hi, Mary, I'm doing so well. How are you? I'm all right. What's the weather like in Idaho this today? It's actually very beautiful today. We're sitting at about 90 degrees, so it's warm. 00:29 Our skies are clear, thank goodness, and it's just a beautiful, bright, sunny day. So I have no complaints over here yet. Well, give it time. My dad used to say, you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, it'll change. He sounds right. Yeah, and I'm in Minnesota and it is about 70 degrees out. It is bright and sunny and big, puffy marshmallow clouds. It's really lovely. Those are my favorite. I love those. We don't get those too often. 00:59 No. love them. We are really hazy. Our skies have been just like the sun, you know, has just having a hard time come through all the haze that we've had lately. So it's nice when we have clear skies and it's even better when we have puffy clouds. I love those. Yeah, I remember laying on my back as a kid finding shapes in the clouds. I haven't done it in years. That might be something I have to do this fall. I don't know yet. It's a good exercise. 01:29 Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and about what you do. So I am a homesteader. I'm actually off grid in the mountains in Idaho where my husband and I, we are in the Sawtooth mountain range and we love, love, love being out in the middle of nowhere. So we got really lucky when we were searching for land. We found 01:57 a 40 acre property. It's all undeveloped when we bought it and two sides of the property border at the Boise National Forest. So we are just secluded and we love it. We have elk and turkey and mule deer, little baby quails running through the property all the time. And it's just, it's heaven on earth. It's amazing. So we actually bought our property in 2021. 02:27 and started developing it very soon after. My husband is just a mastermind. Like this property would be nothing without him. He helped design all of the infrastructure. So we've got our solar panels. We've got really large solar panels. I'm not sure exactly what the size of them are. I just know that they're really big. 02:53 We've got a lot of those. We have about six of those. And so that's where we get all of our solar power to run our electricity. And we are on a well. Our well is probably dug about 150 to 200 feet down. Most of our neighbors, they were having to drill down about 400 feet. So we feel really fortunate to have the very strong well that we have. We've got a really strong stream. 03:22 down under all of the rocks, which is just a blessing. So... Let me jump in really quick for anyone who doesn't know, the deeper you have to dig a well, the more expensive it gets. Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. I know. have just, we spent so much money homesteading, you know, and it's everybody's dream, but it's almost so hard to do it because it's so expensive. And we live out in the mountains. 03:51 So we always joke, you know, it's not a funny joke, it's kind of a painful joke, but we always say that we have to pay the mountain tax to any of our contractors coming out there because everybody is always more expensive when of course you have to, you know, go through the back country and drive on roads, you know, that are full of ruts. So it's been a really fun adventure. got occupancy on the home that we built. 04:21 last May. So we've been living full time out there for about a year. And oh my gosh, it's amazing. So we've got a garden, a greenhouse, we built an indoor grow room, because for those weird people who are always watching the aerials spraying and the chem trails and we're like, oh my God, how can I grow produce that isn't covered and all of these chemicals falling from the sky? 04:50 So we did that. I do outdoor garden as well, just because of space. And then we've got our small flock of about 70 birds. We do chickens, geese, and ducks, and we use them all for meat and eggs. I love goose meat, so I think we'll always have geese. As much of a pain as they can be, they're very delicious. So I think we'll keep them around for a little while. Okay. 05:20 Number one, I'm a very live and let live kind of lady. And so if you want to have, if you want to grow plants inside so that the stuff in the air outside doesn't get on them, I am all for that. I love that. It has been a challenge. I am kind of new to gardening. I've, you know, I've had houseplants, you know, for about, you know, 10 years, but gardening is so different. I mean, I'm sure you know. 05:49 and trying to grow indoors where I'm responsible for controlling the humidity and the moisture, the soil temperature and all of these things. You know, there's a lot of variables. So I definitely flopped my first round of seedlings and I had too high humidity in my grow room. And I think it was sitting at maybe 70 % humidity inside, which is high. 06:17 I had a mold problem. So I took everything out and I just aired it out. I let it breathe. And I think we're down to 30 % humidity for the most part now. And I'm starting to see things grow that's not mold and fungus, which is really nice. But it's a lot. I'm learning how to manage everything. And it's a lot of fun, but it's exhausting all in the same. 06:45 as every farm and homestead is? In one way or another or another, yes. Yeah. Okay, so I have questions. Number one, I'm guessing you guys do not have children. We don't, not yet. We're working on adding those. That's next year's plan. Okay, well good luck with that. I wish you all the best. And number two, how big is the home that you built? 07:15 Our home is 1200 square feet in the living space and 1600 square feet in the shop or the garage section. Okay, so you didn't go the tiny house route, so that's good. Yeah, I need a little bit of space. We came from a rental home in the city that was, I think it was 2200 square feet and we had an indoor gym. 07:42 One of the bedrooms was a little art studio that I had so I could go in and I could paint, I could do my watercolors. So we had a lot of space and I think 1200 was probably like the smallest that we were comfortable going. So we have two bedrooms and the second bedroom is our office and our gym and our guest bedroom. It is like so multifunction, but we spend most of our time outside so we don't notice. 08:11 a small space too much. And then how far is the nearest big city to you? One hour. It's a hour drive. So that's not terrible, but you want to make sure you take a list and hit everything all in that one trip. Absolutely. Yeah. Our city days are usually like a full work day and then some we'll leave the property sometimes at like 8 a.m. and then we'll get 08:40 back home about six or seven, just in time for evening chores. Okay, so that leads me to my next question. Do you, I don't even know how to ask this without sounding like a jerk. Do you stock up when you go shopping? Do you have room in your home for storing things? We do. We stock up big time. So we have multiple freezers and we buy 09:10 one cow a year and we'll pick it up in town. We have some friends who they don't live in the nearest big city. They live a little bit just beyond that. So that is a whole trip in itself. And so we stock up on beef and then I love, love, love to buy produce at the end of the season. So I'll go to the farmer's markets or I will go to the farms directly. 09:37 and I will place orders for like 50 pounds of tomatoes and those will be all the tomatoes that I can. Or I'll do a big order for potatoes or onions, because those always store really well. So we do a lot of bulk orders, but I like to buy at the end of the season because a lot of these farmers will slash prices because they're looking to offload everything. So it's kind of a win-win for both parties. Definitely. I wish you lived closer, Annie. 10:06 We have 250 tomato plants in our garden right now and they are all going to be producing. We're going to be swimming in tomatoes in about three weeks. Oh my God, what kind of tomatoes are you growing? Early girls, some variety of cherry tomato, San Marzano tomatoes, which are amazing. And I think my husband put in some heirloom varieties too, but I don't know the names of them. 10:34 Yum. Do you guys do any sun dried tomatoes? No, because we don't have any place to do it. We have, we have roasted tomatoes in the oven. Ooh, those are so good. So we don't dry them. just roast them and then freeze them. That's cool. I think that would be my problem too. That's why we've never done them because we have bugs everywhere. So as soon as I put anything outside, I mean, I've got wasps and bugs and 11:02 flies and everything just right to the food. Because in Idaho, we're actually in high desert. So anytime there's any moisture anywhere, like the bugs are immediately right there. Yeah, they need water too. Yeah, so it makes it hard too, you know, when we go to dispatch birds, we usually try to do it in the fall when it's a little bit cooler. And a lot of the bugs, you know, have gone away. 11:31 for the season. Otherwise, we're just swarmed by wasps. Wasps, especially, we have a lot of those because we do live in the forest. It's really hard to mitigate all of them because they just, they're everywhere. So we have a pretty easy time getting rid of them near the house. I just do some water wasp traps, but oh my gosh, there's so many. It feels so silly trying to get those under control. 12:02 Yeah. And the thing is it's all nature. Everything in nature has a purpose and I hate wasps too, but they are pollinators. So you got to pick and choose your battles, I think. Yeah. I struggle with that. Yeah. So I know nothing about Idaho other than the fact that it gets really cold and really snowy in the winter time. What kind of trees grow in your forest? We have Douglas fir. 12:32 and ponderosa pine specifically in our forest. Those are our two main pine trees. And of course we have a lot of choke cherries on our property as well that I'm working on getting rid of. I really want to replace them with a different variety, you know, that I enjoy to eat a little bit more. We also have a lot of elderberry trees growing on our property specifically. There's a lot of elderberry around the area, but 13:00 Our property has a lot, a lot of those. So we feel really fortunate because we've got a lot of medicine just hanging out and growing. Have you made elderberry syrup yet? I have. Yeah. It's so good. Awesome. And tea? Yes. A lot of tea. I have a friend in town who makes elderflower soda and she ferments the elderflower and 13:29 that's something that I really want to give a shot at because it just sounds so delicious. It's light and floral and bubbly and because it's fermented, you know, it's gut friendly too. So a lot of good check marks there. Definitely. Do you have to put the bird netting over your trees so you can actually get the berries? Because here we have two elderberry trees. They're fairly young. I think they're probably 10 years old and the birds get to the 13:59 to the berries before I can get to them. We actually are so fortunate. Like we have so many trees that we have berries like everywhere. And a lot of our trees, I don't know how old they are, but they're very large. So I'll pick the low hanging fruit and the birds will usually grab the ones up top, but I've noticed, you know, that they don't even clean the trees all the way through. And so 14:28 going into the fall and winter, like there will still be berries on the tree that have dried up and shriveled up a little bit that they're still chomping on. So we're lucky. We have honey. Yeah, I've been wanting to do elderberry syrup since we moved here in August of 2020. And I never get to the berries in time. By the time I remember they're probably ripe, they're gone. Dang it. So I'm gonna have to wait. 14:57 Have you put the net on your trees? No, I forgot to ask my husband to get some this year, but I'm going to go out to Amazon in February, actually the next Prime Day, which is in what, November, October, and get some netting. I'm going to order it and I'm going to put it right by where he would go to walk toward the trees and be like, when you have them in it next spring, put this netting over these trees, please. I love that. 15:27 Please save the berries. Well, we have a very special resource in the elderberry trees that we don't use. And we have black raspberries growing wild in the tree line that we use every summer. Well, every other summer, because they're every other year thing. OK. And so I'm like, we can remember to pick the black raspberries, but we can't remember to put the netting over the elderberry trees. What is wrong with us? Well, one's a little bit easier than the other. 15:57 Yup, we're really lucky we have wild plum growing in our tree line too and we're going to make wild plum jelly here in November. 16:07 Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. We have a lot of wild roses growing. So we get a lot of rose hips in the fall and those are always super fun. Rose hip tea is so yummy. It's so yummy. I found a recipe just recently for rose hip wine and I thought that was super cool. I'm like, okay, I might have to get that a shot this fall. 16:36 Isn't it fun, finding out all the things you can do with the things that you have growing? Oh my God, it's so fun and so exhausting. I want to do it all. I just don't have the time to do that. So it's hard to cherry pick what I have time for and what I want to do. 16:57 Well, once you have kids and they get to be about 10, 12, and 14, you will have more time because you're going to teach them all the things and then they will do some of the work too. That'll be awesome. Do you guys have kids? I have grown kids. I have a 35-year-old daughter, a 33-year-old stepson, a 27-year-old son, and a 23-year-old son. And the 23-year-old still lives with us, so he helps out a lot. 17:26 Oh, that's good. Maybe she can go put those netting on those elder trees. If mom can remember to remind him, yes, I'm sure he'd be happy to. It's mostly my fault. I just forget. Dang it. I know. It's not like, you know, you don't have many other things to be doing. Yes, but the reason that I said, wait until you have kids, is my son just put together meatballs from scratch to have with our spaghetti and sauce and meatball dinner tonight. And he makes the most 17:56 fabulous homemade meatballs and it makes the most wonderful dinner. So you have so many cool things to look forward to. my gosh, you're getting me so excited. I just now have to wait 23 years. Yes, and enjoy every freaking second of it when you're in it because it gets really hard and you get really tired. And then they're grown and they move out and you're like, oh my God, I worked myself out of a job. Isn't that just crazy? 18:24 And now, you you're almost an empty nester, but you still sound like you got a lot of work. 250 tomato plants. that's a lot. That's a gargantuan amount of tomatoes we're looking at in about a month. And luckily, there is a food shelf not six miles from us, and we give our tomatoes to the food shelf. We sell them in the farm stand. We sell them at the farmer's market. 18:51 and we can at least 100 pints every winter. So they'll get used, but I suspect we're probably going to be throwing away some tomatoes this year because there's just going to be so many of them. Yeah. Dang it. Do you guys have livestock? We have chickens. Okay. They like tomatoes, right? Eh, not a lot. Dang it. What else are you guys growing? Um, cabbages. 19:21 And zucchini, of course. Of course. And we were growing lettuces, but they've bolted because it got so hot, so the lettuces are done. Winter squash. Yum. Yep, that's my favorite. Out of everything, that's my favorite. And part of the reason it's my favorite is if our dog gets sick, I cook up, I roast up squash and smash it and mix it with 19:49 them fried up burger and some rice and it makes her tummy feel better. my god, that sounds like it would make my tummy feel better. Uh huh. Yep. And she loves it. She didn't get sick this year at all. This past year, like 12 months in a row, her tummy has been fine. But when she was younger, she had a really sensitive stomach and the vet was like, do you have any ground beef? And I said, yeah. She said, can you afford to cook it for your dog? And I was like, no, but I will. 20:16 And she said, okay, do that and cook up some rice with no seasoning. Just cook it up with water. And I was like, okay. She said, mix those together and give it to her. And I said, I heard pumpkin is good too in this. And she said, it is. I said, I don't have pumpkin, but I have butternut squash. She said, yes, mix that in there. Our dog lost her mind. Like she was turning her nose up at everything. I was mixing that together in a bowl and she was sitting at my feet looking at me like, can I please try it? 20:48 I love that. So yeah, if you have a dog with a sick tummy and it's not anything major, their stomach needs a break, that's a good thing to make for them. That's so good to know. We do a lot of sweet potato with our dog. She loves sweet potato. I notice, I don't know if you have a tip for this, but our dog loves to eat chicken poop. We'll go up to the chicken coop and... 21:16 grab eggs and check on everybody. And every single time I turn around, Noah's on the ground and she's licking poo. Did your dog do it? No, because she can't get anywhere near the chicken run. But when she was younger, she did the same thing. So I don't have a tip for you because dogs are just gross and they like things like that. Great. Okay. told him like, oh my God, gross. 21:44 coming to me and now she's gonna lick my face. I'm like, Yeah, the one tip I will give you is if you can break her of licking your face, do it. Because I didn't let Maggie lick my face when she was a puppy, killed me. But I didn't let her do it. I let her lick my hands, but not my face. Okay, that's a fair trade. I can do that. Yup, and I hate it. I mean, I would love to be able to let her lick my face, but. 22:13 She's outside with the barn cats and I don't want her licking my face. Yeah, we just had a new litter last Thursday of barn cats on our homestead and I was getting ready to leave the property and I noticed our cat, she was going into labor. So I was just checking on her and hanging out with her for a little bit. I watched her birth two kittens before I took off. 22:42 And she had just birthed her placenta after the second kitten and immediately started eating it. And I took that as my sign, okay, I'm going to go home now. I'm going to leave. She's got it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I was on a dairy farm doing a farm tour and the same thing happened. know, as soon as that cow birthed her placenta, I mean, she just went right for it. Just started eating it like it was nothing. 23:13 So I found that really interesting. Yeah, it really makes me wonder if women way, way, way back in time, like caveman time, did the same thing. I wonder if we did it too. Yeah, you know, we were really a primal species at one time. We're pretty domesticated now. Yeah, I just, I wonder because it's such a thing with all mama animals. Right. Yeah. And 23:40 there's a huge market now to get your placenta encapsulated. And I know some people who have taken theirs, put it in the freezer for a year and didn't quite know exactly what to do with it. So I had one friend who actually buried her placenta and then planted a tree on top of it. And I thought that was sweet. 24:05 I had a friend who did that and she actually had a plaque made with her baby's name and date of birth on it. Oh, that's so cute. Yep. So she had a tree and she had a little sign that stood in front of the tree in the ground. Oh, I love sentimental things. I like sentimental things that are really long lasting. Like they don't break. I don't like scrapbooks because scrapbooks can burn or they can get ruined. 24:35 but like a plaque outside, may fade, but it's not gonna get broken. Yeah. Oh, I love that. 24:46 So I wanted to talk to you about the fact that you guys are off-grid, because off-grid has a whole new meaning and feeling now compared to even 50 years ago because of the solar power that we have access to. do you feel like you're off-grid or you just feel like you're camping? We feel like we are just living in a regular home. 25:14 Uh, our solar power powers, all of our electricity, our, you know, washer, dryer, our dishwasher, um, we're very comfortable in our home as well, like, like temperature wise. So we, we actually don't notice that we're off grid probably until about the winter time when we don't have as much solar power because our days are shorter. And that. 25:43 It doesn't really change a lot. We just are a lot more cognizant on how much energy we are using to make sure that it will last us all day. We do have a backup propane generator that we can turn on in the wintertime if we don't have enough charge throughout the day or if it's a particularly cloudy day, maybe it's snowing that day. My husband, again, he's mastermind. He has a backup for a backup. 26:12 for backup. His backups have backups. It's crazy. So we do have a wood boiler as well that we haven't had to use, but that is our backup to our propane generator. And that would heat all of our water and heat our home in the case where we didn't have any solar power or we didn't have access to propane. And limited forest, we have almost unlimited 26:42 wood. So that is that's our fail save. So if the grid goes down, they don't have any propane, solar panels get hit with an EMP attack, at least we've got a wood boiler to keep us comfortable. That is so funny, Annie, because we have a wood boiler as well. And that is our heating for the winter. And our backup is a propane fueled generator. 27:10 for electricity to the house if the power goes out. So we're kind of backwards to you. Yeah, we're just a little different. Our issue is, was the glycol was so expensive to get it filled up. And then how often do you have to drain the glycol? Not very. Like maybe, maybe once every five years. We haven't done it yet. Oh, wow. That's awesome. We filled ours up with water one time just to give it a 27:39 nice test run and it was really awesome. It heated everything up so fast. 27:47 Yeah, the reason that we use it is because we have someone that we get a big old dump truck full of wood from for like 150 bucks and it's at least two cords of wood, at least when it's split. Oh my God, that's amazing. And so we're heating our house for about 300 bucks a winter and winter starts here. We start the wood stove about October and run it through usually end of March, 1st of April. 28:18 Yeah, that's about us too. And propane is like, I think my husband checked it the other day and when it's not on the summer pricing sale number, I think it's going for $279 a gallon right now. I think that's about close to what we are. I think we're just under or around $2. Yeah, so we would much rather get the big old logs and put the sweat equity into it. 28:48 and only spend about $300 for the winter, then have to rely on the propane. Yeah. 28:57 You guys got that nailed down. Yeah, it was kind of a surprise when we found this place. Five Augusts ago, this August will be our fifth year here. We did not realize that the place had a generator to run the house. And when the realtor explained to us how it works and what it does, I said, you're kidding me, it will run the entire house? 29:26 the electricity. And she said, oh yeah, she said that's one of those permanent things that it just kicks on when the power goes out. And I said, we need to buy this house. That would be fabulous. I love that. They did a good job on that construction. Yes, yes. I love this place so much. I have raved about this place so many times on the podcast that I'm not going to do it again today. 29:56 But you can hear it, I love our home. It is my favorite place on earth. Oh, I love that. So how big is your home? It's a little over 1,400 square feet. Okay. And a lot of that is kitchen and living room downstairs and there's two bedrooms upstairs. Yeah, a lot of our space is kitchen and living room too. I mean, that's where we spend the most time. So it just makes the most sense for those, you know, to be the biggest. 30:25 Yep, absolutely. So do you have plans on getting like goats or mini cows or anything like that? I think goats are definitely more feasible for our future. The only issue that we have is housing for them. right now our chicken coop is on top of a mountain. Everything that we build is on top of a mountain. And it's so silly. 30:54 We had a couple contractors out not too long ago and they were doing road work for us and they were driving skid steers, but they were mentioning, they're like, everywhere I turn, like I'm on an edge. And it's very true. Our house is set back about 12 feet from the edge of the cliff and then we're tucked back up against rock. So the chicken coop is almost situated uphill on the city situation. 31:22 So if we did want to add any livestock, we'd have to cut into a mountain somewhere, flatten some land and add like an outbuilding for them. So I think that's part of, you know, the next five to 10 year plan, because I would love to have some goats on the property. I love goat cheese. I would love a milk cow. But I think for right now, goats make more sense for us. OK, I didn't realize that you were in that situation with 31:52 with your topographical, is that how you say it? Yeah. Layout. Yeah, it is very mountainous. And it's so hard for me to show that, you know, just with my phone on the internet when I'm talking about interior homestead. And, you know, we just need to bust out a drone and get some drone footage to get people some perspective because our driveway is a 17 % grade. 32:22 And we actually had to get approval from our volunteer fire department when we were building our home. Because they would be the ones to come out with their equipment if we were to ever have a fire close to home and they would need to be able to get up our driveway. And they have an old jalopy fire engine. I mean, this thing. 32:51 is so old. It's so loud inside the engine that like you're wearing headphones with a microphone to like talk to the person right next to you. So I don't know when this thing was built. I need to ask my husband, but it's old. So they just had to come out and make sure that they could get up our driveway in an emergency. And thank goodness they did because otherwise we would have had to spend quite a bit more money, you know, bringing in more material and bringing that up. But we 33:20 are situated on top of a mountain on our property. So it's beautiful and I love the view, but it does get a little scary in the winter time when we have snow and ice and slush. But in the summertime, I love it. Yeah, I feel like off-grid is a trade-off on a lot of things. And if you love it and you want to be there, you will figure out how to make it work. 33:48 Absolutely, know, like freedom, having the freedom that we do is so good. Like I would trade it and do it all over again. You know, I love that we're just out in the middle of nowhere. You know, I told my husband, he thought I was joking, but I was like, when you are looking at land or looking at a house, if I can't walk out my front door and be butt naked, I don't wanna buy it. I wanna be. 34:16 in the middle of nowhere. I don't want to see neighbors. I don't want to know that they're there. And he delivered. Awesome. Okay, Annie. I try to keep these to half an hour. Where can people find you? You guys can find me at annieshomestead on Instagram and annieshomestead.com. 34:39 Fantastic. I really appreciate your time and I loved chatting with you. And thank you to the people who listened to the podcast. I always forget to say that, but I appreciate everyone who listens. And you can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Annie, I hope you have a wonderful evening. Thank you so much for having me, Mary. This was so fun.
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| Mulberry Hill Microfarm | 17 Jul 2025 | 00:31:08 | |
Today I'm talking with Lara at Mulberry Hill Microfarm.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Lara at Mulberry Hill Microfarm. Good morning, Lara. How are you? Good morning. I'm fantastic. Thank you so much for inviting me to chat with you guys. I appreciate that. Oh, you're welcome. I'm so happy when people say yes, because without you, I don't have a podcast. 00:29 That just helps. Where are you located, Laura? I'm in Northwest Arkansas in a tiny little bump in the road called Evansville. Okay, how's the weather there this morning? Hot. Hot and very sticky. Actually, for us, it's been a fairly mild summer. We've had a lot of rain. 00:56 And typically this time of year, we're sitting at 97, 98 degrees. Sometimes we're over a hundred. And really it's just been this week that we're getting into the nineties solidly. And for us, that's a nice break. Yes, we're having a break today too. It's supposed to only be 71 degrees for the high and it's supposed to rain all day. 01:25 Oh, that sounds heavenly. Yeah, I think there's probably a short nap in my future this afternoon because this is very good sleeping weather. Oh, excellent. Be bold. Make it a long nap. I can't. I've got too much to do, but I might crawl into a book for a few minutes and see if my eyes close. We'll see what happens. That's what happens when you get over 40 years old. You realize that naps are a gift. Right. Remember when we used to fight those? 01:54 Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Now that was silly. Now I now I want them badly. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So tell me about yourself and what you Well, I've been an educator for almost 20 years now, and I think that's something that's run in the family when we get together for holidays and reunions. It feels more like. 02:20 teacher professional development as much as it does, just seeing each other and catching up on family news. But there's also been a strong presence for conservation in our family. My grandfather worked in Southeast Arkansas conservation efforts. 02:46 Water purity, he did a lot for Felsenthal Wildlife Preserve in South Arkansas to work with them and make sure that chicken plants weren't dumping water into the system and things like that. And so they were avid hunters and fishermen on the Saline River for a very long time. 03:11 And so even though I wasn't terribly close to my grandparents, there was still that thread that was always present about conservation efforts and ecosystem health and whatnot. And I think I carried that with me for a long time, kind of dormant. There were marriages, there were children, there was the career in education that was very successful, but there was always this sort of 03:41 little nagging in the back of my soul that said, a little land, just a few trees here and there, just a few birds here and there. And so I started that journey kind of late in life. I did not start until I was 48. I am 52 now and I am loving it. 04:05 I feel like there is a fulfillment here in some of the things that I'm doing on my tiny acreage. We're only just over an acre and a half. But there is a sense of purpose and meaning here that I have finally sort of plugged into and it's made my life very rich, very wealthy. 04:33 Fantastic. I figured that you didn't have a lot of land because you are a micro farm, right? Right. I think that's probably still a generous labeling for us. I started out here 150 years ago. My tiny little patch of land was hardwood forest, hickory, 05:02 Elm ash, hackberry, black walnut, black locust, and it was cleared for cattle grazing. Uh, but there have not been cows on my part of the property for probably 60 years. Uh, so it was just mowed as a lawn. The trees had been cleared long ago and so the topsoil had completely degraded. I don't know. 05:32 sort of slid downhill into the creek and is probably sitting at the bottom of Lake Tenkiller right now. And I just felt like I wanted to regenerate this little piece of nature. And so that's been my focus for four years. When I first came out and started planting trees again, 05:57 There's a layer of grass and grass roots and then there was just slabs of clay. No root systems, no organic material. There were places where there weren't even worms present and that kind of thing. And I've been working for the last four years to change that. And I have been, I think truly gobsmacked at just how quickly 06:26 the ecosystem is changing, even though the acreage is very small. Yes, I'm not surprised at all at how fast it's changing for you because nature wants to do what nature wants to do. So if you just take away the things that are preventing nature from doing what nature does, she's going to have at it and she's going to have at it fast. Absolutely. And being able to 06:54 You know, I've done a lot of reading, I've done a lot of research, but this was finally getting to do this hands on and seeing those changes. And there's not a place on my property now that I can dig a hole where there's not worms. Watching that ecosystem really flourish and come to life and how it changes just year to year has been. 07:23 Fascinating and truly joyful. Yes. I can't agree with you more, Lara. We are called a tiny homestead. That's name of our place. And we have a little over three acres. And it's always been a farm kind of place. mean, it started out as a big acreage with a farmhouse on it and a barn, an actual barn, not a pole barn. Oh, nice. A red barn. 07:52 The red barn is long gone. I'm so sad about it. But there had been nothing grown where we grow our garden for 40 years. The last thing grown there was pumpkins. And so we've been fighting the weed battle for four and a half years now. And my husband is so frustrated with it because he's the gardener, which means that when those weeds come out, he's the one that's going to have to fight with them. 08:20 So he said to me the other day, said, I have to find something to knock these weeds down that isn't going to ruin the dirt. Yes. And said, I am on it and I am going to be digging tomorrow when I have time to find something that will make the weeds not come up, but the plants be good. Good luck with that. It is a challenge. I know he's tried so many things and it works short term, but 08:48 What most people don't realize is that there are layers and layers and layers of seeds in the grouse. And so when you get rid of that first layer, there's another layer behind it and the next one down and the next one down. so basically to get rid of that first layer, you're just making room for the second layer to grow. I've seen the same thing. I'm out here and I took it little bit different approach. 09:16 I didn't fight it. I am letting it happen. My neighbors probably hate me because they're used to this property being mowed like a lawn. And I let the weeds take it over. And then it's creating a huge amount of biomass. And then I go and sometimes it's my riding lawnmower and sometimes it's the car because it's so thick. 09:44 And I run over it and just lay it all down flat. So the soil is never bare. And when I started doing that, the fungal content of the soil grew exponentially. And so I've created a mulch there and those, those weeds that I just push over in the fall. 10:11 protect my soil and that's breaking down. in four years, we've gone from most of the property had between two and a half and 3 % organic material. adding all of this biomass every year now to the top, our organic content in our soil is now 5 % in four years. 10:42 That's impressive. That's right. I'm not trying to brag, but like I said, this is happening so much faster. I thought that would be a 15 year project and it's happening in four. Now I've added some animals to the system that are helping that. I got into rabbits two years ago because I was buying rabbit manure. 11:13 But what comes out, what goes into your rabbit determines what comes out of your rabbit. So I was buying that manure and I was putting it places and I was noticing that I was propagating mulberries and they were coming out, but the leaves were shriveled and whatnot because the hay that had been fed to the rabbits had been treated with Grazon. And that's just one of those things that you can compost it for a year. 11:43 break it down, put it in your garden, and it's going to kill plants for two or three years. So I finally said, okay, if I'm going to do this and I have to add this organic material to get these results, need to be in control of the inputs all the way through the system. And so I bought a few rabbits and a few rabbits became a few more rabbits. As they are supposed to. As they are supposed to. 12:11 And then this year I added poultry to the system. So I expect that organic material percentage to go up even more and I will retest our soil in probably another two years. Okay, so you're talking a lot about regenerating your soil. Yes. So do you grow produce or anything? 12:40 Tiny bits here and there. have found frustratingly that it seems to rate raising protein seems to be a whole lot easier than raising produce. And I wanted to get the soil healthy everywhere before I commit to produce in a larger way. I planted trees and berry shrubs. 13:10 fairly quickly on the property. But you know, that takes time for trees to mature. And I'm getting my first peaches from the property this year. And I was able to harvest enough black raspberries to make my own jam for the first time in my life. Isn't that the best? It really is. 13:40 And there are a few little jars there in my pantry, but they're jars that are, you know, I know where that food came from. I know the quality of the health. I know that I can pass those on to my grandkids and I know what they're eating. know, so I have just a variety of trees that I'm waiting on their maturity. There were, there was one. 14:10 apple on the property. And so I added a few apples. I've added peaches. There are plum trees. There are pear trees. There are hazelnut trees. There are cherry trees and bush cherries. And now there are the black raspberries and there are blackberries. Now I've planted asparagus just about anywhere that I can poke it next to something else. 14:35 so that it'll break through that clay layer because asparagus roots are crazy. They go up to 13 feet deep. They're going to help mine that clay and leave a path for the baby fruit trees to be able to grow roots. I'm doing everything that I can. I can see the produce coming. I can see that being the part of the system. 15:04 that as it matures, that'll be a larger part of the farm. You mentioned pumpkins, and I have my first few pumpkins out on the property now that have actually grown because the soil now holds enough moisture that the plants aren't dying in the summer. Yep. So it's progress. 15:33 That's all you can ask for. And I'm so impressed with what you're doing, Lara. You are. You're amazing. mean, it sounds it sounds really dumb to say it that way, because anybody can do this. But you but you are doing the work and you are putting your heart and soul into it. And so that's amazing. Well, it's it's joyful work. And between this and then being able to, you know, have that 16:03 have still have that career in education where I can go and then share these things with my high school kids because the majority of my students are are 12th graders. They're seniors. They're just about to take those steps out into the adult world. And many of them are fearful. Many of them are fearful about the political climate, but they are fearful. 16:31 for climate change. They genuinely worry, where is my food gonna come from? How are we gonna feed ourselves? What if things get so hot and so dry that the hay doesn't grow and there are no pumpkins? And so being able to take my little nook and cranny farming techniques and being able to say, well, 16:58 let me show you what can be done. And it's not just a theory. It's not just something you've researched on the internet or read about. It's, wow, my English teacher's really doing this and it really does work. And she brings in pickled Jerusalem artichokes for us to try. And she brings in bunny street tacos for us to try. And, you know, they look at it and they say, okay, 17:26 I think I could make this work. And some of them over the last few years have come to me and said, hey, would you mind, you know, giving me a, a, Kuka melon start, or could you bring in some more of those Jerusalem artichokes? I want to plant those in a, in a corner of my uncle's yard or, hey, if you end up with some extra mulberry trees, let me know. And I'm going to, I've got a place to plant those and seeing that is 17:55 very encouraging to me. You are converting them one student at a time. Yes, keep doing that. Well, and it's so simple because so many people think, well, I don't have a lot of land. I can't do this. And I mean, I have a deck where I have mineral tubs that were used for cattle and I'm growing all kinds of food just on my deck. 18:25 So even if you're apartment bound, even if you have a little patio and you can find a place for two really large planters, there's a way to still create your own produce and be part of it. 18:42 Absolutely. I'm so glad I got to talk to you today. We're not done yet. But you are cementing the thing I always say on the podcast, which is do what you can with what you have, where you are. That's right. That's right. Absolutely. Because you can. I I had a friend years ago, I think I was in my 30s, and she lived in an apartment and she had a small balcony. She was on the second floor. 19:12 And she filled that balcony with containers full of soil and she grew herbs and flowers and I think she did radishes and carrots and stuff. she had the greenest thumb I've ever seen. And I was just like, someday you're gonna have a yard, you're gonna an actual yard and you're not gonna be able to walk through it without touching a plant. And she's like, that's my hope. That's awesome, yeah. 19:41 Lawns don't feed you. Can't eat grass. No. I mean, it's nice and tidy looking and that's great if you want to have that sort of appearance of the old English manners and whatnot. But when, you know, when things get harder, I'd rather have the food forest than the estate. Me too. 20:07 We're working on our own food forest here in Minnesota on our property. Oh, yay. We have, um, I think we have 16 apple trees that we've put in over the last four and a half years. Oh, wonderful. We have wild plum. We have two alderman plum. That's the, the variety that we've got. We have, we have wild black raspberries. Oh, nice. 20:34 We put in some peaches and we actually got peaches last fall. We won't have any this year because the trees did not bloom or the windstorm that came through took the petals off. not sure which. What else? We have two honey berry plants that someone gave me last year that we're trying to keep alive. We're not very good at it, but they're still alive. Maybe next year. And we just keep putting things in. 21:02 that will, you know, five years from now, produce enough to feed us and for us to sell in our farm stand and at the farmers market. Absolutely. So I'm right there with you, sister. It's a wonderful job. That's wonderful. It's good work if you can get it and keep it. Absolutely. I plant things randomly through the yard. I'll stop and, you know, other people impulse buy, I guess, 21:31 clothing and electronics and I impulse by seeds and I'll just walk through and say, well, let me just put some here and let me put some here and let me put some here. And I don't keep up with it. I don't write it down and said, if it will work here, it will thrive on its own. And if it doesn't, it'll just add to those layers of dormant seeds sitting here. And maybe in 60 years, the conditions will be right and it'll come up then. 22:01 You know, I'm just, I put out potential and then I see what responds. That's a great way to do it. It's like chaos gardening. It is, it is. So sometimes things I'll think, oh man, that didn't come up. And then a year later I go, oh, I do have gladiolas over there on the fence line. Interesting. And you live in a state where you can let them stay in the ground over the wintertime. I do. I can't do that here. I'm sorry. 22:32 But at the same time, then I can't grow tulips. They won't grow here. It doesn't get cold enough. Yeah, they need that cold weather. It's a trade off. we put in gladiola bulbs three springs ago, I think, and they bloomed and they were pretty. And my husband said, you want me to dig the bulbs up and store them in the barn? And I was like, nope. And he said, why? And I said, because I don't want you to have to do it every year. 23:02 I have successfully grown gladiolas. They were pretty. I don't love them enough to keep growing them. He's like, okay, good. He's grateful. Yes, absolutely. You said you have rabbits. You have chickens. You have quail. Is quail one of those animals? I I have quail. I also added ducks and turkeys this year. Oh my. Well, 23:31 It's been interesting. I think in my little local community, as my students kind of get out and talk about the crazy things that I do, people want to contribute to that. They want to help. So I had one student's father who gave me a pair of Narragansett turkeys, a two-year-old Tom and a year old hen. 24:00 I had another lady that I had given a rooster to. She had gotten turkeys. It wasn't for her. So I got a second juvenile pair of Narragansett turkeys. I had another student whose mom sent me four quail. I thought chicken math was when you went to the store and you bought too many chickens on your own. I didn't realize it was because 24:25 You know, all of these people who also raise things and get excited, they want to see you succeed. You know, they want to contribute to that. They want to help you on the same journey that they've found joy in. And it's just been a surprise, just an, and looked for absolute joy. So I have, I have poultry I did not expect this year and I love them. 24:54 That was so much fun. I'm starting to think it's not chicken math, it's livestock math. I think you're probably right. And I contribute too. Uh-huh. My husband will shoot me if I actually bring this up to him. But I've been in my head for about a week debating getting a livestock guardian dog. We have a small dog. 25:24 We have a mini Australian shepherd and she is not a livestock guardian dog by any stretch. She is a pet and she's lovely and I love her beyond life itself. But we had a raccoon show up here a little over a week ago. They come to find out it was a mama and she had at least three babies with her that are half her size already. And those little boogers got four of our chickens. Yes, and they will be back. 25:51 Um, we have not seen them in three days since my husband and my son shored up the run and the coop. So we're kind of hoping all the noise and activity might've gotten them to go. I hope so. But, but I keep thinking we should get a livestock guardian dog that is already, you know, over six months old and neutered because we would probably get a male and that can be outside. They can live in the barn because I can't have another dog in the house. We don't have room. Right. 26:20 And I keep wanting to float this to my husband and he's just going to be like, I don't want any more animals. And I'll be like, I know, but do you want to keep the animals you have? That's a fair point. And I've considered the same thing here because I also have, I have a standard Aussie and he does like, it's been interesting because he too was, was a pet and he still wants to herd. 26:48 the ducks more than he wants to guard the ducks. But having the poultry out and for him to just sit on the deck and be able to watch, even my dog is happier now because I feel like he has a job now. And so if we have turkey poults or if we have quail hatchlings, you know, he wants to smell them. He wants to keep an eye on everybody. 27:15 If a bunny gets out of a cage, he becomes sort of distraught and he's just like, you're not where you're supposed to be. Mom, I'm going to whine about this. You know, we need to do something. And so he's, he has taken on a very active role in, what we're doing here. So I've been pleased, but at the same time, he's just one pup. And I think our biggest threat is coyotes here. And. 27:44 He'll bark, but you can tell that he doesn't want to engage. And I don't blame him being one dog. But if he had a companion who was larger, I think that might change things a little bit. So we're also considering that. I can't say we're considering it because I haven't actually floated the concept yet. so, I don't know, hesitant to even bring it up with him right now. But 28:13 We can't get a Pyrenees because Pyrenees roam. We don't want him roaming. So I'm trying to figure out what we would get that wouldn't roam. So I have to do some research because I need to be forearmed here on this one. Better have those questions answered because he's going to ask. Yes. And we can't really afford a very expensive dog right now. And so I need to figure out if there are livestock guardian dogs that need homes. 28:42 in shelters because we would be happy to adopt one. That would be fine. Yeah. If you contacted your shelters, I'm sure they'd keep an eye out for, surely there are rescues. Oh yes, there are. Awesome. And I just, I need to get past the, don't think he's going to want to do it. Therefore, I haven't looked deep into it deeply enough. So I have to start looking deeper into it before I bring it up. That's fair. 29:09 But either way, I would really rather not lose any more chickens to juvenile raccoons that are adorable and that we're going to end up killing because they can't keep taking our chickens. It's a very mixed feeling, very mixed emotion, isn't it? I hate it. Yep. Yeah. Because as nature lovers and as people who want to preserve that and work with it, you hate to kill something that is just 29:39 minding its own business, living its life, doing its thing. But if you want to preserve what you're working on, yeah, you have to, you have to make some hard decisions there. first line of defense is deterrence. Our last line of defense is shooting it. That's fair. Cause I don't want to kill those babies if we don't have to, you know, they were here before. Well, they, particular raccoons weren't here before we were, but 30:09 nature was here before we were and I don't want to destroy nature. want to work with her, you know? It does work out better that way. Exactly. Okay, Lara, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're at 30 minutes and 30 seconds. So where can people find you? Facebook's probably the best place right now. My farm page is Mulberry Hill Microfarm and our email is 30:38 Mulberry Hill micro farm at gmail.com. So feel free if you have questions or if if our farm can help your farm in any way We're uh, we're down for that Awesome, lara. Thank you so much for your time and your thoughts and I appreciate you so much and As always people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com. Have a great day. Lara. Thank you. Thank you so much
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| New Frontier Farms LLC | 16 Jul 2025 | 00:29:40 | |
Today I'm talking with Maggie at New Frontier Farms LLC. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Maggie at New Frontier Farms LLC in Lonsdale, Minnesota. Good morning, Maggie. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I would ask how the weather is, but since I'm only about 15 miles away from you, it's gray and cloudy and may might rain, right? Yes. That seems to be the theme this summer. 00:29 Yes, and thank God it's not just constant pouring rain like it was last year. I don't know how you guys did, but our garden did really poorly last year. 00:40 Yeah, so I actually had a baby in March and I really underestimated how having a March baby would impact the farm compared to a September baby. And so we didn't plant a garden. But oh, because I had the baby and it was just it was a lot between kidding and camming and farrowing and the baby. The garden did not get planted. But everyone told me my garden did terrible this year. And I was like, you know, maybe this was a good year to not not plant a garden. 01:08 Yes, we, my husband's the gardener. I've talked about this a lot on the podcast and he planted tomatoes three different times. And I think we got our first tomato at the end of August last year. Oh goodness, that's crazy. Yeah. I like to joke. Um, I grew bacon seeds instead, cause I have to put my piglets on my garden. Um, things are growing great this year. So I think they did a good job of fertilizing, but it was all we could manage last year was bacon seeds. Well, you're only one person. 01:37 and you were growing a human and then birthing a human, so that is completely understandable. Okay, so I'm really excited to chat with you this morning because I looked at your Facebook page and you have so many things going on, so tell me about yourself and your farm. Yeah, so my husband and I have wanted to be farmers our entire life. We both grew up one generation removed from production agriculture, and so our grandparents farmed, but our parents had chosen to not. 02:05 And my mom had always wanted to be a farmer, but she was turning 18 during the 80s farm crisis and my grandpa just didn't want that. It was not a lucrative career at the time. And so my mom has always worked in agriculture. And then we always had beef cattle on our farm. was my grandpa's retirement gig. And so he retired from dairy cattle and got a hundred beef cows. So I grew up spending my summers in the pasture with the cows and fell in love with. 02:34 with everything to do with farming. I was very involved in 4-H, which just kind of fostered that love. And I went to South Dakota State University and I studied dairy production and speech communication with a minor in animal science, all with the goal of someday owning my own farm. While I was there, I met a man in a similar situation. He wanted to have his own farm someday too. And so we fell in love and that's my husband, Nick. 03:02 We got married in 2017. And right after college, we actually worked on a ranch and it was a really good experience. We were kind of thrown to the wolves and had to care for 600 head of beef cows on 20,000 acres in western South Dakota. It was a cool experience. We gained a lot of knowledge in a very short amount of time. And then we worked various in town jobs after that. Our oldest son came a little early. 03:31 Um, and that kind of whole experience really pushed us back home to Minnesota. So we moved back home with the entire intent of buying a farm. Um, we moved in late 2019. Um, and by the time we were working on selling our house in South Dakota, COVID had hit, um, and it had really, you know, changed the landscape of people at the beginning of COVID people weren't buying houses. Um, so it stalled things out, but we finally found our farm here. 04:00 in May of 2020 in Lonsdale. So we purchased that. We have 36 acres. 18 of those acres were in cropland when we purchased it, but it's all highly erodible land. And so we turned it all into pasture. It's not very good cropland. So it's been quite a few years process turning all that into grassland and it was very eroded. So a lot of our topsoil is in our swamp. 04:30 And so it will be many, many, many years until much of it is really fertile again. But we are seeing a lot of progress. It's made between our chickens, our pigs and our cows. It's getting there, but it's been a process. So we milk a herd of dairy goats. We milk about eight right now. We have a herd of cooney cooney pigs. They're kind of our primary product. So we sell a lot of pork. We do a lot of haves and holes, and then we do individual cuts. 05:00 And then we have a very small herd of beef cows. It's a pretty hard time to get into beef right now. So we just have a small herd. And then we raise meat chickens every summer and we have a small egg laying herd, a flock as well. Awesome. That's a lot, Maggie. You're doing amazing things. Thank you for regenerating your crop land because it's really important. 05:26 Luckily, that was kind of my husband's thing. My husband has always really enjoyed soil. He likes that crop piece. His family's got some ties to agriculture through the crop side. And he had an internship at a really cool ranch in South Dakota during college that they're really at the forefront of trying out cover crops and trying different grazing patterns and really doing a lot of things to regenerate the soil while also growing really nice cows on it. 05:55 So that experience was really helpful in helping him prepare our land. So that's, been. And I always say I'm the cow manager and he just makes sure they have food. he really. Okay. Awesome. I'm so glad that younger people are starting to do this stuff because we need you. We need people like you to do these things. 06:21 because so many farmers, ranchers, homesteaders are aging out. And I want to have hope that people are going to keep doing this. Yeah, I hope so. It's really hard to get into, especially as first generation. There's a lot of things that we miss out on. We don't have that generational knowledge that, oh, well, back in 1995, this is what the weather did, and this is how we adapted, or this is what fluke thing happened to this one cow one time. 06:51 And that generational knowledge is really something that we're missing. We also don't have that equipment piece that can be handed down. so we're scouring actions and getting what we can at our price point. We operate a debt-free operation, so we don't take out operating loans, which makes it very slow growing. But I don't have a banker breathing down my neck, so I appreciate that. So my sister married into a multi-generational farm. And sometimes I look at that and I see, 07:20 you I really wish we could have that. You know, and then you hear about all the family drama that everybody has and I'm like, you know, maybe some days it's good to be a first generation. 07:33 Well, you set the rules and then people can follow in your footsteps later. And I was going to say slow growing is better than bankruptcy. Yeah, hopefully. So keep growing slow and it'll happen. 07:52 Okay, so I was looking at your Facebook page, like I said, because every time I talk to somebody, go do my research. Are you having a book sale at your farm in July? Yeah, so it's been my goal this year to host one event that is in a farm market on our farm. Over the last year, we have renovated the upstairs of our late 1800 barn to be kind of an event space. 08:17 And so I started looking into what events we could host. So last month we hosted a barn dance. Um, and I, over the last decade have gotten really back into reading and there's a couple of Minnesota authors that I was like, Oh, it would be so cool to have them out to the farm. And so I started kind of working with other businesses. I found a mobile bookstore and I was like, Hey, I have this idea. Do you want to come out to the farm? And she was like, yeah, that'd be great. And so I reached out to these authors and. 08:47 Two of them said yes, and I could not believe it. One of them, especially as my favorite author of all time, Jess Lowry, she has a book coming out four days before our event and she still said yes. So I'm super excited to have them come out. So it'll be kind of my goal is like the book fair when you were a kid, only now for grownups. So we'll have the book vendor and then we have a couple other vendors that just sell bookish things. And then we'll have the author come out for a Q &A. 09:16 And then book signing and then we're also going to have some spots throughout our goat pasture so people can buy a book and read and hang out with our goats. And I joke that I'm putting on this event for me because I really want it and I hope other people are excited about it too. That is so much fun. I saw it and I was like a book fair on a farm. I freaking love it. That's brilliant. Yeah, yeah, I'm really excited. We've had a lot of people be really excited about it too. 09:45 You know, and summer, it's really hard because all the weekends are busy. So hopefully we'll have a good turnout, but it'll be a fun day. hope it goes really well for you. And it's so, I'm going to make a pun, novel. What a novel idea, Maggie. Thank you. Thank you. I'm surprised my dog didn't just bark because her name is Maggie. And I said your name really loud. She must not be upstairs right now. Okay. So what else can I ask you? 10:15 I had all kinds of questions and then I yelled Maggie's name and got totally distracted with the fact that I yelled the dog's name because I'm crazy like that. So tell me about the pork sale because we bought a whole hog a couple years back, well probably 70 years back from people in Wisconsin and we ended up butchering 10:42 both halves because we bought a half and a friend of ours bought a half. So we butchered the pig in our garage. And so when you sell your halves and wholes, do you sell them to people and then they're butchered and then people just pick up the butchered meat in freezer paper? Yeah, so we work with a local processor, Odenthal Meats. We really like them because they're a state-inspected facility, state equal to. 11:11 So we can sell haves and holes where people can get kind of that state exempt where they're just picking up in white packages. And so we're technically selling the live animal to the person they're paying for the processing. That or if I don't have it sold, I can get it state inspected and put it in my freezer to be able to sell on our farm for individual cuts. So I really enjoy working with them because we do have that flexibility. We have not sold it to anybody yet to butcher themselves. 11:39 We don't get a lot of interest in that. Well, we probably wouldn't have been interested in it either, except that my husband hunts and he's butchered deer before. So it's like, can't be that hard to butcher a pig. I was like, no, probably not. Plus we don't really care if the cuts are pretty. We care that they're going to taste good. Yes. Yeah. Oh, and it saves you a ton. And that's really been the biggest struggle for us is the processing costs. It's just... 12:08 When we started, it was 89 cents a pound. That was four years ago, and now it's $1.39 a pound. It's gone up astronomical. Trying to be able to keep up with that and try to make money, it's been pretty tough. Yeah. Everything to do with money right now is really tough, and I hate that. 12:34 I hate that you guys are busting your asses to do this for the community. And I'm sure that you're hurting and feeling the pinch just like everybody else is. Yeah, for sure. And that's why we started looking into events. I said, what's a way we could bring in money to the farm that we don't have a big upfront cost? Because in animal agriculture, we have so much upfront cost. We have so much upfront risk in everything we do. 13:02 And so if we were looking to add another one of those products, know, just like the cows, you know, you're spending a thousand dollars on calves right now, but you don't get that return for another two years. And so we started doing the events because it was like, Hey, I could plan it today. could have it in a month and have that direct return on investment right away. Yep. And it's a really good idea, Maggie. mean, 13:25 I would never have thought to have a book fair at a farm. just, I love that so much, but I'm also a book fan. I love to read and I have since I was in first grade. So, so for me, it's a no brainer. What a great combination of things. Thank you. Yeah. It's, and I think with book talk, it's really starting to pick back up. You know, you're getting a lot of people that are getting back into it with the accessibility of audio books and everything. So I think. 13:55 Now is a good time to be promoting books because people are excited about it. Yeah. If I had more time and if I had more money, which none of us have right now, would start a... I have two podcasts. One is kind of on hiatus right now. I would start a third and it would be about reviewing books and talking to the authors of the books. I just can't do it right now, but it's still percolating in the back of my brain for next year. 14:24 I haven't decided yet, but I'm thinking about it. That would be something I wouldn't try something like that. I love talking about books. I started our local book club and I'm in two book clubs now because I love being able to talk to people about books and get other people's thoughts. I think that's kind of the coolest part of book club is you have this mind and this idea in your head of what this book was and then you go in and you're wait, 14:50 You thought it was that? And I think it's just really cool to hear other people's thoughts on it. Yeah. And it's really funny because when you read a book, you may get a description of the main character in words, but your brain processes that word description differently than someone else's brain does. Yeah. Yeah. Or it impacts them in different ways because of their experiences. Like I remember I was in a book club a few years ago and we had read a self-help book. 15:19 And I personally just didn't like it. It seemed like a lot of fluff, but not actual advice. And I thought the people in a book club also would feel the same way. And I got there and they all loved it. And I was like, wow, wow, I did not expect that. But you know, I think it's just cool to hear other people's thoughts on things. And the other thing is, is I think that certain books are not readable at certain times for you or for me. I have picked up a book. 15:49 I don't know the name of I picked up a book 20 years ago, sat down to read it, got two chapters in and went, no, and never finished it. And then I picked it up again five years ago and started reading it and was completely engrossed. I couldn't put it down. So I think that there are seasons for books, just like there are seasons for gardening and raising animals. Yes. Yeah, for sure. And I think that the book at that time was a big hit. And now 16:18 you know, this is probably seven years later. It's had a huge backlash, you know, so I think it's interesting over time how books age and how people's thoughts on it change, personally and as a society too. 16:32 Yeah. And with self-help books, your mileage may vary every single time. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I don't really want to talk about books. still need to start that podcast so I can talk about books. Do you guys have dogs? Yeah. we have, Deesil is, oh my gosh, she's almost 11. She's been, we got her in college, so she's been through every important point. 17:02 point in my life so far. So she is our kind of wherever we are dog. So if we're on the house, she's in the house. If we're outside, she's outside. She's the protector of my kids. She was a rescue, but we believe she is a lab border collie. And then we have Mabel who is our farm dog. She is a fox red lab. She is very, very pretty. And she is my go with the flow, just very chill. She's only three. 17:32 And I always joke that when people come to the farm, they would assume Mabel was the 10 year old dog and Diesel was the puppy because they have exact opposite personalities to where they should be in life. Diesel is a very high, high energy. She's a border collie. She's very high energy, even at 11, almost 11. Good. I mean, she's going to be around for a while. I hope so. She injured her back last year, so she has slowed down a little bit. But she's. 18:01 We worked with a dog chiropractor, which I didn't think I would do, but the vet's option was just pain meds every single day, and I just didn't think that was good long term. So we looked into a dog chiropractor, and that actually helped a lot. She made a lot of improvement. She's still not jumping up on the bed anymore, but she's comfortable going upstairs and walking all around and running and playing. Awesome. Good. I love my dog more than life itself. 18:30 Anything to prolong a dog's life as long as they are happy and have quality of life. I am all for So do you sell stuff at the farmers markets in your area? So we did we were doing Like our first couple years of business. I was doing like two to four markets a week And it was a lot it it got to be a lot And we just weren't finding the profitability that we needed 19:00 You know, we were up in the Twin Cities, you know, so we were paying anywhere between $50 and $60 every market. And then, you know, when you're only selling $400 a day, just doesn't get, you know, it's just not price. It just wasn't where we needed to be price-wise. And just, you know, I'd have to pack all my kids in the car. I would have to drive there and then say, hey, this is this 10-foot box you have to stand in. 19:28 So it was just, it was really tough on us. And so we took a step back. We started only doing our local markets. And then I would do once a month delivery to the Twin Cities. So we could still support those customers that we had already established. But we didn't have to stand there for a whole day. I could just drive up for a few hours, get things delivered and drive back. And then last year, we started doing on farm markets. I think we did three of them last year, opening up 19:58 our farm to have people come out so they can see where their food is coming from. And that was fairly successful, nothing too crazy. And then this year we really pushed the marketing and we're doing one market a month on our farm and then in addition to one of those events. We also have started doing horseback rides with our horses and make it more of a family focused event. And so we have a play place kind of thing in our barn. 20:28 We have lots of things for your kids to come and play while you shop. And now we even have local vendors come. So we have a sourdough, a cookie, and then we always have some sort of like craft or sewer. And this month we're having a coffee shop. So I'm really excited about that. Just kind of making it a destination place for people to come and let their kids have fun and experience that farm life that a lot of people are striving for right now that want to get closer to the land. And we can kind of offer that. 20:57 Awesome. So you're basically doing a version of agritourism. Yeah. Yeah. And that was always my dream. You know, I have a background as a dairy princess way back in the day. And I also competed in the Miss America system and my platform was all about promoting dairy. And so with that background, I've always wanted to be able to open the barn doors to people and have them, you know, get their hands dirty and know where their food comes and be able to ask the questions and 21:26 And I think we provide a unique perspective. We're trained in conventional agriculture, but we can't afford conventional agriculture. And so we are farming different than conventional. And I think we can provide unique answers to those questions because we do have a unique background that kind of covers the landscape of agriculture. Yeah. And listening to you talk, 21:53 I'm sure that when people ask you about the differences between the two, you make it so that people can understand that the differences, you're not all science terms and Latin names. Yeah, yeah, I think it's important for them to be able to answer those questions. And I think it's also important as farmers to understand that not everybody can afford our type of agriculture. And that's why I think it's important that we have all types of agriculture is because 22:20 There needs to be agriculture at every price point. There needs to be food at every price point. And I think that's important that we never do slander marketing. I think we see that a lot in farms our size that they're scaring people away from other types of agriculture. And it's always in my goal that people align with me and they trust me to raise their agriculture. That's why they're buying with me. They trust me to raise their pork or their beef. 22:49 that we raise a really delicious product. And so I never want to scare people away from other people to come to us. I always want them to choose us because our food tastes great and they align with us. Absolutely. It's the no like trust thing. And that's true in any business. If people don't know you, like you and trust you, they're not going to come back. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. 23:19 And I've been learning a lot about marketing over the last two years since I started the podcast and I had heard somebody say no like trust before and I didn't understand what they were talking about regarding business. got it as a person, but I didn't realize that if you are the business, then people have to know like and trust the business as well as no like and trust you. Absolutely. And I think that has always 23:48 been something that I've really enjoyed. I've always really enjoyed storytelling. I've always really enjoyed connecting with people. That's why I enjoyed being a dairy princess and things like that, because I got to connect and make those interactions and be able to talk to people. And so being able to offer that now has been really enjoyable. 24:09 I am really happy that you enjoy people. I am an introvert. really, really, really don't like a lot of people in my space. It really makes me anxious. And part of the reason I started the podcast is because I wanted to talk to people, but I didn't want to have to be around a lot of people in person. And it has worked out so great, Tell it. The other thing that we do here, because I am here with my son during the day, my husband works full time. 24:38 is we have a farm stand and people can just pull in the driveway, get what they want out of the farm stand, pay for it and take off. And we have our phone number on the whiteboard in the farm stand if they have a question, but basically it's a self-serve thing. And I love it and people love it. I mean, we have people stop by every day all summer long. Yeah, that's awesome. So it really... 25:05 It's a really good way to move all our excess produce because my husband is a fanatic about gardening. And so we always have way too much, even though we sell at the farmer's market, we still have way too much. what's your favorite part about your life besides your husband and your kids? What's your favorite part about the life you've chosen? 25:28 That's a really good question. 25:33 I think my favorite is this time of year when it starts to cool down at night and it stays lighter later and just being outside. I think especially in the livestock game, you can get burned out really fast. And I found that to cure my burnout, I need to spend more time with my animals, which seems counterintuitive. But I found that 26:03 I need to just be with them because that's why I enjoy it. That's why, you know, growing up, I would just be in the pasture for hours and hours and hours and I wouldn't do anything. I would just spend the time with the cows and you know, now we have checklists and things we need to get done and I think we sometimes forget to slow down and enjoy it. But this is why, this is why we did it. This is why we wanted to be farmers. And so I've been trying to be more intentional over the last year of just stopping and being and enjoying the animals. 26:33 for who they are and for why we love them and why we enjoy it. I think that's amazing. We had meat rabbits a couple of years ago and it was a big fail. Our rabbits didn't get the memo they were supposed to reproduce blah, blah, blah. I've talked about a lot on the podcast. But my favorite part of those rabbits was we ended up bringing in a mama and her babies because it was so hot in June when she had her babies that we lost some of the babies to the heat. 27:03 And so for a month I had baby rabbit in a container on my table in my kitchen. And I got to hang out with those baby rabbits and watch them grow and change. And the mama trusted me completely. It was so fun. 27:19 And it was just so like I would get up in the morning, grab my cup of coffee, get half of it down me and then sit in a chair and hang out with those baby rabbits for half an hour. And I just loved every second of it. Yeah. And we do that with our baby goats. And when they kid, you know, in February, March, we start them out for the first few days in the house. And it's always really fun. The boys love it. And this year, my youngest was 27:47 just turning one when we had baby goats in the house. And so he was thrilled that he could pet them and touch them. And so it's always a really fun time when you can have them in the house. And we've brought piglets in the house and all that. And it's nice when they can be. My mom always shakes her head because my mom had a very strict no animals in the house rule. And so she always laughs and is like, oh, of course, Maggie has a piglet on the couch hanging out with her kids. 28:13 It's nice when you can have those moments to slow down and enjoy them. Yeah, and the joy of being a grown-up with your own life is to make those choices for yourself. Yeah, I always joke with my, you got to be careful what you tell your kids they can't have because my parents had two very strict rules. We couldn't have a horse and we couldn't have pigs. And now I have three horses and I've raised over 150 pigs. 28:41 So be careful what you tell your kids you can't have. Yeah, just like be careful what you wish for. You might just get it. Exactly. Okay, well, I try to keep you to half an hour, Maggie, and we're almost there. can people find you? So we're on social media at New Frontier Farms, LLC. I'm a little bit more active on Instagram than Facebook just because it works a little bit better with my phone. 29:08 You can also check out our website, newfrontierfrontrooms.org. That's kind of everywhere. Awesome. And if you want to see some beautiful pictures of Maggie's place, you should check out her Instagram and her Facebook because there are some beautiful photos there. Well, thank you. Photography is a little hobby of mine that I really enjoy. So thank you. You're welcome. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Maggie, I hope you have a fantastic day. 29:38 Thank you, you too. Thank you.
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| Haggard Mountain Homestead | 15 Jul 2025 | 00:29:22 | |
Today I'm talking with Casey at Haggard Mountain Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Casey at Haggard Mountain Homestead. Good morning, Casey. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you doing? I'm good. Where are you located? We are in Western Pennsylvania, a little bit outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Is it raining? Not today, but apparently it's supposed to, I think tomorrow. 00:30 Have you been going through what my parents have been going through in Maine where it's rained all every day for the last 10 years, it seems like? Basically, yeah. Every single weekend it's been raining. So a lot of our projects have gotten pushed back, for sure. But now we're having a heat wave, so opposite. Great. That helps a whole lot, doesn't it? Yeah, it's literally the exact opposite, though. We went from cold and rainy to now, I think it's supposed to be like 95, 96 today. Yeah. 00:59 talked to my dad the other day. Whoops, I talked to my dad the other day and he said, honey, he said, I swear, it feels like I have been trying to get my summer garden in since two summers ago for this year. I'm like, yeah, we went through this last year too. So, all right, so tell me about yourself and what you do at the Homestead. So how much of a backstory do you want here? Cause I can talk, trust me. 01:26 Tell me what led you to having the homestead. All right. So my husband and I got married in 2016 and started looking for a house. And we knew that we wanted a little bit of property. And at that point, I just wanted a garden, some chickens, all of that. And we ended up purchasing our property. have a little bit under two acres in 2018. 01:55 Got our chickens, got our garden in, and it's like we can't stop. It's honestly been addicting. We started with a garden and the chickens and we put in fruit trees. He's gotten into honeybees. Now we're doing flowers. We've done meat chickens and now I'm doing the social media stuff too. You are cementing my belief that once you get into this, the questions that come up are why not? 02:25 And what's the worst that could happen? And I'm very, very careful about the second question. I try not to say that outside where the universe can hear me. Oh yeah. If you put it out there, it might actually happen. Well, if I'm going to say it outside, I say what's the best that could happen instead of the worst? That's fair. I like that too. And that way the universe is like, what do I do with that? 02:51 hopefully give you the best that can happen because that's what we want to put out there, manifest it. Exactly. And that's what I'm kind of getting at is that if you try, the worst thing that happens is it doesn't go quite the way you wanted it to. But if you don't try, nothing happens. Yeah, that's very true. We actually, we have a five-year-old son now and teaching him to emotionally 03:18 regulate himself and trying to like give him these life lessons and how to cope with things. That's actually, he's, I'm a perfectionist and he's very much a perfectionist as well. And that's, I'm trying to tell him, I'm like, what happens if it, if you fail, you just learn a lesson and you move on. Yeah, I used to be a perfectionist and then I realized that it was stopping me. Like if I couldn't do it right the first time, I didn't want to do it at all. And 03:46 I finally just was like, okay, start something that you don't have to tell people about. Just try something and see if it fails. If it fails and you want to share about what you learned, cool. If you don't, no one has to know about it. Yeah, I like that too. I think I'm 34 now and honestly, through all of high school, was scared to try new things because I was so much of a perfectionist. And I think at this point in my life, 04:14 Not that I stopped caring, but I stopped caring what other people think. And now especially I make silly videos for the internet. Sometimes I act a fool and I just, don't care what they think. If they think I'm an idiot, so be it. There's a really good saying that what other people think is none of my or your business. What they think about me or you. And it's true. What other people think about me is not my business. It's in their head. Yeah, I like that. 04:42 So I try to hang on to that and I try to realize that if I screwed something up, other people probably have too. And if I keep trying and share it, people will learn from that. So I'm trying to be very positive about my failures. And when you're home studying, I feel like you kind of have to be, because there's a lot of failures and a lot of learning. It's the best part. The learning is the best part. I have perpetual curiosity. And so for me, 05:10 living on three acres and we have chickens, we have two barn cats, we have a dog. That's it for animals right now. And we have a garden and we every year try to put in a new plant, something we haven't grown before, because we're curious and we want to figure out how it goes. my husband, every December, January, he says, what new plant are we putting in this year? And I go, hmm, I hadn't thought about it yet. Let me look. 05:38 One of the ones we tried was kohlrabi. I don't know if you know what that is. I know what it is. I haven't tried to grow it here. Yeah, it's the weirdest looking plant and we weren't sure that we had the right growing conditions to grow it and come to find out it's super easy to grow. And it tastes like a cross between a cabbage and a radish. And I love cabbage and I love radish. So I was very happy with the outcome because we actually had edible kohlrabi vegetables to have in our salad. 06:08 Yeah, maybe I'll have to put that on our list. Yeah, it grows. It grows in the same conditions as broccoli or cabbage. So if you can grow those two things, you can grow Colorado. Yeah, we try and do a similar thing every single year. We try and like add something to our homestead. This year is a little bit. I don't know. This year is kind of different. We raised meat chickens for the first time to sell this year and we did one round of those. We're going to take a little bit of a break now during the summer just 06:38 I'm working a lot more than I normally do currently and I think we're going to like pick that back up in the fall. But that's kind of like our new project this year is like actually raising them to sell for profit. Nice. And that leads me to my next question. Do you, do you, again, I always butcher this question. I'm so sorry. Do you have things that you do or sell that support? 07:04 homestead itself? The meat chickens are the first thing that we've actually sold. We've given a lot away, obviously. But, or no, I take that back. I did sell, we sold eggs last year to a local CSA farm and then they sold the same eggs back to their CSA members. They have a little bit of a, they have a farm stand as well, like a little shop that they open on the weekends. 07:33 I have so many dreams and ideas for what I want to do and making that happen is a little bit difficult right now. I don't know if you've deep dived in our social media at all, but we've been trying to buy a bigger farm for a couple years now. don't know. Did you see that at all? I did not see that. I saw a bunch of stuff, but I did not happen to see that. Okay. So do you want that story? Yes. 08:02 So we, in adding new projects every year, one of the things we figured out is that two acres really isn't all that much. Quickly, we are running out of room and we have a lot of big trees here, lots of hills and just usable space we started lacking in. So we started looking for bigger property. 08:27 to expand, want to actually start, our dream is to have a beef cattle farm with a big farm stand, be able to sell stuff that we raise and grow from our own property. And the real estate market around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is insane right now. They're putting up so many developments that anybody who has land is selling it for millions of dollars. So yeah, it's bad right now. 08:57 We, I think it was a year and a half to two years ago now, we heard of an organization called Pennsylvania FarmLink and PA FarmLink. They have a website, they have social media accounts too. And their purpose, they want to link new and beginning farmers with farmers that are looking to retire and get out of farming to basically 09:26 bridge the gap there so that people can get into farming and they can have their farms continue and not sell to developers. So we actually found a property through that website, got in contact with the current owners and the plan was to do a lease to own situation. We talked to them for about a year and then they 09:53 came back and said, we don't want to do lease to own anymore. We just want to sell outright. that break your heart? Absolutely. Because at that point we had stopped looking for anything else and we were not like, we were kind of betting on this, like hopeful that it was going to happen, but also a little bit hesitant. And we had told them from the get-go, we said, we can't afford to purchase. It was a 70 acre farm. 10:19 I said, we can't afford to purchase this with the way that interest rates are right now. And that was like the whole point why we wanted to do lease to own. And yeah, it was, it was a little bit of a stomp on the old heart. Um, I'm so you haven't found a new place yet. Correct. Yes or no. We have not. After that happened, we kind of started looking again, putting some feelers out. 10:48 We're also, my husband and I are both veterans. So we're involved with the Pennsylvania veteran farmers organization too. And I've gone to a couple events through them. I've gone to some PA farm link events. I went to, we're in Washington County in Pennsylvania. I've gone to some of our counties farm bureau meetings, just trying to like network and see if there's anybody who is in the situation like. 11:14 Are you looking to get out of farming and you want somebody to take over or do you have any land that we can lease? And I have not been very lucky in that yet. Okay. So I have a couple things for you. Number one, keep networking. You never know what you're going to find. Number two, we started looking back in 2015 for a place and it took us until 2020 to find it. And I'm in Minnesota. 11:41 And the housing market here is crazy too. It is still on fire. Properties come on the market and they're gone within 24 hours. So it's not just Pennsylvania. But when we were looking back in 2015, we found this adorable house. I fell in love with the minute I saw it and it was within our price range. My realtor said, why don't you try writing them a love letter? And I said, what do you mean a love letter? And she said, 12:09 send them a letter and say, we viewed your property, it's beautiful. This is our plans for it if you sell it to us and tell them what you're thinking of doing. And so I did that. And the day that I sent that to my realtor through email was the day that people decided they wanted to keep it and stay. 12:35 So I understand your heartbreak because I really, really wanted that house on that property. Yeah. At this point, like I, I understand that it wasn't meant to be. It seemed like all of the pieces were lining up for us. Um, we even, my husband would have had to switch jobs and within a week of us meeting with them the first time he had secured a job in that area. we were like lining everything up for us and then they started kind of pushing back. 13:04 Yeah, it just it wasn't meant to be and if it is meant to be for us, I know that we'll find that perfect place. It will. You will find it. I know you will because it's the thing that you want and you're going to manifest that just like you've manifested other things in your life. It's how it works. It's just that there's there's God's time and there's your time. You know, and maybe maybe God has something better for you. I mean, I'm not a God girl, but. 13:31 It feels like one of the God things that people talk about. Yeah, I can definitely see that. We actually, it's not like a super good lead, but, um, did you, did you see how I went out to Hershey to meet up with another homesteader recently? Yes. Tell me about that. Okay. So I'll, I'll give you the whole backstory too. Okay. That's fine. So I have been friends with Kristen Norley and 14:00 By default, Hank, like Hank and I never really talked, but Kristen and I are at the point where we talk daily. And they are up in Northeastern Pennsylvania. So we had never met in person, but we are now at the point where we talk daily. We've been friends for like two years. And I, at one of these events that I went to, I found out about this new and beginning farmer grant. That is through our local farm credit. It's Horizon Farm Credit. 14:30 And it is for $10,000. So everyone was encouraging us to apply because we were going to be starting our meat chicken business. There's a plan for next year to get bees again and get into like making honey and hopefully selling that too. And some cut flowers, all of that. So I wrote up a business plan, applied for that, and I sent her the information and I said, you have to apply for this. 15:00 She was a little bit more hesitant than I was. I was like, no, you have to apply for this. I texted her daily asking if she submitted yet. And at one point she's like, I don't even think I'm going to submit it. I was like, you have to submit this. Well, good thing I like tormented the crap out of her because she won. She won the $10,000 grant. Great. Yeah. And so they're using that money now. I'm sad I didn't win, but again, it wasn't meant to be. 15:28 And I'm super happy that my friend won. So they're using that to jumpstart their maple syrup business. And I went out to see them awarded this grant. Um, and while I was there, I talked to another person from PA Farm Link and she said that she might have some leads for me of people in my area that are looking to retire. So. 15:54 I'm now in touch with her hoping to get more leads. Yes, it's not what you know, it's who you know. And like I said, keep reaching out, keep doing the networking. Someone will have an answer for you at some point. And you sound like you're young enough that you have time. I don't feel very young some of these days. Well, you don't sound like you're 65. You sound like you're probably what, late 20s, early 30s? I'm 34. So you were close. So you've got time. 16:24 I, we didn't buy our place until- Mentally I feel like I'm about like 84. Uh huh, I understand completely. We didn't buy our homestead until we were both 50. So, so you got some time, honey, I promise. Um, okay, cool, awesome stories. And you are a very good friend to be supporting your friend in, in that, that do it, apply for the grant. You need to apply for the grant. Please apply for the grant, you know? Yeah, absolutely. 16:54 We have to lift people up, you know, it shouldn't be a competition. It should be a, a gathering in. And one of things I love about the people I talked to on the podcast is everyone understands that a rising tide raises all ships. And if we make it a community and we make it where we're all trying to help each other, everything changes. Everything gets better. And even when things go to shit, at least you have people. 17:23 that you can rely on to help you get back up again. Absolutely. I agree. And I, it's hard this day and age. feel like we went from being very social creatures to once technology started getting bigger, everybody started isolating. They just stay in their houses and watch TV. Maybe you'll like text people. People don't talk on the phone anymore. People don't meet up and actually do things in person. And one of the things I started noticing is, especially like in the social media sphere, 17:53 Everybody's looking out for themselves. They want, they'll only be friends with you if they think they can get followers from you or stuff like that. I just, me personally, and a lot of the people that I'm close with, we want to help teach other people and we want to lift each other up, not just look out for ourselves and what we can get out of situations. Yes, absolutely. That's part of the reason that I started the podcast because I wanted to give you guys 18:22 a place where you could talk about what you do and why you do it and how you do it so that the kids that are coming up behind you and me have a place to go to learn about this. Yeah, that's a really good point too. And I think at least now like my generation, we're having kids and raising kids in this environment. Like my, my son is five. He doesn't really know how to use a phone or a tablet yet. 18:51 And I feel like even just like 10 years ago, that would have been seen as a negative, but I'm kind of proud of that now because he hasn't been on it playing games and stuff. Yes. The only thing that your five-year-old kid needs a phone for is to dial 911 if there is an emergency, like mommy fell down and is not responding to me. Oh, I absolutely agree. And that's he's, um, he's starting kindergarten this year and they were 19:20 He knows a lot of things about, like, he can count and he recognizes letter sounds and stuff like that, but they did an evaluation and they were like, oh, you need to work on his letter and number recognition. I'm like, yes, I probably do. But he also knows how to weed a garden. He knows where his food comes from. He knows the life stages of meat chickens, like all of these things that. 19:49 Other kids don't know, but they're like so focused on letters and numbers. Okay, Casey, if it makes you feel any better. My youngest son went to kindergarten and they called me like three weeks after he started kindergarten. And they said, he's really behind his classmates. And I said, how so? And they said, well, he doesn't, he knows his alphabet, but he doesn't know how to read. And he knows numbers, but he doesn't know how to do. 20:18 math and I said well isn't that what kindergarten is for and they said well no kindergarten is more like first and second grade now because preschool is taking the place of kindergarten. I was like well I'm sorry that I chose to raise my kid and not put him in preschool and how can I help make this easier for you? I was really really offended and I was I was pretty upset because when I went to kindergarten 20:47 I learned how to read and I learned how to do math because that's what kindergarten was for. So I think that we have 20:59 This sound terrible. I think that as a general rule, we have our priorities backwards. And yes, would it have been nice if he could have read a primer when he started kindergarten? Would it have been nice if he had been able to see a picture of four eggs and plus sign and four more eggs and know that that's eight eggs? Sure. But that's what kindergarten is for. So 21:28 I haven't told that story on the podcast and I've been wanting to, so thank you for giving me an opening. no problem. So yeah, priorities are a little screwy right now. I was just listening to a Farmerish Kind of Life podcast, a lady that hosted, her name is Amy Dingman. I listened to her this morning, she's friend of mine. And she was talking a lot about how convenience is nice, but doing the actual work to get the thing that you want. 21:57 has real satisfaction in it and it fills you up. And so I think maybe that's sort of what we're both getting at that this lifestyle makes you satisfied in a way that other things don't. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. just raising your kid up, knowing how like where their food comes from, the life cycle of plants and all of that. 22:27 Like how to grow your own food. A lot of people don't know that. even, it's not like funny, but I posted some videos about us raising our meat chickens and like one of the most popular ones we did was showing them on butcher day. I didn't show the actual like butchering of them, but I just talked about like, okay, they're old enough. We're taking them to the butcher. 22:52 There were so many angry people, so many angry people that had like nasty things to say. But honestly, like, and I was talking to some other homesteaders about it who have had similar reactions when they talk about that. And there was another woman, she was talking about some lady was like in her face yelling at her because she butchers her own animals. And she was asking the lady, she was like, do you eat meat from the grocery store? And the lady said yes. And she was like, well, what do you think? How do you think it got there? 23:21 And when you raise it on your own property, like they're out in the sunshine on fresh grass in a chicken tractor. That's how we raise our meat chickens versus a warehouse where they're all crammed together, not treated nicely by random people. It's just, yeah. And so that's what my son knows now where we get our chicken from versus the grocery store where it's just plastic wrapped. Yes. And that is awesome. 23:48 I love that he knows where his food comes from. It's really important. There is a real cognitive dissonance in the United States, especially about where food comes from and how it becomes food. You know, we go to zoos, we go to petting zoos, we go to farms and we see the beautiful Jersey cow. 24:16 with a really pretty face and we humanize them. We see them through human eyes and we're like, oh, what a pretty face. And we see them as, there's a word, I can't think of the word right now. There's a thing that we do as humans where we transfer or project our feelings onto an animal and animals are animals, they're not humans. And people forget that 24:46 animals are what produce the meat that we eat and that at some point that beautiful cow or steer is going to be killed and it's going to be butchered and it's going to become steak that we buy and we eat. And the cognitive dissonance just drives me insane. I have known since I was probably four years old that the cute little calf that was sucking on my thumb at my grandpa's neighbor's house 25:15 was going to become the steak that I ate two years later. I've known that forever. And I had to reconcile that because I loved that calf that I spent time with. And I loved the steak that I ate that came from that cow or steer. So I just feel like people don't quite understand the process here. Yeah, they don't at all. Um, there is definitely that disconnect. And then they also 25:44 I think they mistake like small scale farming where I not like we didn't like love on our meat chickens every day. Like I wasn't out there cuddling them or whatever, but they were treated really well. I never pushed them, kicked them. They had plenty of space. had food and water, fresh grass, bugs, all of that. And people not saying all factory farming is bad. Like we need food. 26:14 to survive. But like if I had a choice between how I raise our animals versus buying it from the store where I don't know how they were treated, like you'd think that they would be happy that we're doing what we're doing. would think, but it's not always true. Again, part of the reason I started the podcast is to educate people about all of these things. And the other thing about chicken from the grocery store, I don't know if you've bought 26:43 chicken at like a Walmart or Target lately. But we got chicken from a Walmart a couple months ago and it was not good. Like it was really stringy and it just wasn't right. And I thought, what is wrong with the chicken that people are buying at the store these days? Cause this is not good. Yeah. I don't know what brand you got, but if you look on, and I'm not trying to like fear monger here. Um, I don't think it's 27:11 super unsafe and people are gonna die if they eat grocery store meat. But a lot of the stuff in grocery stores, sometimes I've, I have heard that they like rinse them in bleach. And then I've also heard, and you can see on the packaging, it'll usually say that it's like injected with XYZ to like maintain flavor. Yeah. 27:34 although it probably doesn't need to be injected with anything if it's good chicken. these are the things that come up in these conversations. And I don't want to fear monger anybody or anything either. I want to educate and I want to invite people in. But either way, if you can get chicken from a local grower where you can actually go see their farm, see their chickens, see how they're raised, get to know them. 28:03 Then you can kind of feel rest assured that you're getting a good product that isn't going to hurt you and that is going to taste good. So anyway, I try to keep these to half an hour Casey and we're there. I feel like we talked about a lot of stuff. I don't know that we talked about a lot of what you're doing, but it also sounds like you have big plans and we did talk about that. So where can people find you online? am currently on Instagram, on YouTube and then 28:32 I have a Facebook account, but I'm not on there. I just have everything from Instagram kind of cross post over. But I do post a lot of stories on Instagram and then Instagram and YouTube are where I post all of our newest stuff. And YouTube, once our son is in school this fall, I plan on posting a lot more on YouTube, like long form style videos. And people can find you at Haggard Mountain Homestead for YouTube as well? Yes, Haggard Mountain Homestead. 29:01 Um, for Instagram and YouTube, it's at Haggard mountain. And then for Facebook, it's Haggard mountain homestead. That's like our page name. Okay. Awesome. And as always, people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com. Thank you, Casey, for your time. appreciate it. No problem. Thank you for having me. Have a fantastic day. You too. Bye.
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| Feeding Feasible Feasts | 14 Jul 2025 | 00:31:34 | |
Today I'm talking with Angel at Feeding Feasible Feasts. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Angel at Feeding Feasible Feasts. And you're in Washington state, right, Angel? Yes, I am. Okay. Awesome. How's the weather in Washington state? It is, well, where I am in Washington. It's beautiful today. Yeah. 00:26 Good. was a very, it's very warm here in Minnesota. It's very muggy. Midwest. Yeah. It's going to be warm out there. Are you in the Midwest? Did you say Minnesota? Yes. 00:43 Yes, it's really muggy. It's gross. And that's par for the course for July 2nd. I don't know why I'm even saying it out loud. Everyone knows it's muggy in Minnesota in July. So tell me about yourself and Feeding Feasible Feasts, because I am so curious to know what you guys do. Well, I'll give you a short version. I'm a little on the older side, so I've done quite a bit in my 01:11 I guess in my world, in my life. Uh, let's see here, uh, born in Chicago, 1961. So, uh, here before women could vote and black folks to vote and all of that, uh, moved here to the state of Washington, uh, Seattle, Washington. And let's see, that would have been 20 or no, 1989. We moved here. Uh, my husband and I, and we have seven children that are all adults. 01:40 Opened my first business here. Well, my second business. First business here was a promotional products company and had some pretty nice contracts with large companies. Developed a transportation model where we folks could get online and order their promotional products and have them delivered directly. So we did that with Labor Ready and True Value and some of the large companies out here. 02:08 I sold that company, moved on to real estate. My mother got very ill. So I had her here. So I went into real estate so I could control my schedule. fairly well with that until the downturn in the economy at a time. So I sold my book of business and moved into another arena here in Washington state at the time was a pretty hot topic, which was recreational cannabis. My husband in his years growing up. 02:37 enjoyed recreational cannabis. I myself never and still haven't tried it, but really felt that the medical part of that unit to be examined and supported. I became an advocate, joined our liquor control board as a board member to help with oversight for that particular industry. We still, we actually have at this point two retail cannabis licenses. 03:05 that we have in another county, not where we live. And I sit on the board here for the Washington Food Coalition, which is a coalition designed by congressional districts. And I am the representative here for that. As well as I had a chair with our city here for economic development on their advisory board, as well as I was a political delegate this year during the 03:35 the political race. And now we are feeding feasible feasts. It came about because I am a heavy gardener. garden, we have a pretty good swath of property here. I garden my entire portion of my house yard is a garden. So I produce quite a bit of food. And one of the things we do with feeding feasible feasts is we do teach folks how to can, freeze, hydrate, 04:05 You know, how to preserve food. I have about 16 fruit and nut trees in my backyard and two in my front yard. During the time of COVID, well, before all of that, I discovered that my neighbors didn't actually like zucchini as much as I thought they did. So I had to come up with a better method of, you know, finding a home for all of the food and found a national organization. I don't know if you know about it. It's called Food is Free. 04:35 And it is built for people like me, gardeners like me, who just produce way more food than they're ever going to eat. And you, it's a simple concept. You just put a card table on a corner with a sign, handwritten, if you like, that says food is free. Put the food on the table and people who drive by can take whatever they like. Awesome. I didn't know about that. It's a national movement. It's actually, we have several pods of that movement here in Washington state. 05:04 part of the effort during Kovac to rescue, had a potato onion problem at the top of Kovac when the schools closed down and restaurants closed down. Our farmers were not able to sell all of the produce. And so we did a huge rescue movement at that time. Several of the large food agencies here and lots of small ones like mine at the time drove over to Eastern Washington and we brought over, I don't know how many thousands of tons 05:34 potatoes and onions, but we were able to do to because he come from rotting in the field and in arms. Awesome. Who does free played a pivotal role in that as well as most of the folks who are participating in that with potatoes and onions, put them on the corner and we'll just wrap. 05:52 So, but that is food is free is a precursor to feeding feasible piece. As COVID kicked in at the top of that year, we live in an area where there's a large immigrant population of Russian and Ukrainian folks. And I noticed as things were closing down that a small line began to form across the street from where the table was. 06:22 early spring. So the only thing I was really harvesting were herbs and they were lining up herbs. And I remember thinking to myself, Oh my gosh, do you have a problem? Because people are lining up for simple herbs, rosemary, thyme, things like that. Um, reached back into some friends who were in the grocery industry and said, Hey, what are you doing with your returns? And they didn't have an answer. And I said, well, you can send them to me. And so, um, I began getting food by the pallet load. 06:50 and would line them up in my driveway and along my private road and developed a small free market on my neighbor's corner because he has a cross street for people to just come and shop for free for food that normally would have just gone into the landfill. So that was our beginning. Neighbors really played a large role in this. Many of our neighbors donated marine coolers and the neighbor to the north of us 07:19 saw ice every single morning for all of those coolers. And we were able to have milk and meat, cheese and butter, things like that that needed to be refrigerated and could not just sit on a table. And it was summer. So that went along swimmingly until the health department came by and said, hey, we love what you're doing, but if you're going to use marine coolers, you will have to come out here and take a temperature every hour. 07:46 And the look on my face told her that I was not going to come out there every hour and take a temperature and all those marine coolers that just wasn't feasible. So I drew plans for a small shed-like building that had a carve out in it for a refrigerator. And we placed that unit on top of some pallets, again in my neighbor's yard against our common fence. 08:14 It became the first food hub. And so people come anytime day or night and pick up food. And I had run this extension cord up my driveway, have a 150 foot driveway. So I ran an extension cord up to keep the refrigerator and the lights running for that first hub. And it was extremely popular and it's undergone several reiterations, several redesigns over the last five years. We have some that are solar powered. 08:44 You have some that are, well, all of them have all, think that solar power is probably the only differentiation truly to find all of them at this point. But they all have self closing doors are available 24 seven. You don't have to register. just show up. The signage on the, on the units illustrates the communities that will most likely take advantage of that hub. So for example, 09:10 Our hub in Renton is English, Spanish and Chinese, our hub in Tukwila is English, Ukrainian and Russian. it just depends on where the... Okay, Angel, I'm going to stop you just for a minute. Number one, I love your heart. Your heart is so big, you are a giver. 09:31 Number two, feeding Feasible Feasts is your baby. You started it. Yes. Okay. So I was looking at your Facebook page and I saw a guy at a church talking about their food pantry. Do you also provide stuff for food shelves and food pantries? We do. We do distribute food, especially when we get a lot of it. 10:00 to other food banks, food pantries and other several other types of school districts, nonprofits. We distribute to quite a wide range. Yes. Today, as a matter of fact, I got a call from a distributor who had 27 pallets of shredded bagged lettuce that was rejected at a outlet store dock, nowhere for it to go. Of course, we don't want that in the landfill. 10:29 So we had them delivered to us and we have already distributed all 27 pallets. We did it in under three hours. Wow. Wow. Okay. So how hard was this to get started and how expensive is it to keep it going? It wasn't hard to get started. We were lucky because I had so many ties and so many different stastes. So finding food was not an issue. 10:59 Um, I know about warehousing, so I was able to locate a warehouse that wasn't overly extensive. Um, we were able to locate, um, just all of the infrastructure that's needed. That's where the expense really does come in. Um, we have a fleet of vans and refrigerated troughs that we utilized. Uh, we are running routes, uh, seven days a week, upwards of, uh, six different routes a day. Uh, so we have to pay people. So there's, you know, there's that expense along with. 11:29 Refrigeration is probably the biggest obstacle, I think, for all of the food banks because that stuff needs to be kept fresh. So as a result, a lot of my programs revolve around eliminating those needs. So even with the lettuce, for example, today that came in, rather than have it come to my warehouse and sit for any length of time, we just make sure that it goes directly to where we know it can go or we deliver it ourselves. 11:56 We model that in our grocery store rescue as well. We rescue food from Safeways and Albertsons, Pagans, Tovers. We pick up food from them, ideally. 12:09 Fabulous. I love you. You are so important to Washington State. I don't have words big enough to tell you how I'm feeling right now hearing your story. So not every state has a program like this, but there are lots of people growing food in their gardens and they can't possibly use all of the surplus. 12:34 So what I would suggest, because I live in Minnesota, we have a big garden and we will have metric tons of tomatoes by August. I know we will. We have over 200 tomato plants planted right now. We're gonna donate to our local food shelf. So what I would suggest to people who are growing produce is that if they know of a local church, food pantry or a food shelf or whatever, get hold of them and ask them if they will take fresh farm 13:04 grown produce in their programs because everybody deserves a really good tomato. Agree. And I would even take that a step further and have them investigate that food is free table. And the reason I say that is, unfortunately, food banks operate under very restrictive hours. And generally speaking, folks who need that type of assistance are working. And they miss those hours. 13:34 most often. There's food banks sometimes they're only open five hours a week. If it's a really good food bank it's open maybe 20 hours a week. If you're working nights you're never going to make it. If you're working days or rather nights you're never going to make it to a food bank. So if you're growing it yourself and you do have a street where you can put it just a table that says food is free people will take it and you and the folks who will stop I promise you are the folks who need it. Folks who don't need it don't stop. 14:03 They don't have a need to right now. So they don't, but the folks who need it will stop. Yes, absolutely. The other thing is this conversation is really timely because our situation in the United States right now is getting kind of tenuous regarding the cost of food. 14:25 We're really lucky in my home because my husband has a good job and we're really thankful for that and we have a really nice garden going and we're really thankful for that. And we have laying hens so we have eggs and we're really thankful for that because the grocery store prices are so ridiculously high right now. You are doing a huge service for your community because I feel like no one should have to choose between paying their electric bill and eating dinner. 14:56 You're exactly right with that. I think a lot gets lost in translation when things like this happen and too often it becomes a political matter and this is not a political matter. I think that the lack of education for the general public is important to educate each other. 15:20 When it comes to food insecurity, people hear food insecurity and they hear folks who just want it easy or want something free or whatever, and that isn't what it is. No. insecurity is defined. has a definition. And the definition is it represents people who have an income but are unable to stretch that income until the next time they receive a check. That's the definition of food insecurity. 15:46 And so if you really think about it, how many times have you just talked to a regular neighbor, both are working, doing well, and they're thinking, huh, we got five more days. I need to go to the grocery store, but I really, you I don't have much money. I don't know, you know, what I need to get some inextensive things like ramen or something along those lines that isn't healthy and isn't good for them. If they have enough money to do that, that's the definition of food insecurity. And what we know in the United States is that seven out of 10 16:15 suffer from food insecurity. Seven out of ten. So that means if you have ten neighbors, seven of them most likely have that issue often. Yep, absolutely. And we are going through a minor patch of that right now here. I wouldn't say it's minor. We're headed, it's on an upward slant, it's at a vertical slant. No, no, I meant in my household. I didn't mean in general. We're going through. 16:45 We're going through a minor patch of food insecurity because the gardens aren't quite producing yet. They're almost there. I'm so excited. But we have really been doing meal planning on the weekends and we're like, okay, we have 150 bucks to spend on food for the week to supplement what we have in the house. What am I cooking this week? So we literally sit down on Saturday and make a plan and get groceries on Sunday. 17:13 really looking forward to salads from the garden and zucchini and tomatoes and cucumbers because that's all really good healthy nutritional food for us. Right exactly and you find yourself not as hungry as often when you're able to pack your body with nutrients like that. I am astounded that the people lined up for herbs that you were talking about because herbs are great but they're not exactly 17:40 a dinner, they will make a dinner better, but they're not dinner. Right. My feeling is that for those that were stopping on those days, on those early, early days, I think that knowing that fresh food, even if it's put in something like ramen would help, well, it helps it taste better, but also it would get more nutritional value. And I have a sneaky suspicion that's what that was about. Yeah, probably. 18:09 The other thing is that people who aren't from America, like they move here from a different country, they know more about cooking than most Americans know. And they also know they could take those fresh herbs and dry them and put them in a jar and they would have them for longer. And most Americans think that you get herbs in a little tiny container at the store. No, you can grow a basil plant. You can let it get big. You can strip the leaves off of it. 18:38 dry those leaves, crunch them up and put them in a mason jar with a lid and you have basil for the winter. Exactly. We have, I have a sage bush that I've been growing for about seven years now. It's huge. And my husband keeps saying to cut it back. Well, first of all, when spring comes, it blooms just the prettiest turtled. And the entire plant is edible. You can fry sage with, can, you can batter them and fry them and they'd make a meal by themselves. They're delicious. 19:07 Oh yeah, absolutely. My sage plant is dead. I had a really good one going and it died last summer because it was so, it was just so, it was terrible weather here last year. It was so wet and then it was so dry that the plant didn't know what to do. And it was just like, I give up and it died. 19:27 that day. This year I'm struggling with, we will have an incredible overabundance. did not, this year I didn't take the time to remove some of the like starts of some of the fruits like the pears and the apples and now I have branches that are back, they're just bowed and touching the ground and so heavy and so I've got to go through, either prop up the branches so they don't snap or pull some of those off of it. 19:56 I have to give though. 20:00 Yep, I was telling somebody the other day how spoiled I feel because we have apple trees here and they actually have apples on them now. We didn't get any last year because a windstorm came through and blew all the petals off. So the apples never got pollinated. And we're going to have like probably 200 honey gold apples this fall to pick from our property. And I'm so excited. 20:24 And every time I look at those trees, I'm like, we are so lucky and I feel so spoiled about it. 20:32 We, we, have so much, we actually have Gleaner, volunteer Gleaners that come and we have the gear, the hip baskets and the poles that reach out and grab them down. think right now we're at a pole. And, um, just on my property, just last year, the apple tree in the front gave us over 900 apples. It's incredible how much a tree can produce in food and the great thing about apples is they have a really long life. They have a great longevity if they're stored. 21:03 Yep, exactly. Yep. And I don't know if you grow winter squash in Washington state, but we do. And my favorite time of year is autumn because the winter squash is ready to come in. 21:19 We have, you know, Washington state, we're lucky that we can grow pretty much all year round something. Um, there's very little, um, I don't think there are very, there are very few days or where you wouldn't be able to grow something in this, in this state. So it's nice. 21:38 Uh-huh, I didn't know that. I thought you guys had a cold enough winter that you had a couple of months where you couldn't grow anything. Oh, you can just hoop it. You just sort of it. Yeah, you just hoop that and keep the snow off. And you can grow all kinds of things. Nice. We had to put up a heated greenhouse to do that. I don't have a heated greenhouse. That sounds like luxury. We do have chickens here too, like you do. Uh-huh. 22:07 I do keep the coop as it's actually built very close to our home and where I just run the dryer vent that way. Put a strain on it and it heats it up sometimes. Oh, that's smart. I can't do that. My chicken coop is way too far from the house. Yeah, I my close by on purpose because I didn't ever some of the chicken, you we harvest a lot of chickens at the end of the season, but there are several that are left. 22:32 that we carry over to the next year. And I don't want them to freeze. The other problem we have is, we have, I'm sure you have two raccoons and rats and things that want to get in there and do harm. And so building it up against the house, that was just one side of the poop I did not have to fortify. That's really smart, Angel. I never would have thought of that. I'm going to have to talk to my husband and be like, this lady told me a really cool hint about keeping chickens warm in the wintertime. 23:01 Yeah, you just run that and then and you don't have to heat it right you just run your dryer for a minute Yeah, exactly. Here. Where's there are a lot of us in my household? And so we we're running our dryer quite often so they take pretty warm That's brilliant. I would never have thought of that and I have not had anyone mention that on the podcast and I've been doing the podcast for 21 months now, so um What breed of chickens do you have? 23:27 We do the X brand, is just the regular white chicken that are meat chicken. And then I have a plethora of chickens that I think they started off as certain breeds and made it and made more chicks. And so I don't know what they are anymore. They just lay eggs. They're moths. All different colors. Yes, they're all moths. They just lay eggs and run around and that's it. That's the extent of it. 23:51 As long as they're giving you eggs, they're good chickens. And they're great for, I mean, they're great to have if you have a garden. Like I'm sure you know, you can take all of the stuff that you pull and all the vegetation that you're preening and throw it all in there with them, they'll take care of it. Oh yeah. We threw in a whole bunch of basil plants last, I think it was October. Cause in Minnesota, if you grow basil outside, the minute it gets below 40 degrees, the basil plants are done. 24:20 They get black spots on the leaves and they're no longer good. And chickens freaking love basil. They love it. they had, they their little. They eat a lot of the compost from the house after the grandchildren finished eating watermelon and, or whatever it is that we bought, we throw the rest in there with chickens. Yeah. Chickens love watermelon. We used to take the rinds out to the chickens. 24:50 And they would lose their minds. My husband would throw half a watermelon rind in and they would, they would fight over it. And I was just like, I can't believe they like watermelon. And if you watch them, if you actually scoop all the watermelon out of the watermelon, out of the rind, so it's still like a bowl and you put the, you put it out in the run, they will eat all of the flesh out of it. So it's just a skin shaped bowl sitting there on the ground. 25:20 They do that with pumpkin too. They love pumpkin and will fight over that. It's really fun though to raise chickens. If you're able to watch them and you know, instead of having to run outside all the time when it's cold and just throw something in there and run away. But they are fun to watch. there's a reason that chickens are the gateway to homesteading, you know. My daughter this year, she has ducks and I... 25:48 She has too many ducks at this point. sounds like one of the neighbors has ducks and gave her eggs from the ducks through food. They were trading and she picked the egg up and looked at it and they were fertilized. So she put them under the lamp and now she has all these extra ducks. That's fabulous. That's great. I love that. She said, do you want some ducks? Mom, said, no, I don't any ducks. 26:15 Yeah, and ducks need water. I don't know if you have water on your property, but they need maybe more. But I do not produce. Yeah, somebody asked me if I wanted ducks and I was like, no, because I don't have any water on my property. And they were like, we just you can just get a kid's. They're like, you can just get a kid swimming pool and put water in it. I was like, yeah, but then you got to clean it out every day. Right. 26:43 That's my, that would be my issue. Ducks, I mean, chickens are one thing to clean up after and you know, I'm pretty good at shoveling it often enough that I can compost it well. But ducks are a whole nother matter. They, I don't know why, but they seem much messier to me than chickens are. Because they are. They're much messier than chickens. No, chickens are great. Especially if you put down wood chips or straw, you just have to go in there and, and 27:12 Take a shovel and shovel it out, put it in your compost pile. Yep. And that's pretty easy. Yep. And chicken manure is awesome for a garden, for fertilizer. Once you let it cure, do not ever put hot chicken manure on in your garden because it will ruin your plants. Oh my gosh, and it smells so bad anyway. It sure does. It's gross. But. 27:39 We grew the most beautiful garden at our old house one year because we got some chicken manure and the tomatoes and cucumbers that year, were huge. They were yummy. And I was like, chicken manure is the best ever. It is the best composted stuff. absolutely. We are gardens. have all my gardens are in braised, all of my vegetables out front are in raised beds. And so every year I pull from the compost bin, everything that I've composted and usually, um, 28:08 The dirt does shrink down about half, guess, almost half. And I fill every bed with compost. And then I use my little, I have a little tiny rototiller that I can handle myself. And I just rototiller it in and my garden comes up so amazing every year. Yeah, again, I feel really spoiled that we get to do gardening here. And I bet you sometimes have the same feeling. I, I, when I discovered that I could garden up here, 28:35 as opposed to where I came from. thought, oh my gosh, I'm in heaven. And so I have not not garden since I grew up here. Yeah, there's magic in it. And I can't explain it to people who haven't tried it. I do not have the words to explain to them the miraculous things that gardening does for people. Well, the other thing too, is if you have children or grandchildren and the learning moments, teaching moments, 29:04 in gardening are vast. Almost every lesson we hold is a good word and we had here. And we were able to teach them so much just through the gardening. mean, math, you know, percentages and just all kinds of things that you never would have, you know, really put to, you know, coming from a garden. Yeah. 29:33 Biology, chemistry? All of it, yes. is nothing. Even root words with some of the vegetables, you where does this word come from and how, you know, why is it called this? And just, mean, pretty much everything. You can teach through a garden. know the children here, the grandchildren here, every year in my garden, there's the first bed, which is right in front of our stairs as you come out of our home. 30:04 And there's a little sidewalk there. And when you cross the sidewalk, you hit the garden. And in the first bed, the first row are all cherry tomatoes. And the reason is because I let those get really big. I don't ruin them back. They probably would make more tomatoes than I did, but I don't. They get really bushy, really big. And the children spend the summer eating, walking around handfuls of cherry tomatoes all summer. Because 30:31 That's their snack. That's what they choose for a snack. They go out there and pick cherry tomatoes and eat them. It's actually going to be on our, I'm going to do a Facebook post video about that. huh. Fabulous. Oh my God, Angel, this has been so fun talking with you. I try to keep these to half an hour and we're at 31 minutes. So thank you for your time and where can people find feeding feasible fees? 30:58 You can find us on Facebook. It's just feeding feasible feasts. Same with Instagram. You can email us at www.fffeaststs.org. And those are the best ways to find us in churches. Okay. Awesome. Angel, I loved it. This was great. Thank you so much. hope you have a wonderful night and as always- you for having me. Thank you for inviting. 31:28 Absolutely. And as always, people can find me at ATinyHomesteadPodcast.com. Have a good night.
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| Mother Nature's Apprentice | 10 Jul 2025 | 00:47:19 | |
Today I'm talking with Pam at Mother Nature's Apprentice. You can follow on Facebook as well. Pam's new book, Wonder and Joy for the Wired and Tired: A Guide to Finding Inspiration and Well-Being in a Wonder-Filled World, releases in August 2025.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Pam, at Mother Nature's Apprentice in Kentucky. Good morning, Pam. How are you? I'm very well. How are you today? I'm good. How's the weather? It actually is nicer today. It's a bit overcast here in beautiful Northern Kentucky. We've been having 00:28 like most of the country, some hot weather, but we did get some rain and I think we may get a bit more today. How about you? It is lovely in Minnesota right now. The sun is shining. There's big puffy clouds in the sky, bright blue, and it's about eighty to seventy five degrees, I think, if that it's the first really nice morning we've had in just under a week because it's been really muggy here. So. 00:56 I was very happy to drink my coffee sitting on the porch with the window open and see the rogue raccoon we have visiting us. Oh, the rogue raccoon. Yes, we have one of those. How often does that little critter visit? 01:14 Yeah, our little guy looks like he has a leg that is maybe hurt because he looks like he's hopping a little bit. I've been calling him hop along in my head. And we don't have a live trap big enough to catch him. Plus our cats would get caught instead of him. And my husband wants to end his suffering with a firearm. And I am okay with that. The problem is he's never where we can get to him. 01:43 They are smart. They're very smart. Yep. And I saw him actually face on toward me the other morning and the sun was coming up. He's so beautiful. I'm like, God damn it. I don't want to kill this animal. He's gorgeous. Yeah. Those are tough calls, aren't they? I hate it. I absolutely hate it. And I know it's part of the life that we have chosen, but I hate it so much. Pam, it makes me sad. Yeah. 02:10 Yeah, I know we've been there a couple times. don't have the beautiful weather. You have, but we get things off the pond and whatnot and it just breaks my heart every time. 02:23 Yeah, it's hard, but if we don't put him down, a car is going to hit him. And I don't know which is worse. So we'll see what happens. Okay. So tell me about yourself and about Mother Nature's apprentice. Ah, well, I'm, I was born and raised in Indiana. And actually I'm a dual citizen. I'm a Canadian and a U S citizen. Lived here in 02:52 until my early twenties and then found my way actually to Western Canada, the beautiful province of British Columbia, which is just north of Washington state and lived there for quite a while. But you know, as beautiful as Canada was, I mean, I've always loved nature and backpacking and an incredible geography there. You know, when you're born somewhere, that's still where you consider home. 03:22 So I found my way back to the Midwest and not Indiana though, my husband and I, you know, live as I said in Northern Kentucky and we have sort of three acres that we've reclaimed. I'm a wife obviously, a mom, a grandma. Our kids are grown. We've got a bunch of little ones running around and we love nature. 03:50 Professionally, I guess that's the other hat I wear. I have a PhD and earned PhD and I'm a nurse practitioner clinician and an epidemiologist where I'm also an adjunct prof here at Northern Kentucky University where I investigate winter joy, wellbeing and nature, how nature has such a wonderful, powerful impact on our health and wellbeing. 04:20 And you're an author too, right? Yes, that was unexpected. As an offshoot of a research study I did, which talked about wellness versus well-being and nature and extraordinary ornery, cetera, I decided to indulge in my passion for creative writing. So I started the blog, Leather Nature's Apprentice, and it talks about nature and 04:49 all the things I just mentioned and some funky kind of nature, quirky things too, because I am a science nut. But that kind of dovetailed into a book, which I can't believe I did. That's been a journey. You people were very, thankfully, very kind about the blog and developed a bit of a following. And I said, you should write a book. And I guess even more than that, at the same time when I was 05:18 presenting some of my research findings on well-being at conferences, it really resonated with people and I got asked to talk more and more. And I initially thought, you know, I'll publish this in an academic journal like most academics do. But I realized that's, you know, that's not where most people are going to see this. This is information that will help all of us. So I guess that gave me the final. 05:44 Courage, that's the right word, to write the book. So yeah, it's my first book. It's coming out August 12th. 05:55 And what's it called? Well, I guess I should share that shouldn't it's called. It's called Wonder and Joy for the Wired and Tired, a guide to finding inspiration and well-being in our wonder filled world. What a gorgeous title. Oh my God. Oh, thank you. Wow. It has little animals and plants on it. People say it looks quite joyous. So I thought, that's 06:25 That's nice too. I looked at the cover on your Facebook page and it looks like a children's book cover. And I was like, this is not a children's book, but it's so cute. Well, it's whimsical, isn't it? I mean, I guess that was joyous. I wanted it to be uplifting and kind of Wonderworld-like. And yeah, thank you. I'm glad you liked it. Is it self-published or is it through a publisher? 06:51 Well, it's through a very new press called Bear Paw Press. And that tumor was, have you published before? Like a book or anything? No, I have not. Wow. Journey again is an understatement. I didn't know anything about this. And so I went to a writer's conference and thankfully I did have some more mainstream publishers in an ancient express interest. But 07:19 there's just all kinds of pitfalls and challenges to that. And so I thought, you know, I'm going to go this route. It's been a great experience. working with Carrie Barnum at New Shell Books, who's a wizard and wonderful to work with. So it's it's sort of hybrid, I guess. And but it gives me so much more control. And plus, it 07:46 It allowed me to get the book out sooner. Oftentimes with mainstream publishers, I didn't know this. You can wait a year to two years to get your book out there because you're just in a queue. And I thought, no, you know, I don't want to wait that long. So I'm going to jump into the deep end and see what happens. This is where I am. 08:11 Isn't it amazing how technology has opened up so many doors to so many people on so many things? It's incredible. And I think that's part of what's been fascinating about this. As you found this morning with my delay with my computer, I have a love-hate relationship with technology. mean, obviously I have to use it when I'm teaching and giving talks, but I'm certainly not 08:41 proficient in it, but I'm learning. I'm learning so many new skills and I'm learning more about, you know, things for the blog and obviously for the book. It's just, it's been a real learning curve and wonderful. 08:57 Awesome. Fantastic. I love it when people take what they're good at or what they're really passionate about and write about it and then teach other people with that because I am a lifelong reader and learner and books have been my best friends my entire freaking life. So thank you for writing a appreciate it. I will be picking it up. Oh, thank you. That's even better. Well, you know, because that's the other thing with technology, we're reading less. 09:26 Fewer people are actually picking up a book, whether it's even on Kindle, but definitely something that's hard print in their hands. And that really is quite sad, isn't it? But I guess we'll change with the times and we'll adjust in a damp. But that's nice to hear that you enjoy reading. I do. And the only reason I have a tablet with the Kindle app on it is because I like to read before I go to bed. 09:55 and I don't have a light by my bed. I have to get up out of bed to shut the light off. And with the Kindle, it's backlit. You know, it's a black screen with white letters. And so I can read and that's like all asleep. I just put the book down on the side table and go to sleep. Plus I used to read and my husband would come to bed and he'd be like, can we shut the light off now? And I'd be like, yes, because I had an actual book, you know, you can't read in the dark. You have a book book. So that's the best thing about it. 10:25 You you sound like my husband. He kids me because he is a rabid reader. He loves to read and he does the same thing. He loves his Kindle and he also reads before bed and makes fun of me probably because of my poor technology skills. But I just, I'm one of those people who loves the paperback or hardback. I love the smell of the books and I'm, I 10:52 still like to read in that way. But I think I'm finding the conveniences, just as you said, of why a Kindle is so darn good. Yep. I love, love, love my tablet. It's small. I don't have to, I can just prop it up against the pillow in front of my face and read it until my eyes slam shut. It's great. Okay. So you, I'm not sure where to start on the rest of the questions. You grow plants, right? 11:21 do. I do. I love nature. I love gardening. And I guess I always have. My mom was a wonderful gardener. I we just had a little backyard garden in Hammond, Indiana, but I have incredibly fond memories of having time spent with her growing morning glories and suspended along a chain link fence. was just a sea of blue. 11:50 collecting four o'clock seeds and it was just wonderful. And I actually remember, I think the first time that I realized I resonated or rather nature resonated with me. And I was six years old. I can remember this clearly and long story short, there was, it happened to be a total eclipse that day of the sun. And I was sitting outside and my mom had made one of those pinhole cameras and 12:18 We were waiting for it and I was sitting on the grass next to some beautiful milkweed plants and we had been watching the monarch butterflies with the eggs and the larvae maturing into pupa and they're about to hatch. And I got so excited and I went to go and tell my mom that and wouldn't you know it, I tripped and fell on a rusty lid of a bird feeder and cut my hand open, believe it or not. 12:48 This has related to nature because it also made me love the body and biology and instinctively even at six years old for some reason I didn't freak out because I grabbed my hand, put pressure on the cut, not knowing anything about it, right? And the bleeding of course stopped, right? Because you occlude the arteries. But I ran to my mom to tell her of my excitement. And of course she saw this blood and looked like a murder scene, I'm sure. But anyway. 13:15 the gentleman next door was a physician, stitched me up, I was fine. But later that day, I can still see this just like yesterday. I'm sitting with my bandaged hand on the grass next to these monarch butterflies. And my mom comes out with two popsicles and the pinhole cameras. And she sits next to me and we watch this incredible eclipse together. was nothing, Steven Spielberg could not have 13:44 scripted this better. The eclipse ended and slowly but surely all these monarch butterflies hatched. They emerged and there was this beautiful sea of orange and black. And I remember feeling just such incredible joy and wonder at the human body and the eclipse and nature and, you know, my relationship and love for my mom. it 14:10 No doubt, it propelled me to go into science and nursing. And I love nature. And so, yeah, I've been a plant grower probably since age six. 14:25 Very nice. So do you have gardens at your place? I do. do. I don't know if you got a chance to see it, I sort of, my husband and bought this Charlie Brown neglected lot. Actually, it was called a garbage lot, believe it or not. But I loved the position of it. It was next to a pond and I love the area. It was very safe and green and all the good things you want in a home. But it was a disaster. Mary, it was horrible. 14:55 Developers had dumped all their unused material and other garbage there and weeds had overgrown it. was full of clay. But I'm sure you've had this. think every listener out there has had this who is a farmer or a gardener. You have this vision. You see the potential of that barren undeveloped property. And I guess I had that gestaltish moment where I... 15:21 I saw this barren piece of land with no plants or trees and I saw this garden that had mature trees and it supported wildlife and it nurtured our souls. And I said, heck with it. I'm buying this quote unquote garbage lot and the two next to it where all the garbage was. And my husband and I over the course of the last few years have far too many blisters or bad. 15:50 But anyway, yeah, we created this garden on three acres and now thankfully it's full of life and beautiful perennials that come and go and raccoons. You know, all kinds of critters. 16:08 Yeah, the critters keep it interesting. That's what I'm going with. That's good word for it. It keeps us on our toes, doesn't it? You know, it's always an experiment, isn't it? You you try to figure out what's going to grow this here or what's going to eat what, but it's nice. That's what nature's about, right? Yeah, the second summer we were here, we had a doe that showed up just after my husband planted seedlings. 16:36 And she ate the tops, just the very, very tippy tops of the seedlings all along the row. And my husband came in and he was like, there's deer prints in the garden. And I said, are there any plants left? And he said, yes. said, that witch, and he used a different word, ate the very tippy tops off of every single seedling in the back row. 17:02 And I said, well, will they come back? He said, yeah. He said, if she doesn't eat the rest of them. And don't you find too, if I don't know if they come back, but some years they'll eat, like go through my petunias or whatever. And the next year they don't touch them. And it's so interesting because I think I'm able to at least sometimes outsmart the deer because I know which ones tend, which plants rather, tend to be, you know, more deer resistant. And it's like, 17:31 Uh, no, just like humans have our personalities. I find the rabbits and the deers and the chipmunks, you everybody has their own taste. So it's like, it's always, it's always hidden. Yeah. Well, we think the same doe came back the next spring, but she had a fawn with her and I got to see it. And I was like, you can eat everything in the garden as long as you bring that baby back every morning. I don't care. That's right. I know. I know. And 17:59 I mean, how can you resist that, right? I mean, if you truly love nature, you have to realize that's nature. So you have to be flexible and just know it's all good. Just all good. 18:15 Yeah, and you said you've listened to some of my episodes. If you have, you know that I am a sucker for babies. Baby animals are my favorite thing on the earth. I know it's the eyes. Well, it's not just the eyes. It's their little bodies. But when they look at you with those eyes, it just melts me every time. I hear you. Yeah, we have a picture of our dog at 18:44 she was exactly eight weeks old. So she was the little puppy and she's sitting on the couch and she was only five pounds and she's looking directly into the camera lens and she is the cutest, sweetest, most adorable thing I've seen in forever in that picture. She's almost five now and there are times when she lays in a certain position where she's facing me and I see that little puppy face still and I'm like, 19:13 Oh my God, you're never going to lose this. It's your eyes. It's her eyes that give me that thing. So you're right. Oh, that's right. And the love, always have to bite my tongue sometimes when I speak with colleagues or some other scientists and they talk about how some animals, not some animals, animals don't feel love in the same way humans do, or they don't express emotion or don't feel depression, et cetera, et cetera. 19:43 I bite my tongue because I, you know, it's been proven more and more that that's just false. And I think anybody who is an animal lover wants to sit here and go, no, that's absolutely categorically not true. Yes, in very clear layman's terms for me, if someone said that to me, I'd be like, my ass, they don't love like humans do. 20:09 Thank you. You said it far more eloquently than me. wanted to say something much stronger, but you, that was perfect. Uh-huh. My, my dad taught me really well. He is a very educated man. is very bright and has every word known to man stocked in his brain. But he always says that sometimes his fair word is the correct word. Well, you're absolutely right. And you know, have studies now that have proven that people 20:36 who occasionally swear, whatever occasionally means, have better mental health and have less anger, anxiety, et cetera, than people who don't utter the odd colorful word. And I thought, well, I should be pretty healthy. Oh, me too, darling. I'm right there with you. And I'm actually worse with inflection than I am with swearing. Like, if I am really angry, 21:03 I am going to find exactly the right word. It will not be a cuss word. And the inflection on it will make it sound like worse than any swear word I've ever uttered in my entire life. Oh, that's right. And I'm trying to, oh, it's escaping me, I wasn't there a show or it was a book, something, but they talked exactly about that. They, I think it was a woman and she was from the South. And of course, growing up, you know, her, her upbringing was very proper and she was not allowed to swear. 21:33 But boy, could she say like butterfingers in a way that you knew that that meant that F off was there. It was just perfect. And I thought, how wonderful is that? Yeah, I love the Southern God bless her heart thing that they say. It just makes me giggle every time someone says it. that can mean so many things, right? mean, it's perfect. Yeah, I'm really actually thankful I did not grow up in the South because 22:03 I feel like Southern bells are the best at the sarcastic insult without ever saying anything technically wrong. agree. I agree. And that's been actually something that I have learned about Kentucky. And it's been wonderful where we live here in Northern Kentucky. We're right at the intersection of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and really about 22:29 25 minutes away from Cincinnati. So it's a very sort of Midwest accent, so to speak. But if you go like even half an hour, 40 minutes south toward Louisville, Lexington, that lovely, lovely Southern drawl kicks in with a lot of the sayings that you're talking about. And I'm always, I'm always delighted to go down there because it's like kind of a whole other world. I'm always smiling and learning all kinds of new. 22:59 new phrases. Yes. And let's not imply that Southern bells only say cutting things. They don't. I'm sure that there are lovely women who live in the South who say flattering, wonderful things that they mean too. Well, of course, of course. But that's one of the beauties of our country, I think, is when you travel to the various areas and you see these marvelous cultures and these traditions. It just is so rich. 23:28 And I just think it makes our life so much more full. It's lovely. It really is. And since we're talking about things being said certain ways and picking up on ways people talk, the name of your place is Mother Nature's Apprentice. And when I saw that, was like, ooh, I love that. And the reason that I love that is because I refer to myself as a kitchen witch because I love to cook. 23:56 I could just as easily be a kitchen apprentice. mean, you know, same dip. But when I was a kid, I used to love to spend time in the woods because I grew up in the pine woods of Maine. And my mother would say, what did you do all day? And I would be like, oh, I just woodwitched it all day. And she's like, what does that mean? And I'm like, I'm a woodwitch. I spend all my time hiking. 24:22 dubbing around in the creeks and walking out the lake. I said, I'm just a Woodwich. And she was like, I think you might be. That is, I love that. I've not heard Woodwich before. So if you don't mind, I may actually coin that. would attribute to you, of course, but that's perfect. You know, I got to tell you, you may be in Minnesota, but we should hang out because I think I think we would. 24:50 Best friends, because you're right. mean, that's my happy place. You put me out in the garden or the woods and just want her. Want her, want her. I mean, I would love it. I love it. Yep. I was really lucky. grew up in basically they have a thing called the pine barrens in Maine. And we weren't in the pine barrens, but we were surrounded by white pine trees everywhere. 25:18 And we had a beautiful lake about a mile and a half behind my house. So you could either walk out through the woods or you could take a dirt road that went out to the lake. And I did both all the time. And we also had a really beautiful creek about half a mile from our house. So I had the best of all worlds growing up. It was fabulous. Oh, so did you grow up in, in Maine? take it. that how you did? Yes. 25:45 Wow, good for you. Marty and I went to Bar Harbor and I had to a talk up in that area. We just drove around and my gosh, I fell in love with the Northeast. It was just, it's almost a spiritual place. I loved it. And I meant to ask you, listening to you, have you been out to the West Coast with the Redwoods yet? No, and probably won't ever because I don't love to travel. 26:15 I love where I live. Well, I can relate to that because it's crazy traveling today. Oh my gosh, the airports don't get me started. But Marty and I did. I had never been there. And we flew to San Francisco and then rented a car. I have to tell you, Mary, it was spiritual. I don't even know if I can articulate. 26:40 I mean, we've all seen the photos of these beautiful giant trees and you know, how massive they are when you're standing next to them. But to actually witness that and to stand there was, I cried. It literally brought me to tears. I actually, I think I posted it on the website. I'm hugging one of these massive trees. And of course it's dwarfing me, but the thing that struck me was not only their beauty, 27:10 and their height, but the quiet was stunning. And as big as these trees are, apparently they're close together because their root systems are shallow and they intersect with each other and it strengthens them right as they're rooted in the ground, which I didn't know. But it was something. So there's any way I could just transport you with Star Trek technology, I will send you there. 27:41 Uh huh. Yup. And I don't know if you know about this, but there are trees in Maine called, well, there used to be, I don't know if there are any left, but there used to be pine trees called the King's Pines. And they were, you were forbidden to cut these pine trees because they used them for the, the mast posts in the King's ships back before America was America. And 28:07 I've seen one in my lifetime. My dad knew where they are and they have like a symbol carved into their trunk that shows that they're a king's pine. Whoa. Okay. I'm marking this down. It's called a king's pine. King's pine. I'll have to look that up. I have never heard that, but good. And so there are still trees that are marked and you can't hurt them. Is that what you're saying? You can't cut them. You are not allowed to cut them. You will be fined. 28:37 Lots of money. But I don't know if there's any still standing because it's been a good 25 years since I saw one. So I don't know. But I feel like, I feel like, yes, you and I could be best friends forever. That would be great. But I feel like I was meant to talk to you today because the, the love and the appreciation that I hear in your voice for the earth is just ringing. 29:04 And part of the reason I started the podcast is because I wanted to give people a platform to talk about the things that they do, why and how they do them and what they love. And you are fitting right in because you are doing things to promote, protect the earth. And we homesteaders and farmers are all trying to do that too in our own ways. Well, that's very kind. And you know what? 29:33 I'm glad that came through because I do. I don't know how to describe it. I just feel probably like you and probably most of your listeners out there have this deep, innate love and connection with the natural world. And it's something difficult to share, but you know it because you can feel it and we need more of it. And I love, I meant to tell you too, I love... 30:02 the name of your podcast and blog because I thought about the word homesteader. And I thought, you know, I know in the traditional sense, it brings up this image of pioneers and the American West, et cetera, and people living off the land, which is of course what homesteading is all about. But I think the beauty of that word is that it has evolved. 30:29 And, you know, homesteaders, you're right, can be someone who maybe even has a small plotter, is trying to live sustainably with a balcony full of plants or food for their families or for their well-being. And I think it's more a mindset than sort of a place because it has to do with, think, I hope I'm saying this right, sort of our mindful connection and our place within. 30:58 the natural world and appreciation for life. And I think what you're doing is great. And thank you. Thank you so much for giving me and others a platform. We need to help each other and get the word out and do what we can to protect this incredible, wondrous world that we live in. Yes, absolutely. 31:22 don't for one second think that I'm that selfless. I also wanted to talk to people who were doing some of the things that we're doing here because I was lonely. But that's okay and that's beautiful, right? Because it is really at the end all about connection, isn't it? With each other and with other living things and well, something bigger, however you define that. that's actually nice to hear. was great that you're honest about that. 31:53 Yeah, I needed to be able to be like, we got chickens and we got our first little tiny egg and have other people get it. Because you say that to somebody who lives in the city and buys their eggs at Whole Foods and they're like, what do you mean a little tiny egg? Yes, yes. And we've all been there. I'm sure we have all been there. People look at you like, you're one of those, what is it called? Woo woo, those crazy, you know, out there people. And it's like, no, no, that's not what we're. 32:23 talking about it and it's hard to explain. If you don't get it, you're not going to get it, right? Yep. I say that all the time. Oh good. And I try to be patient with people, know, not, I didn't know half the stuff I know right now, 25 years ago about how all this stuff works. I had no idea. Cause you can only know what you know at the time with what you've experienced. And so 32:51 When I talked to my, well, it's okay. I'm on tell a story because I need to tell a story. My best friend in high school, when we graduated, she went on to become a business major in college. That's what she wanted to do. And we were best friends. Like we were at each other's houses all the time. And I went on to move in with a guy that I probably shouldn't have married and have a daughter. And I called my best friend. 33:19 a week or so after my daughter was born and I was high, you know, you have kids and you're in love and y'all want to tell the world about this wonderful thing you created like no one's ever done it before. And she politely listened and she was like, I'm so happy you're happy, blah, blah, blah. I gotta go. And I'm like, okay, good. Love you. Bye. When she had her daughter, she called me about a week after she had her daughter and she said, Mary, she said, 33:46 I am so sorry that I was so short with you when you had your daughter. And I'd forgotten about it. And I said, okay. She said, I had no idea how in love I was going to be when I had my first baby and I didn't understand. And that's the biggest, I don't know, example I can come up with with you can't know what you don't know until you know it. 34:16 That's right. That's right. And you know, I'm, wish you could see me now because I'm smiling and I'm nodding as you're speaking because I agree the same thing happened to me with, with kids. Um, but even with the study I did, I, I, I was getting just disillusioned, guess is a good word with the wellness model, so to speak, because so many people are still so depressed, so sad, you know, chronic diseases are still a problem. So I. 34:46 You know, I researched all this stuff and then I thought, okay, I'm going to find out what's going on. What are we missing? Where are the gaps in the literature? And so I did the study and the results were great. But you know, Mary, what hit me was what came back that those individuals and it was international, was across, you know, gender and demographics of, you know, country boundaries and age and, you know, economic status. And those people had scored highest in wellbeing. 35:16 were those that spent the most time and most frequency in nature. They appreciated this extraordinary ordinary, I guess, that we're talking about, you know, the feeling of holding your baby for the first time or even the hand of someone you love for the last time, the power of that and all these things that we're talking about and they get it. You know, they understand how powerful the emotion of wonder. 35:45 is in the notion of joy, not happiness, right? Joy. And so I get these results and I thought, yes, you know, this is what I had hoped. But you know, as a researcher, you can't bias the study, right? So you just have to report the facts. So I thought, oh my gosh, am I doing the statistics wrong? So I sent them out. I sent them out to independent statisticians. 36:13 who know far more than I did. And I said, could you crunch these numbers? And can you tell me what I'm finding? Is that what's really going on here? And they went, yeah, this is what we're missing. People, we're not connecting with nature like we did even 10 years ago, get alone 50. Technology, we're sitting at computers and social media. don't get me started on how dangerous and negative that can be, And on and on, but you hit it right on the head. 36:43 It's we need to get back to well-being and the joy and the wonder of common sense and what really matters, right, for a wholehearted joyful life. 36:59 I agree completely with what you just said and I'm going to add to it. I feel like we have gotten so far away from feeling our feelings. I understand that you don't want your child to throw a tantrum in the middle of Target because they didn't get a toy. But the feeling that your child is feeling is valid. And even as an adult, you know, if something goes wrong, you and it hurts you, you are allowed to sit down and cry about 37:29 It is fine. Absolutely. And I, again, I'm going to give you a big hug over the phone right now, because that was another huge thing about the wellness problem. Why it's not serving us right now. For things I don't even have to go into next. But wellness and happiness have sort of co-opted into one big thing. This whole search for happiness, chase happiness. 37:57 has actually made us sick. And it's making us unhappy because what it's doing is exactly what you're saying. It's blunting the natural spectrum, I guess, of being able to express and feel the full spectrum of emotion, right? Because we're supposed to be happy all the time. And if you can't do that, if you can't be angry, if you can't be sad when you really need to be sad, you feel guilt. 38:27 And then this whole toxic positivity thing starts to go on and it's very difficult to break. And I actually talk about that in the book, how we have to kind of jump off that hamster wheel. This whole happiness wellness hamster wheel is not healthy and we need to stop it. Yes. And maybe your book can help people figure out how to stop the hamster wheel from spinning in that direction. I haven't read it yet because it's not out till next month. 38:57 But I hope it does. And I understand that people have jobs and they need to go to work and they need to behave like quote unquote normal human beings and do their job and not let their feelings interfere. I get all that. It's fine. But I also feel like if you spend your whole life stuffing your feelings, what happens is that you get stuffed to full and then you explode in some way. That's not good either. 39:27 You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And the whole key of course is to, well, again, don't get me started, but it also dovetails into resilience. When you talked about, you know, the kids, when we tell our kids to not feel this or you have to feel that, you know, it's okay to fall down. You know, it's okay to be disappointed and it's okay to lose whatever that means because, you know, what that does is it teaches us how to bounce back and 39:56 And a great analogy is like, again, going back in nature, mean, trees get stronger from thunderstorms and being in heat and wind. You know, they grow stronger roots and they grow taller when they're in difficult and various environmental situations. You can apply that same adage to humans in many ways. We need those to learn so our brain can develop new ways to figure out how the heck to get around that, should we encounter that again. 40:26 Yes, exactly. And part of the reason that I love the choice that we've made or we made five years ago, almost today, to move to our homestead, to buy land and have a homestead, is that here we have the opportunity to embrace nature and grow a garden and have chickens and have home, farm fresh eggs, basically. 40:53 If I need to go outside and yell because something is wrong, I can step outside and yell and no one gets mad at me. I love it. But you're right. Right? I mean, that is, that's your little piece of heaven and it's, oh my gosh, I wish I could see your place. It sounds gorgeous. It just sounds so healthy and so peaceful. And I can hear it in your voice too. You clearly love what you're doing and you love where you're living and it's 41:22 It's wonderful when you hear that, when anybody hears that in someone's voice. So good for you. I'm very happy for you. Thank you. I'm really happy for me too. You have no idea how long we planned and thought and dreamed for this place. My husband and I have been together 22 years, 23 years this fall. And I think within the first three years of being together, we were like, okay, someday we're going to have 41:51 acreage and we're going to have chickens and we're going to have a big garden and we're going to have apple trees and we have apple trees, Pam. Oh my God, we have apple trees. Oh my God. So this was manifested long before it came to be. And I probably sound like a fanatic when I talk about it, but we are so happy here. Like never been happier in a location in my life other than the house I grew up in. 42:19 It's not fanatical. All what I'm hearing is joy. I'm hearing joy in your voice and that's that is obvious. And, know, again, when you're when you're in that place where you're in a healthy relationship and a healthy environment, it everything truly does fall into fall into place. And that doesn't mean that your life is perfect. I mean, there are bumps in the road. Crap happens. You know, it it it happens. It's life. But 42:50 You know, the joy part of it is what sustains us. And that's why it's different than happiness, right? Because when those mountains, those bumps in the road come, you you go, this stinks, this really stinks. But you know, I'm gonna make it through this, whatever that means, and it's gonna be okay. And you feel, I think the word is blessed, maybe because, you know, of... 43:16 religion or spirituality, however you want to define it. But I say that to Marty too. I feel blessed and joyful. And I hear that in you. I just love it. Yeah, I always say whatever doesn't kill us, it's going to make us stronger even though we might want to die. That's right. Yep. 43:39 Yeah, I've been there, done that. I hear you. And I think everybody out there, you know, they can relate. I mean, no one has a charmed life. Everybody, no matter how wonderful it is, you know, you're going to wake up the next morning and God forbid, you're going to find a breast mass or someone you love is going to get sick or pass on and, you know, you're going to lose your job, whatever. But, you know, that's life. That's the journey, right? And you have to embrace it. And that's what wholehearted living is, I believe, right? 44:10 Yes. And that's, that's exactly what's missing in a lot of people's lives. They're not living wholeheartedly. They're just getting through each day. And I don't want to sound Pollyanna-ish, even though I always do, but it would be really cool if people would get to live their lives, like really fully live. That's right. That's right. And that's, that's the 44:36 The problem though, I think, we are, you hit it in the head, we're surviving often, but we're not thriving. I was given a quote recently, and if you can indulge me, I want to read it because it resonates with exactly what you said. And it was a quote from the Dalai Lama, and I may misquote it, so forgive me a little bit. But he was asked what surprised him most about humanity. 45:04 And he responded quickly and said, man. And when asked why, he said, well, because he sacrifices health in order to make money. And then he sacrifices money to race after health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he doesn't enjoy the present. And sadly, the result is that we neither live in the present or the future. But then he dies never having ever really lived. 45:35 And I probably butchered that because I'm certainly not the Dalai Lama, but I thought, isn't that the truth? We just don't get it until it's too late. 45:48 Yes, I think I've read that before and went, yup, exactly. That is exactly what people do. Yep. Yep. All right, Pam, we're at like 45 minutes. try to keep you my gosh. But that's fine. Where can people find you? Okay. My blog is mothernaturesapprentice.com. It has a Facebook site and a website. 46:18 I guess my author's side, suppose I should give that now. It's just pamstevenslanebauer.com and that's Stevens with a P-H. Do I have to spell the name because it's kind of hard to pronounce? I can spell it for you. It's L-E-H-E-N-B-A-U-E-R. Yes, thank you.com. And yeah, I'm listening to you and 46:45 all this wonderful stuff you're inspiring me to do a podcast. So I may start to do that a bit more, but thank you. I can't thank you enough for this opportunity, lovely to talk with and I love your voice as I told you before we started and I love your podcast. So thank you. Well, thank you for all that. You're making me blush and thank you for your time, Pam. I appreciate it. And as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. 47:15 Pam, I hope you have a great day. You too. Thanks, Mary. Bye.
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| The Dorr Family Farm | 09 Jul 2025 | 00:25:21 | |
Today I'm talking with Amy and James at The Dorr Family Farm.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Amy at Dorr Family Farm in Whitefield, New Hampshire. Good evening, Amy. Again, I'm all confused on time. Sorry. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. You said your husband is there and I of course blanked his name already. Yeah, have James, my husband James with me. 00:29 James is with us too. So we have a couple to talk to tonight. Have you guys been getting a ton of rain? Yeah, way too much. Today too? A little bit. Okay. All right. My folks live in Maine and they have done nothing but tell me how much rain they have gotten this spring. So I assumed with you being in New Hampshire that it would be the same thing. Yeah, it's been, the ground is really wet. 00:58 We still have the remnants of vernal pools that are usually not still present this time of year. A little bit. Trying to get into it a little more. Well, this year must be hard because it's taken my dad 10 plus years to put in this garden this year. That's how it feels anyway. Okay, so I looked at your Facebook page and Door Family Farm has been around for a long time. 01:28 So tell me about yourself and what you guys do. So yeah, this place has been here for a really long time. We've been here 13 years. So the farm has been in my husband's family for now eight generations. And it started out in the 1800s. My husband's, let's see, great. 01:57 Great. Many greats. Many great. Grandfather settled here from Canada and just started like a small, he was alone and he had a little shack and he just, you know, worked the land and the house that stands today was built in the 1800s as well as the barn. And we just kind of ended up here. It wasn't in the plans. 02:28 That happens. hear that a lot. Yeah. Are you from New Hampshire? Well, I was born in Massachusetts, but I lived in New Hampshire most of my life. Moved here when I was about five years old. Okay. I'm just not picking up on any New England accent at all. And I was like, maybe she didn't grow up in New Hampshire, but okay. 02:54 Okay, so what do you guys do at the farm? It's a farm, so I'm assuming it supports itself? Well, it definitely doesn't support itself. Oh, no. No. So we hold full-time jobs. I'm a nurse and James is an independent IT consultant. The farm once did support itself. It has gone... 03:22 through many different changes over the years. At one point it was a strawberry farm and at another point it was a potato farm. Before that it was a dairy farm. So it's always been a farm of some sort. And when we came here, it was not in the plans and we sort of ended up here through happenstance. The house 03:52 has been in the family for generations and it was about to be sold. We didn't want that to happen, so we bought it. We moved here with no plan. We've consistently raised chickens the entire time we've been here. That's been the constant. At one time, this place provided all the food for the families that were here. 04:21 And we'd like to tap into that and get back to some of that. Okay. Awesome. And I think I saw something about a hip camp. You guys offer that? Yes. Yep. So we rent campsites on the property in the field and woods area in the back. And it's just kind of a little very minimal effort thing that we offer. And we've been doing it for a few years now. This year has started off kind of slow. 04:50 I think things are weird, but last year we were able to pay almost all of our property taxes with our hip camp income. So I feel like that's a win. 05:02 Okay. So for people who don't know, hip camp is sort of like Airbnb only for camping, right? Exactly. Yeah. And it's like rustic, undeveloped camping. So you're not going to get a fancy bath house or a pool. We rent to a lot of people who arrive on bicycle, actually, traveling across the Cross New Hampshire Trail, which starts in Woodsville, New Hampshire, goes to Bethel, Maine. So we just hosted one the other night. We rarely ever see them. It's kind of a... 05:33 just a really private, rustic camping experience. So we came up with that as a way to kind of utilize the land because it's just kind of sitting here and it's very minimal effort. And sometimes we meet some really neat people, but a lot of times we never see them, which is great. So it's easy. It's almost passive income. Exactly. Yeah, very much so. I'm a big fan of passive income. 06:02 I am. think that if you can provide a service that doesn't require a whole lot of effort on your part, you should do it. definitely. I agree. That's why we started it. I kind of talked my husband into it. Yeah, the closest we have to passive income here is we have a farm stand on our property right off of the driveway. Yeah. And I have a Venmo QR code thing out on the bulletin board out there. 06:31 and we have a little container for cash and people pull in, they get eggs, they get veggies, they get candles or soap or lip balms and they leave. Yeah. And I love it because it's like a little surprise at the end of the day when we go out to see who bought what, you know? Yeah. Yeah. We also have a little farm stand, mostly just eggs. So, but I would like to move into more things, but it takes time. Yeah. Yes, it does. 07:00 Speaking of time, my husband just spent an hour, I can't talk tonight, don't know what's up, spent an hour picking black raspberries in our tree line. And I'm going to be making a black raspberry pie tomorrow from wild black raspberry bushes that we didn't have to pay for. am so excited about this. That's That is excellent. Yeah, like we have a blueberry patch that has been here forever and same thing. It's like you walk out the back door and it's just right there. 07:30 It's awesome. It's not blueberry season yet, right? No, not yet. Not yet. Another couple weeks? Yeah. Yeah. Yup. I ate a lot of blueberry cake in my day when I was growing up in Maine because we had blueberries everywhere. Yeah. Okay. So I understand you both have full-time jobs, but do you have dreams for the farm? I mean, have you talked about what you would like to expand into? 08:00 Yeah. So like my vision is I've always, when we moved here, first of all, there used to be a lot more land here. Over the years, a lot was subdivided and sold off. So we have a remaining five acre parcel with the original barn and farmhouse, which five acres is still a pretty usable amount of land. So my thought since we arrived here is that I wanted to be able to 08:28 use the land and kind of be home more and try to find a way to make a living off of it. Well, is it wooded or is it pasture or what is it? Yeah. So it's about, it's probably, yeah, it's about three quarters pasture and about a quarter of it is wooded. Okay. Well, 08:55 Do you want some ideas from a lady who spends a lot of time talking to people who have farms and homesteads? Sure. Okay. If you have a lot of woods, I assume you have a lot of underbrush in your woods. We do. Yeah. Goats are great for that. They will eat all the low lying bushes instead of grass. They don't love grass. Goats are a great, great thing because you can use them for meat. 09:24 You can use them for milk and the milk you can make cheese. You can drink the milk. You can make goat butter from the milk fat and you can make goat milk. So they're like the perfect animal for the situation you're in. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely, know some people that have goats and I think that the time requirement and having to be home is kind of tough. So Mary, this is James. 09:53 So four legged, four legged farm animals are not in our future. Oh no. We like to go away and we like to do things. I think part of the vision of this farm is going to be, you know, something that's a little more self-sustainable, a little more intelligent. You know, there's a lot of small craft things you can do. And, and with animals, they require that you're here, you know, all the time. 10:22 And we have a little system set up for our chickens where they can sustain for a few days. you know, it's challenging running a farm in 2025 because you're not as necessary to the community. don't think as people fit, know, the perception of how necessary you are is different than it was, let's say, 100 years ago. So we're still trying to figure out where we fit in with this whole thing. 10:51 And that's the challenge. Amy likes to bring people here. And I'm completely opposite. I like people coming to my farm stand, and that's it. Property. But Amy brings people and she's trying a bunch of different things as well. And I guess the point comes in that it's just to be innovative is the only way to really sustain something like this because the old models that we 11:20 know of are gone for a lot of us. including your farm where it's, you know, it's, difficult, especially with, you know, her being a nurse and I'm a systems engineer. And I hear quite a bit, but it's still, challenging to be here and, you know, deal with all the other nuances of life and your work. So those are our challenges in this farm. And we're at some point, hopefully we're going to figure out what, that looks like for us. 11:50 I understand completely. That's why I started a podcast so I could talk to people who were doing all the things that I would like to be doing, but we don't have room on our little homestead. Oh, got it. So we have a friend who drives around with a, um, Amy helps out with these events and the common. And one of them was there was a vendors. can't, I think it was a fall event and this woman 12:14 My daughter had to go to her house to get her goats because her car broke down and she had like a little petting station. So, my daughter had what? Six goats in her little Subaru. since then she's, I think, raised her flock a little bit bigger. And so she goes around and she hires them out to eat patches of sumac or poison ivy or whatever's out there. 12:44 And that's just showing you how people have to be super innovative in 2025 to run a farm and actually make enough money to at least sustain it. You know, with those services. absolutely. And I wasn't saying you need to get goats because I would love to have goats. I shutter it for every time somebody says... 13:09 Yeah, and with our farm, just, you know, every time somebody mentions four-legged animals, I'm just like, I panic inside because it makes me feel like I'd be just, I wouldn't be able to leave. I wouldn't be able to go away with my family, go to a music festival, go camping for a weekend, because of the animal. So that's our challenge with that. Yeah. 13:32 Okay, then gardens are probably out too because you kind of can't leave a garden for a week at a time when it's high growing season. Which is partially true. also, I'm working on irrigation and learning about irrigation right now because we got a lot of water on our property. so that is partially true, but it's also, you know, we don't go away for that long. 14:00 I don't like going away for that long. We usually go away for a couple, few days. You know, there's always somebody, one of my children here who can water. and, and, as if we did bigger gardens, um, and they started to evolve into just larger entities. Yeah, that would be, that would definitely be challenging. Uh, at that point we're kind of tied to the property of the summer. Um, you know, just watching for pests or whatever. Um, you know, just have to be a part of it all the time. So absolutely. 14:30 Yep. We don't go anywhere here because we're tied to the farm because of the chickens and the dog and the barn cats and the garden. And luckily when we bought this place, one of the prerequisites when we were looking for our forever place was that it had to be a place we didn't want to leave. And we found it and we love it and we just don't leave. mean, 14:55 I, we went to my mom's 75th birthday party, like in 2021, and my son stayed here and took care of the chickens and the cats and the dog. And we were only gone for four days, like, like two, five days, four days of two days of hard driving a day and a half there and two days back from Minnesota to Maine. Wow. Yep. 15:22 Yep. And I tried everything I could to get out of going to her birthday party because I knew it was going to be nuts. And then all of a sudden I was like, no, we need to go. Like in my heart, I knew we had to be there. so we went. okay. So tell me about your house because houses that old don't really last as long as yours have. So tell me about your 1800s. Yeah. So that's a really good question. I 15:49 I attribute the fact that the house is still standing to the strength and grit and perseverance of everyone who has lived here. We've been doing work on the house over the past 13 years and when you start peeling back the layers, you can see where people put a lot of care into things. I think the fact that the same family has always been here makes it really special. 16:19 They don't make houses like this anymore. On that note, when we purchased the house, when we first got here, we were just trying to wrap our heads around this kind of property, which took a long time. There was a large pine tree off the back of the barn that was growing and it was hanging over the backside of the barn and it had created some rot. 16:47 Then we started to notice water coming in in the attic of our house. So we decided if we're going to keep this house and we're going to do this, we need to put new roofs on both structures. our first major construction project was putting a metal roof on both buildings. and, but, you know, otherwise the house is really built well. There's there's it's good bones. We've had to insulate it. There was no insulation in the house when we moved in. 17:16 We've so we've been doing a little bit of work. We're upgrading the electric next next week And just trying to move through and make our mark on it like the people before us Okay, yes, I have I have some specific questions about your house. I assume it's been built on to um it's so The the house is it's it's a Victorian 17:45 like folk Victorian farmhouse style. But there is a back L that's more of a Cape. James's aunt passed away a couple years ago and she was able to tell us a lot of stories because she grew up here. And apparently the back section was the original house, which had been renovated. They added dormers, they raised the roof. So there's been many different changes and renovations over the years. And it's kind of like 18:15 kind of fun to learn about it because it's sort of like an archaeological dig. can kind of look at where the old roof line was on the back section. right now, James is working on a project trying to fix the sagging roof in the back section. But all in all, you know, it's nice having the stories from his aunt because we kind of have a picture of how things came to be. 18:42 She told us the story about how the original house used to be down the hill by the river. And apparently it was rolled up the hill on logs by Oxen. Wow. Yeah. Like it's just neat. It's neat. But none of the house has been modernized. I think the most recent renovation was in the 1950s when there's a summer kitchen in the back L and they built a 1950s Betty Crocker kitchen in the main house in the 50s. 19:12 and a bathroom downstairs. So those are the last renovations or upgrades that have really been done. Okay, cool. My house is over 100 years old here in Minnesota and they remodeled it completely the year before we saw it, we knew it was here. You would never know this house is that old. is so, I swear to God, every corner is plump. 19:41 They remodeled it so beautifully. I keep trying to find someone who knows what it looked like before we moved in or before they did the remodel because there used to be a bedroom downstairs and they remodeled it to where that bedroom is now part of the living room. And they took some of the space from that little bedroom and made it into a walk-in closet, like storage closet with hooks for hoes and things. 20:10 It's so weird to me that I walk in and it looks like a brand new house and I know the house is over 100 years old. Yeah. So this place hasn't been altered. It's in the same footprint and floor plan as it was when it was built, which is kind of neat. There's a butler's pantry in the summer kitchen. There's a root cellar in the basement, which came complete with canned goods dating back to the 60s when we moved. 20:39 Oh my. Yeah, that was a fun cleaning project. Yeah, it's pretty neat. Yeah, it was back when people actually cooked and preserved food and did the things that you did then. Yeah, for sure. It was a simpler way of life. It was not easier, but it was simpler. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so we hope that, I mean, we're... 21:03 We're like around 50, the two of us. Our youngest kid is 14 and we kind of look to the future of like sort of retirement time when we can focus on just being here. And I think that is kind of what we're looking forward to as far as doing more farming kind of stuff. I love the fact that you're doing the hip camp thing because at least then people get to enjoy part of your land. Yeah. And that's why we do it. We get great people. 21:32 It's, you know, it's carry in, carry out, leave no trace and people truly do not leave a trace. Um, it's nice. Yeah. All our guests have been very respectful. Fabulous because you don't want disrespectful guests. would be terrible. No, no, no. Um, I swear I read something on the listing for that, that you guys have bears in New Hampshire. 22:01 Oh, yes. Yeah, they're black bears. They're, they're, mostly harmless. Yeah, they're more afraid of you than you are, you know. And we don't often, we have dogs, and that kind of deters them. But I did see one a couple weeks ago. I think he was just lost. That happens. Yeah, the, have you seen any baby bears at all? Sometimes when you're like driving down the street, sometimes 22:28 I've seen them, yeah, but not here, not in my place. There's a lot of dogs in this neighborhood, so you generally don't see, you'll see like a youth pass through and it's usually freaking out because the dogs are all barking everywhere. And bears are terrified of dogs. But the problem with the bears is, you know, they might come around at night and you have people that are hip camping, a lot of them are not, and I'm not trying to generalize, but lot of them are usually not experienced campers. 22:55 or experienced with the wilderness of New Hampshire. And so you will attract the black bear if you leave your food out. And that could lead to a potential engagement with an animal that, you know, could make a decision based on its dread on you and it could hurt you or it could damage your things. So we try to deter that. It's mostly to save the bear. mean, because a fed bear is a dead bear. 23:24 Yeah, so I go into great detail in my hip camp listing about bear safety because we get a lot of travelers from the city who aren't quite acclimated to camping on undeveloped land. So I just like to make sure they know what to expect. Yes, you always want to hang your food in a bag from a tree branch that the bear can't get to. Exactly. And honestly, I'm not sure that matters because bears can climb trees. can, yeah. 23:51 Right now, this is a plentiful spring, so there's a lot of things growing in the woods. So bears generally are not looking for those easy meals unless it's just an opportunistic thing. They're out in the woods, they're eating berries, they're eating the things they're supposed to be eating right now, and it's been such a wet spring that luckily they're not coming out of the woodwork. But if they were hungry, you know, that would bring... We've had them on our porch before when we were not putting our trash away properly. That invites them in. 24:21 and we just want to protect them. Good. I'm glad you want to protect the wildlife because those bears were there long before any humans showed up. So we should work. Definitely. All right, guys. Well, I'm going to actually cut this short because my dog is losing her mind outside. I don't know why. So I appreciate your time. Where can people find you? So right now we just have a Facebook. It's the door family farm. 24:50 D-O-R-R. Yeah, just on Facebook. All right. Well, I really appreciate your time and thank you for talking with me about your old house because I love history and I love old houses. Thanks, And I wish you all the luck in pursuing whatever you want to do with this property because it has so much potential. Thank you so much. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. You guys have a great night. Thank you. You too. Thanks, Mary. Bye-bye.
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| Farmer Brown's Produce | 22 Jun 2026 | 00:31:06 | |
Today I'm talking with Keelan and Rachel at Farmer Brown's produce. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Keelan and Rachel at Farmer Brown's produce in Tennessee. Good afternoon, you guys. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather there? Hot and humid. Same, darling. Same. In Minnesota, it is disgusting. 00:27 It is too soon in the season for this kind of hot, sticky weather. Absolutely. We've gotten a lot of rain lately, which has been a blessing and bad at the same time. Oh, yes. Yes, yes. We've had a lot of rain too. But as I've said a billion times in the last two years on this podcast, we had really horrible weather the last two springs. It rained every day, May through the middle of June, the last two springs. 00:56 And that is not the case this year. So we're crossing our fingers that our farm to market garden does really well this year. 01:07 The weather here, we had a very, very mild end of winter going into spring. uh It warmed up a lot quicker. Our normal last frost date is April 20th. And we, our last frost was actually like, I don't know. March. Yeah. End of March. Nice. So it, with us being prepared, 01:37 for that April 20th, we were actually kind of behind a couple of weeks, but we were able to catch up pretty quick with as warm as it got. Well, that's helpful. What do you got? Well, tell me about yourself and what you guys do. So we originally started Farmer Browns in 2013 in Wayland Springs, Tennessee. And we were we were the first CSA in the area. 02:06 And we just did, I mean, just your staple, you know, peppers and tomatoes and squashes and watermelons and corn. uh But a big thing that we did, because we were certified nationally grown at the time, was to educate people about the quality of their food, food miles. uh 02:31 why it's better to grow without pesticides and herbicides and synthetic fertilizers and all that. And the education thing for us was great and we really did reach a lot of people that way. And then we got really overwhelmed because we more customers than we were ready for and then we scaled it back up until the last two years where we were just doing eggs and a few things for certain people. 03:00 And then the last two years, we've really been putting 110 % into it. We've actually done pretty good. 03:11 Thank you for doing what you're doing because it's what everybody in this is trying to do. We're trying to educate the average American on food nutrition, nutrient density in homegrown produce, and that nature really needs our help. I think that's what we're all trying to do. So thank you for doing it. Absolutely. 03:38 Um, so tell me again when you started what year? 2013. So you've been doing this for a while. Yes, ma'am. Did you have a background in it before you started? Uh, working in your grandmother's garden. Yeah, that was about the extent. I've always had a passion for for growing. Uh, just garden crops, because I love to eat a tomato out of the garden. I love. 04:08 I love raw vegetables and that was like the easiest source, I guess. But I had just gotten out of the military, had really just gotten off of deployment too. And we had talked about it a little bit before. And I'll tell you uh kind of a funny aside, Rachel's from California. That was my last duty station. 04:38 And she came out here for a family reunion when I was deployed and she decided that this is where we were going to live, you know, and she packed up everything we owned and drove cross country with an infant and moved to Tennessee while I was still deployed. is a hell of a woman, Rachel. Good job. Thank you. It was not easy, but made it work. 05:09 You will do what you have to do to get to where you want to be and to who you want to be with. What branch of the service were you in, Kailin? I was in the Navy. Thank you for your service. My son, my son was in the Marines for eight years. Wow. And he is alive and kicking and happy and married, has a daughter and lives in Nebraska and they are growing gardens as well because they've learned. 05:38 really well from their parents like me and my husband and her parents. So we're raising them up right. Amen. I think it's important, especially in today's society, there's a lot of economic uncertainty. There's a lot of food uncertainty. you know, I hate to say it, but they're killing us with chemicals and, you know, processed foods and whatnot. So I think it's really important to teach this next generation how to grow. 06:08 It is of paramount importance. Yes, it is. And I don't know if you caught the headline earlier, because most people who are farmers or homesteaders or ranchers don't necessarily see the TV very often. Apparently inflation went up 4. something percent in the month of May. Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. And no wonder we're all having so much trouble feeding ourselves. 06:35 So yes, I encourage everybody. Listener, if you are an American, and I mean, if you aren't an American, if you live somewhere else, that's cool too. But if you are in America right now, you should really start a Victory Garden. Look it up on Google. Victory Gardens were a big thing during World War II, I think. everybody grew a small Victory Garden to have extra food because people were on rations back then. 07:05 So please, please learn to grow food and cook because things are not going to get better soon. No, unfortunately they're not. Yep. It's so disheartening. And again, if you don't have a place to grow a victory garden or a kitchen garden, a small garden, yet to know your local growers and put your money with them, buy from them because 07:33 they will be the people who save you when everything goes to hell. Yeah, I mean, I know it's been a blessing for a lot of our neighbors and stuff too for what we do because we are really well priced for the area for what we provide. And so um it's definitely helped some of them. And it's also been, you know, most CSAs you pay upfront for the whole season. And for us, we do it on a weekly basis. So if it's a harder week than usual, they can skip if they want to. 08:02 That's awesome. know, helps with the flexibility of that for budgeting. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for doing that too. You guys are really good. I like it a lot. ah So do you just do produce or do you guys have some chickens hanging around there too? Well, we got a lot of chickens hanging around. Do you sell the eggs? We do. And we also have some ducks too. got a few customers that enjoy duck eggs. So I am unfortunately allergic to duck eggs. 08:32 but ah which is what I had got them for originally. But thankfully there are a people that actually do enjoy them. are you allergic to chicken eggs too? I am not. It's just duck eggs. Huh? It's usually the opposite, isn't it? they're fully cooked, I can eat them so I can scramble them and I can bake them into stuff, but I can't have slightly undercooked eggs if I have duck eggs. Yeah. It's usually the opposite. People will get duck eggs because they're usually allergic to chicken eggs, right? Yep. 09:01 Yeah. first duck egg customer was, she was allergic to chicken eggs. That's all she could eat. And she was buying a dozen a week. And we didn't have that kind of duck power at the time. I do now. You didn't have super ducks at the time, but now you have super ducks who produce really well. Yes. We sell duck eggs in our farm stand. Our friend has ducks and they don't have a place for a farm stand. It just would not work very well. 09:30 And she asked me last summer or spring, two springs ago, she said, could we sell our duck eggs in your farm stand? And I was like, of course you can. And people were, what most people don't know is that ducks don't lay in the fall and the winter typically. And we had people asking for duck eggs in November and I was like, there won't be duck eggs until at least May. And so- And then like turkey and stuff like that too, they're very seasonal. 09:59 Yeah. so for the listener, ducks, duck eggs are not available typically at farm stands from about September through about end of April, first part of May, because the ducks are not laying eggs in those months. And it has to do with the number of light uh out, light. I can't talk hours of daylight, just like it is with chickens. If you don't put a light in your chicken coop, they're not going to lay as much either. No, no. 10:28 People don't know this stuff. We've gotten so far removed from seasonal stuff and nature cycles. People just don't know. I've seen a lot of on that topic. I've seen a lot of Facebook videos where people are like, I'm doing this new thing. I'm doing this new thing. And it's like something that we did 20, 30 years ago. But because people are so disconnected, they're just finding out about this. 10:58 is wild to me. Well, that is like understanding seasonal produce in itself. Like they're so used to the grocery store where you can get anything any time of year. And so to be like, hey, we won't have this certain product until this month because that's when it'll be available. You know, that's when it's available in season. Yes. um We go through that every spring here because we have a huge asparagus patch that we put in. Oh, lovely. But the farmer's market doesn't start until June. 11:28 The asparagus is done by June, for Saturday in June. So this year we finally got to sell four bundles of asparagus in the farm stands. We actually had enough to sell. We were so excited, you guys. It sounds so stupid, but oh. No, not at all. It took four years to be able to sell four bundles of asparagus this year. And then the other thing too, like for us is we like getting people to try new things. 11:56 I have a lot of customers are like, I don't like this. And I'll say, you know, we'll give them something and we'll like, try this. Here's a recipe. Um, but you have to at least try it once. And if you really don't like it after that, then I won't include, you know, whatever in your, in your bag. Um, but yeah, there's a lot of people who've only eaten certain vegetables or haven't tried anything new. And that's fun too, for me. 12:26 And the same thing with accomplished growing, like what we can grow that most people don't have. Yes, exactly. And honestly, I can't blame people, especially on tomatoes. People will tell me they don't like tomatoes. oh I say, have you ever had a homegrown tomato, like a fresh out of the garden, sun-warmed tomato? And they're like, no, I get my, you know, the tomatoes I've had have been from the grocery store. 12:53 And I'm just like, need to get a real tomato because real tomatoes taste nothing like what the grocery store has because the grocery store tomatoes cannot possibly taste as fresh or as nutrient dense as the tomato you get from down the road or from your own garden. And I've seen people be converted from one tomato from a garden. 13:18 Yeah, I love tomatoes. this year, we're last year we grew Brad's atomic grape tomatoes because they're so beautiful. And I actually like the taste. They're kind of sweet and tangy at the same time. We got a lot of really positive feedback on those. So we're growing those again, but we try to grow one new variety every year. And this year we've added uh the queen of the night, which is another aesthetic tomato. 13:49 um I like, you eat with your eyes first. So I like really pretty produce. And heirloom tomatoes are pretty. I'm guessing that heirloom tomatoes probably grow better in Tennessee because we've tried so hard to grow heirloom tomatoes here and they just don't do well. And I don't know why we tried growing um brandy wines and 14:18 They just, got so big so fast that they split all over them. Not just because that's what Brandywines do. I mean, they were splitting big. And it happened like three years in a row. And my husband finally said, I don't think we should try to grow them anymore because we never get any that we can eat. And I said, it's your baby, it's your garden. You grow what you want to grow. But we've tried other ones and we tried the zebra ones. 14:47 I don't know if there's a word before zebra. There's a zebra tomato. Yeah, they like really stripe either. I can't remember what they're called either, but they're really cool looking. Yeah. And they didn't do well. And I said to my husband, I'll try to find out through Google what we can do to amend the soil. And I tried to find information. I couldn't find anything about what we could do to make these heirloom tomatoes not go to crap on us. So I don't know, but congratulations on having really good soil to be able to grow heirlooms because we can't do it here. 15:17 ah We make a lot of our own compost, uh which I think is, I think that's one of the most important steps. uh Healthy living soil produces nutrient dense crops. you're reducing waste, you're adding to nature. So that's like the first step for me and probably number one on importance levels. 15:45 But here we're also blessed with a really good growing season. oh It'll stay hot until October and it's warm and it's humid. We get a lot of We get a lot of rain. I can't remember what it's called, the days of sun that you get. uh our sun doesn't go down until nine o'clock at night and it's up at... 16:14 five o'clock in the morning. So we get a really long grow day as well. Nice. Do you guys grow cucumbers? We do. I bet they're wonderful too, aren't they? love cucumbers. I need to learn how to make pickles this year, I think. I can, I can send you my recipe for refrigerator pickles if you want it. Oh, please do. They only last for about a month in the fridge, but they taste so good. They're gone before that month. They probably only last about a day with all of our kids, but. 16:44 Yeah, and you can make sweet or you can make garlic. So totally up to you how you do it. Yeah, pickles for sure. I got a kid over here nodding because she's listening. She's like, yes, make pickles. Oh, OK. I will try to find it and I will try to email it to you. Thank you. Do you guys grow squash? Mm What kinds? So this this time of year, it's just. 17:11 We have straight neck and crook neck yellow and then zucchini, but I've already got um butternut squash coming up. We'll probably do patty pan next and then um we'll do an acorn squash. 17:28 closer to fall. huh. I don't know a lot of people don't know what patty pans are. I do because we discovered them a few years ago. Patty pans are the craziest looking little squashes you'll ever see but they're like they are summer squash. So like a zucchini or a yellow crook neck or straight neck or whatever squash and if you slice them into thin slices and fry them up, they're like chips. They're so good. 17:58 That's gonna be the first year we've grown those. We grew them one time ago. And remember we had the ornamental gourd patch? I I lost you guys. I do remember that. We had gotten uh some mixed squash seeds a few, well, several years ago. And we planted them out. And what was wild was we got these gourds that we had never seen before, like squash. And, uh... 18:26 Just on the fluke entered them in the fair in one first place because like nobody else had seen them either. Not sure what happened. I lost you. Yeah, we just got kicked out for some reason. Weird. Riverside does not do well in the afternoon is why probably. Anyway, I was saying that patty pans are fantastic. If you fry them up in thin slices in a frying pan, they are like chips. Yeah. I thought about that doing like squash chips. 18:55 Yeah. We, uh, we had gotten a packet of mixed squash seeds one year and their patty pan was in there and there were some other like gourd type squashes and they grew into the wildest looking gourds and we had never seen them before. And on a fluke, we just entered them into the fair and we got first place in decorative gourds off 19:23 something that they had never seen either. was, think we'd replanted those seeds though. then they come up. Yeah. Huh? Well, very nice on, on winning a ribbon for your unknown gourds. That was the first and only time we've ever entered anything in the fair. oh So, well, beginner's luck, or maybe it was, they were just that fabulous. They were just neat looking. I don't know how to explain it. They were really cool looking. 19:53 I feel like part of being a farmer or a homestead or a rancher is those kinds of wins, those kinds of surprises. Because when it's your world and your property and your skills, you can do whatever you want. You can try anything you want. if it fails, you learn from it. And if it succeeds, you have so much pride in that success. Yeah, that's true. 20:22 So you said there's a little person listening. How many little people or young people do you have? We have four that live at home and one that's an adult. And so how old are the kids? Let's see. Kalina just turned 30. And then we've got 17, 14, 12, and 10. Wow, that's a heck of a span. Yeah. My oldest is 36. My youngest is 25 this December. So we had a 12 year span. 20:53 It's a and there's and then there's two in between them. So so are the kids into this? Some of them are. I got about two that are into it and two that are not. OK, well, half is not bad. I saw a neat quote the other day about farming and homesteading that said, just want to do this long enough for my kids to say, I got it from here. So. 21:22 Yes. Yes, absolutely. And I don't want to beat a dead horse. And that sounds like a pun, but it's not. Um, we need our kids to step up and take over because a lot of people are aging out of farming and ranching and farmers and ranchers are the ones who grow and produce the food that we should be eating. So encourage the two who are into it to stay with it because 21:51 We need them desperately to love it and move on with it. Yeah, and just be good stewards of the land. Mm-hmm. That too. The other thing that we really need, and I don't if you guys hunt or if anybody around you and your family hunts, but we need dads and grandpas and moms and grandmas who hunt to teach their kids and grandkids. And not necessarily because we need venison, but here in Minnesota, 22:20 Every fall they have special hunts for deer because there are so many deer here that they've become a nuisance. They have become a problem to towns and cities and they've also become a problem to themselves because they're running out of food. Yeah, we're starting to get that way here in Tennessee too. Yep. So if you've got kids that are interested in learning to hunt or fish, I fully encourage that to happen. My mom and dad both hunted. I am not a hunter. 22:50 I don't like guns. don't like the noise of them. I hear everything. have a hard time filtering noise. So gunshots are very hard on me. The sound really hurts my head, but I am an advocate for learning to hunt. think it is an incredible skill to have. Now y'all have mule deer up there, correct? No, no, we have white mule deer. Huh? Yep. And apparently there's some elk in northern Minnesota as well. 23:19 Oh wow, I didn't know that. I'd like to that. We're having some issues with moose in northern Minnesota though for the same reason that their food sources are not as available as they used to be. Oh wow. There's migrating? I guess so. So yeah. Yeah, and I'm not an expert on any of this, but because I was raised with a dad and a mom who hunt, I just, it's such a great skill to have. 23:49 And honestly, venison is an incredibly good for you source of protein. It is. Yes. It's pretty tasty too. I'm not a fan. I don't love it. I ate a lot of it when I was growing up, but don't love it. That's why you are a duck, right? Well, yeah, because my grandfather hunted a lot. So we had quail, duck, deer. What else? I like I'm missing something. Not that I don't think you ever go hunting. 24:17 beer and eat the heck out of some flails a kid. And I'm going to be real honest, I'm not a huge fan of meat with every dinner. I try really hard to do two or three meals a week that are just meatless. Yeah. I don't love it anymore. I used to, but in the last probably eight, 10 years, I've been kind of like, chicken is kind of not my thing and beef is kind of not my thing. 24:45 Huh, maybe meat isn't my thing anymore. I'll eat. Recipes out now for vegetarian dishes and stuff too. Yeah, I was going to say I'll eat the hell out of a dish of pasta with, you know, steamed veggies in it. That's all good, but I don't want meat with every meal. And my husband would eat meat breakfast, lunch and dinner. we're having a bit of a transition. I'm kind of like that too. 25:15 I enjoy, I enjoy steak. I'm not really big on ground beef, but like I enjoy like steak or that kind of cut of meat. Yeah. We have a cousin that has a cattle farm and we bought half a cow from him this year. And I'm like, I'm excited because you know, that means I can have steak once a week if I want to, or, you know, something like that. But we do, eat a lot of chicken and we do, we do vegetarian meals probably twice a week. 25:46 This variety is a spice of life. it sure is. And the thing that I love about the fact that we cook from scratch here is there are so many herbs and spices that most people don't even know about. We change the flavor profile. So if we were eating meat every night of the week, we could change it up with spices and herbs. 26:15 So anyway, eh I try to keep these to half an hour, we're at 27 minutes. Is there anything that you guys would like to share before I let you go? 26:28 I'd to echo your sentiments as far as like everyone learning how to at least grow one thing, even if it's just a tomato plant. But it's easy to do and it's easy to do even in small spaces. My sister had a whole little container garden on her balcony for her apartment for a long time. So there's ways to 26:58 accommodate smaller spaces or larger spaces for anybody. It's very, very important to grow your own, not just for the health of the food and the flavor, but just it'll offset your bills significantly. You do have to go to the store for everything. Definitely. And again, if you aren't capable of growing stuff at your place, definitely look into the people in your area who can. 27:26 Oh yeah, there's farm stands popping up everywhere. It is kind of scary. It is. I'm happy for it though, because it's a lot of people getting back to their roots of making their own things and most people make them cleaner than you would get from the grocery store. So I'm happy to buy a bar of soap from up the road. 27:45 Definitely and That's it's really funny. You said that because I just wrapped soaps for the farmers market last week for Saturday's farmers market and We do a coffee soap a coffee scented soap Yeah, and When my husband got home from the farmers market I said did you sell any soaps and he said yeah, he said I said I sold a few and I said what sent and he said 28:12 Oh, people want more coffee. said, well, good. We've got about 30 more bars to wrap. Oh yeah. But that smells amazing. It's so good. We got some goats that'll hopefully be in milk next year. So my plan is to home make some goat milk soap. Oh, it's so fun. And there are two frames of mind about this, Rachel. People who make homemade soap. I have done a study, you know, just 28:41 on my own of people I know who make it. if someone has never made it before, they have one of two reactions. I'm never doing this again or I'm making this my life's purpose. So you're going to have to let me know which you think is your case. Absolutely. I'm notorious for adding too much on my plate. So if it's too much, I'll probably push through it. 29:08 Okay. Well, let me know because I'll be really curious to add you to the tally of which side you're on. Pro homemade soap or anti homemade soap. All right. Where can people find you guys? We're on Facebook at Farmer Brown's Produce, Instagram under the Farmer Brown's CSA. that's really well, that's it. We don't have a website yet. 29:38 or anything like that, but um social media has been a huge, huge thing for us. Yes. Yes. And I'm telling you, any way to market without spending money is a fabulous way to do it. Yes. Before I let you go, can people still sign up for your CSA or is it closed for the season? So we have a limited number of spots and we offer those January to February. um 30:08 And, we start in May, mid May. um, we have a wait list and we're, you know, we're constantly adding people because inevitably you lose customers mid season, either, you know, moving or travel can't, can't afford it. And we've even done like where somebody has said, Hey, I'm going to be out of town for these two weeks. We've added somebody. 30:37 for just that two week period. So, I mean. As far as like a full season thing. Yeah, we're booked for the year. But wait list is growing. Okay. That is so great. You guys are the most accommodating produce growers I've ever met. uh right. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Cannot talk today. Geez. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you for having us. All right.
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| My Attempt At Homesteading | 08 Jul 2025 | 00:31:58 | |
Today I'm talking with Jennifer at My Attempt At Homesteading.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jennifer at My Attempt at Homesteading in Missouri. Good evening, Jennifer. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What's the weather like in Missouri today? Very warm. Yeah, here too. It's 81. I think you guys are hotter than we are though. 00:29 Yeah, we've we've been in the 90s for the past week or so. Oh I'm in Minnesota We had four or five days of that a week or so ago and it was disgusting. I hated every second of it Okay, so I hate saying this because people get kind of Miffed that we talked before the interview before before I started recording You were saying you're a little bit nervous because you're new at this and I was trying to say but the connection was bad 00:58 that you are exactly the kind of person I want to talk with because the beginners are the ones that give the people who haven't even started yet hope. So tell me about yourself and your attempt at homesteading. 01:12 Um, well, so I am a mother of two. my youngest just graduated last year. So, um, he still lives at home, but he's in, he's in college, so he's kind of doing his own thing. Um, my oldest, she just moved out earlier this year. Um, so it was one of those things that. 01:39 You know, my kids are kind of grown up and doing their own thing. And I kind of didn't know what to do with myself. So used to taking care of them and just, you know, even though they were older, but them just being around and just, you know, doing stuff with them. And, you know, I kind of took a step back and realized that, you know, I was, you know, for so many years I'd been, you know, the band mom or the softball mom. 02:08 the karate mom or the track mom or, you know, all those things. when I kind of slowed down for a minute, I realized that I didn't know who I was anymore because, you know, they weren't doing those things anymore. And I realized I had, you know, no hobbies or anything like that because my life had revolved around my kids for so many years. So basically I needed something to do something to occupy my time. 02:38 So I don't know actually what specifically made me start looking at, you know, different things, but I think it was just one of those like on a whim, I was like, oh, this looks like fun. So I just started like looking at things and reading up on things and I started very simple, like. 03:06 looking up different homemade spice mixes. And I just kind of started with that. And basically over the winter was kind of when I started trying to dabble with different things and trying to see what kind of mixes and things I could make from scratch. because at that point I'd never canned anything. 03:35 Um, pressure canner scared me. I, you know, I thought I was going to blow up the house. So, um, it took me a couple months before I would even attempt to do that. Um, but yeah, I just started small and, uh, mixes and that type of thing. Like, uh, I had no idea. Like I was amazed, like, you know, brown sugar, you know, who even knew that that was sugar and molasses. Like I had no clue. I just thought brown sugar that it just. 04:05 came like this. didn't know that. I didn't know you, you know, mix things together to make brown sugar. So, you know, it's definitely been a learning process and it's definitely, you know, I've discovered so many things and still, you every day learning something new. But baby steps, you know, every day just, I mean, I'm constantly Googling things and trying to figure out, know. 04:34 How do I do this or how do I turn this into something or how do I maximize? You know, if I have this ingredient, how do I, or this, um, you know, thing, how do I use up the whole thing without any kind of waste? And, um, it's definitely been a fun process. Um, uh, I've definitely been using my family as guinea pigs. Um, they've been there for. 05:04 some of my successes and definitely a lot of my not so much successes. But it's been fun. Yeah. You're not alone. I didn't know that brown sugar was just white sugar and molasses mixed together either until I found out about it on Google. And I'm not going to lie, I'm still afraid of our pressure canner and our pressure canner is still practically brand new. We bought it three years ago. 05:33 My husband is not afraid of it. So when we're going to pressure can, he's the one that handles it. Because I just, every time I walk by that thing, I'm like, it's going to blow up. It's going to blow up. So you're not alone. And we've been canning for four years now. So we did the water bath canning to begin with. And he was like, we're going to do the pressure canner. And I was like, And he's like, oh, yes, we are. I'm like, OK, fine. Fine. You're handling it. I want to do it. So. 06:02 So you are not alone in that, Jennifer, I promise you. Yeah, I did. I definitely started with the water bath canning first, and then I kept seeing other things that I wanted to can. But I kept reading that, you know, oh, well, this needs a pressure canner. So, you know, too many things needed to be pressure canned. So I was like, OK, I'm going to have to eventually learn how to do this. 06:32 Definitely the first several times, you know, I was, I probably looked ridiculous because, you know, decked out in like long sleeves and oven mitt, you know, cause I just knew it was going to like explode on me or something, you know, know, head turn, know, reaching as far, you know, as I could to put the valve thing on it. But, but yeah. But it didn't explode. 07:02 Not, not yet. We're here, but it's still a little daunting. Yeah. And I don't want to sound trite or silly, but we are capable of doing big things and overcoming fear is a big thing and you're working on it. So proud of you. also I feel like women are always told that we're not supposed to do big 07:30 hard things we're supposed to let the men do them. And that's bullshit. We can do it too. Oh yeah. We can do just as much if not more than guys can do. Yeah, especially when we're 25 and aren't afraid of anything. I'm 55 now. I'm like, no, you can deal with the pressure canter, honey. I'm all good with that. Okay. So are you urban, suburban, or rural? 07:59 We're suburban, so you know, we live in a very populated area. We have a pretty good size backyard. They did just pass, I would say within the last... 08:17 within the past year, they did say that we could have chickens, which intrigues me. I, it's something that the thought of it sounds really fun, but chickens just low keys kind of scare me. So I don't know. Like I love the thought of having fresh eggs and I would love to have that, but 08:47 I don't know, just the beaks and the feet and the flapping wings just kind of scare me. So I just don't know. I mean, that's another one of those fears that I just, I'm gonna have to overcome one day, I think, but maybe one day. 09:03 Okay, for future reference, and I'm not saying you need to go get chickens today, but for future reference, if you want chickens, there is a breed called Issa Brown. They used to be Issa Red, I S as in Sam A Brown. And they're really gentle. They're really friendly. They only get to be about seven pounds full grown. And they give an egg a day if you have light in the coop in the wintertime. And 09:33 I didn't want chickens either. I mean, I did, but I didn't. And we got four when we lived in town, in a small town. And they were great. They're quiet. They do this, I laid an egg call and it's crazy. I can't replicate it. I can do a hell of a rooster crow, but I can't do the I laid an egg call. And they talk to each other. It's like listening to a babbling brook. It's very sweet. 10:00 So if you're looking for ones that aren't aggressive and like to be held and picked up and don't freak out, those are the ones you might want to look into. Okay. Yeah. I'll have to check that out because I just, yeah, they just kind of scare me. it's funny because my parents actually have chickens, but they didn't start raising chickens until after I had moved out of the house. So my sister's 10:27 kind of grew up with them and so they're used to them but I'm not used to them so that's not something I was used to being around so even now when I go over there I don't want to go into the chicken pen and play with the chickens. Well they're not bunnies they're chickens. Bunnies are fun to pet chickens are not fun to pet. Yeah but I would love to have the eggs one day so like I said it's just 10:56 It's one of those fears that I think I'm going to have to figure out one of these days, but I'm still working on the canning stuff. you know, one, one thing at a time. Yes. Baby steps. Start small, think big. That's what I, what I keep hearing. Start small, think big. So you're, we're well on your way to being a homesteader. promise. Um, do you have any gardens at all? Any gardening space? Um, we do. 11:23 So actually we have We have like an indoor indoor garden and we have an outdoor garden Surprisingly enough our indoor garden was actually doing better than our outdoor garden We actually started a lot of plants inside and then we kind of just let them go 11:46 And we had, cause we do have a lot of space downstairs and we have a whole room that we had set up with grow lights and everything. And I mean, we had cucumbers growing. I had picked like, I think five or six good sized cucumbers before we transplanted it outside. But yeah, we had cucumber plants growing. We had peppers. We had a tomato plant growing. All of our herbs and stuff. 12:16 going inside. I had started a luffa plant just because it sounded fun. So yeah, we had actually quite a bit going inside. We took them outside. I think it kind of shocked them. I don't think they were very happy with us when we did that. So it took a little bit for it to, I don't know, I guess acclimate to the outside, but they're starting to come around. 12:45 You know, the tomatoes are starting to produce the cucumbers. We've gotten a couple off of it since it's been outside. So yeah, they're starting, it's starting to, it's starting to come around. Is this your first time doing a garden? No, we have done it in the past, but we hadn't really started a lot inside. 13:12 We usually would just plant them outside. We usually would just buy the plants and then just plant them outside. So this is our first time starting them inside and then bringing them outside. So that part was new for us. Good job. It's a trick. When you start stuff inside, you have to kind of harden the plants off before you put them out in the garden. 13:37 We've been gardening for 20 years and my husband completely forgot about hardening off the tomato plants because he started them in the heated greenhouse. And so our tomato plants almost died when we put them outside. He came in like two days after he planted them, he said, it's a good thing we still have tomato plants in the greenhouse. And I said, what ate our tomatoes? And he said, nothing. He said, I completely forgot. You're supposed to harden them off. He said, they're all brown. I was like, oh no. 14:06 So even someone who's been doing it for 20 years can screw it up too, if that helps at all. Yeah, we do have, um, this is our first year. We're starting to get some strawberries. Nice. We do have strawberry plants. We've tried those for several years and, um, we would try those and just like planters and, uh, you know, we'd get a few like during the season and then they would always die off and then. 14:36 We had read that if you plant them in the ground, they would come back. So we had planted some, but not realizing that like the first year they don't really produce. So I was really disappointed that first year. But now this is the first year that we're actually starting to get some actually produced. So it's been several years in the making, you several years of just trial and error, but I think this will be the year that we actually might get. 15:06 you know, at least a good, you know, handful, probably not enough to, you know, have a, you know, a big batch of strawberry jelly or anything like that. But, you know, maybe a good basket full or so. 15:25 More than just one bite maybe. It will be the best tasting strawberry you've ever had in your life. Yeah, we have gotten a couple already and yes, were very good. I always say grow it yourself. Every freaking time, yes, absolutely. And that's why we do this. 15:51 The other thing that I will say to you and I will say to listeners is that patience is like the key quality or as another word for it, quality that people who are growing things need to have because we planted asparagus crowns here four springs ago. It took until this spring to actually get enough asparagus picked from our bed to have like three sides. 16:20 of asparagus with three meals. So patience is a virtue and I didn't used to be very patient. am now and thank God because we put those crowns and I was like, yes, asparagus. And I was like, crap, it's going to be three years before we get any. Yeah. And I've heard that and I need to, I need to just plant some, but that's why I have it. Cause I'm like, oh, it's going to be three years. But if I had just done that, you know, 16:50 A couple years ago, we may have already had some by now, but every time I think about it, I'm like, oh, we won't even get any this year. It'll still be another, you know, three years, but I need to just do it though. Yeah. There's a saying about when's the best time to plant a tree a hundred years ago. When's the next best time to plant a tree yet now. And it's the same thing with asparagus. When's the best time to plant asparagus? Five years ago. When's the next best time? Right now. Yeah. 17:20 And if you're gonna do it, look on Google or ask someone who knows. I don't know if you're supposed to put them in in the spring or the fall. We put them in in the spring. So you'll have to ask somebody who knows more than I do about that one. 17:37 Yeah, we did. I did say too, like we have a, we have a small garden. So, you know, I mean, enough to kind of get a few things here and there, but nothing like huge. I did say, you know, we may be just supporting some of our local, you know, our local farmers or some of our local, you know, um, 18:04 What are they like produce stands that type of thing like at the farmers market? Yeah Absolutely, and if your garden really produces I bet there's somebody who has laying hens who has extra eggs and you can trade your produce for eggs Then you don't have to get any hens Yeah, there you go Because as I'm always saying on the podcast if you're not gonna grow it or produce it 18:32 Find someone local who is growing it and producing it and barter or give them your hard earned money because they're earning it. Because a local economy is a good economy. Yes. And I'm saying that to you, but I'm also saying it to anybody listening to the podcast. Anyone who isn't finding their local growers and producers right now needs to be. Absolutely. 19:02 and there's a lot of reasons for that and I'm not going to get into it but just take my word for it. Go find out who makes things or grows things and get to know them and support them because they're going to be really important over the next year or two. Yes, which is probably why I should be making a bigger garden but... 19:22 You are starting out and you are learning things and you're doing a great job. Don't do not sound like you're beating yourself up. You have nothing to beat yourself up about. So I saw canning jars on your Instagram page and you said that you've been canning. So what have you tried your hand at canning? 19:43 Um, so I've done a few different types of jellies. Um, I've done different, different types of beans. Um, I've done like, um, like the different broths, like chicken broth, beef broth, vegetable broth, um, which actually those come in, those come in handy and those definitely taste way better than, you know, 20:13 store, store bought. So much so too that, you know, my daughter, she'd even, she had called me and said, you know, hey, if I, if I say this chicken carcass, will you, will you make me some, some chicken broth? I was like, yeah, that's sure. That's fine. So she had saved like leftover chicken, chicken bones and stuff that they had had from, you know, a chicken that she had cut up and 20:43 stuck it in the freezer just so I would make her some homemade chicken broth also. I love that. That's awesome. That's fantastic that she asked you because my daughter lives in Florida and I live in Minnesota, so nothing like that is going to happen here. But when she lived in Minneapolis and was not far from home, she would 21:09 she would come to visit and we would send her home with bags of tomatoes and cucumbers because she was vegetarian. I don't think she was vegan. I think she was vegetarian. And she always let me know whether she called or she messaged that they were the best tomatoes and cucumbers ever because they were from our garden. So I love that your daughter asked you to do that. That's fantastic. Yeah. 21:33 Yeah, we've been trying to make a lot of things as much as as much as we can just trying to find different substitutes for trying to make things more homemade if we can trying to cut out a lot of the process things like my son, you know, he he's a sucker for those frozen 22:00 Timmy Changas that you can get from Walmart. And so I started making them for him. I made his refried beans homemade and I made his tortillas homemade and wrapped them all up and shaped them and froze them for him and stuck them in the freezer so he could have them homemade. And for him to tell me that they taste way better than the store bought ones, that just... 22:29 makes you just feel like all that time and effort is worth it because they're appreciative of it and you know that they're getting way better quality stuff than the frozen stuff that they're getting from the store. Yes, and on top of that, they're getting the love that you add to the things that you make and that's what makes it special. 22:55 Yeah, and sometimes some extra garlic too because sometimes I go a little overboard with the garlic. Yup, and if you're anything like me, a couple swear words thrown in too. Yeah, maybe a few here and there. Yeah, and that leads me to my next question. Did I see that you've tried making sourdough bread or was that just regular bread? Oh, yes, I've tried. 23:19 I've made some sourdough bread and I think that's one of those things that I've said that I don't know that I'm going to be a sourdough baker. It's it's one of those things that comes and goes and every time I think I got it, it just, I don't know, it's just like, nope, try again. So I was like, I don't think I'm ever gonna be one of those people that is going to have, you know, a sourdough bakery or a little 23:49 you know, job sourdough bread stand, because I just can't seem to get the hang of it. So, and I'm definitely not consistent enough to want to try to sell it. I'm just going to keep feeding it to my family. They're just going to like it. Yeah, there was a reason I asked. I have two sourdough starters on my counter downstairs that I need to feed when I'm done talking with you. And I pulled them out of the fridge yesterday because they're established. And I was like, 24:19 I really want to keep doing this because it's so much time involved in actually making the bread itself and I'm busy the only day I have where I have hours just to screw around with it is Sundays and I looked at my husband and I said Sundays from for the next four Sundays I need the entire day without you guys in the kitchen under my feet 24:44 And he was like, why? I said, because if I'm going to do this sourdough thing, it's going to have to be Sundays because Monday through Friday, I'm doing podcast interviews and I can't walk away from the process to go do that. And he was like, how many hours you need? said, eight. He said, he said, we can be out of the kitchen for eight hours. I said, okay. I said, 25:09 I don't really mind if you don't want me to do it. said, cause it's a lot of work for a couple loaves of bread. I said, but I said, those loaves of bread cost me about 50 cents each. And the loaves of bread at the store, even the yucky store brand ones are about $2 a loaf. said, so you've got the yay or the nay here. Do you want me to try doing it? And he was like, yeah. He said that first loaf tasted really good. I was like, okay. And I'm never going to be the fancy sourdough bread lady. I don't care. 25:39 I want a loaf of bread that tastes good. That's all I want. Yeah. So. I'm figuring out how I just, I don't know. Like sometimes they'll come out good and sometimes they won't. And I just can't figure out like why they do sometimes and why they don't. Well, I saw something on the sourdough for beginners Facebook group that said that you want the internal temperature. 26:08 of the bread to be like 218 degrees and I have an electric thermometer that I could actually check that with but I didn't know until the first loaf was made and my first loaf came out dense because I under proofed it and I under cooked it by about five minutes. So now that I know I need to let it proof longer and I know the internal temperature it's supposed to be maybe the next one will turn out a little fluffier. Maybe. Yeah. But. 26:37 It's kind of putsy. It's kind of meticulous. And I really do love the zen of it, like the process, but I don't love how much time it takes. Yeah, it's, I mean, I do like the fact that, you know, the sourdough is easier to digest and doesn't give you as much, like doesn't seem to give as much bloating and that type of stuff. And, you know, that great, but 27:07 for us, know, the yeast type breads, like the homemade yeast breads and stuff, they taste just as good and they're just as, well, they're quicker for me. And for me, I usually get better, more consistent results. I will still try sourdough bread, but yeah, that's just one of those things I just haven't been able to figure out quite yet. 27:37 It's practice and I just started mine like a month and a half ago and that's why I'm like, oh sourdough, yeah, I'm going through that now too. 27:48 I did make a ginger bug though and that, like, you know, that's the whole fermentation thing and everything and like that was way easier. So I don't know why sourdough didn't work out, but the ginger bug was way easier. So I don't know anything about that. you tell me what that is? Yeah. So that's, that's where you take like the water and you add sugar and fresh ginger. And basically it, it ferments also, it makes like bubbles and then you add it to. 28:17 You can add it to like juices and that type of thing. And it basically gives you like, um, the fizz. So you can make like your own, um, kind of fizzy drinks and you can, know, your own homemade sodas and that type of thing, but it's. You know, healthier and more, um, kind of like a probiotic type drinks. Cause it's again, easier for your, um, for digestion and that type of thing. Um, so. 28:47 You know, I just, found a recipe that somebody had shared for making their own homemade Dr. Pepper, because I stopped drinking a lot of sodas, but they had been trying to replicate the taste of Dr. Pepper. So I just made some of that and I'm going to add my ginger bug to it and try to make like a healthier version for Dr. Pepper's without, you know. 29:17 without drinking the normal sugary version of it, I guess. See, you're new to homesteading and you just taught me something I didn't even know about. So thank you for that. And there's, well, I mean, and there's probably 50 million other things though that I haven't even come across yet because every time like people post so many different things that. 29:44 Like every time I get on and look at recipes and stuff, people are always coming up with all kinds of neat things. that's, that I think is the fun thing about people sharing all their different recipes and things that they've tried. Um, and you can tweak them however you want, you know, you know, as far as like food allergies or that type of thing or, but that's been, that's been the fun thing too, is just trying the different things. Oh, absolutely. And. 30:14 I love that the reason you got into this is because you basically needed a project because your kids didn't need you as much as they used to because I started the podcast for the same reason two years ago. 30:28 Yeah, I needed a hobby. I realized I didn't have any hobbies. Yep. I started the podcast because my youngest was going to be moving out. He's the youngest of four. And I was like, I need a project because I'm not going through emptiness syndrome without a project because all I will do is cry. And so I was like, I'm going start a podcast. That'll be a good project. I know nothing about it. and they say that, I'm going to screw this up. Men. 30:57 have midlife crisis and they buy a sports car and they get a young girlfriend. Women have midlife crisis and they take on a new project or they start a business. 31:09 Yeah, I believe it. We just, we just find more stuff to keep us busier. Yeah. And cost less money and maybe be a little more productive. So I kind of like our version better. All right, Jennifer, this was great. I tried to these to half an hour. We're there. People can find you on Instagram at myattempt at homesteading. that right? Yes. Are you on Facebook at all? 31:38 Yes, but I don't really have a homesteading account on Facebook though. Okay, all right, cool. Thank you so much for your time and as always people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Jennifer, I hope you have a really good night. Thank you, you too. Bye. Bye.
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| The Homestead Farm at Fruit Hill Orchard | 07 Jul 2025 | 00:35:44 | |
Today I'm talking with Emily at The Homestead Farm at Fruit Hill Orchard.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Emily at the Homestead Farm at Fruit Hill Orchard in Virginia. Good morning, Emily. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on today. Thank you for making the time. I know that you guys are all very, very busy people. How is the weather there today? 00:28 It is sunny. It's beautiful. The past week or so we've had a thunderstorm every day. So, um, I don't know what's coming up later, but right now it's just beautiful. Yeah, I'm in Minnesota and it is very sunny. There's a light breeze, but it's also like 80 degrees with heavy humidity. So I'm to be spending the day working on my podcast inside. Cause that seems like a good idea. Nice. Yep. 00:57 have laptop, we'll get work done. That's good. So tell me about yourself and what you do. So I am an owner of the Homestead Farm at Fruit Hill Orchard. We opened in 2016. I am a farmer, a baker. I do all the stuff behind the scenes. I manage our social media. I plan our events. kind of the 01:28 everything at the farm, which is a lot, but yeah, it's great. we 01:40 The farm has been in our family since right after the Civil War. My great-great-grandfather James Swate opened an apple and peach packing plant there. And then my grandfather carried on the tradition and has been farming there since the 60s, I believe. So the property has been in our family for a really long time. 02:08 Kind of why we got our name the Homestead Farm, because it's on our family's homestead. And then the Fruit Hill Orchard part comes from my grandfather's orchard business, which is Fruit Hill Orchard. nice. So do you have old photos from from generations past? Yes, we do. We so my grandfather, his grandmother grew up there. 02:36 And we have pictures of her out back with the old windmill, which funny story, she accidentally rolled her car into the windmill and knocked it over in the 80s, I think. And we have since put a new windmill up in her honor. But yeah, we have old photos of the family. The building next door that was the Apple and Peach packing plant, that used to be a barn, but now it is a 03:06 warehouse type building, but we have pictures of that before they enclosed the barn area and change that around. Yeah, old pictures of the house. Our farm market was actually the carriage barn where my grandmother stored her car and my great grandmother, um, stored her car. So yeah, lots of interesting history there for sure. And pictures. I love it. Um, 03:35 the reason I asked is our house is over a hundred years old and We've only been living here for almost five years and I keep trying to find someone who knows anything about the property because it's been here a long time and Nobody lives around here that knows anything about it from a hundred years ago So I'm out of luck on the history Yeah, you'll have to do some diggings. Yeah, there's a Historical Society in the town up from us 04:05 So they might have something I got to get up there this summer and ask and be like, so what do you know about this address in LaSore, Minnesota? Cause I need history. need it. I need it right now. So I'm sure there's a ton of it too. So hopefully you can find it. I hope so. Cause I'm so curious. I've been told that there was a real barn here and it got torn down or a storm took it out years ago. 04:32 And now we have this big ugly maroon and cream colored pole barn. And every time I look at the pole barn, I'm like, I wish the old barn was still here because that would have given this place so much more character. Yeah. Oh, but it's long gone. you know, what are you going to do? Okay. So what do you guys do at the farm? You have an art, you have an orchard. 04:57 We have an orchard that has been there for many, many years. That is part of Fruit Hill Orchards original orchard. That's apples and peaches. And then we also grow our garden produce there. We do tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, cornmelons, blackberries, and that is all chemical free. We don't use any chemicals on our gardens or our berries at all. 05:27 We also source local and organic produce whenever we don't have something or ours isn't ready yet. Because chemical free and organic is super important to me. And then same with the bakery. We source local fruits, local eggs, as many organic ingredients as possible. And those are all, all of our baked goods are all homemade. 05:56 From scratch in our bakery, we also raise cattle. I have chicken, so we have some of our own meat and eggs for sale. We also have a sugar shack, which has hand dipped and soft serve ice cream and all kinds of toppings and specials and things like that. Trying to think. We also have some events. 06:26 Every year our big Sunflower Festival is coming up on September 6th this year, which is huge for us. Our little place gets thousands of attendees that day. And then we have a Farm and Makers Market that comes up on the last Saturday of every month. So we love to support other locals, people that are maybe homesteading or doing something that they don't have. 06:54 a farm stand or a place to sell, love to try to help them out and get some of their products in our store. We also, a big one for us is Bluegrass on Thursday nights. We have a back porch jam, live music. It's just a bunch of local musicians that come out and play and we serve a dinner that night and it's a lot of fun. So we are really busy. We've got a lot going on at the farm. 07:23 all the time. Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. Okay. So I have two questions. The sugar shack that's on your property. Okay. Yes. It is right beside our farm market. We built it. We kind of connected the sugar shack that's there now to the cooler we had already existing. 07:51 So it's just a small little building right beside our farm market. That's awesome. I love that. I bet it's adorable. And then you don't have to tell me specifics, but do you have a lot of land for your farm? So the farm that we have at the market here, that the land is split up between my mom and her sister. 08:17 And it is in total, it's 300 acres, but we are only farming about 10 of that ourselves that's not orchard. And most of our fields are like sunflower. We do the Sunflower Festival. So we have a two acre sunflower field and then we do a big pumpkin patch and then our produce is on the rest. 08:45 Okay, so what do you do with the sunflowers? So we grow them, let people come out and pick them, we sell them per stem, but we just let people come out and enjoy them. Mainly we don't charge entry. The only time we do charge entry is to our sunflower festival, but otherwise if our markets open, 09:12 People are welcome to go out and enjoy the flowers, take photos. We had one lady, her family spread her ashes out there because she loved sunflowers. So we had memorial services out there. But yeah, the sunflowers are a huge draw. We're kind of known in Winchester as the sunflower farm. That is so cool. Yeah. 09:37 We grow sunflowers here, but we only grow like a row of them because we think that they're pretty. And they grow so easily. if anyone has a patch they just want to happiness in, throw in some sunflower seeds. 09:55 Yes, exactly. We don't have a way to really to water ours once the seeds are in. So we kind of just depend on God and the weather to take care of it for us. So yeah, they are really easy. We throw our seeds out and every year we have a pretty good crop. 10:17 Do you grow different colored ones or are they just all that really kind of orange yellow? All of the ones in the big field are that orange yellow. We grow some specialty ones in rows like we do the ones with the white petals or we do like the black center with the orange petals or the red ones. So we do grow a variety but they're not the variety of those colors are not in the big field. 10:45 Yeah, we grow some cream colored ones that are absolutely gorgeous. love them. Those are my favorite too. They're so pretty. 10:55 Yeah, and if you put them with the reddish brownish ones, they remind me of autumn. If you put the cream ones with the reddish brownish ones, they're really pretty together in a vase. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and we grow those too. My son actually started it because he was like, can we grow sunflowers? Not we have room. And I was like, yes. And he had us order like a variety pack of sunflower seeds. So they were all different colors. 11:24 He said, so what colors will come up? And I was like, I don't know. It's a waiting game. It'll be like Christmas when they bloom. we had so many different colors. He was like, I love this. Can we do this every year? said, yes, yes, we can. Did you guys save your seeds from the sunflowers? Some of them, yes. Yeah. We tend to leave ours for the birds. We buy a new seed every year just because it's so much that we need. 11:53 But yeah, it's amazing to see like all the birds and wildlife out there enjoying the sunflowers once they've dried up and died. So it's a win-win to enjoy them and then also be doing that. 12:10 Yes, here in Minnesota, because we get snow in November, December, January, February, and March, for sure. We leave a lot of the heads on the plants so that the birds can have seed and that way we're not buying bird seed from the store. Yeah, that's great. They seem to appreciate it. Yeah, they do. So, okay. So, so is the, is the farm or the homestead or whatever, um, supporting itself or do you have an outside job? 12:42 So, nope, that is my job. It is supporting itself. I have been, so I have two kids and I have been working, well, we opened the farm in 2016 and we're seasonal. So I don't technically have a job in the winter time when we're closed. We have a couple months of downtime and I bake cakes during that time for some extra income. 13:12 So, yeah. Congratulations on doing something you love and making it go. Thank you. I do. This was a dream of mine. And I'm so happy that it's working out. We're on our ninth season, so that's pretty huge. Every year gets a little better and better. I've started sourcing a lot more products for the market that are 13:40 super healthy, like real food, nutrient dense food, clean ingredients, free of seed oils, all that kind of stuff. I've been on my own health journey since I had my daughter in 2020. So it inspired me to just clean up my life and also offer these kind of products in our store. And it's really working out well. So I'm super happy about that. Okay, so 14:11 I hate to use the word competition because I feel like farmers and homesteaders aren't really in competition. Are there people who are doing kind of the same thing as you are anywhere near you? Let's not call it competition. There are a lot of farms, small homesteads in Frederick County, farm markets. There's a lot of them here. And there's one that's like two miles down the road from us. 14:37 but they don't grow their own stuff. It's very different. I don't like the word competition. I don't feel like we're in competition with them because we're so different, if that makes sense. And what we offer is very different. But as far as like the other farms that would be doing stuff that's similar to us, we all support each other and I love it. It's just this community of 15:05 people who we really do work together. mean, I bake some baked goods for another farm that's down the road and I get some meat from them for what we don't have. And it's like that just with a lot of the other farms. I get eggs from another farm and we're all just kind of in this together. know, people are waking up, they're wanting local food, they're wanting to know their farmer and 15:34 I think that it's more important now than ever. And so there's room for all of us to succeed. Yes. And I'm going to say this for probably at least a hundred time during the tenure of my podcast. All are a rising tide raises all ships. And that's what you're doing. And you're right. Now is the time. It wasn't the time before. Now is the time for all these small communities. 16:04 to get to know each other and work together and produce food and produce products because things could get real, real chaotic here in the next six months, especially this winter. So if you grow anything, produce anything, make anything, get to know the other people who are doing it too and start like a little community so that your bigger community has a place to go for things. Yes. Yes, I love that. 16:33 do feel like that's what we're doing here in Frederick County, that's for sure. There is a group, one of my friends started, it's called Frederick County Homesteaders, and she creates a shop local guide, and there's a farm crawl twice a year where people buy a ticket and they go around and visit all the participating farms. And that's something that I think that a lot of counties and communities 17:02 should start. think she's going to offer a course on how to start up a local chapter, I guess, for people who really don't know where to start but want to start something like that in their community. But it has brought me together with so many of these small farms and connected us all. And it's really cool to be a part of that and to have that here in our community. 17:31 Awesome. The other thing that I wanted to work into the podcast today and now is a good time to do it is over the next six to eight months, if you have relatives that are having a hard time now, make sure you keep tabs on them and you check in and see where you can help because my parents live in Maine. I live in Minnesota. I'm really lucky that my sister lives a couple of miles down the road from my parents. 18:01 Because right now, if she wasn't there, I would be very concerned about my parents. They are elderly people. So make sure you check in with your neighbors and not just your friends, but your neighbors and make sure they're doing okay. Yeah, that's very important. 18:22 We've all got to look out for each other. 18:27 Yes, and if you're growing a garden and you know your neighbor likes tomatoes and you have a bunch that you're not going to use, offer them up. 18:36 Yes, I love that. And it doesn't even have to be tomatoes. could be peas. It could be lettuce. It could be cucumbers. It could be squash, whatever. But just if you have a lot, give it to people who need it. 18:50 Yeah. I'm a little worried about the world. Can you tell? Hey, I'm there with you, but I think that it's going to be okay. We all are working together and I do think the majority of people are looking out for one another. I really hope it's true. I really want that to be true. 19:20 Okay, so what do people tell you when they come to visit your place? What's the, I don't know, general consensus on their experience with your place? I get a lot of positive feedback, which makes me so happy because we work really hard and to hear those kind of things makes all that hard work super worth it. I get a lot of people that thank us for 19:46 growing our produce the way that we do without chemicals and for carrying some certified organic produce. And we are also a raw milk pickup location for another farm in West Virginia that is able to sell pet milk. And so people thank us for being an outlet for that. And I've been posting a lot on our social media stories. 20:16 And it's brought a lot of new customers in and I hear often that people love my videos and I'm blown away by all the love and support that we are receiving. So yeah, it's, all good stuff. It makes it so worth it when people tell you stuff that's positive because then you have the gas in your tank to keep going, to keep working, even though sometimes you have a bad day. Yeah. 20:46 once had a lady tell me she comes every year and she said she traveled 2000 miles for the best peach pie she's ever had in her life and that the trip is totally worth it and I just couldn't believe that someone would want to travel that far for one of our peach pies. 21:10 So that was really, really flattering. That's a hell of a commute, but if it's for the best peach pie ever, it's worth it. Yeah, I don't know if she was coming to the area already, but she comes through Virginia once a year and stops for the peach pies. So that's really awesome. That's high praise, Emily. Take it when you can get it. 21:37 Um, so you said you have peach trees. Do you have a lot of peach trees? We do. I don't know exactly how many, um, but we grow freestone yellow peaches. grow freestone white. And if you don't know, freestone means that they fall off the pit easily. Um, and they, probably peel easier too, if they're a freestone. We also grow some semi-freestones. Um, and then we grow some clings. 22:08 The clings are a yellow peach and they cling to the pit so they don't fall off easily. But a lot of people want the free stone and I just have to say the cling peaches are the best for canning if you want to can like peach slices or freeze them because unlike some of the other peaches, these cling peaches hold their shape and they hold up and 22:37 have like such a good flavor whenever you open that can of canned peaches and or frozen peaches. And so I always try to tell people that they should try the clings even though they're not as easy to cut. They are totally worth all the work when you're processing them. And yeah, so we have a variety of different kinds. 23:06 on the farm, but the most popular would be the yellow freestone peaches, which are what we're picking right now. I am so jealous. We don't really have a lot of peach growers in Minnesota. We grew peaches last year. Our trees did not bloom this year for some reason. So we have two peach trees here that are cold hardy. And we did get peaches last fall off of those trees and they were so good and we're not going to have any this year. I am so sad. 23:36 We did lose a lot to frost this year. We had an early spring frost and the peaches that we do have are really great. Like the size of them is even bigger because there weren't as many on the trees. But yeah, it just depends on the weather again with the crop. Thankfully we have some though. We're super thankful for what we do have. 24:04 Yes, I'm sure you are because man, it is just such a bummer when you think you're going to have trees loaded and there's not a single one. Do you can? Do you can peaches yourself? do. Yes. That's one of my favorite things to can. Okay. I have a question because we want it. We were talking about canning our own peaches this year. We don't have any can, but if we had, we would have. And we bought a whole bunch of peaches a couple of years ago from 24:32 the My Fruit Truck company and they were lovely peaches and we canned them and they turned brown. They're fine, they're edible, but they're brown. Do you know how to keep the peaches from turning brown when they're canned? Did you just can them in water or did you do a simple syrup? I don't remember. Is the simple syrup the trick? 24:58 That would be yeah, the sugar in the syrup would keep them from turning brown. And then some in some cases you can add a little like splash of lemon juice or so, but I don't ever do that. I just do I make the light syrup. I use the recipe in the ball canning complete canning book. It's you know, the little one you can get at almost any store that sells the canning supplies. There's a recipe in there for light syrup and 25:28 Yep, that's the one that I use. And I don't like a ton of sugar. I personally don't even eat refined sugar at all. So last year I experimented making a honey syrup and that actually worked out really well. And the peaches didn't turn brown, but I do think that they have a better flavor when they're canned in that light syrup versus the honey. in the water. 25:55 If it was just canned in water only, that would be why they would turn brown. think. Yeah. I do not remember. It was like three summers ago and I have slept many nights since then. Yeah. But thank you because I've been trying to figure it out and I have that, that canning book you're talking about. So will look for that recipe. And if you, if anybody wants to go into canning, the ball books, any of them, anything that was produced by ball company is good. They're a good book. 26:26 Yeah, I look in there for almost everything. I do my green beans, the recipe out of there for green beans. I do pickles out of there. I've done jam and jelly. So a lot of things I turn to the ball book for. Yep, absolutely. It's like the Bible of canning. So you said you have a bakery. Do you mean literally a bakery? you, you, um, 26:53 licensed to sell commercially or are you talking like a home a home-based bakery? So we are inspected by the Virginia Department of Agriculture. So our kitchen is certified. We had to do that for our business to be able to sell meals on our bluegrass nights. So we typically have to take a serve safe course every five years. 27:19 to maintain certification to serve food. And then we have a yearly inspection in our kitchen. It's a full kitchen. So we do our baking there, but we also do food prep there as well. 27:37 Okay. Awesome. And you just proved my statement that I talk about all the time on the podcast, that every state has different rules and regulations for cooking and selling what you cook. Because in Minnesota, we have the cottage food producer registration, which makes it so you can make baked goods and things in your kitchen and sell them as long as you are present. 28:02 And then we have the commercial licensing that you can get where you have to take the big class, you have to pay for the class, you have to get the piece of paper that says, yes, you took the classes, yes, you have the license to sell anywhere and you can ship your goods anywhere. Yeah. And we have that in Virginia too, the cottage food law. A lot of the small homesteads around are operating off of that because they can sell their baked goods to the consumer. 28:31 without a license. But for us, we, I mean, we could have done the same thing, but we were expanding into serving meals. And that's a whole nother ball game with, you know, the licensing and stuff. Plus having the certified kitchen, it does give us the option to wholesale. And I do wholesale some baked goods elsewhere. So that is, that gives us the ability to do that. 29:01 But yeah, I think every state does do things a little bit differently. 29:07 They sure do. I have talked to a lot of people over the last 22 months and yes, every state is different in some way and it's what makes it work. So I'm okay with that. I should have asked you at the beginning. Did you start out small with all of this or did you just jump in with both feet and hope that you could swim? Well, we did start out small. Every year we've gotten a little bit bigger and we're still pretty small. 29:36 But our first year, we didn't hire anybody. Well, we hired one person to help in the gardens three days a week, but it was just my mom and I, and we didn't have any fancy equipment. The orchards had a tractor and my aunt had a disc. And so we would borrow that and disc our field because we didn't even have like a tiller or anything. 30:03 And we would disc our field and then we would use a wheel plow, like a push behind, like you push it and it digs the ditch. And so we would do that. We would hand weed, put straw down. And then about our fifth season in, after, mean, we would hand water everything and it would take like two hours each day on the hottest days. So we, um, eventually were like, you know, 30:31 we need to buy some equipment to help us. So we purchased a tiller, we got a plastic mulch layer so we could do the rows with the plastics that we didn't have to weed as much. And then we got a water wheel planter that we could ride on and pop the plants in the ground with it. And so that was a game changer for our gardens. It's a huge deal for us. 30:59 to have that and then, we still are doing things pretty simple though. I mean, we plant our rose in the plastic and don't have to hand water of course, cause we do the drip irrigation now, but we still have to maintain in between the rows and we just weedy and mow to make it look nice. So yeah, we and. 31:27 for like that's just the gardens but for the rest of the store I didn't hire a baker my mom looked at me she's like who's gonna bake for this and I was like I guess I am I always made cakes when I was a kid and I love baking so I just jumped right in and decided I would be the baker and I would make pies you should have seen the huge bowl of pie dough I was making up every week 31:55 And, you know, making it by hand, rolling it out by hand. I'm cutting up all the fruit for the fillings, making everything from scratch. And so probably our third year in, my stepfather gifted me a giant mixer, which that was a game changer for the kitchen and the baking. Cause then I could mix up large batches of cake. I could mix my pie dough in that. 32:22 And so, yeah, I would say we definitely have taken baby steps and it's taken us about this long to kind of get to where I feel super confident in everything that we're doing. I kind of know the ropes of everything. I feel like I've finally got it, got it down to know like, you know, that we're making it and that I kind of just know what I'm doing now. 32:50 If that makes sense. It totally does. And you're proving the point that anything worth having is worth waiting for and that you don't start out an expert. Everything is a learning curve and you are now at the far end of the learning curve. So again, congratulations, Emily, for having the courage and whatever it took to get this started and get this far because it's a lot. 33:19 Thank you. And my mom, she's a huge part of this with me. We're business partners and we have done everything together and she's amazing. So I definitely have not done this all on my own. We're a great team when it comes to the business and yeah, I'm so thankful for her because it would not have been possible without her. One thing to mention too is we also... 33:47 on my mom's farm at her house, have a wedding venue. so that, my mom really focuses on that. She's the wedding manager and gets everything ready. And so having the weddings has really helped out our farm because it's all kind of falls under the same business, two different locations though. But yeah, that's another. 34:14 another thing that has really helped us to have extra income and be able to do more with everything. 34:23 Fantastic. I love it. And shout out to mom. Good job, mom. Congratulations, mom too. All right, Emily, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're almost 35 minutes. So where can people find you? You can find us online at the Homestead Farm, sorry, www.homesteadfarmmarket.com. We are on Facebook. 34:47 the Homestead Farm at Fruit Hill Orchard. We are on Instagram at the Homestead Farm VA. And then if you are traveling through Winchester, Virginia, you can find us at 2502 North Frederick Pike, Winchester, Virginia 22603. We are open with the farm market and the sugar shack. Typically April through November, we do a small Christmas shop and then we close up. 35:15 January, February, March. But anyway, yes, thank you so much for having me on here and I look forward to hearing more of your podcasts and yeah, thank you. Thank you. And as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Emily, I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Thank you. You too. Happy 4th of July. Yeah. Happy Independence Day. Thanks so much, Emily. a great day. Thanks. You too. Bye.
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| Peaceful Pastures | 03 Jul 2025 | 00:32:56 | |
Today I'm talking with Amanda at Peaceful Pastures. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 00:26 Today I'm talking with Amanda at Peaceful Pastures in Michigan. Good afternoon, Amanda. How are you? Hi there. How are you? I'm good. You said the weather's really nice in Michigan? Yes, it's beautiful today. We finally broke that heat spell that we had last week and the humidity has gone down and it's just perfectly sunny. So it's great today. 00:50 So you're having a top weather day in Michigan, just like we are in Minnesota. It's really nice here today too. That sounds great. I'm glad it's just as nice for you. Yeah, the spring has been actually pretty moderate. I have been, I dare say impressed with Mother Nature this year. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Peaceful Pastures. Well, my name is Amanda. I'm a mother to two. I have an eight-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter. 01:19 My husband is here with me too. His name is Andrew. We like to jokingly call him Goat Daddy. We kind of jumped into Peaceful Pastures, kind of like an overnight deal. We weren't really looking to sell our house and happened upon this property, just a little over seven acres, and we kind of jumped on it and looked, put it on offer, and right away it became ours. And overnight I went and crazily 01:47 purchased Nigerian Dwarf goats and one of them was pregnant and so it began with our livestock. So we now have 13 and we have a mini Dexter cow. Her name is Betty and we have chickens. Awesome. it is absolutely do a little bit of everything here. Yes. Fantastic. So if your name is Amanda and your husband's name is Andrew, 02:17 Do you ever get Mandy and Andy as nicknames? Oh, yes, we do. All the time. I have this thing in my head that I do all the time and I rarely ever tell people about it because I think it'll freak them out. But I always end up having nicknames for people that I like. And one of my friends on Facebook, and she was also in a writing group online with me, her name is Janna. 02:46 For the longest time when I would see her name, would think Jana Banana. Oh, and I never, I never told her that. And I was like, I got to stop doing this, but my brain just does all these weird associations with names. So, so if you were friends with me, you would be Mandy and your husband would be Andy in my head. That's okay. My husband always gets called Andy Pandy. So it works. Yep. Absolutely. Um, okay. So do you guys have a garden as well? 03:16 We do. actually have a quite large garden this year. Last year we had a great time with it and a perfect harvest. So I went ahead and jumped it up a little bit more this year. So we planted about five times as much as we did last year. So we're growing and hopefully by the end of this week, early next week, we will start having some produce. We have a little standout front too. And I like to fiddle around with that when I can. And we do lots of different things. 03:46 tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, pretty much everything you can think of. We grow here right in our garden. So it's a lot of fun. Keeps me busy. Yeah. I call it the usual suspects. When people ask me what we grow in ours, I said the usual suspects, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, et cetera, et cetera. So all the good things. Yeah, exactly. All the things that people want to eat in June, July, and August. Right. And I don't know. 04:16 I don't know how things are going in Michigan, but here in Minnesota, we've had the nicest weather for getting an early start on crops this year. And we also built a heated greenhouse two Mays ago. So we had seedlings ready to go in the ground first week in May. We usually don't plant until May 15th because of the danger of frost. 04:45 And so we looked at the extended forecast and it looked like it was going to be good. And my husband planted tomatoes like three weeks earlier than we usually do. And I said, if they die, they're done. There's no coming back from that. He said, they're not going to die. He said, I have faith. was like, okay, I hope your faith works out. Well, I'm glad it did work out. I actually got a late start this year. 05:12 because of the weather, just because we actually took our first vacation in the last 14 years. So we were gone for that last week and a half. So it kind of pushed me back a little bit. So we didn't get started until the last week of May, but everything's in the ground now and seems to be doing well. So. 05:32 I don't hear farmers say, I took a vacation very often. Where did you have the opportunity to go? I know, right? It's really crazy. So we actually went to Disney. We took the kids to Disney for the first time and it was a lot of fun, but my husband and I have never really taken a vacation by ourselves. So it was wonderful to have the opportunity to do that. And we were happy to be back home as well. So we really missed our animals and missed what was happening here. So. 06:01 Good. I'm glad that you did that because your kids are only little once. Trust me. I'm 55. My kids are all grown. They're all adults. And we weren't in a position to do the things that people do with their kids. We never went to Disney. We never went to Florida. We never went to any of the most people go. And the kids would all tell you that they don't have an issue with that. That was fine. We would go see the grandparents and that was really fun. 06:31 But the thing that I would tell people who are looking at getting into homesteading or farming or ranching is that if you can at all do it, take that week or so a year for yourself. Find people who you trust to come in and handle chores and the gardens and animals. And preferably do your vacation in like September or October when the gardens are done. And that way the only thing the person coming in has to do 07:01 is feed the animals and muck the stalls. Yeah, we were very fortunate, very blessed to be able to take a week away and kind of chill out and relax for a little bit. Like I said, it was our first time being able to do that and it was very much needed. And we're really, really happy that we were able to do that with the kids and they got to experience it. But they also love just being home to their kind of home body. So they'd rather be in their own element here and know exactly what we do every day. They kind of have a rhythm here. So 07:34 Did they get to meet any of their favorite Disney characters? They did. They did. Actually, my daughter is obsessed with Stitch. of course, it was the day that the new Stitch movie came out. So she was super excited to see him. They also got to see Belle and the Beast. And it was a lot of fun. 07:54 Yeah, I see videos of little kids meeting their favorite Disney characters at Disneyland and it just makes me smile. I think it's so sweet. Oh gosh, yes. The way they lit up was, it was so priceless. Very much worth it, no matter what the cost was. You know, my husband wasn't too thrilled with the price of everything, but you got to do it once in a while, right? Absolutely. And that's really my point is if you have the opportunity to do something like that. 08:22 and you can find people you trust to handle the things at home, go do it. You only live once. Right. Yep. Yep. Very much would have actually said YOLO, but the last time I said YOLO, my 23- My 23-year-old son laughed his ass off at me when I said YOLO instead of you only live once. Nice. You got to get with the lingo, right? You got to stay with it. 08:49 He gets so squirrely because my husband and I both are people of the eighties. You know, we grew up in the eighties. And as you know, we Gen Xers think that we're going to be young forever and pick up the newest music, the newest slang really easily because things change every day when we were growing up. And so he's 23 and he just thinks that it's ridiculous when we and our friends talk. 09:18 like we're his age. It's funny. I know my son is always saying sigma this, sigma that, and I'm like, what in the world? You're like on a next level. You're totally out of here, dude. I have no idea what you're saying. Uh huh. Yeah. It's crazy all the slang that happens with the next generation of kids. 09:41 I mean, my parents were not necessarily up on the latest music or the latest slang when I was a teenager. And my dad loved old country music. He's still around. He's 81 years old. And I really loved George Michael and Prince. And I kind of liked Michael Jackson. I really loved Janet Jackson when she brought out music. And my dad was not really impressed with the music I listened to. 10:10 And because he loved music, we had a really nice stereo with a really nice speakers. So the minute my parents would leave the house, I would be getting the records out, vinyl records, and putting them on the record player and cranking out music that I grew up with, you know, listen to it constantly. And they would go for a walk around the block every night after dinner. So they left, I had music on and they could hear it halfway around the block. That's how loud I had it turned up. that's so funny. 10:39 Good memories. You know, my husband and I were just saying how we're huge country fans and we like 80s and 90s country and there is no good music like it used to be. So we were just talking about that yesterday, how good the music was in the 90s compared to now. 10:57 I am so glad you said that because I actually flipped the radio on a week or so ago when I was driving somewhere, I don't where I was going, and put it on a country station, know, like, like top 40 country as it were. I was like, all of this is crap. And I thought, oh my God, am I getting old, old now? And so I'm glad to know that it is crap because you're not as old as I am. If you think it's crap, it's probably crap. No, it is garbage. It's just terrible. 11:26 I don't even know how they can call it country music anymore. But I'm glad we got to listen to the good music and we can still relive that every day. Well, I'm really grateful for things like Pandora and Spotify because you can listen to anything you want to now and not have to be in a vehicle with a radio. Right. So. 11:50 We're getting a little far afield, but today has been that kind of day with nostalgia. I actually cried on the episode that I did earlier today. So I'm not going to cry on this one, hopefully. Yeah, And I only do it about once every 50 episodes. So think I'm doing okay. So tell me again, the animals you have. Well, we have Nigerian dwarfs. We have Stella, Luna, and... 12:19 Vega, which all are our mamas. They actually just had a birthing here a couple months ago. So they all had babies. We got rid of half of them and then we retained a few. And then we also have their counterparts, Rocky and Oreo. And then we also have Frankie, which is the buck that we have. And then we have a mini Dexter cow named Betty. 12:43 And we have chickens. So I like to call them Smokey and the Bandits because Smokey is our rooster and then all of his ladies. They're a lot of fun. They keep us entertained, pecking around and squawking all day long. So that's pretty much the gist of the animals. And then we also have two golden doodles as well. So you got to include them in the farm animals. There's always a dog on the farm. 13:10 Almost 99.9 % of the time there's always a dog on the farm. Okay, I have questions about all the things you just said. Let me mute my mic real quick. got a cough, hang on. 13:24 I try not to cough in my guests' ears. So you have Nigerian dwarf goats, dwarf goats, Yep. Okay. Do you use them for milk? Yes, actually. So like I said, we came into this kind of overnight. So it's been almost two years now that we've been at the homesteading chain. And when we first got Stella, which was one of our first goats that we got right away, 13:51 like four days after we got her, gave birth. So I kind of was around and tried to learn and teach myself on how to milk. Um, so then this year when it came up, I had three, uh, mamas that delivered and we were able to start milking. So I do different things with that. Um, butter, I try to make my own soft cheese and then, um, also just for drinking as well. Okay. And 14:19 I'm guessing you don't use the goats for meat. No, no, we don't do that here. I know a lot of people have asked us and I just cannot bring myself to do it. Nothing against it, just not our thing. So they're more like a poop here. We truly love our animals and we get super close to them. 14:41 Yeah, a lot of the people that I've talked to on the podcast who have goats only have them for dairy. And there are a lot of people in the United States who will eat goat meat. I have not tried it because I'm the same as you. Goats are friends and I don't want to eat them. 15:01 So, dairy goats are fantastic and I did not, I've said this a few times, I did not like goat milk. The goat milk that I tried in previous years tasted to me like hay and a cow patty in the field. It just didn't taste, it didn't taste good. And then friends of ours who have goats let me try their cream for my coffee from their goats and I love it. 15:29 So it just depends on what the goats eat, I guess. It does, yeah. So at first I was really reserved. I was kind of nervous to try it. And then once I did, I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually really good. So it has a lot sweeter taste than like a cow's milk would. And the fat content is actually higher. So there's a lot more cream to milk than what a cow, like a regular cow's milk would be. So we quite enjoy it. Yeah, the cream is fabulous. 15:57 It is so yummy in coffee. I need to get hold of my friend and be like, can I give you 10 bucks for like just a little bit of cream? I will pay whatever you want. I just want some goat milk cream. It's so good. 16:14 Yeah, it really is. And then your cow, do you milk her or not? So we don't currently. She's about two years old. So obviously in order to get milk from her, she would have to be bred. So we keep her right now just more as like a pet. I hope to IA her this fall if everything goes correctly, but we will see how that goes. See how much time we have on our hands. Yeah. 16:43 I wasn't sure how old she was, so I didn't know if she'd had a baby yet. then the chickens, do you sell the eggs or do you just have them for yourself? We do. We sell eggs. We get probably between 20 and 30 eggs every single day. We have 32 chickens right now, so they're laying quite well. We have a little stand that we sell eggs and jams and that type of thing out front of our house. And then we also 17:10 We like to give them away to our neighbors and that type of thing too. So we usually have an influx of them. So we're trying to get rid of them quickly. 17:23 Yeah, we're kind of going through that too. Back when we only had 12 chickens, we couldn't even keep eggs in our house because people wanted to buy them. then we got 14 more chickens. And so now we actually have enough eggs in the house during the week for my husband to have a couple for breakfast before he goes to work. So doubling up on the chickens was a very good plan this spring. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly what we did. So last year we had 10. 17:50 And then we added another 22 to our account this year. So it's been a huge change to go from 10 to 32. Uh huh. So do you guys have jobs outside of the farm? Yeah. So I actually just stepped away. I had a meal prep business and I just stepped away from that to try to be more involved here on the homestead full time. And then my husband is an engineer, so he works for Stellantis. 18:18 We actually joke because you were talking about eggs and every week he's toting eggs to work. So we always laugh at him because he's like my little pack mule taking stuff with him when he goes. Yeah. My husband works for a company that repairs printers and fax machines and things. And he takes eggs to work because people know we have chickens. So they buy eggs from him at work. Yep. And then as soon as one does, they love them so much, they tell their friend and then the next person wants to get them. 18:49 Luckily, my husband was smart enough to let everybody know that we only have so many eggs right now. So you've got to get to him fast if you want the one or two dozen we might have on hand. I would love to buy a hundred chickens and just have our place to be a chicken business as it were, an egg business. But the problem is we would have to actually, you know, spend the money to get laying hens. 19:18 or spend the money to get an incubator and hatching eggs, or spend the money to get little tiny pullets. And right now, the money just isn't there for any of it. So we're basically doing farmers markets and selling at our farm stand to put money away so that we can expand our business. we wanted to do this last summer, but we lost $5,000 in income because our garden 19:45 couldn't get planted the way it should have been because it rained so much here. So we're a little behind the eight ball on the expanding the business plans, but I still have the podcast. So I'm making that work for now. Oh, that's good. That's good. You got to do what you got to do, right? Yeah, exactly. And people think that when you, when you buy land and you start a homestead or a farm, you just do it, you know, you just jump in all the way into the pool. 20:14 And that's not usually how it works. you start small and dream big, I think is how people put it. Right. Yep. You have to grow a little bit each day or a little bit each year and keep expanding on that. Yeah, because it's really expensive to outfit a homestead. Oh, You will drop, if you tried to do it all at once, you could easily drop $50,000 in six months. 20:47 Like easily $50,000. Oh, if not more. Yeah. Everything is so darn expensive right now too. All the fencing alone and posts and everything are just crazy. know we had to rebuild our whole chicken coop this year with adding more chickens. Obviously comes a larger coop and we easily spent, I don't know, close to a thousand, if not more just by buying materials and building it ourselves. So. 21:16 It's pricey. It's not an easy feat, that's for sure. No, it's not. it's, I see it as a dream. You know, you start thinking about this when you start thinking about it. And then it usually takes a couple of years for that to really get stuck in your brain that you really want to do it. And then you have to do research and then you have to find a place and you have to be able to afford it. And then you have to actually, you know, buy the place. 21:45 and then you have to make it what you want it to be. I don't feel like this is ever an overnight thing. No, and I think you're supposed to evolve with it every year as well. So you learn as you do things, you learn and grow and keep adapting to what you need. And a lot of things you just make work too. You don't always have to go out and outdo yourself from the year before. Just keep maintaining the same rhythm and routine and ends up being so much greater than what you expect it to be. 22:16 Yes, and it's the only job you will ever have where you see the entire process of the job from beginning to end. Oh, yes. That's my favorite part. by doing that though, because you get to see it come to fruition and all the hard work that you put into it along the way. It's truly something to be admirable. 22:44 Yes, I have a question for you. When you plant your garden, you when you put the seed in the ground and you put the dirt over it and you water it and you say, please grow, because that's how we do it here. We say please grow and hopefully it does. When the plant comes up and it's got the actual leaves it's supposed to have, not the beginning leaves, but the real leaves, and it starts to grow, do you just stand there and look at that thing and go, it's 23:13 It's a miracle. Do you have that feeling? Oh yeah, about every single morning and night. That's where I get my zen. So every morning I have my coffee and I take a walk out to the garden and I could sit out there for hours and just sit out there and stare because dad's work is truly, truly amazing. And all the thought that he puts into every single little thing is just, it's miraculous. It truly is. 23:45 Yeah, I don't know that I ever understood the word miracle like I do now. We have sunflower plants growing out, out sort of beside and behind our greenhouse. you can see the plants from the window on the landing on the second floor. And I was coming downstairs this morning from the first interview I did. And I looked outside and I could see one of the sunflower blooms through the window. 24:13 and I dead stopped and I just stood there and looked at it for five minutes. I never did that kind of stuff before I lived here. Aw, well I'm glad that you get to enjoy it, because if you're not enjoying it, then it's all work for nothing. So it's definitely important to take the second and just kind of take it all in. Yeah, the simple joys of this just blow me away. 24:38 I'm so glad that I get to talk to you and the other people I've talked to on the podcast because you guys understand it. When I talk to people who haven't done this or haven't had any interest in it, they're like, it's a plant. And I'm just like, no, you do not understand. And they're like, you're right. I don't understand. And there's no painting. There is no painting a picture for them. If they don't get it, they're not going to get it. 25:06 Yeah, and it's sad when they don't get to experience all the joys and stuff too, because you, like I get super excited about everything that we do here. So down to, I mean, just the simple flower growing is so amazing. And so you want to share it with everybody. And when they don't see eye eye with you, it's kind of like, ah, I just want you to get it. So they never will until they get to experience it themselves. 25:32 Yes, the one thing that most people do understand though when they come to visit is the peace here. Yes. we have friends over and they just calm down. We had friends come and visit I think the second spring we were here. No, first spring we were here. And they're not, they don't grow a garden, they don't do any of this, they don't even have a pet. And they came to visit to see where we live. 26:01 And I can remember them getting out of the car and looking around, like a good five minutes of just looking around, because it's three acres. And Cal, the guy that's the husband, he looked at me and he said, you must be so happy. And I was like, oh, you have no idea, buddy. 26:29 And his wife came over and hugged me. She's like, I am so excited for you. This is beautiful. And they got that part. You know, they understood that we had really wanted to get out of town and have some land and have a cornfield around us. Cause why not? And it was so nice to get that reaction from them because I was like, they're going to think we're crazy. And they didn't think that. 26:56 Well, that's good. I'm glad they were able to see how peaceful it was too. Yeah. And I mean, there are moments that are not peaceful. Like when the chicken got attacked by a raccoon two weeks ago, that was not fun to... Yeah. We've been lucky enough to not experience any animal attacks or anything like that, thankfully. So hopefully we don't have that, but I know that it's quite crazy around here. We've lost quite a few sheep and goats just down the road to coyotes lately. So... 27:26 I anticipate to have some type of run-in. Oh, you will. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what you're going to go through when you do, because it's very sad. And the fact is, I heard this a year and a half ago, when you have livestock, you will have dead stock. And I can tell you right now, you're going to cry, and it's going to be sad, and you're going to want to throw up. And it doesn't matter whether you see it happen or not. 27:55 The next time, you're probably gonna be really mad. You won't be nearly as sad. You'll be just pissed off about it. Well, that's kinda how we felt. We had one of our baby goats that was born actually on my birthday this year. It was kinda cool. As soon as we got to a birthday party, I had to turn around and help deliver babies. So that was super fun. But we poured all of our heart and soul into this little goat and we bottle fed him and he was just the sweetest thing. 28:22 My daughter kind of took him on as her own and at about four weeks he passed away and we think that maybe he aspirated on one of his bottles while we were gone. So it was really sad and we had a whole little funeral service for him, of course. But I don't think it'll get easier as time goes on. It does not. It does not get easier. You just get used to it. 28:49 Right. That sounds terrible, but you do. get used to the fact that you have to enjoy everything you have now because it may not be here tomorrow. Right. And I still tear up. I mean, we had barn kittens that died at three weeks old and I definitely still teared up, but I was just like, okay, I need to shift from destroyed and sad to pissed off because pissed off is easier. I promise you. 29:16 Yep, you're able to get up and keep moving and do the next job that you need to do instead of sitting there and just groveling. Yeah, sobbing doesn't change the fact that the thing that died died. If it did, everybody would live forever. Right. 29:35 So yeah, there are hard things on the farm too, but the thing I always hang on to is the joy that comes with the good things that happen. Right. There's always joy to be found somewhere. I know my kids were heartbroken and I just tried to explain that's the circle of life. And at least we were able to witness him have a great life, the short time that he did. And we got to enjoy him and he gave us lots of laughs and hugs and love along the way. And we got to do the same for him. So. Yep. 30:04 Exactly. And the thing that's really great about farm kids is they experience loss early so that when they end up losing a grandparent or a great auntie or uncle, they have already lost something that they have poured their heart and soul into and it is actually easier on them. Well, and I'm glad you mentioned that because that is actually kind of what shifted my whole mindset of a homestead or wanting to do this type of a lifestyle because we actually did go through 30:33 quite some significant losses. lost my dad and then a short few years later we lost my grandfather and then my stepdad as well. And my kids were extremely close to all three of them. And to lose so much, you just really start to think about life and what's important to you. And that's why we decided to move here and see what we could actually put our hands into and just live. 31:01 because we weren't really doing that before. So it makes a huge difference, I think. It does. It really does. And honestly, I have had more conversations in the last six months about the fact that life is supposed to be lived. It's not supposed to be survived. It's supposed to live, enjoy every freaking moment of it and feel all the feelings because that's why we're here. 31:28 Absolutely. All the ups and downs and hard work poured into something and all of the joy that you get from seeing something come full circle is there's just no words for it other than just it's great. It's phenomenal. Let's use phenomenal. Phenomenal is a great big happy word. Stellar is a good one too. I'm a word freak. I'm a word freak. love words. I have words for everything. 31:54 All right, so Amanda, this was lovely. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. Where can people find you? I'm glad we got to chit chat. So thank you so much for inviting me on here. And I look forward to sharing more stories and just enjoying all of the stories that you have along the way with everybody else that you interview. Awesome. I hope you come back and listen. Where can people find you, Amanda? We are on Facebook under Peaceful Pastures. 32:23 And we are also on TikTok, the same name, Peaceful Pastures. So we are located in Davison, Michigan, and we are about an hour north of Detroit. We do some bookings and some private events here on our farm. And then you'll find us on Facebook and you can just shoot me a message and I'd love to connect with you. Fantastic. All right. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Amanda, thank you again for your time. appreciate it. Thank you so much. I had a wonderful time. 32:53 All right.
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| Our Little Farm WI | 02 Jul 2025 | 00:33:33 | |
Today I'm talking with Sharon and Ben at Our Little Farm WI. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 00:25 Today I'm talking with Sharon and Ben at Our Little Farm, Wisconsin. Good morning, you guys. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having us this morning. Yeah, thanks. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. What's the weather like in Wisconsin this morning? Sunny and warm. Although it's not too bad. It's only going to be like 82, I think, today. Yesterday was pretty hot and humid and... But great for the crops. Awesome. Good. 00:54 our very handsome weather guy on WCCO here in Minnesota. His name is Joseph Dames. My son just laughs every time he sees him because he's a very pretty, this guy's a very pretty boy. Says that it is a top 10 weather day in Minnesota today. Wow. That's something to on the calendar. Let's see if it's actually true though. I think it's going to be okay. 84 degrees, breezy, sunny. I'm going to this. 01:23 Right. Okay. So is your your farm actually little? Is your farm actually little? It is we're at five acres compared to around us. have three large cash croppers and they have, you know, I don't know. 1500 acres to 2000 acres each. 01:44 Well, you've got us by two acres with your five. We only have three acres. There's a reason we're called a tiny homestead because we consider ourselves to be minuscule compared to a lot of people. Exactly. That's how we're little just because everybody else is so big in this area. Okay. And where's the biggest city near you? We're actually located not just too bad. Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and there's Manitowoc. 02:15 Oh, Green Bay. Everybody knows where Green Bay, Wisconsin is. Right. 40 minutes southeast of Green Bay. Okay. So you're closer to, I'm blanking. Illinois is below you. What's to your right? lake? Right. So Milwaukee, we're an hour and a half north of Milwaukee. 02:40 Okay. All right. Cool. Awesome. So what do you guys do at your farm? We are we are into a lot of things. We're trying to figure out how to scale down. We like to do everything. So this is always our dilemma of what to do and what not to do. So yeah, so primarily our crops on on the bulk of our land, we have a little bit of rented land as well. That's again, small four acres. And we use that for growing our 03:10 Einkorn wheat, which is an ancient wheat, which was really kind of the start or the spark, you know, for us three years ago to create our little farm and get going with what we wanted to do. 03:25 And then we also do fruits and vegetables and then our baked goods is what we pretty much primarily do at this point. And then we're going to be adding animals to our little farm, hopefully sooner than later. Okay. I want to get back to that, but do you guys grow the einkorn wheat for yourselves or do you have a market to sell it at too? So that's a good question. Yes, we 03:55 We are currently growing it ourselves. This is our third cropping year. had the first year was a failure trial and error year. It turns out that it's not just like growing regular wheat where, uh, I mean, we don't spray, you know, it's all regenerative agriculture. So that, was a huge learning curve. Uh, so the second year we did much better and the third year now it's looking really good too. Uh, so yeah, we, 04:23 Our goal with the einkorn is to bring it full circle. mean, Joville was kind of an inspiration for us. when we landed on the einkorn, we just felt there should be a lot more of this available to everybody. So then we do sell the flour to people as well as we run it through our kitchen, through the baked goods. Yeah. Do you grind it yourself? 04:50 We do. So we actually sprout it first and then I dehydrate it and then we have access to a stone mill. So then we stone mill it fresh about every three weeks is what is about what we need to do to keep it fresh. Wow. Okay. Awesome. I love that because I hear about Einkorn flour a lot. I've never tried it. I probably should, but I haven't. And does it, does it look the same as the wheat that we grow today when you grow 05:20 einkorn wheat does it look the same as a there's a word for it. I can't think of it. The wheat that a farmer would grow, you know, today. it's quite different. I mean, if you had a handful of each, it's, you know, the differences are unmistakable. The einkorn, the berry itself is really tiny, okay. But then when you harvest, it's, it's a hold. 05:48 wheat almost like oats has a hull on it. And then it also has these little beards that stick off of the hull about half an inch or so. So yeah, it's amazingly different than a modern wheat. You know, your modern wheat comes out of the combine. It's nice and clean. It's the berries is what you're harvesting. So it's pretty much ready to go. 06:18 of the machine where einkorn, you know, presents a little bit of a challenge. There's extra cleaning, there's extra hauling. So yeah, I hope that answers your question. Yes, it does. And the word I was looking for was conventional, conventional farmers. Oh, yes. There you go. Because conventional is the way we do it now. And it gets confused with traditional, which is kind of what you're doing. So 06:46 Okay, cool. And then I want to get back to the animals you would like to acquire at some point in the near future. What are you guys thinking of bringing on to the farm? Sure. Well, back in 2010, we had a dairy cow that we milked and we love doing it, but we have another business and we were just too busy with that. So we had to actually sell it after about three years. So we want to start back with the another dairy cow, maybe up to five, and then also chicken eggs, layers. 07:16 Not like, yeah, they'd be layers. We want to get those two. And then Ben does want to do pigs as well, but I'm on the fence on that one. So right now, chicken layers and dairy cow is our priorities. We used to have also steers too. This was back in 2010. So we do want to get that footprint back on the ground because it is so much better for the soil to have animals on it then. 07:43 You know, we do cash crop or we do cover crops and composting on our field, but nothing can replace the animal. 07:53 No, you're right. You're absolutely right. Calminor is like the best fertilizer ever. Right. And chicken, I've heard chicken is phenomenal. hopefully we can just continue to grow our soil to be so much healthier and better. Yes. And I just misspoke. Actually, chicken manure is the best. Calminor is next best. We had, we did a garden one year and we put, um, 08:22 Cooled down chicken manure because chicken manure is hot. can't use it right away. has to sit for a good six months or you will burn your crops. But we used chicken manure one year for our garden and we had the best produce that year. So I lied. Chicken manure is the best that you can get it. Interesting. Yeah, that's our goal. Yep. We had like the most wonderful cucumbers and tomatoes that year. 08:49 We've had some good ones since, but those were the best we'd ever grown. Do you not have chickens anymore? Oh, we do. We do. We put chicken manure in our garden, but we also add in goat manure from friends that have goats and cow manure if we can get it, because we just want to cover all the bases. You can't just have one kind of poop. We must have multiple sources of poop. Exactly. Much have diversity in poop. 09:18 Right. Exactly. Okay, cool. And then the pigs. If you're on the fence about them, Sharon, just start with like two. And then if you don't love it, you can just slaughter them when they're big enough to eat and then you don't have to do it anymore. Oh, there you go. You don't know unless you try, I guess, right? Yep. Uh-huh. Never say never, as my grandma always said. Yeah. And I keep hearing stories from people that they're of one or two mindsets about it. 09:47 They either got pigs and they hate it or they got pigs and they love it because they love the pigs personalities. Right. That's what you hear so much that people, they're just fun animals to have around. They're supposed to be very smart. And there is a breed that we came across a few years back. don't remember it. is it? Yeah. So there's a breed out there. The meat and bacon, absolutely phenomenal. It's, 10:15 a Mongolista mulefoot hog. And the interesting thing is they're shaggy. You know, they're very hardy in the winter. Their hair is like four or five inches long. And so it's quite interesting. Ever since we had that pork from those hogs that's been on our radar, if we ever do this, that's what we want to try and grow. 10:44 Well then you should find someone who has those. Are they common or not? They're not common. At least not in our area. Not in our area. I'm sure there's associations out there, yeah, that'll be a little bit of a hunt, I think. Yeah, one of the worst parts about being involved in the homesteading farming life is that you get introduced to certain breeds and therefore meet and you try it and you're in love with it. 11:14 because we ended up getting a half and it was a steer and the breed was Flechtia, F-L-E-C-H-V-I-A, I think was what, how it was spelled. And that beef was so good and nothing has lived up to its sense. Interesting. What makes them so much different? they smaller, larger? I have no idea. It was just, it was the most tender meat. 11:44 I know how to cook beef so it's not really, you know, um, again, cannot think of words this morning. I'm sorry. It was really, really tender. And I know how to make beef tender when I cook it, because there are ways to do that even with a terrible cut. And I didn't have to do anything to this beef. Every time I pulled any cut of meat from this beef that we bought, it was just amazing. Wow. We're going to have to look that up and research. 12:14 Yes. And I mean, maybe the farmer worked some magic and was like, your meat will be tender. And it was. I don't know, but it was great. We had bought a quarter of a steer from a local organic farm and they have their meat hung for three weeks. Yeah. And not a lot of butchers do that in this area. And that was the best. That was where you could, I did a roast just in the slow cooker. Didn't add anything. 12:40 to it and didn't need anything, didn't need salt and pepper, any seasoning. It was just so phenomenal, that flavor. So don't know if it was the hanging of it that made it extra delicious or what, but. Yeah, I don't know enough about it to even offer up an opinion here. I just know that I would give anything to get another half from that same variety and I haven't been able to find anyone who raises them. 13:08 engine. I'll keep in touch in case we decide to try it. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Okay, so did you guys have like farming background before you got into this or not? Yes, so I, I grew up on a very small, like a 25 cow dairy, conventional small dairy farm. So that was, that was all I really knew as a kid. And 13:35 left home, you know, out of high school and, you know, so here we are and all these years later and that's, you always think about going back to that and I guess this is our opportunity to try and do that. 13:53 Fantastic. It's so funny when I ask that question of the people that I talk to on the podcast, I get either your kind of answer or I get, nah, we were city people and we're just like, we're going to make the jump. We're going to go buy land and raise some chickens. And there's no real in-between on it. It's very interesting to me. And I'm going to tell you guys a secret. And I haven't really said this this way on the podcast. I've alluded to it, but I haven't said it. 14:23 I don't ever want to live with people even 30 feet from me again. We have a quarter acre between us and our neighbors now. And I love it. When we go back to the town that we lived in five years ago, all the houses are so close together. It literally gives me anxiety when we drive into town. I agree. I feel the same way, you know? Yeah. Once you're out in the country, 14:51 You just get those close confines and it's like, nah, that's not me anymore. 14:57 Uh-huh. can't. I mean, I'm sure I'm 55. I'm sure at some point I'm going to have to probably move closer to people because I will probably need help in my older years. But right now, I love it when our friends come to visit us here because there's space and they get to breathe in fresh air and they're like, this is so lovely. Thank you for having me. And I just, I love it. It's great. I agree. We have, I've got two sisters that are coming in August and 15:27 One lives in California, close neighbors, and the other one lives in Washington state, but she's got a little bit, not so tight neighbors, but they just love coming out here. We live on a dead end road. It's quiet. It's peaceful, great scenery all around. You know, it's just, you can tell it, they just come in here and they just breathe, you know, they just sigh, just like, so peaceful. 15:50 you watch their shoulders come down. exactly. You can almost see their stress just melt away. Yeah, after a few days, you know, working in the garden or going with us to markets, they just, you know, you can just see it melt away. 16:08 Yes, I got up at four o'clock this morning as I always do, because I can't sleep past four a.m. The Lord has made me an early riser for some unknown reason. And I went downstairs to grab my coffee and we have this little porch that's off the kitchen. And I went out on the porch and the window was open and it was like 68 degrees, no breeze. And it was silent except for the crickets and the bullfrog that was making noise this morning. That is awesome. 16:37 That doesn't happen often here. Usually there's a breeze. And I was just sitting there sipping my coffee. My son and my husband were still asleep. It was quiet. The dog was upstairs with my husband. And I was just like, I love 4.15 a.m. because it's quiet. It is seriously dead silent. Right. And it's still dark outside at four, so. Yeah. 17:02 It's just a lovely way to wake up. You know, when you first get up, you're not quite with it yet. That's great. I don't know about you, but I need to get that first sip of coffee in me before my brain really starts. Oh, right. I up at five and that's usually just to turn the coffee maker on. a better way. Right. That's the best way to start the day. Yeah. can't think of a better way to wake up fully than sitting on that cute little porch with my hot coffee and listening to the bullfrog sing. 17:32 Right, your own little concert. Yeah, absolutely. And the Fireflies are back. They just showed up about a week ago. Oh. So we get a little show about 9, 30, 10 o'clock at night. If I'm still awake, I'm not usually, but I try this time of year to stay up a little bit later so I can see the Fireflies slash Lightning Bugs doing their dance. Yeah, that's, yeah. Ours come out a little bit earlier, I think, than that. 18:00 Yep, and I'm not saying this is for everybody. It is not. There are people who really love the hustle and bustle of in town or big cities. And I am all for diversity, know. Differences are what make the world an interesting place, but it's just not me. I can't imagine living in a city again. No, anywhere else. Now, we, last fall we went to, was about Thanksgiving time or so. 18:28 We stayed in Milwaukee for what, three days? We to Acres conference. And yeah, I couldn't wait to get home. The conference was very good, very informational, lots of like-minded people, but yeah, I had had enough of the city. Yep. It's really hard to go back. Once you find what your soul wants and you 18:58 get it, it's really hard to go back to the thing that you didn't really want. Right. We were just talking this morning that when we're ready to retire, we want to just get a little tiny house, you know, on a couple of acres, just have our garden, our milk cow and our chickens. And Ben, of course, would have his little repair shop or a little shop there, but just simplify, but quiet. Yeah, there's a lot of peace in quiet. 19:27 I grew up in the woods of Maine, okay? Maine, the state of Maine. Right. And my favorite memory was going to bed at night and we had the window open and we could hear the wind blowing through the pine trees, which is a whole different sound than the wind blowing through leaves. And it's kind of like a whistle and a hum. And I miss that noise so much because we don't really have pine trees here where we live. 19:55 And I just remember curling up and listening to that sound and just falling asleep and knowing that everything was good. Right. You can't get that back. Nope. Exactly. So I feel like I'm just waxing nostalgic this morning and I probably am. I don't know. It's been one of those days where you're like, huh, I remember when I was eight. The long memory starts to kick in. short memory starts to leave. 20:24 Well, I hope that doesn't happen anytime soon, but I don't know. This is the time here we would usually travel and we're not. More time for reflection then? Didn't know I was going to do this. Sorry. A little bit. Yeah. Yup. Nice. Give me a second. Wow. Definitely nostalgic this morning. Okay. So. 20:53 What are the plans for the farm? Are there bigger plans? Yeah, so right now we're building a certified kitchen and a farm store. I spent all last week digging in the ground looking for a water line that I knew was there and found it. Nice. I would literally wake up every morning and drag myself out there and think, well, today's the day and 21:22 Did that for four days in a row before we found it. But interesting part of our farm store is, so we decided to do this and we do farmers markets and the word kind of goes around and we have these other farmers that just kind of naturally started approaching us about having products that we don't have to fill in the blanks in our farm store. 21:49 We were just kind of surprised by that. We were like, wow, you know, this is something people are looking for, you know? 22:01 That's fantastic. So like a farm stand, farm store, or like a bigger building? Like a farm store, you know, retail space. And it's not big. Our retail space is going to be 20 plus feet long by 15 feet wide. So we'll have a lot going on in a small area in there. 22:32 Yes. I don't want to discourage you, but I will tell you what Minnesota is like with that kind of situation with people wanting to sell stuff on your property from their production. My friend has ducks and she asked if she could sell duck eggs in our farm stand. And I said, of course you can. And as far as I know, that is totally fine with the state of Minnesota. If she asked if she could sell her baked goods as a cottage food producer in our farm stand, we're not allowed to do that because the person 23:01 must be on property who cooked the food. That's how our cottage law is too. But that'll be us. So I'll be selling my own baked goods there. I won't have any competition. So it'll just be me working through our certified kitchen. yeah, we're hoping like meat. We have the one farm that is already checked into like wholesale licensing, all that. we'll do that. And honey, you know, stuff like that that you can 23:30 typically get in vegetables where we don't grow. I'm hoping that... We might have a couple of very talented vegetable suppliers too to fill in. You know, it's only the two of us. It'd be nice to raise a few more acres of vegetables, but there's a lot of activities already. Yep. When there's only two of you, you only have so much energy and so many hours in the day. Right. 23:58 The only reason I brought all that up about the rules here in Minnesota is that every state has different rules about food production and selling whatever you grow or raise. And I want people to know that because it's not as easy as throwing up a building and being like, I'm going to sell everything I can get my hands on. right. And the laws changed because we purchased a freeze dryer. This was three and a half years ago, maybe four, just for our own garden, because, you know, 24:28 It's just a great way to preserve your food. And it became legal in Wisconsin for five years or five months to sell it. And just like that, that cap made it illegal. You know, so you really have to be aware of your state laws and rules and regulations. Yeah, because they change. Sometimes they change for a second. Minnesota does not allow us to ship big goods anywhere. No. 24:58 They changed the law a couple months ago that in 2027, cottage food producers will be allowed to baked goods. I'm like, why 2027? Why not now? Right. What's the two years? What's going to happen in two years? Yeah. And I read it and I was like, I'm going to swear a blue streak, not on my podcast, but I did. I used every swear word I could find when I read it. 25:25 And it all came out of my face, so I never utter it on the podcast. But I was just like, I do not understand what the hangup is. And I never will understand it because I can't get anybody in our government to have a conversation with me about it, because that would be very awkward. But yeah, the laws change, things happen, and it only takes one really dangerous experience and the laws will change immediately. 25:55 Right. So you got to work with your government and I'm very excited that we're allowed to sell my friends duck eggs at our farm stand because somebody stopped in the other day, bought duck eggs and talked to my husband and was like, um, do they have ducks or duck meat? Do they sell duck meat? And my husband was like, I don't know. And then he said, do they have goats? And they do. And he said, 26:23 Do they sell goat meat? And my husband was like, I don't know, but here's everything's on the little label on the carton of duck eggs. So feel free to email them or call them because they'll be happy to answer your questions. So hopefully our friends will get some more business out of the back. They're selling duck eggs. Right. It's all about supporting one another. It's a tough gig to do farmers markets and trying to sell your own produce or products. But you know, if you have the other farmers with you, it sure makes the journey a lot. 26:52 easier and lot more friendly. Yes. And do you guys end up bartering with the other vendors? Absolutely. We do. And when we first started doing farmers markets, I mean, it was a big awakening for me. know, a couple of things I learned was, um, it's when you go to a market and set up a stand, it's not a competition, it's a community. And the other thing I learned is, 27:20 We're packing the car and I'm going there to shop. Right. It's like you come back and say, okay, I don't have a lot of cash left, but I got all this cool product or this stuff that's good for you. I'm going to try something new. 27:37 Yeah, my husband is the one that goes to the farmers market. I have anxiety. have social anxiety and I don't want to go hang with a bunch of people that are strangers. It freaks me out. So he will text me halfway through and say, can I trade some of our lettuce for bagels or sourdough bread or cookies or whatever? And I'm like, yes, because then you're not spending the money that you made selling things. Yes, that would be great. 28:05 Right. I had like a vegetable producer that because they're always early on there, know, lettuce and everything. So cookies and we'd do a vegetable swap for cookies. So that worked out great for me and for them. Yeah. And I don't bake a lot because it would just be gone in a day here. So my husband will bring home like six molasses cookies from Elaine who makes them amazing cookies. And we each, my son still lives here too. So we, all three of us, we each get 28:34 two cookies and that's it and they're gone. I don't have to worry about my husband eating an entire pan of cookies, you know? Right. That's me. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. And we all know that sweet treats are probably not great to eat an entire pan of in one day. So I would much rather he barter for cookies. Right. Yeah. I do like that bartering system though, or even 29:03 Yeah, at the end of the day, it's like, you know, you have something that might not be good the next day, you know, just that it's not looking as nice or their packaging isn't great. You go around to the other vendors and you just give them out to them. Uh huh. Everybody appreciates freebies. Oh, absolutely. When we were rolling in tomatoes two summers ago, well, three now. 29:28 Not counting this year, last year we were not rolling in tomatoes. Tomato season was terrible here. So the one before that, we had tons of tomatoes and we were just giving tomatoes away because we just didn't have any way to use them all up. So yeah, I get it. You share the wealth when you have it. Right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. How was your growing season in Wisconsin last year? It was good. We did really well with everything. 29:58 think everything we had. Yeah, last year was phenomenal. This year we're looking good as well. We've had quite a bit of rain every few days. We get a good shower of rain so we didn't have to water much. Last year I think we ended up watering quite a bit but... we watered a lot last year in July and August. But this year, boy, we're right on track. I feel bad for some of the farmers that have to make hay this year because every three days it's raining which... 30:27 I'm not complaining, I don't have to set up sprinklers, I'm okay with that. 30:34 Yeah, but it's bad for hay. How's your season so far then? This year has been fabulous. Last year, soft lemons. 30:50 Hmm. This year we had, we've, we've been picking peas for a week now. The peas are huge. Wow. And, we have zucchini coming in. We have had lettuces coming in for a month. So it's been wonderful. And we're surrounded by a cornfield. The corn is almost as tall as I am and I'm five foot nine. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. 31:18 Then high by the 4th of July has been met. Have you had quite a bit of consistent rain as well then? Yeah, it's been really weird. Like we'll get a week where we get a little bit of rain every day, but the sun will also come out for a couple of hours. And then we'll get like four or five days where it's just sunny and reasonable. And then we'll get a couple of days where it's super freaking hot and then it'll rain again. 31:45 So it's been very up and down instead of either no rain or too much rain. Last summer we had so much rain. We lost like at least $5,000 last year because we just couldn't get anything to grow. That's heart, that's disheartening. It was terrible. I have bitched a lot on the podcast about it, so I'm not going to do that today. Let's just say I am so thankful. 32:15 for this year because my husband kept saying, I'm not gonna be mad about it. I'm just gonna wait until next year, next year will be better. And it hasn't. Wow. And that's farming really. Every farmer ever, you'll hear him say that. Yeah, thank God he has a jobby job or we would have starved to death this winter. I hear ya. 32:40 All right, guys. Well, I try to keep this to half an hour. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. And it was really fun. you very much. We appreciate this. Same here. Thank you. And where can people find you? Follow us on Facebook. It's our little FarmWI. OK, are you on Instagram at all? No, we are not that tech savvy yet. So we're still trying to figure out YouTube. We would like to do a YouTube channel. 33:08 And eventually I'll get a website out there for it as well. But right now we're just Facebook. All right. Well, you guys heard it here first. You will find Sharon and Ben at Our Little Farm in Wisconsin. They're on Facebook. As always, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com. And Sharon and Ben, I hope you have a wonderful day. We wish you the same. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again. Bye. Bye.
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| Alpine View Farm | 01 Jul 2025 | 00:28:19 | |
Today I'm talking with Kim at Alpine View Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 00:28 Today I'm talking with Kim at Alpine View Farm in California. Good morning, Kim. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm fine. How are you? I'm good. How's California this morning? How's the weather? Pretty good. Can't complain. It's a little warm, but it could be a lot worse. Yeah, the weather this year has been much better than last spring and summer, but it's still been kind of weird. I'm in Minnesota. It's a beautiful, sunny, relatively cool day. 00:57 I'm kind of tickled with that. Yeah, for sure. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Alpine View Farm. Well, we moved to the country about eight years ago and I quickly fell in love with the homesteading lifestyle. I've always called myself a country girl at heart, but this is the first time I've ever lived in a country. So I, uh, 01:26 I guess I was foreshadowing my future without even realizing it. But we just love it here and we, you know, started a garden and then we started with five chickens and now we're up to 36. So, you know, that chicken math kicked in pretty fast. And then I learned how to can and I learned how to make sourdough bread. And so that 01:55 has evolved into a little business where I have a micro bakery. And so I'm just really enjoying this new part of my life. Nice. What else do you make for your micro bakery? I focus mainly on sourdough sandwich bread, and I also make these really fun pull apart wreaths. And that's our focus in terms of the bakery at this time. 02:24 Awesome. So where do you sell your baked goods? Well, we started off just selling from the farm and then this year we've expanded. We sell at this really cute general store in a little town near us. And then last month we just started selling at a local farmers market. Nice. Awesome. 02:51 So I don't want to be nosy, but I'm going to ask the question, how much do you sell your sourdough loaves Oh, for the bread. So we sell our loaves for $7 and we sell the pull apart rolls for $10. And I've been told by customers, it's too cheap. But we wanted to try to keep things, you know, manageable for people. 03:21 You know, times have been really tight for so many people and, um, you know, we just want to make a little bit of money for ourselves, but also make our products really sellable to everybody. Awesome. The reason that I asked so pointedly, sorry, is that a loaf of name brand bread at the store, like Pepperidge farm or whatever. 03:49 is going for seven to eight dollars a loaf right now. So you are absolutely reasonable and your product is better. So I think you're doing a good thing. I know we have our bread contain six ingredients and we use all organic ingredients. And you know, a lot of people don't realize this, but a lot of the bread that's sold in the store that's labeled as sourdough 04:17 not actually sourdough. They're using yeast and something to make it flavored like sourdough, but they're not even using a sourdough starter. So it's not the fermented food that's such a health benefit for us. Isn't it amazing what major companies get away with but we small home bakers have to label everything specifically? Oh, I know it's so 04:47 difficult to get everything on a cottage food label. And not to mention the fees involved to be able to sell the products and even we have to get in California, an egg license to sell our eggs. You know, I just kind of laugh and shake my head because I'm thinking, do you know how many eggs I need to sell to cover this or? 05:13 Do you know how many loaves of bread I need to sell to cover this cost? Yeah, it just, doesn't seem fair. And I'm not implying that life is fair, but it just doesn't seem right, you know? Yeah, it actually feels like they're trying to push out the small farmer or the small producer. 05:37 um, not help them succeed. But I'm hopeful that there's going to be some positive changes in the future along those lines. Yes. And as long as we small producers continue to fight and to work and to produce good things, we'll probably win the battle at some point. Yes. I hope. In fact, a funny story, I have some tomatoes coming in, so I was going to add 06:04 those last weekend to our things that we're selling at the farmers market. And you know, this is new to me, the market. And so somebody who helps organize asked me, well, do you have a permit? And I said, no. So I need to this week, contact our agricultural department and get a permit to be able to sell tomatoes and other fruits and veggies. 06:33 But the good news is, is this one is not supposed to have a feet. Good. Good. Do you have a farm stand at your farm? You know, I don't. And that's kind of been a dream of mine. But I shifted that dream because our road is a dead end road. And so we're not going to be getting the traffic I think that is needed to make a farm stand succeed. So when the farmers market 07:02 came up, an opportunity came up to sell at the farmers market. At first I was really resistant because my husband and I, we both work full time, we're high school teachers in the county. And so, you know, that's kind of a lot to take that weekly commitment on. But I came around to it and just, like I said, shifted that goal from the farm stand 07:31 to the farmers market. And I think that was a really good move. 07:37 For sure. How big is your garden, Kim? Well, we do raised beds because we have a really big gopher and mole problem in the area. so we started off with a pretty large horseshoe shaped bed. And then we have since added water troughs to expand the garden. 08:05 Last year we started from chicks for the first time when we expanded our chicken operation. And so we used the water troughs as brooders and then we poked holes in them and, you know, leveled them out and put them in the garden to expand the garden. we have a pretty, pretty good area for gardening. I'd say we have about 08:35 ten raised beds of varying sizes, but it's really beautiful and in the future we're going to expand as well. Awesome. And you're in California so you can grow year-round, yes? Pretty much. We have a really long growing season for spring and summer. And what's really neat is we live on a hill. 09:02 And it's almost like we have our own microclimate, I've noticed. And so even through the winter, we have a lot of things that still flower and we hardly ever get any fog or frost. So I can pretty much put my spring and summer veggies in the raised beds about April 1st. know, obviously I track the weather and then we're 09:29 still hauling in tomatoes the end of October. Okay, so I have a very specific question about tomatoes. There are two different kinds of tomato plants. are determinate and there are indeterminate. Determinate means that the plant has a limited life cycle and it will die when it's done producing. Indeterminate will keep producing until it gets frosted or gets dug out. So 09:57 In California, if you plant an indeterminate tomato, it will just continue to grow until it's too cold for it to grow? Yes. In fact, last year we had fresh tomatoes for Christmas dinner. I am so jealous. I know. Now, they weren't still on the vine in December, but I had picked them green. I transferred everything out of the 10:26 summer garden and wanted to start the fall garden. So I picked them, I think early November when they were green and then just let them ripen on a counter. And yeah, that was really special. Yeah. A fresh tomato from your garden for Christmas dinner is fabulous. That doesn't happen here. It's too cold. Although, although I think my husband still has tomato plants in the greenhouse and hope 10:56 Hopefully the greenhouse will stay warm enough so that we can have fresh tomatoes through November and maybe we might eat out a good one for December, but I doubt it. Well, I hope you get the best outcome on that. Yeah, me too. I just, I love bruschetta. I don't know if you know what that is. It's a, it's an appetizer at restaurants basically. And about January. 11:26 We buy tomatoes from the store from a company that is in Minnesota that does greenhouse tomatoes and they do a really good job. They taste like a tomato. It's really lovely, but it's never gonna taste like tomatoes that we get in July and August from our garden. 11:45 So that's nice. Yeah, that's one of the things that we sell and can can and sell the brachetta You have do you still have your dog Claire? Still have what i'm sorry your dog claire. Oh, yes, we have our dogs. We have two cattle dogs Okay, I was gonna ask you what kind of dog claire is because I was looking at your instagram page and she's beautiful Thank you. Yeah, she is 12:15 So special. 12:18 Yes, she got bit by a rattlesnake. that correct? Yes, she did. A few weeks ago, she cornered a rattlesnake and got bit, I think, twice. But fortunately, she was fine. I took her to the emergency vet and they checked all of her vitals and they looked good. And then, you know, I thought we were going to have to get the anti-venom. 12:47 Um, and the vet said she could probably just do fine with Benadryl. And so he gave her a shot of Benadryl and then I, um, excuse me, for a few days followed up with, um, giving her Benadryl in a pill form and she healed really well. Um, the antivenom, I didn't know this is $1,500. 13:16 Oh, Ben had drove a lot less. Yeah, I definitely would have paid that. She's worth it. You know, I would have worked another year to keep this dog alive, but I'm glad we didn't have to do that. And I really appreciated our vet explaining things and going the more reasonable route because it was absolutely fine for her. Is she a small dog? 13:45 She's kind of medium. She's about 40 to 45 pounds. Okay. The reason I ask is we have a mini Australian Shepherd or an Australian Shepherd who is a small dog. She's like 35 pounds. And I would have thought that it would have been the opposite, that the Benadryl wouldn't have worked because on a smaller body the venom would take them down. But I guess that's not how that works. 14:15 Well, you know, this vet, he's been in the business for decades, definitely in his retirement years, but still working. And he said that, you know, he really doesn't see dogs die of rattlesnake bites unless they're really small or unless the snake hits on a major vein. Yeah. 14:45 So that was reassuring. Yeah, I'm really glad that she's okay because I wanted to ask about her because she's so gorgeous. And I was like, please let her still be alive because I don't want us to cry on the podcast again. Right. Well, and then last night she cornered another snake. Oh, and you know, when I first saw her and the snake, I thought it was a rattler. 15:15 and I ran to get my husband to help. then by the time we found the snake, had crawled under one of the garden beds. It didn't look like a rattlesnake upon closer inspection. But regardless, Bella did not learn her lesson. And she's just, she's all cattle dog. So I kind of figured that's the way she would be. 15:43 because she's just going to protect even if it is going to cost her. So it's one of the more difficult parts of living here, the rattlesnakes. 16:00 Yes, we don't have any poisonous. Well, we do. have timber rattlers in Minnesota, but they're not anywhere near where we live. And I am so thankful, Kim, because if a snake bit my dog, I would be, and if she died, I would be a disaster. Like the podcast would be on hold for a month because I would not be able to do it. Just, all I would do is cry. I know. I just, when she first got bit that first time, I just, 16:29 thought I was going to lose her at first because she was showing signs of distress. And I didn't realize that rattlesnake bites were so survivable for most dogs. So I was just really terrified. But yeah, I feel the same way. 16:55 has my whole heart this dog. She's a rescue. She's just the best dog we've ever owned in our entire lives. So she's just really special. huh. Our dog is not a rescue, but we got her when she was a day shy of eight weeks old and she's the first puppy we've ever gotten and raised like in the whole adult lives that my husband and I have shared together. And so there's this real, I don't know, 17:24 pride and satisfaction and the fact that we didn't ruin this dog. We've actually made her a really good dog. So I love her with my whole heart too. And I talk about her so much on the podcast and I'm sure that people are tired of it, but it's just such a huge piece of my life. Like I didn't have a puppy that was mine when I was a kid or a teenager. So I've gotten to experience this as a fully fledged adult. 17:53 It's very much like having a kid. Yeah, our other cattle dog, we got him as a puppy. We had tried to get Bella a friend through the shelter and we visited a couple of dogs with her and she did not want anything to do with them. It was so funny. And so we figured, okay, we need to get a male and we need to get a puppy. And there is something really special about raising a dog from a puppy like Bosco. 18:23 He, have you ever heard that expression, someday you're going to have somebody in your life who looks at you like you're the world and it's probably going to be a dog. Yes. That's Bosco. He adores me. It's the cutest thing. So they've become good friends and that's worked out really well for our family. Yes. And every farm needs a dog. 18:51 I swear to God it's true. Oh yeah. Almost every single place I've, every single person I've talked to on the podcast in over 18 months that has a ranch, a farm or a homestead has at least one dog, if not six. Oh yeah. They are loyal companions and our dogs take guarding the homestead very seriously from whether that be people or a predator. 19:19 They are definitely working dogs and take that to heart. Another animal I think every homestead needs is a barn cat. We've tried a couple of times to get barn cats and it just hasn't worked out. But recently, a couple months ago, we adopted a barn cat from a lady who was moving across country. 19:47 little guy is a stone cold killer, I tell you. He is bringing us home his prizes almost on a nightly basis. And you know, if you live in the country, and especially if you have chickens, you're going to get rodents. There's just no way around it. And so he has just been worth his weight in gold. Yes, we have two male barn cats and they earn their keep every single day in exactly the same way you're talking about. 20:16 I do want to go back to Maggie, my dog, for a second. The one predator that Maggie does not understand as a predator is a possum. look so much like cats that she thinks is a cat and she loves cats. Oh, how funny. We had a possum in our yard and she literally did the pose where they put their head down and wag their back and like, you want to play with me? To the possum. I was like, oh no, no, we don't play with possums. That's not a good idea. 20:46 No, that is cute. She doesn't understand that a possum is not a cat, but she does understand that a raccoon is not a cat. Oh good, because they're not as nice as possums. No, no, no, you don't want a dog tangling with a raccoon. Even if your dog has had its rabies shot, raccoons will rip up a dog. Oh boy, yeah. We try really hard to not have raccoons on the property. 21:15 Well, you know, what's funny is we did not see a raccoon until just this last year. And we thought that was so curious because we had seen all kinds of other predators and signs of other predators and we have game cams and we had never picked up a raccoon in seven years. And then just recently we've spotted a couple. So, yeah. 21:43 They look cute, but they're not cute. I was going to say I have a love-hate relationship with raccoons. They're so beautiful, but they will tear up your shit. They will injure your animals. They do carry rabies. mean, not every single raccoon has rabies, but they are known carriers. And the last thing you want to do is mess with a raccoon and end up with rabies. Yeah, definitely. 22:11 So what's your plan for your farm? Is it where you want it? Do you have plans to expand it? What's the story on that? Well, at this point, think I'm really content with the growth that we've had this year. It is definitely keeping me a little too busy, which is a good thing. I'm definitely not complaining. We're selling at the farmers markets, like I said, and then the general store. 22:40 We also make wine jelly for a local winery. And then we are going to be selling some of our jams, jellies, and apple butters at a farm stand near us. That's a really, really loved and popular organic farm stand. So that's exciting. But for future, we do have a couple of areas of growth that we would like to do. 23:10 Of course, always expanding the gardens. We'd like to expand our flowers and start selling those on a little bit larger scale. We've connected with a local nursery, or I'm sorry, not nursery, a flower shop that's interested in purchasing from local producers. And then probably in a couple of years, we want to start dairy goats. 23:39 Yeah, I'm excited about that. Cool. You're going to have to come back and tell me about that six months after you get Dairy Goats because that's an adventure and a half and I can't wait to hear all about it. So what do you grow for flowers or what are you planning on growing for flowers? This year I'm growing a lot of zinnias and cosmos. Those are a couple of my favorites. I love them because not only are they beautiful and good for pollinators, 24:08 but they have a longer base life than a lot of flowers I found. And some new ones I'm loving this year are asters. Those are doing really well and we have a few different varieties and colors. And then for a filler, I also am growing flocks this year and that has been a really nice one too, long base life and just really beautiful. In fact, when we... 24:36 have bouquets at the farmer's market, people really look at that fox and ask about it. They're not used to seeing that, I guess. So those are some of the newer ones we've been doing and really happy with. Nice. And then the obvious question that I didn't ask 25 minutes ago is, you have any citrus trees growing on your property? 25:02 Yeah, we do some dwarf citrus in half-boiled murals and those have been doing really well. We've been focusing on lemons and limes and they've just produced really well for us. they get big? The actual fruits, do they get big? 25:24 Yeah, they don't. They stay short and they're not too wide either. But this little tree that I would say is only as big as maybe a really good sized shrub produces a lot of fruit. Nice. And the other question I have is do you guys grow avocados? Because I freaking love avocados, but I 25:53 I don't eat them often enough because they're kind of expensive. All right. I know. I love them too. And they're so good for you. We don't grow avocados. 26:06 I looked into that and I don't think the climate or the zone was quite right up here. that would be a real winner if you could grow avocados. 26:21 Yes, my daughter lives in Florida and she's basically house sitting on a semi-permanent basis for her mother-in-law. And her mother-in-law has avocado trees, bushes, whatever they're called. And she was telling me that she was able to go out and just pick avocados whenever she wanted them. And I was like, I am so jealous. 26:43 That is nice form of payment right there. Yeah, I wish we could grow avocados in Minnesota in my yard because I would be doing it every year. You know, one of the things that I recently discovered as a nice alternative to buying fresh avocados, especially when they're really pricey in the grocery stores, is Costco has this organic avocado mash or 27:11 Also, they have a guacamole that they sell. And so it's a really great price because it's Costco and it lasts a long time. It comes in three different containers, the package. So it's a good way to get that avocado fix and the nutrition when it's a little harder to find avocados at a good price. wonder if Sam's Club has the same thing. will have to look. Maybe. Maybe. 27:42 All right, so Kim, thank you so much for your time today. try to keep these to half an hour. Where can people find you online? We are on Facebook, Alpine View Farm, and also on Instagram at Alpine View Farm. Awesome. I hope that you get to have your dream come true about the Dairy Goats, because I think you'll really enjoy it. Thank you. As always, people can find me at AtinyHomesteadPodcast.com. 28:10 Thanks for coming. 28:14 Have a great day. Thank you so much.
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| Sourdough for Beginners | 30 Jun 2025 | 00:43:30 | |
Today I'm talking with Sarah at Sourdough for Beginners. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 00:25 Today I'm talking with Sarah Frank at Sourdough for Beginners. Good morning, Sarah. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Are you in Canada? I am. I'm just north of Toronto in what we call cottage country. Okay. What's the weather like in Canada this morning? It's a beautiful day. A little bit overcast. We live right next to the lake. You know, it's nice and warm. It should be warm enough for the kids to go swimming later. 00:53 Nice. It is overcast and not raining. It rained really hard here yesterday. Like we had inches of water in front of our garage yesterday. It's been crazy weather this year for sure. So every time we get a decent day, we're pretty excited about it. Yeah, us too. It's, it's been, uh, it's been a much better spring than last year. And that's all I'll say. Cause I've already talked about how terrible last year was. Where are you located? I'm in Minnesota. All right. So, um, 01:23 I'm going to do a little bit of an intro here because I actually have info to share. You are an administrator for the Sourdough for Beginners Facebook group, which is really a great group. I have been stalking it because I've been learning about sourdough. And you are also an author of a book called Sourdough for Beginners, the ultimate companion for sourdough bakers. And so I really wanted to have you come chat with me because 01:52 As we were saying when we talked before, I have been avoiding sourdough like the plague because I thought it was intimidating. I thought that I would kill it. and sourdough became such a trend during COVID that I was like, eh, I don't know if I really want to do an episode about sourdough because it's very, very, very talked about online. And then a friend gave me some sourdough starter. 02:20 And now I'm learning and I made my first loaf a couple of weekends ago and it was, it was good. It turned out like a bagel texture. So it was under proofed, I've been told, but it was a loaf of bread and it was yummy with cream cheese. So I feel like I had a success. So tell me about yourself and what you do. So, um, I have a lot of kids. I'm a mom of five, two, three of my own and two stepdaughters. 02:50 We're very busy. Our kids range in age from seven to 18. We were actually just at our oldest daughter's high school graduation last night. And grads? And we've always been pretty health focused. So we always are like learning about the food science that's out there and then it's sort of across our whole family. So we are always trying to eat well and you know, we go to the gym, our kids are all athletes. 03:17 daughter's going to be playing varsity sports in university. we, about a year and a half ago, started looking at the food that we were getting from the grocery store and learned that one of the most, you know, one of the biggest culprits to poor health related to food is the bread that you buy in the grocery store. 03:43 So just like everybody else, we set out on the journey to learn about sourdough. And my sourdough starter, you know, took a really long time to get started. And I was in the big sourdough groups on Facebook. And sometimes it's hard to get an answer when those groups are so big. But ultimately I ended up figuring out not only how to make sourdough, but how to make it, you know, within a busy life and with the very most basic 04:12 cheapest ingredients and with very few tools. So the issue that we were having at the time is we were having some, you know, financial challenges. And at one point I actually went to the grocery store and had to say, I can afford either bread or the cheapest all purpose flour that they have one or the other. we just kind of took the leap. you know, fast forward about 04:36 three or four months, I'm making sourdough just like everybody else on the planet. I'm posting it on my Facebook. My friends start reaching out and asking me about it. I start sharing my sourdough starter, much like what happened to you. And then I found myself getting sore thumbs, texting with my friends all the time, kind of walking them through what to do. So I started this group on Facebook, Sourdough for Beginners, and I've never had a Facebook group before, so I didn't put any thought into, you know, a public group or 05:06 private group or anything like that. I just started the group and started typing out step-by-step instructions on how to make sourdough. So then when my friends would take some sourdough starter from me or reach out and say that they had sourdough starter, I would just give them a link to this group. Well, the group went crazy. 05:27 Like I think in the first month there was 5,000 members and by the sixth month there was 250,000 members and by the first year we were well over a million. And I think the group's approaching 2 million members now. I haven't looked at it today. So it just, and that's all in the, in the sort of the, the span of 18 months or so, two years at max. So, you know, it just kind of evolved organically from there. 05:56 People were coming on asking questions. I found myself answering the same questions all the time. Really early in the process, a lady named Barb Froude, who's located in Alberta, joined the group and started helping me. So she was sort of our first moderator who came on and she's still our, what I call my chief moderator. She's in that group every day trying to get rid of the spam and get the literature and the information that we have. 06:25 set up for all the newbies who joined the group. I think we're getting sometimes like 10 to 20,000 new members per day. So the biggest struggle with the group is getting that information out there, right? So that sort of led into, okay, well, let's make a video on YouTube. So we made the beginner bread recipe video and it's just kind of evolved from there. It got to a point where 06:54 It became basically my full-time job to just, you know, and luckily with the internet, there's ways that you can take something that you're passionate about and that people are responding to, like they were with Sarado for beginners. And, you know, if you, if you focus on it, you can build it up so that you can give it more time because there's, there's obviously rewards that come back to you. Things like book sales and ad revenue and that sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Holy crap, Sarah, that's... 07:23 That is like an overnight success story for your group. That's unheard of. 07:31 It was, it was shocking. We've done some work in internet within our family. We've, you know, we spent some time talking about it within the family. We're fairly close-knit family. We've got family in Texas and Arizona and up here in Canada. And so as it was going, you know, I had a lot of encouragement from the family. I would wake up in the morning and there'd be a screenshot of my group from my aunt in Texas. 08:01 And she'd be like, Sarah, you're at 50,000. Like what's happening here? You know, it hasn't been without challenges. Obviously, you know, managing a group means that you're managing all personalities that are out there. But I've been lucky that this group of moderators, this core group of moderators who have joined, spend a lot of time within the admin group trying to talk about what we're going to focus on and what it comes down to for us is, 08:30 sourdough, sourdough only and specifically making sourdough easy. So you'll never find myself or any of the moderators within the group saying, you can't use bleach flour or you can't use plastic or you can't use metal or you have to do it this way. What the message we're trying to send is you could be in financial hardship just like Sarah was and not be able to afford any tools and use just, you know, $3.99 bleach all purpose flour. 09:00 and make this happen. And then you can learn so much over time that you can slowly collect all the things that you would want and get to the point where I'm at where I have, you know, I can grind my own grains. I'm buying wheat from a local farmer. You know, I'm making the healthiest of healthy bread, right? But I got started with nothing. And that's the message that we're trying to put out. 09:25 specifically with sourdough for beginners. There's some really excellent groups out there and amazing teachers. So sourdough geeks gives a really good overview of like the advanced ways of making sourdough and the best practices for making the best sourdough that you can. And then there's guys like Tom Kakuza who runs the sourdough journey. He can tell you about the science of sourdough and all of those things I think are part of the journey. 09:54 do sourdough, it's kind of up to you. Like what part of the journey do you want to enter in on? Yes, exactly. And I love that the premise of your group is that anybody can try this, do it with what they have, because I always say do what you can with what you have, where you are. And so, so I had said in our emails back and forth that I had some questions and my first question is, can you tell how you get a starter? 10:23 started. So that's the easiest part, but it seems to be the most intimidating. And I think people get really confused about it. So there's ways to go into all the math. But really, all you need is flour and water. You take equal parts flour and water. Our suggestion is that you start with very small amounts. The biggest confusion that comes in with starter is the word discard. And 10:53 The easiest way to explain that is that when you're building a sourdough starter, you're just, all you have is flour and water, right? It's not really good for anything. And there's a certain point within the building of the sourdough starter where it starts to ferment. And so it's at a certain phase within the fermentation process where it wouldn't taste very good. It isn't good. So while you're building your starter, you should be kind of throwing away 11:22 the waste every day. But once your starter is established, you never need to discard again. So that discard question is the biggest confusion. But really, all you do is, let's say, 50 grams if you've got a scale. And by the way, if you invest in nothing, I really recommend getting a scale only because it makes things so very much easier. But it's not necessary. You can use cups and everything else. One of the biggest American questions we get is, why is everything in grams when 11:52 you know, we're American and we operate in cups and ounces, but grams are just more, what's the word, accurate. You can get much smaller measurements with grams than you can with ounces. So 50 grams each of water and flour or half a cup of flour and a quarter cup of water. So if you're operating on cups, water weighs approximately twice as much as flour. It doesn't really need to be 12:20 a scientific experiment where everything's exact. You just mix the flour and water together and leave it sitting on the counter until tomorrow. And then every day thereafter, you bring that starter back to the initial amount that you started with. So you started with 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water, which was 100 grams on the first day, right? Throw half of that away, bring yourself back. 12:48 to 50 grams. So now you have 50 grams of starter, 50 grams of water, and 50 grams of flour added in today. Right? So now you've got 150 grams total. On day three, throw away 100 grams, get yourself back to 50 grams and do that every day. And when you try to say it out loud, it sounds so confusing. And this is where people start to get caught up with the starter. Right? But really all you need to do 13:18 is keep giving that starter base new flour to eat through and water to help it do that process until it activates. If you're doing things properly, around days six or seven, the starter should start to double in size and it should do that every time you feed it. Does that sound crazy? Does that sound too confusing? 13:45 Well, not to me because I've done it. but back years ago when people were like, do you do sourdough? I was like, hell no. I don't do sourdough. I don't have time for that. It's a pain in the butt. hear I'm not doing it. And I was being very obstinate about it. I will, I will be very honest. I did not have time with four kids and I was doing other things. I just didn't have the want to do it. The real desire. But what I will say, 14:15 is when my friend brought me starter, I killed it. I didn't beat it for like four days and it just didn't look good and it didn't smell good. And I was like, I think I just need to start over with my own. And so I started mine from scratch and I have a scale. the first day when I set up my little mason jar with my, with my 50 grams of flour and my 50 grams of water, I was like, okay, slick. got it. And I let it sit overnight and then 14:44 the same time the next day, pulled off half, put in 50 more grams of flour, 50 more grams of water, and did that for six, seven days. And it started to do the thing. And I was like, oh my God, I did it. I was so proud of myself, Sarah, that I did it. You're one of those lucky first try people. Yeah. If it was one message I could get out to everybody who wanted to try sourdough. 15:12 It would be that sourdough is so popular right now, unless you like want to overcome the challenge of making your own starter, you could just really go on marketplace on Facebook and there's people willing to give it away or who want 10 bucks for it. Oh yeah. You know, like it's just so much easier to get that starter, but if you can get through the process. So on the YouTube channel that we have set up sourdough for beginners, 15:39 All of the videos there are specifically geared towards people who are just getting started and who have no idea what the heck is going on. Right. And what we've done is we've sorted it into playlists. So if you hit the sourdough for beginners YouTube channel right across the top, says playlist. The playlists are kind of in the order you would need to follow them. So you can just go to the starter playlist and right there it's like, here's a day by day. Follow me for seven days. And. 16:07 we'll make this starter together. And while each day is happening, all those little nuances that come up, all those questions that, you know, there's probably about 25 questions about sourdough that come up over and over and over in the group, right? And when you get to 2 million members, you've just seen them a lot and you know how to answer them. Well, in these videos, when I make them, I just stand there and talk to them. You know, this might happen or that might happen. You know, focus on this. These are the most common mistakes that we see, whatever it means. 16:39 And that is amazing because I didn't know about your podcast and not podcast, your, your, um, can't talk. Didn't know about your Facebook group when I started my sourdough starter. So if I had known, I had known about the videos that would have been really helpful. And now that I know, I probably will go watch them just because I can. Um, the other thing is that. 17:05 This is a really cool science experiment for your kids to be involved in because cooking is chemistry. 17:14 Right, my 10 year old stepdaughter like brags to people she's like, I know. She calls, I know the sourdough recipe off by heart, you know, and most of it she can do. Her arm's not quite strong enough for some of the initial mixing, but you know, with that supervision and um, 17:37 I put my kids' butts on the counter as soon as they could sit up, all of them. By the time my oldest daughter was 11, I could yell down the stairs, Lexi, make me cookies. I've just always included them and I think it's good for them. Like you said, it helps them with science, it helps them with math, it helps them with understanding nutrition, science and health and everything else. 18:06 So it's fantastic with kids. really is. of the most viral posts that we get in the group are people showing what their kids are doing with sourdough. Awesome. I love it. And sourdough is very messy and kids love getting their hands in mud. They're going to love getting their hands in sourdough. Oh yeah. I didn't realize how sticky that recipe for the shortcut. 18:36 um, bread loaf recipe is. I was like, Whoa, this is some sticky dough, man. Yeah. So, you know, usually if you've got sticky dough, um, one of two things has happened. Um, the first thing is that you've used a high hydration recipe, which we have what we call the beginner bread recipe, which is specifically on purpose, lower hydration. 19:04 And then we have like the level two recipe, which starts increasing that hydration. The lower your hydration is, the denser your bread is going to be, but the easier it is to manage. the higher your hydration is, the stickier your dough is going to be and the harder it is to manage. your probability of success as a beginner comes up quite a bit if you're working with a lower hydration. that's, that's sort of number one. Number two is, um, if you overproof your dough, it becomes very sticky. 19:34 And as a beginner, it's very hard to fix that later. And that's one of the most common frustration posts that we get is it's too sticky, I can't manage it. I followed the beginner bread recipe, but it's too sticky, I can't manage it. there's certain things that I and the moderators in my group feel strongly about, although we never try to really push our opinions on anyone. just say, we think this. And one of the things that we think is that 20:01 leaving your dough on the counter overnight is almost never a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have, I don't dare to leave my dough on the counter overnight because my dog would figure out a way to get it. And she's a little tiny dog, but she would figure out a way to get it because it probably smells good to her. If I was going to leave it overnight, I would put it in the refrigerator. but the recipe that I used, found online cause that's how I find everything these days. 20:30 And when I put all the ingredients together, it was very dry. And I was like, I think I screwed this up already. And when I read further in the recipe, it said that the dough would be very dry to start and to leave it with a towel over the bowl to rise for an hour because it would get wetter as it did its thing. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go with this because I don't know what I'm doing. Came back an hour later and it had become much 21:00 a much wetter dough. And I was like, I will be damned if it worked. This is so cool. So basically I'm highly entertained by the process and I haven't made another loaf since we were, we were busy with stuff and I've got my, my sourdough starters, two of them downstairs that are all ready to be turned into bread this weekend. And I am, I'm going to on Sunday, I'm going to make two loaves this time and I'm going to make sure that I actually let it rise long enough. 21:27 because last time I think I didn't let it rise quite long enough. my suggestion for you, once your dough is mixed up, if you can find clear straight sided containers, and by the way, in the beginner baking playlist on the YouTube channel, there's a video called Do This One Thing to Guarantee Bulk Proofing Success. I find that people who've made 21:56 yeast bread before struggle the most with sourdough at first. mean, usually they, catch up really quickly. But if you've made bread with yeast in the past, the way yeast bread rises is it rises like a ball, whatever shape it was when it started, it kind of continues to rise in that shape. The sourdough, what it does is it fills in all the spaces first. So one of the most common things that we see in sourdough is my 22:23 dough has been sitting here on the counter for 10 hours and it didn't rise. And the thing is that it did rise, but you've got it in a giant bowl that has very sloped sides. And so your dough has kind of spread sideways rather than up. Okay. So people end up overproofing their dough. So what we do is we find, and by the way, I didn't invent this. I learned this somewhere on the internet. I just started to teach it, right? 22:51 There's something called like the alico method where people do it with a very small container with a piece of their dough. But essentially what we're saying is if you get a container that fits your dough fairly tightly, so for a standard size loaf, that would be like a one and a half or two quart sort of Tupperware container with clear straight sides. And you get your dough into that and then you mark the height of it. Then as. 23:18 the day goes on, can see exactly how much it's risen because it's tied up against the sides of the dough. So the dough can only go upwards. Okay. And so when it, when you're looking for the rise, do you want it to double? It depends on, there's a lot of factors that would affect why you would let the dough rise more or less. In fact, Tom Cacusa from the sourdough journey has an excellent chart. 23:48 that circulates on the internet. Now that I said it, you'll find it. But essentially what he says is, you know, if it's this temperature in your house and your dough was this temperature at the beginning, then it needs to rise 35%, 65%, whatever. It's very scientific. And I'll admit I've never once ever done it that way. But usually to be on the safe side as a beginner, what I say 24:13 is try to stay very consistent and only change one thing at a time. Pick a place to start. If you're gonna use the clear straight sided container and you're gonna let it rise, I would say let it rise to about 75%. Okay. And see how that turns out. If it falls a little flat on you when you bake it, then maybe go for 50 or 65 % next time. If it's still not as airy as you want it to be, then maybe let it rise a little bit more. 24:40 Because that rise process, all that's happening is the dough is fermenting and creating carbon dioxide bubbles. So it's just a matter of how big those bubbles are. If the bubbles aren't big enough, then it's very dense bread, right? If the bubbles are too big, they become just like, you know, when you blow a bubble, right? The bigger it gets, the thinner the skin is, the more likely it is to pop, right? If your carbon dioxide bubbles get too big, then your bread isn't strong enough to hold its own weight. 25:09 before it springs in the oven. Yes, exactly. So really, this is all- Those questions are always funny because people are always like, what percentage? I'm like, I don't know, do it by eye. Yeah, I feel like a lot of sourdough baking is by eye and by feel. And I kind of love it. It's very zen. It's very relaxing once you get, once you become unafraid, 25:38 It's very relaxing because you're learning. Exactly. Exactly. The stretch and pull thing. When I read stretch and pull, was like, I don't know what that means. And I did see a video about it. And I was like, oh, you literally take the top part, stretch it and put it down on top. And then you turn the bowl and you do it again. Turn the bowl, do it again. Turn the bowl, do it again. That's a stretch and pull. And the first time was great. 26:06 The second time the dough was slightly stickier because it had done its thing and that was a little messy. The third stretch and pull was fine. Fourth stretch and pull was fine and that's all the recipe required. And I was like, this bread is going to be dense. It's going to be a break, but I'm going to do it anyway. And I did it and it was fine. And the reason I say all that is because if you don't start, you don't know. Yep. It's true. The best. 26:33 method for sourdough is the one that works best for you. And once you acknowledge that you have ways of doing things and you understand things a certain way and you're in a certain kind of environment, you've got humidity and you live in the Bahamas and it's very humid and you live in the desert, why would you expect your bread to be the same? Once you understand that the process that seems to work 27:02 best and most peacefully and most consistently for you is the best process, then you don't have to worry about all the things that are out there. We have kind of a list of what we call the essential processes that we think, and it's not necessarily that you have to do them, but we think that if you follow this set of essential processes, you have a much higher probability of success on your first few tries, if that makes sense. 27:32 And if you fail on the first or second try, just keep trying. Eventually you're going to get it. That's right. That's right. Or some people just give up and that's okay too, because you can go to any farmer's market now and get a beautiful loaf of sourdough from somebody who is, you know, supporting their family by making it for 10 or $12. So it's not like you can't enjoy sourdough. Some people just come in and we see that post in the group all the time. You guys are all amazing. 28:00 I've enjoyed this journey so much. I hate sourdough. I'm never making it again, but I love the way it tastes. So I'll be at my farmer's market every Saturday. Yeah. And if you're supporting your local bakers, that's a great thing to do too. Um, the other thing that I see a lot of is people are frustrated because they can't make the beautiful fancy loaves of sourdough bread yet. 28:27 Honestly, those are great. mean, if you are that, I don't know, entertained with making sourdough and doing all the fancy designs on the crust, have at it. All I want right now is to just make a good sandwich loaf. I'm good with that. Right. We call those the insta loaves. And, you know, there's some people who have artistic ability. You know what I mean? Like it's, 28:55 It's the same as saying, you know, I've never picked up a pen and drawn something in my life, but I'd love to be able to draw a beautiful portrait of my mother. You know what I mean? Like you have to acknowledge this artistic ability, but everybody can do some beautiful scoring. Um, there's a lot of tricks with scoring that actually can make the scoring process better and the bread itself better. Um, but it's one of those things where you kind of need to like master the basics first. So in our. 29:25 in our world, call it the essential processes, master the essential processes, understand that there's all these other cool processes out there that exist and that could potentially make your future bread better, right? Things like mixing your flour and water the night before and letting it ferment overnight before you add your starter, adding your starter and salt later, you know, doing these intricate score techniques, going to super high hydration, all of those things exist. 29:54 But if you just come back and master the basics first and get a recipe that you're really enjoying, then you only have to make tiny little adjustments all the time to get to that perfect loaf. And then once you're at the perfect loaf and you can do that every single time or most of the time, because by the way, I still mess up loaves every once in a while. Nine times out of 10, I already knew I messed it up before it goes in the oven, but I just bake it anyway. 30:22 You know, then once you get to that, then you can start exploring sort of those artistic things. And there are influencers out there who just do beautiful work and they do it slow enough so that you can kind of copy them, right? that's influencers are generally putting their stuff out to teach you how, but I mean, if you are going to copy them, make sure you give them credit, course, right? But especially with artistic stuff, stuff that's, you know, that they designed in their own mind. 30:51 But scoring is one of those things. we call it, we say that there's two kinds of scores. There's the functional score that you actually need to assist the bread in rising. And then there's aesthetic store scores, which you're just doing because you like it. The aesthetic scores are the ones that are the fancy one. Yeah. So you need to put a score in your bread for the science part of it. Right. So. 31:21 You've fed your starter, it's risen. You've mixed your dough. You were calling it dry earlier. used to shaggy loaf, right? You've stretched and fold it three or four times every 30 minutes. You've put it in a clear straight-sided container. You've let it rise to somewhere between 65 and a hundred percent. So somewhere between one and a half times to two times its size. And you you've dumped it out. 31:51 pre-shaped it, you've shaped it, maybe you've cold-proofed it overnight, maybe you're just gonna bake it straight away. The score that goes into the bread and the way you hold your lame or your razor is gonna kind of affect the way the bread looks. And again, those things come with practice and over time. But essentially you need a score line that goes from one end of the bread to the other that's about a half an inch deep. 32:19 And the reason for that is that when you let the dough rise and then you pre-shaped it and shaped it, you trapped all those carbon dioxide bubbles in there. And it's really funny on Facebook, whenever I do a live and I start demonstrating this with my hands, how the dough sort of starts out looking like kind of flat and round. And then in the oven, it springs. I start doing this sort of upward motion with my hands and then. 32:46 Facebook Live makes hearts happen and it's hilarious. People go nuts. putting this score line in is sort of alleviating some of the pressure on the bread so that it can do that spring. So what sourdough does is it goes in as this kind of bubbly ball and then it explodes from the inside out. And so that's how you get that belly, that line that everybody's, people call it an ear. 33:12 Right? It's this coveted thing that everybody wants to see on their own sourdough. And that score, that essential score, that functional score is what assists with that. And a little trick that you can use is once you put your bread in the oven, set a timer for seven or eight minutes and look at your bread. And if your bread looks like that score that you cut is fusing together, what it means is that your bread sort of a little bit too heavy, cut that score line again. 33:40 at seven or eight minutes, give it a second chance to explode outward in because that's oven rise is what is the determinant of a good sourdough loaf or not. But of course it's everything that leads up to that that determines whether or not that's gonna happen. Gosh, I could go on forever. You're gonna have to stop me and ask me your questions. I feel like sourdough bread baking is 34:10 all about anticipation. Right. So, um, the other thing is, is you were talking about the discard at the beginning and I keep seeing recipes for, for discard and somebody told me they make discard chocolate chip cookies and I was like, huh, okay. The recipe on my YouTube channel. They're so good. You'll never make chocolate chippies chip, chocolate chippies, chocolate chip cookies. 34:38 without sourdough starter again. Yeah, chocolate chippies work. I like that. I'm going start calling them chocolate chippy cookies. It'll be- Here's the thing. You should. You know what? It's just going to be a thing now for me forever. I'm just going to tell all the girls that's what they have to call it. Yeah. I think that'd be great. If my kids were still little, they would love that. They would giggle every time I said it. So I do have a question. Did you self-publish your book or did you do it through a publisher? 35:07 I just figured out how to use the software to build the book and self-published it on Amazon. Wow. You just started doing sourdough, what, two years ago? Yep. You're impressive. And then just lived and breathed it for about 18 months. And I got a lot of help. I'm an Indigenous woman. 35:37 And they're in Canada, sometimes there's good programs for us. So there was a program called First Nations Women's Entrepreneurs, and they had a program where they would assist with, you know, building up a business. So they helped me with getting the website built, getting all the resources put together to start getting the YouTube channel built, you know, all of that sort of like. 36:07 internet stuff. And like I said, my family does have a little bit of a background in the internet. So it wasn't, it wasn't like it was entirely new to me to work on sort of the, the teaching side of the internet and the teaching side of something, right? And then with that book, all it really is, is a compilation of all these recipes that I've come up with. 36:34 on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis to contribute to the group. Okay, awesome. You are a very talented woman, Sarah. Thank you. Wow. I just feel like a normal human, by the way. I just made sourdough and shared with my friends. That literally is what happened. But I certainly would never downplay, you know, if you'd want to do something like this, if you want to teach about something. 37:03 It's important that you're passionate about it that it's something that you really want to do all the time, right? Otherwise it starts to get old. And there is definitely a lot of work that goes into building up something like this. Yeah. When I started the podcast back in August of 23, for the first six months, the word podcast came out of my mouth more times than it had in my entire life. 37:30 I literally was like, cannot say the word podcast again for a week. I've got to stop doing this. And my husband was like, don't. And I said, why? And he said, because you're so excited about this. He said, this is the thing you're meant to do. Feel free to talk about it all you want. He said, I haven't seen you this excited in years about anything that is, that's work. And I was like, oh, okay. So I thought I was making you crazy. He said, no, he said, you're driving yourself crazy, but it's a good crazy. 38:00 That's fantastic. That's so I think I think I think sourdough is the same for you. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's just and you know, sometimes there's just opportunities that you can seize. And like you said, you know, your husband encouraged you to seize it. But sourdough has been a family affair around here. I tell you like my same thing with me. My spouse is there trying to hold the camera for me and trying to tell me, you know, 38:27 try this, try that. He's in some of my videos doing his funny stuff, you know, like it's been, you're lucky when you can, you're lucky when you can have all of those things kind of fall together. But even if you don't have all of those things, if you, you love it, then you you should, you should do it. Yes. And honestly, making a loaf of sourdough bread costs less than buying the sourdough, buying any kind of bread at the store. It really does. 38:56 It's the best, think the most fun part. So just going back to that book, like the way I got all these recipes and just because you mentioned your husband, every recipe I made was something that my family asked me to make. the first one, my husband was like, I saw that people are making cinnamon buns with sourdough starter in them. And that's like his favorite thing on the planet. So we just made them, right? And then we tweaked the recipe and 39:26 You know what I mean? Tried to make it the way we wanted it to be. then since you're in the group and you're operating the sourdough YouTube and everything, might as well share it with everybody. And over the two years, that's just kind of how it went. Cinnamon buns, dinner rolls, sandwich bread, you know. And on the YouTube channel, there's a playlist called Discard Recipes, even though it's not technically discard. That word discard is so confusing for people. 39:53 Well, feel like most of recipes you can use active starter. If you want. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like discard comes across as negative and maybe we should call it bonus bonus starter. That would be good. That would be good. The only time you really need to throw your starter away and you really should throw it away is just in that first six or seven days. And I, some people are very against waste and I completely understand that. But we're talking about like. 40:23 in total about a cup of flour. know, after that, so the, so the general rule with what we would call discard recipes or recipes that are everything other than sourdough bread is if the recipe needs to rise, then it needs to be either active starter or inactive starter with a little bit of yeast added. Right. So that's things like cinnamon buns. 40:52 dinner rolls, sandwich bread, know, anything that rises. If it doesn't need to rise, go ahead and use whatever starter you've got. Use your active starter, use your starter that's been sitting in your fridge for a week and hasn't been fed. It's a little less active, right? That's things like cookies and brownies and crackers. Crackers, yes. Yeah. 41:17 That's a funny thing. I've never once ever tried to make crackers. And I think that's like the most popular, um, sourdough discard recipe that there is, but it's just no one in our family eats them. But put me on some pizza dough and oh my gosh, we've made some pizza dough. We've got to try that. We have a pizza steel that you actually put in the oven and heat up. So we're going to try doing a sourdough pizza dough. Um, probably not this weekend, but next weekend we're going to try it see how turns out. 41:47 Um, well, Sarah, this was fabulous. we're wait, we're, we're 12 minutes over half an hour here because I try to get used to half an hour. Where can people find you? So at sourdough for beginners, just spell out the whole word and then it's for FOR on Facebook and YouTube. Um, when you go on Facebook and you want to find the page, um, we've got the blue check. 42:15 We're on Instagram and Tik Tok too, but much smaller followings. I, my daughter tells me I'm too old and I don't know how to use Instagram or Tik Tok properly, but it's at Sarah sourdough for beginners on Instagram and Tik Tok. But my recommendation is, know, just go to the YouTube channel. It's we've really organized it well. Okay. And tell me again, the YouTube channel handle at at sourdough for beginners. Okay. Cool. 42:42 Thank you so much for your time, Sarah. This was so fun. And honestly, I have been so not motivated to do sourdough. And as soon as my friend brought me that starter, was like, I am going to dive in. The name of our place is a tiny homestead. Sourdough bread is part of homesteading. I need to learn how to do this. So I'm thrilled that I got to talk to you today. It was great. Thank you for having me. I'm really honored. 43:11 and you know just keep doing it you're gonna really like it and it's so good for you it's good for the kids it's good for everything. It is and I'm excited to keep trying new things. As always people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Sarah I hope you have a great day. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.
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| Cooper's Knoll Farm | 27 Jun 2025 | 00:34:52 | |
Today I'm talking with Jena at Cooper's Knoll Farm. You can also follow on Facebook. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 00:27 Today I'm talking with Jena at Cooper's Knoll Farms. Good morning Jena, how are you? Good morning, I'm great, how are you? 00:37 I'm good. You're in Ohio, right? I am right in central Ohio, right outside of Columbus. How do you pronounce the name of your town? Pataskala. It's a popular question. Yeah, I was looking at your Facebook page and your About page and I was like, I have no idea how to say that one. Pataskala, Ohio. We're about 20 minutes outside of Columbus. Pretty convenient location and... 01:05 Easy to get to wherever you need to go, but still in the country, which is really nice. Yes, yes. 20 minutes to actual stores helps when you really need something. Is it raining in Ohio? Because it's raining in Minnesota this morning. It is not. We got some storms yesterday, but we're hoping it does rain today because we are in a massive heat wave. We're a heat index of 100. So everything right now is how do we keep the animals cool? 01:34 We're trying to work through this heat wave and hoping for a little rain actually. Yeah. How long has it been super hot for you? This whole week. So, but since maybe Friday last week. we've got a week straight of hundred degree index, heat index. So, and then before that it rained so much, we couldn't get it to stop. And now it's just dry and hot. So you can't get a good mix. It's all, it's one way or the other. That's it. 02:04 You can't win. Yeah, I know. I feel really bad for complaining about the fact that it was so hot this past weekend in Minnesota because we only had really hot for two days. a whole week of it, I would have been ripping my hair out by now. So. Well, yesterday was supposed to be the end of the heat index and then they have extended it now through, through Saturday. So just doing what we can to stay cool. am so sorry. It's no fun. 02:34 Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and about your farm because I can't wait to hear this story. Well, I'm Gina and my husband is Richard. We have two boys. They are ages 10 and 11. And then two years ago, we also inherited a daughter, a bonus daughter. She was 20 and 03:01 parents had both passed away in the same weekend. She spent the night with us and never left. we've got we've got a bonus daughter that's going to be 22 as well that that lives with us. And my mother-in-law lives here too. And so we have a little multi generational home and I work full time and my husband works full time too. So he's a data assessment coordinator at at Reynoldsburg schools here in Ohio. 03:31 And I work full time as a regional sales manager for an education software company. So I manage our entire Northeast territory and all of Canada. I teach jazzercise on the side when I'm not recovering from ACL surgery as I am now. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because it said something about that you didn't realize you would be bottle feeding lamb. Oh, yeah. When you were down. 03:58 ACL surgery two weeks ago, delivered a goat on Sunday sitting with my brace on the floor of our barn and then had creamy twin sheep and lost one and have had a house sheep for the last two weeks as well. So farming from my couch friend, farming from my couch. the animals don't wait unless you're dead. Unless you're dead, you're working. Yeah. 04:25 Exactly. So it has been adventurous here. tell me about how the farm got started because I get the impression that wasn't the original plan. 04:39 No, it was not. So when COVID happened, we were living in a suburb where my husband was invincible and it just was not good. And our kids were stuck in this postage stamp size yard and we just wanted more space for them to run. And so we had decided then that we were going to get some land where the boys could go outside and run. 05:08 play. And so we started looking for like two to four acres. And long story short, long story short, we were looking for two to four acres and the day before we went to look at properties, this 10 acre property popped up. And so we went and looked at all the properties and the 10 acre one actually ended up being just as much or less than the others that we were looking at that were smaller. So we we got this one, we built our house. 05:38 And then we decided we were going to try and keep our CAUB taxes or farm taxes. Didn't realize how in depth that is in Ohio, but it is. So we got a couple goats and we were going to have these goats and thought, yes, now we're going to pay for them taxes and everything's good. And then we found out that they actually look at your land and how much you are using for animals. 06:04 Yeah. And so we were like, well, we need more pastures built and we are going to need some more animals to be able to justify this. And so I had always loved shingles and cows. Before they were like popular and a thing, I had always loved them. And so I told my husband, said, let's get a couple of cows and maybe a sheep just to, to, you know, have some things here. And I would love to have a lot of shingles in my backyard. So. 06:33 Another long story short, we ended up in April of 2023, April of 2023, we got 10 sheep and three cows in one day. I don't do anything slow. So we got all of these animals in one day. And then we had a bunch of messages on Facebook of people just saying like, can I come see your cows? Can I come see your cows? Can I come see your cows? 07:01 So I told my husband, said, why don't we just open up every Saturday in May, five spots, we'll charge like $50 an hour and see if anybody will come do a tour to see them. And that'll help offset our cost for the feed. And he was like, yeah, okay, we can try it. So we made a Facebook page and put it out just to our local community, like Pataskala page. That's it. We just were like, hey, this is what we're doing. We had. 07:28 2400 members of our group in 24 hours and sold out every five slot every Saturday in May. In like a week's time. my god. We were like, what just happened? And it's just me and him. And so we started running tours, I do photography on the side. So we offered photography for some of the tours and did that and everybody loved it. 07:56 Later, we had local artists start asking us about doing classes at the farm. so we did our first class was a Highland Cow painting class by a local women owned business artist. And so she came out here and did that. We had 35 ladies show up for that class. And we painted in our barn that was totally not set up for events at all, but we made it work. 08:21 So we did a painting class and then that just led to another thing and another thing and another thing. And we've had a candle making class here. Now we've had pottery making classes and a rug making class. And so that's one of our unique things besides hosting birthday parties and things like that. So yeah, that's kind of the story of how we just got started and now we have about 130 animals on the farm. 08:50 just built a new chicken coop. have Highlands micro mini donkeys that we just got literally the night before my surgery. We just had our first calf. And we are now currently raising meat chickens and we have loppier bunnies and goats and yeah, just everything. So wow. You are in deep. Been a wild ride. Yes. So did you or your husband have any experience with 09:19 farm stuff at all before this? I mean, my husband's uncle was a farmer in Alabama. So whenever he went to visit his family, he would hang out. I did grow up on a farm in Millersburg, Ohio. It was a family farm. And so, but we didn't have a lot of animals. I raised a pig for 4-H. We raised rabbits for a while, but never goats, sheep, donkey, like none of that. 09:47 We had a few Angus cows, but like they were mean. We weren't really allowed near them. We did mostly corn and hay on our land. So I did grow up on a farm, but listen, I had no intentions whatsoever of being a farmer. That was not in my planning whatsoever. Well, congratulations, because you are now, honey. I still am like, is this real? Am I really? 10:16 I'm literally a farmer. I don't know how this happened. Well, it's also really interesting that your husband's job and your job have nothing to do with agriculture. No, not at all. Nope. But we love it. And we just we literally have joined a ton of Facebook pages, the people that we've purchased animals from, we have made sure that they are good mentors to us. 10:42 And so we've been really, really blessed with some amazing people and mentors. I still remember delivering my first goat and FaceTiming the lady that we got her from and Amber is her name and freaking out and her walking me through it and then being like, oh, okay. And now I've coached people through birthing animals and that's kind of cool. Yeah. The only experience I have with baby anything is my kids and kittens. 11:11 We got a female cat showed up here a couple of springs ago and we thought she was a kitten because she was so small and she was actually six months old. She was always a small cat even when she was an adult and she gave us three litters of kittens. Oh my goodness. And I got to see the first litter just after they'd all been born. I didn't actually see them being brought into the world but they were still wet. 11:39 Yep. And the kittens are so tiny. I can't even imagine. Yeah, we haven't had kittens here, but I had them at my old friend's, so itty bitty. Yeah, and they were just soaked and hurt. She was a very long-haired cat, so her tail, it looked like another kitten because it was all wet too. And I was like, oh, I think she had seven. And my husband was like, no, she had six. And I said, but what's, why am I seeing another kitten? And he said, because you're seeing her tail beside the kittens. 12:08 He said, she is drenched. said her whole back end, that water breaking must have been epic. There's definitely a lot of goo involved in brooding animals. One of our best ones this year was one of our goats was supposed to have triplets and she actually went into labor during one of our tours. And so I was like, Hey guys, sorry, tours over or this is going to be your tour. And we obviously told them they could come back. 12:37 So my mom happened to be here visiting and so she and my husband came out and helped. And so we delivered baby one, baby two, baby three. And then we were just kind of waiting on the placenta. And so I said, all right, well, looks like, wow, it looks like she's gonna push the placenta out. I've never had anyone do that before. And then I said, guys, the placenta has nose and legs. I don't think this one's a placenta. So she actually ended up having quadruplets, which was crazy and super fun. 13:06 Nice. How did she do? Did you have to take some in? great. She did great. The little baby girl, there was one girl and three boys. The baby girl actually went as a bottle baby because we had a family that was experienced with bottle babies that wanted one and we just knew it would make things easier on mom. honestly, she was doing just fine. So, but she raised the boys just fine. And the little girl actually just won first place at her local fair. 13:35 And so it's really fun to Oh, so you have an award winning goat that you have to broaden the world. That's amazing. We do. do ADGA registered Nigerian dwarf goats. And we've really invested heavily into that program and into our Scottish Highlands. And so that's what we're really mainly focused on, even though we have a little bit of everything. Well, if you're going to have a petting zoo, it's good to have a variety. 14:04 Right? Exactly. Exactly. We really pride ourselves that our animals, almost every single animal on this farm, we have purchased as a baby or a weanling and raised to them here because we're very, very picky about our personalities. I mean, they can be award winning, but they also have to be nice. So it's pretty fun, Yeah, that's a good plan to have because mean animals are no fun. 14:33 No, and they can pass that to their kids. A lot of people, I don't think, realize that the personality of the parents really matters. It's a question that we always tell people, even if you're not going to buy from us, make sure you ask our mom and dad on site. What are their personalities like of the parents? Those kinds of things. So we try to do a lot of education. 14:55 Because there are so many scammers, there are so many farms out there that are buying animals at auction and reselling them for what they're not supposed to be. And so we try to do a ton of education for people when purchasing an animal, especially like a Scottish male and mini donkey. There are just so many not real people out, scammers, flat out scammers, then, you know, farms that maybe, maybe haven't done things the right way. And so we try to educate on just what questions to ask, what, what things to ask. 15:24 If you're buying it online, make sure you FaceTime them, get videos of them. I used to have people send me a code word. You need to make a video of the animal and use the code word jump or something, you know? They think I'm crazy and I'm like, hey, I need to make sure you're a real person and not just sending me a random video of an animal. So, um. Yeah. And I would suggest that no one ever send money to anyone for an animal ever because I've read stories of people trying to get puppies. 15:54 And the person selling the puppy is like, okay, so I need a deposit for this, you know, for the first half of the cost, and then you can pay me the rest when you pick up the puppy. And then there's no puppy. 16:09 Yep. Yep. We've seen that happen a lot. We do deposits, but we always make sure that they have videoed us. They have seen the puppy, you know, like if you're doing that kind of thing, you can make sure that it's a real person come out to our farm, visit us, come see them, touch them, feel them, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, but yeah, it's, it's a scary world out there. the internet is a double, double edged sword. 16:39 I was going to say double bladed something and I was like, no, that's not it. Didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Double edge sword because it makes things so easy and so convenient and so wonderful. mean, I am having a chat with you in my bedroom in front of my computer in Minnesota and you're in Ohio. It's amazing. I love it, but it also makes it really easy for people to fool you. And that is so terrible. hate that part. 17:08 I do too. And that's why we try to educate people. Like not everybody's bad. You know, we're real people that have real animals. And just try to educate people on what questions asked to make sure that they don't fall into that. I mean, I've had some pretty good ones. I've looked into a couple of animals where you're having a conversation and it seems legit. And I'm pretty cautious. And I've had two almost get me because at the end they say, you know, 17:36 you need to send this much money and then they get really pushy about it. And that's when you know, like, oh, dang, I almost fell for that one. So they've gotten pretty creative. like you said, our three of our Highlands, our original Highlands are from Taylor Blake out of Florida. She's got, she's kind of famous on YouTube and TikTok and all the things with her hilarious animal videos got connected with her. She's been a great mentor friend. 18:05 And I never would have had that without the internet. You know, our other cows are from Tennessee, Michigan, Kentucky. So some really amazing people out there too. Yeah. I actually found myself thinking the other day, how in hell did we meet people before the internet? That's a really good question. And being able to stay in touch with people you meet in person, you know, is, is really fun too. Yeah, absolutely. mean, 18:35 I tend to keep up with everyone that I talk to for the podcast because you guys become in my head friends. And so I have like a list of people I check every morning to make sure everything is okay at their place, even in Oh, So yeah, it's funny how your brain connects whether you actually meet someone in person or not. 1000%. I mean, my real job is all Zoom meetings. 19:04 We work with school districts all over the Northeast and Canada, and 90 % of our work is over the internet. We do go to visit in person sometimes our larger districts, but you can't get to everybody. So living in Ohio and not actually living in any of the states that I work in, I get there in person once in a while, but all of those relationships are internet. Yep. It's so hard though, because like, 19:32 I have a little heart spot for everyone I talk to on this thing, on this podcast. And when I see videos of my new quote unquote friends going through hell with losing an animal or they have a house fire or a barn fire, I literally cry. Like I can't stop myself because I feel so connected to you guys. Oh, absolutely. I feel you there. Like we have people we've never met before that go through things. 20:01 done fundraisers for them, all kinds of stuff for people we've never even met but have been good, you know, buddies and mentors and sounding boards for animals. I mean, we had we lost one of our baby sheep that was born as a preemie two weeks ago. So we had our brother as a house sheep and the outpouring of love from people just so sad about this sheep for instance was just amazing and 90 % of them we've never met. So but it was great still to have the support. 20:31 Yeah, absolutely. anyone who's in farming or homesteading knows that if you have livestock, you're going to have dead stock. It is just a fact. Yeah. And you get to a point with it where, yes, your heart hurts, but my knee jerk now is shit happens. You know, there's just no avoiding it. That will not be my response when my dog dies. I love my dog more than 20:59 life itself. She's amazing. I've talked to her to the point of sickening on the podcast since I started it. That one's gonna hurt. But now one of our barn cats didn't show up the other morning. He's fine. He's back. But my immediate thought was, okay, now we're down to one barn cat. It's time to get a couple new ones. It wasn't, oh no, he's dead. I'm gonna be sold. Well, I'll tell you this morning, I texted my husband and said, 21:28 So the bottle baby sheep we sent to his new home today. He's actually going to be at one of the exhibits at the Ohio State Fair. They have like a bottle baby and babies and mamas display that they do with goats and sheep and things. He was just too much for me to keep up with recovering from my ACL surgery and he's been inside. My oldest son and I are kind of the simps of the family. 21:54 We just bawled and bawled together on the couch for a while. And I told my husband, said, leaving me and Noah home as the two when this, when Latte left was not a great idea. So, but we'll be okay, but we do miss him already. It's, it's hard. mean, it's, it's very bittersweet. You put time and love into that baby and now he's going to go live somewhere else and I'm sure he'll be fine, but it hurts. 22:24 So I understand. 22:30 Yep. So, um, I saw something about a summer class you're doing for kids in July. Is that right? Say that again. I saw something about a summer class you're doing for kids in July. We are, um, we're very excited. Um, this is brand new for us. We've never done it before. Um, and so July 7th through the 11th, we're going to be running our first kids camp. Um, and so. 22:58 For ages six to 16, we hired just a couple months ago. We finally were to the point where we hired a farm manager because we just can't keep up with this ourselves. It has been too much. And so she's amazing. And she had a little farm of her own and because of circumstances had to shut down her farm. And so she's helping us and she has an eight year old son. 23:27 They have just been incredible. And so she is a former educator and I have my master's in administration and in music education. And my husband was a high school band director and a high school principal for a very long time too. And so we're all in education. And so it's kind of great to be able to have people with that kind of background to be able to put a camp together. So we have two local artists coming out. We have a... 23:56 pottery class, pottery project on Tuesday of camp. And we have a local author coming out who's also a bison farmer and he's gonna read his book and come out and visit the kids and talk to them about bison. And then we have a candle making class that is one of the ladies is gonna come out. And so we've developed this tight knit group with other, they just happen to be women owned local businesses as well. And we work with a bakery, 24:25 And we work with another lady that does just all kinds of craft projects from like chunky blankets and things like that. And so those two are participating in our camp and then the local author. And we're really excited about it. I think it's going to be a really good time. That's amazing. I love it. And yay, girl power. mean, yeah, it's taken a long time for women to become the amazing 24:55 gender that they are. Let's put it that way. Yep, absolutely. so the three of us, it's Caitlin from Create Joy DIY Studio and Tabitha from Common Sense Wax Company. And they've done a couple classes out here and then we said, you know what, let's start meeting once a month just to keep each other accountable. We'll bring our computers, do our social media stuff together, brainstorm ideas, run things past each other. And so we started meeting for coffee once a month. 25:24 And now we have Lori from Lori's Bake Shop, who's a local baker. She has also joined us. And so we're kind of in the process of developing this local, there's tons of business groups, but there's not groups for just women owned local businesses. And so we're kind of in this process of developing this local women owned business group, just support for each other. And it's been just a blast to get to know these amazing women who have had great advice for me. 25:54 We're currently working on a pass program where you could purchase a pass that would get you like an activity of each of our businesses to see if that would fly too. So lots of different ideas and things and they're just amazing humans. And so I've been really blessed to connect with them. love it. I love it. I knew this was going to be a great conversation. I knew it. I think I'm still processing that I'm a business owner. 26:22 that still is like, oh yeah, I literally am running a business, which is kind of crazy. Yes, I can relate. I was interviewed on a podcast by a friend last week and she was like, so Mary is and she was like, she has a small farm, she this, she that. Oh, and she's a podcast host. And the thing that stuck out to me the most was 26:47 Oh, and she's a podcast host. was like, I never refer to myself as a podcast host. That's so weird. That's, that's what you are. Believe it or not. Yeah. I, I have had this real weird disconnect with it because when I started it, I started it as a lark. I was like, I need a project. I'm going to try this. It'll probably fall apart in the first seven episodes and that'll be it. 27:13 Almost two years later, it is going strong, it's growing and I love it. And because I love it, I don't see it as a job. when she said, she's a podcast host, my gears in my brain locked up. I was like, I'm a what? Okay. Right. Say what? Same thing here. We're like, we just have a farm that people come visit and it's kind of cool. And I'm like, oh yeah, it's not a business that makes money right now. Maybe someday. 27:42 Yeah, the podcast is starting to make a little bit, but I am definitely not swimming in dollar bills right now. Social media and getting things out there, that's probably one of our biggest challenges is we do so much work outside on the farm. And I know that monetizing like YouTube or something, like we have plenty of videos that would go viral on YouTube, but 28:11 finding the time to sit there and make a reel, put it online and like I never sit down as it is. Well, I do now with my ACL but you know, I just don't I don't have the time. I never wanted to be a social media marketer. That was not the job I wanted to do. And being a farmer is just so interesting because you have to be caretaker, you have to be veterinarian, you have to be you know, 28:40 social media marketer, have to be 10 different jobs in order to farm in this day and age if you want to be profitable. That's one of our biggest challenges is just coming up with the time to do the social media and to get things out there. How do you get enough followers? Where do you post? What time is most effective? That's one of our hardest things to get through, I think, that we're still 29:09 Figuring out. 29:13 Yeah, I am a half-assed social media person. Like, I am not gonna go out of my way to make something. I don't know what would be defined as fabulous. I don't. just, my husband will send me a video of the cat that was cute and I will post it and people are like, oh, that's cool. And I get like, you know, a few followers out of it. I don't care. I want to share stuff. I want people to come listen to the podcast. I want people to know that we have eggs for sale. Other than that. 29:42 I just share what I share. And if people like it, cool. And if they don't, they can go somewhere else. It's fine. Yeah. I think with the Petting Zoo farm, it's like trying to bring it in that business, market our tours, get spots filled, that kind of thing. Like the camp, we really focused on birthday parties in January, February, and we filled up really, really well for spring. And now it's like, oh crap, our camp is in two weeks and we have two kids signed up. We probably should push this. 30:09 So last night we got a couple different posts and posted to a bunch of different groups and we had three registrations this morning already. And it's like, just whatever you're focusing on is, what's going to do well, but there's a hundred thousand things we want to focus on. So it's just kind of narrowing it in and figuring out the seasons, you know, as we go. And it's interesting year to year as well, because our first year, our classes did really, really well. Last year was a really tough year for everything. Nothing did well last year. 30:38 I think just being an election year, think people were scared about what was going to happen and nobody did anything. And then this year, our classes didn't do very well, but our animal stuff has done well. So we have now like a VIP tour where you can meet everybody. We have donkey dates where you can have a smaller group that gets to come walk the donkeys, brush the donkeys and learn just about them. We have highland hangouts. And so we've been able to expand our tour options. 31:07 And it's just kind of experiment, learn and fail and try again. Right. So that's, we're still in that. I beating myself up because we're not doing this or that or the other thing. And everybody's like, dude, you've been in business for two years. Yeah. You're doing pretty good for two years then. And it's like, yeah, we've built, um, this was literally a soybean field when we bought it. And so we've developed this completely from scratch. There was no infrastructure here. 31:36 No water run to barns, nothing run anywhere. And we've built so far three pastures and one, two, three, four, five barns. And we just bought the 14 acres next to us as well, which is like, well, now we have that. But we need money to be able to do something with it. So it's this constant battle of. 32:02 much we want to do versus how much we can do financially, physically, all of that. Yeah, this past year has been really rough. And I think it's because of inflation. think it's because grocery prices have gone up so much. And people are really, really watching their pennies. We are. My husband has a good job. And we're still like, okay, where's the least expensive place to get this thing where it's still edible? 32:32 You know, and we have a huge garden. mean, we are so excited that we're going to probably have our first zucchinis in this weekend. Because we are not going to buy produce at the store when we can grow it. That would be silly. That was on our list this year. But it kind of fell by the wayside with in January, my husband actually tore his quad muscle. Got his foot stuck in the mud, literally just went to pull it out. 33:00 and snap his quad completely detached from his knee. So he couldn't drive or walk for three months. So now that he's recovering, then I had ACL surgery and it was just like that garden did not make it this year, but we're hoping to next year. I have a black thumb too, so I'm a little worried about killing everything I put in the garden. Animals, I can keep those alive. Plants, that's a whole other story. 33:30 Uh-huh. Yeah. No, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try. Patience and grace will help out a lot in your situation because you do have a lot going on. We do. But we love it. All right, Gina. I try to keep you to half an hour. We're there. Thank you so much for your time and the great stories. And don't leave me when I stop recording because I need your file to upload from your side too, okay? 33:57 That sounds great. Thank you so much. So great talking to you today. All right. Have a fantastic day. Thank you. Oh, and I'm sorry. Where can people find you, Gina? Oh, yes. So on Facebook and Instagram, we're Coopers, C-O-O-P-E-R-S, K-N-O-L-L, And then our website is www.coopersnullfarm.com. 34:22 Okay, because I want people to go and do things with you so that you can get that next 14 acres developed. We would love that. We have a YouTube channel too that's also Cooper's Knoll Farm. So if you want to follow us there, I think we have six subscribers so far. So there you go. Maybe we'll get some more. That would be great. As always, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com and I made that name way too long. All right. Thank you, Gina. Have a great day. Thanks, Mary. Bye.
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| Shady Lane Farm | 26 Jun 2025 | 00:33:00 | |
Today I'm talking with Martin at Shady Lane Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Martin at Shady Lane something. 00:29 and the computer just like blanked out your name, Shady Lane something in Illinois. Martin, tell me the name of your place again. It is Shady Lane Farm. Thank you. Once I hit record, it like cuts off half the people's names of their places. And if I haven't memorized it, I don't know what it is. So thank you. 00:51 So what's the weather like in Illinois today, Mark? It is cooler. It is only going to be 86 after about four days of 90s. And we have occasional thunderstorms, but it's cloudy, not a bad day. We were out doing chores this morning. So not a horrible day to do chores. Yeah. Was the weekend rough on you guys? Cause it was really hot here in Minnesota. Yeah, it was. We... 01:19 Mostly because I made everybody get up early to do chores before it got too hot. So it was, it was pretty rough, but we got through it. Yeah. The secret to homesteading and farming is get everything done before 10 AM that you have to do outside. Yes. We had a triathlon that came through our neighborhood here on Sunday and it was a heat index over 100. Yeah, it was gross. 01:50 I think it's supposed to be 82 here today at like three, four o'clock and 82 is better than a heat indices of 105. Yes. So thankful times have come down. So tell me about what you do at your place. So what we do and we bought this five acre property in 2023, my wife, Lisa and I, I have been an urban homesteader. 02:18 for many years and finally it got to a point where I had rented all the garden plots I could from the local park district and they had started to take plots back from us, which I understood to because more people wanted to vegetable garden after COVID, which I totally support. I had failed in an attempt to get chickens allowed in the city. 02:48 So I went to Lisa and I said, you know, we just redid this beautiful colonial house here in Rockford. And we love it. Let's sell it and buy a rundown five acre property and do it all again and add animals and fencing and new garden and building all these scoops. And she said, okay. That's a good woman. And she had, um, 03:18 There were farms in her past, but she herself had no homesteading experience. I had just taught her the vegetable garden and she was completely interested in doing it. And she took a year off from her second master's degree and was the general contractor for all the work on the house and has really adapted to it. 03:47 And now is full on farm girl. Her cousins and relatives can't believe it. Has she raised a bottle lamb this spring all on her own and just has totally adapted to it. She's embraced it. Yes. Awesome. I love her. That's great. So why did you want to do this? Did you, was it, was it just because you couldn't have chickens or did 04:17 were you brought up around farming or what? Well, my mom's family out in Western Kansas had a tradition of farming and she spent part of her childhood on a small farm, very small by Kansas standards. They milked a few cattle, very, very rural. They made their own electricity with an AC Delco 04:46 windmill generator. Once they had milk, they would shut down the power to the house from the windmill and they'd power radio off the batteries because they had to use all the power to chill the milk. So she grew up very, very rural, processing their own food, canning. 05:10 They had a root cellar. So she grew up with all of that homesteading. In fact, that side of the family arrived in Western Kansas in 1887 and took up a homestead claim. So literally they were homesteaders. Wow. Yeah. She brought that ethos to even our very suburban upbringing. She would can things. She would 05:39 very much make things from scratch. I grew up making my own egg noodles that she taught me to make. We didn't have a big garden because many of our government houses, you just didn't have the space for it. But all of that ethos was very much there. And I spent time in Kansas in summers and when my dad was in Vietnam. So 06:07 it really impacted me. And then when I was earning my PhD in American history, my dissertation was on the settlement of the far Western counties of Kansas between 1890 and 1929. And that transitional period where the railroad and real estate companies were pushing people to do self-reliant homesteading. 06:34 with truck gardens and raising their own food and raising for the nearby, well, there weren't really any nearby market communities, but to ship things out by railroad. And I became fascinated by these trains, the Santa Fe Railroad ran that basically taught you how to do all this. You come from the city, you get a homestead claim. 07:00 Now this is how you make money on your homestead, doing these various things. Oh, you can raise watermelons, you can raise this, you can do small agricultural animal production. And so that planted a seed in my head and I like the idea of self-reliance and I like the idea of knowing where my food came from. Wow, okay. Now. 07:28 It cut out when you were describing the woman that you were talking about. That was your mom? That was my mom. Yes. My mom came from that. My grandparents, her parents, had survived the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. And so that also informed everything in our house. 07:54 that they had lived, sets of grandparents had lived through the Great Depression. So very much to be frugal and to do those kinds of things. My Irish grandparents who were fresh off the boat, my grandmother, I only found out later, kept the traditional Irish market values. So she would have my grandfather drive her out into the country. 08:23 outside of Boston and should buy bushels of potatoes, bushels of vegetables and keep them in their basement in Boston. And because they were cheaper, she wasn't going to pay the grocery store prices and she could process them herself into anything she wanted. You came from Hardy stock, sir. Yes. I love it. 08:52 And I love that you know all of this about your people because so many people don't know anything about their ancestors past their parents and possibly their grandparents. my dad's mom died when my dad was two years old. I never met her. He doesn't even remember her. And I so wish that there was a way to do, I don't know, a telephone to her so I could ask her about her life. know? Yeah. 09:21 It's funny because I'm a history professor, but my family picks on me because I don't actually ever want to do art history. They're like, and I'm like, well, that's not history. That's genealogy. But I will go on and on about the place where we come from and that. So, but yes, I am not interested in genealogy. I am a disappointment to them. 09:49 I feel like genealogy and history are very interwoven. So for me, I'm interested in both things. And I have traced my lineage back to William the Conqueror in England on my mom's side. And I have traced my lineage back to the Salem witch trials on my dad's side. So I got some weird, crazy things going on in my ancestry. 10:16 Anyway, so what do you have on your farm? Do you have critters? Do you have produce? Do you have D all of the above? D all of the above. Okay. If we start with the vegetable garden, we have a 6,000 square foot vegetable garden that we broke in last year, which was an adventure in itself. The land had never been gardened by the people who had previously owned it. 10:45 for 50 years. And so we had to knock down a bunch of trees. It was a very typical rural story. Grandma built the house, daughter inherited it, daughter got old and sick, property got overgrown in trees, family dumped garbage on the property. So we had abandoned boats, campers, tractors, yard tractors, which we arranged for them all to take. 11:15 But we still had all these just little groupings of trees that had popped up. So we had that cleared. And then approaching the soil, we actually had to rent a cold mold board plow. And we plowed it all up with our tractor. And then we had to till it, till it again, disk it again, plow it again. 11:41 And so last year it was really intense trying to get it done on time to get it planted. And it's turned out we have great soil. So we can grow anything. So we grow, we have a big pumpkin patch. We usually do. We grow lots of watermelons, tomatoes, peppers, all the brassicas. So cabbage, lots of broccoli. 12:10 We're not canners were freezers. We have a lot of freezers. So we freeze all the broccoli lots of peas and beans. Radishes leaf lettuce. I just successfully grew my first head lettuce ever. Ornamental corn and popcorn and two kinds of sweet corn. Very nice. In fact, the sweet corn last year. 12:40 kind of marked the beginning of us selling things because I planted a lot of sweet corn and it came in really well and I said, hey, anybody want to buy some sweet corn? And we completely sold out of sweet corn. So this year we're double the amount of sweet corn because we didn't even get any sweet corn last year. We usually decurnal it and freeze it for the winter. 13:08 And we got no sweet corn last year for us. So the garden is wonderful. We grow parrots, pak choi. People always ask me what I grow and I say name it and we're probably growing it. Strawberries, cut flowers is a new thing this year. We were asked by some people to grow cut flowers and to sell kind of make your own flower arrangement flowers. So we're trying that this year. 13:38 What flowers are you growing? Because I love flowers you can bring in the house. Lots of dahlias, poppies, dianthus, salacea, daisies, lots of cosmos because they're very popular for arranging. So yes, we have just multiple varieties. 14:07 And they're doing pretty well, but we direct so. So that's always an F-E thing. It's better if you seed start, but I don't seed start. I don't like to seed start. So. Awesome. And what do you have for animals? For animals, we have rabbits. The rabbits are not meat rabbits. I have nothing against meat rabbits. I have raised meat rabbits before. 14:37 illegally in the city. But for us, my wife has two granddaughters. And so knew immediately, and I had three sons that are between 23 and nine. And I knew the younger kids were going to request rabbits. So we built a rabbit tree. It's all enclosed so they can take them out of the cages one at a time, play with them. They all have their own rabbit. 15:05 And they're just pets. We raise Havanna's, which are super soft. They're black, brown, Holstein. You can get lilac colored Havanna's. They're very sweet rabbits. We have people who bring their kids over to play with them. So the rabbitry is a thing unto itself. And it's turned out to be a very positive, even though it's 15:34 not a profit generator. We have chickens. We sell chicken eggs. We have ducks. We sell duck eggs. In fact, right now we have sex mature female ducks. We don't keep male ducks. And we have five more in our basement brooder that are getting ready to come up. And so we're going to increase our number of ducks. 16:03 And then we have two pilgrim geese that belong to my youngest son. And then he has two brown Chinese geese he is raising this year to show in 4H. And we have already informed them that they're going to the fur and feather sale. We do not need two breeding pairs of geese. So. 16:30 We're going to keep the pilgrim geese because they're his babies. He raised them all on his own. We never wanted geese. It's one of those great homesteading stories. His mom who lived in the city bought him geese. And we knew very quickly that the city man was going to discover these two very loud geese living in their backyard. So. 16:54 My wife jokes, she looks out and says, why are you doing? It's like, I'm building the goose coop because they're going to come here. And sure enough, they did. He showed him in the fair last year in the older pair one in the open class. So he's pretty excited about showing his Chinese brown geese. And then in our front pasture, we have a heifer, which we're in the process of breeding. And we have 17:24 two steers we bought last fall that'll be processed this fall. One's a red Angus and one's a black Angus American white park mix. The heifer is a black Angus we actually got at a very good price from a failed homestead situation. Kind of a relative of a friend, they bought her 17:53 in partnership with somebody to butcher and the people backed out. She was all alone with their alpacas. She wasn't doing well because cows are social animals. And so we got her at a very cheap price and she came and she was a much better quality animal we thought she was going to be. And so we're going to go ahead and breed her. 18:21 and we're going to do sex selected semen. So we'll get another heifer. And the idea is instead of buying steers, we'll start breeding our own. And that will help insulate us against the cost. Many of your listeners are probably experiencing what we're experiencing. Cattle prices are through the roof. I've heard that, yes. 18:50 Yeah, it is absolutely crazy. In fact, there's four age kids around here who can't show cattle this year because they can't afford to buy your basic feeder steer to show. They're upwards of over three thousand dollars. Heifers that are in calf are over four thousand dollars here in the Midwest. So 19:20 It really is crazy for us. The other funny thing about us and cattle is that I sold the two steers accidentally, all of them. We're basically only getting probably an eighth of our own beef. And we have an empty freezer because we had bought from a 19:48 faculty colleague of mine who had a homestead for many years and they retired to a beautiful large property on a lake near Brainerd, Minnesota. Oh, yep. And yeah, and they shut down their homestead. And so I'm like, well, we'll have our own beef. And then I turned around and like the corn, I sold all the beef except for an eight. 20:14 So for the first time in 10 years, we've had to buy commercially produced beef. Oh no. Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing when you have tattle grazing on your front pasture and you're having to go to the store. But I had broker deals for years for friends and colleagues with my sources for homesteader meat. 20:43 Now they're my customers, which is really nice. So. Hey, can I, can I get you to backtrack to your son real quick with the, with the docs and the 4-H stuff? Sure. You said he's nine? Yes. Sam is nine. And then I have George who is 15. And then Ethan is 23. 21:11 He just graduated with his degree in English from Northern Illinois University. And then Lisa, my wife, has a daughter who's 33, who's married and has two daughters. So you're a grandpa. I'm a Martin because her ex-husband is still around. And I think people are nervous because Lisa and I have been together for 21:40 five years, we've only been married for two years. and when the babies were born, I think people are like, oh, how are we going to handle this? And the little girls have handled it. I have a title, I'm Martin. That's it, which I'm, I'm completely happy with. So I always joke, I am the, I am the senior male without portfolios. So I have no responsibilities, but I get to enjoy the whole thing. 22:10 I was just going to try to say that in a way that made sense and you did it for me. Okay. So your, your son who's, who's little, I mean, he's grade school. Yeah. Um, he, number one, he's going to be so excited when that, when you, when you get your heifer bread and she has that baby. Cause if he's into ducks, he's probably going to love a calf. Oh yeah. And number two, he was very excited by the lambs this year. Oh yeah. So. 22:39 So how long has he been involved in 4-H? This is his first year. Last year we just did the open youth show at the Fair one county over and he kind of got the bug. It's funny because he's not a joiner. He doesn't do a lot of group activities. 23:04 And so he likes 4-H because he can do its own individual project. He'll go to a meeting and then he's just on his own and he enjoys it. Yeah. Cool. So if he's only been in it for a year or he just started this year, whatever you said that. Yes. Have you seen like the benefits for him in it? I mean, is it, I don't know anything about 4-H. I just know that kids get involved in it and they 23:33 They raise something and then they sell it and they have to part ways with the animal they raise and it's really hard at the end, blah, blah. But I keep hearing about all the good things that come from being involved in 4-H. So what have you seen change in him, if anything? I have seen him grow more confident. He is willing to put himself out there. He's done speeches in front of the meeting. 24:02 where he's talked about his raising of the geese and all of his knowledge of geese. So I've seen him grow in confidence. I've seen him enjoy interacting with other people, gains in knowledge. And 4-H, while there's a lot of focus on agriculture and animals, it's also science. 24:32 It's geology, it's cooking, it's sewing, it's video production. In fact, he and his stepsister have kind of a band over at their mom, over at his mom's house, and they're actually going to perform in an entertainment show at the fair. Fun. Fun. So I've, I've seen just huge benefits. In fact, moving out here, there has just been 25:01 A lot of benefits. My oldest son is autistic. So he relates really well to animals. He was away at school for the last couple of years after he moved out here, but he enjoys the peace and quiet. He enjoys the opportunity to be out in nature more. He really enjoys the rhythm of farm life. As you wake up, you do chores. 25:30 In the evening you do chores and he really enjoys that a great deal. So I've seen a lot of those kind of benefits. They grow in confidence. Sam, the nine year old took the front tires and wheels off of the small garden tractor he had bought himself just a couple of weeks ago because he needed new tires. So he did it this morning. 25:59 Nice. We took him off. We took him to the tire shop. He's not thrilled about the cost, which is very funny because every person who owns machinery has to face the financial reality of the cost. he's like, that's going to be a lot of weeding, dad, to pay for those new tires. And I said, well, we'll find you some other projects too. Anything worth having is worth working for, right? Yes. 26:29 So just all sorts of benefits, not just through 4-H, but it's always been living, even when we are urban homesteaders, living a homesteading lifestyle, you just understand more about the world. To backtrack to animals, we also raise Dorper South African meat sheep, sheep, and 26:56 One of the lessons we learned this year is our first year to lamb was our smallest and we had spent all of her pregnancy worried she was going to have twins because she was very small. And we're like, please don't let Hanny have twins because it's going to be hard on her. And she lambed and everything seemed to be OK. She gave us just a 27:25 beautiful new lamb, which we've named Helen. We're going to keep her. And so she got a name and was a great mom. And then we discovered that there was another lamb stuck in the birth canal. And we called the vet after three days and we lost Hanny and the, well, the other lamb was already passed away. So Helen became 27:54 My wife's new baby, the vital baby, we joke we're in our 50s and when we got married, we never thought we would be up every two hours feeding an infant together and have that experience. We've had it now. But it was really great. It really kind of cemented my wife's attitude about the farm. And Helen follows her around. 28:22 and calls for she and her half sister are being weaned in our neighbor's horse barn because they don't keep horses anymore. And that's just been a cool experience. But everybody learned that when you have livestock, things happen. And it was sad. Hennie was a super sweet you. And we also had to deal with the fact that right there we lost thirteen hundred dollars. 28:52 Because Hanny was 650, the ewe lamb we lost would have been 650. And actually we lost more than that because we had about $300 in vet bills. Yeah. So there's lessons to be learned. But then our last ewe who lambed almost two months after the first two gave us a beautiful ram lamb, which we're keeping. 29:22 named Kiron and the boys have now understand first thing we do we got to go down cut the umbilical cord, iodine it, check everybody out. Sam loves doing that. Sam is not a big kid but he will pick up the lamb and kind of he says I gotta he goes mom go away. 29:50 We got to do this. I know you don't like this. He talks to the use. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're doing this to your baby, but it's for their own good. So yeah, he always does that. And I love Sam. want to meet Sam. He sounds adorable. He has a huge head of red hair too, and we're Irish. So he has very pale skin, red hair. And this year he has finally leaned into his leprechaun heritage. 30:20 Good, good. And redheads are feisty and they're smart and they're ingenious and I love them. you tell him that the lady you talked to today on the podcast episode said that redheads are fantastic. Yes, he is a good one. All of the boys are. The middle one, George, who's 15, is really less into the farming, but 30:49 He has a real sense of humanity and he's a fierce protector of the animals. It's very interesting in that way. He's not so much, I love them, I love them, I love them. But when he does chores, he's very technician about it. It's gonna be done right. And things are gonna be done correctly because their lives matter, which I'm perfectly fine with. 31:19 He's not going to gush all over it. But he did, you know, in 15 year old fashion when the last lamb, the little ram lamb was born, he said, okay, he looked at him and said, I got to admit you're I love it. It sounds like you have a fantastic team of folks on your farm, Martin. 31:43 I try to keep these episodes to half an hour and we're there. I would love to talk to you for like eight hours because your stories are great, but no one can listen to an eight hour podcast. Um, where can people find you on understand. Um, we have a Facebook page called Shady Lane Farms. I have an Instagram account called Rockford Homesteader. They can look at two and 32:11 Two of my younger friends, I'm also a volunteer firefighter from the fire department because I don't know if you saw any of the videos I posted on the Facebook page, but after that they're like, you got to start doing tech talks. So we're going to start with tech talk soon. Awesome. Good. Let me know when that happens and I will go back and add it to the show notes. Thank you so much. This was a blast. 32:37 Thank you so much for your time. I so appreciate it when you people take time out of your busy lives to talk to me for half an hour. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. as always, you can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And Martin, I hope you have a great rest of your day. You too. Thank you. Thank you.
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| Fat Bottom Girls Mini Farm | 25 Jun 2025 | 00:30:49 | |
Today I'm talking with Larkin and Kevin at Fat Bottom Girls Mini Farm. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Larkin and Kevin at 00:28 Fat Bottom Girls Mini Farm, I love the name, in Florida. Hello guys, how are you? Hello, doing good. Good. You're melting in the sun, but trying to stay cool. Yeah, we were going through that yesterday. I said this on an interview this morning that I did, but I will say it again because it was ridiculous. We have central air in our house and it was set for 72 degrees. It got to 77 degrees in my house at three o'clock yesterday afternoon. 00:58 Yeah. Yeah. My dog was laying on the floor panting. I'm like, oh, this is bad. What kind of dog do you have? She's a mini Australian shepherd. Oh, cute, cute. We have a Great Dane. Oh, well, they're very different sizes, but I bet they're just as lovey. I bet they're on the same love scale. Yes. OK, so how did your farm get its name? So when I was a kid, I watched the movie 01:27 Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? It came out in 2000. Have you seen it? I have not. I keep meaning to find it and I just never get around to it. It's a worthwhile movie and the song, Bad Bottom Girls, you know, is in it. And the movie is about these guys that escape from jail and it's like a story of redemption, finding yourself. 01:58 and really like prioritizing your self-well-being. And it just resonated for me for a long time. And so when we developed our mini farm, it became a little bit of a play on words because we had chickens first and, you know, the layered chickens have very heavy bottoms. And then we got into bees and all the worker bees are female. And it's just kind of snowballed into our 02:27 our farm name. love it. it who what band did the Fat Bottom Girls song? Queen. Yeah, that's what I thought. But I wasn't sure. I didn't want to sound like a total idiot. Okay, cool. That is very cute. I love that story. So tell me about yourselves and what you do at Fat Bottom Girls Mini Farm. Sure. So my name is Larkin and we are I would consider ourselves 02:56 first generation homesteaders. It started as a hobby, you know, in the backyard before we had our first child. And that was around 2015 or 16 when we first got chickens and I was a zookeeper, worked with birds at our local AZA zoo. So I'm very fond of birds. And I decided I wanted to bring them to our 03:25 backyard and Kevin is a good sport. So he was like, all right, know, eggs for the kitchen. Great. And then as we got into more gardening and, and planting our own crops in our backyard, we decided that this was like a really great, sustainable, uh, an empowering hobby. Um, and so we've just been taking like small approximations until we're 03:54 where we are today, we have like a dairy cow. We do homeschooling as of this year and we do take advantage a lot of our public land for hunting. And we just try and be as self-sustainable as possible without making it overwhelming. And so that's kind of how we got started. 04:23 How much land do you guys have? So we have a family farm and it was built for horses. My mom is an equestrian. She breeds Grand Prix jumpers and then they show on the circuit here in Florida and they travel around the country. So we have probably about 17 acres and our farm is now down to two retired 04:52 horses that we ride for pleasure and the rest of the farm has been made available to us for our our creatures. Nice. And what do you have for creatures? We have chickens, quail, changing list, ducks, geese, a cow. We have a couple of horses and that's it. We have a rabbit. 05:22 for our composting needs. He lives a life of luxury. Yeah, we have the whole menagerie. And so are you using, I don't know how to ask this correctly. I never asked it right. Is anything on the farm produced to support the farm? 05:46 Oh, so we do sell our extras, if that makes sense. So we really produce for ourselves and for our family. if we have... Go ahead. Well, Kyle's making what? About a gallon a day or so? Gallon, gallon and half of milk a day? Yeah. We use that to make a lot of ghee. And then if we have some leftover milk or... 06:14 Even occasionally we'll sell some ghee or butter. It's just the butter and the ghee is extreme and eggs of course. But the butter and the ghee is pretty labor intensive. So it's kind of a tough one to sell. So we end up using a lot of that for our cooking as well as we'll give some to like family and friends and stuff like that. Yeah. And then we do sell some products that we make. So we have like whipped tallow balm, soaps, and then we sell, you know, excess eggs and milk that we have. 06:45 And it's really, we don't do like farmers markets. So the people that are interested, we invite them to the farm. They can take a farm tour, meet the animals, you know, that they are acquiring their food from. And we try and make it like a fun experience from when you drive through the gate and you drive off with our products. 07:10 Yeah, if I was buying your butter or your ghee, I would want to go up to your cow and kiss it on the nose and say thank you. She is a miniature Jersey and she is in your pocket. She loves her treats and her people. So she comes up and interacts. Nice. Nice. I love those cows so much. They're so pretty. They're surprisingly friendly. It's like a giant puppy. What? 07:37 Oh, same. They're like giant puppies for the most part. The miniature cows are super friendly. Oh, yeah, absolutely. If we had just a little bit more room here, we have three acres, but there's a lot on that three acres. If we had just a little bit more flat land with some hay, we might get a mini cow, but we just don't have the room and I'm kind of sad about it, but that's okay. So the reason I asked about whether you produce anything that supports the farm, 08:06 is because when we bought our place, my husband loves to garden. don't know if you guys have listened to any of the episodes about on my podcast, but he loves gardening to the point that our garden has expanded to a hundred feet by, I bet it's getting close to 250 feet now. And it's not just one space. It's like three or four different spaces that add up to that. And so the first summer we were here, we grew food and we had some of it. 08:36 or sale to people who wanted to come get it. And that was cool. And then we set up a farm stand three summers ago and we sold produce out of that and eggs and stuff. then two, three summers ago, he also started selling at the farmer's market because we can't possibly use all the food that he's been growing. Well, that's exciting though. 09:05 Yeah. So, um, I feel like the plan was to sell some of our stuff to our community. I'm just not sure that I realized how big the plan would become. And I'm not upset about it at all. He loves it. It's how he, it's his Zen spot. It's how he distresses from his jobby job. Yes. Gardening has that effect. Very meditative. 09:31 Yes. And I'm really happy when he brings me in fresh right off the vine tomatoes and cucumbers and butter crunch lettuce that literally goes from the ground to my sink gets rinsed off and put in a bowl and then dressed up with whatever dressing I want on it and I eat it. So literally five minutes from garden to my face. That's awesome. Yep. It's pretty great. It tastes better that way for whatever reason. 09:58 Yeah. And who knew there were so many varieties of lettuce that you can grow in the United States. Yeah. Our personal favorite is rocket lettuce. Cause it's got a little bit of a spicy kick to it. Yeah. Um, there's a purple romaine lettuce that we grow and it's so beautiful. People see it and they're like, what is that? I'm like, it's a romaine lettuce. And they're like, nah, romaine's green. I can't be it. 10:27 No, that's purple romaine lettuce. It tastes pretty much exactly like green romaine lettuce. It's just purple. can do the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. And there's purple carrots now. There's white carrots. There's red carrots. Yeah, we've done the kaleidoscope carrots. Those are super fun, especially if you have kids involved because you don't know. It's like a surprise when you pluck them from the grounds. You don't know what color you're going to get. So it's really exciting. 10:57 It's fun. And if you want to get kids to eat foods they think they don't want, you got to make it fun. Exactly. Definitely. Wish I had known that with my first three. Learned on the fourth kid. That when they're interested in trying what's on your plate and they're old enough to actually chew it and swallow it without choking death, it might be a good idea to let them try it when they ask. 11:25 Didn't know that were the first three and they're not the most non picky eaters ever. The fourth child who's 23 and still lives with us is the most adventurous person when it comes to trying new foods I've ever met. That's funny how that works out. Wish I'd known, man. And the rule in our house when he was little was that big kids were not allowed to make a big deal. 11:51 out of foods that they didn't like. If they didn't like it, they could just not eat it. And if they tried something new and didn't like it, they could literally quietly spit it into a napkin or they could walk to the kitchen, because we ate in our living room at our table. They could walk to the kitchen and spit it in the trash, but they were not allowed to be like, oh, that's so gross. Because we didn't want the littlest one to take on their biases. 12:18 Right. You don't want them to be influenced. was awesome. 12:24 No, I really didn't because I really wanted this kid to have the joy of discovering different flavors and different textures. 12:37 Because food is supposed to be an adventure. It's supposed to be an event. Definitely. And if you can incorporate activities that go along with it, you know, it used to be don't play with your food, but what better way to explore flavors than to experiment and to play with your food. Yeah. And then everybody decided to get into making sourdough and sourdough is playing with your food. Yes. And pasta. All of it. 13:08 Yeah, I took on sourdough about a month ago and I've been avoiding it like the plague because I knew it was going to take time and patience. And every day I get out my funnel and my fourth cup measuring cup and the jars that have the starter in it and a bowl and a spoon and I'm screwing around with pulling some of the starter out for discard and then I'm putting the flour and the water in and stirring. I'm like, this is like play dough. This is like playing with my food. 13:38 It is. Yeah. Kevin is our sourdough person because he has the patience for it. I like to step in at the end and do the scoring. Yeah, I haven't gotten that far yet. I've made one loaf and it came out like bagel texture, which was great because I love bagels, but apparently it's not supposed to be that dense. So I have to do that to my technique, but it was really yummy. I've avoided 14:04 sourdough for a long time because I thought that it was very technical. Like you had to measure the flour in grams and you had to measure the water in grams and you had to do it very specifically and come to find out you don't have to do that. Yeah, we you're reminding me that I need to feed our starter but we've got it to where we're feeding about once a week now. It just kind of sits in the fridge. So it's 14:32 It's low maintenance once it gets going. yeah, it's definitely, there's a lot of play involved in just kind of in feeling and texture and do any more flour, do any more water. It's fun. But yeah, I've never made the same loaf twice. I don't know how these bakeries are like super consistent. That's what's impressive about it when you can get really consistent. 14:57 I don't know either and I will never be that consistent and I don't want to be. think the joy in making sourdough bread is you can make it different every time and it is a win if it tastes good. The other reason I avoided getting into it is because I don't love sourdough bread. never have. And it's the tang in the bread that I don't like the tanginess to it. And I found out that, if you don't, if you don't make it right, 15:27 As the sourdough starter peaks or something, it's less sour, something like that. uh, the loaf that I made, it was definitely sourdough, but it didn't have that really extreme tangy sour to it that I really didn't like. So I've learned a lot in the last month about sourdough and I have a lady coming on my show, I think Friday, I think it's this Friday, who is, who has a lot of experience with sourdough. 15:58 I almost said expert, but I don't know that she's an expert. She has a lot of experience in it. And she also is an admin on one of the Facebook sourdough groups. I'm very excited to talk to her and I'm going to be like, so tell it to me. Like I'm a four year old beginner. How do people do this? Because I put it off for years because I was afraid of doing it and it's not that hard. honestly, 16:24 If you don't like to cook, you're not going to want to make sourdough bread at all. Yeah, you definitely have. Yeah, it's cooking. is chemistry. It is cooking and it is patience. And I am not the most patient lady ever. So we have to plan your day around it basically. Because it'll be three hours in, it will be proofing at this point and then I can go do this and I got to be back to do this at that point. So. 16:52 You really do have to plan your whole day around it. Yeah, and even the shortcut recipes, you're still looking at five to six hours. Sure, yeah. That's a lot of time. And you got to figure out stuff you can do in between the stretch and pulls on the dough because it's every half an hour or something on the recipe that I use. Exactly. So it's a thing and I don't want to get too far into it, any further into it because the lady is going to be on my show on Friday and I don't want to... 17:21 overdose people on sourdough. We're off the lesson now. Yeah. So you guys have kids? We have a daughter. She is six years old. And she just went to her grandparents' house for a science lesson. So we have the benefit of living very close to both sets of parents. None of us are from Jacksonville originally, so we've kind of all 17:50 come together on the same mindset that we want to be close to family, especially with grandchildren in the mix. And so when we decided to do homeschooling, was mostly driven for health reasons. Our child was diagnosed with leukemia last January. And so going to a traditional school has been increasingly more difficult. 18:19 Just because we miss a lot of school for doctor's appointments and things like that. So we decided to pull her for homeschooling and all of the grandparents have offered to take on a subject so that Kevin and I don't have to do it all on our own. And what is great is that we have a few teachers, retired teachers in our family. And so they've been extremely helpful stepping in. 18:48 for some of the harder things like handwriting and word groups, you know, to learn to read. That is stellar. I love that. So what grade would she be in if she was in is going to enter the first grade. Okay. So does she go to and regular school? She did go to kindergarten. Yep. Okay. How is she doing? She is 19:18 Great, we do have occasional hospital admittances, but it seems to be very benign reasons. You fever spikes require us to be there for 48 hours. If her blood counts are below where they're supposed to be, just to make sure there's no like blood infections, things like that. So our last two admittances were just there, we were there, but no underlying. 19:47 Reason causing the fever so they let us come home. Okay, and I don't know anything about leukemia I mean I had a cousin who who got it as a young adult not not a kid but it's like in her early 20s actually and I've heard about it, but I haven't heard about it in little kids. Is there a cause or is it just something that happened? Seems to be just something that happens. They haven't really 20:16 nailed down. As far as I know, when your kid's diagnosed, at least at our hospital, they give you a big encyclopedia on everything about childhood leukemia. course, we all poured through it that first week and read it. Kids seem to do better than when young adults or adults get it. Kids seem to bounce back, take the treatment a little bit better, I guess, just because they're resilient. 20:45 kind of by their nature. But no, there's no, as far as I can tell, they haven't nailed down what causes it or like what to look for. It was basically she had leg pain and Larkin noticed she had some bloody gums one morning and it was over a couple of days, I guess. And then some bruising on the legs and Larkin was just adamant like, need to take her into the doctor. And it pretty much, I mean, it was by that night, that's pretty much 21:15 But they knew that's what she had. mean, it was pretty quick. Yeah. You know how they talk about spidey senses regarding Spider-Man, the Spider-Man comic? Yeah. Mommy senses always trust them. That's true. Yeah. Well, it's totally left field. And there's different types too. So she was a low risk. Quote unquote best type. Yeah. And so anyways, but. 21:43 The hardest part of treatment is over and we are just kind in the maintenance phase. And the tough part about it for unlike other cancers is that the treatment is just more long-term. It's like over a two and a half year. 22:01 span rather than like six months like some of these other cancer treatments are. So that's a little bit the tough part about it. But yeah, we're kind of, we see light at the end of the tunnel here. Good. I was hoping that was going to be the case because I didn't want to cry on my podcast again. I want to make my guests cry again. What does she think about the farm? Oh, she loves it. Yeah. She, uh, 22:28 wants to be an animal rescuer and a vet when she grows up. And so she's very hands-on with, especially like the chicks, we incubate eggs. We live above the farm, so we can go downstairs and see our animals and look out the window and see them in the pastures. we incubate most of our eggs, but our last batch we let a broody hen 22:56 do the incubating and she did pretty good for a first time mother. yeah, Hazel loves the farm life. 23:08 Okay, cool. So, oh, I was gonna say, your daughter is homeschooled. I'm gonna tell you right now, that little girl is gonna learn so much more through homeschooling than she ever would have learned in public school. Yeah, we can already see a huge difference from traditional school to homeschooling in a positive way. I mean, she's just made 23:37 huge leaps and bounds because we're doing a little bit of catch up over summer so that we feel really ready for our first grade coursework. I mean, the one-on-one time makes a huge difference. And I'm not even talking about the book learning part of it. If you've got grandparents involved and you guys are on a farm and she's going to be an outdoor kiddo, she's going to learn so much more in general. 24:07 like about animal husbandry, about how plants work, how dirt is not the same thing as soil, you know? Yeah. And she goes on us with hunting trips. We do a lot of camping. She just has a love for nature, which I love, because so do we. Yep. My two boys, my two youngest boys, we did homeschooling the last couple of years of their high school. 24:35 I'm not going to lie to you, we did homeschooling before they were homeschooled because we would go hiking, we would go camping, we were growing food. We would go to farms and visit other people's animals because we didn't have any. We had cats, you know, we had all these things that we supplemented their public schooling with. And these kids would tell their teachers stuff about a subject and teachers would call me and be like, how do they know about this? 25:04 Yeah, that's like Hazel's superpowers. She knows all the animals, species names. So she would go in and, you know, they dump out all the animal toys and she could name every single one. Part of that is from like our zoo keeping background. We would when I was working there, if we had like a newly hatched bird that needed some around the clock attention. 25:34 It would come home with me. So we have had penguin chicks and flamingo chicks and vulture chicks long before we really started getting serious about our homestead. So just learning the cycles. And then when we, when she finally entered school, we were doing at home, uh, the monarch watch. don't know if you've heard of this. Yes. 26:01 Yeah, so go ahead, tell me. We would raise cat, well first we planted host plants that we had, you know, wild caterpillars visiting our host plants and then we would, when they were close to pupating or developing their chrysalises, we would put them in a netted enclosure so that when they hatched, could tag them, record it and submit it to the... 26:29 Monarch Watch database and then release them. And then the following year we would see if we could catch any that had our tags. And so that was a great, fun, hands-on learning process. And we were able to bring some caterpillars to her school and show them how to participate in that with her classmates. 26:56 I think you win the coolest parents award guys. It's really fun. It's fun for everybody. You want to have an activity that is engaging for all ages because that's when you really bond and develop these great memories together. 27:23 Yeah. And the hands-on of that project is so good for kids because kids learn best when they have something to do with their hands that transfers the information from their fingertips to their brain. And I'm that way with anything I need to remember. I need to remember something, I have to write it down with a pen on paper or I won't remember it. Yes. I'm a hands-on learner as well. I think that's the easiest way to make a 27:52 cement in your brain. Yeah, the connection just happens. And I don't know why I could probably type something in the computer into a notepad and it still won't stick. If I write it, it sticks. Okay. So what's the future look like for your mini farm? Are you going to expand it? Are you going to just maintain it? How's that going to work? I think right now we're just kind of maintaining, you know, we've 28:21 tried expanding it and that was fine. We did a lot of milk sales, egg sales, things like that. There is a little bit of a level of stress though that comes with, know, selling some of your products, especially milk. you want to sell as fresh as possible and, and keeping up with your, it becomes very expensive on like our end if 28:51 jars aren't brought back to us. you don't want to charge people necessarily for that expense because then it becomes impractical for people to want to visit your farm and buy your products if it's too expensive. And so we had like a small clientele base and that was very comfortable for us. And so that's probably where we're going to maintain. I'm not trying to become a dairy or a 29:20 or you know, a grocer or anything. Just kind of like a small farm that offers on occasion some products and you can visit the animals. That sounds great. Low key, low stress. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I try to keep these to half an hour. We're almost there. Where can people find you online? We are most present on Instagram. 29:49 Fat Bottom Girls Mini Farm. We do have a Facebook page. It's not as active as mostly there to just maintain our name. But yeah, we don't have a website, but we are on Instagram social media. Okay, awesome. Larkin and Kevin, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. And how sweet is it that your daughter was at the grandparents' house so you had some quiet? 30:16 Yeah, thank you for inviting us. It's really fun to talk with people that are like-minded and share and learn from each other. think that's what is at the heart of home setting is swapping information and valuing a simpler life really. Absolutely. 30:40 All right, guys. Thank you again. And as usual, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. I hope you guys have a great afternoon. Thank you. You too, bye.
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| Twin Acres Farm | 24 Jun 2025 | 00:32:23 | |
Today I'm talking with Dana at Twin Acres Farm. You can also follow on Facebook. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Dana at... 00:28 Twin Acres Farm in Idaho. Good morning, Dana. How are you? Good. Good. How's the weather there? It's actually better today. Like last week was in the 90s. And then this past weekend, you know, when you have something planned to do, it dropped completely. Luckily, we didn't get a freeze, but it was cold and windy. I was like, I thought it was supposed to be the first day of summer, but whatever. 00:56 Well, you had the opposite of what we had this weekend and yesterday. Oh my God, it was so hot. We had the central air set for 72 and at three o'clock yesterday afternoon inside my house, was 77 degrees and so sweaty. was gross. Oh my goodness. Yeah, we've been having some like for Idaho, it's been like above like record highs. 01:21 But then we had like this cool front come through on like right on the first day of summer. And we were like, what the heck? My daughter went camping and they went up to the mountains and they ended up getting snowed on like five inches of snow the night before. And she was like, I thought it was summer. Yeah. I had the opportunity to apply for a job in Idaho years ago and I gave it some serious thought. And then I saw what the weather is like. And I thought, you know, 01:51 Minnesota is a little more predictable than Idaho. I think we might just stay here. Probably. So, all right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, So I actually am a school teacher. I've been teaching for about 15 years. And then when I'm not at school, know, evenings, weekends, 02:15 school, you know, we get all those awesome school breaks then like I can't sit still. So I decided to start this little farm to keep myself ultra busy. 02:28 Okay, and it's Twin Acres Farm, is that right? Right. So we own only, it's just small, if we have two acres in Twin Falls, Idaho, and I have twin girls. So that's where the name came from is like two, two, you know. So that's where we came up with the name. Okay. I was going to ask, so thank you for telling me. So what do you do at your farm? 02:53 When we very first started out, know, it was like everybody else, you get a few chickens and they're the gateway and then it grows from there. So I had some neighbors at the time and they had these adorable little goats. didn't, I thought they were baby goats, but it turns out they're dwarf goats. I knew nothing about them. And then we were hooked. So you have to start with two, right? Cause they're herd animals. And then now I'm up to like 40. Oh. 03:23 my. we obviously I don't keep that many but you know after baby season we need to sell down some. We still have some babies and stuff to sell but I do all the milking, make cheese, make soap, make caramel sauce, make you know all the different things that you can make with goat's milk pretty much. And then you know we make in can. 03:49 and garden and we have chickens, have ducks, we have rabbits. We've had other homesteading animals like the cooney coon pigs in the past. We've had turkeys in the past, but some things, we've even had quail in the past, but some things we've decided that that's not really our niche or something that we wanna tackle. And those are things that you have to find out over time because some people love those. 04:15 those types of things and then some decide that's just not for them or what they want to do. Just like some people are like, I would never have goats. I'd rather have sheep. You know, everybody has their personal preferences of like different homesteading animals that they would like to keep. So chicken math translated to goat math for you. Well, I still got chicken math too, because I'm probably sitting on over a hundred right now. So I have both. Uh huh. Yeah. 04:42 Yeah, chicken math is weird. You start out with like two chickens and all of a sudden you find yourself with a hundred and you're like, where did they all come from? Right. We started with like a dozen, you know, again from like neighbors had an incubator and we were like, oh, we want eggs. And so we started with a dozen and then now I, um, breed certain, you know, purebred birds and, um, we sell those here. Um, we also, we, a few years back, we started. 05:12 I'm going to some farmers markets and to sell like our goat because we have our raw goat's milk permit here in Idaho. We, think we were number 205 and now that number has over doubled. So, um, we went through the process of getting that. And so we would go to farmers markets cause we'd been on Facebook for a while and our fan base had grown, but we hadn't got to meet a lot of the people that followed us. You know, it's just. 05:39 via the internet and so that was really neat. actually won a farmer's market spot because it wasn't even something on my to-do list. We entered like a giveaway because somebody had bought the spot. They had had to back out because they weren't going to be able to actually do it. They did like a giveaway for people that would want to get a spot that hadn't entered because I mean it's a 06:04 It's a packed market and everybody signs up and they almost never have spots for you to be there. It's right on main here in town. And so we ended up winning that spot. And so my girls and I went and did six different weekends and we got to meet so many people and it was so great. We loved it. The next year we did, we didn't do quite as many because when you do markets like that, it's a lot of prep work, you know, to get ready for those markets. 06:33 And so the next summer we did a few, so we still got out there and then I started my master. So then my husband built a farm stand because that's been the new trend, right? Everybody has their farm stands. And so we set that up a year ago and it's been great because it allows us our time back to keep still doing and making and tending the farm. And then people are able to come and get those products from us. So we are already upgrading. 07:03 to a bigger like shed type soon. Like it's on order, but we're gonna upgrade. Cause in a year's time, the little farm stand is too small for what we've been doing. So. Yes, we have a farm stand at our place and I love it because people just come in, get what they want, pay through Venmo or drop some cash in a little container and they go on their way. And that way we're not tied to the farm. I mean, we're here a lot, but. 07:31 sometimes as a doctor's appointment or dentist's appointment or something and there's no one here. And I love that people can just come in and see what we have, get what they want and take off. Right. Yeah, it's great. And well, the thing here, you know, like you said, the weather is crazy in Idaho. So we started with that little farm stand and it's more like open kind of concept. 07:55 So instead of having it like available all the time, we kind of set it up at certain days and times. And we just feel like the bigger, little bit bigger shed idea would make it where people can come and go a little more often. We weren't hauling things in and out. So I think it'll work better for everybody involved because everybody has busy schedules nowadays. And when you're already out and about, 08:21 you know, taking care of things, you want to be able to stop and get those things that you want instead of on a time schedule. Cause right now that's kind of how ours is. So I think it's going to be. Yeah. Yep. have a question. When you started doing this, the, the farm stand thing, the first time somebody came and bought your stuff, did you have like this bubble in your chest of excitement and happiness that you had provided something to a community member? Well, I think it's, I've had that for a long time because 08:51 even before I set up the farm stand and before we ever did markets, because that's kind of what led to it, is we have another little building. I didn't open it to the whole public, but it was more of like our friends, friends of friends, like people we trust. We had like a mini fridge set up and like that kind of thing. So we have been doing that for... 09:21 probably over five, six years on a smaller, like personal scale. And then once we started with the markets, it's like, oh wow, like we're available to the public. Like the people that really wanted to support us were getting to meet them. And then, then it just grew into, okay, instead of like people coming down into our property, you know, cause it was mostly just our friends. Now we put that up at the front of our property where like everybody can have access that wants it basically. So. 09:50 But yeah, like this whole lifestyle gives you a sense of pride that I don't feel like almost anything is. Like you're growing and you're making things not only for your family, because that's how it starts, right? Like I really want to do these things for my girls, my family, but you know, it can get pricey. You know what I mean? Like when you're going all in, there's feed costs, there's supply costs. 10:15 that can get pricey. And then other people are seeing what you're doing and they're like, I would really like that or I would really like to try that. Like so many people have never tried goat's milk or they've had a bad experience because the goat's milk you get in the store is not the same as fresh off the farm. And that's if you can get it at the store. Well, that's true that too. But by the time you get at the store, it's so much older that you're already getting that funky like goat flavor. And I feel people all the time, like when you drink it fresh, 10:44 within a week of when it was gathered, you're not gonna, like my Niges have such a high cream content. You can put cow's milk and goat's milk side by side and have them taste it and they're not gonna tell the difference between the two most of the time. Yep, Fresh goat milk is amazing. I did not like goat milk until I had fresh goat milk and I was like, huh. 11:12 I don't hate goat milk. Okay, good to know. 11:16 Right, I've had so many people change their mind because they've had bad goat milk or bad goat cheese from the store. And then I'm like, just trust me. I'm not going to steer you wrong. I'm picky. If it has any kind of off flavor, I don't want it. You know what I mean? So I'm like, just try it. I mean, we took a vacation once because I'm from Texas, South Texas. I didn't move up here until I was almost 30. 11:41 And so all my family mostly is still in Texas. So we decided to take a vacation like, you know, six or seven years ago, we went halfway in Colorado and, you know, got one of those Airbnb's because I, you know, all my family thinks I'm nuts because they don't do this. They don't live this lifestyle, you know? And so I was like, well, guess what? I'm going to pack all the things, right? 12:05 so they can taste all the farm fresh things and they were just blown away. Like I took the goat milk, the fresh farm eggs, the homegrown pork sausage, made the whole breakfast layout and they were pretty amazed. They started to get a clue like why I'm a weirdo, I guess. They gained an appreciation for the work that you do is what they did. Right, yeah because they wait for Christmas and everything for me to send them all kinds of different goodies in the mail. 12:35 Yeah, I try. I try hard to do that. This past Christmas, I was not in a Christmas frame of mind. I didn't even send Christmas cards this year. But I try. I try really hard to send my brother and my sister handmade soaps because we make the cold process lye soaps. Right. Same. Yeah, we do it with our goat milk. So that was another thing. I have a neighbor across the road and they have a little bit bigger farm and they do like the whole pumpkin patch. 13:04 little farm store. Like they've been doing that for years. And they were doing classes and it was to make soap. Well, they were just making the regular, you know, cold process, soap. And so we went and took the class, but I was like, Hey, I really want to be able to do this with goat's milk. Cause you know, I milk all these goats. And so she gave me like tips about like having to freeze the milk and those kinds of things. And so, yeah, I've been doing that since I took their little class. So 13:34 It's just great that, you know, everybody's teaching each other. I think that's the biggest part of it. Like what good is like a passion if you're not sharing it with others or teaching them, you know, what you know, you're never gonna learn it all. You know what mean? There's so much. 13:51 Yeah, if it's a passion, want, number one, you want to put your whole self into it. Believe me, I know. And number two, you want to share what you've done with other people, partly because you want them to benefit from it. But also you need to share it. It's like important to you. Right, exactly. And like here on the little farm, like obviously it's not that big, so we can't open it to the whole public, but we would do like 14:21 open like, because everybody wants to come in the spring, you know, when you're having all those baby goats and baby chicks and baby, everything, everybody wants to come and see it. And so that's what we would do. Cause otherwise you have people wanting to stop by constantly, but you are so busy, especially, you know, we're still in school at that time. So I'm running hard. So what we would do as at the kind of the end of spring break is we would set up like a little open farm day and invite like all our friends and stuff. And then 14:50 you we'd have a meal together. They'd get to, you know, we'd get to share all the hard work that we've been putting in, like take a minute, enjoy it, share it with others. You know, it's, it's fulfilling that way. Yes. Have you converted any of your friends to this lifestyle yet? Oh yeah. I have several that like we've, they've tasted like the goat milk or the goat cheese and they're like, Oh, I never thought about it. And then they get a couple of goats and now they have a bunch of goats. And you know, of course like, 15:20 chickens, you know, everybody starts small with like chicks and chickens like oh, you know, especially when the egg prices were getting so high. I had like this season, like this year, I've had so many people come to us to learn about like what to do, how to raise chickens, ask all the questions because they never thought about it before. But then, know, when everything, not that it's cheaper, but you know, by the time you buy everything, all the supplies, the coop, everything, it's not. 15:48 necessarily cheaper, but it does give you food security, basically. Yes, peace of mind and food security. Yes. I had a question and it's gone. I hate it when I do that. What was I going to say? Oh, we were going to go without chickens this winter. We had chickens up until last October. They were getting old and lazy and we culled them. There weren't that many left. Right. 16:18 And we were going to get new chickens in May of this year. And we bought, bought eggs from October until about the end of February when we needed eggs. And I, I don't know, I cracked one back in February and I was like, these eggs don't taste like anything. I hate them. And when my husband got home, said, can we get chickens like next weekend if I can find a source of laying hens? And he said, thought we're going to wait till May. I said, 16:47 I don't want to wait till May. I want to do it now. I want chickens again." And he was like, yeah, call up our chicken broker and see if she got any laying hens. So I did. And we got 12 and we opened the farm stand early this year because the chickens were laying and people wanted to farm eggs, know, farm fresh eggs. Could not keep eggs in the house for us to use because people were buying them. So then we bought another 14 from our chicken broker and 17:16 lost one so we have 24 chickens now. Do you think I can keep eggs in the house? No, people are buying them as soon as they get put in the farm stand. Right, well and like not only is it the price, like you said, it's the flavor, you know, it's just so much better. And the thing about chickens is you have to add new chickens every year because the chickens that are already a year old are gonna molt, you know, in the fall and then they're not gonna lay. 17:45 So every year we are adding new ones, either hatching them ourselves or for getting a different breed or genetics or whatever we're bringing some in. But we wanna keep a new steady supply of those young layers because they're not gonna molt and they're gonna keep on laying a lot better than those older ones. So that's definitely what we're always doing here and we have so many. But yeah, we have ducks and chickens. We have people that are buying duck eggs because they can't tolerate the protein that's in that chicken egg. 18:15 And so we have duck egg customers and we have chicken egg customers here. Yep. Absolutely. I have a thing about that too, but I think I misspoke. think I said, do you think I can keep chickens in my house? then do you think I can keep eggs in my house? I get talking in my tongue twists and I'm like, oh, I said that wrong. It's not going to phase me because I got chickens in my house. So yeah, we have chicks in the house right now, we have not kept chickens in our house yet. 18:44 However, we're thinking about getting an incubator and trying hatching eggs. We haven't decided yet, but we've been flirting with the idea, you know, around the edges of the idea of maybe growing our own chickens, as it were. Yeah, I mean, it's great. I suggest the Matty Coop X. It's the best budget-friendly incubator that you can find, and I have been through so many incubators. 19:12 I have a couple of cabinets, but then I have those Matty Coop X as tabletops. And so when we hatch them out, we want to be able to see everything. So it makes it where you can see everything. And they're only running about, uh, about 130 or so bucks, which is really budget friendly for someone who's never done it before. And just starting out and they have really, really, it's like set and forget as a water bottle on the side that you turn upside down and keeps it at the perfect humidity. It's, know, up here where we're at, we have to worry about. 19:40 It's so dry. We're in a high desert. And so, you you hear all these people dry hatch. Well, that's not even a possibility up here because it's way too dry, not enough humidity in the air. But in the southern states, you can do all that. Yeah. There is a lady on Facebook. I think her Facebook page is the hot mess homestead. Oh, yeah. follow her. Yeah. Fun times. 20:04 And if anyone wants to see somebody poke fun at having chickens or getting into chickens, she is a laugh riot. I love her. She is, she's a smart ass for real. And she's really, I don't know, she's really genuine in everything that she does. And I love that she wears all these big, these big 20:34 Go ahead. You there, Dana? Oh yeah. It was just cutting it out a little bit. Okay. I'm going to finish my thought and then I'll let you finish yours. I love that she either is all made up and absolutely gorgeous and still gathering eggs and still flopping through the mud. Or she's in an old rock band t-shirt and cutoff shorts and Crocs and her hair is piled up on her head, no makeup. And she's gathering eggs and walking through mud. 21:04 I love that she does both. yeah, totally. Yeah, totally realistic. You know what mean? From one day to the next, how you're feeling or what's going on or what you got going on, you're making do. You know, she's got all the little that you're juggling along with, you know, all your other responsibilities. I mean, it's totally realistic of how, how it goes around any, you know, homestead, not just those Pinterest perfect, you know, decorated. 21:33 you know, farmhouses. like, well, my kitchen is usually a mess. And as soon as I clean it up, I'm cooking and making or canning or making something else. So it doesn't stay that way for long. 21:46 Yes, what you see on Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest and all those social platforms. When you see the really pretty girl with the pretty sundress and the, I don't know, the wedge sandals and her makeup is perfect or her hair's all curled perfectly. That's fine. You know, that, that makes it look pretty. It makes it look attractive. I'm okay with that. I want people to get into growing food. Right. 22:13 But I also want people to understand that it is not a clean hobby. It is a very messy hobby. Oh gosh. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many times a day the girls and I have to wash our hands because we're handling eggs or chickens or goats or whatever, you know, just making a mess, digging in the dirt. love gardening. Like I, it's therapy, just digging in the dirt. You know what I mean? Dirt like a lot of times I have my nails done, but 22:43 That's not going to stop me from digging in the dirt. Well, no, it shouldn't. And if your nails get broken, your nails get broken. Right, exactly. And you need that builder gel. That's the secret to life because I'm hard on my hands and my nails. And so my nail girl does builder gel on top and that's what lets them grow because otherwise they wouldn't stand a chance. 23:09 Yeah. And my husband is the gardener. am not, I am the one who cooks the food that he brings in from the garden. And I'm constantly doing dishes. I'm constantly chopping vegetables. I'm constantly using my hands. always typing because of the podcast. My nails are either all the same length and look pretty good and they're not polished. I don't have my nails done because I'm not going to spend the money because they're going to get ruined. 23:38 And so they're either all about the same length and they look okay or they're all different lengths or one's broken or One's got a crack in it because I smacked something on it I never know so I don't really make a big deal out of my fingernails because I'm like they will grow back It'll be okay, right? Well, and that's also what's great too is like everybody has a preference of the things that they like and the passion that they have 24:04 And so like here, you know, it's kind of a whole family affair. I'm sure when my girls grow up and move out, I'm going to cut down on some of the stuff that we do just because it's so time intensive. like each one of my girls, you know, likes to do different things. And so we split up kind of like our chores around here based on what things they like to do. Like one of my daughters, Brooke, she loves to collect the eggs. And, know, with our pure breads, we have to label 24:34 our eggs that way we know which pin they came out of. So it's not like just going and getting a basket and collecting them. Like there is a little bit of work involved as well. And I offered like, you know, in the in the wintertime we just collect them. It doesn't matter. But when spring hits, then we have to start doing all the labeling and that way we know what's what. 24:51 And I offered because I was like, well, you know, I kind of made the work and the extra pins. Like if you want, I'll take over that job. And she was like, no, I like, I love to go do that every day. So I was like, okay, you know, I mostly deal with the goats. Meadow here is the water queen. She waters everybody every day, which, you know, that takes some work, you know, especially in the winter. My oldest, she again is not. 25:16 like the outdoors, like she likes to hike and all those kinds of things, but farm-wise, like she doesn't really mind, like want to do that, but she likes to bake and she likes to do stuff in the kitchen. So she does more of that. Like we make it work where everybody's doing something that they really kind of like versus like, you know, you don't want to be dreading what you're having to do every day. No. And, and here's the caveat to that. Back in the old days, 25:43 when there was no choice, everybody had to kick in and had to do jobs they didn't necessarily like to do on the farm. right, right, right. Because it was their livelihood. That was how they made their money. It was how they grew. They had food to eat. It was the job for the whole family. These days, I feel like it's not quite the same. It doesn't have quite the same urgency that it did back in the old days. Oh, exactly. Yeah, exactly. 26:10 And that's what's kind of great about it is like you can pick and choose the things that you want to tackle or the things you want to like, you know, I just would rather buy that at the store. You know what mean? Like it's not worth the work to me. I'll buy that at the store or this is something I really like to do or want to do or like the flavor better. Like you can pick and choose now where back then you really couldn't. And same thing like here. I like I consult the girls like, do we really want to? 26:38 Continue on with this or is this something that we can let go? You know because they're they're a big part of what we do here it's not just for me to make all the decisions because they help and do so much and I don't want them to just like resent everything we do and They've even said like when they grow up like oh well This is what I would like to have at my house or my farm in the future You know, it's giving them an opportunity to try and see different things 27:06 of what they want to carry on in the future versus what they want to let go. And that's great. That is so amazing that they are getting to experience a whole bunch of different things to see if they enjoy it see if they want to pursue it. Awesome. Did I see on your Facebook page that you or your daughters make snickerdoodle cookies? Yeah. Well, we just started this adventure like not very long ago. 27:33 you know, to add something else to like our farm stand because, you know, people love to get baked goods. And so we started like trying out making different, huge, like big, big cookies. So we make so far, we make a lemon poppy seed. We make a strawberry white chocolate with freeze dried strawberries. We make a s'mores cookie we've tried because, you know, it's summertime. So s'mores is a staple. 28:02 Yeah. Then the latest one we were like, well, you got to make a snickerdoodle because like everybody likes snickerdoodles. Well, I take that back. One of my twins does not like anything with cinnamon. So she would take the other cookies other than the snickerdoodle. 28:18 Okay, the reason I asked is because my mom, I've told the story a couple times on the podcast, my mom makes snickerdoodles and she makes them as bar cookies. So she just takes the cookie dough and puts it in a cookie sheet and bakes it in one flat cookie and then cuts it in bars. And she doesn't necessarily make them for her and my dad. She mostly makes them because their dog likes them. Oh my goodness. 28:44 So she's always joking that she's getting a batch of snickerdoodle bars made for Dutchie, the dog who is a border collie. Oh my gosh. And I keep trying to tell both my mom and my dad that that sugar in there is probably not great for Dutchie. And we have a mini Australian shepherd here who's like five years younger than Dutchie. 29:10 I've become an expert on what's okay for dogs and what isn't in the last four and a half years because I love this dog more than life itself. So, I keep trying to convince them that maybe snickerdoodle cookies or any human cookie is probably not great for the dog. And my dad finally said Mary Evelyn and that's my middle name. When he, when he brings out my full name, I'm like, Oh no. And he said, I understand that you love Maggie, your dog, two pieces. said, but Dutchie is my dog. 29:41 He said, and I've been giving her snickerdoodle cookies since she was like 13 weeks old. He said, and she's not dead yet. So we're just going to keep making snickerdoodles for Dutchie. And I'm like, okay, Calvin Edmond, you do that. So yeah, but I just, finally made a batch of my mom's recipe of snickerdoodle bars and they're really good. I had not really had a homemade snickerdoodle before. 30:07 I had them from the store and I don't like the ones from the store, my mom's recipe is really good. Yeah, anything homemade is gonna be way better. Uh-huh. Always. Always, always. We are down to like a quarter teaspoon of vanilla in my pantry right now and I was gonna make cookies this week and then I was like, you know, I think I'm gonna wait until there's an actual reason to go grocery shopping and get more of a vanilla. There you go. 30:36 Next you'll have to start making your own vanilla. Yes, I keep looking at the price of vanilla beans and debating whether I want to spend the money because it might actually save me some money. I don't know. I was about to say because basically we make a big batches, you know what I mean? Because they got to sit for a while. So if you're going to do it, you might as well make it big batches. And then those beans can be used over again for a few different times. 31:01 So yeah, you have to pay for it upfront, then you can use it to make quite a bit of another. So it seems like almost everything to do with homesteading and farming in the beginning, it's expensive, but the longer you do it, it gets less expensive because you've already put out the beginning pieces. Oh yeah. And that's so true. Yeah. It's, it's, it's an upfront cost. And that's why I like, I tell people just start with something small, start, start little. 31:31 You know, see if you like that, run with it and then add as you go. You cannot do everything all at one time. Like there's just so much. Yeah. Start small, think big. Right. Exactly. All right, Dana, I try to keep you to half an hour. We are there. Where can people find you online? Um, we have Instagram and Facebook. Our Instagram following is not quite as big because we didn't start that from the beginning. 32:00 Facebook is where we post and do most of our things. We do share some to Instagram, but yeah, both of those. Twin acres farm. All right. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Dana. I appreciate it. And as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. I hope you have a great day. You too. And thanks for having me.
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| Wildflour Crumb Company | 15 Jun 2026 | 00:34:04 | |
Today I'm talking with Ashley at Wildflour Crumb Company. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Ashley at Wildflower Crumb Company in Jordan, Minnesota where I used to live. Good morning, Ashley. How are you? Good morning. I'm fantastic. How are you? I'm good. How's Jordan doing this morning? It is slow and sunny and beautiful. 00:26 Just how I like it. Mm-hmm. I am half an hour southwest of you in Le Sueur, Minnesota, and it is sunny and it is not freaking hotter than the Hades this morning, which is really nice. Right. It is beautiful. The windows are open. have my oven on while it's been on the past two days. But having the cooler weather has really helped my house not get so hot. 00:52 Yeah, it's been miserable up until yesterday. It's been pretty gross for the second week of June. Yeah, just a little bit. We should not have weather like this this soon in the season. I'm very, very disappointed in Mother Nature this week. Okay, so I, this is going to seem really weird. You are hyper local to me. I used to live in Jordan. I lived there for 20 years. 01:17 And part of the reason that we moved is because we knew that a whole bunch of things were going to be happening. Like 169 was no longer to have the scary stoplight where people get in car accidents all the time. We knew that they were going to put in a bunch of roundabouts and we just knew all this stuff was coming down the pike. How is it any better than it was? 01:42 I mean, the construction sucks. That's, you know, nine months out of the year, sometimes 11 if we don't have snow. ah But I think that once the 169 area is done, I think it's going to be fantastic just because of it's going to reduce all of the accidents that occur at that stoplight. ah But as far as all of 02:12 the extra roundabouts going on. I'm not a fan of roundabouts, ah only because, and it might just be because it was Jordan. It's a small town, but for quite a while with the roundabout that was by Radamachers, a lot of ah the older generation were, they were going the wrong way. Oh no. ah But that, that has stopped for the most part. Now you just have, you know, your typical teenage driving. 02:41 of being crazy, not being safe. But for me personally, I'm not a fan of the ones by the schools, only during school time, just because those two separate times from like 7.45 to 8.15 and then you're all about, again, 2.45 to 3.15 ish, it backs up bad. 03:09 just because of how they have things set up with pickups, drop-offs. ah The high school, it used to be before the roundabout was there, that if you were coming out of the high school, you were only supposed to take a right, which that helped dramatically. Just so you didn't have to worry about kids crossing, ah waiting to turn left, all that stuff, it made it easier. But now with the buses, 03:37 The buses get stuck in all of that traffic because of the pickup lines that are long for the elementary school and things like that. So, I mean, I'm not a fan of those during school time, but summertime they're just fine as far as there's no backups, things like that. It does get people to slow down a little bit more than they used to, not a whole lot. So in terms of speed wise, there wasn't much change. ah 04:07 And one thing that I was furious with by the elementary school, there used to be a crosswalk that would go from the school side to a street called Timber Ridge Court. And they took that away. I had tried talking to the city, know, hey, why did you take this away? First, they wouldn't respond. And finally, somebody had said because it's a mid cross. 04:35 side cross and I was like well I don't understand because you have lots of other crosswalks throughout the city that go from a mid-block meaning that it's in the middle of a city block versus having it be end to end so lots of them from mid-block to another street and they couldn't respond to that they just said nope just go all the way down to the roundabout and then come back and I'm like well I'm not gonna do that 05:04 There's, know, I'm not, that's ridiculous. The crosswalk never should have been taken away. Um, but it all had to do with a little girl got hit, uh, because somebody wasn't paying attention. And I had asked for, you know, those blinking yellow lights by sidewalks. Yep. I asked for one of those. said, Nope, city turned it down. It was too expensive. Um, but then, uh 05:32 But then they spent all the money for the roundabouts. Yes. So that's the only part that's made me mad. Otherwise, the rest of it will be fine. think 169 is actually going to be a lot better. um But it's just, you know, waiting the three years for all of it to get done. That's the sucky part. Sure is. And I have I have one thing to say about roundabouts. I grew up in New England. 05:58 Roundabouts are an important part of traffic in New England because there are lots of places where five or six roads will intersect. That's what roundabouts are actually for. And I feel like Minnesota has seen it as a trend, a fashion trend for traffic. uh Yes, I can see that. And just a PSA for anybody who doesn't understand about roundabouts. Roundabouts 06:27 you come into them slowly, you make sure you're paying attention to the other cars coming into them, and you follow the directions. And I think I remember in the driver's manual for Minnesota for the test, there's a section on roundabouts. If you have kids going for their driver's licenses and you live in Minnesota, make sure they read that and they learn how to do it. That's my PSA about roundabouts. now after all that, 06:54 I would love to hear about you and what you do. Perfect. So I, let's see, I've been in Minnesota since, oh, let's see, when did I leave Wisconsin? Go Pat, go. I thought I heard some Skonsy in there. Oh yeah, you did. Let's see, since 2006, I came here for school. 07:20 And a funny story with my husband is that I had told one of my really good friends I had told her is like if this date doesn't work out. I'm moving to Texas I'm gonna be a police officer and that's gonna be it. We're gonna be good Well, apparently the date worked out because I'm still here 20 years later ah But no, it's been it's been great. um I started 07:45 with school. I have always wanted to be a police officer. did the crossing guard in third grade. ah just everything about it screamed. Yes, that's what I want to do. I wanted to help people. wanted to protect people. And I went to school to try and do that. And then as things went on, I became more interested in forensic science. 08:09 And I was one of, you know, the few before CSI came out to do their wonderful effect on people. knew you couldn't swipe screens in midair. ah But how cool would it be if you could? Oh, my God, that fantastic things would go so much faster. Things would be so much smoother. But I think we're quite a few years away from, you know, having screens in midair like Iron Man and all of that. It'd be great. Oh. 08:39 man, would it be great, even just for life in general. ah But, you I went to do all of that, started with, you know, security positions that I would do either in the city for an apartment complex. And then I went to work for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. And I absolutely loved my job. I loved that. 09:06 People felt comfortable enough to come to me with questions. They wanted advice. I loved being able to do all of that. And I had one incident when I was pregnant and I wasn't protected by the people I worked for. And I said, nope, I'm done. I'm not going to put my... 09:31 baby's life in danger anymore and I looked for a new job. I tried to stay with the federal government and I went to do federal background investigations. So anytime somebody who's going to enter the federal workforce, you have to get a background check done of 10 years or your 18th birthday, whichever one is there first. And so I did that for about 10 years. And when we were told that 10:00 Everybody needed to go back to the office five days a week, no more remote unless it was, you know, something came up and you could work a half day, whatever the case may be. And I cried. I got excited. I got scared. All of the emotions going through because I have a son who has type one diabetes and I needed to 10:30 think about him before me, being that he is younger. And I was like, nope, I'm going to take this package that they're offering. I'm going to resign from my position so I can be home. Because, you know, it's two kids for two grandparents is way too much. It's, you know, it's not their responsibility to raise my kids. That's my job. Right. So I... 11:00 resigned from my position and I was like, you know what, I'm, I'm going to do something. Um, so I took a couple of months, you know, of my quote unquote vacation, uh, to be with my kids, do stuff after school, do things with them on the weekend. felt grateful that I was able to be able to do that. And I was like, I'm going to start a bakery. I, you know, have celiac. I've had celiac for 13 years now and. 11:29 What I was finding, whether it was other bakers or stuff in the grocery store, the freezer section, it was not anywhere near what I wanted to eat. Yeah, I've heard that from lots of people. Yep. When I was first diagnosed, the one thing that I remember is the doctor had said to me, know, you are going to waste a lot of money in the beginning. 11:58 you are going to be throwing away a lot of food in the beginning until you find what works for you. And that was 100 % true. And I hated it. I hated that I wasted so much. I got frustrated over things that I tried to make that didn't turn out. I got frustrated at paying so much for one product to get something so tiny in return. A good example is bread. 12:27 So they've gotten better with bread now as far as size wise ah for some companies, but you would buy that bread, you take a couple slices out and you have this egg size hole right in the middle through the rest of the pieces. And you're like, well, I just paid all of this money for this tiny one tiny piece of bread. 12:54 and then to have a huge hole that probably takes away half the bread. was like, I can't, no, no, this isn't, this isn't working. So I stopped buying a lot of stuff. It's unacceptable. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I mean, you could contact the company and they would say, Oh, I'm sorry. Here's a coupon for another one. You buy that other one. It happens again. You're like, you know what? Don't send me another coupon. I'm just done buying it. And so 13:22 May of last year, I came up with a name. I was sitting in my computer room. I had a couple glasses of wine. I won't lie. I was scared. This is a huge move. And bouncing names off of my husband and I was like, you know what? I was like, I want my items to be good. 13:45 down to the last crumb. I don't want people to leave half of it and be like, well, that was okay. That was good for gluten-free. I wanted it to be damn, that was good. And a take with wildflower is that it's not wheat. These are, have, there's so many different mixtures to make one thing, to make it even close to being like it was full of gluten. 14:13 And I was like, this is wild. I was like, I'm going to do flour because I have to use so many flowers instead of the plant version. So I was like wildflower crumco. And of course, with names, you got to look up to see, there anybody else that has it? If so, where are they located? How many people have it? And I found maybe a wildflower bakery or nothing. That was what I wanted. You were nothing that was gluten free. 14:43 Um, nothing that had to do with crumb co things like that. And I was like, this is it. I'm doing it. I, you know, I put it in, I started my Facebook page and I was like, this is it. I did it. I hit submit. I was like, I can't take it back now. Cause people are going to see it. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. That was it. And here we are today. That is a fabulous story. And I'm to tell you right now, I am so proud of you. 15:12 for trying to pursue being a police officer. Because not only is it a uh difficult profession for any human being, but it's really hard for women to get into it. So I'm really proud of you. I'm also really proud of you for knowing who you are and thinking through your decisions and making the right decisions for you. Because that's also something that's hard for women to do. 15:43 No, tears. All right. Yes. I'm sorry. No, you're good. There's so much that's expected of mothers that it's hard when we want to do something for ourselves, we end up feeling, you know, there's a slight guilt of, well, shoot, I could have did this instead, or 16:08 We're expected to do the job, to do the kids, to do the housework, to do the cooking. And I've been lucky that my husband helps with all of that. But it's just, those expectations that are put in your mind that every decision you make, it's like, well, am I doing this for me? Am I doing this for my kids? Am I doing this for my husband? What can I do? 16:38 for me that I'm also going to benefit other people and trying to make all those decisions at once, it's no wonder we're all exhausted. And insane most of the time. Yeah. So I just, every time I hear a story like yours, I just want to say I'm proud of you guys or you gals as it were, because it's hard. And I 17:05 I have so many things I could have been, but the thing that I really wanted to be was a mom. Now I'm going to cry. And I didn't want my kids to be in daycare. I wanted to raise them. So I raised four kids and they're all functioning adults who are good people. Proudest dad in his life. And then the youngest one decided he was going to move out and I was like, oh my God, I need a project because I can't do... 17:35 Empty nest without a project. I will just be miserable and I started a podcast so worked out Well, I'm proud of you for doing that. That is amazing work. I Freaking love it. It's so fun And I don't know if you're talking about raising the four functional adults or the podcast or both, but I love I loved Raising the kids and I love the podcast. So 18:00 I don't know how intentional any of it was except for starting the podcast because I needed a project. But just please keep doing what you're doing in the way that you're doing it because you are being intentional about your decisions and your life and your family and that's so important. Okay, so let's stop psychology 101 now and switch to you. You do gluten free exclusively. 18:26 I do because I have celiac. So that is the autoimmune disorder where if I ingest any size of gluten, it could be the size of a pinhead, um my intestines will be like, hey, that's foreign. And they start to attack itself. And when that happens, the villi that are in your small intestine, it's the finger-like extensions that 18:54 grab onto vitamins, minerals, things like that for your body, ah they die. And so there's nothing to grab a hold of what your body needs to put it where it needs to go. And so you end up with deficiencies in vitamins. You can have the dry skin, the gut issues, bruises, brain fog. mean, you know, every 19:23 a symptom that goes along with every other existing issue in the world. uh So trying to nail down, well, when do I feel this? And it happened every time I ate. So going to the doctor, first we did a blood test, which is what you can do. And because my levels, I believe it's the IGA, my levels were so high. 19:52 that my doctor had said if you would like to do an endoscopy to confirm, you can. Otherwise, you don't have to because of how high your number is. And I was like, well, I'll just skip that. Thank you. I don't want to stick a tube down my throat. Yeah. So no, I skipped all of that. And so trying to be gluten free, at least for sure in my house. uh 20:18 The only gluten that's in my house, there's a few snacks for my kids, but they stay in the garage just because I don't want, I don't want to have that issue one for me because it sucks. And two, I don't want, you know, say my kids had a snack on the counter where I bake. I don't want that to end up in somebody else's food and then they get sick because I couldn't see that crumb because it was so small. I mean, that's all it takes for. 20:48 a lot of people to get sick. I, know, gluten, gluten free, that's it. When you mix something, a lot of that flour goes into the air. So a lot of the times like for people who have celiac, we can't go into bakeries. Well, we shouldn't at least, at least the back part. um People that make their own pizza dough, because that flour 21:15 raises up in the air and then it lands everywhere. It doesn't just land, it doesn't just go straight up and straight down because you've got people moving, ah ovens with their air, fans, breathing, and it goes everywhere and then it lands and it stays there for 24 hours. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want to cross contaminate. Yeah. So that's, know, and for some reason, 21:41 why I still don't understand even in a 700 degree pizza oven, that gluten does not get burned off. does not die. It just stays and it can fall onto that. Say I order a pizza, that gluten can fall onto my pizza and then that's it. Then I'm done. like, well, that's great. Next. I have a pretty good understanding of some of this because I have 22:10 I get migraines and one of the triggers for migraines for me is MSG. I have to read every freaking label on every freaking pre-made thing that I debate eating because if I eat two Doritos chips, my head pounds for two days. Doritos have been off the menu for over 15, maybe 20 years now and I loved Doritos. Cannot eat them. And so I get it. 22:39 It's a real thing if you know that if you ingest something and you know the results of that and they're bad, it is such a hard shift to make. So again, proud of you. 100%. 100%. To mend you for knowing your limits, but also trying to help other people who have the same thing. Yeah, and reading labels is such... 23:05 pain because you could read one product, you go to the grocery store, read one product, they go, okay, I can have this. But you go to the store again, they could change their entire ingredient list. They don't have to say anything. You go buy it, you get sick, you're like, well, I had this last time. Why can't I have it now? And you look at the ingredient list again, you're like, oh, they changed it. That's why. but you find out the hard way before you realize that's the part that sucks. 23:31 Okay, so do you make just breads or do you make cakes and cookies or what do you make? What are the goodies you make? Everything. ah I have bread right now in the oven. I've made chocolate chip cookies. I've made a pistachio cake. I make a great, amazing, and dare I say it, moist chocolate cake. If you hear moist and chocolate cake and gluten-free all in the same sentence. 24:01 Normally it's like a hockey puck or it's dry, but not mine. I don't like chocolate cake. I don't like chocolate ice cream. I'm really strange, but I love chocolate chip cookies. I scarfed down a chocolate cupcake that I had made because I made an extra. have to batch test, of course. Of course. Yes. It's one of the benefits of the job. Right. And no, I scarfed it down. was like, I hate chocolate, but that was amazing. 24:31 cinnamon rolls, ah you name it, brownies, lemon bars. um I've done Twix bars, well, quote unquote Twix bars. Brownie cookies, I've did rocky road brownie cookies. Anything that is in a normal bakery, a normal recipe book, you want it, I can make it. That is 24:59 Fabulous. So tell me again how long you've been you've been doing this So baking for business since last May so May of 2025 Otherwise making all of my stuff for 13 years So you've been perfecting this for quite a while it it's so gluten-free baking is 100 % Science and not art like a lot of baking is with wheat flour because you have to have 25:28 the correct amount of between your fats, your liquids and your dries. You can't be like, oh, I'm just going to toss in a little extra sugar or take out sugar because I don't want so much. And what a lot of people don't get is that reaction between the sugars and the fats are what make your gluten free item taste amazing, taste like, you know, you would think you're eating gluten. I've had some people 25:58 message me after they've had something and be like, are you sure this was gluten free? And I'm like, 100%. You are a magician too. It's it is 100 % magic. It's you could do the recipe one day, it turns out just how it's supposed to. And you try it again the next day and you miss 20 grams of flour, it's gonna flop. And it's 26:26 You have to be precise each and every time with gluten-free baking. Yes. And I'm going to tell you, I tried making gluten-free bread maybe three, four years ago and it tasted really good. And I don't remember the recipe, so don't ask me. I have no idea how I did it, but it was so dense. Yes. And I was like, yeah, gluten, gluten-free bakery. 26:56 stuff is probably not going to be my thing. I'm going to leave it to the experts. Yeah, with my bread, you can leave it on the counter for up to four days and just like fresh bakery bread, that's when it's going to start to get stale and then start to mold because I don't use any preservatives in my food. But for somebody to have a soft sandwich without toasting the bread first is what I wanted people to experience. 27:24 because that's what I missed was, know, growing up, I would have the bologna cheese and Doritos sandwich or the ham and Lay's chip sandwich. So I wanted people to be able to have that memory again, that soft sandwich that they've been craving because that's what I liked to eat. And I know I can't be the only one. So I wanted, you know, that soft bread. um 27:51 So it's trying different things to see, okay, well, what can I use instead of this? Can I sub this for this in case somebody can't have that? It's trying the different things back and forth and then be like, holy crap, that worked. It's a beautiful thing when a plan comes together. uh So do you sell at farmers markets? Do you sell online? Where do you sell your goods? 28:18 through my house, if somebody sends a message or there's a referral and I get an email, a text, a phone call. I also, at least right now, I am at the All Wheel Wednesdays in Belle Plaine. um Every Wednesday except for July 15th because of their barbecue days. ah That's so far right now. I know I have an event in Chaska. It's, oh. 28:47 what is it called? Let's see, I have it on my calendar. At least I hope I do. Let Freedom Ride. ah It's a car show in Chaska on July 25th. And it's somebody that organizes these to um get donations and things like that for women who have gone through stillbirths and miscarriages and things like that. 29:14 And they're doing a special one for America's 250th. So I will be there. And then there's just, you know, a few things that pop up along the way that are like, Oh, do you have a gluten free vendor? um Or, you know, I've had, there's an art show, not an art show, but like an art class that's actually in Lesour. um I'm doing some things for that, which is 29:44 Tomorrow? No, today's Friday. Yes, tomorrow. ah So I mean, it's just, it's little things like that that you can, if you're participating in that and signed up, get to, you know, try some of my goodies through there. Otherwise, a lot of it is the word of mouth, posting on Facebook, ah doing things like that and hoping that the one person that did try it tells their friend. 30:12 ah or says, hey, I know this person will be here. I know you're gluten-free, things like that. But I want it to be more than just people who need to be gluten-free to find me because my food, and I hate tooting my own horn, but I keep getting told that I need to because of how good my stuff is. That I don't want it just to be gluten-free people that find me. want anybody who wants something delicious to find me. ah 30:41 And I think that's really important for me to be able to help people like that that want something good that has, you know, good ingredients in it and that they can feel good about eating and not be like, oh, I just, you know, I ate all of this crap. ah I don't, I don't want any of that. want to be like, oh, that was really good. I feel good about that. She has, you know, quality ingredients, things like that. Yes. 31:11 Reframe it from tooting your own horn to telling your own truth. Yes Because telling your own truth is is a much more positive framework for your brain to accept Yes So so people can find you a wildflower crumb company on Facebook any anywhere else they can find you online Gmail added to that if they want to email otherwise finding me in Belle Plaine on Wednesdays or 31:40 Uh, other random events I've, I've tried making a website and I've been out of the, apparently I've been out of the computer game like that for way too long because even with help like frames and you know, Oh, here's a, you know, take this and you can, you know, just change the wording. I am not having any luck getting that finished in the slightest. 32:10 Do you own your domain name? I do not. Okay. I don't even know how to do that. Okay. Well, I know a little bit about websites. So if you want to pick my brain, you are welcome to do that when we're done recording. I would love to. Okay. So it's wildflower. It's W-I-L-D-F-L-O-U-R. Yep. Chrome, C-R-U-M-B. 32:35 company, C-O-M-P-A-N-Y on Facebook. I want people to be able to find you and find out where you're gonna be this summer. So that's why I said it that way. Ashley, so proud of you. So glad you're doing what you're doing. And number one, you helped yourself, which is really cool. And then you took all that knowledge and you're helping other people, which is, uh I'm applauding you. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's nice to hear, you know, feedback. 33:05 Um, like that just because you don't hear it a lot if at all, um, you know, getting the feedback of man, that was really good or that's the best cake I've had. You know, those are all awesome to hear. And it makes me smile bigger than anybody, you know, could see or know, but just to, you know, have somebody say, I'm proud of you. Like that's a totally different. 33:34 phrase that has a different effect on your heart. Yes, absolutely. And that's why I say it to people I'm proud of because you guys need to hear it because I don't hear it very often either. And when I hear it, I'm like, aw, So I get it. All right. So thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it and keep doing the good work. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Have a good day. You too.
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| Twin Creek Gardens, CSA | 23 Jun 2025 | 00:34:45 | |
Today I'm talking with Beth at Twin Creek Gardens, CSA. You can also follow on Facebook. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Beth at Twin Creek Gardens, CSA. 00:29 And Beth and I talked back in April of 2024. So it's been a year and a couple of months since we've had the joy of hearing about Beth's life at the CSA. So good afternoon, Beth. How are you? Good afternoon. I'm doing well. Thank you. Good. How's the weather in Wisconsin? It's hot here in Minnesota. Well, you know, it's funny. I've been waiting for hot and now that it's here, I'm going, oh, God, it's too hot. 00:56 So it's beautiful. It's an absolutely beautiful day. So it's been fun running in and out of the house to to switch gears with the water every once in a while. Yeah. Given everybody a nice deep drink. Yeah. My husband filled up three different bowls for the dog last night because she really wanted to play frisbee and it was hot out. And he said he said that she drank one and a half bowls of water after after she played frisbee. And I was like, don't play frisbee with her when it's so hot like this. You're going to kill her. You know. 01:25 Yeah, it is hard on them. Yeah, and when it's this warm and it hasn't been this warm yet, so she hasn't acclimated and she's a chubby dog. She's probably five pounds overweight. So I can't imagine it's fun being her and running across the yard chasing after the frisbee and realizing how hot she is when she's Right. So anyway, it's been over a year since we talked on the podcast. So catch me up a little bit. Well, 01:55 Um, last year I was doing a lot of dreaming and my tagline was if we build it, they will come. And I put that hashtag on just about everything as I was posting about what we were trying to do. And it seems like it's true. Um, we have a new website and that has been a game changer for us. I was trying to do that. 02:23 solo and try to build something that would meet our needs and the needs of our members. And it just wasn't working. And so I found CSAware. I don't know if you're familiar with that. found it through localharvest.org, which is a nonprofit. And we are a nonprofit, so it was a perfect fit. And I've got a wonderful person who knows the ins and outs of the website. She's my go-to gal. I can call her or send her a text. 02:52 at any time of day to help me figure things out. I think it's really made the difference for me in being able to meet the needs of the people of the community and yet still not have to spend so much time with the nuts and bolts of it. So we currently have 10 families that have signed up for the season and it's a perfect pace. They trickled in. 03:21 like two at a time, three at a time. And we have some really exciting partnerships that have started. I'm really excited to share with you. so, you know, I think it's growing at a pace that we, and I, can still hold on to the bucking bronco and go for a ride. We're having a lot of fun. Good, because I know you really wanted to take. 03:46 what you and Rob had started building and share it. And it sounds like you are, so that's fantastic. Yeah, yeah. We have some families who come pick up their boxes here on Monday or Tuesday. And they are, what's exciting is it's families. So little people are coming with parents and getting a sense of the garden and what it's like here at the farm. And we're talking about hosting one of their birthday parties in a few weeks. So 04:15 They really love it here. And that to me is such a blessing. Yeah. And let me, let me catch people up. CSA, it stands for community supported agriculture. And basically it is subscribing to a share of the farm's produce that is grown during the summer for a certain amount of weeks during the growing season. Correct. And our season is 24 weeks. 04:40 But we started a little earlier. Now, I've learned so much about how I'm going to structure next year. But there isn't a ton of fresh produce right now. And so what we've been doing, and everybody's so lovely about it, is they're getting fresh microgreens that I'm growing weekly. And they're getting salad greens because I can grow them hydroponically, quickly, and cleanly. 05:07 then the rest of what they're getting in their boxes right now is actually some of our specialty items that are available, including preserves and other like ferments and things like that, so that they have a sense of what else is on offer besides the fresh produce. You're brilliant. That is a great idea. Thank you. It's been working really well. It's so cute when I go to 05:34 greet people and I say, here it is. They say, oh, it's like Christmas. So they don't know what they're getting for sure. I mean, they do. Let me rephrase that. But they're not necessarily like, it's not carrots and potatoes yet. know? And so it's an exciting little, ooh, what treat am I getting today? we also are doing everything is organic, of course. But not, I'm not a certified organic farm because that's like a step beyond what we're 06:03 really desirous of in our 60s to go through the hoops to do, but everything is made and done and grown organically and with permaculture practices. So we're doing regenerative farming with our soil and all of those kinds of things. so I'm also very much about not only healing the earth, but healing ourselves through what we eat. So there's a lot of ferments and there's a lot of sourdough ideas and 06:32 all that kind of healing food, I guess. I like to look at things, know, food was our first medicine. And so I want us to be able to go back to using it for our health, not just because we're hungry. Does that make sense? It sure does. That's why we, what we try to do here too. This was the first, this is the first summer that we've had lettuces, like butter crunch lettuce. 07:00 and radishes for sale at the very first farmers market back two Saturdays ago. And Kyle's been doing the farmers market. This is his third year. So first time in three years now that we've had actual produce at the very first farmers market. 07:21 Yeah, it's not easy up here. Our season is so varied. I mean, we had so many really warm, hot days in May, and then it would be 39, 42 at night, whatever, really low temperatures at night. so my poor plants were just, I kept them all very safe and protected in the greenhouse. And so... 07:48 are we have these huge garden beds and now they're full because the weather's finally better. But we had three weeks of really, really cold, wet weather and we could have lost everything if we had put them out when old farmers' almanacs said we should have, which I kind of found disheartening. I think we were wise to go with what we could feel, you know, and just kind of look at the forecast 10 days ahead. 08:18 kind of gauge it that way. I mean, even our sweet potatoes, and they're under shelter, but it's just the top part of the greenhouse, the walls are not on in our second greenhouse. And so I keep them covered at night when it's under 50. I cover them with plastic, because they're sweet potatoes and they're a morning glory flower and they don't like it. So. 08:44 but there was a time there where I was starting to think I'm gonna start knitting sweaters for everybody out there in the garden, those poor babies, because we had three weeks in last week of June and the first two weeks of, or last week of May, excuse me, and the first two weeks of June that were just wet and cold. Yep, I understand. I really wish that we had had more rhubarb planted here, because this weather that we had here in Minnesota would have been perfect to grow scads of rhubarb. We would have had rhubarb coming out our ears. 09:14 And we only have one really established plant that was here when we bought the place. We brought some from our old house and put it in four fall ago, four autumns ago. And it just hasn't taken off the way we were hoping it would. It's doing well this year, but not, it hasn't been established yet. So, but. That does take a while. I'm having the same situation. I brought some from my house when Rob and I got married. 09:42 I brought the stuff that was from my parents' place that I had at my house that I then brought here. And it's really just now, and that was three years ago, it's just now really, really establishing itself pretty solidly. Yeah, I feel like rhubarb and peonies take a long time to get going, but boy, when they get, when they're ready, they go crazy. Yeah, and then just get out of the way and let them do their thing. Oh yeah, this was the spring. 10:08 This is the spring I've been waiting for since we moved in for peonies. Oh my God, my husband took a picture of our driveway. You hang a right into our driveway. It's a long driveway and then it's a round circle at the end in front of the pole barn. And so on the right hand side of the driveway and like just where that circle starts, there's a space that he put in a circle of peony plants, probably. 10:36 Probably 15 feet in diameter. So across the circle, it's like a radius of 15 feet. And we had coral, had yellow, we had baby pink, we had fuchsia, we had what I call Hello Kitty pink, and we had white. We had white panties this year. this was the year because it's the first year sleep, second year creep, third year leap. Well, this is the fourth year. 11:06 Okay. And my husband was like, do you want me to bring you in panties? And I was like, no, I can see them out the window. Leave them right where they are. Yeah. So yeah, I was very, very excited to see them this year because I have been waiting and waiting and waiting. Isn't it funny how we get, you know, we get this vision in our mind and we just, I can do it. I can wait. I can wait, you know, but then when it takes 11:33 three years to get there, I'm having that same feeling with my asparagus beds. This is my second year with them, but I put in two, know, second year asparagus last year. So technically this is the third year of that, those particular plants, but I'm waiting another year, but I'm just chomping at the bit as they, they're probably, I don't know, 12 inches tall, maybe 15 inches, the fronds. 12:00 They're really thin and tiny and I'm like, oh, come on, sweeties. Yeah I'm starving for you. Yeah, so it's hard to be patient when you know what they're going to be Someday. Yeah I was really hoping to have asparagus to sell in the farm stand this spring as ours have been in since the second fall we were here so 20, okay, and They didn't they're not quite at that point yet where I can go out and pick bunches and put 12:29 rubber bands around them and sell them. So I got to have three different, I don't know, messes. My mom would call it a mess of asparagus. Three different messes of asparagus to have here, you know, to go with dinner three times this year. so sweet. Oh my God, I keep forgetting how good homegrown asparagus is. It's like such a flavor that doesn't exist when you buy it in the grocery store. 12:58 No, it's a totally different thing. And when we moved in here, I was like, can we please put in asparagus crowns like now? And my husband said, now. He said, because it's, he said, we have to get settled in, we have to get moved in. We moved in in August of 2020. He said, we have to find our feet. He said, this winter is about planning the gardens. Now that didn't stop him from 13:26 from accepting some apple trees as a housewarming gift from a local apple grower that we know who was like, we have some apple trees for your place. I was like, thank you. But the second fall over here, we got asparagus, crowns, we got strawberry crowns, anything that was perennial that we could get our hands on, we put in that fall in autumn. Yeah, that's what we did when I got here. We started building the, Rob had 13:55 apple trees before me. And we've been establishing guilds underneath them now for three years. So each of them has comfrey plants and rhubarb and borage and what's the other? Oh, some of them have raspberries under there too, under each of the trees. And we have eight trees out in our, what I'm designating the food forest. 14:23 Right now, because of the deer around here, each one of them has its own little, what I call their play pens, with the fencing around each tree. And so I have to peel those back and get in there and weed every few weeks or so. I've only done two of them so far this spring. But our pear tree is doing remarkably well. And we've got several baby pears, almost probably 20, 25. 14:48 little pears on there and then underneath I've been harvesting rhubarb from that one. And then I just, the raspberries are starting to look so beautiful. And that one has golden raspberries. So I'm excited about that. So we did a lot of perennial stuff those first two years. And then last year we did as well, but that's up in the front yard. The food forest is in our backyard. 15:16 And then it's literally up against the forest. So we have a row of blueberry bushes there that I think the animals think is a buffet I put out for them. never got a, I think Rob got maybe a handful of blueberries a couple of times. So we're going to probably be transplanting them more up into the cottage garden too, up in the kitchen garden in the front by the gazebo. Cause it's easier for our dog to patrol, you know? 15:44 like this little sentinel around wherever I am in the yard at night, our biggest garden. Rob is an in-ground gardener. I, because of the nature of where I lived for 25 years, am a raised bed and green stock planter gardener. Because of the cedar trees in my old yard, I couldn't dig. 16:11 I planted on top of those beautiful cedar tree roots. But Rob, he built this beautiful kitchen garden for us around the gazebo that he put in the middle of his five acre front yard. And so that's just been growing exponentially. But now in front of that, he's created this massive in-ground garden using the soil, the dirt from where the cows used to spend their days. 16:41 So it's beautiful, incredibly beautiful black loam. so we have, it's 40 feet wide by 80 feet long, no, 30 feet wide, excuse me, 30 by 80. And then we have a potato patch besides that. And then he has since made four hukulculture mounds to put more things on next to the 30 by 80. He loves the big in-ground gardening and the 17:10 I've, you know, because of, like I said, I couldn't, now I'm discovering how glorious it is to have that space. It's just magnificent. And all I go is turn the water and one half of it gets watered. And then because of the length of the hoses, we only do one of them at a time. So the water pressure is good enough, you know? So now that he's working days, that's my job in the morning instead of his, and I'm really enjoying. 17:38 that beautiful front garden of his too. You guys keep going, you're going to be feeding the entire state of Wisconsin. I have a question about the pear trees. What variety is it? you know? No, I am not certain. We got that the first year. We had two of them and one of them, well, one of them got knocked over by the backhoe, unfortunately, and we tried to... 18:07 bring it back and couldn't. But I remember that this one was one that was like viable down to zone three, which made me feel like it would make it in zone four. And so it has. But I do not remember off the top of my head what the variety is. And the other one was a zone four pair that did not seem really happy. I think that where we're at, we're kind of in a bowl. 18:36 And we get a lot, a lot of wind. So I think we feel more like a 3B than a 4A to me. Okay. I'm going to have to do some research on pears because we have two peach trees. We have like 16 apple trees, but we don't have any pear trees. I like pears and my husband will eat pears. He would eat pears every day when they're at the grocery store in season. 19:02 Oh, absolutely. Me too. I prefer them to apples, actually. Yeah. So I'm really excited. Yeah. I'll message you when I figure it out. I've got it all on a database. You know, I'm one of those former teachers who has to keep track of everything. 35 years in the classroom and data with student learning. Yeah, I'm all about the data. So I have spreadsheets on my computer that 19:32 go like the year, the variety, the yeah, blah, blah. where I've planted it on the farm, we have maps on there. Yeah. But there's so many of them I don't have in my head the actual variety. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. I was just curious. don't know half the varieties of the apples we have. I know we have Regent, we have Harrelson, we have Honey Gold, we have Honey Crisp. 20:01 We bought two honeycrisp trees a couple of years ago. Oh, those are so delicious. They will not thrive up here. And I'm so sad because my granddaughter and I eat them, love them from the store, right? So then we took the little apple seeds and my little, well, she was three then, planted them in a flower pot on our window sill. And now it's about a foot and a half tall and she wants to put it in the yard. And I'm like, baby girl, it won't survive. 20:30 So we are working long term at doing a wallopini. Have you read anything or seen much about those? of. It's sort of. The in-ground greenhouse that you can have like trees and things like that can't survive in your zone. we're planning on going that direction. So I'm going to keep her little tree in our greenhouse. 21:00 and I'm gonna nurture it until we have a wallopini to let it grow in. I saw this brilliant thing where they have citrus trees and all of the kinds of trees that they want to grow that can't survive in their zone. They have them in those garden carts and they live in those garden carts and then they can just wheel them in and out of the greenhouse in the winter. So that's what we're gonna do, because I want citrus. 21:28 And I definitely, after my trip to Europe, I definitely need an olive tree, just for my own sanity. Well, I was in Italy and Greece and fell in love with olives. I've always liked them, but oh my heaven. So I want to grow an olive tree. Yeah, olive trees are really beautiful too. It's not just the fact that they give you olives to eat, but they're really pretty. they are. They're just... 21:56 They're old world elegant. That's what comes to my mind when I looked at them when I was there. It's like, okay, now I get it why people, some people get really obsessed with the old world quote. It's very logical. They're so just elegant and beautiful. So that's a plan for me for long range is that wallopini. But in the meantime, I'm going to hang on to her cute little apple tree, her little honey crisp. 22:26 I think that's great. So I can't remember because we talked a while ago. Do you have any animals? you have chickens or anything? We do not right now. My stepson, Rob's son, Stephen, had the chickens and the ducks, so we didn't bring them on board. He used to have chickens when he had the cows. But the last of our chickens... 22:54 was a free ranger boy and it was tough and it would flit around and the cat would chase it and it was kind of adorable that first year I got here. But she did not survive the winter. we are talking about what I love is one of the traveling, there's a special name, like a chick saw, they call it, like a traveling chicken coop that's on wheels. 23:23 Yes, I want to do that. And so I'm being more patient than I've ever been in my life about like getting a good idea and wanting to do it and then having someone make it for me. He's very, very busy doing all of the other big infrastructure stuff. So I'm waiting on the chickens. Yeah, chicken tractor is I think what most people call that. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have I've seen them called chick sauce. Yeah, we don't have any of those. just have a run the chickens get let out into and during the day. So 23:53 Nice, nice. if we have a chicken tractor, it would drive my dog crazy because she would want to get to the chickens to see them. And she is not allowed off lead because there's a very busy road that borders our property. And if this dog got hit, I would never forgive myself. So she is never off leash or off lead because I'm afraid she'd get killed. 24:22 Oh, for sure. 24:26 Yeah. So I'm hoping that, you know, we are in a back end of, we're almost at the end of a road. And so it's, the traffic isn't so bad here. Our cat goes visiting the neighbors and we'll be down, you know, two doors down and they're coming out of their driveway will be our little goofy cat who's just wandering the neighborhood. But our dog stays pretty close to home. So we're pretty lucky in that. 24:56 Yeah. My sentinel, I call him, he just follows me. And when Rob is during the school year, he works during the night, you know, evenings. So I'm out in the garden this spring by myself and there he is just looking at the woods, just watching. Nobody's coming in to get my mama. He's such a good boy. He's doing his job. as a teacher, are you going to try to have people come and see your farm? 25:26 Oh, absolutely. In fact, the two families that come Mondays and Tuesdays to pick up their things, we have been talking about one of the families has teenagers. And so one of those boys is coming on Monday, he's going to become our weed whacker. And he's very excited about clearing the, you using the weed whacker tool. So I'm going to be able to teach him where we're going to be doing things. 25:54 but that same family has teenage girls and her, the mother, Emily, and Allison, the other mother who comes in the beginning of the week, we've all talked about doing some sourdough stuff together. yeah, and then the people, I was gonna tell you about our partnerships. We have a partnership now with the City of Superior Wellness Committee has, 26:23 promoted our farm to every employee in the City of Superior and the Douglas County Government Center. So they've been given our information, they've been given an email. I did a frequently asked questions paper with pictures and we have that's small but mighty group of five that have started with us and I'm very excited. Last Wednesday was our first delivery with them. 26:53 And Patrick who is on the Wellness Committee, and his family want to come out also to see where their food is grown. yeah, it's going to be that I'm encouraging everyone, the people in Iron River, there's three of them that are coming together in not this next week, but the week after when the father is back. And there's a restaurant where the farmer's market is. 27:23 and we are doing some farm to table work with that restaurant with the rustic roost in Iron River now. That's gonna be a partnership. have like, for example, dilly beans that one of the ladies makes for having in their buffet, but also in their Bloody Marys. And so they are putting in a bulk order for beans. 27:47 And so when the beans are ready, they're all gonna come over and harvest their beans and go make their dilly beans for their restaurant. And they've put in a request for other things like the salad greens, but also in particular spinach, because the spinach that they are able to get for, they don't have local. And so they're, doing, actually I'm gonna be doing I think some perpetual spinach, which technically isn't spinach, but it's. 28:15 It's much heartier and stands up better on salad bars and in fresh, you know, when it's traveling to a restaurant kind of thing. So that's one, two of our partnerships. And then the third one is another local grower who does mushrooms, extraordinarily gorgeous mushrooms. And I am a newbie at mushrooms. And so they have a website, it's called mushroomsreach.com. And 28:45 with our partnership, some of the time people will get like this week in their boxes, they got a lion's mane mushroom that was about the size of a small dinner plate. And then they have recipes, there's a recipe on their website. So I printed that off. And everybody in their box got a copy of the recipe as well as a recipe that I had provided with them or suggested to them when they got their 29:13 welcome plant of chives. So when they sign up, they get a beautiful chive plant that's blossoming. I have so many gorgeous purple blossoms everywhere. And one of the things they got as a sample this week in their box was herb butter, which I made with some of the chives. And then they got a recipe for infused chive vinegar with 29:41 different marinades and salad dressings to make. So we're trying to do more farm to table kinds of things so they don't have all of this produce and then go, what do I do with it? Yep. Good. And I'm doing that with like a baba ganoush recipe. I'm trying different kinds of baba ganoush recipes to find the yummiest, easiest because we've got tons of eggplant planted. And I... 30:09 I really want people to learn to enjoy them other than just your standard kind of cooking process. yeah, so we're doing a lot of like the pickles. I did two different pickles this last week in little sample jars in their boxes of refrigerator quick pickles. So if they decide they love that recipe, then when they get their produce, hey, they've got a recipe and a quick pickle they can do with their. 30:40 stuff, their onions and their cucumbers. So I and it's I love refrigerator pickles. I do. They're so easy and they're so delicious. And I grew up with a there was always a jar of what we called mom's pickles. And it was just a simple vinegar, but vinegar mayonnaise milk based recipe. And they were when we run out, we just chop up some more and stick them in the you know, it was always in 31:09 in the fridge and and I just love that it's summer to me is those cucumber pickles. and the refrigerator pickles don't get squishy like I hate it when I when we can pickles here because we're not great at it I've got to get my mom's recipe she had pickles that were not squishy but the ones we've made within like two months of them being canned they're not crisp anymore and there's a trick I just don't know what it is. Yeah. 31:37 Yeah, my grandma was really good at it too. And I think it had something to do with allium or alum. So I don't do, I do can pickles, but I don't do that for other people because I do my fermented pickles. I prefer that or the refrigerator pickles to the canning pickles for that very reason, because they're the fermented pickles are so, they get soft enough, but not too soft. 32:06 And then that's a really good food for your gut. And I just do a quick ferment. So it's like three to four days. And then you get all the probiotics that you should have. And yet you have the yummy, pickly, num, deliciousness. And I just find that the more we work together to help each other learn about these things, the gut biome, the brain-gut connection, all of this kind of stuff, as a teacher, 32:35 I knew there was something that was changing about our children. They were coming to us every generation less prepared to learn, less able to learn once they got there. I mean, it was just, there had to be something in the environment because it wasn't that it was, you know, these aren't aliens. These are, you know? And so it's the food. I swear every generation, they are less and less able to digest and process and they're eating more processed yuck. 33:06 And you know, our grocery stores, even the stuff that is quote healthy, still has addictive salt and fat and sugar in it. And it's just harder and harder for us to raise healthy kids. by having them come here and plant things and fall in love with gardening and get grounded by, we're having grass instead of rock. have grass and sand. 33:35 so that if kids want to run barefoot in our gardens, they can, because I do. Yeah, That's the way to be healthy, you know? Connect to the earth again. For sure. I try to keep these to half an hour, Beth, and we are at 33 minutes. I so excited that all the things that you had planned on being sort of in the middle of by now, you're either in the middle of or you've 34:04 mastered it and you're you're planning new things. Yeah it's been a miracle. Yeah absolutely. So where can people find you online? We are at Twin Creek Gardens dot CSA where dot com. Okay cool and you're Twin Creek Garden CSA on Facebook? Yes. Alright awesome thank you so much for coming back to chat with me. I'm I'm cheering you on honey keep doing the good work. 34:34 Thanks so much. You too. I'm looking forward to talking again. as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Have a great day Beth. You too, hon. Bye.
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| Homestead Hobbyists | 20 Jun 2025 | 00:39:52 | |
Today I'm talking with Lindsay and Kaleb at Homestead Hobbyists. You can also follow on Facebook. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Lindsay and Kaleb at Homestead. 00:29 Homestead hobbyists. There we go. Good afternoon, you guys. are you? Doing well. Good afternoon. Thanks for having us on. Yeah, you're kind of saving my bacon. It's been, it's been rough getting guests to commit because it's a really rough time of year for people who are, I don't know, birthing animal babies or trying to get their gardens in or their crops in. So I appreciate you making the time. Yeah. It's like it's busy season all of a sudden. 00:58 Yeah, I went through this back in November, trying to schedule interviews around Christmas time because everybody was busy with Christmas plans. And we're not big holiday celebrators here. We just aren't. We're not Jehovah's Witnesses or anything, but we just don't make a big deal of it. And I always forget that other people do. And I was like, huh, I might be entirely screwed on my podcast or two weeks straight at Christmas time. This is great. 01:28 Well, if you ever need us to jump on as backup conversationalists, you let us know. will. I will put you on in my stable of, of they'll talk to me, I think, hopefully. All right. You guys are in Ohio. We're in Ohio. We are more on like the middle Western side of Ohio. We're in a really, um, 01:52 not super small town, but we are surrounded by a lot of really small towns. There's probably only 20,000 people here and we're about 45 minutes north of Dayton. If folks know where that is. I know where that is because I drive through Ohio about once every five years from Minnesota to Maine to see my parents. So I know I have an idea of where Dayton is. my great aunt and uncle lived in 02:21 Oh my God, I can't think of the town, but right near Indianapolis, Indiana and my grandparents on my mom's side live in Oakwood, Illinois, which is not far from Chicago. I think it's an hour south of Chicago. So I'm familiar with the route that I drive and all those towns are on little signs that say, if you want to go to Chicago, go that way. then it takes you two hours to get there. 02:47 Yep, exactly. I love road trips. I really, really do. I haven't done one in four years now and I'm getting older. I'm not so good at the sitting in the car for three, four hours straight at a time. My back starts to hurt from sitting in the seat of the car. So road trips aren't as much fun as they used to be. But boy, when I was a kid, my parents were like, we're going to Illinois. I was like, yay, snack foods and pop all the way. 03:16 Our kids are just getting to the point where they like that. They like the idea of a road trip. My youngest, asked me probably just this week actually, I can't remember if it was this week or last week. She goes, mommy, when are we gonna do that thing where we get up really early and we get to wear our jammies and leave in the car? I was like, yeah, we're gonna do that soon. Yeah, it's exciting. It's getting you out of your comfort zone and going to a brand new place. 03:46 or a place you've been to before, but it's always fun to go there. So, all right. So tell me about yourselves and Homestead hobbyists, cause I want to know all about you. Okay. Well, Caleb, do you want to kick off? No. So we are originally from the Ohio area. We kind of had a, we're, 04:15 We've had an interesting journey to get to Homestead Hobbyists. Both of us grew up in this area and then went away to college and then lived in different states and then sort of found our way back to Ohio, especially as we were getting more solidified in our careers and starting a family and we wanted to be back close to home. So we live in the same town that 04:44 my parents and my in-laws live in, which comes in handy. And one of the things that I think we both recognized is that we grew up with some different homesteading activities in different ways on both sides of our family. And especially as we got kind of more into a routine of day-to-day life, it was like, well, I kind of want to bring some of this stuff back. 05:13 So, like, I grew up in my mom, she made a lot of our clothes when we were little. And, you know, we did a lot of just stuff ourselves. And then, Caleb's side of the family was like gardening and canning and even more of that. And so, especially once our kids got here, it was like, well, we want to do some of these things with them too. And also, we're not... 05:42 We're not going out and doing things, but we also still have full-time jobs. So Homestead Hobbyist was kind of birthed because it was like, we still want to be able to do some of this stuff and we want to show others that they can do it, even if it's not solely everything that they're doing. Because you can kind of go down a rabbit hole and all of a sudden you've got, you know, 20 different things you're doing every day and trying to do that on top of raising kids and having a job and, but also wanting to do 06:12 You know, some of those things that just bring you joy. Yeah. Does, does Caleb have anything to add before I jump in? Not really. That's probably a better summary than I would have put it. Oh, you have a beautiful voice, Caleb. You should tell them a little bit about your background growing up though. Cause I think that would be interesting. Um, we grew, I grew up out in a, uh, farming. 06:37 community area. There's a small school that mostly farmers, kids and stuff go to. I did not go there, but so I was kind of surrounded pretty regularly by fields, animals, a lot of that stuff. And my really only tie to that was, you know, taking 4-H animals, but definitely my grandma grew up just on the other side of the block, raised my parents, my mom and her siblings. 07:05 in that area. And so she was very much, you know, born out of the depression and stuff. So she would can regularly. I remember making rhubarb jam at her house and cookies and stuff. And she has a very old farmhouse. And my grandpa was a hog farmer before he was in the World War II. So there was some, you know, some aspects of that from them. But then my mom carried a lot of that stuff over. So we would 07:32 hand stuff pretty regularly. And a lot of our day-to-day chores, especially during the summer, was taking care of the garden and picking things. And we had a disgustingly huge mulberry bush, our bush tree that grew over our playset that my dad absolutely hated because the birds were pooping purple stuff everywhere, staining things. But, you my mom would usually say, hey, if you pick a couple of bulls of that, I will make a pie. So we always kind of look forward to that. 08:02 So yeah, a lot of that sort of stuff kind of growing up and it's something that I always, there's skills that I think are underrated and obviously very useful in a lot of times and it really encourages a lot of self-reliance, which I really value. Yes, and that's, I'm glad you said that because it's where I wanted to jump in. It is so funny to me that back during the depression, people were doing everything they could to find food. 08:32 They may have had shelter, but they didn't have food because there was no money. people were, people were walking across the United States to find jobs, to send money back to their families. And, and then, um, there was a thing, there was a poster or a flyer at the post office back during World War I or World War II, can't remember which, about our government was encouraging us to have a kitchen garden. 09:02 and a few chickens because that would help the war cause. And now cities are like, oh no, no, we don't want you to have chickens. Chickens are noisy and dirty and bring in vermin. And I'm just like, you've got to be kidding me. H O A's do not enjoy chickens. Yeah. Um, I used to have a, I don't even know. Homeowner's association is what HOA stands for. 09:31 And I used to have another thing that went under HOA and I can't remember what it was, but I think it had something that had the word hell for age, but I can't remember what the other two words. And we've never lived under an HOA. My mother-in-law did. And they wouldn't even allow her to have a potted tomato plant on her patio. Holy cow. Nope. But she could have a dog. 10:00 She could have a small dog. I'm like, tomato plants don't make a mess and they don't bark. They don't make any noise. What is the deal here? So I, I love that you guys are doing what you're doing because a lot of places don't allow for this. If you choose to live in that environment, I do not, I would, I would not do well with an HOA. I would get, um, 10:29 I get kicked out of my house probably, so. 10:34 Yeah, that's it was funny because when we were looking for our first home, one of the requirements Caleb had was he was like, I don't care where it is as long as it's outside the city limits. Like we don't have to have a lot, but it has to be outside the city limits. Yeah, that's why we moved almost five years ago now because we had lived in town. 11:03 for 20 years in a small town of like 6,000 people and we were a block and a half off of Main Street that went through town. And I was so sick of people tearing up our road because it was basically flat and then went up a hill by our house. And they would take the shortcut to get from the Main Street up to the other big street that went north and they would cut through our neighborhood to do that instead of going to the light. 11:31 There were a ton of little kids that lived in that neighborhood and I lived in fear of a kid getting hit by a car. And it was just noisy and dusty and busy and loud and just obnoxious every day. So when we had the opportunity to get out of there, we were like, okay, let's, let's move outside of city limits. And we actually moved outside of city limits of a city half an hour from the city we had been living in. So. 12:01 Yeah, I get it. And the biggest thing about city limits is that you have to abide by the rules of your city if you live within city limits. Once it becomes county, it's a little less, it's a little more forgiving. Yeah. Yeah. Especially with townships and counties, it's, it's a lot different. Absolutely. I mean, I've told the story once already on one podcast, but I will share it again. Cause why not? 12:30 We wanted to put in a farm stand and it's not permanent. I mean, we could move it if we wanted to, but it's heavy. It's one of those nice sheds that you get from like the tough shed company. And as Barn Red, it's adorable. We love it. We have made like almost $300 since June 1st, I think, on eggs and candles and soap and lip balms and some radishes, you know, stuff that we make where we grow. 13:01 And that's awesome. But we had to get a permit to be able to put it where we wanted to put it. And it's called a setback permit. And it's through the county. How interesting. And I didn't know if we needed any permits because I've never lived outside of city limits like this. And I called our county and I said, we're going to be doing this thing. It's not a permanent building, but it's this size. 13:28 And the lady put me through to whoever handles that. And he was like, what's the size of the shed again? And I told him, and he said, you're probably not going to be happy. And I said, what? And he said, number one, I need a photo of the area on your property that you're going to put it so that we know that the, if there was ever a fire at your house, we know that the fire trucks can get in your driveway because you know, that's important. I was like, that's fine. I can send you a photo. 13:57 He said, and it has to be this far back from the road. It has to be this many feet from the edge of the driveway. And I said, it's not really a driveway. It's a driveway and then a turnaround. He's like, where are you again? And I told him. And he said, oh, you're out in the farm country. I was like, yeah, that's why we want a farm stand. He says, OK. He said, just send me the picture. He said, it's going to cost you $50. I was like, I am happy to pay you $50 if I can have a farm stand. He's like, OK, good. 14:26 So then last year we started building our hard-sided greenhouse, which is like 10 or 15 by 20 or 30 feet. And I knew that that was going to need the permit thing. I emailed him and I said, Oh, might need another permit. Here's what we're doing. He's like, it'll be another 50 bucks. I was like, sweet. said, can you, can you send me that same picture with just an X? Where are you going to put the, the, uh, greenhouse? 14:56 And I said, basically the greenhouse is going slightly to the left and behind the farm stand. And he said, send me the picture anyway. I said, okay. So for a hundred dollars in permits, we have a really nice farm stand and a really nice greenhouse. So I'm okay with this. Could not have done this in the city we lived in because we didn't have the room. Yep. A greenhouse is something we've been talking about because we'd love to get to that point where we've got, um, 15:25 an actual place for us to start things, you know, more in the winter time. Right now we don't really have that. So we've been thinking about a couple different ways to approach that. In the meantime, our living room this year ended up with a lot of seedlings stuck in the person. Yeah, I understand. Half of my kitchen was our dining table and then a folding card table in front of our dining table. 15:54 covered with seedling trays this spring for like eight weeks because we started them in February. And we were worried that it wasn't going to be warm enough in the greenhouse to put them out at the end of that eight weeks, but it was, it was fine. And I highly recommend if you have the room to do a greenhouse, do it. It pays off in spades. Yeah, that's, that is definitely the next thing. 16:20 It's funny because that's kind of one of the other things that we've been trying to share a little bit more on Homestead hobbyists is that I think sometimes when you, I love the homesteading community because I feel like it's kind of, it's kind of like this conversation. It's very open and friendly and you're all talking and sharing about, what did you do here? And did that work? And does this one work or this didn't work for me? So now I'm trying this. 16:46 And one of the things with Homestead Hobbyists is I feel like you see a lot of these very like beautifully curated images and it's not really what it's like when you're homesteading. Like there's dirt everywhere and there's chicken poop and there's kids covered in mud and animals that are just, you know, all over the place. And so that's kind of like the other thing that we 17:13 decided we wanted to do was just be very authentic and say, hey, we tried this. For example, I had a bunch of seedling starters and like, I would say half of them died this year because it's the first year that we've done seedlings. And Caleb had some other ones that we had saved seeds from last year and those did really well. it's so funny because I think 17:43 When you're working with plants and animals, I think failure is like par for the course. And I think it's so much more accepted than in other areas of like your day to day job or things like that. Yeah. I feel like appearances have to go out the window with this because you can't guarantee that you're not going to have mud on your floor when people come to visit. Yeah. 18:12 It's mud on the floor, your rack stands with your plants everywhere. Yeah, I feel like, okay, this is going to sound really weird. Our home is really lovely. Like it was remodeled completely before we ever saw it, like before we bought it. And I was just smitten when I saw this place for the first time. It's gorgeous downstairs. They remodeled the entire downstairs. And I was like, 18:42 It's never going to look like this again. I need to drink this in. It was empty. It was shiny. It was beautiful. Floors were clean. Toilet had basically never been used. I don't think the bathtub had ever been used. I think it was that brand new. And I was like, holy crap, it will never look like this again. And my in-laws came down this past Sunday for Father's Day and 19:10 I literally had to clean my kitchen and my husband had to clean the bathroom because we've been so busy and we don't care about appearances when we're in the middle of spring growing season. was like, huh, I forgot that company is a really good incentive to do some cleaning. Go back and do that stuff. Yeah. So it's 19:36 It's a lot, but I also feel like this is very much what real life is. mean, the first six months we were here, it felt like living in someone else's house in a bed and breakfast or a, um, what is it? VRBO, Vacation Rental by Owner thing. Because it was so new and I hadn't gotten all my stuff moved from the old house yet. 20:03 You know, cause we, well, I shouldn't say that first month we were here, took us a month to sell the old house, but it was literally like living in a vacation spot because nothing had been messed up yet. And I kept thinking I'm going to scratch paint somewhere and that's going to make it feel like it's ours now. Yeah. I think there's a, I think there's an element of just coziness sometimes too. Not that Nethi's cozy, but. 20:32 there's an element of like something feeling lived in that is just a little bit different than like the spotless nature of everything. And I also feel like if, okay, it's been a long time since I was single without children, since like I was 20. But you know how some people choose to not have children? 21:01 not have animals. They live in a very, I don't know what the word is, sparse one-bedroom apartment and they go to their job 60 hours a week and their apartment is where they go to get a shower and sleep. It's not really where they live. It's not where they spend their time. I can't imagine what that's like. I want where I live to be lived in. 21:29 And I feel like the homesteading life has given me that. 21:34 Yeah, we joke a lot of times when we're out at the farm at his parents' house that like you don't go there with your nice clothes on. You don't go there expecting everything to be spotless, but you'll definitely feel like you've got a lot of love and you'll have a good time when you're out there. And learn some stuff too, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So tell me what you guys have at your place. Do you have chickens? 22:04 So we have an interesting setup. we have our house and we've got the garden beds and the dogs and cat at our house. And then we have a lot of plants and another garden and the chickens out at my in-laws house because... 22:29 our in-laws, my in-laws would like us to buy the family homestead. so, we, Caleb had the foresight when we started having those conversations like five years ago, that it's like, all right, if this is going to be ours, we got some things that we can do now that we are lucky enough to have that set up. So he started planting our mini orchard five years ago. Very nice. Good. 22:59 and then also started planting our grapevines out there. And then because they've got the barns and everything, we have the chickens out there. So it really is like a family activity because we all do this. So here at the house, have our garden spans across the entire backyard and we started 23:25 when we moved here with just like four raised beds and now it's ginormous. Um, and it's kind of changed over the years. think what did we start planting when we first started? one of the boxes was peppers. One of them was tomatoes. One of them was herbs and can't remember if I think we stuck strawberries in the fourth one just so the girls could pick them. Yeah. 23:55 We, it's been interesting because we, kind of change what we do every year. It's been a, a learning experience over the last few years of like, okay, we know we will eat a ton of peppers and do a ton of tomatoes. And then we have kind of like experimental things we do every year. So that's also kind of why we call ourselves homestead hobbyists, because we tend to think more like less around, you know, 24:26 The major things that people know about like so for tomatoes, this year we've narrowed it down and we've gone more Roma because we're going to do, we're going to can and do more pasta sauces and things. But in the past, we've had like a variety of different things. And then we've done everything from like Thai chilies. What else did we do? 24:53 We like spicy food, so we go with a lot of spicy. Different varieties of banana peppers, some of them spicy, some of them pink. Yep. 25:04 Always jalapenos. Green beans. We did radishes and beets this year. Carrots didn't work so good for us last year. Yeah. We always do a lot of green beans because we, that's like one of the staple veggies in the winter time. So we do enough that we can can enough to get through the winter, but somehow we, don't manage to keep too many year over year because we go through them so much. 25:31 It's just so easy to like grab a can of green beans in the wintertime when you're cooking something and add that to whatever you're cooking as a side. Oh yeah. Um, the last time we visited my parents for any length of time, my mom had canned green beans and she sent me home with like, I think it was 14 quart jars of green beans and, I, we didn't can. 25:58 Then I don't love canning. mean, I've come to love it in the last few years, but I really didn't want to can for a long time. And so she sent us home with that many jars and my husband doesn't really love eating green vegetables. He will grow them until he can't anymore, but he does, but he's not into eating them. am. And my, uh, my second son down, I have four kids, daughter, son, son, second son loves green beans. 26:27 And he was like, can I have a jar of green beans just to eat by myself? And he was probably 18, 20 at the time. And I was like, yeah, why? And he said, your mom's green beans are the best green beans ever. He said, the ones from the store suck. I was like, oh, okay. So yeah, he sat there and he literally ate them out of the jar. Oh my goodness. That's so funny. So apparently my mom's green beans are really good. 26:56 But yeah, mean, I think what you're doing is amazing and hobbyist makes it sound like it's just for giggles. And I don't think you're doing this just for giggles at all. You know, it's funny because I've talked about, we've talked about this a couple of times with people. We came up with it because it's not our full-time job. 27:24 Right. And it's not for fun. But we do like try a lot of non mainstream things like, like we, we kind of look at it as like growing the stuff that people don't necessarily always grow. So we have some of those staples, but then like, this year I decided I was going to try my hand at flowers. So I'm trying that out. And then so it's interesting because it's like, we're not just sticking with like, 27:54 one thing. We've talked about like once we move out to his parents' house, like maybe we should get sheep and see how that goes or you But before you said sheep, I was going to say I don't know what you guys are talking about because I very much do this for fun. Enjoy growing things and trying different things and finding out if they're going to work and 28:18 doing a little bit research into what could make this work better or what are ways to make this more productive. And honestly, just spending time out in the garden by myself sometimes is nice too. My husband would agree with you completely, Caleb. He loves being in the garden. It is his de-stressing time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so we probably should have prefaced this at the beginning. So 28:47 Caleb ended up growing up to become a veterinarian. So that's the other reason that like our children are always like, well, we can have this animal because daddy will fix it. And he works with large and small animals. So we have all kinds of opportunities from that perspective too. But I think that's why you spend more time with plants because they're not animals. 29:13 That's a great skill to have though, Caleb, because you can fix it all. And your dad, they're always going to think you can fix everything. My dad's 81 and I still think he can fix all my woes. and I wasn't, like, I wasn't poking fun at the hobbyist thing, but I wanted to lead into, and you guys kind of helped me that, 29:37 that part of homesteading life is the trial and error and the experimentation and the, my God, it worked reaction. It's like being a kid at one of those museums. Like there's a science museum in Minnesota and they let the kids actually see how electricity works with the little ball that you touch and the little sparks are on the inside of it. And they have like, 30:07 and levers that the kids can move and see how that works. Very hands on. And I feel like this homesteading life is the grownup version of that. Oh, let's get a cow and see how that works. Yeah, it really, it's such a different way of thinking than I think. At least I always felt like, especially from like, I work in the corporate space and you know, the idea of like, 30:37 failing is not considered, it's not always seen as something that is essential and will help you grow and also can be fun. it's, to your point, think home setting is really unique in that perspective. Yeah. And you choose the things that you are willing to take the chance on failure at. 31:03 Whereas if you're in a corporate setting, the boss is like, I need you to do this task and I need you to do it to the best of your ability with the expectation that it will not fail. That is not your choice that you took on that task. Yeah, it's just, it, it's a very different, it's a different way of looking at life. And it's, I think not only is it fun, but I think for us too, it's really nice that we can do it with our girls. Cause I mean, 31:33 We've always been very, we kind of came to this agreement pretty early on. It was like, we're not going to do screens. We're not going to do, we're not going to bring around tablets everywhere. And so our girls spend a lot of time outside helping do all these things and they love it. Yeah. I'm, mid fifties. So I remember a world where there weren't personal computers in every room in the house. There weren't tablets. 32:01 Cell phones were a far distant idea and telephones actually had a cord that went from the base of the phone to the receiver that you put to your ear. I remember those days and I remember having to get up to change the channel on the TV and all of that seems really really far away right now from where I am. 32:25 I think it was actually better. mean, as I sit here and talk to you guys in Ohio from Minnesota over a computer connection, I mean, that's wonderful. It makes my life easier because I have made myself a job doing this podcast. But I remember going outside in the summertime at 7 a.m. if I was up at 7 a.m. and spending the whole day outside. Yeah, I remember being told that. 32:53 call it a side and don't come back until it's dark. And we were back in the woods behind my parents' place and there's a creek that runs through a couple different places there. And the girls were with us and I got to point to a couple places where there were still stones left over from some of the dams that I remember as a kid making. Yeah, kids will always find a way to entertain themselves and I think that we have forgotten that part. I think too, homesteading is great because not only 33:21 Can they entertain themselves? But they learn about, you know, hard work and purpose. I think sometimes that gets missed too. Like our oldest, she loves to do chores. Even like my parents and my in-laws, they all joke, they're like, we got so much done today. She was just out there like telling us, okay, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? What are we doing? And she's six. So. Yep. She's got all the energy in the world until she crashes. 33:51 Yeah. She feels so accomplished from that. Like she can, especially like she's real into the chickens right now. And she, she's like, look, this chicken will do this and I can take the chicken here. And I found the eggs. got all of them up there this morning. And you know, so cute. I am so excited for that little girl. She's going to grow up with the best self-esteem ever. That's the plan. 34:19 I hope so. I hope so for you guys sake. really do. Because if you can raise them right, they will be the strongest, most productive, most helpful people as adults you've ever seen. Yeah. I was watching a video the other day about screen time of the average teenager and it was like eight to 10 hours a day. Holy cow. 34:46 I do eight to 10 hours a day because I use the computer and my phone to do my job. But I was like, do these kids ever play? they ever get to go outside and get vitamin D from the sun? And my son was watching the same thing and he's 23. And I said, said, Cam, I'm so glad that you guys were adults before all of this became the norm. I said, because 35:16 You would have wanted to be like your friends and have the computer and the tablet and the phone and da da da da. I said, I would have been so hard pressed to not give you the things you wanted because I love you and I'm your mom. said, but I would have felt really terrible about giving you the things you wanted in this case. He said, we had a ball. said, we used to go out and like do. 35:45 sword fighting with tree branches. And we used to play football in the street because back then people weren't tearing through our neighborhood. He said, mom, said, you lucked out. said, you didn't have to deal with all this craziness. was like, Oh, I lucked out huge. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's something we, we try and, know, we early on decided we were going to try and mitigate that a little bit. So, yeah, good. Good. mean, 36:15 I do not want to tell parents that have given their kids all the technology that they're bad parents because that's probably not the case. are parents doing the best that they can with the values that they have inside themselves. Everybody's family values are different. I don't want to disparage anyone. Parenting is freaking hard. I did it. I remember. I know it is. 36:39 And it still is. My daughter called me last week and she was very upset because something happened on her dad's side of the family that was quite a shock. And she was upset and I had to like swallow down my tears for her and listen to her cry. And it's one of the hardest things you can do with your grown children. When your grown children cry, like actually cry like a baby. 37:06 All you want to do is stop it. You want to make them feel better. And as an adult, you know that they have to feel their feelings. They have to get through it. And I don't even know where I was going with that, but parenting is really hard. It's a really hard job to do. 37:26 So you're doing a great job. Well, thank you. All right, guys. I try to keep you to half an hour. We're at 37 minutes and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. Where can people find you online? Yeah, sure. Thank you so much for having us. Right now you can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Homestead Hobbyists. There's also a link to a newsletter that we're going to be doing here quarterly. So 37:55 You can click the link and sign up for the newsletter. then hopefully here in the next month, we'll have our website launched. So we're going to have blogs about all the different things that we're doing. We have the small vineyard grapevines. So that's a lot of the focus right now because they will be producing grapes next year for the first row. We'll see. 38:26 But you'll be able to kind of go through and read all the things that we're doing there. So for now, Instagram and Facebook are the best way to follow us and see all the new things that are coming. can't wait to see the website and the blog post. I love it when I meet people through the podcast and I get to continue to follow them and see how they're growing. Not just the plants, but the people themselves, how they're changing. 38:51 I would love to have you back to talk me through the whole grapevine thing and what you're planning for that and how you actually intend to use it. So maybe you can come back in a couple months and let me know. Yeah, we can talk through that and then even more details around the orchard because we've got different trees for different purposes in there and we've got a whole other section of fruit trees now. Nice. Yeah. This year we found out with the 39:20 Our fig tree has been an experiment in Ohio. They're not really trees apparently. Okay. So yeah, we would love to come back and talk some more. That would be fun. And we have little baby apples on our honey gold apple trees this year, like a whole bunch of them. We're so excited. So anyway, as usual, people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com. You guys thank you again. I really appreciate your time. Thank you. 39:49 Have a great night. right, bye. Bye.
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| Dawn's Dirt - Farming In Midlife | 19 Jun 2025 | 00:40:31 | |
Today I'm talking with Dawn about homesteading and farming as we age at Dawn's Dirt. You can also follow on Facebook. A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system. You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 00:25 Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt and Dawn was a guest on my show, not two weeks ago, and told us about what she does. But today we're going to be a little more focused and we're going to talk about homesteading and farming and gardening once you get past the age of 40, especially as a woman. Good morning, Dawn. How are you? Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity again. I just love talking about these things. So yeah, it's good. Me too. so 00:55 If we're talking about when you get past 40, obviously I'm past 40, I'm 55. I think you told me you're 44, is that right? I was just going to say who says I'm past 40, but I'm just teasing. I'm 44. I almost had to edit all that out. Okay. So the first thing I want to say is aging is a privilege denied to many. And so I'm really glad that I'm getting older and hopefully wiser. 01:24 trying anyway. But there are some real things that come with getting older, especially with our bodies and manual labor. So how's that going for you Dawn? Because I will share mine after you share yours. For sure. Make me go first. Well, I'll tell you this. Like I'm not a 01:46 bigger, fatter woman, but I'm a bigger woman. I'm tall and I've got big bones and I've got good muscle structure. So I can actually lift and outlift a lot of people. I was just thinking back this morning, I went to the gym for a couple of months just after I got through my busy season on the farm. And on the farm, I could lift, you know, three buckets of potatoes, which was about 150 pounds. And I went to the gym and dead lifted 185 pounds. So 02:13 I can do it, I am stronger than most, but I'll tell you this, my back hurts a lot at the time and my lower back and my upper back and into my neck. It hurts a lot of the time and I've learned, I used to be able to do the 150 pounds in one shot and just do it and bust it done, but I've learned in the last couple of years here that I'm better off to do three trips of 50 pounds than one trip of 150 pounds. 02:42 It's harder. Everything aches a bit more and I fall into bed at night and I'm just physically exhausted, tired from doing physical work. Yeah. And it takes longer to recover once you get past 40 as well. Yeah, for sure. My youngest son still lives with us and he's 23 and his job is to help us out on the quote unquote farm. 03:12 And this kid can just bust his ass for two days in a row, be mildly sore the next day. And the fourth day from the first day, he's like, let's do it again. I'm like, nah, I'm not doing anything. You can go play. You do it. For sure. And I found that too. know, back when I had my farm, I would have to, in the spring, I'd have to get my boiler system going again. so, 03:38 What that involved was taking a ladder around the greenhouse and crawling up it and crawling back down it, know, opening the valves and things like that. And so I was up and down ladders, up and down ladders, up and down ladders all day for a full day. And I could do it while I was going because once I'm moving, I'm moving. But let me tell you, the next day when I try and do it again, my body says, uh-uh, you do not want to do this again. Like it just took longer the next day. And I was sore for several days after that. Yeah. 04:06 It's just your muscles don't recover the way they did when you were young. And part of it is that your body has extended a metric but ton of energy up to the age of 40 because you had all the energy in the world. And at some point your body is just like, you can go easier now. I give you permission by telling you to stop. Yeah. The problem is, is my brain doesn't want to stop and I just keep pushing. And so 04:35 Yeah, it's not the same as I was when I sold my farm. I'm I and then starting this new this new farm I'm I'm starting over from scratch and I'm you know doing cleaning jobs and you know have my animals and my gardens and things like that again and I'm doing it on my own. I'm a single mama and yeah, it was easier the first time around to keep up and do it all and work, you know 12 14 16 hour days and now I'm like a 12 hour day like a 16 hour day right now is is it 05:04 It basically makes me unusable the next, on the Friday. I still have to work. I still have to keep going. But yeah, I'm sore and I'm tired and I'm a bit grumpy the next day. And the thing that I get a kick out of is I used to stay up till, you know, two in the morning and I would get up at 5.30 a.m. and grab a shower and get ready to go to my job when I was 19, 18, 19. 05:34 And I would do that for couple weeks in a row. I'd get a couple hours of good sleep. And then after that two weeks, I would take a weekend and just crash. would sleep most of the weekend because that's how I did it. Now, I can't do that anymore. I really love sleep. sleep is where I recover. It's where I dream. It's where I get to just not have to think about anything purposely. 06:02 I love sleep. I love sleep more than I love food. I'm so sorry. I've got this little tickle still. Yeah, absolutely. People would say to me all the time when I had my farm and was running three companies and had 30 people on payroll and was doing all the things that I had and the stress load and all of it, people would say like, how are you even surviving? Like, how are you even doing it? And I would say to people, I sleep. 06:32 That is how I survived it is I slept and I slept hard and I'm still like that when I go to bed at the end of the day, I sleep and I sleep hard and I don't wake up during the night and the next day I get up and I do it again. And that's the only thing that saved me was my sleep. If I didn't sleep hard, I think I'd be a puddle on the floor. Yeah, I have said this on the podcast a bunch of times and I probably should stop saying it, but it's the truth. My husband snores. 07:02 And so I go, I try to be asleep asleep by nine o'clock at night at the latest so that I get at least four hours of solid sleep before he will wake me up with his snoring. And I'm telling you, we're gonna have to figure out a better sleeping arrangement because this four hours of solid sleep a night is about killing me. We have to figure something out. I don't know what's gonna happen because 07:28 I can do the podcast, obviously. I sit down, I talk to you guys, it gets my adrenaline boosted and all the happy endorphins kick in and I feel great. But if I had to do a real job on somebody else's schedule, it would not be possible at this point, I swear to you. Yeah, well, sleep is what fuels us. People discount sleep. Sorry, I'm to to pick a drink. I'm sorry. 07:58 Um, yeah, sleep is what fuels us. People need sleep just like they need sunshine, just like they need food, just like they need water. Sleep is another set of fuel that just feeds us. And I know for myself, like I need, in the summertime, I can handle six to seven hours of sleep a night, but, and then in the winter time, I like eight or nine hours of sleep. It's just the way my body is. Um, but if I don't get that six or seven hours of good, solid sleep, I'm, I start to cry actually. 08:28 That's when I really start getting weepy is when I don't have enough sleep. And I've been like that. My mom has said, I've been like that even since I was little. If I would start crying, my mom would say, oh, Dawn needs to go to bed. And it's true. I wake up the next day and I'm okay again. Yeah, I get weepy or I get really snarky and I have to work really hard to keep my thoughts in my own head and not let them out of my mouth. So yeah, it's not good. 08:57 I think that's an over 40 thing, you know? You lose your, you gain your confidence and you lose your inhibitions to like, in some ways care. Like I don't care what you think or what you whatever, and it just comes out your mouth. I think that gets worse and worse as we get older and older, because I can see it more in my mom, and then I can see it even more in my grandmother now is that the thought process and the thoughts are just coming out of the mouth. Yeah, I... 09:26 This is going to be a very interesting podcast. used to have a really sharp tongue when I was, probably from 10 years old until I was in my early twenties. And it was partly because I was brought up on the East coast and East coast people are very blunt. So I was raised around very blunt people. The other thing is that I was insecure. so insecurity sometimes comes out sideways, especially verbally. And it took me a long time. 09:55 to count to 10 in my head before I would say the thing that wanted to just pop out. And I'm a lot better these days, but man, if I am exhausted, I choose not to be around anyone because it's so much harder to keep that mean streak inside of my head, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I've gotten better too. 10:22 But for me, I'm Dutch background, like my heritage is Dutch and the Dutch are known for being direct and I'm not necessarily unkind. I'm not necessarily mean, but I just am very direct. it's in my head, I'm going to say it and it's not mean, it's just literal and direct. And so, yeah, I think there's a bit of a difference between being just literal and direct and mean. I can't say I'm mean with my comments. 10:50 Yeah, and I mean, I'm not going out of my way to be bitchy with people. just have to think about the delivery because how someone receives what you say is in how you deliver it, what words you choose and what tone of voice you say it in. And the more tired I am, the less careful I am with both of those things. Fair enough, fair enough. mean, I think we all are to some degree as women, you know. 11:18 We're just created like that. I don't know. But I do also think that there's a difference between a kind bitch and a mean bitch. Have you heard of that before? What's your thought on that? A kind bitch and a mean bitch? I don't know. I think a kind bitch is going through things and things that she says come out sounding bitchy. And I think a mean bitch is just a mean bitch. Yes. I agree. 11:45 Yeah, I think so. And I've run across both. I sometimes I've been called a bitch, but it's just because I'm direct. But I'm not unkind in it. I'm just very direct and just call a spade a spade. Whereas a mean bitch is out to get you. I think one has selfish motivation and one has just. It's just direct. Yeah, and I think that the kind one has no spoons left. You know how people say I'm out of spoons, which means I have nothing left for today. 12:14 Yes. I've never thought of that. But yeah, you're right. The kind one just, yeah, you're right. She gives and she gives and she gives of herself till she's got nothing left. Yeah, you're 100 % correct. Yeah. There are days where my husband's had a rough day at work and I've had a long day here and things are going on for me. And I'm just like, honey, I'm out of spoons. I'm going to bed. And he's like, good night. I love you. I'm like, I love you too. 12:44 Sorry, I cut you off. No, it's okay, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think that's a healthy relationship and a healthy couple to just say, hey, I'm out. I saw a quote from, I think it was Brene Brown, I think. And she said that she comes home to her husband at the end of the day and they'll say where they are on a scale of one to 10. And she'll say, I've got a three and he'll say, I've got an eight. And so they'll just meet each other where they're at. And sometimes she'll be higher and he'll be lower. 13:11 You know, to just meet each other where they're at. And I think that's good communication. And that's where you can really build a strong, healthy relationship is to know that if you're both at it too, rather than wasting your energy on fighting, just stop for the day. Tell each other you love each other and carry on. exactly. And, and there are times, I mean, this is really funny. I did not expect to be talking about this today, but we're going to talk about it anyway. When you are in a long-term relationship, 13:41 There's a lot of patience and respect required to make it work. And when I started the podcast, I was so obsessed, you I was consumed with learning how to do it that I was putting in 45 hour weeks one way or another. And after a couple of weeks, I was just swamped. was like, I need somebody else to do the dishes because I've got to do this thing for work. And I haven't really had a job in years. 14:10 And I finally sat my husband down and I said, now that I've made myself a job where I'm the boss and the CEO and the COO and everything, said, could I get a little help with some of the dishes and maybe folding laundry? And he was like, oh my God, I didn't even think of that. Of course you can. I said, thank you. That would be wonderful. And so he and the kid have been pitching in. 14:34 And both of them love to cook. So two nights a week, I just give them free reign. I'm like, go make whatever you want to make for dinner. I will grab a bowl of granola. I don't care. I'll eat something else because they're like really spicy food and I do not. So two nights a week, I don't have to, I don't have to cook. And those are the nights, those are the nights that I try to schedule podcast episodes to record them with people who are, who need that time in the evening because they're not available during the day. 15:03 That's amazing, honestly. And that's what a family unit is, is picking up where someone else can't pick up. And I'm single now. I've been single for six years now. But to be really honest with you, I'll tell you about some parts of my marriage is we were not teammates. We were not team players. My ex-husband, he's a decent man. He's not a bad man at all. But his work ethic and my work ethic didn't match and didn't align. 15:31 And so I would work a 12, 14, 16 hour day and he would work, you know, a three or four or five hour day and I'd come home and he's watching TV and on a farm or a homestead, like that just, it doesn't work. You have to have high drive and high work ethic to make a farm go. And yeah, we just weren't aligned and I tried changing that, but 16 years of marriage taught me that I can't change someone. 16:01 And so ultimately it did enter our relationship. There was a few other things behind closed doors, but yeah, the not being aligned in work ethic was a huge problem in, you know, respect and love within our marriage. Yeah. You've got to have not the same goals, but I think you have to have the same core fundamental values as your partner. 16:29 For sure. And if you're not on the same page, like, it's just not going to work, especially as teammates, especially on a farm or, you know, trying to reach the goals when one person is, I always say I picked up all the drop balls behind him and the heaviest drop ball I picked up behind him was I took on all our, 100 % of our debt and I bought him out of the farm and he moved to our house in town. And yeah, that. 16:55 It's just not, we're not meant to do that. Like that doesn't work in a partnership. so, yeah. And so I've been single here for six years now trying to build it back on my own. And in some ways it's good because I don't have to answer to anybody. I don't have to ask anyone's permission to do this or do that, but I do push myself because I am a single mom and doing this by myself. I do tend to push myself just that much harder, you know? And after 40, it's tough. 17:24 Yeah, how old are your kids, So my girls, I've got three daughters. So they are 14, 16 and 18. And it's there. There's that little meme that says, you know, when I was a kid, I had to roll up my chores were rolling the garbage bin down the driveway. And my girls, the farm depends on it. So even when my girls were younger, they would come with me to farmers markets. And so they would work their little butts off and they would work with me and we would do it as a team. And we spent lots of time together. 17:52 And then when I sold my farm, interestingly enough, several people said, oh, you have more time for your girls now. And I said, actually, no, it's the opposite because I took a full-time job last summer and I did not see my kids because I couldn't take them to work with me. And so this summer I'm doing it on my own again and they helped me. They helped me load my chickens, my meat birds into the trailer the other night. They sure didn't want to, but they did it. And I'm so thankful for my daughters for doing 18:21 the things that they can do to help me for the farm, you know? And that meme is my chores were rolling the garbage can down the driveway and, you know, the other farm kids, the farm depends on it if they do their chores or not, because, you know, there's bigger stakes on a farm. I am so proud of you. You are a good mom because you are teaching them so many things are going to help them later on. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. 18:51 They are really good kids, honestly, and they have work ethic themselves. They are sought after in our community to do jobs and to work farmers markets and do different things. And ironically, like two of my children, well, all three of them in different roles are going to work for my former farm. The people that bought my farm are going to work. They're going to work for them as employees this year. it's pretty cool. know, last summer we weren't ready for that, but this summer, 19:20 They genuinely want to help and see that that farm survive because farming is so important and it's a way for them to still feel connected to their childhood, to the way they were raised. It's pretty cool actually. That's beautiful. I love that. Okay. So now we've talked about relationships and partnerships and coupling and uncoupling and all the things I don't usually talk about on the podcast. It's for me, 19:49 this whole thing about being over 40. It really kicked me in the ass when I was 44. So I was your age and I will tell you what happened. My husband was replacing a window in one of our son's bedrooms in the old house. It was a little tiny window and he needed help with something because he was actually out on the roof and I was in the room on the inside where the window was. And he had asked me to 20:17 give hand him something through the open window space and I knelt down and there was carpet in that room. It was like a ugly shag carpet. So it was a really long deep pile and I knelt down and I felt something under my knee and I tried to move so that I wouldn't put all my weight on my knee on the thing and rocked my knee funny and also ended up on this screw that was in the carpet and hurt my knee. 20:45 And I didn't think any of that. I was like, oh, that's going to hurt tomorrow and I'll walk it off and I'll be fine. And a year later, if I move my knee wrong, it still hurt. And I was like, oh, we have hit the, I can't necessarily walk injuries off anymore stage. That's when I knew that I was over 40. Okay. You're putting some fear into me because I haven't had that experience yet, but I'm sure it's coming. 21:14 Because I'm that same way, like, oh, I hurt myself or that smarted a bit. And yeah, I've always been the one to walk it off. You know, if it hurts in some places, like it'll, if it comes by itself, that's what my mom always said, if it comes by itself, it's going to go away by itself. you know, I'm very much like that. kind of personally avoid the doctor, like the plague. And yeah, I just grunt it off and walk it off. so you're saying it's coming. It's going to hit that one of these days I can't do that. 21:44 Yeah, it's coming. I'm sorry. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Dawn, but yes, at some point you're going to injure yourself and be like, think I might want to get that looked at this time. Yeah. Well, and I can see it in my mom. mean, my mom is, I got my work ethic from my parents and my kids are getting it from me. And my mom has recently, yeah, hurt her knee. And it was one of those things she thought if it comes by itself, it'll go away by itself. And yeah, it's 22:11 she's going to end up with a surgery over it. she's been limping. the thing with my mom that I must say, and she's older than both of us, she's 65 and she, it doesn't stop her. even though she's limping and even though she's using a crutch to walk a lot of the time and you know, things like that, she's still going on holidays. She is still planting her gardens. She is still doing the work required. Like she's just a bulldozer. She's still doing what she needs to do. 22:39 And she's not letting it stop her. I think that there's something to be said for that. When you let something stop you, when you get an illness or when you let something, you know, hold you back, I think it can hold you back from other possibilities as well. Whereas if you just accept it and work within it, I mean, she, went to Cuba last January and she, we got a wheelchair for in the airport, right? So she's still. 23:07 She still allowed us to help her, but she still did the things that she wanted to do. She just didn't say to us, well, I have a bummed knee, so I'm going to not go. exactly. So we've spent 23 minutes talking about stuff I don't need to talk about and some of the stuff we wanted to talk about. So let's talk about how to support your own self, your body and your mind to stay strong past 40. 23:35 to doing the things. What I would say is you gotta stay hydrated, number one. You gotta get sleep and you have to eat food that supports your body because if you just eat junk food, you're done for. I couldn't agree more. I've always been a proponent of my guts are like a dog, but I noticed the other day, I forget what I had, but I had something the day before and it was. 24:00 It was probably pasta. I've noticed it with pasta actually. If I eat pasta with, you know, a sauce or whatever, especially if I've gone to a restaurant, the next day I'm quite lethargic. And I think that's to do with the food. And so quality food, quality water, quality sleep, I think those help you. They're the fuel for your body and you're right. And so when you've got a homestead or you've got a farm, you've got access to these great foods and 24:27 Yeah, sometimes I used to say with my farm, I sacrifice meals at my table to put food on others, but I'm still able to make different choices. can grab the vegetables or a salad or just even a burger in a lettuce wrap even is something different than the burger and fries or the chicken fingers and fries, you know? And so just making those different choices. Yeah. 24:53 I'm going to say this and I could be totally wrong, but it's my take. So it's my podcast. So I'm say it. I feel like all of the fried foods are not great for me. And I think they're not great for a lot of people. My husband and my son really do like to have like, they like to make homemade donuts. Homemade donuts are made in vegetable oil or lard if you have it. And I can't do it. Like I eat one donut and I'm like, okay, that's good for six months. 25:24 You know, that's it. Because I just feel so terrible that evening into the next day because it's not good for you. And it's not so much that the oil isn't good for you. It's what happens to the oil when it gets hot and then it's in the food and then you eat it. Yeah, I, well, they made canola oil. Excuse me, they made canola oil. 25:50 for fuel. It's meant to be biodiesel. I have no issue with canola that's being used for biodiesel. I actually understand why big grain farmers use canola in their fields. It does clean up the weeds. I know of a really cool farmer around these parts. He has a five-year rotation. He only puts canola, which means he only uses Roundup in his field once every five years. It does. It cleans up the weeds. 26:16 But yeah, I don't think canola oil is meant to be food. I think it's meant to be fuel for our cars, gasoline, or diesel, biodiesel. it's not meant to be ingested. I think we've just had, just like with a lot of things, I don't know if I can say these things now, but you can edit them out if you don't want me to. But I do think there's a lot of things that it's big business, you know, and if you've got a big business and you've got money generated around it. So if you can sell it off as 26:46 the canola as food, someone's going to profit from that. And they've just done a really good job of trying to trick us into thinking that canola is food. Well, it's like soda, or cola, or pop, or whatever people call it. You're in Alberta, What is a fizzy drink called? Pop. We call it pop. Okay. In Minnesota, it's pop. Where I grew up, it's soda. But 27:14 There are name brand pops and sodas. I'm not going to disparage anybody by name because I don't want to get sued. But that's like a hundred and something calories per can that is completely empty calories. Your body doesn't gain anything from drinking it. And I would much rather have water with a squeeze of lemon juice and maybe a half a teaspoon of sugar. I have no problem with sugar. 27:43 I have a problem with grams and grams and grams of sugar. It's not good for you. you know, water is the thing that hydrates you and sugar makes you, sugar converts to, don't know, carbs convert sugar, sugar converts to whatever energy. But if you're not actually burning the energy, it just builds up in your body and it makes you fat. So I just feel like we as Americans, Canadians, people in general, 28:11 We eat things because we've been told it's okay and it's not necessarily okay and it's not necessarily good for our systems. No, and I do think that there is a full pandemic, epidemic, I don't know what the right word would be of that. You know, if you look in your centre aisles of a grocery store, a lot of that quote unquote food does turn to sugar and sugar turns to fat if it's not burned off or not used. 28:38 And I do think, and again, with our sodas or pops, it's just not healthy. Like there are some types of pops that can even be used as cleaner. Like they'll clean the rust off of screws even. Like how is this healthy to be putting into our bodies? Like it just isn't. I don't think we've been designed for these foods and I don't think, well, I don't even think they're food. And so that's where we need to get back to our roots. That's where it's so important. And that's why your podcast 29:06 my podcast and you know, teaching people to go back to their roots, eating from the land, having your eggs and your butters and your milks and your chickens and your garden and your vegetables and your lettuces and eating seasonally. I think that's how we're designed. We're supposed to eat those things from the land and be stewards of our land. that's why these things are so important. And I think that's why there's a whole shift. 29:34 back into this is because people are recognizing that the other food quote unquote is not food and that the stuff that you're growing in your backyard is actually nourishing good for you food. exactly. And since we're rolling toward 30 minutes, I want to get this in. Once we women hit 40, it's really that 40 to 50 stage. You really do have to take care of yourself because if you don't, 30:04 Your 50s, 60s, and 70s are going to be exhausting and painful and you will wonder why you're even still here. So, and I don't want women to feel bad because there's things that happen like, oh, I raised four kids. I spent a lot of time on the floor playing blocks and Legos with them. And I would get down on the floor on my hands and knees and play with these kids. 30:30 My knees freaking hurt a lot now because I had so much stress on my knees. I carried my kids on my hip until they were at least 60, 70 pounds. If they wanted to be picked up, I picked them up. And so my back took a lot of wear and tear. And there's a thing called repetitive motion injury. That's what I was doing to myself raising my kids. So 30:58 Expend all that good energy, live your life, do all the hard things you can do, all the physical things you can do. While you're young, you will probably pay for it when you're older, but at least you got to do the things you love. I agree. I think that we were supposed to do that. We're supposed to care for our kids. We're supposed to do the work. And I do think that 31:22 It's about taking care of your body later on and don't feel bad if you got a few extra pounds It's all about how you feel. It's not about how you look That's for sure. And I just think too like if your knees hurt or your back hurts, you know Just do what you can go for a walk if you can only you know walk a little ways just do that It's it's doing what you're able to and and pushing yourself just a little bit even That's what's gonna keep you young and keep you going. I can think of my grandmother who's 31:50 She's in well into her nineties and she's still a go-getter, you know, even when she was late eighties and early nineties, she was still working at the tickle trunk thrift store in her hometown because that kept her busy, that kept her going. And I think it's when we become stagnant and stop and go, my knee hurts, therefore I have to sit on the couch for, you know, days and days on end. I think that's where the trouble comes in, not in, 32:20 It's not the fact that your knee hurts. It's if you, and I'm not saying push yourself to the point that it hurts even more, but you know, just do what you're able to do. Yep, absolutely. And I guess what I'm getting at is don't beat yourself up in your heart and your head if you're not as active as you used to be, because you're not necessarily meant to be as active as you used to be. You're supposed to be as active as you want to and can be at the age that you're at. I agree. Absolutely. 32:49 It's doing what you can do with the body you have. And I'll admit it, I actually had to do a bunch of online computer work yesterday and that is not my strength. Like I would rather be outside gardening and you know working with my animals and doing the physical thing outside. I would much rather be doing that but yesterday I had to be on my computer more and it tuckered me out that mental strain and that mental whatever and I took a little 10 minute cat nap. 33:17 at three o'clock. I just did. I hit a bit of a wall. I put myself into bed. I closed my eyes and it was 10 minutes, but it just gave me a slight bit of fuel to keep going. was a power nap. Yeah. And those are great. Do that. And you can do that when you're 15, let alone when you're 50. Yeah, absolutely. Just listen to your body and give it what it wants, you know? 33:43 And I find too, even with food, my body is craving protein and my body is craving, my body craves the good whole foods, the salads, the things like that. Yep, absolutely. I've been into a fresh, well, store bought fresh sweet bell pepper. A month ago we had gotten some for some recipe and it was a decent pepper. wasn't terrible. And I hadn't had quote unquote a fresh pepper since September. 34:12 I was like, oh my God, I always forget that I love bell pepper because I eat it for like two months in the summer and then that's Yeah, for sure. So I had the greenhouse and I'll tell you what, my little girls, they weren't actually tomato eaters. They didn't love, the tomatoes, but they would eat those peppers as apples. Like I would even throw a pepper in their lunchbox as an apple because they loved them and my peppers were so sweet. That's the thing, colored peppers. 34:41 A green pepper is an immature red, yellow, orange, purple, or whatever. A green pepper is an immature pepper like a green tomato, but a coloured pepper, they're right. Especially a sweet bell pepper, should be sweet in flavour, not that bitter flavour. Are the yellow, red, and orange, are they different levels of sweet? Yes, I always found that my orange peppers were the sweetest, then red, then yellow. 35:12 Here's another little tidbit of information. People always think that peppers go from green to yellow to orange to red. And I'm always like, no, they go green orange or green yellow or green red or green white or green purple, whatever the color pepper is. It starts off green, which is immature, and then it goes to the color. It doesn't go through this color changing process. I learned something brand new today. Thank you, Dawn. 35:41 You're welcome. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the little things and that's why these podcasts are so important too, is it's just the little things to connect people to their food and to farming and to agriculture, you know, to know the little things. And so when you see a picture, I've seen this a couple of times, I've seen a picture of a pepper plant online and it's got green, red, yellow, orange, you know, what all the colors on the plant all at the same time. And I'm like, that's fake. That's not possible. 36:11 Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, that leads me to a thought that I will leave you with. I have been seeing commercials online on TV when we're watching YouTube, because we watch a lot of YouTube, because we're homesteaders, we need to learn things. And there's all these AI commercials now. And I swear to you, they creep me the hell out. They look like real people, except they don't move like real people. And I keep saying this, like, I hate this so much. 36:41 Yeah, yeah. That's, AI, I think there's positives to it, but I don't know. think the ultimate big picture and whatever of AI could be a little dicey and slicey. And that's why we need to get back to nature and homesteading and just doing things in our own spaces, because to rely on this big technological system is a little, for me, it's a little dicey, you know? 37:11 Yeah, remember the toilet paper wars of 2020? I just think if something happened to, this is me getting slightly tinfoil hatty again, like I just think if something happens to our big system, we still need to get back to basics and we just need to get back to food and hopefully nothing ever happens. Hopefully I'm always wrong. But I just, that's part of wanting to be on a farm or a homestead and have my own food is just to know that I'm in control of it, not someone else. 37:38 Yeah, two really important words, self-sufficient and self-sustainable. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then teaching my kids where it all comes from. My kids know where good food comes from. Yeah, my husband just told me that he talked to our second kid. So I have four. I have a daughter, son, son, son. So first, son. 38:02 called last night, he lives in Nebraska and he and his wife are thinking about getting five goats, four does and a buck. And I said, um, two questions. And my husband said, what? I said, where are they going to put them and what are they going to feed them? Because they have like an acre. That's it. And they don't have a whole lot of tree line that belongs to them. And so my husband was like, don't know. didn't ask. And I said, okay, I will message him later. Cause 38:32 I have friends that have goats. grew up with a friend that had goats and I know that it's going to get real expensive to feed those goats if they don't have some grazing area for them. So I think my kid and I are going to have a chat about goat husbandry at some point in the next week. Yes, for sure. And they do. They eat a lot of food. They're constantly eating and they'll eat anything. Yeah, I've got mine. 38:57 I rotate them. I've got two doughs left and I'm milking them actually for myself. And yeah, I rotate them. I don't own this property, but I have access to a lot of property and yeah, I rotate them through, I have to be careful where I put them because if there's a tree there or if there's a small tree there, they're going to eat those leaves and they're going to kill that tree. yeah. Yup. Okay, Dawn, thank you so much for coming back to visit. I appreciate it. Where can people find you? 39:27 So I'm DawnsDirt. You can find me online, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. I've got my own podcast, DawnsDirt. And I love these collaborations. So thank you so much for having me on the show yet again. And we just need more of this. need, I appreciate that you do this all the time and we need more of this, you know, homesteading farm to table talks. So thank you so much for having me. And a little bit of psychology and marriage counseling in there too. 39:53 Well, you know, to me, nothing's I'm very raw and open and honest and authentic and I got no secrets. I'll just call. I just say it. And so, yeah, I'm always happy to have a raw, real conversation. So thanks for thanks for going down some rabbit holes of, yeah, life with me. 40:14 I feel like it's all part of life and homesteading is absolutely real and raw life. So we're doing it right. As always, you can find me at AtinyHomesteadPodcast.com. Dawn, thanks again. Have a great day. You too. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
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