A Tiny Homestead

Outlaw Farm Alpacas, LLC

Today I'm talking with Steve and Jennifer at Outlaw Farm Alpacas, LLC. You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:00listening 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 Steve and Jennifer at Outlaw Farm, Alpacas, LLC in Ohio. Good morning, you guys. How are you? Good morning, everybody. Doing well.  I love that. No one has ever said good morning, everybody,  on any episode of my podcast so far. Thank you for doing that. I'm glad I'm the first.
00:29Uh, were you in radio by any chance? I'm a performer and I own a production company, so I'm pretty familiar with this kind of stuff. Yeah. I figured you had to have something in your background because most people would never have thought to have said that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So the first thing I always ask is how is the weather where you are and you're in Ohio. So how's the weather in Ohio this morning? Well, it's a little overcast today. It says it's 60, but it certainly doesn't feel like it.
00:58It is raining here in Minnesota this morning and it has been overcast for the whole week. I am praying that we get some sunshine tomorrow because  I am a, I'm a sunshine girlie. I really do like it when the sunshine is pouring in the windows. And this week I've gotten up every day and watch the sun come up, what little sun there was, and then it's been gray. So I am ready for it not be gray for a little bit. think we have a couple days of rain in store for us here then before we hit some sunshine again.
01:28Yes,  I this spring has been so weird and I don't dare to complain about it  because the last two springs here all it's done is rain all of May and into the first half of June and it really ruined our farm to market garden  So I'm not complaining I'm just saying it would be nice to see the Sun peek out a little bit this weekend. That's all I'm saying  Okay, so you guys how did you get your name number one?
01:57Well, let me tell you, um we bought this place um about eight years ago  and it's located on Law Road in Grafton, Ohio. um we were  brainstorming for a name and we're thinking of crazy different names we could name an alpaca farm. And I said, what about outlaw farm? And she says, what do mean? We're not outlaws. And I said, you know, but we're on Law Road. So that made a lot of sense and it stuck. we ran with it.
02:25And again, it's attention grabbing. of the reason I love this so much is because part of the way I find people to talk to is by you guys' names. And I saw Outlaw Farm, Alpacas, and went, oh yes, I must find out about them. Okay, so when did you get into this? Well, we got into it around 2018. We bought this place and...
02:52It was, it was really in need of some work. So we cleaned up the old barn, which was built in like, I say the late 1800s, a lot of cleanup. We cleaned it up, made it look nice. And we thought, yeah, let's get a couple of animals because it's such a nice barn. We could use some more pets because we have the land now. Well, my wife has a cousin that has alpacas as pets. So  she mentioned alpacas. She contacted her cousin and they said, you know, we'll sell you a couple.
03:22So we bought four pets,  two males, two females,  and  it just went from there. um She started researching alpacas and the fiber and the showing and  the breeding. And she just wanted to make it a business because  she was set to retire in a couple of years and she wanted something to do. So that's, that's basically how it started.  minor midlife crisis situation.  Small one.
03:50I just did the same thing almost three years ago because my youngest was going to be moving out,  youngest of four,  and I didn't want to face emptiness syndrome without a project. So I started this podcast. So I'm right there with you. Awesome.  I get it. It's really hard when your life changes in a big way and women tend to find projects and I won't say what men tend to find. And that would be a very terrible thing to say.
04:18I don't think that men necessarily find projects. I think that men find distractions. I'd have to disagree because I have a lot of projects. Because of the farm, he has a lot of  I mean the men who are enlightened. You're enlightened, Steve. We'll give you that today. You are an enlightened soul. Awesome. Thank you. So uh do you guys, I want to talk about the alpacas because I haven't really talked in depth with anybody about them.  But do you have other animals as well?
04:47Yes, we right now we're at 34 alpacas and we are expecting nine creas, which are the babies. Anytime I have our first one actually do now and they'll birth all the way through probably the end of September. But we also have five goats, just pets, all males, weathers and then 30. Oh, let me see where we at. We're at about 40 chickens, I think, and six ducks.
05:15aside from numerous dogs and barn cats and the like. Whatever else shows up on the property, know.  Yeah, I saw you have barn kittens right now.  Yes, we seem to have. had a mama kitty that kind of hung around and now her kids came seem to come here and live and.  Add more barn kittens to our farm, so I think we just have two. Those are the only two I have seen so far.
05:44But there could be more.  For everybody listening, if you want to see some really cute kittens, go to Alpaca's Farm,  the Facebook page, because there's a couple photos and they are very sweet. um I am a sucker for a barn kitten. We have two females right now who I suspect are pregnant.  And if they are, they're probably due at the very end of June versus July. And I am so looking forward to barn kittens again, because we haven't had any in a couple of years.
06:14They're lot of fun. They're cute. It's fun to watch them grow up. They keep the mice population down too.  Oh my God.  Yes.  When we bought this place back in 2020, it was August  and the big old pole barn that was on the property was empty except for all these little packets that were ripped open on the ground in the pole barn. And come to find out it was  rat poison basically because
06:44We had a pretty good mouse issue going on in that pole barn that we didn't know about.  And so  my husband was out puttering around in the fall and he had opened up one of the drawers on the old workbench in the pole barn. And he came in and he said, do you have a minute? And I said, yes, what? And he said, come with me. So I walk out to the pole barn and he's like, be quiet and just look, just look. And he opens this little drawer in the workbench.
07:11and there's four little tiny field mice babies all curled up sleeping in the drawer.  He says, uh we need to get some cats. He said, cause where there's that many babies, there's lots more mice.  So, okay. So we ended up getting like three cats and then we had a stray show up. She was a female. She had babies.  I think she had three or four litters in a couple of years. And one of her daughters had a litter and
07:39The thing with barn cats is that barn cats flake off or they get killed by cars. And so  every year we lose a couple. So I'm very excited that we have kittens coming, I hope.  We don't keep tons of cats, but  when there's new babies, it's fun  and everybody likes a kitten. So we usually find homes for them pretty easily.
08:03Yeah, we try to do. I mean, there's some people interested in the kitties and when they're old enough, I'm sure we can  we can get them some good homes. Yeah, I just I get real antsy when I talk about the barn cats because the big thing is they and neuter your pets and I agree completely stay and neuter your pets unless you intend to breed them as a business. But when it comes to barn cats, barn cats have a job. Yeah, yeah, it is not the same premise is not the same thing so.
08:33I try to walk a fine line between, yes, have millions of animals on your property that you can't afford  and that aren't being treated well. Don't do that. That's not a good plan. Have a plan.  So anyway, ah what kind of dogs do you have on the property? Well, we have four German Shepherds and we have a Dalmatian, which is the oddball.  Is it a girl or a boy? Girl.  What's her name? You'll never guess. Purdy?
09:02Yep. I love it. I have never seen a Dalmatian puppy in person. Wish I could say that I had because I bet they are freaking adorable as the They are the most adorable little puppies. As the spots start to pop out. Yeah. Yeah. Because Dalmatian puppies are white when they're born, right? Right. Yes. Yeah. And then their spots come in slowly.
09:29Right, about two, three weeks in, they start getting their spots. Yeah.  See, I'm such a freaking encyclopedia of worthless information.  I know that about Dalmatian dogs, never actually met a Dalmatian dog in person,  but I know nothing about alpacas. So, go fig. So tell me all about alpacas. Start from the beginning. Well,  I guess the main thing to know is they are actually quite
09:59shy but curious. They're not an animal that you can just always walk up to on pet unless they really get to know you and really trust you. But once they do, they are a super, super sweet, calming animal. um That's the one thing that I find attracts a lot of people to them is their calming nature. Just they're very gentle, they're very curious. um you know, once you get to once they get your trust, you know,
10:29They come up to you and approach you.  A lot of people use them, um obviously, for their fiber. Their  fiber is much  warmer, actually, than wool. um It doesn't have landlin in it, so it lacks that itchiness that you get when you wear wool. So a lot of people that are allergic to wool um can actually go ahead and wear alpaca-fibered products.
10:58It doesn't cause that itchiness or allergic reaction. Well, I didn't know that. Yeah. Um, their fibers are also hollow. So that's why they are able to stay, um, cool in the summer most of the time, unless it's a heat wave and then warm in the winter, traps that heat inside those hollow fibers and keeps them warm. Uh, their fibers also moisture wicking. So.
11:23You'll never see it. Well, you might see a soaking wet all pack of it stands out in a good thunderstorm. But most of the time it just rolls off it like it has a rain X on it. um, see what else they're pregnant for almost a year. Oh That's true. Um, let's say I'm trying to think. Um, as far as there, let's see, they're pregnant pregnancy. So we have nine girls that are pregnant now. Uh, they are pregnant for pretty close to a year.
11:53we start watching it about 340 days of pregnancy.  And  usually they deliver before that year is up. So usually about a good 11 and a half months.  They have one baby at a time. um Did they never have twins?  Rarely. They very rarely have twins. And usually  if they do happen to get pregnant with twins, they lose that pregnancy prior to  full term. Okay. Or uh
12:21If they do have two, they're extremely small and a lot of times don't survive. um There have been cases where they do and they're fine. But um for the most part, rarely do they have twins that do survive.  And the babies are called creas. C-R-I-A.  Do you know why, what, do you know anything about that word, where it comes from? I have no idea, honestly. Okay. I didn't know if it was Latin or Greek or something. So. Yeah, no idea. Okay.
12:52How big is a crea when they're born? Usually anywhere between about 15 pounds to generally about 20. We've had them as small as 10 pounds and as large as 22. So it can be varied, but usually generally I would say, you know, 15 to 20 pounds is about your average, at least for our farm. How much does an average mama alpaca weigh? Females generally are anywhere between
13:21140 to 160 pounds. So they're about the size of a deer. Yeah, they're not super large. They are, you know, they're part of the camelid family. so llamas would be like the next size up and they're generally like 250 to 350 pounds. Okay. Where most alpacas, you know, once they reach adulthood or anywhere between 140 and 175, 180, or take.
13:49Okay, I thought they were bigger than that for some reason. That is good to know because  I,  we don't have room for an alpaca. If we did, I would actually consider it now knowing that they don't get as big as llamas. No, they're not as large. They're definitely not as tall.  And, um, they're just, you know, once they look bigger, guess,  um, you know, especially we just had our short on Wednesday, but,  um, they look really large when they're all full fleeced.
14:18Cause some of them will have, you know, five or six inches of fiber on them. So it makes them look quite large. And then once they get shorn down, you actually see how small they actually are. mean, yeah, they're probably about the size. I would say probably about the size of a deer actually when they're shorn. Not real large. Yeah. Um, have a question about their fur hair, whatever you call it.  Um, if you were to walk up to an alpaca that you know really well,
14:47and lean in and sink your fingers into their fur on their shoulders. Do your fingers sink in or do they stay on top of that six inches of fur? Oh, they sink right in. So it's not real dense. It just depends on the alpaca. Some of them have much denser fiber. I do have some that are extremely dense, but you can get your fingers in there and wiggle them down to the skin.
15:16Some of them are just finer. you know, more, um, you know, they're, they're fibers finer, not quite as dense as others. So, you know, it varies. Okay. I, I've never actually pet an alpaca. I have pet llamas and I don't really enjoy it because the llama that I met, he was very friendly, but he was also very skittish. Like he really wanted you to talk to him and pet him. But the minute you moved, he would kind of startle.
15:44And it made me real nervous because I was like, you  going to spit at me or are going to bite me? Because I don't really want either. Yeah.  I think llamas are more prone to spitting than alpacas. Alpacas do spit,  but it's not generally at people. It's generally at each other. um The females tend to spit at each other,  you know, especially pregnant because, you know, they want the food. um
16:12So if you get spit at, you're probably just got to gotten the crossfire of it. Um, and boys, the males tend to spit each other, especially, um, this time of year when, um, it tends to be breeding season, um, for those that are not already currently pregnant. Um, they do spit a lot of each other just basically to, you know, fight for that position, so to speak. It's so gross. Oh my goodness. It's the best smelling stuff.
16:41And  I understand that the creator gave every animal a way to assert dominance and defend, but what a gross way to assert dominance and defend. Yeah, it's not real pleasant. you know, as far as Elpac is, that is pretty much their only defense.  They are a predatory animal, so they really don't have any natural defenses. So a of farms.
17:09you know, then have the guardian livestock animals, especially if they don't close theirs in, you know, at the night and during nighttime. So, but we do close ours and some farms don't, um, ours don't seem to mind it. They kind of just put themselves away most of the time when it starts to get dusk and then I just closed the gates. So, that's helpful. Yeah, very helpful. Okay. So tell me about the babies. Are the babies, um, like,
17:39like goat babies who are basically up and nursing within an hour or so, or does it take them a little longer? Generally, rule of thumb is they should be up, standing and nursing within about 30 minutes. Some do take a little bit longer, especially if the mama is, know, first time mamas, they're kind of a little unsure about what's going on. But you know, our season, season mamas do really well. They, they get those babies get up.
18:07We kind of do help get them standing up and help them find, you know, where to nurse. And once they tend to find that they're kind of pretty much on their own.  Um, one thing about alpacas, unlike,  um, dogs or some other livestock is they do not,  um, clean their babies.  Oh, so, um, I kind of, I like to be home and around when I know it's definitely going to be birthing time.
18:36Um, because for any particular reason, that generally, once they start the birthing process, you know, the placenta does break, but if for any particular reason it doesn't, that baby just basically suffocates because mom, unlike dogs or other cats or whatever, they don't clean that baby off and lift that placenta off. So, huh. Yeah. I had no idea. Yeah. That was a, that was something I really, I mean, I didn't know that either. And, um, but we've.
19:06Again, pretty good at  delivering them and,  um, taking a couple of classes at Ohio State University on ways to help if there seems to be a uh issue that arises. But, um, for the most part, it goes pretty well. And, know, they, they just like other livestock you want nose and toes. You want that Superman position coming out. Oh yeah.  And, um,  once that happens, then, you know,  baby is born and,
19:35We kind of just dried off real well  and try to get it up and standing and nursing usually within 30 minutes. Okay. Thank you for all that. Cause I just learned a couple of things I wouldn't have even thought to ask, let alone  knew the answer to. So I love my podcast so much because I learned so many new things from you guys. I'm so  thankful  and grateful that you spend the time to talk to me.  Um,
20:02So anyone who's listened to my podcast knows that I am a sucker for babies. So I must ask, do the babies let you handle them? Do they let you hold them and pet them or are they really skittish and all they want to do is be with their mom? It kind of depends. I have some babies that like the minute I walk in the barn, they walk right up to me and they want like little kisses on their noses.
20:28And you have other ones that are just like, take one look at you and they run the other way. So it just kind of depends.  Um,  but for the most part, we had, you let's say we had eight babies last year and I would say only two of them are probably, I don't want to say they're not people friendly because once you, once you grab them or get ahold of them, they're perfectly sweet and fine, but they're just not their personality is not to come up to you and initiate, you know, loving or whatever. But for the most part.
20:58Um, I,  it's hard because they're cute as can be.  I try not to be too handsy with them.  Um, especially males because they do have what's called berserk male syndrome. Okay. So as you know, if you over handle a, a male CREA, especially as they become like a yearling,  um, they
21:20can get this syndrome, is basically they've imprinted on you and they think you are an alpaca and then they have no problem trying to assert dominance over you. ah And it can be quite dangerous,  especially if you have a very large male. So I do try to make a very conscious effort not to be too hands on with them, but hands on enough that I can do what I need to do, give shots, weigh them, administer any medicines that they might need.
21:50Um, but for the most part, try really hard not to be too handsy with them.  So  I'm assuming that  you sell their fiber. So is there a market for their fiber?  Um, there is, I do have,  um, one particular farm in Tennessee that, um, she buys quite a bit of a certain color fibers  of our alpacas.  Um, the rest of it, honestly, I send to a fiber mill.
22:18And  we have yarn and rug yarn  made from it.  And then we turn around and make products from that or we sell the yarn in our our farm shop or online. OK, so can people find a way to order it from you on your website? Yes, you can.  Once you go on the website, it does have a link  on there for our Etsy store at the moment.  And then.
22:47If you're um in our area,  then we do have um a shop set up where you can come and take a look at our yarn and purchase if you'd like. Okay, awesome. I'm all over the place  today with questions because again, haven't really talked to anybody about all packets. um Ohio gets hot in the summertime.  I know it does  because I've driven through Ohio as a kid. Well, I driven, I've ridden in my parents' car.
23:17through Ohio as a kid, because my grandparents lived in Illinois and my parents and I lived in Maine.  And Ohio in July and August gets  hot.  Yes.  So how do the alpacas handle that with their fur? it because their fur is  hollow? Do they stay cool?  Sometimes it just depends. Some of them can, like the lighter color alpacas can  tolerate a little bit more. ah But we do run barn fans.
23:46And a lot of them,  uh,  in the summer, pretty much 24 seven, unless you get a nice cooler day. Yeah. But they'll go out in the morning and they'll hang out in the pastures in the morning and munch. And when they start to get warm, they come in and lay in front of the fans.  And then,  uh, evenings, when it starts to get a little bit cooler, they will.  Um, head back out to pasture. So, but, um,  you know, you can  sometimes I hose off their legs, their bellies, their necks. never want to hose off the.
24:16backs,  then that just kind of like traps the heat in their fibers. they do like the hose. um They do like to stand in their water buckets because the water is nice and cool. Oh, which I don't care for. um But, you know, it's not too bad.  Last summer was extremely hot and they spent most time inside than outside. um We haven't had too many days where it's been too warm yet, but
24:44we're getting there. But now that they're shorn, they'll stay outside a little bit longer. oh So is, is, is fall and winter  better for them?  Are they comfortable? Yeah. Yes. Okay. You they're from, you know, basically Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, their area and  in the Andes mountains. So they're used to that kind of climate, the cooler temperatures to snow. They don't mind the snow, honestly.  Um,
25:13they like that cool weather and  they'll lay outside when it's snowing.  And  again, I know lots of things about a few things and a few things about lots of things.  People worry, people who don't know anything about livestock worry about horses and cows being outside in the wintertime and they've got snow on their backs.  And that's good. If they have snow on their backs, it means that they're warm. Right. It means that they're insulated.
25:42And I assume it's the same thing with the Alpacas. Yes. Yeah. Their fiber is extremely warm. And we were shearing the other day and it was a cool day. It was what probably low, low in mid maybe mid fifties or something in there. Yeah. And I was freezing. uh Our shears were freezing and they were sweating. Like we pulled off, you we pull off you, you shear them in  sections.  they're basically from their shoulders.
26:12back to their bottoms and then pretty much mid sides that top area is where that's their prime blanket. That's where the yarn is made from.  And we pulled off and it was damp to the touch. They were like literally sweaty. So they were quite still warm as we were all bundled up in sweatshirts and jackets.  So.  Okay. So I got a couple more questions. try to keep this to half an hour, but I have two more questions.  How much on average does it cost to buy
26:41Young alpaca like not not ready to breed yet. Okay. Well Cause I never had  an average so  males are generally Less expensive than females because of course you can breed the females. Yeah, goes by color grays blacks Rones  are your most expensive whereas your least expensive or generally your white or beige alpacas um but you can
27:11You can get a good pet, for depending thousand dollars by a hundred to a thousand. Um, if you want something quite substantial, you can spend up to 30, 40,000. Um, so it just kind of depends on. You know what your purpose is with them. guess if you're, if you just want a pet, you can probably, you know, you can find them.
27:37quite inexpensively. If you want something that you want to breed and show, you're going to pay a little bit more. Yeah, I was, I was, my second question was going to be if you're looking for a female that is old enough and ready to be bred, is it exponentially more money? Not necessarily. Um, it kind of goes, but prices are go by color and fiber quality. So you're more dense animals. Um, you know, better fiber is going to go.
28:06more than one that just has, you know, maybe not a lot of crimp, but a lot of staple length to it. So there's a lot of variance in the pricing. We sell ours, tend not to, we're somewhere in between probably pet quality and, you know, mid range. I wouldn't say we, know, nobody, none of our passers is going to sell for like, you know, $30,000.
28:34Some farms definitely would have that because they have a larger quantity. You know, have more capital that they can put towards theirs. All right, well, if anybody listening wants to buy an alpaca,  you now have more than enough information to keep looking into it and seeing if you would like one because  Jennifer has filled me in on all kinds of things that I didn't even know about. uh Where can people find you guys? Well, our website is  www.
29:02outlawfarmlpakas.com  and there's links to our Etsy shop and our Facebook page on there. So pretty much all our information's on that webpage. And we are on Facebook, of course, Outlaw Farm L. Pakas  LLC.  And you can look us up there.  And we  post a lot of things on Facebook, a lot of photos of the farm and photos of the store and stuff like that. So you could see what's going on over here. Yes.  And  can I give you guys a little piece of
29:32I don't know, encouragement? Sure.  Can you post some more actual videos on your YouTube channel of the babies? Because I know you have the one the one video, but that's all I saw. Yeah, we just started the YouTube thing.  Yeah,  we're going to start targeting that more. Yeah, once the Koreas are born, we're going to do some shorts and we're going to put it on. We're just getting started on YouTube. So, yeah, definitely we're going to we're going to post some more content on there for sure.
30:01good because I will become an avid fan if you do that.  All right.  I love those babies. They're so cute.  All right, you guys. Thank you so much. always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Jennifer and Steve, I hope you have a wonderful day. You too, Mary. Thank you.
 

Rusted Gates Farm

Today I'm talking with Connie at Rusted Gates Farm.
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00:00listening 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 Connie at Rusted Gates,  uh, farm? Farm? think it's farm.  Yeah. Pennsylvania. Good afternoon, Connie. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. Good. How's the weather there? Rainy, but we need it. I think almost everybody in the United States needs some rain right now.
00:30Yep, they sure do. Other than us, we've had we had half an inch two days ago and it's been cloudy for the last three days. And I'm like, you know, sunshine, you could come back out any time now. There's baby plants in the garden that need you.  Yes, there are.  It's so cute. look out my living room window and there's a big old garden right out the window across the driveway and it's all good, rich, black dirt.
01:00And then there's these little green baby plants in there and I'm like, oh man, this is my favorite part. Watching everything just in finally after a long winter. Yep. When you finally, everything starts finally waking up.  Trees have their leaves and all the plants are flowering. It's a pretty time of year.  I freaking love spring. I love fall more than I love spring because fall  is the, uh
01:28the reaping of what we planted in the spring. So I like fall because we're eating squashes and the last of the tomatoes  and um pumpkin pie and all those good things that we associate with fall.  Okay. So your last name is Gates. So is that why it's rusted Gates farm? Yes,  it is. And why rusted Gates?  Well, ah
01:56We had a daughter and her nickname was Rusty. Cute. I love that. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's why we name it Rusty. Sweet. Very sweet. Okay. So your main thing that you do at Rusty Gates Farm is fainting goats. And I want to hear all about that. Yeah, about 15 years ago, I got started in it.
02:20Yeah, but what else is there anything else that you do on the farm as well as the goats?  We have an assortment of animals. To run down the list, we started with silky chickens. We got a couple of ceramas, chickens, couple of Polish chickens, a couple of golden phoenixes. We got ducks. We got bunnies.  We got a  we got a sepastra bull goose  and  a hubby.
02:50Sterling, we named him Sterling and uh and Hope is the other one and Hope's a little famous.  She  is used in this uh photographers  as a prop  and a lot of the kids put up pictures. So she's been a prop in a couple of uh the photo shoots. Hope is a goose? Yep, Hope is a goose. Okay.
03:18And she's almost 13 years old. So I'm not sure how long she's going to be around, but she's 13 now. So she's getting up there in age. That sounds like a very long life for poultry. Yeah, it is.  We have a couple of turkeys.  We have a zebu cow that originated over in Africa. How did you get that?
03:41Um, there was a breeder in Bedford County that we did. I wanted Highlands and I couldn't afford a Highland. I really wanted a miniature Highland, but like I said, that, was a no go for the price tag.  So  we settled on the Zeeboot because it was a much more reasonable price range for someone that's on social security.  Yeah. The Zeeboos are the ones with the hump.
04:06in their backs. Yes. They look like almost like the Brahmans, except they don't have the long ears and their hump's not quite as big and their miniature size.  Nice. All right.  And his name is Seb. We have two ponies, Louie  and Chunky Charlie.  And Louie I use for pony rides for his birthday parties. And we have a little donkey and he's kind of famous in our community too, because
04:34He goes to church with us quite a bit.  His name is Festus. um Festus has been in a couple Christmas plays at Celebration Community Church.  And then at Easter time, went and he was in,  they had a special program for the kids about, and they took each day of Jesus' life in the last week of him being on earth.  And they had a different station for that.
05:02Festus was of course the first one because Jesus rode on in on the back of a donkey into Jerusalem and kids lay pumped down and  pumps down in front of him and he walked over him.  Have fun.  Yeah, and an interesting fact about donkeys while we're on donkeys  is  Festus has a cross on his back. He has a dark stripe down his back and a dark stripe over his shoulders.  So it makes a
05:32cross. So that was kind of a blessing from Jesus for carrying him  on Palm Sunday. And pretty much all Mediterranean donkeys have that cross.  I was gonna say not all donkey breeds have that, but that specific breed does. the Mediterranean donkey stew. Funny.  So yes, so that's his claim to fame. And then we have all kinds of pigeons, all different breeds. um
06:00And I think that's about it. So why do you have pigeons?  That's my husband's hobby. OK. That's something that he's always been fascinated with. And  so that's what we have. We have homers and we have some that are called Birmingham rollers.  They're really cool because when they catch an airdrift that goes up, they roll in the sky.
06:26and then they catch another drift and they go way high and then they roll. It's really fun to watch them. Yeah, birds are so interesting. Like, I don't want one in my house. I never want a pet bird. And we have chickens and I really don't enjoy touching the chickens, but I absolutely enjoy having the eggs from the chickens. Of course, they're good and fresh that way.
06:53Yeah, I think that birds belong outside. I really enjoy watching them. I don't want to be up close. are kind of messy and dirty. Yeah, I don't want to be up close But not as dirty as ducks. Ducks are the worst.  So I hear. I don't have ducks. My friend does. And she's actually selling her duck eggs in our farm stand again this year for the second year. Oh, well, they're very good for you. Yeah. And I just, I'm like, I don't want ducks. I'm good. Chickens is more than enough.
07:23Well, you get more chickens for eggs.  Chickens lay eggs for a longer period of time than ducks do. Ducks have a very short laying cycle. They do.  And it was funny because her ducks stopped back last fall and we had a few people asking where the duck eggs were. And I was like, you clearly don't know anything about ducks. And I didn't say that because that would be rude.  And I was like, they don't lay past.
07:50Yeah, end of September 1st of October when the daylight gets short, they don't hmm. So and now they're back and everybody's like, yay, duck eggs are back. I'm like, yeah, because the sunlight is now back. Yeah, because all of agriculture is influenced by weather and daylight. That's right. We need to get people back into this. I swear, it's part of the reason I do this podcast and my other one, because people need to know.
08:19how the cycles work and how nature works and that eggs don't come from the store, they come from chicken butt.  Yes, yes,  it's interesting.  We're so far removed and it's so sad and it  took such a short amount of time.  One generation, it's all it took. Yeah, it's nuts.  I refuse to be removed.  I  will not be removed from where my food comes from.
08:48because I was raised by, well, I wasn't raised by grandparents, but I had grandparents who had gardens  and my parents had a big garden and my parents hunted. They heated their house with wood, with a wood stove. So I know a lot about gardening and I know a lot about hauling wood. And I refuse to let people remain in their little bubbles of the grocery store is where food originates and that's where we get it.
09:15Or you turn on the switch and you have heat.  That too. Yeah. Yeah. So what's still is a little bit more work.  Yes. If you do it right, your wood should warm you four times.  The saying is three, but it's actually four because you got to cut the tree when you sweat, when you cut a tree, you have to cut up the fallen tree.  You have to. You have to split the wood and then you have to move the wood to wherever it's going to be stored. So that's four times.
09:45Yep. then it heats you when you need it in your wood stove in the winter. Correct. So I guess it's five times. It might even be more than that. Who knows?  All right. So let's get down to fainting goats because I have not talked with anybody about fainting goats.  Why do they faint? It actually started out as a genetic mutation. So and of course, things that are interesting.
10:15man perpetuates.  So they started with the,  they're called MGRs or short hair  goats in Tennessee.  And  the
10:30they have a fading gene. And what happens with that is their muscles lock and it's from their neck down  and it's only about 15 seconds, but  the goat is fully awake, fully aware and is aware of its surroundings. It just can't move. It's just been  startled or scared and it just freezes.
11:00Sometimes they fall over and our goats, once they get about four weeks old, the babies start fainting, which is, and they completely fall over. But as they get older, around six months or so, they start to learn how to control that faint so that they just freeze in place for 10, 15 seconds.
11:27And then as they get older, it's just their back legs  that they can't move. So they can still move their front legs,  which is, they kind of look like the walking zombie at that point.  And that's pretty much what they do. But they took the  Tennessee uh fainting goat and mixed it with  a Nigerian dwarf. And that's how they came up with the mini silky.
11:53And the idea is that the  silky goats are to be looked like a miniature silky doll.  And  it took about 20 years, but  we're there.  Awesome. Okay. So  I was under the mistaken impression that when fainting goats faint, that it's a seizure, but it's not a seizure. It's just their muscles lock up. The muscles lock up. Yep.
12:21In a seizure, they're not aware what's going on, but these goats still know exactly what's going on. The thing I find most interesting about this is that most animals, when they're startled,  they run. They flee. But no, the fainting goats just stop. They can't move. Yeah. Well, the other part of the story about the Tennessee fainters is that they free ranged them on the side of a mountain.
12:50When a predator came, ah they would wipe out the whole herd because they get into a killing frenzy. But when you put one of these feinters  into a herd of goats, uh the rest of the herd can get away because it draws the attention of the predators  to that one that is freezing in place.  And since it only lasts about 10, 15 seconds, it does have a chance to get away.
13:20after that, but ah it was sort of like the sacrificial lamb that they would put one of these into the herds of uh goats  that they free range that way they don't lose the whole herd. They might lose the one. Yeah,  but it is like it is a genetic defect that they did. So we perpetuate.  the fainting goats were heroes. Yes, basically. Yeah, nice.  I love that. That is so fun. uh
13:50So do you keep them  as milkers? you keep them for me? They're just pets. They're just expensive pets.  And that's pretty much what I sell them for and I breed them for. I do go all over  the country and show them. oh my primary purpose is just they're just a fun little goat that's small  and very inquisitive  and smart  and happy-go-lucky and they make you happy.
14:19So I keep them as pets and like to sell them to other people for pets or breeding. When occasionally they go to show homes. Awesome. So how big does an adult fainting goat get? 23 inches at the shoulders for the boys. And the girls have to be under 22 inches right now. They're lowering the size limits on these guys.
14:49But so they're about knee-high or you know a little bit Depending on how tall you are. How much do they weigh? Anywhere from 40 to 70 pounds So they're they're about the same height as my Australian Shepherd dog because she's a small one But she's actually less she weighs less. She's 36 to 40 pounds on any given day. Yeah, she's there There's nice small goats
15:17But they do have the hair that has to be maintained. Yeah. Yep. You have to brush them or she or share them. I brush them. Okay. If you're showing them, you have to brush them because 30 % of the scorecard is on their coat. How long it is, how even it is, how silky soft it is, the texture of it. So that's what they're grading them on. Okay. And what's the temperament on these guys?
15:47They're extremely social, very  friendly.  A lot of them will come up and kind of nipple on the ends of your shirt if you're not paying attention to them.  What are the babies like? Well, you have some that will crawl up and sit in your lap,  and then you'll have others that will look at you and run the other direction.  So the same as any baby animal.  Yeah, pretty much.
16:17Are they bouncy  like every other goat? the baby goats? two days they find their little springings in their legs and they just bounce all over and kick their heels and do somersaults and they're bouncy and happy and  love to jump up on the things and  investigate their world. Best videos on YouTube are baby goats bouncing around like crazy children. Yes, that's what  draws people to them.
16:47But they don't stay that small for very long.  Yeah, I realized about two years ago after many years of thinking that I love goats.  I don't love goats. I love baby goats. I love them until they're about eight weeks old. And I'm like, yeah, you're a goat now. Go be a goat.  Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I've talked about goats a lot on this podcast and my  best friend in high school. Her parents raised goats.
17:16the Nubians and La Manchas, I think.  And every spring, my friend would call me and she would say,  can your mom drive you over? The goats had babies last night because she knew I would want to hold them before they were 24 hours old. uh I would go over and I'd go in the barn. I would sit down on a hay bale and I would sit there and just hold the baby goat for as long as that baby goat would let me hold it.  Yeah, that's what I...
17:45I opened the farm for snugg, we call them snuggle sessions. Yes. And people come in and uh sit for, I usually open it for two or three hours and they sit, some sit the whole three hours and some,  you know,  it's a half an hour and then they walk around and see all the other animals and then they leave.  Yeah. For me, it was like holding a baby deer because deer and goat are built kind of the same way. Yeah, they are.
18:13And baby goats are so soft and they smell so good. Yeah, they do.  And that's how the moms determine whose baby is who to. Yes. I sent. And by the bleat that they do, the bad noise. Yep. Yep. It's amazing. I highly recommend anyone who is stressed out in the months of April and May find somebody who's raising goats and has a bread goats and.
18:41make sure they call you when they have brand new baby goats because if you can sit with a baby goat for at least an hour,  your stress levels will come down. Yes, they do.
18:52That used to be when I was working, that was the first thing I did if I had an exceptionally hard day.  When I go right to the field with the goats, spend 15 minutes and then my stress level was down so then I can go in and greet the family and have a good time for the rest of the evening.  Yes, I don't know what it is about these baby goats, but it works. And  I've held a baby sheep before and the magic is just not the same. ah
19:21I don't know why, but something incredibly... just have such like really cute little sweet faces that you just want to just kiss. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to kiss their snoot. It's like, yeah, it's just calling you. You just got to give them a kiss. Yeah, there is just something incredibly magical about baby goats. And if you have never been around them, no, you won't understand it. You have to be around them to get it.
19:53Yeah, I just, have a lifelong friend now because that was on her bucket list was to see a baby goat be born. And I had to have farm open for a snuggle session and she came to a snuggle session. And it just so happened that one of my goats ended up going into labor during it. So  I'm trying to monitor the mom having goats and also manage my crowd  of people  with.
20:22snuggling goats on the other side of the  stall wall.  And she said, can I just watch? I said, sure. So I put her up to the stall door and just let her watch.  that was her thing. She said, now I can check that off my list.  And now about once a week, she comes over and just goes to the field and sits on the ground and just lets them.
20:51I'm over to her, nudge her, sit on her lap, run around her.  She says it's the best therapy. It is. It is. I was just thinking the same thing.  I have to say this because I keep meaning to say it to people and I forget.  I commend you on letting people come to your place and see your animals.  And I'm going to tell you why.  Having trust in the general public with animals that you love is a big, big deal. Yeah, it is.
21:20My husband and I went to our friend's place. have  cattle, have chickens, they have  sheep,  and they are the original breeders of my dog. ah She was from the very first litter that they ever bred. And she had a puppy day three, four years ago. And they actually had  great Pyrenees puppies as well.
21:48Somebody had let them take their mama dog until she had the babies and  hang out with mom and the puppies until the puppies were ready to be adopted. So she had a foster dog basically when the mama was pregnant. so we went  and  we know them very well. They're great people. We went thinking there'd be maybe five other people there to see the puppies.
22:12We walked into their shed where they had the pups and there were like 21 puppies between the Pyrenees puppies and  the Australian shepherd puppies.  There were at least 50 people there. Oh yeah. And she's totally fine with all these people holding  these little puppies. know, the great Pyrenees puppies were probably 10, 15 pounds, but the Australian shepherd puppies were under five pounds.
22:42Oh yeah. They're little.  I was just like, I'm so glad we got Maggie spayed when we did, because letting people hold those puppies would have scared me to death. It does at times.  I recently had an open house back in March and it wasn't a real nice day out, but um I had a chef come  and  offer food and I had an ice cream truck.
23:11come  as a center for people to come.  And uh we put out  a pen with the chickens and the bunnies for the people to look at  while they're waiting to come in. But I never expected the turnout that we had.  Oh my word. It was hundreds of people.  Yeah. I'm really glad that that's the case.
23:40Because again, we need people to come and see what this is But that was a one time thing. Usually it's not that big, but it was like, oh my goodness, it was very well attended. Yeah, and we need that. Yes, we do. But the owner of those animals, I can't imagine your stress levels. Oh, it was high. When all those people go home, you're probably like, give me a goat right now. I need snuggles.
24:09It was very stressful. Let me tell you. Yeah, I'm really shy. And what I didn't know is that our friends at that puppy snuggle party, I didn't know, but she came over to me and she was like, see that lady over there? And she very subtly directed my gaze to the person. And I said, yes. She said, she really wants to adopt the puppy that she has in her hands. And I said, uh-huh. She said,
24:38She really wants to know what it's like raising one of these. And I said, uh-huh.  She said, would you, if I send her over to you, would you tell her about your experience with Maggie? And I'm, I'm so shy. Like I just have a really hard time talking to people in, in person.  And I was like,  yes,  yes, I can do that.  So this woman comes over and she's got this little red tri puppy in her hands and she's like,
25:06Are you Maggie's mom?  And I was like, yes. And she said, how old is she now? And I was like, she's two, three, whatever she was. And she said, how was it? How old was she when you got her?  What was the experience like the first six months? When did you get her fixed? da da da da.  Asking me all these questions. The only thing that saved me, Connie, is that I love this dog more than life itself. And I have been with her pretty much every moment of her life.
25:36and I can speak to what it's like to raise an Australian shepherd. That's the only thing that saved me, because otherwise I would have just been stuttering and saying dumb answers, because I don't know. And afterwards, she went over and talked to my friend, and puppies were too young to adopt yet. They had another two weeks to go. So my friend comes over to me and she says, thank you for talking with her. And I said, you're welcome. And I said, is she going to adopt it? And she's like, yep, she'll be back in exactly two weeks to get this puppy.
26:06I said, what's she naming it? She said, red. This is a red tri. I said, all right. She said, I don't know why you think you're bad at peopling. She said, you were great. I kind of heard some of the conversation. She said, and you love Maggie so much it's written all over you. And it's like, oh yeah, I dread the day that she is no longer with us. Yeah. Well, that's the-
26:32Downside to having any kind of animal or farm or anything like that. It's That is the downside. Yes with that with birthers also comes full circle with death Yep, you just love them and take care of them the best you can while they're here.  That was the hardest thing for me to to manage  Was was that the end of it?  Was the end of things?
27:00Yeah, and you can't prepare for it no matter how much intellectually you know that a dog has a lifespan of anywhere from 8 to 20 years. 20 is way far out. That's probably an exaggeration. 8 to 15 years if you're lucky. If you're lucky.  Even if you intellectually know that, your heart does not accept it. That's true. And it's the same way with my goats.  Same way.
27:28If they live to be 15, that's a long life for a goat. We had this really cool billy goat, which we call bucks. He had horns. we bought him when we knew very little about goats. He was our first silky fainting goat. And he was a real beautiful brown color.
27:57Anyhow,  he liked to play soccer with the kids.  And when I had kids birthday parties, we would all play soccer with Viking. His name was Viking.  And he just loved the kids. just, his eyes would get real big and wide and he would get excited and he would headbutt the ball to the kids. So whichever one threw it to him, he could actually headbutt it back to that child.
28:25And it was the coolest thing. And anyhow, he liked to do that all the way up to when he turned 15 and a half and we had to help him euthanize because that was the best thing for him. It was hard for us. It was a real hard decision, but it was the best for him. And that's another thing that most people who don't have animals don't know.
28:55is that prolonging in their life because you don't want to lose them isn't the best course of action. Yeah. We love that boy. Like I said, he was one of a kind. I haven't been able to teach anybody else how to play soccer like that, but he did and he just loved it. So fun. Yeah. The last thing you want is an animal that you love to suffer. that's just it. there's like, there's a list of 10 things regarding dogs.
29:25that  as they get older, you want to keep an eye on. And it's something about they don't like any, they go off their food or they go off their water or they don't like to sit in your lap like they used to  or they don't want to run  after their favorite toy or they go for a walk with you and they sit down after 20 feet, know, obvious things that are not right.
29:52If they are not, if something is wrong on six of the 10 things on the list, it's probably time to consider letting them go. Yeah. That's a, that's a hard thing to let any animal go. It is. It's terrible. They're a part of your life and you know, it's part of your care routine and it's the way it is. Yep. And the thing, the thing that kicks my butt a little bit is we know this about our animals, you know, euthanasia for animals is fine.
30:22But when our elderly folks are miserable and off their food and not mobile and not having any quality of life, we can't do that for them. And I'm not saying that in a bad way.  just it makes me crazy when older people, you know, who are  have no quality of life. They're in a nursing home. They don't get to do anything. Yeah.
30:49They can't even read a book anymore, which is the joy of my life. I love reading.  I don't want to live like that. I want somebody to pull the plug on me.  But that's considered murder. And I'm like, why do we do it for our animals? But we won't do it for our loved humans.  Yep.  And that's a big swing. And people don't hate me for that. just...  Yes, it is a big swing.
31:17My grandpa was in hospice care for a good 10 days. And my parents were with him  every waking moment of those 10 days, basically on death watch. And  he was not coming back. The minute he was in hospice, he was not coming back.  And listening to my father grieve those 10 days and then after was hell.
31:46So yeah, I think that we need to think about that hard because it's not any better for our humans to suffer than it is for our animals to suffer. but I think we want one more day. One more day. Oh, every day, every time. Yes. And it's hard to say, well, today's the day. know, is God going to take him today? You know, why doesn't he take him? Yeah. You know, so it is.
32:15It is a tough, but you're right there. Sometimes you would think that, you know, we should be given that, that  if that's what that person wants  and has it in writing,  we should be able to let them go. Yeah. The closest thing to that is the do not resuscitate order that you can have. Right. That's it. That's the closest you can get.
32:40So sorry, I didn't mean to take such a down road, it just brought back memories. um So I try to keep these to half an hour. I  love what you're doing and you sound so happy with what you're doing. I do. I do thoroughly enjoy. I enjoy the people that come and I really enjoy doing the farm tours and with the grandparents and they have their grandkids and  letting the grandkids touch and feel and hold.
33:09And I do it at their level. If they're not willing to, then we back up.  But they actually get to see and oh, whatever they like that I have here, which is kind of cool. You know, and I do the same for the kids birthday parties,  but they get to release a pigeon at the end of the party. So most places don't have that or do that. Fun. It is fun for them. I love what you're doing because so many kids don't have an opportunity. That's right.
33:39to ever pet an animal beyond a guinea pig, a cat, cat or a dog. You're right. Yeah. So, yeah. So if they want to hold a chicken, they get to hold a chicken. If they want to hold a bunny, they get to hold a bunny. Yes. And you're planting seeds so that they know that they could maybe someday have these animals and raise them and love them and show them off to people too. Yeah. They sure can. All right, Connie, where can people find you? I'm in...
34:08Oh, on Facebook. at Rustic Gates Farms.  On Facebook.  As always, people can find me at tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Connie, thank you so much for your time. it's been a pleasure. All right. Have a great day. you so much. Bye.  Bye.
 

H&H Homestead

Today I'm talking with Ashley at H&H Homestead. You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:00I'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 Ashley at H &H Homestead in Texas. Good morning, Ashley. How are you? Good. How are you?  I'm good. I haven't actually recorded an episode for A Tiny Homestead  in over a week because people have been busy.  Oh, it is that time, especially down here. And we're planting everything.
00:28We've had some stuff going for weeks, so I can imagine everybody's kind of  really getting into it right now. Yeah, it's that time of year and I go through the same thing in the fall when everybody's harvesting  and I go through the same thing at Christmas and New Year's because everybody's busy with family. Oh, for sure. So I'm very happy you had time to talk with me today. Yeah, absolutely. How is the weather in Texas this morning?
00:53It is so sunny and nice. I went out and watered everything as early as I possibly could because I know we're supposed to get to 100 today. So I wanted to make sure, you know, I was out there before it got super hot. Oh, I was cringing at the fact that we're supposed to have like 84 for a high on Friday. 100 would kill me right now. See, you're in Minnesota, right? Yes. Yeah, I just I feel you just you just acclimate to where you are because I used to.
01:20I mean, I've been to Minnesota several times. I used to live in Alaska and I am such a warm weather person now. I just, I really don't like being cold. So it's like, you just get used to where you're at and then,  you know, go to somewhere opposite and it really throws you. Uh-huh. I would rather,  this is going to sound really stupid because I do not enjoy deep winter, but I would rather deal with cold because I can throw on more layers of clothes.  If it's hot, I can't get any more naked than naked.
01:50Just extra fans, extra fans. I have her, like not even just the cold. I have not had to shovel snow in years and I love that. Yep. One of the things I used to do when I was a kid, cause I grew up in Maine and Maine is very, very, very humid in July and August. And I would get, I would get headaches when it was hot. And so I would, I would literally come in the house,  go on the bathroom, strip down, get in a cold, cold, cold shower. Yeah. So that my hair was wet.
02:19And then I would dry my hair just enough so that it wasn't dripping. And that cold hair on my neck would keep me cooler. Yeah. Yeah, that's smart. But I just, hate being hot. Hot is my least favorite state of being. Well, see, there has to be, you know, opposites in people. Otherwise we'd all be in Minnesota or we'd all be in Texas. So it's a good thing that there's a mix. It would be a very boring world if everybody was the same. Yes. And my podcast would put people to sleep.
02:49So,  all right, so why is it H and H Homestead? Well, so our last name is Huff.  so  there's two of us, me my husband, but then our boys names are also both start with H. So either way you look at it, there's just H's all around. So we went with H and H. Oh, I love it. That's amazing. That's great. And like way to be original, mom.  Well, you know, I had to keep with the, you know, I don't know,  R being our last name.
03:18Hough or, you know, Hank and Hogan Hough. And then they have the same middle initial as well. So everyone's got the same, you know, just that way everything stays the same. You don't get one thing personalized. Technically it goes for everybody, you know. Fabulous. That's really great.  So what do you do at H &H Homestead? A little bit of everything. So we're kind of new to this. So
03:40And I blame my oldest son for getting us started in this because he brought home the chickens from his first grade class. And this is kind of what started the whole thing is, um, his first grade class hatched these chickens for, you know, studying the, life cycle of animals. Right. And they had these seven adorable little chickens and then summer rolled around and nobody necessarily wanted to take them. So of course I volunteered. So we started with chickens and then from there.
04:08I was like, well, my chickens need some neighbors out there. They look a little, they look a little sad. then, then we got quail and then I did a greenhouse and now I have dozens of raised garden beds and now we have bunnies and we just got chukkers.  And so I'll probably like everyone else's. Um, you're just always adding something and always doing the next thing on your homestead.  Yeah. It's one of the best things about it. I don't know what a chukker is. They're a little, little game birds. They're called chukker partridge. They're a little bit bigger than a quail.  Um,
04:37brown, they've got a little black ring around their neck.  My husband used to hunt them um growing up and now we're just going have an easier way to do that because we'll just walk out to the backyard.  Don't have to hunt, just have to acquire. Exactly.  So chicken math quickly led to homosteading math is what you're telling me. Yes it did. With of course a side of sourdough because that has to come with it too. Yeah  I wasn't going to talk about sourdough today but you brought it up.
05:06I have sourdough  starter in my fridge. It's been in my fridge for a month  because I made it and it was doing great and I was like, I'm not  going to make bread right now. So I stocked the jar in my fridge and I really haven't looked at it since. And because you said it, now when I go downstairs, I'm going to have to take it out and make sure it's not dead. I have never put mine in the fridge. I know people do that. I've just never...  I've always been afraid that that's going to kill it.
05:36So I probably, you know, I make as many discard recipes that I do actual bread, just because I'm like, I gotta do something to keep it going. Yeah. My husband, part of the reason I got stuck in the fridge is because my husband makes yeast breads and he's really good at it. Yeah. And therefore three or four weekends in a row, he had made four loaves of yeast bread every weekend. So we had bread that was already made in the freezer and I was like, eh.
06:03I'm not even going to attempt to make the third loaf of my life of sourdough right now.  So I put it in the fridge and I guess as long as it doesn't have orange or pink mold on it, it's still viable. think so. I think it just gets that layer of stuff on top and you pour it off and then... Yep. And just add some more stuff to it.  So I got to check that today  and I honestly don't want to because that means that... I didn't mean to just add to your to-do list.
06:31My to-do list today is basically the podcast recording with you, but  I really should check. really should. uh So do you have land or are you an urban homesteader? We have about an acre, just a little over an acre. And I mean, technically we're within city limits, here we're very, I mean, we could walk and we're outside of it. We're so close to the edge. So like we don't have a ton of space, but eh I feel like really maximize.
07:00the area that we have. have everything kind of right next to each other, not super spread out. Definitely still have room for more animals. I've been telling my husband I want goats or I want pigs or I want something else. And so far he is not super on board yet. Doesn't seem to have a problem if I add any type of birds that I want. But as soon as it has four legs, then it's more of a discussion. Is it because he's afraid he'll get more invested in a four-legged critter because they don't have feathers?
07:28Maybe I mean, he grew up with this kind of stuff, right? He, you know, showed pigs he had all this kind of stuff. So it's not as new to him as it is to me and the boys. So I think he's just, you know, maybe not as excited about doing it again, per se.  He did say that about the bunnies when we first got the bunnies, because we were given them as meat rabbits. em We have since kind of transitioned more into pet bunnies because they happen to be just so adorable. em But it's like, I get it. I mean, I think if we bought
07:57a pig knowing that we're going to raise it for consumption, then it's different than if we buy a pet and then, you know, keep it as a pet.  Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.  So, um,  when you decided you wanted to get into this,  did you talk to your friends about it?
08:19Well, not necessarily, maybe a little, but we don't necessarily have people who were super close with that are doing the exact same thing. We have friends who have had chickens or have had ducks who coincidentally no longer have chickens or ducks, but that didn't deter me. So I was determined to do it regardless. Okay. The reason I ask is because when my husband and I had the chance to start looking for a homestead,
08:46like land as we lived on a 10th of an acre lot for over 20 years.  When we made the offer on the place that we've lived at for six years in August now,  we waited until we knew the offer was accepted to tell people.  the reaction on all the people that we told faces, this terrible grammar, sorry,  was the same.  It was shock.  It was denial. And then it was like, what the hell?
09:16Why? What is it? I mean, maybe it's just not as common. Where you because I feel like even in  our little neighborhood, we're kind of a little afterthought. And I wouldn't even call it subdivision. em I mean, in the morning, I hear probably seven other roosters like everybody has something. There's sheep down the road that sometimes end up in our driveway. Like around here. I feel like it's just everybody has something.  I don't know the answer to your question. And I really don't know.
09:44on a lot of levels because we had been growing a garden in our backyard for years. m a lot of produce came out of that little tiny backyard. And we had been growing peonies and flowers in the front garden.  We had gotten chickens when the bird flu went through that first time.  And  we didn't even know who were allowed to have chickens, but I was like, I don't want to be without eggs. getting chickens. We had four chickens.
10:13We had always said to our friends that if we had the opportunity that we would find a place that had more land and we would move.  I don't think they believed us because  no one,  no one was un- Really?  Everyone was surprised. Interesting. And to this day, I think that they still think we're insane.
10:40Well, they can think that until you give them eggs and produce and bread and all the things that are coming from your homestead. Yeah. And the other thing that I've said a lot on this podcast is that  I grew up with my parents growing a garden, with them heating their house with a wood stove, which meant that we as kids helped with the splitting and the hauling of the wood for the wood stove.  My mom canned, my mom froze extra produce in the
11:10the freezer in the basement. I didn't know that homesteading was anything weird. I thought everybody did it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. So when I first started this, again, I said we're fairly new to this, but I made a point of asking people who who did classify themselves as a homestead, like when when do you consider yourself a homestead and when are you just, you know, I have a hobby or I have a backyard garden or I have some chickens. And a lot of people were saying it's more of a
11:39Like homesteading is a state of mind. If you feel like you are doing this because you're wanting to, you know, better the quality of food that you are feeding to your family and that kind of thing. So it's interesting to think about when people consider it an actual homestead.  Yes. And for me, because of the way I was brought up,  I always equated homesteading and prepping and  not tinfoil hat prepping, but just being prepared. Yeah. Yep.
12:07Cause if you grow up in Maine where I grew up and you know what winters are like in Maine,  sometimes you literally can't get out of your driveway for a week because it's too icy or the plows can't get to where you are and you're stuck. If you're out of toilet paper or out of milk or out of coffee, you're out. Yeah. Yeah. So  I didn't know that, that people actually only bought
12:36things every day that they needed and  didn't prepare for the occasional emergency. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So it's just the whole thing is so  nuanced, I think. Yeah, yeah, and just in different, different where you are in different. I mean, I  take a homestead here in Texas versus somewhere.
13:02We're doing probably different things, maybe the same basic, you we have animals, we have the garden, but the way, what we're planning for and what we're growing and saving and prepping is probably completely different, just geographically too. um I think to a point, yes. And I think part of that is that you are lucky enough to live in an area where you probably have persimmons that grow, persimmon trees. Oh, I don't know. I don't have any. We are... um
13:32I have a love-hate relationship with trees and getting them to grow. And sometimes I'm convinced West Texas doesn't have  the ability to grow trees. I don't know.  I honestly have to look and see if we have any around here. I don't know. Well, I know in the South that there are fruits that grow that will not survive Minnesota. Oh, for sure. Like,  poppa trees, persimmon trees, anything kind of tropical-ish. Yeah. They won't.
13:59make it here because they can't survive the cold freeze in the winter. Yeah. And for the longest time, I thought that peaches wouldn't grow here, but we have two peach trees and we got peaches two falls ago. So I don't want to jinx myself, but I might actually get peaches this year. So I planted trees a year and a half ago now, peach, pear, apple, and plum. And we got flowers on everything. I was so excited. And then, you know, good old West Texas windstorm comes through and
14:28All of the flowers are gone on everything except for the peach trees. But we do actually have a couple that provided they stay on. um We should actually,  should be able to enjoy at least a peach this year.  I hope you get to because there is no better peach than the peach that you grow yourself. um I am really trying to. There's some things that I've, it's funny, uh my youngest, my six year old, he's more into everything in the garden because he  eats everything, which is great.
14:55Like he'll go out and I mean, if there's two or three tomatoes that are ready, like they won't make it out of the garden. Like he just eats everything. But so he's, he has asked for, he would like an apple, he would like peaches and he would like some strawberries. And it's like the things that he has asked for are the ones that I struggle with the most. I don't know how many strawberry plants I have killed at this point. And it's like, I don't know why. I just, there's some things that just, they do not do well in my backyard.  Huh.
15:21Yeah, strawberries are hard because birds love them. So you may think that you're bad at strawberries, but it may just be that the birds are getting them before you see them. I'm going to go with that, but I don't know if it's true.  It's like we have elderberry trees here and elderberry is a really, really good thing to have growing on your property. And there's two and they grow wild.
15:46And every spring they bloom and they're beautiful. And I'm like, yes, elderberries. have not, I've not gotten to them yet. And part of the reason I haven't gotten to them yet is because birds adore elderberries. And I said to my husband this winter, said, is there any way we could put like bird netting over the And he said, if I had a really good fire truck with a really good ladder. Yep.
16:16And I laughed and I said, well, how much would one of those cost us? he went, no, just rent one. sure.  Yeah. He said, he said, what? And I said, I'm kidding.  He said, you are so deadpan sometimes. I don't know if you're joking. uh Maybe we can get one of the firemen to drive down and help. And he was like, they're not going to do that.  said, yeah.
16:39So I think that my chances of  getting elderberries for anything are probably slim to none, but it was really neat to find out we had elderberry trees on our property. Yes.  And the birds were here long before I was, so. So  I you gotta let them have them.  Yup. I mean,  I feel like we  as humans have stolen so many things from nature.
17:06that if I have to sacrifice elderberries to the birds, I'm just giving back things that were stolen from them a long time ago. That's true. That's fair. And I'm not going to die if I don't get the elderberries. It's fine. However, my husband is going to go out and cut asparagus tonight because our asparagus patch is going  crazy.  That's one that I  would like to do too. I haven't done that one yet. The new ones we've added this year, just because I feel like...
17:33I mean, tomatoes do great. We do so many herbs. Um, the main thing I like to do is alufas. I'll talk with those in a second, but, I really, really just wanted to grow a side dish, a nice side dish to go with a quail dinner. Right. And it's just like, I, I, I failed at a couple of different variations of green beans last year. Um, so this year I did Brussels sprouts, which are doing great. And then, um, and other new one was art to carts, which are actually,
18:00Yes, that's one thing you probably can grow like crazy. We've tried. They do not do well here. See, I thought they were even considered as well, cool weather, maybe not cold weather, cool weather, because like we, I think I planted them too late last year, the Brussels sprouts and they never quite, they didn't get the actual Brussels sprout before it got too hot for them. And then the leaves just died. So I planted them much, much, much earlier this year. So hopefully we'll have a good harvest of those. Yeah. Brussels sprouts and artichokes, a no go.
18:29We have tried. just never do anything. Well, I'm fingers crossed on those. But the other one that we that I love to do did them last year is luffa gourds. How long how long is the growing time for those from seed to ready? Well, it did. So we don't I didn't eat them like you can't eat them. I know you can. And that's like 90 days or something like that. But then if you just let them go about 120 plus days and let them
18:57you know, dry on the vine and then, you know, get them as luffa sponges. That's what I did. So I let them all dry, which worked really, really well here. And because it's like, it's perfect. You literally plant this plant and your whole goal is to just let it die on the vine. So it's really hard to mess up. So it's great. um But then let them all dry and then peel them. And then I actually cut them apart and then I sewed them all onto,  I crocheted.
19:23a little rectangle with 100 % cotton yarn and then sewed the loofah onto the other side. And then for Christmas last year, everybody got homemade loofah sponges. So it was the perfect little growing a gift.  is a great idea. I love that.  See, this is the other thing about homesteaders. We're all very creative  or we're curious enough to go find the people who are creative and copy their ideas. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I honestly didn't. think for the longest time I wasn't really, you know, a loofah, I think growing up having a loofah sponge, was one of those
19:53nylon, know, puffy ball things. I wasn't thinking actual natural loofahs. And then I just, I think it was probably even TikTok or Instagram or something. I saw a lady talking about growing them and I was like, you know what, I'm going to give that a try. And they actually do really, really well. If we wanted to grow them here, we would have to get them planted in February. Yeah. Like in a container in the house to get them started and then transplant them.
20:20Yeah, I have seen one. So there was a lady I watched. She was in, I think, Michigan, and she grew them into where about the time that they were starting to get a frost, things, they weren't quite dry yet, right? They weren't brown. So she picked them and she slowly dried them in her oven, like the lowest possible setting door open. She had a little convection fan thing  and just naturally or not actually, guess, dried them that way. So maybe that would have to be have to do it when it's cold.
20:49Yeah, I don't know, because we've talked about it. But my husband for some reason just isn't into this whole loofah idea. And he's the gardener. And I meant I meant to just order some seeds back last fall so I could just hand them to him this spring. I completely forgot about it. Next time you decide I'll just I will send you some I'll put them in an envelope. I'll mail them to you because that's the thing is you get one loofah plant and then you get a bunch of loofahs from that one plant and each loofah
21:17has between 50 to 100 seeds in it. So I mean, I have so many seeds. I have sent them to friends all over. I sent them to some to my parents in South Dakota, sent them to my sister, sent them to friends in Minnesota. They're going to try them this year. So I'll let you know how those go. I've sent them to Utah even, so all over. So we'll see what state has the best return. I will message you my email address and maybe send me. You could be my lupus seed dealer.
21:47Absolutely. I'm on it. So the other fun thing that you do is you have the fluffy bunny rabbits. I do. have fluffy, well, have lop-eared and lion head. have both. And these are the ones where, you know, I've said they were some friends got them and they were given them as meat rabbits. And technically lop-eared, can be dual purpose, you know, pet meat rabbits. And it's just like, once you go out there and I play with them every single morning and I'm like, man, they're just, we're just going to be in the pet rabbit.
22:16trade now because I don't know. They're just so darn cute.  Yeah, for the listener, if you guys want to see the cutest baby bunnies ever, you've got to go to H &H Homestead on Facebook  and scroll down a couple posts and there are the most beautiful fluffy bunny babies I've ever seen. Oh, thank you. Well, and they, it's it's funny. We have, we have about three different age, ages now, cause we've got the ones that just opened their eyes. And then from another mom, she had a litter, which they probably are about.
22:46five, six months now, but they're like the middle fluffy stage. And then of course we have the parents, but um yes, they are definitely fluffy, adorable.  They require a little bit of maintenance. Like I probably brush the bunnies more often than I brush my dogs because they're not really the shedding type, but um I go out there with a little brush and I am, so the lion head are part Angora. So I am brushing them and I'm saving their fur and I have it in a little bag and then I will,
23:14Um, wash it with the wool that I have from a friend's sheep. And then I'm going to spin some, spin some yarn this fall and see if I can't make something out of it. Are you lucky enough to have a spinning wheel or do you just have the little, um, don't know, a little thing, a little one. then, I mean, if I, if I really get in, if this becomes my next new big hobby, then maybe I'll consider, um, a big spinning wheel one, you know, with the foot pedals and stuff like that. Otherwise just a little tabletop battery powered ones.
23:43Yep. Hang on one second, Ashley. Yeah.
23:49I had a tickling back of my throat and I didn't want to cough in your ear, sorry. You're good. If you ever do look into getting an actual spinning wheel, I would recommend that you go and look for a used one because I looked years ago at how much a new one is. Oh, yeah. They were exorbitant then. I don't even know how much they cost now. Yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. I remember...
24:18Years ago I watched, I think it was the first time I ever saw someone using one of the, I mean the  big giant ones,  know, on the, they probably sit three, four feet off the floor and she's working it with both of her foot pedals and I can imagine those ones are very, very expensive. Yes. And I am fascinated by them because the- So fun to watch.  Yeah. The, I don't know what the word is,  the mechanics of it.  like, how did somebody figure out how to make these things? Cause they've been around forever. Yeah.
24:47Yeah, it's very fun. Yeah. See, I figured that's, you know, I'm just going to have to, I feel like I'm always adding a new craft or a new something until, know, last year was sewing of these leafy sponges. And now I feel like it needs to be crocheting of something, even though, I mean, I might crochet a hat or ear warmers or things that I don't really need in West Texas, but we do occasionally get one week of a little bit of cold weather. So I might use it then. People love scarves. That's true.  Even.
25:17Even if it's Florida, people love scarves. That's true. My daughter lives in Florida. It got kind of chilly this winter for a little bit in Florida. Yeah. And she messaged me and she was like, wish I knew how to crochet. She said, you know how to crochet. And I said, do you need a scarf? And she was like, I don't really need one. She said, but I feel like it's, she said, having grown up part of my life in Minnesota, she said, I feel like I should be sitting with a cup of tea.
25:47and crocheting because I watched you do it. And I was like, you know, it's pretty easy. And I showed you how. Mm hmm. Yeah. She said, I think I'm just romanticizing it. I said, you really don't want to do it. You just wanted to talk about it. I like it. No, I love to crochet. That's something where I like to sit, you know, sit in the evening when we're watching TV or something and I crochet something I can't. I can multitask and crochet without having to think about the stitches and just kind of, you know, repetition.
26:15Knitting, have to actually read a pattern or focus. I crochet and I do Tunisian crochet and that's really fun to do.  That's what I did with the backs for the sponges was Tunisian crochet. Nice.  I despise knitting. I tried to learn when I was like 13.  My mom knitted and I was like, show me how.  She taught me the whole knit  one, purl two, whatever.
26:44Yeah, and and I just  it was way too  personickety and I hated the sound of the needles clicking which is really weird. That's funny I do I find that relaxing and then I even I usually have like long fingernails or something and then like the sound of the fingernails with the knitting I don't know it's one of those I find that like a relaxing so it's so fun. Yeah, I don't know and I mean
27:06I may be on the autism spectrum. I don't know. I've never been diagnosed, but there are just certain things that drive me insane.  Knitting needle clicking was one of the things that just, was like, God, I hate that noise. don't know why. So if you ever do take up knitting, you're going to do it while wearing earplugs or like loud music blaring.  I'm just not going to take up knitting. will crochet. Do you do any other other crafts too? um outside of crochet? ah
27:37I love to cook. Oh, same. Yep. So I don't know if that's a craft, but I do. love to cook. I for me. I used to like to do, I don't know what it's called, not embroidery, cross stitch. Oh, cross stitch. Yeah. I don't do a cross stitch if it has like the image already printed on there. I don't know that I have the patience sometimes for counted cross stitch. Like I just want to look and match colors and do it that way.
28:05Yes. And what's really weird is knitting is too persnickety for me, but counting cross stitch was really easy. Really? Oh my goodness. Okay. Yeah. Very weird. I haven't done cross stitch in a long time. I got into it when I was probably 32, 33. Yeah. And I'm, 56 now. And I, I made, I found out that my mother-in-law really loved butterflies. Yeah.
28:31And so I found these two really gorgeous butterfly cross-stitch kits and I made them for her and I gave her one for her birthday and one for Christmas.  And then she passed away uh back  just the beginning of COVID and she didn't pass away from COVID, she passed away from something else.  And we were packing up the house and she had those cross-stitches hanging on her walls and I have them, I put them away because I put a lot of hours into those things.
29:01Yeah. And I just, don't know, I think I'm, I'm past my cross stitching phase. Yeah.  I can see that. Okay. Well, the next thing, you know, just, mean, my other big one is, is sewing and quilting. I love all things sewing and quilting. Yeah. I never got into quilting. My mom, my mom loves to quilt. Yeah. Like,  loves it. And she's 79 years old. And I think the last quilt she made was two years ago. Oh, wow. Good.
29:31You just, think once you start, you just never stop. I mean, I've been sewing since I was about six. My mom taught me and then picked up quilting later,  probably  after high school. And then, I mean, I've taught both sewing and quilting for probably 15 plus years now. I designed patterns,  published patterns. was on a quilt show. Me and my friend did a couple episodes or couple seasons of a quilt show. And then I sew anything and everything. And my first sewing book actually just came out.
30:01last November. um So yeah, I love to do  all things related to fabric.  you have a website, Ashley? Not a personal one, just the Facebook page. um So where's your book available? uh So Amazon is the big one. So it's 500 Sewing  Tips, Tricks, Techniques and Hacks. um But a bunch of, know, it's a small little quilt shop.  have them. uh Barnes and Noble has them. But Amazon, think, is just the
30:31easiest way for everything, for all shopping.  That's exciting. I didn't realize you had a book. Yeah, thank you. It was fun.  I've taught both sewing and quilting for years and done it either in person or em I probably have hundreds of hours of just short little clips or little tip videos or long form classes. And so it was  kind of fun to um do the written version of that.
30:59Like I feel like it's very easy to, I think it's easy to teach someone like when you're physically sitting there next to them, right? And showing them how to do something and explaining something. But it was a very different process to actually put it into words of like trying to make it a cohesive, understandable book. But it was a lot of fun. Nice. You are very talented and you're very busy. And you give me hope because this homesteading thing is not a fad.
31:28Yeah, yeah. is a way of life. And I agree. As the world gets scarier and crazier, I feel like the people that are practicing homesteading skills, skills, schools, uh-huh, skills are the ones who are basically going to save us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's like, we won't necessarily need the big box stores and things like that. We will be able to do and provide for ourselves.
31:57So I'm trying to get everybody on board who wants to be on board because  we need the world to survive because honestly,  nature doesn't give one flying F about human.  No,  nature would go on just fine if all humans disappeared tomorrow.  Absolutely. And I don't want  to disappear. No, no, no, it does. But I think, you know, you're saying, some people don't want to fully embrace full on home setting per se. But it's like if if somebody just picks
32:26one thing that they're into. Like maybe you only want chickens, you don't want to do anything else. Or maybe you only want to grow this one specific thing. But if everybody has just the one thing that they're doing, then everybody altogether, we're still going to have everything we need.  Exactly.  All right, Ashley, this was really fun and I appreciate your time.  People can find you at H &H Homestead on Facebook. Yes, absolutely. Are you on Instagram?  No, I probably should, but I'm not yet. Okay.
32:56All right. As always, people can find me at thetinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Ashley, I hope you have a great day. Thank you. You too. Thank you.
 

Rud Ridge LLC

Today I'm talking with Ruth at Rud Ridge LLC. You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:00listening 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 Ruth at Rud Ridge  LLC in Wisconsin. Good morning, Ruth. How are you? Good morning. I'm fantastic. How are you? I'm good. Is the weather beautiful in Wisconsin today? Because it is gorgeous in Minnesota.
00:22It's one of those Wisconsin days where you're not sure if 60 degrees is going to feel like 40 degrees or 60 degrees is going to feel like 80 degrees. So, uh, it's beautiful. I'll take it. Uh, but it's a little chilly out there for this time of year.  Yeah. May has turned out to be more like April and April was more like May here. So I don't know. Mother nature is just  a fickle.  Which  W I C H let's put it that way this year.
00:49As long as my husband can get the corn in the ground today and the other crops planted, I will be very happy.  Yes, yes, because corn needs time. So it can be knee high by the 4th of July, as they say.  You've got it. They just planted  the field that surrounds our property  yesterday, day before yesterday,  and they're doing soybeans this year. It's been corn for three years in a row. I'm so thankful it's soybeans this year.
01:17little bit of change. Yeah, we actually had some ice on the duck ponds this morning, which was not normal for me. So,  no,  our outside um water supply, I don't know what they're called. It's the it would in the old days, it would have been the well where you had to pump the water out.  And it's not you just lift the handle and it's like a spigot. Yeah, yeah, it's been frozen the last three mornings. And my husband's like,
01:45I'm going to have to fill up a five gallon pail of water and take it out to chickens. I'm like, good luck with that because that's heavy.  So yeah, it's been weird, but I hear that this is the last cold week, supposedly  until fall. We will see. Weather, man. I don't know.  So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you guys do at Red Ridge LLC. So Red Ridge originally started with rabbits. em
02:13Excuse me, specifically,  Rex, not many rabbits.  We started with rabbits because we lived in town on half an acre. ah children and I began with raising rabbits for meat and show.  And we relocated to another property outside of town and have expanded into crop farming and we will be adding beef hopefully later this year. So we are all around a family homestead. My husband is a seventh.
02:42generation farmer here in Wisconsin.  So we are looking to continue that with the eighth generation that would be our children.  Nice. um I have a question about the Rex rabbit. Rex rabbits are the ones  that look like velvet, right? Yes, they are. They um are kind of generally considered a commercial  breed,  larger in scale. They have a versatility where their  their pelts are
03:11utilized  in  a lot of garment making  and such. very, very soft. Once you feel Rex rabbit fur, nothing else feels quite like it in density and softness.  And they really are a joy to raise and watch  thrive in our homestead.  friend of mine had one and it was like
03:36like a chocolatey, a light chocolate brown one, but she had black eyeliner around her eyes.  And I fell in love with that rabbit. She was friendly and she was the softest animal I have ever petted in my whole life. Yes, absolutely. And we specifically have always focused on temperament of our stock.  They are handled quite a bit from the day they are born. We do routine nest box checks. We're always hands on.
04:05Um, you know, making sure that they're growing well,  um, everybody's alive in the nest that they are used to being handled, that moms are used to us handling them.  So it kind of really sets them up for, um, a thriving of their social personality in that aspect. But you know, you pointed out they can be really sweet and kind.  Yes. I mean, I think that rabbits make excellent pets as long as you, as long as they are socialized to being handled. Yes. Well, and you know,
04:35Certainly historically in America, rabbits have been utilized for meat.  It's not quite as common  as it once was um in either the country or our region specifically to have rabbits as meat. But I think it's an important point for people or families who want to be  a little more self-sustainable, to be able to be involved in their own personal food chain, whether it be for themselves or for their pets. We do supply.
05:05Some people rabbit meat for their pets, um dogs and cats,  sometimes snakes.  I think that  people can care for their livestock and rabbits can be a part of livestock while also being  kind of that cute and cuddly at the same time. It's an interesting dynamic to try to uh explain to people that are looking to begin on a homesteading journey.
05:34Yes, you don't  just have to have meat chickens, you can have meat rabbits as well. Yes. Rabbit meat actually is considered one of the healthiest and easily digestible proteins  that's available to people to consume. um I know  that, again, people have to kind of get past the fact that it's their own um animal they would be harvesting,  and it's not  presented in a package  these days.
06:04Every single animal that we consume  kind of looks the same on a grocery store shelf. They're all basically in the same size packages. They're in the same sort of presentation. But rabbit meat from a health standpoint personally can really give people a solid boost into their nutrition.  And I keep hearing that  if all you ate was was rabbit for your meat source.
06:32that that doesn't go well because they don't have a lot of fat on them? So that is  more geared to wild game rabbit.  Okay.  Um,  while within the meat itself, there's not like a lot of marbling like you would see in, um, beef or in pork.  Um, you will find when you harvest domestic rabbits that they do have a certain amount of fat content within them. Okay. That being said,
07:01There's no one  ever that's really  consuming solely rabbit in their diet, you know in this day and age if you understand where I'm coming  so it would be really really difficult to be so Exclusively relying upon rabbit meat that you would find yourself deficient, you know in  in nutrient Okay, so it's
07:26I wanted  to bring it up because people keep telling me this and I'm like, I don't think anybody's just going to eat rabbit, number one. And number two,  we had rabbits for a while and when we butchered them, they had fat on them.  It's very much akin to um the old wives tale that if you touch a rabbit  or you  touch a nest from a rabbit that the mom will abandon that nest.  It's kind of the same  in the same vein that there may have been a
07:55grain of truth  into, you know, exclusively utilizing rabbit being poor for your health. You obviously need a well-rounded diet  that somehow that translated into people believing that rabbit starvation is an issue when you're utilizing rabbit meat and that it's just not the case.  you. That's I was hoping you would clear that up for me.  Absolutely.  And you know far more about rabbits than I do. We did it. We did not.
08:25do well at it and we don't raise rabbits anymore. I'm  sorry to hear that because we really define them to be a  positive impact in our life.  We had dumb bunnies. They did not know how to procreate and we had the right genders or sexes or whatever. They just didn't make babies.  I believe people have found that there is  the saying of, you know, breeding like rabbits  that particularly when you want them to, they may not.
08:54uh It can be  a little bit of an art and a science. uh There  are  things such as the rabbit's over consumption of a pelleted feed that can lead them to be a little heavier in fat that would limit their ability to get pregnant.  There can be other environmental stressors or factors that can make it a little more difficult than it may seem on the surface to kind of really get an established rabbitry, even of a trio.
09:24into a productive meat source for a family. But  if you can work through trial and error  and really talk to people that have an established  formula, you know,  sometimes it can, can really work out.  And I wish it had, but we were just, after a year, we were so frustrated with these rabbits and don't blame me  and feeding livestock that isn't, isn't doing the job.
09:50is not a good plan.  we just were like, now we're just going to butcher the ones we have and stick them in the freezer. Now, having said that,  one of the females did get pregnant and she did have babies. And it was one of the most wonderful couple of months of my life because baby rabbits are freaking adorable. They really are. I always have to tell people when I show them pictures of new litters, like the day they're born, I promise they get cuter. ah It can be a little surprising for people when they see what a newborn
10:19uh, rabbit looks like, uh naked mole rat. Yeah, we call them hippos.  Little, you know, blind hippos.  Um,  but you know, as they grow and it really can be a joy. My personal favorite age is three weeks old,  um, which we have some rabbits in the barn right now that are getting ready to be that age.  Um, but for the most part, it can be really a  joyous process. are so sweet and
10:47The reason that I say it was one of the happiest couple of months of my life is because it was really hot when this mama had them. It was June.  It was way hotter than it should have been.  And there was no way to keep the hutch cool.  so  I demanded that we bring the mama and the babies in. So the mama and the babies hung out in a big old plastic bin with the nest box and hay, cleaned that thing out every day.
11:16And I got to watch these babies grow from a day old until they went back outside with mom at about five or six weeks old. Six weeks old. It's amazing how quickly they grow, huh? You just kind of... Yes. It's hard to even believe sometimes. Yes. And because they were...  The bin was on my kitchen table.  I got to pick up baby bunnies whenever I wanted to and they were very socialized.  Yes, absolutely.
11:41It was really fun. I don't want to do it again anytime soon, but it was really, really fun while it lasted. You're grateful for the experience. Oh, I  am. I would not change it for anything. And  I told my mom, she,  I live in Minnesota and she lives in Maine and I told her the whole story when we did it. And she was like, so you get up every morning and get your coffee, drink about half a cup of coffee and then just sit down and commune with baby rabbits. And I was like,  yes, I do.
12:11Yes, and it's fantastic. Absolutely.  It really can be a joy. She said, I think I'm jealous. I said, get you some rabbits, Like,  no, I'm too old. Not doing that. I'm like, okay, that's fine.  So it was very fun. I don't want to do it again. But I commend anyone who is raising rabbits because it is an art and a science, I think. It is. I agree. Yes. So you said you said you're thinking about getting into getting cows.
12:40So, yeah, so is that that's for meat or dairy or both? Meat. So my husband was raised on a dairy farm. He comes from a long line of dairy farmers. Unfortunately, in 2008, his family's dairy barn burned to the ground. Luckily, all the animals and all the people were safe. But since that time,
13:06his family has pivoted to raising beef cows. ah They raise herford ah for the most part. And so we are looking to add our own  beef cows down here.  We're about 20 miles away  from my in-laws farm. ah We're looking to add beef cows to our pasture.  So  you don't have to tell me an exact number, but are we talking like
13:3410 or are we talking like 100? uh So  we're on the smaller side of an operation, probably 25 or so.  Nice. And I'm going to ask a really stupid question because I  literally don't know the answer to this. Where does one acquire beef cattle in Wisconsin? Well, so  acquiring them directly from other farmers is an option.
14:04option.  The auctions, equity livestock would be another  option. Certainly the last handful of years, three years or so, beef prices have soared quite a bit. Yes. We joke that it has not been a wonderful time to plan to get into beef cattle. uh So short of purchasing from our own family. uh
14:30or going to the auction,  either way you slice it, it certainly costs more than it did probably five years ago.  So I think the farmer  is an ever optimist, right?  We have to be. em If you're pessimistic about it, you might as well not even start because Lord knows we don't control the weather, we don't control the commodity prices, we don't control whether or not our herd
14:57remains healthy within our control or if something happens or you know government  forces at play or any of that. So I think we really at this point are just kind of looking to find  some sort of reasonable beginning and to try to flourish and expand  from within ourselves through breeding and other acquisitions that we really can do in order to leave something that our children
15:26have been involved in starting and may want to continue in the future. I am thrilled to hear that you're looking into this and you want to do it and you're going to make it go because my other podcast called Grit and Grace in the Heartland, Women in Agriculture, my co-host is a cattle rancher in Nebraska and she and her family are going to have to sit down next week and figure out what animals they are keeping, what animals they are selling.
15:55because Nebraska and South Dakota, basically the whole Midwest, other than Minnesota and Wisconsin, and we're upper Midwest, so it's different, is in the middle of a drought.  And there's been a lot of fires in Nebraska this spring. And so the grazing field, the grazing land is burned.  And uh a lot of people are going to be selling off their cattle this year.  And she told me that um a bunch of
16:24people in her area are having issues with this, this strings calves being sick because of the weather conditions.  So if you think beef is expensive right now, it's only going to get more expensive. And I'm so sad about this.  I am as well, you know, and, us smaller scale farmers, you know, of course, small scale, think as far as upper Midwest versus small scale.
16:48Yes. Kind of towards Nebraska and that are two different things, right? It's not necessarily the number of head we're talking about, it's kind of the operation in general. Yeah. But small scale farmers are really, you know, kind of disappearing a bit  and being absorbed absorbed into  larger operations. And  I would really love to see family farmers and ranchers be able to continue to push forward somehow. um For us,  that means
17:18starting and scaling in increments that are manageable and small.  Not taking on operating loans or expenses, just trying to kind of chip it out  as we can and try to  teach our children to do the same and do the best with the circumstances we can control. And  if we can at least start with feeding ourselves,  feeding my family, feeding our, you know, the few families that are connected directly to us.
17:47be good stewards of the animals and the land and just keep going away at it. It is our way of life and  what we would welcome and want people to try to continue to do. On the other hand, I realize it's difficult. Conditions can be brutal,  emotionally, physically, environmentally. And  I tip my hat to any  fellow farmer or rancher that is having to make these tough decisions because it's not fun. um
18:16but I send our prayers and well wishes with them. Yes. And no one gets into raising livestock because it's all rainbows and sunshine and boxes of candy. No one does. Or for the money. I think that was especially in the rabbit world. We had expanded at one time to having our Red Ridge stock in 22 different states.
18:44um kind of going through starting other people's barns for themselves, starting into show  territory. And there's an assumption that, well, you you're just in it for the  money or,  you know, exploiting these poor small woodland creatures.  But I can promise the profit  in farming is purely one of culture, lifestyle,  and that's really in the heart that certainly has nothing to do with uh
19:14Monetary gain or loss as it were depending on the year  No, it's because you freaking love it Yes Yes,  and I want to I really want to pound on that because I feel like a lot of people just make assumptions about people who grow things or raise animals and  it's I don't know why it's weird to be in agriculture, but
19:40A lot of Americans think that it's weird to be in agriculture. And I'm like, it's not weird. Why is it any weirder than being in selling boats for a living or selling cars  or selling crypto?  Do what you love. Yeah, I do think some of it, as far as the wider American public links back to our separation from our food and our specific food chain, you know,  we did see a swing back a little bit as far as American families keeping chickens, for example.
20:10um after COVID or with the rise in egg prices. um But otherwise, I think people just see food  and agriculture as something that's like, well, somebody else is going to do it. What do you want to do it for? Somebody else will do it. um But for those of us that are in agriculture, um it's really a cornerstone of our lives. And it's interesting because I don't come from really an agriculture background. um I was not raised in the Midwest.
20:39My husband 100 % was, this is his heritage. It's something I always felt drawn to even as a little girl. ah So the agriculture bug bit me somehow. um And I think it can really be something that anyone who feels the call can do. It might not be easy. It might not always be fun or Instagram worthy, but anybody can do it if they're willing to really  make
21:07some sacrifices  and get into the community to learn from others as well. Yep. So are your kids into this? My kids are very into this.  Yes. I have one daughter and one son.  They are going into middle and high school. um They are involved in the FFA. They very much  are out there on the tractor and  you know,
21:35working to acquire their own  beef herd as it were.  They have steak in the rabbits. So they are very much farm kids. That gives me so much hope. Yeah, me too. We need,  I'm going to use the term little people, but we need our little people and  our getting bigger people to embrace this because somebody's got to grow the food that America eats, you know?
22:05Right, it's really that connection with  our food, with agriculture and with the real world that  is  required to operate within it to make sure it continues. We'll our best to give them that. I'm so glad and I'm so glad that your daughter is into it because again,  a lot of people assume that girls  don't farm and women are very into farming now. Very. Absolutely. Yes.
22:33Yes. And she, you know, has a favorite brand of tractor. will not argue about colors of green on this podcast, but I promise my son and daughter have  differing opinions on it.  And they're very strong ones. Uh, they have their favorites for the field and what each of their own individual plans are, but raising a daughter that is interested in crops and in livestock.  Um, and then additionally in animal sciences, you know, really.
23:01makes me proud to show other mothers and other daughters that we have a place here. Yes,  absolutely. And I don't care what color the tractor is as long as it gets the job done. You know, I feel that way. not quite... I don't understand what the whole  spiel is, but I am happy to let...  As long as they're going to drive it to do the chores, right? That's my  thing. Yeah. And as long as it starts and continues running, we're good. And as long as they can fix it.
23:30We happen to run  older equipment. That too, yes. They can fix. oh Yes. And the other thing that I kind of want to touch on, because we're talking about tractors, which I never talk about because I don't really use ours, my husband does. um Tractors don't have to be brand  new, like came off the line yesterday, to work.
23:56You can  pick up an old tractor and  re-habit whatever and it'll work just as good as a brand new tractor. You just won't have screens and computers that tell you  where you are in the field. Right.  Yes. That's how we personally operate. I understand why other operations may operate differently, but  for us, particularly since we only really started  within the last decade, it's important.
24:25to us to operate something we can afford  at the jump. We can work on ourselves. um We may be able to still find spare parts for  versus waiting on a computer chip from somewhere that we don't know how long it's going to take to get here. Well,  the plants have got to get planted. Yes.  I am old enough to remember when cars did not have a computer system in them. Right. And I kind of hate that cars have computer systems in them now.
24:55Yeah. One more thing to fix,  One more very expensive thing to fix. Yeah.  Yep. So, you know, our kids are an eye. I'm  I don't drive the tractors as often. It's  kind of my husband's thing. I am the one that is the gopher and the do and the, know, he needs me to go down to the implement store and bring him what have you. Because again, this was
25:22What he was raised on, he's worked on these types of tractors his whole life. uh I can contribute in other areas, but,  you know, for the most part, it's been a positive way for us to kind of maintain things in our operation. Yes. So you're, you're in Southwestern Wisconsin?  Yes. We're just about halfway between Madison, Wisconsin and Dubuque, Iowa in the Southwestern corner of Wisconsin. Okay. So.
25:51You've been to Minnesota, yes, no? Yes, I have. You know how Minnesota is weird because like the southern part of the state is pretty flat, but as you go further north, it's more hilly and forested?  Yes, we are the opposite.  So, so it's not flat where you are? No, it is not flat where we are. It's pretty, ah you know,  graded and hilly and it is not flat where we are. We're considered what's called the driftless region.  Oh, yes. um
26:20So we are not necessarily in a really flat part of the state.  No, but you are in a really beautiful part of the state. I have been to the Driftless area. It's gorgeous. Yes, it's very unique and it  certainly has different landscapes for everyone. uh Your cattle are going to love it. Yes,  they will as long as the fences hold, right?  I think don't go through the, uh we have creeks that run through some of our property.
26:50And they can be a little crafty about getting around the fences that go through the creek, but you know, it's a beautiful landscape and a beautiful area.  am so excited for you. What's the ETA or the possibility ETA on getting cattle?  Um,  we don't really have a firm  timeline. Um, we're kind of shooting for before summer. Nice. Um, but I think that has a lot to do with how the planting season starts and.
27:16you know, lot of other things that are kind of intertwined with making sure we are set up with good fences and, you know, water and all that for the cattle. So hopefully  before fall.  am going to have to keep an eye on your Facebook page for when the first pictures show up of your cattle on your property. I'm sure there will be lots of them. So yes, please do. I love when I get to interview people and they have  new things coming down the road because
27:46It'll pop up on my Facebook feed and I'm like, oh yeah, they finally got the thing, whatever it is. Yep. You know, the pivot away from rabbits has been, um, well, I shouldn't say away from rabbits, but away from rabbits being the main focal point has been a little bittersweet. know, um, rabbits built red ridge. Um, it did the purpose of beginning where we did with rabbits was because we lived in town. can't have cows in town.
28:16My husband was still  active duty military at the time. And so it's how my children and I really started Rudd Ridge is kind of a segue into my husband's retirement. um now move forward into um cows is seeing  everything we dreamed of for 20 years kind of come to fruition. So  I feel like I'm departing from what built Rud Ridge and moving into, you know, the future that
28:45I'm excited for, but it's also a  a little bittersweet. So I try to invite people to do their own part  for their family with their food source, still through rabbits, to kind of maintain that, connection. Yeah. It's so exciting, Ruth. I'm so thrilled for you.  All right. Where can people find you? I try to keep these to half an hour more, 28 minutes. Oh, okay. That went by fast, huh? Yeah. So people can find us at Rud
29:15Ridge  LLC  on Facebook. That is most commonly um where I am able to update.  We do have a regular website, uh redridgewisconsin.com,  but that can be a little more clunky to update. So I'm trying to get there to get  a little more current, but we look forward to having people join us where they can find us.
29:41As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Ruth, I love what you're doing and I appreciate the fact that you took time out of your busy day to chat with me. Thank you so much. Well, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you. Have a good day. You too.
 

Little Willow Homestead

Today I'm talking with Jessica at Little Willow Homestead. You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:00listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together.  Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality,  and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose.
00:29At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful. If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care, you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. A tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Jessica at Little Willow Homestead in Idaho. Good afternoon, Jessica. How are you? Good. How are you? A little dumb today. I'm not going to lie. It's all right.
00:59Maybe both of our brain cells together  will accomplish something.  Maybe. I think it's allergies. It's very sunny here in Minnesota and there's a light breeze  and I think all the things that are really starting to bloom are just ruining my brain. But my husband sent me photos of the apple  trees that are blooming today.  So I'm very excited. Our apple trees never do very well  in
01:29end of April, 1st of May, because we get these big wind storms or we get thunderstorms and the blossoms get blown off. uh And I'm just, the weather's supposed to be good for the next five days. So  I'm praying  that the weather is good for the next five days. So we get apples on the trees on the far side of the property that we've never gotten apples from in the five years we've been here. Hey,  we can pray.  That's awesome. Yes.  So I think the allergies are kicking my butt.
01:59And I got a really quick thing I want to share with you and listener. um I went out on my porch and looked out the window and one of our chickens was over by our useless garage. We don't use it for anything. It's ready to fall down.  And we have this one chicken who escapes the run every day. And I decided that her name is Hopper because she hops the fence.
02:24I have a few of those and uh one of them,  she is ultra determined. She's a coffee agger and she loves to jump the fence and lay in this one particular spot.  But  I know it's going to be there every day, so I go and collect it every day.  Yeah, I don't think the chickens are actually laying outside of the coop, but this one just has to go explore after she lays her egg in the nesting box.
02:55She's a little crazy. She's a little free spirit. She is and she looks so fat. I know if I went out there and picked her up, she probably only weighs about three and a half pounds. She's so feathered out that she just looks round. I love it. So I want to talk about the coffee agar thing, but first, would you tell me a little bit about yourself and about your homestead? Oh my goodness, where do I start?
03:24So I really want to share with you the why why we moved out here to begin with. Yes. um So we  we kind of homesteaded a little bit before in our hometown, which is a little tiny town in Idaho.  And  I  don't know, I just  that was back in 2009. And I got chickens. I had a ton of chickens. I was doing meat birds, taught my kids how to process meat birds and all the things.  And my daughter
03:54My youngest of, we call her the youngest of the  first batch. was the youngest of our five.  She was really struggling in school. And so we made the decision  because she was the only one  at home that we would um sell our house, move to a different town and get her into the best school in the area that worked well with children on an IEP.  And so we  sold our house, moved into a subdivision, stayed there for four years.
04:21During that time we did foster care and then we  adopted our daughter. Well that daughter the daughter that we moved there for graduated from high school and a month later we put our house on the market  and and we had our daughter that we adopted from a foster kiddo  she had asked us to take her and and and raise her and so  we wanted to give her a life  away from the city teacher where her food came from and just
04:50for me to be able to homeschool her and,  you know, just teach her all the things, you know, things maybe that I didn't learn and  just, I don't know, I just really wanted to raise her out in the country. I felt really strongly about it.  And I had this like idea that you move out into the country, far out into the country, because we do, we live 30 minutes away from anything,  a gas station, anything.  And so you have this like mindset, at least I did.
05:19that you move out into the country and things are gonna be slow and peaceful and serene and all the things.  And that's not what it's been like for us being out here.  It's actually been really, really hard. When I first  got here, we got chickens right away, of course. And then I started to raise meat birds and  what have you. And then...
05:47Shortly after that, um that daughter was 19 years old, was actually convinced to go into uh Washington state, get on a plane and fly into Washington state and she uh was trafficked while she was there, she was sold.  And so this whole time I'm thinking like, it was supposed to be easier being out here, but things seem to be getting harder.  And  I um struggled with um being diagnosed with lupus after that.
06:17And then  really having a hard time with breeding my birds and trying to take care of my daughter,  struggling with lupus. But my husband was so amazingly, like, patient and loving. And  he saw this desire in me to do this. And so he would step in when I couldn't. so we just really learned to work together as a team. em you know,  we were doing really well. We were
06:47building our business, creating the rainbow eggs and what have you. And while I was doing that, I came across that really deep dark brown color. And I was like, I know how I can make that, but what am I gonna call it? Because it needs to be something different. And so I looked and looked and I'm a coffee drinker. So I was like-
07:12I love coffee and I have like coffee signs, have a coffee bar, like all the coffee things, right? And it just hit me one day, it was like coffee agar. And then I felt like God was like, go look it up  and make sure, know, dot all your I's and cross all your T's, make sure that it's not being used in commerce. And it wasn't, I couldn't find it anywhere.  It's just like, this is awesome, this is so cool. So I actually had the name for it before I ever even had the color, which I thought was funny.
07:42pretty cool. And then I got the  color that like six months later, as soon as I figured out like how to do it, I got that color and hence that's where the coffee acres came from.  And so we were, we just started to breed like those colors and whatnot  and things were going well. We were selling to a local  like feed store, our birds and stuff. And  it was like literally in the height of like hatching season, you know, it was the end of April and I got a phone call.
08:11at six o'clock in the morning on April 26th that my son had overdosed and died of a fentanyl overdose. And I was completely wrecked.  when was this? This was five years ago, April 26th, 2021.  And I told my husband, I couldn't catch my breath for one. And it felt like I was getting kicked in the gut daily. And I told him, said, I can't, I can't do this anymore. I can't, I can't breathe.
08:41I'm going to cry.
08:45said, want to sell everything. I don't want to do this. um And so I started to list things and he said, you're not selling the incubators and you're not selling your best. I'll let you sell, but I won't let you sell your best. I need you to keep back your best.  And he knew what I was trying to accomplish. And so I sold all but 10 birds  and I grieved hard, hard, hard for eight months.
09:14And then I just felt like God's saying, go back into the brooder, like get back into this.  And I walked back, I just remember walking back out into the brooder and going, this is it. This is what is going to bring me healing. Like I just need to take all of that grief and pour it into genetics. So that's what I did. I just dumped it into genetics and  like that's all my brain really thought about, you know, and I was able to mass produce the coffee acres  and
09:44I figured out how to do it and I figured out which ones were laying that egg without even having genetic testing done  just by the look of the bird. And so I posted a post one time. I mean, I didn't have very many followers. We weren't big or anything. And then I just said, these are our coffee agers. And it blew up after that.  And my husband was like, you're going to need to trademark that name.  And he said that from the beginning.
10:14he saw interest in it. And so did my father-in-law. I said, no,  no, I'm okay with that.  And they just kept pushing me. And finally this last year, he was like, no, we're going to do this. And I said, okay, but you got to get all of  the duckies in a row because that's not my thing. I just want to breed the birds.  so he did. He found an attorney and we  filed our application and we had to prove.
10:42When we started, like when we started using it, how long we had been using it, how long we were using it in commerce and stuff like that.  just this last, just uh in January it was finally approved and we, um it went, um it went live that it's now a registered, registered name under Little Will Homestead.  How did that feel?
11:08Well,  with the hatred that I have had towards it,  it was actually like, God, you did this.
11:19I never intended for  our business to get big. I never intended to even ship  out of the state.  really,  my whole goal when  I started to homestead was just like, I just want to feed people. Like I want to teach people how to butcher a bird and I want to teach people how to  raise chickens and,  you know, grow a garden and do the things, you know. I never had this like big plan of
11:48this is what I'm gonna do.  And so  I was kinda,  I was kinda taken aback, you know, like, this is real. Like, this name now  is always gonna be tied back to little Willa Homestead, you know? And so  it was amazing. And you know, I don't think that  the biggest thing with coffee acres is  what it affords us to do.
12:16with the funds that come into our business. We don't have a  5013C,  but we have a ministry where em we feed the homeless. We go every single week and  we meet at a  local burger place  and  we bring them in and  we don't feed them burgers every week.  We actually will bring food and supply all the stuff. We just have a place to do it.  And then we go out into uh our community, which em
12:46is our homeless population  is bigger than Portland, per capita in this little tiny town in Ontario, Oregon.  It's about 30 minutes from us. And so if you could just imagine, you know, per capita, you've got this small town and a huge portion of this town is homeless people,  you know? And so we go out into what are called uh the flats or tent cities.
13:15and we minister and we feed these people and we don't just feed them like food. We sit and we talk with them, they love on them, we pray over them. We're  just trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus  and do what God calls us to do. he, coffee acres afforded us the ability to financially support this.  How fabulous. It's  far bigger than that even, Mary.
13:44Like I said, was telling you, I got on a plane and went over, I went to Bangladesh and it's a 91 % Muslim country and there are so many women and children are being trafficked over there. So we got to actually rescue a girl from trafficking while I was there. And if it weren't for my business, I would have never been able to afford to go to another country and do something like that.
14:14just  do what  God is calling me to do. so every door that he opens, and I know it's of him, I just keep walking through it.  so, yeah.  So that's where we're at and they want us to come back.  So, yeah. Nice. Okay. So, uh are you mainly poultry focused on your homestead or do you grow gardens and have other kinds of animals?
14:42I uh only have chickens, that's it, as far as animals are concerned. We did have a giant garden. The chickens now get that area  because we've grown so much.  We literally live on an acre.  We  can't  expand anymore. The people that own all of the property around us have it in a trust and they don't want it broke up. They don't want anything done to it, which I think is amazing. um
15:11I think what they're doing is amazing and it keeps us being able to do what we do with somebody not coming out here and saying, you can't do that.  yeah, we only,  right now we're only doing our rainbow layers, our coffee acres and all of our other colors.  We  used to do meat birds and we used to sell them.  And uh I just had to mention, I saw that you had Joel Saliton on your, uh that's his name, right? Am I pronouncing his name?
15:40And he uh was  my guy as far as being able to learn how to track your meat birds and do it efficiently and how  to process a bird even. I used to sit there and watch all those videos over and over until I could figure it out. He is the kindest man. Yep, I believe that. I do. If you ever have the chance to go...
16:06Anywhere near Polyphase Farm, should set up a time to meet him and tell him thank you for teaching you.  Yes.  On video, nonetheless. Yes. Yes.  Absolutely. He is a darling soul. I like him very much. Yeah, I've really enjoyed watching his videos and learning. Are we still there? Yep. Okay.  I'm not sure why that popped up. It might, oh, it might've been my watch. I like, why is my camera popping?
16:36Squirtle.  yeah, he, I used to watch countless hours  of his stuff and listen to him and very, very knowledgeable man. So.  all he wants to do is help people.  Just like you want to help people just in a different way. uh So uh how many chick, I've got two questions.
17:04How many chickens do you have  and do you sell the eggs to people who want to eat them?  I have just over 200 birds. We just did our testing  and we never sell eating eggs. We only give eating eggs away. Okay. So if people want them for eating, we give them away. We do not sell them as eating eggs. We don't have very many eating eggs  because we
17:33we sell our hatching eggs.  We ship them so people can enjoy  having the rainbow colored eggs and stuff.  And then the other question I have is do you actually ship chicks? We just started.  We just started shipping chicks. Yeah, I did my first shipment  almost two weeks ago and every chick made it.  Wow.  Every chick survived. So I was really, really excited. Yeah, we had.
18:03We had  across the board  babies that went all over the United States and they all made it alive. And so, yeah, it was pretty awesome. It was very nerve-racking.  uh... Yeah, that doesn't happen very often.  No, it was... Well, I prayed over those babies like no other did, so...
18:22I was like, Lord,  I feel like you're calling me to do this, so please let these babies survive, because  that would hurt my heart to send babies in the mill and see that they didn't make it.  Yeah. Yep. It's sad when that happens.  Mm-hmm. For sure.  Yeah. I've heard a lot of horror stories with  shipments and stuff, and so  that's why I was so reluctant to do it.  But I had so many people begging me to ship chicks.
18:51and people that maybe didn't have good hatch rates with their coffee acres and they really, really, really wanted the coffee acres.  And so I opened up just a few slots for the end of spring and summer to ship some babies and  they actually already sold out. So  most of our stuff is sold, well,  I'm sold out of everything pretty much until fall. um
19:19Or yeah, and even into the fall now.  Okay, since I'm not an expert on any of this, I'm going to ask you some some questions that might seem obvious, but they're not obvious to me. um When people buy the coffee egg or hatching eggs or the coffee egg or chicks, are they buying them because of the color of the egg because they want that color egg? Or are they buying them because the
19:48because they want to sell the eggs as food?  What's the draw?  There are a lot of different reasons, actually.  I have had a lot of breeders that have  bought my birds, bought my eggs.  And then a lot of people, they do, they love to put the eggs in their mix that they sell, like maybe they have a farm stand. Yeah.  they...
20:15they want to be able to, you know, offer that color inside of the mix of  their eating eggs.  so,  yeah, and they're pretty neat because when you crack them open, they're coffee on the outside, but they're blue on the inside. oh snazzy. I didn't know that.  There are some neat looking eggs. yeah. Okay. um Sorry, nose is trying to run.
20:43It's allergies, I know it is. ah So  what do the chickens that, what do the coffee agar chickens look like? Are they a dark chicken? And the way I breed, there's a lot of different ways to get that chicken, right? There's a lot of different ways that you can go about getting that  specific color. The way I breed, my birds are blue and black.
21:11and sometimes white, and that is a recessive white gene that they would have carried from one of the parents.  I don't get the whites that much anymore. I don't breed for it, but I didn't ever breed away from it just because I actually had people  would specifically come to me and say, I want all of your white birds because they thought it was neat that I had these white birds that would lay all these different colors. And so, um
21:40But now, for the most part, they're mostly blue, which is gray in the chicken world.  Just so people know, because a lot of people don't know what a blue is, it's a gray chicken.  And then blacks. And then  some have muffs and beards, some don't. Some have pea combs, some don't.  Most of them have  feathered feet. em
22:07Some of them have some really beautiful lacing in their feathering. It just varies. Not one of them looks exactly the same as another, which is kind of cool. You figured this out all on your own or you studied genetics to get to this?  I'll be honest with you. I'm not that smart.  I really truly believe it was God.  I would dream it.
22:34I would dream genetics, would dream colors, I would dream how to put  two specific birds together to create a color. And  this is another thing that I have not seen in any other farm, and I'm not saying that it's never happened or people don't do it,  but  my entire rainbow of eggs was created with just two colors, and it's only been just two colors, and I do not buy in other birds.
23:03to add to that, I started by making an olive agar chicken.  And everything else has been developed from that in the seven years I've been doing this. Wow. Wow. That is so freaking cool.  It's God. It really is.  It's amazing.  You can randomly stick some birds together and, you know,  if
23:31they're colorful layers, you're gonna get some colorful layers out of them, you know what I mean? But what I've been able to do is literally  ban my birds. We're now even using  these like little uh vegetable bags, I guess, like uh netting.  And  I am putting very specific eggs into each one of them so that I can even  narrow things down even more.
23:57so I can get speckles on specific ones. can get blooms on specific ones.  We now have been able to um create what we call  little willow lilacs,  which is like this just beautiful pink  egg with this really heavy bloom. And we're looking into um just some other names for colors.  I have another color.
24:26I have a name and I haven't created the color yet.  we'll see how that goes. It's so far so good. It's always like panned out, which is pretty awesome.  um,  your story is so interesting. Like I have never, I've been doing this podcast for over two and a half years and have never heard a story like this before. uh Yeah. Well, you know,
24:55That's God for you.  I just think that, you know,  he's had his hand in this the whole time. yeah,  it's just been neat to watch it unfold. It's been hard.  know, two years ago, I don't know how long you've seen my farm or followed it or whatever, two years ago,  we had a fire around our entire farm  and we were supposed to evacuate. I mean, we were...
25:24We were told to get out of here and get out quick.  And uh the fire was burnt back on us four nights in a row. So it was coming at every angle.  And one night it  literally came within an acre and it was flying off  the trees. And you could just see the embers just flying through the air.  40 mile an hour winds were pushing it in our direction. And not one of those embers hit the other side of the road. I mean, that in and of itself is a miracle.  hours those trees were burning, for hours those
25:53those winds were pushing those flames. And even the fire department guys that were sitting in our driveway said that was a miracle. I've never seen anything like that ever happen. but God, he's powerful. he was like, nope, far enough, far enough. And other people lost their homes, they lost their farms, they lost a lot, they lost cattle.
26:23My birds didn't even get sick from the smoke, which was  pretty awesome. So  yeah, it's been crazy to see the things that have happened and to see God's hand in all of it. And I think that's why he gave me the name. I think that's why he called us to trademark it was because he wants his glory, you know, and he doesn't want other people taking it. he...
26:50He deserves to get the glory for what he does in our lives, you know, and he's used my life  just to show people how good he actually is and that  though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you don't have to fear any evil, that he's always with us, you know, and so, yeah, he's been faithful.
27:13He's been faithful, you know, I talked about having lupus before. I don't even have it in my body anymore. It's undetectable and has been  for many years.  There's just so many things that he's done that it's like  only him, you know, so. Well, I am  so  glad that you have found something or God gave you something. Let's put it that way.
27:41that brought you out of the depths of despair and gave you something so positive to focus on. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. And  I mean, chickens of all things, know, egg colors of all things, you know, but that's just how he works.  You know,  it could have been many horses. One acre.  It could have been that probably wouldn't have gone very well.
28:09No, no, would not have because you would only be able to have maybe one and a half mini horses on an acre. Exactly. Yeah. yeah, it's it's and I even thought about it like when we moved out here, of the things because I used to do ministry a lot, you know, like I said, we did foster care and we would work in the church and stuff like that. And when we moved out here, I was like, God, how on earth are you going to use me out in the middle of nowhere where I didn't even get
28:38phone service at the time when we first moved out here.  And it felt kind of depressing to be honest. I wanted my daughter to grow up out here, but I also still wanted to be able to serve  in many ways and felt like there's no way I'll ever be able to serve out here.  And God's like,  oh honey. Hold my beer.  Yep.  Yep. Yep. And so.
29:09Yeah, it's just,  it's amazing. is. I love your story so much, Jessica. Thank you for sharing it. I try to keep these to half an hour. We're at 2838. So uh where can people find you?  At littlewillowhomestead.com.  And also we are on Facebook  at Little Willow Homestead.
29:34And  I am also sometimes very little on Instagram. I try to stick to one platform,  but you can find me on Instagram as well.  Little Willow Homestead there as well. yeah, those are our places.  Fantastic. As always, people can find me at a tinypodcast.com.  A tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Again, brain and tongue not working today.
30:04Um, this was great, Jessica. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Oh, absolutely. This was really fun. And I learned stuff again. This podcast  has been the joy of my life because I learned something  new with every person who talks to me. That's so awesome. It really is. It's really fun.  All right. You have a great rest of your weekend. All right. You too. Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. All right. Bye bye.
 

Natures Farmacy

Today I'm talking with Joe and Jessica at Natures Farmacy.
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00:00listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together.  Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality,  and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose.
00:29At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful.  If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care,  you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. A tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Jessica and Joe at Natures Farmacy in Alabama. Good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Alabama this morning?
00:55It's a little overcast. It rained yesterday and a lot last night. So overcast, warm. Plants are happy. I bet. I bet they are. It is a beautiful sunny morning here in Minnesota and there's a very light breeze and everything has greened up beautifully. And tomorrow is May 1st. Yay.
01:22Very excited because May 15th is the date that we plant our seedlings. So we only have to wait 15 and a half more days. Awesome. So tell me a little bit about yourselves and what you do.  OK, so uh we're Nature's Pharmacy. We are a  micro farm here in Summerdale. um We grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables. um We're basically on 1.7 acres and we're trying to pack in as much
01:52ah produce and fruit as we can on this.  It's not tiny, but it's not big either on this piece of land. And ah we use organic growing practices.  We set up at the markets. ah We have five kids.  We homeschool them. So we're here all the time.  That is a lot of little people in your life. We have two that are big people now and we actually just became grandparents.
02:22from one of them. So that's really cool. She's a month old now. Jessica, you look amazing to be a grandma. saw your videos on Facebook and I was like, wow, she can't be more than 25. guess. Oh, thank you. It's the veggies. Yeah, absolutely. Are the kids involved in the... They're involved in the berry picking and eating. Yeah, it's hard to keep fruit on the trees and...
02:51on the vines, ah but I'm guilty of that too. I love to get out here and pick berries and eat fruit.  It's really awesome to be able to have that experience and for our kids to have that experience running up and down the rows picking, whether it's fresh carrots or blackberries, plums, peaches. I'm so glad that we get to do that for them. They do help though. They  are oldest,  not our oldest, but the oldest living here. He's 13. ah
03:20He helps us with harvesting and packaging and getting stuff ready for the market. He helps us set up at the market. The girls help some too. They'll come out when we're planting and want to poke a few seeds in the ground. We don't force it. So if they  want to help, they do. Nice. You're growing budding entrepreneurs while you grow your gardens and your fruit trees. Actually, our 13 year old has his own mushroom operation. I mean, I'm sorry.
03:49Worm casting. Worm casting operation. Which could lead to mushroom growing. Well, we do grow mushrooms.  So,  yeah, that's definitely something that, you know, if he wanted to get into that, he could. We grow Shiitake mushrooms and  we'll grow other mushrooms as well, like wine cap. But yeah, so he's he's  farming worms and collecting castings and he sets his little worm castings up at the market and he
04:17He sells worm casting, so it's really cool. He's pretty much staying sold out too. And the girls are trying to get into crickets. They  did just recently order their first batch of crickets. They want to be able to grow those, whether it's for like people that have lizards  or feeding their chickens  or even bait. Yeah, fishing.  I love it. You guys have been an excellent example for your little people and your big people. Thank you.
04:47I wish everybody could be that kind of example because we'd have a much better world in about 10 years. Well, I think more people  are waking up and  moving towards, you know, going back to  homesteading and  I say a simpler life, but sometimes it's not simpler. mean, there's a lot of work involved, but  I see more and more people all the time. Seems like they're waking up and trying to.
05:15disconnect from the system and become more self-sufficient.  So.  Yeah, as I've said on this podcast a bunch of times, I didn't know that homesteading was anything weird or different. my parents lived on an acre  in Maine when they were raising me and my siblings and they grew a garden and they heated their house with wood and my dad split wood by hand with a splitting mall and an axe.
05:44And we helped him haul wood over to the basement and chucked it downstairs and moved it from one corner of the other to stack it for the winter.  We didn't know that that was not what everybody did. And I can remember walking into a house for the first time where they didn't have a wood stove in their house. And I was like, don't you guys freeze in the wintertime?  I think  I was 10 and  the dad of the family was like, what are you talking about? We have electricity.
06:15We kind of grew up the opposite. Okay, yeah. Yeah, like we grew up on the TV dinners and the plopped in front of the TV and you know, just we didn't know people lived like you lived. Yeah. Yeah, we grew up completely different. But later in life, we, you know, started to realize that that's not the way we wanted to live anymore. So
06:43We wanted to start growing. We got a piece of property in Summerdale, started our first garden  about 13, 14 years ago and just fell in love with growing and with the idea of being able to provide people with food.  so from there we just expanded on that idea and have continued to grow our farm.  And,  you know, we still want to expand. uh It's a work in progress for sure. Building new beds all the time and
07:12planting more crops.
07:16Yeah,  do I explain this?  We have a hard sided greenhouse that is permanent, but we had a,  a, I want to call it a high tunnel, but it's not one of the big ones, but that style of greenhouse, we had one up and the plastic ripped over the winter.  That whole thing came down yesterday. Cause we're not going to use it this summer.  And I was like, I'm kind of, I'm going to miss that little bubble out there. My husband looked at me and he said, what?
07:45And I said, the greenhouse you took down today. Yeah. It's been part of the landscape for two years. And I it's going to look weird having a hole in there, you know? Yeah, for sure. We love our greenhouse. That's actually where we're sitting right now. It's actually become like a second living space or actually maybe this is the main living space and the house is kind of secondary living space. yeah, we have Thanksgiving out here. if you know, the big kids come over and bring the family then.
08:15We have dinner out here. It's really nice. That is so sweet. I love that. And is it warm in Alabama at Thanksgiving time?  Sometimes. Most of the time. Yeah, it's very warm. We usually have to have the sides up and  sometimes fan going.  Yeah, we couldn't do that here. It would be very cold to be eating Thanksgiving dinner in our greenhouse. Yeah.  Yeah, most of time it's warm, but like two years ago we had snow. So
08:45That was kind of unexpected. Bet it was pretty. It was. We actually played in the snow. I don't even think I came inside for two days. I'm just out here walking around in the snow. It's something we don't get to see very often. Did you eat the snow? Cause I would have. No, I did not eat the snow, but I definitely played in it. We do still have a bag in the freezer though. Our daughter wanted to keep some snow.
09:13One of the most fun things that I ever did with my grandpa when I lived in Maine  as a kid is he would go out and get  the fresh fallen snow that no one had walked on and no dogs had done anything to.  And he would bring it bring it in and put it in a bowl and put maple syrup over it. And we would eat maple syrup snow. So like a maple syrup snow cone. Yeah. And if it snows again this winter you should do that with your little ones because they might get a kick out of it.
09:42Yeah, that's cool. Never thought about doing that, but yeah, that's that'd be cool. And I don't know if it'll snow again. That's something that's very rare down here. Yeah. If it does, do not use the crappy store bought fake syrup. Get some real maple syrup because it will not be the same without real maple syrup. Oh yeah. That's all we use.  Okay, good.  My husband picked up some of the  not real maple syrup when he was shopping and I was like, we will eat it because you bought it, but don't keep buying this.  Yeah.
10:13It's bad for you. It may taste good, but it's bad for you.  So much stuff in the stores is terrible for you.  Yep, absolutely. If I knew somebody close by that I could get uh raw milk from, we wouldn't even buy milk from the store. We would buy it from somebody nearby, but there's no one within a half an hour of us that sells raw milk right now. Oh my goodness.
10:39And with gas prices the way they are, a gallon of raw milk is about $20 at the cheapest around here. And I don't even want to know how much gas it would take to get over to where they sell it. that's, we're pushing $30 a gallon for raw Oh my goodness. Yeah, that is insane. It's so crazy. But it's worth it. I mean, if we were some, if we were nearby somebody that was selling it, we should, would certainly stop in and pay $20 for a gallon because
11:08Those dairy farmers work really hard to provide a really good product. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, it takes a lot of work. It's it is nonstop. Sometimes you got to get up in the middle of the middle of the night, you know, to handle business. So yeah. Yeah. Does Alabama allow raw milk sales?  No. No. Yeah. No. You have to put that it's for  pet consumption only, not for human consumption.
11:36But if you want to drink it once you get at home, can, right? Sure. I mean, I'm sure if they thought they could bust in and bust you for it, they probably would. It's so dumb, isn't it? It is. Yup. mean, you're just trying to live their lives, man. And I don't know, people who want to dictate what you can and what you can't do. Yeah. Humans have been drinking raw cow milk for
12:02Ever. Yeah. then the government went, no, it might make you sick. You can't do that.
12:10Yep, it's insanity.  I can't say anymore because I'll get myself in trouble. I know, I know. That's why I'm just like, it's crazy.  It is. It's nuts. I do not understand why we regulate things that don't need to be regulated and we don't regulate things that do need to be regulated. I will never figure this out until I die. And even then I probably won't find out. It's just about control. Yeah, pretty much.
12:37God love the government. And honestly, I'm going to say it again because I've said it a lot of times on this podcast. I think that we need government for for a few things, but I also feel like the government makes us trip over feet more often over our own feet more often than not. Yep, absolutely. Yep. Let's government. I mean, they definitely like you said, there are there are some things, but there's just countless things that they just need to.
13:07you know, get out of our business. Yep.  I have, I have a  B in my bonnet this morning because I just found out that  our government decided that it's going to be okay to mine up in the boundary waters in Minnesota. Like it's, it's going to be legal. And I don't know if you've ever been to Minnesota, but the boundary waters area is one of the most beautiful places in the United States. And it is pristine because we have taken really good care of it.
13:36Yeah. And now there's going to be mining pits there. Awesome.  Yeah, no, it's really not.  I'm quite pissed off about it. It's sarcastic. Yeah. I know. Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah.  I'm,  I took a big deep breath when I heard it and went, okay, well, maybe in two and a half years, they'll stop doing that. Maybe.  We'll see. We'll see.  So yeah.
14:06Go ahead. So yeah, it's it's not great.  And I feel like there are so many or so few  untouched places left. That's right. You really should not be screwing around with them.  every time we lose a place that hasn't been touched, we can't get it back. That's right. Yeah. And they just keep on going.  It's so funny how the double standard, you know, it's OK for them to destroy and I  don't know.
14:35I mean, I'm not saying that I want to destroy anything, but you know, they they want to control everything and and they give themselves a license to destroy, you know, our our ecosystems and habitats. And it's just it's it's mind blowing. It is. I wasn't even going to talk about it, but I did. So. So do you guys have any animals? You know, I know you do produce, but do you have any animals? We do. We have chickens. We did have some sheep.
15:04But  where we live and  the fencing situation that we had, we live right on the highway. So  the stress of them getting out and getting in the highway and causing an accident was, it was pretty intense. So we got rid of our sheep, but we do still have our chickens and some ducks. And we collect eggs. And we have cats and dogs. iguanas. Yeah. We have the normal stuff like cats and dogs.
15:32Iguanas maybe not so normal. um To each their own. Yeah.  What kind of dogs do you have?  They're nuts, basically mixed. They're good dogs, though. Just rescues.  Good.  Yeah. A lady  was going to take them all to the pound, so we adopted two and they turned out to be some fantastic dogs.
15:58Yeah, it's always the ones that are going to not have a home that turn out to be the best dogs. That's right. I have not told this story before and you guys just gave me a really good opening.  One of my sons, he and his wife saw on Facebook or next door or something that there were three huskies.  They were living in Arizona. My son and his wife were living in Arizona at the time and there were three huskies running around loose in the desert.
16:26Nobody around somebody dumped these three beautiful dogs. And my, my son's wife looked at him and said, do you want to go get them? Do we want to go get them and give them a home? And without batting an eye, my son said, yep, get in the truck. Sweet. They rescued these dogs and they were over six months old. They're now  two or three years old. There's two males and a female, they're siblings and they're the golden huskies.
16:56like golden and white? Yeah. They have turned out to be the best dogs ever other than my dog is my dog is the best dog on the planet.  I won't die on that hill, but they have turned out to be the best dogs. Yeah. Huskies are really good dogs. They're, pretty smart. We've had some and uh, yeah, they're very intelligent,  uh,  very loyal. Yeah. Can you imagine being a Husky in the Arizona desert?
17:24not knowing why you're in the desert. Yeah, no doubt.  Oh, poor dogs. I'm so glad that that my son and his wife were like, yeah, we can add three dogs to our household. Why not?  For sure.  OK, so you guys sell your produce and sell your eggs? Yes, we do. We set up at  the market and we also  we have a CSA program that ah we are running also right now. So you can sign up and become a member. ah
17:54purchase a share in the farm and we provide you with local all-natural produce.  I think we're one of the few  farms that are actually doing that right now, at least that I'm aware of in our area.  Awesome. Have you gotten into the  making soaps or  bombs or salves or any of that stuff? I'm actually, I have oil going with calendula flowers in it now for making soap.
18:23and salves.  Nice. Have you done it before?  No, I haven't. How are you liking the process so far?  Well, I've only gotten to the growing the flowers  and soaking it in the oil at this point. So I'm just waiting on the oil to be ready and then I'm going to order everything I need to start trying soaps out. Are you going to do the cold process kind? Yeah,  the lye.
18:53Okay,  my husband makes it I'm scared to death of the the lion water situation I  it scares me to death that I'm gonna do something wrong and then I'm burning myself with it  But he's been doing it for years and once you get the process down, you'll be able to do it in your sleep Yeah, I was watching videos and it looks  I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize how simple
19:17Like  it's really not that I mean you've got it, you know measurements and everything but I didn't realize it was that simple  Yeah, and back to Joe's statement earlier about people getting back to a simpler life that isn't it's not necessarily simple but it's got a lot of hard work  We all need to remember that Factories didn't make soap 250 years ago. That's right. They didn't make candles. They didn't make dish soap. They didn't make laundry detergent
19:47people made those things. You're absolutely right. So clearly humans can make the things they need. We've been doing it for a long time. That's right.  I think it was done by design and  I'm not trying to get back into that whole control thing. But I think it was done by design to cripple us  and make us dependent on a system that, you know, obviously is just flooded with all kinds of toxins and everything is so poisonous.  I think it was done by design.
20:18Think it was done by design. I don't think that I don't think that anyone meant to poison humankind. I Think that if it didn't actually kill us it was acceptable. Yeah, and number two Humans love convenience and they love making money That's true.  So when somebody figured out that they could mass produce soap  and It's not even really soap because if the thing that you're washing your body with doesn't have lie in it. It's not actually soap
20:48Yeah.  When they figured out they could mass produce it and make a ton of money and people love convenience, that's when that all came together. Yeah. So, you know,  it's it's partly our fault as the consumer, but it's also the producers fault too, I guess.  And really proud of everyone who is trying to take back their power and their autonomy and provide for themselves.  Absolutely.
21:18So you said you had you grow fruit what you said blackberries what else we have uh peaches plums  blackberries raspberries mulberries we actually grow pineapple  apples uh Occasionally  we'll have bananas, but not so often Let's see what else do we have that I'm not thinking about
21:44Pear trees. haven't started producing yet. They're still young. Blueberry. Baby trees. Yeah, they're young. Grapes. Grapes. Wow, you guys could just go out and grab a whole fruit salad out of your own property. I know you know what  a food forest is and basically that's kind of the concept that we're  doing here is we're stacking in fruit trees, ah you know, real tight.
22:14Everything is ah working together.  Like the shade provides a perfect space for lettuces and radishes and stuff here in the summer heat. And we're just trying to pack it in here. We have, our beds are, I know the standard is 30 inches by 50 for like market gardens, but our beds are two foot by 50 foot. And we have a one foot walk space in between. And we're just packing in as many beds as we can and fruit trees in the middle of all of that and our arbors. uh
22:42on top of all of that and it works out beautifully.  I bet it does because that is an absolutely beautiful system.
22:52Um, our peach tree is just, it's just getting buds on it. Oh yeah. Yeah. We have one big peach tree and one smaller peach tree. I don't know why they're not, they're not choking each other out or anything, but  one of them just has gotten really big and, uh, it's supposed to get into the twenties tonight.  Oh my goodness. So keep your fingers crossed for us that the, the peach blossoms do not open today because if they don't open today, we'll be fine.
23:22Yeah.  That's kind of what happened to us this year. Yeah, it was, was, we had a really mild winter and all of our fruit trees, our plums and peaches, they bloomed early because we had a false spring and then  we had two cold snaps there right at the end and we lost a lot of fruit that we were expecting to have this year. I mean, we still, we still got some plums and we still got some peaches, but nothing like what we were anticipating.
23:52Yeah, we were really hoping for peaches last year because we got like 12 the year before on the first year of growing. We got peaches  and it froze the blooms  last spring  and nothing.  And my husband said that the peach tree is loaded with buds and I was like, God, please don't let it bloom until tomorrow, please.  odds are they probably won't bloom today.
24:22I don't know. It's supposed to be like in the  high fifties and it's supposed to be sunny all day. So I'm like, no, stay asleep for just one more day, guys.  I don't think anyone who doesn't grow produce understands the impact of the weather cycles. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're completely at its mercy. That's for sure. Yeah. It's really frustrating. We lost.
24:48We lost  all the blooms off of two apple trees last year because there was a big wind  for two days in a row when they were blooming and  all the petals blew off the trees. So there were no apples on those trees.  Oh man. uh it's so hard.  apple tree is actually loaded this year. This is the first year that it's actually put on apples and held them. So  we are super excited about getting apples for the first time.
25:15Do you know what variety of apple or is it just apples? They're eintchamir. I have no idea what that is. It was one that was developed in  an Israeli kibbutz. Okay. Yeah. So it's kind of, guess, like Middle Eastern  adapted and  I guess that's similar to our growing conditions.  Huh. I have never heard of that one. I'll have to look it up. What kind of
25:45tree do you have? We have lots. We have like 20 or 22 apple trees. Wow. And we have. We're on 3.1 acres. Okay, awesome. We have a regent, we have a harrelson. We have four honey golds and the honey golds are the ones that have done the best and I don't even like them. My husband loves them. We have two honey crisp trees that were
26:13really hoping to see apples from this year as we put them in three years ago.  And then we have a whole bunch of just like  mutt apples over on the other side of the property and we're not sure they're ever going to actually give us apples.  Yeah.
26:32But we also have plum trees, we have peach trees, we have wild plums, we have... something else and I can't think of it right now. We have rhubarb, we have strawberries, we have asparagus, and then we have the usual suspects in the farm-to-market garden. I've never had rhubarb. Oh, honey. You've got to get some rhubarb. I don't think it grows here, or if it does, doesn't grow here well.
27:00No, I'm sent you've never tasted it before. No.  Go to the grocery store. I know you don't want to, but go to the grocery store. Go to  the nearest one that has organic produce and get a couple stocks of rhubarb. I've never even seen it in the grocery store here. Really? Yeah. Like  I've never  even, I don't think I've ever even seen it in person at all.  That is crazy.  Huh.
27:29I wish I knew that it would ship okay, because I would ship you some when ours is ready, but I don't think it would. I think it would get very squishy. might be why they don't have it here. If it doesn't grow well here, I know like pigs and things like that, you don't see them too often in the grocery store. That's something else that we have. Oh, crazy. didn't know that. Well, I've learned something new yet again from this podcast. I swear it's been an education for over two and a half years. That's awesome.
27:59um So do you guys have any plans to do anything  new this year? Because we always plan for one little thing that's new every summer. um We're hoping to expand our mushroom production for sure.  just putting in new beds and  expanding um as far as any new type of produce or anything like that. um I don't know, we just kind of go through the seed catalogs and whenever we're looking
28:29things if something pops out then we'll try it.  But trying things sometimes is just kind of frustrating because  you just don't know what you're gonna get.  I guess I kind of like to take the safe road and do things that we know are gonna do really well. As far as new journeys we're hoping to be able to put our farm stand out front and not catch any flak from the town.  Yeah.
28:55I wish you all the luck in the world with that and if they let you do it, I wish you all the success in the world with it. Thank you. We have a farm stand and people love it. They buy eggs from us almost every day. How many chickens do you guys have? 14. Oh, wow.  So we usually have a dozen or two out there and we're looking at getting more chickens because people are  buying, they want eggs.
29:22Like they pull in, if there aren't eggs, they pull right back out. And I'll get messages. Are you going to have eggs tomorrow? I hope so. Yeah, we added 32 new chickens this season because we had 24. We've lost a couple. And we get on average 17 eggs a day right now. But we eat about a dozen a day. Yeah, we don't eat as many eggs as we probably should.
29:52But we also need to make sure the chickens get fed. So every time somebody buys a dozen eggs at $5, we're making sure that the chickens continue to produce. So we are trying a new thing this year. We are trying mini-me watermelons. They are personal sized watermelons. OK, awesome. Because big watermelons don't work here because our growing season isn't long enough for them.
30:22That's right.  The mini me's are a 60 day um time frame from seed to producing watermelon, to picking watermelons.  Yeah, that's quick.  Yeah. Thank God. Cause we really like watermelon. We could probably fit in a second round of watermelons with those at the end of the season then. Cause we kind of get like a second spring. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of wish we had considered moving south when we bought this place five and a half years ago.
30:52It's good and bad.  What, Jessica? It's good and bad. We get our storms and  the humidity is a lot sometimes.  Yeah, Minnesota has been  very humid the last four summers, like beyond what I've ever experienced in the over 30 years I've lived here. And I don't enjoy it. So you're probably right. Probably staying in Minnesota was probably the smartest thing we could have done. Yeah, I think our
31:20like lowest humidity point that we hit here in Alabama is like 80 % humidity or something like that. It's like, we're very humid. You're walking through water in the summertime.  Yup.  All right, guys, I try to keep these to half an hour. Where can people find you?  We're on Facebook and Instagram. On Facebook is just Natures Farmacy. On Instagram, it's naturesfarmacy251.
31:51Okay, cool.  is pharmacy with a F-A-R-M-A-C-Y like pharmacy. Yes, not P-H-A-R-M-A-C-Y like pharma.  Yes. No pharma on your place. That's right.  Absolutely not.  All right.  As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Jessica and Joe, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you. Yeah, we had a good time. Appreciate it. Have a great day.
32:20You Thank you. Bye bye.
 

Forsythia Farms

Today I'm talking with Casey at Forsythia Farms. 
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00:00listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together.  Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality,  and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose.
00:29At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful.  If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care,  you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. That tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Casey at Forsythia Farms in New Jersey. Good morning, Casey. How are you? Good morning. I am well. How are you? I'm good. You said it's a beautiful day there in New Jersey?
00:55It is. It's nice and sunny and it's going to be almost 70, I think, today. It rained all weekend, so we're due for some sunshine. Well, congratulations on having a great spring day because I am in Minnesota and I can hear the rain falling on our tin roof outside my bedroom window. Oh, my goodness. And it's supposed to rain all day and I think we're supposed to get thunderstorms too. So we are getting what my grandpa would have called
01:23poor man's fertilizer for our garden.  Oh my goodness. You guys get some heavy storms out that way, don't you?  Um,  we get... I have never experienced nor seen a tornado in the over 30 years I've lived in Minnesota. Well, that's good. But we definitely get some high winds. We have had our power go out because of lightning strikes, stuff like that.
01:52Minor things like  I'm scared to death of tornadoes like I don't ever want to Ever want to see one and I sure as heck don't want to have one come through my door yard. I would pass on that Yeah,  I understand  But no the weather has been unseasonably warm this spring our  Lilac bushes are leafed out our maple tree is leafed out  Everything is leafed out. I could do a list. It would take ten minutes, but it's very exciting
02:22because we're ready, we're ready for this long, long winter to be over. It is, has been such a long winter. I know we started getting some good like sprouts and whatnot, but I know some farms around here are actually dealing with issues because it froze again. We were under a freeze warning last week. So I know there's some like fruit farmers that are concerned because it, you know,
02:50usually doesn't typically freeze as bad at this point in April.  So they're seeing, some are seeing some detrimental like loss with some of their plants, which is really upsetting. We're supposed to have freezing temps tomorrow night, think, there's tomorrow night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, maybe. And I am so thankful that our apple trees are leafed out, but they're not budded out yet. They're not blooming. Okay.
03:19because I really want apples and if it freezes there will be no apples this fall for us on our property.  yeah, yeah, we have an apple tree and a peach tree, they're,  I'm not expecting fruit from them for like another couple of years because we just planted them. So  anywhere from three to five years, depending on what the, uh, the variety is. Yeah. Honey crisp. I don't remember what peach variety it is, but we have honey crisps crisps.
03:47crisps, there we  go, that we put in, I think, two or three falls ago. And we're hoping with everything we have that they actually bloom this year  and that we might get one or two, because they take a while and they were baby trees. So we'll see what happens.  So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at Forsythia Farms. So  we are first generation homesteaders or farmers, whichever
04:15term you prefer to use. We are more on the animal side. I will say I don't have much of a green thumb. um I can do like we have our fruit trees, we have some berry bushes. um But as far as like plants,  I'm really bad  with the gardening aspect. My husband is actually better with that. I am the animal person. So  we have a lot of chickens, we have some turkeys.
04:43We have goats and a pony and horses, and obviously they have cats and dogs as well. I am a certified veterinary technician by trade, so to say. So I've always been around animals and always wanted to have animals. I think I've wanted chickens my entire life. So we moved to New Jersey in 2023, because we were actually originally from Pennsylvania.
05:12And we moved to Southern New Jersey to have some more land so we could start on our little farm that we have always dreamed of. And it has grown. It definitely has grown. Chicken meth is real. It sure is. We started with four in 2022 and now we have over 100 turkeys. they're definitely the gateway to the rest of the animals.
05:41Chicken math got you real good. It did. It did.  It went from chickens to  goats and then to turkeys and then to horses. And if we had enough land, we would probably have a cow, but  we don't.  I wish we had a cow. I wish we had enough land for a cow.  And we do not. We have three acres and  there's no grazing area for an animal that big. So we are just not going to do a cow.
06:10It's not happening. Yeah, we have about three acres as well. my we have grazing areas on some parts of our land, but a lot of it is wooded and trails. um But our neighbors have. Big like yards and stuff in the my horse, Chai, she'll go over and mow their lawn is what they say, but. The many that I have can't have fresh grass,  so they're mostly on a dry lot, which is one of the reasons why.
06:39brought them here as opposed to boarding them because he can't really have grass to begin with. So us not having a ton of grazing isn't a huge uh deal for the two of them, but definitely not enough for a cow.  Yeah. Yeah. They eat a lot. And  the other thing that I hadn't really considered until I was listening to you talk is even if we had a cow,  we would have to have her bread to have to give her a milk because we don't have
07:06If you don't have a cap to get things started, it's not gonna, it's not gonna work. Right.  And, um, the other thing is, is that a full-size cow gives a lot of milk and  we don't have anywhere to keep that right now. Right. That's exactly it. We've run into that problem a couple of times.  Um, with the chickens, we just had like in the spring and summer, so many eggs.  So  many.
07:36Eggs, yes, yes. I think at the highest number we had 36 or 40 chickens and we have a farm stand on our property and we would sell the eggs and we were still overrun with eggs with that many chickens. So  we're down to a very reasonable 14 chickens. There you  go. just, we free range um and unfortunately,  you know, the circle of life, there are predators here so we do lose a few. um
08:06Especially during this time, we're mostly ground predators are our issue. Foxes to be exact. We do have some hawks, but foxes tend to be our big issue. So around this time, I don't love to let them free range.  I always, it's part of the reason why I like to have a lot because if we do lose some,  now we have established a clientele that like order eggs from us. And some people get upwards of like 10 dozen at a time.
08:36So I like to keep a certain number just so we can keep up with demand now. But  in the winter, I at least have enough to fill that demand. Whereas my older ladies might stop laying, I always have younger ladies that are still going. Yes.  Thank God for the younger ladies and the older ladies. Yeah. And when I let them live out their days, however long, I still have a couple of my originals from 2022.
09:06And I have, I do breed for like olive aggers. So I have some of those are my more, I have silkies  and bless their hearts. They are just not smart. love them, but they are just not the smartest and they can't see because of their little head puff. So they don't free range and I have them in a separate coop. Yes. The dumb as a stump chicken variety. Yeah.
09:33Yes, and the Polish, I have those as well. It's just, you got to collect them all, they're like Pokemon. Or Lay's potato chips. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So what is the nearest city in New Jersey to where you live? The biggest, largest city would be Philadelphia. So yeah, and we moved from the suburbs of Philadelphia to New Jersey.
10:02Because the biggest city  in Jersey closest to me would probably be like Trenton. But even still that's further than Philly is to us. We're about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on traffic from Philly. So not too bad.  No. Yeah, we're in a good spot. We're not too far from family. Everyone's still over in Pennsylvania, but we're also in an area where it's like, I think when my family helped us move here, my uncle,
10:32had made a comment like, feel like I'm in Alabama because it's just all farmland. This doesn't even feel like the Northeast. It feels like the South. And I was actually really surprised when you said New Jersey because I didn't think there was a whole lot of acreage available in New Jersey. maybe you lucked out. There is, there is. There's a lot of actually preserved farmland down here. um And it is the garden state, you know, for
11:00for a reason, they do produce a lot  of um goods and it's amazing. There's a preserved farm, I'm not sure exactly how large it is, but I wanna say it's at least over 100 acres right around the corner from us. um And they switched from doing, I think, hay and corn.
11:24But there is a lot of farmland down here. Now when you go further north, that's when you get to more like the city life, especially with Jersey City, because it's right near New York City. But it's like night and day from North Jersey to South Jersey.  I feel like I should do some research on New Jersey, mostly because I was born there. But when I was six months old, my parents moved to Maine with me. Oh, OK. So they never really talked about it because they weren't there very long. Yeah.  I've always wanted to...
11:53visit Maine. I've never been. Go. Go while you can because it's really, really beautiful. That's what I hear. And we would be living there right now except that it would the cost of living is so expensive in the state of Maine that we just couldn't do it. Buying property and a house on that property would have been fine because it was it was fairly reasonable back in 2020 when we were looking.
12:22But when I talked to my folks who still live there about the cost of actually living there, and they told me what they knew, I was like,  no, we're staying in Minnesota. Yeah,  New Jersey is very expensive.  We have very high  property taxes and, you know,  it is an expensive state, but I will say it was cheaper to move here.
12:48and get the land that we wanted than it was to stay in Pennsylvania. Yeah.  And if we were to stay in Pennsylvania for what we wanted, we would probably be about 45 minutes to an hour away from family. Whereas where we're at now, we're very close.  you made it work for you in the way that worked best. And that's amazing.  The thing that we lucked out on is we started looking in, I think, end of May 1st of June back in 2020.
13:18before everything jumped in price. So we were really glad that we did it then because if we'd waited even six months, there's no way we would be where we are now. Yeah.  And did you go to Minnesota for job opportunities or? ah No,  I moved to Minnesota over 30 years ago with my first husband, who is my first ex-husband.
13:45And then I married again and got a second ex-husband  and the third one is the charm. we,  we decided that we wanted to move out of in town, little tiny town in Minnesota, like 6,000 people, I think.  We wanted to, we wanted to get away from town and we moved half an hour away from there  and we live in the middle of  corn and soybean fields and it's  glorious. There you go. That sounds amazing. It really is. And I'm.
14:15I've talked about it ad nauseam on this podcast, so I'm quite sure that none of the listeners want to hear it again. But just  let's suffice it to say it was the best decision we've made in the whole time we've known each other.  Yeah, that sounds amazing. We  love it here. And it's definitely a different lifestyle. Like when our friends and family come to visit, they're like, oh yeah, it's definitely different because there's farmland. And  when we first moved, I think
14:44Every week there was a new Facebook post about like somebody's animal got out. So there was an emu that was running around town  and then someone's bull got out. Bulls? Someone's horse. So it was like just the funny little things that you see in farm towns that like you obviously wouldn't expect when you were living in the suburbs of a major city. So we love it. It's so peaceful. We're on a very, very quiet street.
15:13The only cars on this street are the people that live here.  I  am not on a quiet street. We are on a  two-lane highway that goes between  two towns.  And uh there's a lot of semis and tractors and stuff that go through because it's farm country. They're moving tractors, they're moving equipment for farming in the spring.  And in the fall, it's constant semis going through  loaded down with corn and soybeans.
15:41Yeah, we have InTown,  which we're about 10, a uh 10 minute drive from InTown.  And um they have a lot of trucks that go through there, you know, delivering from South Jersey all the way through to Philly or where have you. So when we go in town, there's definitely a lot more traffic. um But when we come out of our little  neighborhood, we mostly get stuck behind the tractors  that are like...
16:11doing the crop fields or moving the crop itself. And it's so funny because every time I drive by, always want to blast International Harvester on. And I just, I love it. It's just such a great little community that we're in. In the five years that we, well, a little over five years that we've been here, we've had friends come to visit. And I think three times in in that five years, somebody has said,
16:39totally forgot we get stuck behind some kind of farm equipment. Sorry, we're late. I'm like, I knew you'd be late. It's totally fine. I don't care if you're late. You're here. Yay, I'm glad to see you.  So you sell your eggs  and you said that you have  goats still? We do. We have goats. um And we had tried to breed them because we had gotten a buck, but it did not go well.
17:07So I would love to breed my does. have three of them.  They are called the Powerpuff goats. It's blossom, baubles and buttercup. Of course it is.  And they're adorable. They're  Nigerian dwarves. They're like dogs. My husband's favorite animal on the farm. I think that's the only animal I could come home with without asking that he would be totally fine with. um
17:31Because I want to do their milk, so I would love to do like goat milk soaps and body washes, lotions. My dad has really severe allergies and his skin flares up a lot and I would love to be able to make something natural for him because he can't have or can't use a lot of the products that are on the shelves these days. uh So I would love to make something that he would be able to use to kind of soothe his skin when he's having a flare up.
18:02Um, and I know it's really good for, oddly enough, we have a lot of people in the area that are asking for goat's milk for their dogs. Okay. So, and there's not many around here. It's not a lot of people that sell goat's milk. So that's definitely something I would love to do, but I have to, uh,  I have to run out of buck cause our boys are now weathered. So we'll see how that goes. I kind of want to breed them to a feigning goat.
18:31That'd be fun. know, but I think I'll just do stick with the Nigerian dwarfs because their temperament is amazing. They're like little puppy dogs. They are. They are. And our first boy, Rocky, he was a bottle baby. So he was in the house until he was about 10 weeks old. And we got him when he was eight weeks old and we were still bottle feeding him. So he is a
19:00legitimate dog. Like he just would prefer to be in the house, but I can't do that at this point.  Not without a diaper. And he won't keep it on or he'll eat it. He's not  love him to death, but he's also not the smartest either.  Well, he's a goat. He's not a human kid. So  we'll grant him a little bit of grace.  Why do people want goat's milk for dogs? I thought, I thought most dairy wasn't good for dogs. So goat's milk.
19:30Actually, like some of the proteins in there can be beneficial. I wouldn't give it to my dog like every day.  But it can help with their coat, just like it can help like soothing our skin and things of that nature. Some  allergy  dogs can benefit from  goat's milk. ah There's specifically a woman here who breeds, ah and I should know the name, the actual name of these dogs because I'm a  tech.
20:00but they're essentially like long haired greyhounds. They're not, but they're not whippets. can't think of their name. tall, right? Yes. I can't think of the name. I can see it in my head. can see the animal, but I can't think of the name either. But she uses it for her dogs. And some people also bathe their animals in it if they're having like a skin flare up. That's an expensive bath, but I bet it does the job.
20:27Yeah, they might be Afghans. Yes,  that's what I was thinking too, but I couldn't think of the name. Yeah, they're not bores. I know that they might be Afghans. ah But she specifically asked me when she found out I had goats and I was like, no,  but if I do, I will definitely let you know.  For sure. ah So  do you love your life at  the farm? Are you are you happy that you did this? Yes.
20:55Absolutely, I would do it 10 times over. It's just so amazing to just wake up in the morning and look out at my backyard and see just these chickens running around and you hear the goats. My children love it. They love being able to go out in the backyard and collect eggs. They love having their little pony chocolate that they can take care of. my youngest is...
21:22huge animal. My oldest likes animals, but my youngest is our animal girl. she just, they're just like living the dream. And that's what my husband and I wanted for them. So it's  amazing.  nothing beats fresh eggs in the morning, in my opinion. Nothing beats fresh eggs at any hour of the day, as far as I'm concerned. That  is true. You are correct.  I make an egg bake once in a while in the wintertime.
21:51We don't have it for breakfast. We have it for dinner. Hey, breakfast for dinner is was one of my favorite things growing up. Yeah, I make a great big casserole pan and here's all the hot dish. It's not a casserole. So here it would be a hot dish pan, glass pan. I make a big one and we freeze half of it. And that way we have some for breakfast if we want it. That sounds amazing. As it freezes great. Yeah, yeah, we.
22:20I've always wanted to try either freezing or also doing the glass. Oh goodness, I can't think of the name of anything.
22:30The eggs in the big glass jar with the water? With the lime, yeah.  Water glassing maybe is what it's called. I have never done it. It's a way of preserving eggs without having to pickle them, yes. Yeah, I will say because I'm not a big pickler.  So I know some people love it. I used to sell my silky eggs to a friend who would just pickle them because they're tiny.  I don't like pickled eggs.  I like hard boiled eggs for um...
23:00for egg salad sandwiches, but I'm not a pickled egg girl. I think they're stinky. Yeah, I agree.  I can't do it. I love pickles. I love cucumbers as pickles, but pickled eggs are just not my jam. Yeah, I feel that.  I don't know what it is, but I just, if I smell them, I'm like, need to walk the other way because it's going to be a mess if I do not.  I agree. Eggs are great, but they can be very stinky in certain ways.
23:29Yep,  not a fan. um So I saw on your Facebook page something about your turkey. Yes.  What can you tell the story without crying?  I think I can. So  I had a Tom, his name was Darryl. um And I  actually got his name, because everyone asked me, how did you come up with the name Darryl?  And  my daughters  are.
23:58six and four and they were big bluey fans. I don't know if you're familiar with any kids TV shows. I've heard of it. I have not ever seen an episode. Okay. It's, it's an amazing kid show. I'll be honest. Like it's actually a kid show that was made for parents, but either way, um, they have funny names for their animals or their imaginary friends or whatever they're doing. And one of them, the one daughter was pretending to be someone and her name was Cheryl Landa. Okay.
24:26So we got three turkeys  in the early  spring last year.  And at the time I didn't know what they were, male or female, but we went with Telemachus, Shubidua, and Sharolanda, all names from Bluey. Cute. Well, Sharolanda turned out to be a dude. So I was like Sharolanda, Darryl, Darrylanda. And then it kind of just stuck. So it was Darryl. It was Darryl, yes.
24:55And he was a, I believe he was a bronze. I got kind of like a mixed group of breeds. And he was just, he was also like a dog. I had to harness train him because my youngest wanted me to bring him to school for her Bring Your Pet to School Day. Out of all the animals that we have, she chose him. So I harness trained this 30, 40 pound turkey.
25:25Um, he went on car rides with us. We took him to, we don't have,  uh,  like local trash here. We have to go to a dump. So he would go to the dump with us and, and just ride around in the car. took him through Duncan and, um, he was a big part. Duncan give him a pup cup? They did. They did.  Um, he, so he got a pup cup and he was just, he was just a great, a great pet.
25:53And he was a very good protector.  will say turkeys are very good protectors of our flock. They're very good at alerting and they're big. So not a ton of the predators in our area would, it wouldn't be worth it to them to try to come like to our flock. And unfortunately it is mating season and we had two of our neighbors children.
26:21run onto our property. I'm assuming to see if our children were outside so they could play. Yeah. And the youngest is about 18 months. So she's little and they ran up to Darryl. I don't know in what manner because I didn't see it, but they ran up to him and he started.
26:46like jumping on the youngest and I guess trying to mate. So he was doing the like stomping with his feet and he was scratching her up. And in the whole commotion to get Daryl off of the child, he was kicked not only by the child, but by an adult  to get him off of the baby. And that whole commotion, he broke his leg.  And he was very large.
27:15poultry have very thin, tiny legs.  And  he was in a lot of pain. So I didn't want to put him through trying to fix it, because the prognosis of him getting fully healed was slim to none.  And it wouldn't be fair to him for me to put him through all of that pain and recovery  just because for selfish reasons, I didn't want to lose him, you know?
27:45So we humanely called him and we did bury him next to his favorite tree. But it's just, it's quiet without him because he would always like talk to us. We would call his name and he would talk to us. And he wasn't doing anything wrong. He was  protecting his  flock. But it's definitely a good lesson  with  being cautious around animals and making sure, you know.
28:16No one's unattended or anything like that. Our kids  knew  if they were going to be around Darryl,  they always had a stick and they would just wave it at him and he would run. He wasn't going to come after them. He's like, okay, these kids have a stick. I'm not going to mess with them.  And he grew up with them. So he was familiar with them. But yeah, that day was very stressful because we had also brought a Mustang home that day.
28:44Oh, so double whammy. Yeah, and he  broke through our fence a couple times. ah So we were actually dealing with the Mustang when the incident happened. It was just very crazy.  sounds like it. It is. And you learn some hard lessons in life. um There's,  you know, you go back and think of everything you could have done differently at that time. But in that moment,  main goal was to
29:14make sure the child was okay, you know? And I love my animals.  I love them to death, but I will always put a human child's  wellbeing above my animals.  Yep. And I feel like this is a good place to jump in and say,  if you are a neighbor of someone who has animals on their property, and I don't care whether it's turkeys or goats or a freaking elephant, and you have kids, tell your kids,
29:44that they need to be aware and they need to be careful.  And if they're too little to understand that, then you should probably be with them if  they're going to the neighbor's house. Yeah. And  I  don't want to direct other people's traffic, but it's a shame that you had to lose your turkey because of the situation. It is.  And  my husband and I were, you know, we went through the motions of the stages of grief and
30:12We were angry for a while and it's not that we were angry  at them.  We were just angry at the situation because we know it was just an unfortunate incident, but it's like we lost a member of our family.
30:31It was just really, really unfortunate.  it's really hard. One of the things about farming or homesteading is that there are days that just suck lemons and you're going to have one.  It is. And  I think the hardest thing about having a farm and having livestock is that there's a saying for a reason. If you have livestock, you have dead stock because a lot of the times
31:01At least in my experience with chickens, sometimes they just keel over and you have no idea why. And if you're like me and you get attached to them,  everyone takes a small little piece of your heart. And it's like, ugh, I wish I could have done something different. But it's just the hard reality of  having animals. I may be the most unattached to my chickens person you will ever meet.
31:29I don't love them. I love what they do for us. I don't love chickens.  However, I keep trying to not get attached to the barn cats and that's a trick. Yeah, we have one barn cat. just got him recently. ah He showed up at my in-laws house actually and he was super sweet and we're like, you know what?
31:52We need a barn cat because we do have a of mice because we are in the woods. Yes. Like we're in farmland, but where we are specifically is a lot of woods and trails. And he is just the sweetest thing. He  loves to just be pet and love Dawn.  And I would be devastated if something happened to him.  I was devastated when the first barn cat got hit by a car on that busy road in front of our house.
32:20Like I swore a blue streak, I cried, I slammed cabinet doors, I was upset.  My husband said to me, said, honey, said,  if this is how it's going to affect you if we lose an animal, he said, we can't stay here. He said, this is awful. And the next one that got hit, like four months later, I swore less, I did not cry,  and I think I slammed a cabinet door when I realized that it had gotten hit.
32:50He said, that's growth. I'm like, yes, I will eventually be able to handle this, but that's two in four months time. Yeah, that's a lot. It's a lot. And it's, it's different when you have like outdoor animals as opposed to indoor animals. Like you try not to get attached, but you do. But then you also know that they're here for a job  and sometimes bad things do happen.  mean, that can be said about any part of life. And I'm not.
33:20unfamiliar with death and animals because I have dealt with my fair share of euthanasias and really unfortunate, sad situations just working in the veterinary field. it's always different when it is something that you have personally cared for. And the advice that I try to give people, even whether it be a cat or a dog or a horse or what have you, is the
33:48best thing that we can do for them is to end their suffering, is to not let them suffer. So if something is happening  and  you have the choice to take away their pain, then that is the kindest thing that we can do for them. And that is why I didn't rehab Darryl. it just wouldn't have been  kind for me to do that. And I don't think if he could talk that he would want me to do that.
34:17Probably not and  that's why it's called stewardship, you know, whether it's land or animal it's stewardship Yeah  All right.  Um, Casey, this was a joy. I try to these to half an hour.  Where can people find you? You can find me on Tiktok Facebook and Instagram um For Scythia Farms is our Facebook
34:43profile, but Casey at for Scythia Farms is my Instagram and TikTok handle.  Um, so can find me there and I just, you know, have my daily antics of farm life on there.  It's very fun to watch you do your thing. It's, it's a huge part of my life now. I don't think my day is complete until I've done my like morning chores and you know, sang my songs to my animals. Cause I do that a lot.
35:12Yep. Well, keep doing the good work because  every video you put out shows people what this is like, that it can be hard, that it can be absolutely joy-filled days, because that happens too.  But we need more people to get into this because we need local food sources. Yes, we do. It's incredibly important.  All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Casey, I hope you have a wonderful day.
35:40Thank you so much. This was so much fun. hope you have a wonderful day as well.
 

In The Thick Of It with Clear Creek Ranch Mom

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom . 
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00:00listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together.  Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality,  and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose.
00:29At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful.  If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care, you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. That tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company.  Today I'm talking with Leah Peterson from Clear Creek Ranch Mom in Nebraska. And she also happens to be my fabulous co-host  on Grit and Grace in the Heartland Women in Agriculture. Good,  um, well afternoon. It's noon now.
00:58It's high noon. It is high noon.  What's for lunch besides I have a birthday cake in my kitchen, but not much else going on yet.  I don't know. I might  nuke a couple waffles and put some real maple syrup on them. That sounds delightful. It kind of does.  So  Leah's been on the show, like,  I think it's been five times now. And then she became my co-host on the other  podcast.
01:26Leah posted a photo on her Facebook page of a cowhide from a calf  and  was talking about why they have that. And I thought that it would be interesting for my listeners  to know what was going on with that. So Leah, do you want to tell me about that? I can.  I always say that  raising livestock teaches little people so many life lessons that are applicable.
01:55you know, in all parts of your life and will be for all time.  And so as a child, um my first  memories, some of the harder memories from calving season was honestly learning about the miracle of adoption  right through my own  eyes,  watching it in the cowherd.
02:18It's a practice as old as time. It's evolved and changed over time and many people are still advocates for this method of helping a cow adopt a new baby and other people have moved on to try different things.  But we're still  kind of old school here and we subscribed to what we call the no fail method. It is hard. It's kind of yucky. um But it works.  And so when we have a cow,
02:46who has lost her calf for whatever reason and she's in milk. We can take another calf, say a twin for instance, or a calf whose mama doesn't have enough milk, and we call it grafting, grafting a calf onto the mama.  And it's very interesting when you look at different breeding programs, different breeds, there are different traits that rise to the surface as being most  usual for that particular breed. When I was with
03:16Derek Josie out at TDF Honest, he raises pure red Jersey cows for milk.  And those ones do not have the maternal trait of desiring to have a baby. They have their baby and happily will let you take it and he won't even ball for it. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how the Jersey cows live.  Our beef cattle want to raise a baby.
03:40I want to be careful in describing that though, because it's not, I don't want you to think, I don't want listeners to think that it's some emotional bond. It is a physiological response. It's biologically the way they are bred and how they live. And that is that those hormones that kick in when they have given birth and they start producing milk, they desire to have a baby. And so when we have a baby in need,
04:10What we will do is we will skin the hide off of the deceased baby. So she's lost her baby, it was stillborn, it died, whatever the reasons might be. We will skin that hide off of her baby and we'll make what we call a calf coat  and we will adhere that calf coat on to her presumptively to be adopted baby. Do you tie it on to them?
04:38Yeah, so you can use a variety of methods. We use  sometimes some glue to help hold it on and then we use baling twine  and  tie it  so that it kind of starts at the back of the neck and goes down their back, truly like a superhero cape, I guess you could call it,  and tied it on.  And then you  can do some other things. You can apply some scents to mask the smell because again,
05:06The emotional connection  between a mama and a calf is not what you think it is.  They identify their calves by sound, which is truly amazing. They can find their baby in a group of 500 by their sound.  I think there is probably a measure of recognition.  Hard to say how complicated that is because I'm like, all little black baby calves, for instance, look the same to me. um And I can't remember if cows see in color or not,  but it's definitely by scent.
05:35And so if you can mask their original smell and make it smell like their baby, they are  way more likely to uh accept it straight away. Now, depending on the cow, depending on the breed, I have seen it go like snap of a finger, this is my baby now, and I have seen times where it'll take 48 hours, but I've never seen it not work.
06:00You  love what you do because you just told a very hard story  and your voice sounded so satisfied telling it.  It is. It's something  I'm passionate about because it helps elevate  more understanding about ranchers and not just ranchers because I know this method can be used with uh other animals.
06:29and trying to help them adopt babies that aren't theirs. SAKE, it happened all on its own or with a little help from humans. It happens a lot.  I'm passionate about it. And it's so satisfying because while you see videos and photos of little girls and boys feeding bottles to baby calves, yes, it can be done. Yes, it's a good chore. Yes, it's  rewarding.
06:54but there is  nobody that feeds a baby calf like the cow herself.  It's just the way nature intended it to be. In beef cattle, not talking about veal calves and those in dairies and whatnot, but for beef cattle, it  is the best outcome. And it's so satisfying when after a day together, being  confined together that you can turn them out. And we call it traveling pairs. You see them travel together as one.
07:23back into the wild, so to speak, and feel so relieved and satisfied that you have helped them mother up  and that baby is going to be cared for until it's weaned.  I love it.  See, this is why I wanted you to tell the story because I knew you'd tell it in a way that everybody would get it. um So what happens to that calf hide once the calf is grafted? Well, usually it's sort of, it's
07:48just like any piece of leather, right? It withers eventually and  they'll shed it. Sometimes we'll cut it off. It's very smelly, you can imagine,  a couple days and uh it'll wither away and eventually then the scavengers will pick it up and disappear with it. Okay, cool.  Thank you for telling the story.  I  always feel weird asking you this stuff because I am a novice. Like I am,  I know nothing.
08:16about any of this. And I'm so curious and I'm like,  Lea knows the answer. I'm going to ask her. And it's so fascinating because again, it depends on the maternal traits in different cattle breeds  and what your breeding programs are. But I'm out watching our first calf heifers, right? These are their first babies.  And in their first year being mothers, these heifers are like, I don't know, they're energetic teenagers and they're all about everyone's baby. They'll let anybody's baby.
08:43nurse and so we call them the little robbers. These babies are out there bebopping around. They don't care who's utter they're going to. It's that second year when she has her second calf that she generally, again, depending on the breed, is more interested in just having her baby nurse and kick  away at somebody else trying to rob.  But then we have some cows. em Some of them usually are those with a little more dairy influence, so they're short horns. They will let more than one calf nurse.
09:13they  produce milk for more than  one often, but most of our true beef cattle who are bred towards putting all their work and energy into growing one healthy calf, they don't have enough milk for more than one. So it is not common to have a beef cow  raise more than one calf if it's her calf or if it's one that's been grafted onto her. I will say we  still have one set of twins on there.
09:39mama and she is up in the corral getting extra groceries as we call it. She's doing phenomenal at raising  both of her calves and has not rejected anybody. um We will not kick her out to summer pasture like that because it's too much  to babysit that, especially if grass is kind of short and her energy needs are not going to be enough to feed two babies properly. But uh we're gratified that all of our
10:06transplant, we call it also transplanting a calf.  Situations have been successful. We've had some kind of yucky stuff happen in the last 10 days with the volatile weather and we've had some loss. um But so far we're cruising through, we're now on the over the hump and calving season and thankful  for the wins, the victories, are when  mamas will take a new baby without too much work.
10:34Definitely.  So how has calving season been for you? I  suspect it's been a lot considering everything else you've had going on. Yeah, isn't it something, you you try and just to get your work done and at this time, critical time, it's like, need to get  my work done and not start a fire  because conditions are so difficult in the pastures. It's branding season. Lots of folks are branding their calves. The challenge is there's nowhere to go with them at this time.
11:04um Pastures need to be able to rest longer. Typically, here in Nebraska, we're trying to start kicking animals out to early grass, what we call cool season grasses, around the first of May, and it's not happening. um That's next week. We're really in a critical time.  We really would need, if we could get a half inch of rain, that could buy us some time. We'd really like one to two inches of
11:33calm, quiet rain to soak in and recharge and get our cool season grasses to go so we have some early grazing possibilities that buys you time to get hopefully a first cutting of hay and things put up so that if we look to late summer and a resurgence of drought that we dry lot cattle and if we have to feed them ourselves.  That's where we're at. um
12:03People are just having to make some very difficult decisions right now. I'm trying to sell Daisy, um Daisy and her calf.  She's our black Angus Jersey cross mama.  to relieve us  of one mouth to feed because we hadn't planned for her to stay. um We're making some decisions already on some older cows who maybe are not um feeding their calves the best.
12:32or potentially are open and not having a calf, they're not gonna go to pasture and get another chance, they gotta go town.  And  meanwhile, you reconcile that with none of us are wishing to contribute to a further shrink in the cow herd size, but that's where we're at.  you know, literally, if you don't have anything to feed them, that's the choice that you have to make.  And you're not alone in that, which is even scarier. Correct, correct. It's...
13:00It's so widespread. Now, there was a tornado watch in eastern Nebraska yesterday, and I know some rain did fall there. Even if it was hail, at least it was precipitation, a very small piece. uh But desperation really across  all of Nebraska, moving west and north  into multi-states,  you start to consider  the widespread effects, and they're pretty big.
13:29Yeah, and that doesn't even count the effects of like your household. I mean, are people's wells going dry because it's so,  you're so lacking in water? Yeah, we're okay here.  Our work, to be respectful of our aquifer, is in full play. Conservation methods are,  but certainly like in Colorado, um there's pretty significant discussion  because of no snowpack to melt, that there will be early water restrictions in place. And that includes
13:59golf courses,  know, water parks and things like that. I don't think  we Americans are very good at thinking beyond the end of our own nose too often. If you think, it's okay, I have access to water, well, and you let your sprinklers run and run down the street that you just, you're not thinking like, how does that affect the person that's downhill from me?  And I hate that we have to have rules and regs to make people be disciplined.
14:26about their water use, but it's a finite resource  and nobody wants to turn their tap on and have nothing come from it.  So I encourage  everybody to just be aware of good personal accountability when it comes to water use. It's so important.  It is, and honestly, if we could just realize that it's not all about  us, it's about everybody.
14:56You know, it's not just about me. It's not just about you. It's about everybody.  It's true.  We're all in this together.  All in this together when I,  um,  friends, you know, across the Great Plains and moving west that have had this abnormally period of dry years. And again, I'm grateful that I was raised in a home to practice  stewardship, picking up your trash.
15:26um minimizing waste,  food waste especially,  not letting the water run freely while you're brushing your teeth.  Aim small, miss small is something  I say often.  Every single person has the ability to make positive difference  and they're not hard. It's an act of thoughtfulness and self-discipline.
15:52Yes, for sure. um So  I had a question and then I forgot it because I was listening closely to what you were saying because that's what I do all the time.  Yes, you do. So the fire that uh blew up or showed up or whatever word you want to use  when you were in town the other day,  I'm assuming they got that at least  handled. Yeah, the National Guard.
16:22was deployed here to help. were air dropping water in some very hard to reach canyons  where there's hot spots. They're using thermal imaging.  I don't know that people realize that cedar trees,  which are the bane of our existence in Nebraska now, can hold heat for so long and have flare-ups literally for weeks or months after a fire. So they're working really hard on that and setting backfires to stop any forward advance. We have loss.
16:51structure loss and one home burned to the ground. And I actually know the woman who lost her home and she recently lost her husband. And bless her heart. She's handling it as well as could be expected. I'm very grateful for emergency responders who were able to advance enough to give proper evacuation notices and help people gather essentials and get them.
17:21So people, for instance, could move their camper or their boat or their horses, gather up your purses and wallets and clothes and had some time. So she was able to do that, but obviously left 95 % of her life at home and it's gone. And for the rallying of community and churches to help her and other people who were displaced, you know, there's not enough time in the day to share stories of the goodness of
17:50people. um You kind of, it's kind of fatigued, right, of having to  deploy so much goodness over and over and over again. But it's  what we're supposed to do for each other,  why these community organizations and efforts matter to help coordinate and organize, because it's not easy to figure out how to feed 200 firefighters by yourself. certainly is not. And the community has rallied and done so and given people given of their money when they can't.
18:18serve physically and given up their time, given their prayers and kindness. And so we'll be all right. um But again, it definitely illuminates why we have to have fire departments, why we need emergency responders and EMTs and why we need community organizers because, you know, the whole place would have burned up if we hadn't had it because there was nothing that was going to stop that monster in the winds that were blowing.
18:45It was the selfless giving of hundreds of people that stopped the advance of the fire, putting their own lives in jeopardy. um It's truly an amazing thing when you think about them all being volunteers.  Yeah, absolutely. um So fire season. um I feel like you have been talking to me about fire season  since we first talked a little over two years ago. Has it just been fire season for two years?
19:13You know, my friend James, the meteorologist says we just have to face the facts with climate changes.  You can call it what you want, that we are a wildfire state. And part of it is because we're actually so good at stewardship that we have a fuel load, which is your standing grasses and things. Part of it is because of letting some invasives get away, like the cedar trees and my messages.
19:38that Eastern red cedars are not your friend in Nebraska. First of all, they hog a lot of water. Oh, do they drink water? And second of all, they cause these tinderboxes to get worse  because they burn so hot  and the trees were exploding. They were exploding and then sending the embers straight into the air. And in the 40 mile an hour winds, the embers were then traveling a mile and then reigniting.
20:01So we're in wildfire season. We have been for a long time in this cycle of wildfire. We had a lot of fire in 2012 during a flash drought, but the fire risk didn't start till July. That's when things really dried up.  I think it's paramount that people recognize that in building a new home,  in renovating a home, in thinking about what kind of yard you want to have, that you need wildfire preparedness as part of what you're doing. That is our reality now because
20:29there are not enough volunteers to cover every need.  And you're gonna have to be able to try to defend your home a little bit yourself. That's just the reality. That is just how it is.  And it would serve everyone well to be aware of those things.  Well, I don't wanna give you more to do, ma'am, cause you are swamped. But maybe once graduation is over  and
20:58calving season is over.  I, if it were me, I would take some time and email a couple of realtors and mention that. Yeah.  Because I'm not sure realtors even really think about that. I agree. I agree and young homeowners and maybe if you've, and I hate to say it Mary, but the palisades  in California should have shown every American the fire can come into your town too. You're not safe just because you're in town. No.
21:27So you've got to think about it no matter where you live. This is not just for acreages and ranches and farms. This is for everybody. Everybody.  Yes. Part of the reason that I was so hot to trot, which is a really bad way to say that right now,  to get out of where we lived before we moved here is because our neighbor's house was literally three feet  from our house. Their outside wall was three feet  from our outside wall.
21:54And I had  nightmares about their house catching on fire and catching our house on fire or our house catching on fire and catching their house on fire. Because if one went up, the other one was going up. And I just, couldn't, I was like,  the next place we buy has to have room between homes.  And now it's like a quarter mile of room between homes. So I'm very happy about this.
22:20And it's a hard conversation because with this wildfire risk is also the wind. And the wind is our nemesis and it blows and blows and blows and that's why people want trees and shelter belts. But you're going to have to really be smart about how you put them together and how close you put it to your house.  absolutely.  So  you have a book  that you wrote for your daughter whose birthday is today. Happy 18th birthday, Maggie. Thank you. And it's called An Apple for Dapple.
22:50Yes.  So we had a pony. My folks purchased a pony for the ranch for the grandkids. And his name was Dapple, a little Dapple Grey pony. And when Maggie was a toddler,  before we moved home to the ranch, we were enjoying the fruits of our labors of my childhood with the planted apple orchard. And we pick apples. And then my mom said, you know, they say horses love apples. Do they really love apples? I never really fed my horses apples as a kid, but we
23:20When we're done picking all the apples we wanted, my mom went and got Dapple and tied him to the apple trees. And that pony went to town eating the apples that fell. Oh, he'd eat them till they'd think he'd be sick.  But he was the best cleanup in the late fall when the apples fell. He'd just eat them like it was going out of style. And Maggie, as a toddler, would love, I mean, she'd just giggle. I wish I had recorded it on video. She would pick up the apples and feed them to him and he'd snatch them.
23:49right out of her hands. So I had this idea that I wanted to write a book, a children's book, I still want to write,  and I came up with An Apple for Doppel.  And I wrote it. And when I wrote it, I wrote it as if Maggie was like Lucy's age, nine or 10.  And made the story work that way because I thought that the book would be for young readers  at school. I self-published it.  That was it.
24:17a learning experience. had to find an illustrator because I can't draw  and launched it  with a goal of Ag advocacy, sharing my love of reading with children, educating them. I got to read at a ton of schools. I love that. Kids always wished I brought DAPL with me.  bet.  And ultimately,
24:42Something that spoke to my heart at the time was the beginning of,  in our community,  a campaign called Little Feet Big Dreams, which was to start putting money away towards new school facilities  that were focused on the arts. And I believe writing is one of the arts. so I came up with this thought that if DAPL sold copies when I was able to cover my costs, that I could  use the proceeds.
25:08of any books to buy more books for other children who don't have access to books or to donate to different causes.  I don't talk about it a lot because I'm  an anonymous giver uh most of the time. And  it's just something I feel strongly about because I  didn't  ever want the attention to be on me, um but just on trying to do little pockets of good where I could.
25:37um So I just decided on a whim because I did the shirt campaign and we sent money to a bigger wildfire relief fund. But when I saw some of the first bills coming in the other night,  just in fuel costs alone for the trucks, I thought, you know, maybe we could  auction off a copy  and get enough interest I could write a check and pay for  some.
26:06tanks of fuel and I was overwhelmed. The woman who won the her final bid was $222, which I thought, a random, funny, crazy, wild number. And I want to talk just for a second about Liz, Liz from Ohio. She's a retired teacher and her classroom number was 222.
26:36So that was a number that was special to her.  And  she doesn't know me, and she doesn't know Nebraska. She loves red cattle. She raises a few Herefords now that she's retired. She lost her mother in December,  and she's just trying to put her own pockets of good out into the world.  it. So I was able to match her donation and take a nice check today, and it just,  well, was special because it's Maggie's birthday. Yeah, that too.
27:06And I couldn't have done that without the overwhelming support of people buying copies of my book from me for the last,  gosh, it's been 14 years.  I'm able to save those funds and then do these pockets of  good throughout the year. it just makes my heart happy when I can help.  yet it felt like, it felt  hard because it took $500 in there with me today. And like, that's not even enough to fill a semi.
27:35truck with one tank of  diesel. But I said, like the starfish story, it's money they didn't have before I came in here.  my mom says, every little bit helps.  So proud of you for doing that. Thank you.  You are a fabulous person. You know this, right?  I have  moments  of thinking, am I doing enough?
28:04em using my voice  the way I should.  And  also emotional just because I hate that we have so much need right now. Like I said to the girls when I took the money in, like we just have a few normal days where there's no national crisis happening.  That would be a novel concept, wouldn't it?  Yeah. em
28:32It would just be lovely because everyone's just so fatigued and stuff right now. So.  Yes, everyone, even our little people are tired because we're tired and it's rubbing off on them.  Can I just share another story from this week  to speak to someone that I just deeply admire and respect with my daughter's softball coach. He is such a humble man. He's fighting cancer, which is known by everyone, but he's managing it. He's persevering.
29:01And he's pushing through his chemo to coach these little girls in softball and his own, like they had to evacuate too, right? To get out of the way, like  his wife and he kept telling their little girl at softball practice during the fire, here's the smoke billowing in the background. em It's not because our house is going to burn down, it's we're just out of the way. So the emergency workers don't need to worry about us. They can just focus on the fire and little girl.
29:27struggling with the emotions and fear. And I mean, they're all just caught up looking at the smoke and stuff. And also like recognizing for our little people, they don't miss a thing, but also knew that keeping them busy and focused on playing softball was a really appropriate distraction from the scary stuff. So I'm just so grateful for him and his family and their home is okay. um For people to remember that.
29:54are little people that are always watching and listening and they're not stupid. It's this fine balance of helping them be aware  enough that's age appropriate, but also protecting them in their innocence as much as possible.  Yes.  And  it's a fine line. Yeah, it is not easy at all. And mine had a
30:22field trip today and they were going to the tree nursery and talk about Arbor Day and all of that. And I thought that was a great needed also busy distraction, something different to do, get them out of town for a little bit. Yeah, I was going to ask you, it's probably weird for what this podcast is, but I was going to ask anyway, how has Lucy been dealing with her sister doing all these
30:49fabulous things and getting ready to go to college and stuff because that's got to be kind of weird for her. It is and she's at that tender  age where again her awareness is really  waking up  and  there have been plenty of tough moments of late and because I can see the wheels turning  and we have tried very hard in our home  to
31:19say that no topic is off-limit. We don't dismiss or diminish someone's feelings. say feelings aren't facts. However, they are your feelings and you are entitled to them, even if they're not correct, and then we'll deal with it. Do  not get some idea that I get it right all the time because I don't. So I'm trying very hard to pay attention. Lucy is a feeler. She feels everything. I'm trying to pay attention,  and we did that, but we had a particularly hard moment  at Easter.
31:49where the awake, and I was a first born, so I was the first one to leave. I never ever thought about how my little siblings were feeling about anything, where she had this conscientious.
32:05She said out loud, oh oh, Maggie's going to college and holidays happen while she's at college.  Lucy's so big in family gatherings, like being together at the table and stuff. And she said,  does  that mean that Maggie gets to decide if she spends her holidays with us? Maggie wasn't present for this. um
32:33And I was trying not to have an emotional response to that because I didn't want her to feel afraid that her sister wouldn't choose. And I had to be practical and say, yes, it's true, holidays happen while she's at college. And we have created a home that is always warm and welcoming so that Maggie, of course, would want to spend her holidays here because her mama makes the best whatever I said.
33:01it will be her decision and we will always just be so happy when she can spend her holidays with us. it  was still, but like then it was, but what if she doesn't?  And I said, well, then we'll go to her and hunt her down.  But not- We'll make her do all the cooking. Yes. um So yes, this awareness of what kind of change is coming is there. And I do not want to diminish or dismiss it.
33:33though I can't relate very well because I didn't go through it.  Mm-hmm.  No, I was just thinking about Lucy yesterday because I know  you and I talk a lot because we talk on the other podcast and you're my friend  and I've been listening to you talk about Maggie's things a lot  and  you're supposed to and that's totally fine but I was like I wonder how little sis is doing with all this. Yeah, little sis will have  so much fun this summer. We're gonna be able to focus on
34:03her activities and big sister being present for them for some new things. She's trying like playing softball.  yet I know it's going to be rough  because there's such an age difference that Maggie is Lucy's second mother. I mean, she just is and yet they share everything. em And so, yes.
34:33It's the whole thing. And my husband also is an oldest, so he doesn't really have experience. I was close in age with my younger siblings. I mean, they flew the coop not long after me. And I think the second big piece that's coming for me is finding my newer adjusted identity also after the roles.
35:00I've played change again.  Yep. And I guess it isn't weird to ask about this because everybody has similarities and  anyone who's a mother is going to go through this.  know, being a mother is  something I always wanted to do. Yeah. And being an involved mom who had my kids
35:29in service organizations and participate in lots of things  was important to me. I thought it was important to trying to be a well-rounded person. I am not a helicopter mom. I'm not their problem solver. I oh am an assistant when needed. um She's kept me very busy because she has been a very involved student by choice. And so yeah, there is going to be a period of adjustment where I
35:59I  get to shift the time I gave to that thing  to something else. Yes, some of it will be because I'm going to do a lot of the same things with Lucy in her own unique flair, but some of it isn't, we're not there yet because Lucy's so much younger.  That it will be a period of adjustment for me in particular, not the husband quite so much though he'll have some. um
36:27do know there are lot of women who have struggled in this season of life.  Why did it always hit two during like paramenopause or menopause, which probably compounds it,  but for every woman out there who has been a mom, there is a shift and change in your roles. And if you deny it or you don't  maybe get help through it, if you're not coping very well, I can see why marriages struggle, friendships struggle, work struggles, your health.
36:58Um, it's a huge deal and we don't, I don't know that we talk enough about it and I have more compassion for my mother, the older I get about how her rules adjusted. Cause she was very much the same serving, giving, volunteering, helping, you know, going to the field trips and  making the cookies and different things. And that like, who am I if I'm not mom, who am I? Because.
37:28when you're in the trenches of motherhood, it does feel like your identity and whether that's right or wrong we can debate, but a lot of moms found themselves in places where there wasn't much left over time for them.  And then suddenly they had this time and they're like, but I don't know who I am. I don't know what I even like to do. What do I like to do that's just for me? And is that selfish to take that time?  And that's why I have two podcasts, Leo.
37:57You've channeled it for the good,  which is what I hope to do.  Yes.  And you dipped your feet in the public speaking world this year, so maybe you'll keep doing that too. Yeah. I hope so. And I hope and I believe my daughter knows that I'm always a phone caller text away and that I will be moming her in the appropriate sense from
38:26250 miles away. I think she'll come home when she can because she loves her little sister and wants to watch her from the bleachers like her little sister has always done for her.  So I hope so. I'm very close to my nephews as well who are both flying the coop and so it'll be a big period of change for my sister as well. It'll be an empty nester. So I look forward to getting to
38:56having some time, I've just
38:59I've just been in this role for 18 years today.  Darling,  I know.
39:08Believe me, I know.  And  I wasn't gonna cry either, but here we go. The thing is you  get adjusted to it. I'm not kidding. um Talked to my daughter the other day  and she just called because we hadn't talked in a week or two. And I thought that was really sweet. And then she sent me a tech, a instant message or whatever they're called on Facebook.  And she was like, I wrote this thing. I'm thinking about posting online. Can you?
39:37read it and let me know what you think. And my heart just went, yes. Oh, she loves her mama. And then she deleted it because we decided she hated it because I didn't get the time. Oh, sweetheart. I was like, well, crap, I really would have liked to have seen what you wrote, but that's fine. Oh, she's decided she's going to do an art piece to represent what she wanted to say instead.
40:07And the other thing is my mom is 79 years old and she still is moming me in the appropriate ways. So it never ends.  And it's just, I think it's the emotion today,  is it just went so fast.  Yep. It just went so fast.  The good news is it's not over. It's not.  It's just different.  It's just different.
40:37And you  may be lucky enough to have grandbabies someday.  I'm not going to have biological grandbabies. My  kids do not want babies.  And I think it's because of their youngest brother. I think because they were all  old enough to remember the sleepless nights, they don't want to do it.
41:04So,  gosh, that's  a whole thing thinking of that. My mother transitioned into being a fantastic grandma, it was easy, like she was made for that and she's such a fantastic grandma. And I'm  so grateful. um I know, like women just, it's just hard for us to get out of our own way sometimes and let things be.
41:34knowing there's just, there is enough goodness to go around. There is enough need and want to go around and hobbies and interests and work, careers, whatever you want it to be. There is enough, you don't need to  worry about that, but you do need to be open, you have to open your heart and your mind, which is very hard to do when you're fragile, like I am today. Cause you can't imagine that change.
42:01Yep, but you've got people rooting for you and I'm one of them.  Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. um So  we got a little bit off topic, but I feel like a lot of people, women especially, are going through this right now. So why not put it out there? Yes.  People can find you at Clear Creek Ranch Mom on Facebook and Clear Creek Ranch Mom on Instagram.  And they can find you and I at
42:29Britain Grace and the Heartland Women in Agriculture podcast.  And people can find me at a Tiny Homestead podcast.  And that's all I got. Thank you for taking the time to visit with me. Yes, and keep up the good work. Amazing, important work.  And it has just been the joy of my year to join you in helping elevate these stories of amazing women from across  this great country. So many stories to be shared will never run out of stories to share.
42:58I'm so grateful that you asked me.  I'm so grateful to have made a new friend in you.  Like this. And I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I hope Maggie's birthday party is amazing. Oh, we're having Shirley temples in Lasagna. You just can't beat that.  Oh,  man, if I could teleport, I'd be there. Anytime. There's always an extra  space for you. And it rained when we had her for three days. And so she even said, I'd be just fine with getting.
43:27lots of rain,  if we could be blessed with some rain, that would be amazing. She'd love to have a campfire. Most of my girls love roasting marshmallows and I'm like, if we get three days of rain, we can.  I appreciate my kids are em able to show gratitude for like just the  the smallest trivial things. They're very sentimental like that. so yeah, our special memories are  a lot of times at the campfire. So we'd love some rain so we could have a campfire.
43:56I'd love some rain for you for many, many reasons, the least of which is a campfire.  you. But anyway, please just soak it all up and enjoy it. And  don't cry in front of Maggie if you can help it. Cry with Matt. Yes. Thank you. Good advice. I appreciate that very much. Because otherwise she's going to think that you're miserable and you're not miserable. You are just stretching. I'm just stretching. Yes. And stretching is painful sometimes.
44:26Damn right.  All right. Thank you so much for your time, Leah. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mary.
 

The Tiny Life with Ryan Mitchell

Today I'm talking with Ryan at The Tiny Life. Ryan's newest book - Living Off Grid: 50 Steps to Unplug, Become Self-Sufficient, and Build the Homestead of Your Dreams
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00:00listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together.  Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality,  and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose.
00:29At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful.  If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care,  you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. A tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Ryan Mitchell at the Tiny Life in the Carolinas. Good afternoon, Ryan. How are you?  Good. Thanks for having me.  Oh, you're welcome. I'm  so thrilled to get a chance to talk to you because I had
00:58Sent an email to you, I think a year and a half ago, and I didn't hear anything back. And then your person, because you have people, I don't have people. Yeah, there's a few of us. Your person emailed me and reached out and I was like, yes, finally I get to talk to you. Yeah. All right. So how is the weather where you are? It's good. Yeah. So I'm located in the, I say the Carolinas. So we are, my tiny house is in
01:27North Carolina and we moved on to a homestead about a little less than a year ago. ah And then I live with my girlfriend in South Carolina. And so we're kind of gearing up the homestead to make the transition over to that. So that's why I kind of say, you know, I have one foot in both places right now as we make that transition. How far is it from where your girlfriend is to the tiny home?  About 30 minutes.
01:55Oh, so close. You're real. Yeah. Yeah. And I was living, you know, obviously full time  in the tiny house when I met her. And then, you know, when we decided that uh we were going to, you know, continue the relationship and it kind of went to the next level and everything  that I was probably moving in with her because she had  her  two dogs, a Liz, two lizards, a spider and a
02:22a snake, that was not going to fit into the tiny house at all. has a full house of critters.  It sure does. Well, I'm in Minnesota and I'm going to tell you right now, it's hotter than I would like it to be for April 22nd. Yes, yes. It is, I think it's 77 outside right now. And thank God there's a breeze because if there wasn't, it would be disgusting already because  Minnesota is really weird. You would think that 77 would just feel good.
02:52It doesn't, it feels hot in April.
02:57So, but at least it's not snowing. Yeah. Cause it could be doing that too. And I'd rather have this than snow cause I'm over it. It was a very,  it was a very moderate winter, but it seemed like a very long winter.  I'm  good on snow for the season.  Um, so I have a quick question about  where your, um, your tiny house is located. Is, is stuff has, has stuff been greened up for you?
03:26for weeks now because you're so far south.
03:30Sorry, ask that question one more time. Has stuff been green up? how are the trees leaving out? Yeah, like in the last two weeks, things have really kind of taken off. You know, we've had some warmer days, some really nice days, like low humidity, which is  not typical for us.  So yeah, things are starting to green up.  We just had our last frost date a couple days ago. So, you know, we're busy in the garden and things like that. m Get ready for spring and summer.
04:00We have another month before our last frost date. But that doesn't stop the greenhouse from getting planted. That's true. Yeah, we have  that benefit of  long growing seasons. if you're really on  the spot, can sometimes cram two  rounds of crops.  And if  you're choosing shorter varieties that
04:28you know, take a little bit less time to come to maturity. then, you know, during the winter, you have quite a few options if you have a greenhouse or you're going to do, you know, low tunnels or something like that. Mm hmm. Yep. We're starting a brand new to us variety of watermelon this year. We've never done it before. It's called a mini me and personal size watermelon. It's got a 60 day maturity.
04:58Wow. Time frame. And my husband planted them,  I want to say two weekends ago.  And we have sprouts already and I'm so excited to see how these do because growing the big watermelons in Minnesota does not work very well because our growing season is so short. Yeah. Yeah. So hoping to have watermelons in  end of June, first part of July.
05:26Excited so excited because I love love love watermelon and if they do well I want to grow a bunch of them again next year so we can sell them at the first farmers market in June. We'll plan.  I've never had much luck with any melons because the squirrels always get at them before they're ready and it always seems like I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pick it  one more day and we one more day on the vine and then I'll pick it and then that night something gets every time.
05:53Huh, we,  it's weird, we don't have a lot of squirrels on our property. I don't know why, I think I've seen two in five years. Oh wow. So they just,  don't think they have a food source that is a natural food source for them, so they just don't live here. And we're surrounded by corn fields and soybean fields and alfalfa fields, and I don't think that squirrels are very happy with that,  so.
06:22All right, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Ryan. Sure.  So my name is Ryan Mitchell.  I run the tiny life dot com and we focus on a simple living in kind of three different lenses.  The first one is tiny houses.  So, you know, small homes. uh Typically for one person, you're looking at two to three hundred square feet.
06:47You know for a family, a small family, you might be looking at thousand, fifteen hundred, just depending on your needs, things like that. Then minimalism, which is basically, you know, thinking intentionally about the way that you live and your interaction with consumerism, what you buy, and just, you know, making sure that the things you own don't start to own you and just being, you know, kind of crafting that intentional life around what's important to you.
07:16And the last one is home setting home setting, obviously, you know, very familiar to you. Uh, and that's a, a newer  kind of park tour or website we've been doing for about two years now.  Uh, but it's not new to me. I've been, you know, growing food, chickens, quails, bees, you, you name it,  um,  for  at  least a decade, um, if not more. Uh, so.
07:42Yeah, we kind of focus on those three topics at the website. um, you know, why I'm speaking to you today is because we have a new book coming out. It's called living off the grid, 50 steps to unplug, become self-sufficient and build the home set of your dreams. And that basically was the book that I wish I had when I was kind of, uh, you know, going through my own journey, uh, with a lot of like practical steps, uh, of how to think about how to develop a plan.
08:12how to make a homestead that's right for you,  and not just kind of adopting someone else's pre-packaged plan of or definition of what it means to be a homesteader. So yeah, that's kind of a little bit about me and our background.  Awesome. So I have to ask you, how do you define homesteading? And I will tell you how I define it first, and then you can tell me if you think it's accurate.  I think that homesteading is a  lifestyle choice
08:41It is not owning 100 cows and 100 acres of land. How do you define homesteading? Yeah,  I think for me,  I do this also with a tiny house. I don't get too dogmatic about the number of square feet. You some people get very firm about like, it has to be under a certain square footage.  And I think with homesteading, um what's important is  coming up with your own definition.
09:08definition and you know kind of defining that path for yourself.  So for me,  what my kind of personal definition is, is just thinking about ways that you  rely on external systems that could be the grid, that could be food systems,  that could be the store,  you know, different things like that, entertainment, all that kind of stuff.  And,  you know, thinking about those kind of points of weakness  or
09:37Kind critical areas that  you maybe rely a little too heavily on and then trying to shore those up trying to replace some of those or bring those a little bit closer to you and that could be as much as like bringing, you know, getting off the grid,  bring solar to your home set and doing all that kind of stuff. It could be  growing your own food. It could be, you know, having a cow or two. It could be a whole, you know, herd of cattle or it could just be working with uh
10:05the rancher down the street to buy,  you know, half a cow  and put that away in your freezer. So,  um,  yeah, in the book, I kind of walked through some thought exercises about like how people can think about this. And, and the thing that I've just seen over the years,  time and time again, is that people tend to say like, okay, in my head, home setting is this,  and it's usually someone else's definition.  And they adopt it  as almost like,
10:36The rule and there there is no rules right like you can make this lifestyle whatever you want it to be and then they they tend to back themselves into a corner and figure out that oh don't really want this they'll get you know 10 20 30 50 100 cattle and then realize like oh I can never leave this house because I always have to be watching the cattle or milking the cows or.
11:02or whatever the daily chores are constantly and I can never go on a vacation.  So yeah, that's why I've always kind of said like, it's important to sit down and define your own definition. Yep,  absolutely. I just, it's so funny because I was just interviewed by Cody Hanner at the Homestead Education Podcast  and I just heard it today. I was interviewed by her three weeks ago, I think it was, and  she was asking,
11:32me about how we got started. And I was like, the honest answer is I just needed quiet. I just needed to not live in town anymore.  Yeah. And we started at 50 and my husband and I are 56 now. We bought our homestead when we were 50.  And she said, I love that the first thing you answered with is that you started, you bought your homestead when you were 50  because you,
11:58doesn't matter how old you are, if you are sound of body and mind,  you can make it go. And I was like, yes, you can. I said, just realize that  sound of body may be a little less  definitive than it used to be. And she laughed. So yeah. And as for the tiny house thing, I used to refer to the old house as a tiny house.  was a three bedroom, one bathroom home on a 10th of an acre in town.  And the realtor
12:27listing said that it was 850 square feet. And I believe it because I raised four kids in that house with my husband. That's tiny house for a family of six. Yes, yeah, definitely. Yeah. And my husband was very taken with the idea of actual tiny houses. When we got old and our kids were out of our small house and I was just like, no freaking way. Yeah. No.
12:55You value your quiet, I value my quiet and us being literally in the same space all the time will have us divorced in a year.  So instead of doing that, we bought a three acre place with a 1400 square foot house on it. big.  So it's all how you look at it. It's all what you need to be happy.  Agreed.
13:23So having said all that, I have a question about your tiny house. house. How big is it? So my tiny house is 149 square feet and then a sleeping loft. Okay. And is it on an acre? Is it on a couple of acres? So it's on a friend's property and that's 20 acres.
13:51Okay.  It's gorgeous woods  and I got extremely lucky because it's in a this, this acreage is in the middle  of the city. like I would, you know, be, you know, doing just life and work and all that kind of stuff in the city. And then I would come home ah to my tiny house  and it was just on this acreage  that has this pond on it that
14:19like is a spitting image of Walden Pond. And so it was like this little oasis in the city. And it was wonderful to live in. does it feel like camping when you're there? Or does it feel like home? I mean, I think initially it did kind of feel like camping. And also it was a long journey for me to get there. You know, I started back in 2009.
14:48Uh, in the, when kind of the downturn happened and I  had made a decision like, I tell me that you change because I was just starting my career back then  and  the company that I was  working for closed and I was only six months into my career and I was already getting laid off with the whole, you everyone else in the company. was like, um,  maybe this wasn't the bill of goods that I was sold  when I was signed up for  college and all that kind of stuff. So.
15:18I did some thinking about it and I worked a long time and in 2012 I moved into it. And so yeah, I did feel a little bit like camping in beginning. But then I kind of settled in and what I realized was it was probably one of the more comfortable homes that I've ever lived in because it was designed for me. Traditional homes are designed to maximize for resale value, not for
15:46people or not for families. They're  a asset. They're not a home, which is a really sad state of affairs. But I also understand why, you know, like these homes are expensive. They're usually people's largest asset that they own.  So they have to be able to cash out at some point in the future  for, you know, their needs, their retirement, things like that. uh But  yeah, once I kind of settled in  and got comfortable in it,
16:15It definitely  felt like a regular house. uh I was also younger  and  was out and active and doing things.  At that time I owned a business, so I was going to that physical location  most days of the week  while building up that business. uh It was just a nice little respite away from the big city.
16:43Yeah, that's how I felt  when we moved because I had just had it with all the noise and the church bells and the train that went through town daily. All the noise was driving me insane. And when we moved here, we live on a pretty busy road because it goes from one town to another and the semis go by a lot because, you know, spring season they're hauling tractors and in the fall season they're hauling corn.
17:12But you get used to that. That's part of it. But I'm not,  I'm not hearing the Catholic Church's bells toll three, four times a day. I'm not hearing cars go speeding up my road. I'm not hearing  all the things that drove me crazy.  it,  we basically bought the place that we wanted, that we really, really wanted.  And
17:39It feels like we don't ever want to go on vacation because living here feels like vacation, even though we have chickens and cats and a dog and a big garden. So whatever makes you happy is what you need to do. And as I've said quite a few times on my podcast, not everybody is cut out to live in the middle of the cornfields and alfalfa fields and soybean fields.
18:08There are a lot of people who really love living in the city. And if that's what floats your boat,  do that. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You  know, we are our South Carolina home is right next to the  the big city that we live nearby.  And  we love both places. We have family here.  So, you know, this is a convenient place close to all of our family. And then we also really love the mountain.
18:38um And  that's this nice little quiet  place that  is away from everything. um And so that...
18:50that dichotomy or that juxtaposition, I guess you could say  of the big city, kind of the city house and the mountain house has been really nice.  um,  and you can do  home setting and  all those kinds of things going off grid, even in, you know, more urban locations or suburban, because, uh, getting back to  the earlier point of like make, define a home setting for the way that you want it to be. If
19:20If you do want to be very social and  have things nearby, like lots of restaurants and concerts or whatever your thing is,  you can  have your cake and eat it too. You can live in  a place that's a little bit closer to town. You may have some smaller acreage. You may uh be just working on a patio out of like container gardening.
19:47But you may be to do other things. So everything's a give and take and you kind of think about it that way. Yep, absolutely. When we lived in town, we had four chickens in a garden shed. We made it into a chicken coop.  And we had, I don't know,  I would say 50 by 20 square feet of garden in the backyard. That was it. Yeah. And we had more than most people in our neighborhood. So that was great. And we grew lots and lots of really good produce.
20:16and shared it with the neighbors. And it was wonderful, but I just didn't want to be in town anymore. we decided to jump in 2020 and we're not sorry that we did it. So you said you're getting into homesteading. So what are you doing? What have you started doing for homesteading? Yeah. So I'm kind of bringing it more as like we're getting back to homesteading.
20:45Um, when I  lived before the  tiny house,  you say I had a big garden. had like a third of an acre garden in ground  and  bees and chickens and quail,  um,  and  doing a few other things like that, canning, all that kind of stuff. And at that time, uh, I was at least part of it. I was in an apartment, so I was able to do all that at a community garden.
21:15And, uh you know,  so I didn't even have to have the land and the cost was like 150 bucks a year to me  to just kind of get access to that. And then you had community alongside of it and, you know, fun activities to do and people to talk to and whatever. uh But then  now  we're kind of thinking about,  OK, you know, what are the things that  we want to do right now  while we are?
21:42kind of in two places, you know, there's certain practicalities like we're likely not going to be able to have livestock if we have to be away for a couple weeks at a time, let's just say. um But we could, you know, have a garden, especially raised beds where we kind of do heavy mulching and things like that.  We could have bees, we can do solar, you know, there's certain things that  are practical there. um So
22:11I think right now we kind of have developed a loose plan. We've gone on the land,  we've got the  house kind set up. One of the first things I did was build out a workshop to kind of be the jumping off point to  do all the other things. you know, having a place to build stuff, the materials on hand, the tools on hand.  in the book I talk about kind of orders of operation  when it comes to home setting and
22:40Workshop is kind of a key step after you've got your basic necessities nailed down like your shelter your water your sewage things electricity things like that So now that we have the workshop now, we're kind of We've been taking a little bit of time to kind of learn the land through the different seasons and That's been nice to one just enjoy the land. But then to we've learned a lot about okay, you know, it's
23:09When it rains heavy, it pulls here.  When it gets a little cold, you have these cold wells and these little spots.  The animals um that are around kind of come from this direction. So maybe we're not going to clear that way so we can leave their habitat. Things like that. The sun  angles and the shadows and all that kind of stuff that you learn throughout the year.
23:35So we're kind of coming to an end of just like learning the land a little bit. And now we're setting plans for the next things, mainly as the garden. We had to do some infrastructure work and we're still working on that. Just getting water where we want it to, power where we want it to be on the house. We took down an old barn just a couple of weeks ago so that we could put our kind of large garden.
24:05Uh, area we're going to do all raised beds  and  put our, our trees and our,  uh, beehives in it and then kind of fence the whole thing. with some,  uh, electric fence, because we have  several bears on property.  you know,  they love to munch on those,  uh, you know, you have to watch out for bears knocking over your hives to get the honey and things like that. So yeah, that's been kind of  the workflow so far is getting on the land.
24:35getting a few key things established, learning it, and then setting plans for what's next. That is so exciting. I'm listening to you and you have just got to be chomping at the bit to see how this goes.  Yeah, yeah. There's a long list. Well, I sat down  like a year ago and just like made a list of like, okay, these are all the things that I want to get done. And they were kind of the smaller steps in between.
25:03And then I ordered them and then I assigned dollar values because, you know, certain things cost, you know, for materials or whatever. And  I was like, oh, okay, I'm definitely not going to be doing this and all in the next year.  So how do I want to go about this? And so just kind of thinking through all the steps um was really exciting. And  also, you know, it allowed me to kind of prioritize things um and kind of paint that vision too.
25:33Yeah, I've said a lot of times on the podcast, start small, dream big.  And I stand by it because unless you are a millionaire, you can't do all the things all at once.  It's not affordable. Well, and even if you are a millionaire, like it takes time. It's all going to take time. Like there's a lot of work. There's a lot of moving pieces.  you know, ah
25:59I'm not going say having money is a bad thing, but like it also isn't the panacea for um kind of standing up a homestead that it could be. There's still a lot of work, time, effort and planning.  And I think frankly, you know, being a little bit more budget conscious, thinking about your dollars and things like that,  it slows you down just enough to make sure that you don't make any critical mistakes and you really think through your decisions.  I think that's an important part um that
26:29kind in the book I laid out some of the  kind of the common mistakes I see people make in their journeys. And  so yeah, I think it's just important to kind of take your time with it for sure. Start small, 100%. When I that the community garden for many years, I ran myself.  I was kind of like the head person once  I got kind of involved with it. And  every year I would have  probably like
26:5720 to 30 new gardeners come in and they always had big aspirations.  And I would always kind of coach them. like, okay, let's start small. Let's give you a hundred square feet. Let's start there.  And,  and you know, sometimes they would push back us like trust, know, just trust the process here. When it's August and it's miserable out and you have a bunch of weeds coming in, like you want it to be approachable and practical so that you're not just hating life as you're, you know, trying to weed.
27:26way more garden than you're used to. And every time it's worked out for them and they agreed in the end. And those who didn't heed the advice always ended up with a garden full of weeds that they couldn't keep up with. yeah, small, starting that way is definitely the way to go, even if you're experienced. Yes, exactly. And I'm going to use chickens as an example.
27:55If my husband had his way, we would have 200 chickens. He learned after we got up to about 36 chickens that having about 14 to 15 is a good number because there's enough eggs for us and there's enough eggs to sell to the neighbors in the farm stand. Yeah. Because 150 to 200 chickens, that's a lot of chicken coop cleaning out to do every week. Yeah.
28:25Yeah.  And you need to have an outlet for those eggs, right? Like you're not going to,  if you never,  if you haven't had a business, even a small side kind of thing, uh, selling eggs, like you're not going to go from zero to a hundred as much as you want. Um, and unless, I don't know, unless you just have a particularly good location or you're really tapping in heavily into  farmers markets, but there's probably already people there selling kind of the same goods that you have.  yeah.  Um,
28:55I think the most I ever had was about 15 chickens and  that was about right  for us at the time. Yeah.  And  honestly,  we did have, I think it was two, I  think it was last spring. I think we had 26 chickens  and now we're down to 14.  That's because chickens get um eaten by raccoons. Yeah.
29:24Or they just get sick without any notice, keel over and die. So old, you know, all those things. Absolutely. Yep. So if I was going to give anybody advice and I shouldn't, cause I don't know anything, I know enough to be dangerous, but if I was going to give people advice about chickens, I would say start with like five and see how it goes. And if you actually like taking care of them and then you can always add more.
29:54Yeah. So, so I try to keep these to half an hour, but I do have one last question.  How long did it take you to write your book and get it published? Let's  see. So this book, I had already had a publisher lined up and basically we worked with  Prince and Press  to kind of come up with a book concept. They wanted to be in this space.
30:23They liked my writing because they saw it through the website, the timeline.com. uh, so I've always been fortunate to always have a publisher and not have to like shop a book around. So I've never actually done that before, but, uh, so I had that on my side and then I focused on it for, uh, about six months. It was basically every single weekend, uh, because I work, you know, like, um, you know,
30:51Part of my own stuff consulting and then like a day job too. So I was doing a weekend and nights and things like that. So yeah, about six months of nights and weekends. Okay. So not, not forever, but it definitely took some time. Yeah. I mean, uh, this is probably one of my, I don't know. This is I think 60,000 words. So it was about middle of the road for my books and um,
31:19He's this is my ninth book  and yeah, it's a lot of words and then you have to edit it too. So we spent, you know, three months editing as well  on top of that. then, you know, kind of going to press and all that kind of stuff.  yeah, I mean, I always enjoyed the process. It's something that I  found that I really enjoy through the years,  the tiny life and through all the other books I've written as well.  And I was really excited to work on this one because it was
31:49Like said, the book that I wish I had handed to me when I first started. I'm sure people are going to appreciate everything in it because if it was the book you wanted, it's the book they probably want now. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Ryan, thank you so much for your time. Where can people find you? Yeah. So I appreciate the time and the conversation. For those who are interested, we're at thetinylife.com.
32:17And  in the store, you can find a link to the book as well.  But the book is available at your local bookstores,  all major retailers online,  and a bunch of indie kind of mom and pop bookstores in  stores as well. The title is called Living Off the Grid by Ryan Mitchell.  And I appreciate the time. Thank you so much, Mary. Are you on social media anywhere? Oh, we have presence there.
32:46We don't do a ton of social media anymore. We mainly focus on the website and our email So if people want to kind of like really stay in touch with us  I would encourage them to you know Just go to the website sign up with our newsletter and we'll kind of keep you in the loop on stuff  All right fabulous  as always people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast calm  Ryan. This was really fun. Thanks so much. Thank you. Have a great day
 
 

Bauer Family Farms

Today I'm talking with Leah at Bauer Family Farms. 
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00:00You'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. At Green Bush Twins and Company, we believe in the power of creativity, imagination, and art to bring people together.  Our mission is to inspire connection across all ages, encouraging understanding, individuality,  and a true sense of belonging. We're building more than a brand. We're growing a mindful community rooted in kindness, intention, and shared purpose.
00:29At our core, it's about real people sharing real stories, ideas, and products that make everyday life more meaningful.  If you believe in living with purpose and supporting brands that care,  you'll feel right at home with Greenbush Twins. That tiny homestead podcast is sponsored by Greenbush Twins and Company. Today I'm talking with Leah Bauer at Bauer Family Farms in  Faribault, Minnesota.  Good afternoon, Leah. How are you? Doing well. I got most of my chores out of the way, so I'm...
00:56sitting pretty with a nice coffee in my house and ready to chit chat about farm life.  Good.  And normally I would say, how's the weather? But you and I both know it is a gloriously beautiful day in Minnesota today.  Compared to yesterday, yes.  Yeah. And Saturday, Saturday, we got snow in the morning. Right. It was enough to to build up on the grass where we were at. We're we just had unhooked our our plow and everything and got it put away for the
01:26spring, which those couple of 80 degree days really, really had me going for a second there. Yeah. And I just said that wrong Sunday. It was yesterday morning. I'm not quite with it. Oh, you're right. Yeah. It was yesterday morning because I was up at five and at 515, I went out on the porch with my coffee and looked outside and I was like, I will be damned. It's snowing big white feathery flakes. Right. Which is not what you want to see once you've already had what? Five 80 degree days? Yeah.
01:55Yeah, it's  spring in Minnesota. Doesn't know what it's doing.  Oh,  it's coming. It's all going to be okay. Our rhubarb is leafing. Our tree line is leafing. My peonies are  up. They haven't budded yet. Thank God, because they'd be  useless if they had, because the snow would have killed them. We have um tulips up with buds on them. They haven't opened yet. um
02:24The tree has not bloomed yet. The apple trees have not bloomed yet. So that's good news too. We have about  500 cloves of garlic planted that are, I think like eight inches tall already. Wow. I know I'm so excited. We started,  I think in 2023, we planted 80 cloves from a neighbor  and the plan was to just  multiply it, you know, cause garlic is
02:50It's one of those things that if you plant one, then you usually get five to eight cloves back at the end of the season. Oh yeah. And so started with 80 and then replanted everything. And now we've got 500. So when we harvest, we should have 3000 or 4000 cloves to plant again at the end of this year. I am so jealous because we can't grow garlic here to save our lives. The dirt's too heavy, too black. You have more of a clay soil.
03:20Yes.  Yes, we do. That sucks. Garlic likes  soft soil, kind of a loamy almost so that it has room to expand. Yeah, I asked my husband if we should just put in a raised bed and, you know, make the soil what the garlic would like. And he said, yeah, we could do that. And we haven't done it yet.  It's easy to to get all of the dreams together.
03:47But then once it actually comes to putting the supplies together, that's a different story. Well, we're just not sure that we need to grow garlic because lots of people grow garlic in Minnesota.  And he really loves growing tomatoes, so he puts all his focus on tomatoes.
04:06I think  it was 2024 that  we did a ton of tomatoes  and I still have some in the freezer. We just,  we don't need a ton of them. And some other family in Wasika actually grows a greenhouse load of them. So they  cover us for that and we're going to stick with garlic, I think. It's lot of fun. Yeah. And garlic is like God's gift to cooking. So keep growing garlic, please.
04:35Yes, absolutely. We're hoping to put it in the farm stand if we get any  smaller heads that aren't suitable for planting at the end of this year. Yes. So we kind of jumped the gun here.  How about you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you came to be farming and what you do? Right. So we  just kind of started up the farm and the farm page this year, but I do have  a rural
05:05background and grew up out in the country.  Always had chickens when I was younger, but never really  cattle or  any other types of poultry or pork. ah So we're just really getting into it again, after a  few years hiatus  and  jumping in with both feet, you know, starting  chickens again, I have about 125 egg laying chickens.
05:34Very nice.  And I have  six New Zealand doe rabbits  and one buck. And we're hoping to get some quail eggs in the incubator soon, along with  hopefully doing cut flowers for the farm stand  and lots of vegetables.  I love a big garden and I do a lot of canning myself. And so most of it's for my own shelves. But I'm hoping to get my cottage license here soon and I'll be able to sell  my canned goods.
06:04Yes, do that. Cause I think it's still free. Oh yeah. To get the cottage license. It's  I've from  the women around me that have applied and gotten approved. said that the process is fairly easy.  It's super easy. have to renew mine and basically the website has a bunch of information you read through it. And then there's a  quiz. It's like 10 questions and you have to get seven or eight correct. Right.
06:33I mean, it almost sounds too easy. Anybody could do it, but maybe that's the point. Yes. Yes. And the thing is, if you don't love to cook, you're not going to bother to get your cottage registration. So I think it's fine. But yes, we we have a farm stand on our place too. And my intention over the next month or so is to start cooking some start cooking, start baking some cookies and get them packaged up and out there because
06:59People are stopping in for eggs anyway. And if there's like a little box of six cookies out there for eight bucks, maybe they'll buy them. Who knows? Oh yeah. I'm pretty terrible at the impulse buys. And so that would get me a hundred percent. Yes. And my cookies are way better than store-bought cookies. I promise. That rings true for, I think, at least 99 % of farm goods.
07:27Why buy it in the store when your neighbor can make it and you can barter for it or...  And it doesn't have preservatives in it. You're right. Exactly. Five ingredients compared to a paragraph. Yes. And thank God for that because the labels would be impossible to create. So  our neighbor, um the lady that I do the farm stand with, her name is Summer and her cottage name is Summer Flowers. It's kind of a play on words.
07:57Cute. so she does all of the cottage baking and she is incredible at it. I mean, she's she truly has a gift. I'm looking at uh jalapeno cheddar and cinnamon raisin loaves right now that I snagged  from the weekend.  And so she does a lot of  the cottage baking and I am going to supply cut flowers, fresh produce  and farm fresh eggs at the farm stand. So it's kind of a
08:27oh co-operation with the farm stand. But it's been a lot of fun so far. We've only been open, I think, three weekends now on Saturdays and Sundays.  Nice. So do you get a lot of traffic in there? Yes. They  have a gorgeous property and  it's a little brick building that I think used to be like a pump house or a garden shed or something, but  it was  repurposed  beautifully into what the farm stand is now.
08:56but lots of, uh, not nitpicking, but we'll change little things about it as the season goes. Yes. You'll have to re revamp it as the season goes. Right. Fresh pangy,  um, some decorations. I've saved seeds from when I grew  marigolds  last year and I have like a gallon bag full of marigold seeds that I just plan on kind of sprinkling everywhere.  That'll be really pretty.
09:26Marigolds are great for  chicken eggs too.  I don't know the exact science behind it, but they're supposed to lower the cholesterol  in chicken eggs, along with making the yolks darker. If the chickens eat the blooms? Both flowers  and the greenery on the plant too, I believe.  Cool. I didn't know that. I will have to let my husband know that. That would be really cool to plant some marigolds for them. Right.  I inherited a
09:55gallon bag of expired seeds from my mom  and was just kind of chaos planting everything because why not? You know, if it grows, it grows and I can separate it and put it where it belongs or it doesn't grow and becomes fertilizer. You know, one way or the other, it'll do okay.  But so I planted like eight packets worth of marigold seeds in like a two by two square.
10:25in one of my planting boxes and all of them germinated and it just became this super dense marigold bush that got like three feet tall.  bet it was gorgeous. Oh, you could smell it from  a mile away. It was great. But so I saved all the seeds from that and I'll plant them around our chicken pasture this year. Your chickens are going to love you.  I really hope so. Yeah. ah
10:54So  because we're talking  about the farm stand thing, I have a question for you. Do you know what scones are? S-C-O-N-E-S? Yes.  Summer makes  like blueberry white chocolate chip scones that are to die for. Okay. Are they like the ones at the grocery store that are really flat and dense or are they the ones that are fluffy? Oh, they're fluffy. They're so nice. Okay.
11:23The reason I ask is because one of things I'm thinking about baking and putting in the farm stand is scones. Because I make a really flaky, fluffy scone. And I'm not sure that people will even know what they are because the only scones I've seen for sale in Minnesota  are the ones at the grocery store that are flat and dense.
11:44Well, if your farm stand has a decent, I mean, you are on Facebook for the farm stand, right? Yes. I would just post them on Facebook first to gauge interest, maybe. I love those videos where people like take their sourdough loaf and split it in half and then like slowly open it to show the crumb. And squish it so it crackles. Yes, you could do that with the scones to show that they're not.
12:14dense kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I was so flabbergasted when I, when I bought scones at the store the first time I was like, these are terrible.  same thing has been going for the  sourdough English muffins. The ones that I just bought at Aldi like a month ago are  so small and so sad and so thin.
12:42And the ones that I am looking at in front of me are like an inch thick and they're fluffy. You'll, you'll never go back once you have one. Yes. And that's the other thing I wanted to, I wanted to bring up since we're talking about this particular subject,  everybody has their own magic when they cook. And if you're, if you're a good cook, that magic can't help, but be infused into the food.  So.
13:09One person can make a scone and another person can make a scone  and they can be  absolutely wonderful and delicious,  but they're going to be different because two different people made them. I've always kind of wondered if different sourdough bakers, if their starters have like a different. I don't know, flavor or like base to them.  I don't think so. I think what's different, I think it's just water and flour.
13:38I mean, it could be different kind of flour, obviously, but it's water and flour. What it is that every home has a different environment. What's in the air? Oh, interesting. And so that's what makes it different. But I also think that it's how the person actually makes whatever they're making out of the starter, how they make the bread or the pizza dough or whatever. Right. I know I've followed a recipe before where if you don't mix all the dry ingredients before you
14:07add the wet ingredients, then that can change the entire outcome. Yeah, chemistry is amazing.
14:15Chemistry is a pain in the butt, but it's also amazing. Right. It wasn't my forte in high school. I'll admit that. Yeah, I was okay with chemistry and biology. Physics was the one that kicked my butt. I don't think I ever made it to physics. I really loved uh reading, literature, English,  writing. I loved all that stuff. Yeah, that was more my thing. I'm good at math. I just don't enjoy it at all. And physics is a lot of math.
14:43So that's probably why physics was very hard for me. Algebra was easy.  was,  I think geometry is what sucked. Once you get into like the cosine and tangent and that kind of stuff, that's where it tripped me up a little bit. Yeah. And what's funny is as a homesteader or a farmer, we all tend to use geometry without even thinking about it.  Right. But it's because it's practically applied geometry.
15:14I know that every teacher that told me that I wouldn't have a calculator in real life was absolutely wrong. Yeah, funny how that worked out.  You're not always going to have a calculator a hundred years later. Oh, really? Right. I have one right here in my pocket.  And not only do I have that in the same device, I have a camera  and a video camera  and a way to access the answer to any question ever asked by any man ever.
15:43It's  terrible, but it is true. It's real handy though.  I do believe that thinking for yourself is important, but having answers easily available is also  so much more convenient. Yes, like why is my dog scratching at her ear? Oh, she might have ear mites. What can I do about ear mites?  You can put olive oil in a Q-tip and put it inside of her ear and it will kill the ear mites.
16:13Right. That's $200 that I can save instead of taking her to the vet and... And it worked. Oh, right. It's... love... I consider myself a semi-crunchy type person. Like, I love the holistic approach to bumps and scrapes and bruises, but I'll still go and get myself a nice coffee kind of thing. Oh, yes. Absolutely. They will pry my coffee from my cold dead hands.
16:44They'll do their best at least. Yeah, I don't know. My spirit might come back into my body because I'll be really angry. I don't know. I'm just being silly. So you have chickens. What else do you have? Right. So we raise New Zealand rabbits, mainly for meat. I have a couple of pelts in the feet and the heads in my freezer. I am a sucker for oddities, curiosities, that kind of thing.
17:14And so that world is in my wheelhouse as well. I sell any rabbits that don't make it or die of natural causes and some chicken eggs to the save a fox rescue out of Millersburg.
17:32So they take some of the rabbit products. Otherwise, we're trying to market rabbit meat for human consumption as well. yes, definitely. Rabbit is really yummy. Millersburg, where is that? Oh, it would be north of Faribault, think like 15 miles or so. And then it's west of I've 35. And they are what?
18:01What's the place that you're? It's called Save a Fox  and it's all one word. Yeah. They're pretty popular on Facebook, I think. They have a couple of different Facebook pages, though, but they're great. They rescue foxes from fur farms and let them live their happy little fox lives in a contained environment.
18:26I'm going to have to look them up and see if they will chat with me because I like, I like talking to people that are sort of adjacent to what I talk about. Yeah. I, I don't know if they would be open to it or not, but  they've, I think they're above a million followers on Facebook. Wow.  I know they're awesome too.  The people that work with Fox's  have a lot of patients, I think. Yes. And it's interesting because I was brought up being told that
18:54that wild animals are wild animals and that you don't really get to be anywhere near friends with them. But there is a uh fox rescue that I do follow it. I don't think it's the one you're talking about though. I think it's another one.  And  they have foxes that they rescued that literally will eat out of their hands and sit in their laps.  right. Yes. The foxes  at ah that rescue,  they...
19:23are like nine generations  bred out of the out of  a wild habitat. So they're completely they're like a cat and a dog's body, I think is how they refer to them. Yeah. Yep. It's just it's so funny because like I saw on Facebook,  I find everybody I talk to on Facebook. So I spent a lot of time on Facebook. I shouldn't, but I do.  And there was a guy that rescued a coyote.
19:52It had gotten hit by a car and it was, it was really hurt and took it to the vet. The vet got it fixed up and then the guy took care of it while it was in recovery.  The coyote comes back all the time to visit the guy. He let him go. The guy let the coyote go wild and the coyote comes back to see him all the time. That's really sweet. We've, it's, been a, I've, I've loved working with animals  since
20:21I was younger, maybe it started with a chicken obsession, but who knows? But I would love to in the near future, if not, maybe like a five-year plan or something, but I would love to have a wildlife rescue.
20:37uh I would love for you to have a wildlife rescue too so I can come visit.  Right. ah A lot of times in the spring people disturb like cottontail nests or a baby bird falls out of the tree or a possum gets hit on the highway kind of thing. I just really enjoy that  rehabilitation work.
21:01Yes. And if you do it, I hope you get to rehabilitate baby raccoons because we had some visit last spring and oh my God, they were cute. They, their little hands just kill me.  They're little squeaks. The noises they make.  I know they're the best. I love little raccoons. That's a lot of,  um, roadkill happens in the spring because all these animals are trying to feed their young right now. So it's  in the spring, it's  usually a good time to take your
21:31speed down five, 10 miles an hour or so on the highways because everything's crossing. Yes. And sometimes you hit people's barn cats and they die. And that's really hard on us who own the barn cats. Yeah. For Fairbolt has a really heavy, uh,  feral cat population as well.  There's,  um, the Fox rescue in Millersburg and Fairbolt, there is furball farms. Yes.  I actually did a, an article about them for, um,
22:02River Valley Woman Magazine a few years back. They're so much fun. They have a pretty huge following around here. They're kind of like a local  celebrity type thing. But a lot of my family has gone to just go hang out with the cats. They have events where you can just go in and hang out and. Yes, and if you love cats, you will love being there because there are cats  everywhere.
22:33I love cats. My husband is more of a loves kittens,  not the adult cats. Yes.  So we do have two of our own along with our livestock guardian dog. She's a great Pyrenees. Her name's Mika. Nice.  But then the two cats are kind of indoor outdoor. If  it's a thunderstorm, they get to come hide out in the garage. But typically they like spending their days outside.
23:01So I have a question. your cats like your dog?  They don't snuggle, but they respect each other's space.  Okay. The reason I ask is our barn cats  love our dog. Our dog is an Australian shepherd and she's only about 36 pounds. And we just got three new kittens. They were like 16 to 20 weeks old when we got them last summer.
23:29They wanted nothing to do with Maggie at first. They wanted nothing to do with anybody at first. And now in the morning they come running up when we let her outside and  they just rub up against her and purr. And I'm like, didn't take you guys very long to be friends, did it? Right. You have very well tempered cats and the dog, I think. Well,
23:51Maggie would have been a great mama dog, but we got her spayed when she was six months old because puppies was not on the bucket list.  Right. We had a,  German shepherd just passed in January and he was the same way. I really wish we hadn't gotten him neutered because his temperament was  ideal. Yup. But  you can't, you can't know.  And also there are so  many.
24:20animals in the world that are in shelters that don't have a home and I was just like I don't want her to get pregnant by oh geez a dog that's too big and she ends up dying because the puppies are too big right she's small dog and There was no guarantee we could find homes for puppies. So I was just like the smartest thing is to Make her not a mama permanently and it's sad
24:49But it was probably the smartest thing we did. Right.  I would love to someday go to a shelter and adopt like who's who's been there the longest or the senior dog that got surrendered or something like that. I would love to give  somebody's pet uh a good ending to their life. Yes. Oh, I love that.  I love that. And actually, that's probably what we'll end up doing when Maggie is no longer with us. We probably will never get a puppy.
25:18again because my husband and I are both 56 and puppy energy is a lot and I can't imagine going through it in our 60s. So we'll probably just get  a dog that is a dog, not a puppy. We still try to get out and travel as much as we can. We also have two small children here in our homestead, farmstead, whatever you want to call it. um But they're two years and six months.  so young children and the farm makes travel.
25:47pretty difficult, but someday we'd like to  be able to take a month off in the winter and go to Mexico or something. But having too much going on and  needing to find someone to watch  everything, you know, and be able to learn feeding schedules and all that is  such a challenge.  It is. And we're going through that too, because it's just my husband and I.  So
26:16If we want to go somewhere,  we really can't because  I don't know what you know about Australian Shepherds, but they are very, very close with their people, but not really close with anybody else. Oh, so she wouldn't do well with like a doggy hotel type thing.  No,  no, she would not. I suspect she probably would go on a hunger strike. And she also is scared to death of people, strangers.
26:45So even if we could take her with us, all she would do the whole time we were not home, if she was with us, is bark. So  we have the joy of having a wonderful dog, but we also have the pain of knowing that it's gonna be a problem if we actually wanna go somewhere. Right? It's like a, kinda like a toddler in that respect. Yes, exactly.
27:12And honestly, it is a lot like a toddler. husband took her out and  threw the frisbee for her last night.  And I got up at midnight to go potty and she was snoring in her crate in her crate. I thought you were going to say crib.  Yeah, almost.  I was going to say kennel and I'm like, it's not really a kennel. It's a crate, but she was snoring and I was like, wow, he must have run her  hard.  That's so funny. Yeah. But anyway, um,
27:41So you said chickens, you said rabbits. Do you have other animals or is that it for now? For now, that's it. We have done pigs in the past, but  as  typical farm life goes, we found ah things that needed to be stored in the shed that the pigs were kept in. So it turned from livestock back into storage and  we just haven't really had the time.
28:11with two small children to start pigs up again. I would like to start quails soon. I'm hoping my incubator has sat empty for about a week and I'm starting to get the itch to hatch eggs again.
28:23Yep.  It's so funny because quail is very much on the radar here and it keeps coming up in these conversations with you guys. uh We're thinking about it. We're about 50 % sold on the idea of getting quail. I just found a little hutch on Facebook Marketplace  and so I think that I would keep quailing that. We have thought about doing other poultry, know, throwing some turkeys or something in with the chickens.
28:51Getting turkey eggs or turkey poults is  they're so expensive. It's insane. I think I saw a sign in Tractor Supply that was like $18.99 for one turkey pulled.  Really? Yeah, like wildly expensive  and nobody around me has any hatching eggs available. So are  chicken chicks expensive this year too? Like five or six bucks a piece? Well, I mean, it depends on if you want
29:20barnyard mix or if you want some sort of purebred specialty type. So I ordered from Hoover's Hatchery for our egg layers that I, oh, I think they were Valentine's Day chicks. So they're, I don't know how many weeks old that would make them. They're about to start laying next month. So we got 70 there and those were.
29:47between four to six dollars a piece, because I went with the more budget-friendly breeds. But I see a lot of people hatching ah like cream leg bars, which do the blue eggs or  the black copper morans, which give you the dark chocolate eggs.  Those can be like nine to fifteen dollars a check if you're getting them from purebredlines. I swear, just like two years ago,
30:17The not fancy chicks were only like a buck and a half a piece.  I would love to know where you saw those prices. It might have been three or four years ago, but it wasn't that long ago that they weren't five to six dollars a piece.  Right. I know that backyard chicken keeping has become wildly popular, especially after the pandemic. think a lot of people turned to  wanting to be more self-sufficient ah after you couldn't find toilet paper at Walmart.
30:47made a lot of people panic on uh the whole food supply in America.  It absolutely did. That's why so many people moved out of the towns and cities they were in out into the country. And I'm not going to like throw any shade about that because I think that if you can do it, you should. Right. Absolutely.  I fully support anybody that wants to  commit to  a lifestyle in the country. Yeah.
31:15Yeah, I do too. And it's not for everybody. There are lots of people who really want to live  in  an area where there are people around. I am not one of them. I really, really value being  not surrounded by people anymore. Let's put it that way.  Right. I grew up 20 minutes from  the nearest  town. And so going into town to the grocery store with my mom was always a trip.
31:45You know, was preparation to get out of the house took 20 minutes in itself, 20 minutes to drive to the grocery store and then 20 minutes back home. Yeah, it was like half the day. But I always would go to sleepovers at a friend's house and not be able to sleep because of the headlights bouncing off the walls at night. It's like, how can you how can you sleep like this? There's so much going on outside. Like, aren't you worried about
32:13people looking in your windows or, you why is your neighbor's window pointing at your kitchen? Uh huh. That's, it's just the strangest concept to me being stacked on top of other people like that. Yes. And it's part of the reason that we decided to move five and a half years ago. Well, actually almost six years ago,  we moved in here on August  7th  of 2020. Wow. You have a very good memory. Well,
32:40Part of the reason I remember it is because I spent the first night I spent here was August 3rd into the 4th because we, had to be here because they were going to hook up the internet and bring a stove because this place didn't have a cook stove when we bought it. So I had to be here on August 4th in the morning and I vividly remember going to sleep on the couch downstairs that we had moved in. So I had a place to sleep.
33:10And I couldn't sleep. I was just so excited to be spending the first night here. And my husband was actually at the old house because he had to work and it was much closer for him to stay where we were living before to drive to work.  And we hadn't moved clothes down here yet. And I could not sleep because I was so excited and because it was so  quiet.
33:37That's like the night before a field trip when you're a kid that you're just jittering in bed. so excited. Your backpack's ready. Your clothes are set out. Yeah. And I've told the story a billion times, but I'll tell it again because it's one of my favorites. I made sure to set the alarm on my phone for before sunrise because the window over the kitchen sink faces east. And I really wanted to see the first sunrise out over the field. Oh, that's so exciting.
34:05I think I slept an hour the first night I stayed here  and I was definitely awake for sunrise and it was worth every second of it.  I hope you took a picture or something that would be a framed photo.  I have a picture  of looking at the window so it's not like through the window at the sunrise it's just the window and you can see the sunrise outside so it's not
34:33It's not necessarily focused on the sunrise. It's focused on my cute little kitchen window over the sink. But either way,  just, feel like certain people are city people and they always will be. And that's where they're comfortable and they love it. And there are certain people who are not and that's where they're comfortable and they love it. I think that  anything worth having you have to work for.  so convenience,
35:03kind of  kills part of that.
35:09Yes,  I agree.  do. However, I am a sucker for a good burger and I don't mean the ones we make here at home. So I'm real happy that one of the best dive bars in Minnesota is in Lesour. What is it called?  It's called the Bar and Grill. That's very vague.  Yes, it's very original. It's a bar and a grill and they make a really, really good burger. But the best thing they make is homemade onion rings.
35:38battered onion rings. Oh, I put onions and mushrooms and almost everything I make. Uh huh. So when we're going to celebrate something, we we go grab a burger and really good onion rings at the bar and grill. That's awesome. I think there was just a do you know where Lonsdale is? I do. The Shields Lake cheesecake was just on the news.
36:05And I've never heard of them. Really? Oh my gosh, they're it's the best cheesecake you'll ever have in your life. Is it a it a bakery? It's they only sell cheesecake. OK, so so is it like a store? Yes, they have a storefront in  Lonsdale. I think that the city of Fairbolt put up too much of a fuss about regulations, and so they intended to  open their storefront in Fairbolt, but
36:35opted for Lonsdale instead. They're the type of place that you have to get there and wait in line because they sell out so quickly. is a that's a terrible problem to have. Boy, I don't know. It's I they it was worth I got there early one day and didn't have to wait in line for my cheesecake. But it is it is a hefty slice that you get.
37:03and they do all sorts of different flavors and concoctions. They supply weddings. Huh? I might have to go check that out. I would say it's worth it. Yeah, because I'm kind of a real sucker for cheesecake, which is why I only eat it about once every five years, because otherwise I would eat it every day. Okay, awesome. Well, I try to keep this half an hour. We're at almost 37 minutes. So.
37:31I am going to cut you loose, but before we go, where can people find you? So Bauer Family Farms is  currently only on Facebook. Bauer is spelled B-A-U-E-R. That is so far our only socials. We're getting connected to a couple of farm stand websites  and  the name is spelled the same in all those spots.  Okay. Hopefully  someday I'll connect to Instagram or TikTok, but for now it's just Facebook.
38:00That's good enough. It's a place where people can find you online, which means that I can link to it for you in the show notes. All right, Leah, this was really fun. Thank you for your time. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you. You too. See you later.