A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Magnolia Morning Co. 
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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:29Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Magnolia Morning Company in Georgia. Good morning, Jennifer. How are you?  Good morning. I'm great. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather where you are?  Actually, it's a beautiful day. It's not so hot. We've had some really hot weather here in Georgia,  like scorching hot. But today is probably in the high 80s and it's calm. We might have some storms later on this afternoon. So it's a pretty nice day here.
00:58Same here in Minnesota. Yesterday, it felt like September. It was 65 degrees for the high here.  That's beautiful. That's the perfect weather. think high 60s are the perfect temperature to me.  But then again, here lately, I'm cold and hot and cold and hot.  So I feel like I've got an internal thermometer that's going crazy all the time.  Yeah. It was a beautiful reprieve from the three weeks of tropical dew points we'd had before.
01:27I bet, I bet.  We don't get that in Minnesota very often and my god was I reminded how much I hate humidity.  It's awful. So does my beautiful Australian shepherd dog. was dying.  She kept looking at me like save me and I'm thinking I can't save you. can't shave you.
01:53I went to Michigan one time and got off the airplane up there and I immediately felt like I could breathe so much better. I was like, oh, the air is not heavy. It just feels wonderful. And I kept asking people, does it, is it like this all the time? Can you breathe? And the air feels, doesn't feel so heavy. And they're like, yeah, what are you talking about? You know, they just don't have a clue what it's like down here with all the humidity.  Yeah.
02:19Like Minnesota is supposed to be like Michigan, but this summer has been ridiculous.  And I'm going to say it because I'm very excited about it. This heat that we've been having all summer has been wonderful for our gardens.  this week is tomato ripening week. The tomatoes are ripening in our garden.  Yes. Yes. My son has a little small garden as well, and he's been excited about his tomatoes.  So I can understand that.
02:48I bet he doesn't have 190 plants getting ready to pop.  Holy cow, no. But if I would let him, he probably would.  He has a green thumb. I unfortunately have a black thumb.  I want to see things grow. I enjoy watching them grow. I especially enjoy, you know, fruits and vegetables, but I don't do well taking care of them. I don't. But he definitely has the gift of
03:16My dad was really good with that. My dad could grow anything.  And my son has inherited that gene, I believe. So he grows beautiful things. He's got plants all throughout his room and a garden out here. And he takes care of all the flowers and all the things.  growing is a beautiful thing. a hundred, how many did you say? A hundred and eighty?  Over a hundred and ninety tomato plants in the garden.  Wow. That's impressive.
03:45Yep. And our friends and neighbors will be very happy because they'll be buying canning tomatoes from us until probably mid September. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, we're excited because last two summers we haven't really had very many because the weather was not kind to us. So we've been waiting and crossing everything we have and holding our breath all summer to see how this crop did. And it's looking really, really good. We just brought in the first ripening.
04:14They're not red yet. They're not ready to eat, but they are definitely blushed. So that's fantastic. Well, good for y'all. I'm glad it's going to be fruitful for you this year. I hope so. I hope so. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Jennifer. Well, I am a mother of five and a grandmother to two. I have two little grand boys that are eight and four.  And I am
04:44A full-time everything.  And I'm sure you know what that means,  but I'm a full-time mom, a full-time grandmother, a full-time worker. have a full-time job.  I've been working since I was 15 years old.  Work is just what I do.  I'm a worker bee.  Married to a wonderful man for almost 35 years who is also a worker bee.  And we just stay busy a lot.
05:14you know, and there's always something to do or something to take care of or somewhere to be or some errand to go or some crisis happening. We seem to have a lot of crisis in our family. I don't know why that is.  but, you know, it's a lot of fires to put out a lot of a lot of the time.  So personally, that's that's me in a nutshell,  just busy all the time. And that is how Magnolia Morning Company came about.
05:44I needed to slow down.  when I say needed, I mean mentally and physically needed to slow down. My body started screaming at me and I had some episodes of some medical things that made me take pause and go, okay,  I've got to quit stressing out so much.  I've got to calm this down. I'm a natural worrier.
06:13My brain stays going all the time and I just think things through. think about every scenario and I think about it backwards and forwards and it mentally takes a toll on you, you know, and I didn't know how to shut that off. And I would, you know, be busy doing things for my family and taking them here and there and letting them do the things they enjoyed.  And when my husband, bless his heart, he almost works seven days a week.
06:42When he gets a little time off, he goes to do some things that he enjoys with his friends.  And I'm standing around one day and I'm going, you know, everybody else is doing something and I don't really know what to do.  I don't know how to stop. don't know how to, I'm just, you know, nobody was in the house and I was there. I was, you know, cleaning the kitchen or mopping the floor or something. And I was like, Jennifer, just slow down.  Just stop. Just take a pause and just rest.
07:10And I realized I didn't quite know how to do that.  And the more I thought about it and thought about it and had some conversations with my girlfriends and they were like, yeah, Jennifer, you stay going all the time and doing, need to slow down.  But I just didn't understand how I was supposed to do that. You know, and I've, guess I've grown up thinking that rest meant being lazy.  And that's kind of how I equated it for so long.
07:38So I didn't, so when I stopped, when I would stop and try and rest, I felt guilty. And I felt like I didn't deserve to do that. There were other things calling my name that I needed to take care of this or do that or go somewhere and handle this. And it just became harder and harder for me to do. And so when I had these conversations with my friends and things and thought a lot about it and put some, some time thinking about it and reading about rest and relaxation, I realized, you know,
08:09I need this.  I mentally need it, I physically need it, and it's okay. There's nothing wrong with rest.  And that I didn't have to have anybody else's permission to do that.  So I started trying to figure out what I could do when I rest. I that sounds crazy, but you know, sometimes it's hard just to sit still. And I didn't know how to sit still, but I also didn't know
08:37really what I enjoy to do if I were to rest, if I were to find something that I wanted to do to entertain myself, to do something just for me, what would I do?  And so in thinking of all that, and I was talking to my husband one night and I was telling him about it and I said, you know, I said, I bet there's other people out there like me. I bet there are women that are my age and I'm in my early 50s and I bet there are women that
09:06are like me that don't really know how to rest and don't know what to do when you rest and or even maybe don't even know what they like anymore because they've spent the entirety of their life taking care of somebody else, which is what I feel like I've been doing.  And not that I'm complaining. That's just, you know, what I did all my life. I took care of somebody, whether it be my parents or my children or my grandchildren or something.  And so
09:35We were talking about it and I was like a light bulb went off and I thought, you know, why don't I put something together and share it with other women and let them know that it's okay if we rest, if we stop,  if we just take a pause,  if we just collect our thoughts or we just have some me time. It's so mentally important to have that me time. And I'm just now learning this because I've not
10:04I've not done that my entire life. I've not done that.  I've always been a doer and a fixer and I wanted to make everybody else okay. I wanted to do whatever was necessary,  jump whatever hurdle there was to make somebody else's life easier.  And I didn't complain about that. That's just what I did. And I enjoyed it for many, many years. I enjoyed it.  And
10:33But nobody ever stepped up to make my life better or easier. And I was starting to realize that maybe I needed some of that. You know, I needed somebody else to say, Jennifer, you don't have to fix this for me. Let me do something for you. Let me give you something. Let me help you take a pause. Let me make your life a little easier.  so long story short, that's where Magnolia Morning Company came from.
11:03I wanted to give something to women to know that they can just take a pause,  that investing in their self is so utterly important that we can't give to anybody else until we give to ourselves first.  Because you can't give from an empty cup, can't pour from an empty cup.  And we do it most often.
11:27We dip out of nothing and we take that lack of energy that we have and we take care of and we do for people all the time, every day. But we need to replenish that in ourselves.  So that's what this is about.  When I was little, I grew up for the lack of better terminology in the South and we were poor. And I don't remember living in a house that had running water.
11:57I used an outhouse for many years as our bathroom.  And unfortunately, my parents were alcoholics.  so although they did not mistreat me in any way, but when they drank, mistreat or would mistreat each other. There was a lot of arguing and yelling and those kinds of things. So I spent a lot of time trying to hide.
12:26per se and stay out of the way, not to cause any friction or problems.  And then I started my first attempt at trying to fix things for people, even when I was young, because I thought if I could do things for my mom and dad to make them happy,  then they would be nicer to each other and there wouldn't be any arguing that day or anything like that.  so when I would
12:56try and hide and stay out of the way when they were, you know, drinking and not acting on their best behavior. I would go out to our front yard, which had this unbelievably big magnolia tree.  And I played under that magnolia tree. And I played, that was my home away from home. That was my spot. I climbed it. I played under it with all my cats. We had tons of cats in my house and
13:23They were all outside cats, but I loved them. They were like my little kids.  We played store. played, you know, we rode, I rode bikes and put the cats in my little basket with me and rode around, you know.  But that magnolia tree was my home base. That was where I felt the safest. I took naps there.  I brought food out there. had picnics out there.  That was my calm. And so that's where.
13:51the name came from for this business was because that was my calm space. If I had to think of any place in the world that was my calm space, that Magnolia tree was.  So that's where Magnolia morning came from.  Morning being just that each day is a new beginning.  And I wanted to project that in the name of my business.  So.
14:16So with that said, put it all together and came up with this company and I want to give women permission every month to know that they don't have to have permission. want to give them the okay to say,  hey, you can just take a minute.  You can just stop what you're doing and you can just relax and enjoy something that is meant just for you.
14:42You don't have to say, hey, do you mind if I go here? Or hey,  let me take five minutes here. Just do it. You've got something in front of you that's made just for you. I thought about it.  I've put these things together for women that I thought they would enjoy. And I want you to just take a pause. I want you to take 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, however long you want to, whether it's the first thing.
15:11every morning or or if it's late in the evening after everyone goes to bed or or I don't know when you come home from work and you just want some downtime whenever it's convenient for you. I want you to carve some time out and I want you to open that box and I want you just to enjoy some of the things that I've put in there.  And that's what Magnolia Morning Company is about.
15:36Very nice.  what will the people, what will the women get when they sign up for this? Well, every month is going to be different, of course, but there will be some few things that are staples.  I want to include some things that I enjoy,  like I have to say, I'm a coffee drinker.  Do you drink coffee?  Yeah,  coffee just calms me a little bit.  so
16:07I'm gonna include some coffee in your box every month.  And because I also enjoy some hot tea, I'm gonna include that as well.  So you can try it. And it's probably gonna be some things that maybe you've never tried before, but I want you to be adventurous and I want you to try it one time and see what you think.  So each month you're gonna have something to drink, okay? And then you're also something that's gonna be a staple every month is you're gonna get a new scent of a beautiful candle every month.
16:37I don't know if people realize how calming scents can be to you, but I can light a candle in a room and then walk by and smell that. And then all of a sudden just take a deep breath and go, you know. So I want you to be able to enjoy that each month. And I've taken a lot of time to smell hundreds of candles.  Matter of fact, I went one time to a store that sells
17:05candles and lotions and stuff with my son.  And we were in there for over an hour and he looked at me when we left. said, mama, I think you smelled every scent in there. I said, I did.  And he said, and you bought only one thing. And I said, yep.  I said, because that's the only scent that resonated with me. Everything else, it didn't do anything for me. I wanted to do something for me. So I smelled of them all, you know? And he just laughed. He said, I've never met anybody like you before, mama.
17:35I that's okay, you've got a unique mom.  But I've smelled of all these scents and all of them did something for me and I hope they'll do something for everybody else too. But I want you to be able to get this box every month and I want you to find your favorite cozy place,  wherever that is. For everybody, I'm sure it's different. It could be your front porch, it could be your back porch on a screen porch, it could be inside in your bed, it could be in a...
18:02a chair or a rocker or wherever, or even in your front lawn, know, wherever is comfortable for you, that you feel the most relaxed.  And I want you to just open this box and I want you just to read and enjoy and experience everything that's in it. Um,  along with something to drink and something beautiful to smell.  want to include, um, a craft per se.  Um,
18:29We're not talking something that you've got to go buy supplies for and all those things. Anything you need to do this craft is going to be included.  I want to make it easy for you. But I think women sometimes forget that doing things like being crafty can be fun.  If you've raised kids, you know that sometimes being crafty comes with school projects and last minute things and it gets frustrating and nobody wants to have to do all those things.
18:58So sometimes we get a little bit of a bad taste in our mouth about being crafty. But I used to, years ago, own a business where I went around and did signs for people. We did craft parties where you made your own wooden sign for home decor in your house. And the number of women that told me they had no idea they would enjoy that was amazing. Every party we had, had women that would say,
19:27I didn't know I'd enjoy doing this. I didn't know I would enjoy painting and staining and doing all these things.  And it's because we just don't take time. We don't take time to experience some of the things in life that are out there because we're so busy doing for somebody else.  So that's the purpose of having some type of craft in here is because I want you to experience the joy of making something for yourself and being able to see it and use it and experience that downtime.
19:55And then there are going to be some other things in boxes that are going to come,  you know, one of the things that you're going to get in a box is a journal to use. Now I know not everybody journals and I know there are going to be some women out there that go, I don't want a journal. I don't, I don't write. I don't spend time writing. And that's okay.  I've never been a consistent journaler either.  But one thing I have learned is that if I take the time to write down some thoughts,
20:25I can one,  possibly see my thought process a little clearer.  And two, when I go back and read it, I understand a little better about where my mind was at the moment.  So it gives me some clarity that I may not always have had.  So I encourage women to use a journal.  I don't mean you have to put an entry in it every day or every time you do something,  but I would encourage women to use it when
20:55maybe they feel a little conflicted or maybe even a little sad or down about something or confused or whatever. just, would encourage them to write their thoughts down and maybe go back at certain times and reread them. And I think it'll give you some clarity that you didn't know you could get from writing words on a piece of paper.  I've always been a writer. I've enjoyed writing. I used to write poetry.
21:22I wrote poetry for a calligraphy company and had greeting cards from my poems. And the joy that I could see people getting from getting a card with a poem that I wrote on it is just wonderful.  I like to make other people happy.  And words sometimes can make people happy.  Sometimes people need to hear things they don't realize they need to hear.  I just did a video the other day about grief.
21:51And I know that's not something that people talk about every day, but I had had some close friends lose someone that meant a lot to them. And I wanted to let them know that it was okay to grieve because they were having some conflicting thoughts about,  I know I feel like I need to be okay for everybody else and maybe not cry in front of somebody. And I wanted to let them know that that's okay. That's part of life. It's the way we do.  words mean a lot to people.
22:18and they can heal, they can hurt,  but they can also give you clarity.  And so hence the reason behind the journal.  And there's gonna be some other things in and out of boxes that I think will be special editions. There's another special edition in the first box that I think is gonna be delightful that I didn't realize I needed to put in the box. And I don't wanna tell you exactly what it is, because I don't want to spoil any surprises for anybody, but it's,
22:48It's kind of funny. I'll tell a story about it once the box comes out, but it's something that after I did it, I was like, I would have never thought in million years I would put this in for other women to enjoy, but I've actually really enjoyed it because everything that I put in the box, I test out myself. I do myself. I see how it makes me feel and do I get some joy from it? Do I enjoy it? Does it feel easy enough? Does it feel simple enough so that people can enjoy having that downtime?
23:17And so this particular thing I did and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it and how much it made me smile. And I hope that's the kind of reaction that women get from this particular item as well.  so yeah, so that's kind of the things that I want the box to be for other women. I just want it to be your monthly pause that you, you get that it's
23:44you know, been sent directly to you, for you, about you, not to share with anybody else, not to let your kids go through and look at it go, oh, I want to do this with you. I want to take care of this. No, I want you to do it. I want you to experience it. I want you to know that I set and thought about you when I put these things together. And I thought about what women as a whole needed or wanted to experience that they don't get to do on an everyday basis.
24:15So yeah, that's a little bit about the box.  I call it the reset box because I want it to be a reset for you. I want you to just take that time and be calm,  collected,  enjoy, maybe giggle a little bit,  maybe make some mistakes or do something funny or write something down that you hadn't thought about.  And I just want you to have that experience. I want you to know that you're worth it and you deserve it.
24:44and we should start taking control of our time a little better to reset our minds and our hearts and our soul. So yeah, that's about the box.
24:58Sure.  So everything that I put in the box,  I test out.  I try to get the experience that you would have open in the box and doing these things because I want to know what it's like because if it's not going to be enjoyable, I don't want to put it in the box because I want you to have items that bring you joy,  that bring you some comfort, bring you some peace and some relaxation.  yeah, so I've, you know,
25:25put something in the box that I would have never put in, ever thought in a million years, I would have put that in there.  But in doing it, I found some calm and some sense of accomplishment. And I found myself smiling and I was super proud of what I had done. And I was like, huh, I should have been doing this more often. I don't know why I haven't thought about that I could do this.  It wasn't hard. It was one of the most simple things I'd ever done.
25:53And I think I had overcomplicated it in my head and I was super proud. So I'll certainly tell that story once everybody gets a box.  But, it's gonna seem so simple and so silly, but you you just, you learn things about yourself.  I think that's another thing about the reset box that I want people to experience is maybe learn a little more about some likes, some dislikes, some things that you didn't know whether you would enjoy or not.
26:23maybe taste some things that you might not would have normally tasted.  I just want it to be a great experience for women. I want it to be just for you. I want it to be nothing that you share.  You don't even have to tell anybody about it if you don't want to. Let it be your box.  Somebody says, hey, what did you get? Just nothing. It's for me. Don't worry about it. But just take it somewhere and find some time.
26:48to enjoy, even if you can't do it all at one time, break it up into minutes, know, 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and just have some good, good old fashioned me time. Enjoy. And then I'd love to hear what everybody thought about it and what you liked, what you didn't necessarily like, what you'd like to see more of, what you'd like for me to include. I'm always up for suggestions.  But I just want it to be a fun time, just a little time out for women to enjoy. We are so busy.
27:17all the time doing the things and we deserve to have some me time. So that's what the box is about.  love this Jennifer and it might seem a departure from my podcast to be talking with you but I don't think that it is because women who are running their own businesses or their own homesteads or their own farms they're busy and they're tired and yes my piece is I get up early on purpose I'm usually up at 4 a.m.
27:47so that I can get up and get a cup of coffee and go sit out on my little porch with the windows open,  drink my coffee and listen to the crickets sing in and watch the crickets come up and hear the birds start to sing.  That's my piece.  And my husband said the other day, said, do you get enough sleep? And I was like,  But you're up at four every day. And I was like, because I need to start my day this way.
28:16It's the only real ritual that I have. And he was like, but if you slept till six, and I'm like, I can't sleep till six.  I feel like you're giving people a ritual starting place.  Right. Right. Right. A little bit of a purpose. You know what I mean? And I know that sounds a little crazy because women have so many things they consider their purpose.
28:46but we are a priority and we don't take enough time to realize that.  And it's so important to put back in what you need to put out.  And that's what I want this box to be. I just want it to be a little bit of encouragement for you to stop and pause and enjoy some things and know that I have
29:16I have put together these items because I want to see you smile. I want to see you enjoy. I want to see you take that deep breath and go,  that was fun. I enjoyed that.  So those are the things that I want for women. I so want women to feel included and purposeful, not just for somebody else, but for themselves. And we are
29:46Our women are built strong. We are some very strong women.  We have broad shoulders to hold up most anything that comes at us.  But we also need to relax those shoulders too. We need to let them drop and just take that deep breath and just go, what do I need?  What can make me feel a little better? What can give me some pause and some relaxation?
30:14because we worry about everybody else so much we don't think about us. So yeah, so I'm hoping everybody gets that from the box.  I'm sure that they will.  This sounds like something that would be a great present for a woman. Yes. Yes. So I know you have a waiting list on your website because you're not quite ready to launch until September. Right. So if a husband or a partner wanted to sign their
30:43their wife or their partner up, they can just sign up for the waiting list? They absolutely could. And I want to tell you, your wife would think you were the best person in the world if you gave them this gift. Because, you know, it means you stopped for a minute, you thought about what they needed.  And women just want to know that you thought about us, that you think about what we need and put our needs first sometimes.  So yeah, it would be a perfect gift.
31:10for your wife, your sister, your aunt, your mom even.  But right now you can go to, excuse me, magnoliamorningco.com and you can put your name on our wait list. It's actually only gonna be just a couple of weeks before we open the doors for you to purchase.  But if you're on that wait list, you're gonna get first dibs. I have a limited number of boxes to send out this first time.
31:39And I want you to be one of them, to be able to get one. So that would be the quickest way is to get on that wait list and to know that you've got the information right there in front of you because I'm going to send it to the wait list before I send it to anybody else.  yeah.  Exciting.  I'm so tickled that you're doing this. And I know why you're doing this. As the adult child of two alcoholics,  you were taught to please people.
32:09and think about other people. And you're taking something that started from a bad situation and reclaiming it for something good. I'm so proud of you. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for inviting me here today. I didn't realize that I would enjoy this as much as I did, but I enjoy telling the story and encouraging other women to take time for themselves because it's so very important.
32:35It really is. And we forget, and especially the moms that are still in the trenches raising little kids.  You ladies have got to find time for yourselves, even if it's only, I don't know, half an hour. If you miss half an hour. I've told this story before, I'm gonna tell it again before I let you go.  There's 12 years difference between my oldest and my youngest. My oldest is 36 and she's a girl. My youngest is going to be 25.
33:05in December. So he was a newborn and she was 12 when I brought him to hospital.  She's the only girl out of four kids.  And once he got to the point where he wasn't quite so fragile, you know, wasn't so new,  she was really good with him. She would change his diapers if I needed to use the bathroom, she would hold him.
33:31She was a really good big sister. He sees her more as an aunt than a sister. Right.  when he was about two, I was really tired. Four kids is a lot in that band.  one day I just looked at her and I said, I just need, I need half an hour. Do you think you could handle half an hour with him? So I just go read a book or something for 20 minutes. And she was like, of course we'll play Legos.
34:01I was like, okay.  So it was Duplo's not Legos, Duplo's are the big fat Legos. Yeah.  They had a blast and I got to go crawl into a book I'd been dying to start for two years and I got a chance to breathe. You have to, you have to ask for help. And I didn't feel bad asking her cause she adored him, but it's a really weird thing when you have spent your life being strong and independent as a woman.
34:29And you just finally hit that wall where you're like, I just need 10 minutes. Yeah. And it's hard for women to do, think. It's always been hard for me to ask for help.  I have never, ever wanted to ask anybody for help because I did not because I didn't want help, but because I didn't want to inconvenience somebody else.  I didn't want to burden somebody else with what I had going on. So I would just try and do all the things.  And I got into overload really quick.  You don't.
34:58you know, as you know, you don't raise five kids and not be an overload at some time.  so, so yeah, so, you know, I guess maybe the box can be that little bit of help.  It comes to you, you hear your front door to just say,  take a minute,  here's something for you. You know, just take a minute and enjoy and relax. Lord knows women need to relax a little bit. We're so busy, but.
35:24It's funny that you said that about your kids because my kids are 10 years apart. My first two are 10 years apart.  So, so I know exactly how that is.  That relationship that they have. And then my other ones are kind of stair-stepped.  But,  but yeah, so my kids are arranged from 34 to 15.  And, but those teenage girls I got, got two teenage girls and I'm going tell you those, whoo, if I'd had those two teenage girls at the same time first.
35:54I don't know that I'd had any more children because those girls are wearing me out.  It's so funny. My daughter was the easiest of the four, I swear to you.
36:06Yeah, those girls are something else.  That's awesome. That's awesome. All right.  So where, where can people find you Jennifer online? Is it magnolia morning company.com?  Right. It's Magnolia morning co co and then.com and, um, uh, feel free to, um, ask any questions. can always email me at hello at magnolia morning co.com. I'll be happy to answer any of questions that you have.
36:35But probably in the next, I don't know, 10, 12 days,  we'll be opening the doors.  Because I want you to get your first box in September.  And I want you to start enjoying some of the things that I've put together for you.  So yeah, I'd love to talk to anybody and love to get some feedback once people get some boxes of what you think and what you like.  I am so excited for you. I can't wait to see how this new project turns out.
37:03Thank you. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking to you today. I enjoyed talking to you too. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Jennifer, have a great weekend. Thanks. You too.
 

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon 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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:28Today I'm talking with Morgan at Cole Canyon Farms in Montana.  Good afternoon, Morgan. How are you? Good afternoon. I am doing wonderful. I mean, it's 100 degrees here, but we haven't melted quite yet. Well, I'm glad you haven't melted. And in Minnesota,  it is, I can tell you exactly what the temperature is because I'm sitting here holding my phone.  77 degrees right now feels like 77.  Can I switch you? You come here and I'll go there.
00:56No, I'm sorry. I can't do that because we had two weeks of dew points that were tropical and temperatures above 90.  This break we've had has been beautiful. Yeah, I thought I moved up to Montana for it to not be Arizona weather, but here we are, 100 degree weather.  I mean, it literally raises, you know, 10 degrees as you're watching it, you know, the time. So if it's seven o'clock in the morning, it's 70 degrees and outside 80 at eight. It's just wild.
01:25em I'm shocked.  I understand because  I don't remember a time in my 30 years of living in Minnesota two weeks of that kind of heat and humidity. It's crazy. We've had high humidity here too, which is out of dorm, know, but it's destroyed crops out here. Hay is  astronomical. can't even,  I four times as much. I'm just like, all right, well.
01:53I thought Montana grew a little bit better hay and wheat,  we just haven't gotten the moisture. It's been really humid outside, but the rain is like coming later in the year. We normally don't get a lot of rain this month, but we have and it's way hotter than normal. Yeah, I don't like it. I would like things to go back to the night to 19. Honestly, if I'm being real, I'd like things to go back to 1985.  You know,
02:21I have heard that a few times that like the early 1980s to early 90s was like the time to be alive. I wasn't alive until 1994.  So I missed that whole fun part.  Yeah, I was like 15 or 16 in 1985 and I hated school, but I loved my life in general at that age. So it would be nice to revisit it.  Yeah. You know, everyone said I was going to need all that, you know, all that school I was learning and like, well, I needed some of it, honestly.
02:50wish I would have just started farming sooner. I understand why some kids would just drop out and go farm instead.  Yes. And don't get me wrong. I loved my teachers. I loved learning. I didn't like the social aspect of it at all. Yeah, that's right. Because like I'm a social butterfly and over the years I've learned you're kind of a homebody hermit.  like to be your space. I have been shy and quiet my whole entire life. I have been an extreme introvert and
03:18I tell that to people in real life and they're like, no, you're not. And I'm like, you have no idea how hard I have to work to be social.  You and my husband are scup from the same cloth. Let me guess your husband's a bubbly extrovert. He is most of the time. Yeah. See, that's funny. Opposites definitely attract. So he does your farmers markets, doesn't he? He's the one that goes and sets them up.  Yes, he's very good at it. That's right. He was growing cabbage. How did that go?
03:45That was our last podcast. talked about the cabbage and lettuce. it was. Yeah, it was cabbage. I think he's sold every single head of the cabbage he's taken so far this summer. See, it was smart of him to up his cabbage amount, but that's because you guys tracked your numbers and you knew what you guys were going to sell. We just started doing farmers markets and I've learned from what you guys told me.  Well, you specifically, because I talked to you, not your husband. Well, you talked to him through me, but yes.
04:13Yeah, of course, you know, and he he had tracked his numbers. So he went three times as many as that. Correct.  I think so. Yeah. See, so I track my milk  and I've been making goat cheese  and I started making goat caramel also.  And it's been helping. So this week I had to have like a break because of the extreme heat.  get issues with the milk  animals in general.
04:40you know, cows or goats. They just have a really hard time with the heat. It kind of bogs down their immune system.  It's also been really wet, which is like typical intestinal worm season. So we've just been kind of working through that and at a later time.  So we had to take two weeks off and man, I felt it. I felt it in our wallet. I felt it. You know, I was like, I can't wait until you're back in milk. So I ended up buying a second milk goat just to try and keep up with the demand that were.
05:08already having our first year at this Red Lodge Farmer's Market. Mm-hmm.  So you said you're making caramel? Yes, it's called Kahita and it's a goat caramel. Yeah. It's so good. I sold out  in my first 30 minutes when I took it to the first uh Red Lodge Farmer's Market. I was selling pints for 15. I'm going to up them to 20 just because supply and demand. It takes one whole gallon of milk, you know, to make six uh
05:38I think they're half pints. Sorry, not full pints. They're half pints. it's it renders down really far. But  I  added in cinnamon sticks to the  first half instead of adding an actual ground cinnamon this time.  And I like figured out my own recipe. Like, know, you kind of take a base recipe, tweak it a few times. So this was my first time taking it out. And I did free samples and everyone who tried it bought  a
06:07bought a half pint of it. I even had two roommates and they were like, I'll fight you over it. They were going to just split it for their coffee. And they're like, no, I'll fight you over it. They were younger and they were real funny. So they ended up each buying a half pint and they wrote their names on them  so they could keep them separate because it was so good.  Uh huh. And the thing is not very, I mean,  I am ruining this. Sorry. Let me try that again.  That thing  is Kehita or Kaheda, however you say it. Yeah.  Is  unusual.
06:35not a lot of people make it.  it is definitely a supply and demand thing. And I would pay $20  for a half pint of that because I'm only going to do it  once a year and I'm going to enjoy it.  And a lot of the people that go to this Red Lodge Market, it's a tourist town.  So a lot of them are traveling. So a lot of the people, it's almost
06:59I mean, there's a lot of normal  farmers markets where they're not in tourist towns that I could go to, but my booth is $15 there. And so it's a very affordable booth  and you constantly have a new crowd and  every  Saturday during the farmers market, they have some type of event that's either going on before it. have Zuma this weekend and a car show, or they're doing like something after like they did Shakespeare in the park last weekend or the weekend before that.
07:29Like they do this really cool. If you look it up, you'll laugh. It's called the Iron Horse Rodeo out there. And it's a bunch of bikers that are doing the barrel racing and all those types of events, but on their motorcycle. So you get a new crowd every week and they have, they all have different things they're looking for.  Or, you know, you're attracting a crowd that's maybe not used to some of the things that you're in the farmer's market doing. So having an item like I have, and also offering Chev.
07:56um, which is just goat cheese. I didn't know that it's any type of goat cheese. I didn't realize that until after I started making it,  um, was one of those things that it's a niche, not a lot of people are doing it.  And so  I had people showing up, you know, from an hour away just to buy goat cheese from me because it was closer than where I'm at in Laurel. So it's honestly opening up to a whole new
08:22I guess you could say atmosphere of folks, right? Like I'm getting to see a different market every week. So I feel that tracking my numbers is really important. So I'm able to kind of watch all those different things, you know, because the Iron Horse rodeo, I didn't sell any goat cheese. I didn't have um a lot of the products that I had because my goat was taking a break, but I'm almost glad I didn't because of the fact that, you know, we...
08:50I wouldn't have sold them. Nobody asked for them. I talked about them, but everyone was like, oh, goat cheese. There's this like weird stigma around Shev, around Kehita, um and goat milk in general. So it's one of those things. I mean, we've talked enough times about it. I'm very passionate about it. I'm very passionate about kind of breaking the stigma because goat milk is going to be something with the way hay prices are going that I think we're going to start seeing a lot more of because it's almost unattainable to raise a dairy cow.
09:20Yes, I have talked to a few dairy people in the last few weeks and it is becoming impossible to get in to dairy work unless you are part of a dairy family right now.  Correct. I've actually been looking at expanding into a dairy cow because I'd like to make my own cream cheese with goat milk, but it doesn't produce enough fat. It doesn't render enough. I actually went to my friend, so I want you to talk to her because it's really cool. She does dairy sheep.
09:51Yes.  The sheep milk is so good. was 40 % cream in it.  40%. Yeah.  And it tasted just like goat milk.  Like goat milk tastes just like cow milk. People are so shocked when I give them these analogies, but that's the reality of it is that it just tastes like milk, right? But I think we all have these weird stigmas about them. So I'm excited to hear that more people are looking in other ways to provide dairy for the community.
10:20Because you are right. The fact is, is that if you're not already a part of a dairy family, it's really hard or you have to go buy these young bottle calves and you have to travel states like my friend Hannah  Jones, who I encouraged her to talk to you also out here. She drove all the way to Oregon in the beginning of the spring and picked up these dairy calves and she got three heifers. She bought the whole group so she could get the heifers and she paid.
10:48I don't know, $450 or something. I have no idea. But then she had a bottle feed them. So by the time this is said and done in these heifers or bread, they're going to be worth over, you know, her time alone, probably three or four grand, I would assume, with the way Hayes going before you even can breed them.  And if she got them at that lower price, she made out like a bandit because they are so expensive right now. Well, and I think she got them that low because they went through an auction and they were bottle calves.
11:14They're bottle dairy calves and a lot of people if you don't have dairy cows to feed  the babies that you're bottling You know that you're feeding through the bottle. It's really expensive. So like  I think since last time we talked did I had I gotten into full-size dairy goats?  I Don't remember. I don't think so. don't think so. So I actually sold my whole herd of Nigerian dwarfs by the way Yes, yes all of them except for one princess Diane because she's just gonna live with me forever. She's my
11:43She was a party goat. just, she's very sweet. I love her. And she's kind of goofy, right? So you always have one.
11:51Yeah, she's your goat friend. Yeah, she's my goat friend. Like, literally, right? So I kept her around, but I bought bottle babies this year and I could not believe how much milk these little bottle goats drink. I was like, I almost need my own personal dairy cow just to feed these little guys.  And it could have been justified because I had three gallons a day of goat milk that are the red cat milk that I was going through every single day.
12:20gallons for like, I don't know, 10, 12 weeks of that. If you do the math, man, was definitely an eye-opener for bottle babies  on goats and the cost of them and what really goes into it. How often do they have to be fed, Morgan? So it depends. You can go from, well, in the beginning, if they're on their dam, it's quite often, but most people will feed them three times a day. But bottle goats...
12:48can get something called floppy kid syndrome because the ruminant kind of like cows. So you have to let them digest all of their milk. So I'd kind of look at them and see where they were at. Because we called it the milk zone. Like you do not want them to go into the milk zone. Milk zone means death is upon them because they're starting to curdle the milk in their stomach before like it's not emptying fully because they'll curdle it naturally. But they're not able to digest all of it before new milk goes on top of it.
13:15which then means they're just making large amounts of essentially cheese in their stomach. So  you typically feed them in the beginning three times a day unless they're hogs. So like my Lamatra boar crosses, which is a meat and dairy cross, um they eat a ton. And they were the ones that tried to go into the milk zone as we called it, because they're just hungry all the time. Now my other goats...
13:40Some of them would eat, like my purebred Lomacha, some of them would eat three times a day religiously. Some of them would skip a meal during the day, in the beginning. That's the first like three weeks of their life. Then you wean them twice a day. And then if you're showing them, some people will keep them on a bottle all the way up until they're six months because you don't want going, you do not want them going through what they call the ugly stage where they become gangly, they go through the stress of being weaned, their body grows a bunch more because they're bringing in a different type of nutrition.
14:09from grains and grasses and weeds. So it kind of just depends on whoever is kind of running their own system and it's going to be highly based off the goats.  So kind of a loaded question.  It depends on the goats and where they're at in the milk zone.  So three times a day, ideally, some of them need it four times a day,  smaller meals, but we just try to keep it to a solid three and we would give them cold milk because they won't drink too much cold milk to become in
14:38like to go into the milk zone. It's so cold that it cools them down and they have to stop drinking it to be able to warm their body up. Therefore they're not going to over consume. So we learned that like two weeks into it to stop warming up their milk and it helped quite a bit. Good.  Awesome.  So, um,  I want to jump in real quick and open up the discussion to, to shopping local for your produce and your meat because
15:06You've been sick with something, a tummy bug.  A of people I've been talking to have been sick with things.  And I just heard on the news yesterday that there was a recall on eggs because of salmonella. And so I really want to encourage people to buy locally because a lot of the stuff that's happening is from the bigger producers.  And if you're buying locally,  you're not likely to run into as many problems.
15:37Correct. Yeah, absolutely. So I've always been a big  supporter of cottage farms, right?  And that's something why I got into the Red Lodge Market was because there's a lot of bartering as producers that goes on. Like we bartered,  you know, I've bartered for Native American jewelry. I've bartered for, you know, gluten-free bread while I've been there with my cheese products. And when you're shopping locally, even as a producer, because I know a lot of producers are listening to your podcast.
16:06there's room for bartering, which as most of us know, bartering is the way of life when you're a farmer because we're all poor, we have no money, but we have a lot of items and things and goods and skills, right? And so  as a producer, it benefited me to have the barter system that's right there at my fingertips.  And when you're shopping locally, you're helping us as a producer to continue to do what we're doing because when your food chain is local to you, instead of it being
16:34you know,  a mass scale one like Walmart, if there's a trucking issue, which we've seen trucking issues, plenty of us, I know in Montana, we see it because of the weather, there's a gap in the community food chains, right? So you're depending on someone that's not local,  therefore it's coming in, and it's not as good when it's a large scale also, such as we've seen with the lettuce issue that's going on.
16:56You don't know your products as well, right? Like you're not hands-on, your family's normally not eating it. If you're a big producer, maybe they are, but I know a lot of those  places, have heavy regulations. So a cottage farmer, it  is gonna heavily depend on your guys' area and the laws in Montana, the Freedom Food Act made it to where producers could produce a lot of stuff and they just had to pay a fee and then submit their recipes.
17:24So when you're buying from cottage farming markets specifically, you're able to get in season vegetables and fruits, which is really important because we stopped eating in season. And that's why you run into a lot of these issues. There's seasons where certain parasites flourish on certain products.  And typically you're running into somebody that's going to be quality checking their own items. So we drink our own.
17:51Right. I eat my own cheese. I eat my own caramel. I do all of that. So I'm always quality, you know, quality checking. To give you an example  is if you're at a farmer's market, there's typically going to be somebody with milk products. There's a lady at our farmer's market and she always has the biggest line. She grows the best produce and she's able to sell it locally. Now it is going to be a little bit more expensive, but you're paying for a higher quality food that has had somebody.
18:20that is actually tending to it. They're aware of the inputs and outputs. So there's a lot of strengths when you're going to be buying from a farmer's market. Not only is the money staying in your community directly, because people that are buying from the farmer's market, you're normally within a hundred mile radius. So your money then is gonna stay there because most cottage farmer producers are very...
18:44I guess we're smart, right? Like in the sense that we're gonna find where can we find our fertilizer locally? Where can we find an alternative? What does it look like during this season for  parasites or bugs that are gonna tear apart your lettuce or they're gonna tear apart  corn specifically?  And when you have that type of quality control, your product is typically going to be fresher. So instead of the tomatoes being shipped to Walmart and they're green,
19:14and they're not even ripe, you're getting a red fresh tomato that has all the nutrition in it and is not gonna mold as quickly.  Like, I don't know about you, but my strawberries, if I get it from a big box store, they mold within two days because there's no nutrition. I don't even buy strawberries from grocery stores anymore. I don't either.  I refuse to because of that fact that it started molding. That's when I really started looking outwards because we, I mean, me and my husband are pretty...
19:43well, educated in organic living soil, how plants are gonna fruit, where the nutrition is in the plant at that time, what is that gonna do for the product that you're getting and vice versa, right? So we've done kind of that. So when I started seeing the strawberries mold right away, because it's my son's favorite fruit, right? So it's something that he'll eat a whole canister of and when sitting, I was like, well, this is a problem because that means there's no  nutrition for the mold to, know, for the organisms or the bacteria that's on it.
20:13to eat that it's just molding right away because there's nothing in it. It's just, it looks like a strawberry, but they don't even taste like strawberries anymore. They just taste kind of fluffy, right? Like air. And so one of the things that I understood from that was that these are unripened strawberries that are being sent to us and it doesn't have the same nutrition value as if it was right on the vine. Yep.  Exactly. The other thing is you were saying that uh a lot of the stuff at farmers markets might be a little bit more expensive.
20:43How many times have you bought stuff at the grocery store and not even bothered to eat it because it wasn't very good and it just gets tossed? Oh, so many times. We just sold my son's pigs because he wants to move to a smaller one. And I'm so bummed because I don't have I don't have anything to help. You know, get rid of this waste. So now the waste is even more on my mind, right? Because I'm like, wow,  I.
21:08can't even really justify it if it goes bad right away. It still is upsetting to me, but I'm like, well, at least the pigs can get it. And then later on, the pigs would have fed us, right? But now  there's nothing there. So now I'm even more attentive to this fact. So like I'm meal prepping so that I know what I need to get when I go to the farmer's market. And that's something that I'm encouraging people to do too, is that you have to...
21:32You have to meal prep. There's more work that goes into buying from our farmers market, but the quality of products that you'll be getting is way higher.  and  if you're doing that, you're valuing what you're buying and you're going to eat it. Correct. Yeah. So there's a lot of there's a lot of love that goes into that plant. And I believe the energy is not lost despite anyone's religious belief or whatever. I just know the energy is not lost. It's been proven. Right. So if you
22:02love these plants that you're taking care of the product that comes back from it is a lot better. I love my goat pearl. When I went away for two days, my husband had  one hell of a time with her. Let me tell you, she did not want to let down her milk. She won't do all that. My husband loves her, right? That it wasn't a love issue in that it was that it was out of her routine. But when I'm there, she knows that I love her so much that she produces a lot more milk. And it you know, it's not that I'm doing anything different than my husband.
22:32But I have that feminine touch. I'm going to sing to her. sing about how she's so great and she produces milk, right?  And then I stroke her back just the right way because she doesn't like to be scritched with manhand. She wants, you know, gentle touches and stuff like that. And so that's where I believe that even applies with plants. They've done studies on talking negatively to a plant and what it does and talking positively to that plant and what that also does. Right. So.
22:59At a farmer's market, you're not getting the same type of product. It's not just some worker, maybe even a migrant worker, because they work a lot of them, that is being treated poorly and below human standards because they don't make the same wages and all this stuff, right? Because corporation is about greed and money. Where at a farmer's market, you're dealing with someone's family and their income and typically they're the ones tending to it or their employees are highly valued because they're the backbone of that farm still running.
23:25So you're just, getting a different quality of product all the way down to the energy that goes into it.  Yes. And the other thing about this is that when  our tomatoes start coming in, Morgan, please say a prayer or send a smoke signal or something that our tomato plants  stay as good as they are right now. Cause we have a hundred and over 190. Wow. the garden  and they've all set fruit. have all got tomatoes. That's so awesome. Like, wow.
23:56when they start  reddening up, my husband obviously will be selling them at the farmer's market. But the other, cool thing about this is  if he sells out, he will be here on Sundays for people to just come and  ask him to pick, you know, however many they need for candy. See, and that's, that's where it's at. Like that, making a community, being
24:23Involved in your community when you have a community chain. That's really tight like a farmers market There's not months of delay for trucks coming in somebody can just go to the house because hey I don't I sold out on Saturday, but please come and like I think that you pick it is smart I brought that up a few times people are looking for things to do that Kind of get two birds stoned at one time right like they can take the kids there go pick some tomatoes and now they have fresh tomatoes because we all know
24:51The economy is a little struggling right now. I mean, I'm not really into looking at the news and all that stuff and watching stuff, but I can feel it. Like my dollar doesn't go as far. So if I could go pick some tomatoes with my son, that is such a cool experience. And it's not something you get to do every day. Kind of like, you know, we still do the goat parties and we still do the events.  And that's something that is valuable to people.  want what they can't.
25:20have at their own home. So many people are stuck in a rental situation. So if they can go out to your house and pick a tomato, man, that's a different, that's out of their norm, you know what I'm saying? So  I find those kind of hands-on items very valuable to our community, almost more valuable than the actual food or item that it produces. Yeah, and I just, I'm so excited that people are going to be able to get a bunch  of tomatoes and can them.
25:49for the coming winter this year from us. Because  we didn't have that last year or the year before because our tomato plants didn't do very well. Yeah, I remember that. you're like, we're not even sure if we're going to do them. I think we're going to give them one last crack and look at it. So I'll definitely send all the smoke signals and all the good juju your way on those tomatoes. We actually took the year off from planting  just so we could get  the milking.
26:14essentially set up, right? Like I have all these babies for next year. I'm running two milk does this year. We're producing a gallon and a half with kids sharing on one of the goats that we just got.  And that's something we didn't have last year. I mean, we had goat milk, but we weren't going to farmers markets. We weren't able to go to farmers markets because I didn't have the product.
26:39Yup. it's just one of those things, you know, you just sit back. just had a moment where I was sitting back. I'm like, wow, we've actually like completed. mean, when I first talked to you, has it been three seasons now, I think?  know,  the end of August is  the start of the fourth year. So three years in August. So yeah, I talked to you the first year, I think. Yeah. So you got to talk to us like from the ground up, right. And it was one of those things where
27:07We, that was a goal of ours. So to know that before the five year mark, we've been able to hit  every single little thing that we've wanted to do. It just, I mean, it takes in a lot. I don't know if I told you yet, or if you saw online, but we were voted number one and number two with both of the foreign names because Groovy Grazers is more about goats. Culcane and farms is more about farming, right? We're voting number one for kids, entertainer and educator.
27:34of the year and it was people vote. So it wasn't like, you know, a committee that voted on us. It was the actual community that said we earn that. So it was really cool because that's what we want to be seen as. We want to be the educators. I think that if we can show people that your food chain doesn't have to be 20 links, it can be just two, you and the farmer. Yes, you're going to pay a little bit more. The product is going to be way better than what you're going to get out the big box store  and
28:01you're going to be supporting somebody in your community locally instead of corporate greed. Yes. Congratulations, my friend. Yeah, that was really exciting. Not expected. I just threw my name up there kind of as a joke, like, oh, all right, let's see what happens.  And definitely wasn't expecting coal canine farms to be thrown in there. But I mean, it is what it is. was really cool to see my community really supported us and they support what we do.  And it's because we're able to educate.
28:30on what does food,  like where does your food come from? What should it look like?  And how can you go about getting it? I think a lot of people are really intimidated when they go to a big,  go to a farmer's market, they don't know how to ask the right questions or they feel like,  I don't know what to do, I'm not gonna go there.  I don't know,  a lot of people don't even know where the markets are or when they're happening.
28:55And so I think if more people can start turning to these,  I'm going to tell my friend about it. So people in general, when they experience something new, they tell three people about it, good or bad. It doesn't matter. I think I've talked about this with you before. So every person that comes out to your guys' house to come pick tomatoes, good or bad, they're going to tell three people. So that's three more chances you have at somebody coming to you that maybe most likely did not hear about you before.
29:22Yeah, we had a lot of people three summers ago. Three, four.  There were two summers we didn't have any tomatoes.  So the summer before that, so it must have been four summers ago,  we had people calling and asking if we had tomatoes. And then we did not have tomatoes at the farmer's markets last year and the year before, really. We had a couple, but not many.  And people didn't call because they would say, you going to have any at the farm? And my husband would say,  unfortunately.
29:51no because of all the heavy rain we had in May and June.  as long as you can get the word out whether you have a surplus or a deficit, it's great because we didn't have a bunch of people calling us last year and the year before and us having to basically want to cry every time we had to say no. because it's dollars that you're not receiving. because we're not helping. Because we're not helping.
30:20More than money, it's just you're not helping. I mean, it's dollars that aren't helping you or helping them or helping the community because you're going to spend your money locally. So it just it's this huge gap in the community chain. You know, when people call me, hey, do you have milk?  Oh, I'm out, you know, and it's like, well, man, that's one less person that's getting goat milk. That's one less, you know, that's three bales of uh small hay that I'm missing out on.
30:49you know, that could be helping.  it's just like, all right, it kind of helps you gauge though, where, what you need to do, right? Like I knew I needed to bring in a second milk dough this year on a whim. I was like, I gotta do it. I just have to do it because even one week down is 120 to $200 worth of milk products,  right? And that's painful, but it's also more painful to me is that my community is not getting a product that they're asking for, right?
31:17That means that they're going to have to go without this product. And even if it's caramel,  that may seem a little over dramatic to some people, but some people can't have any cow product. Right. So that's one more person that's going to have to go out with, you know, without a joy of life of having caramel, which that caramel brings a lot of joy in my life and my husband's and anybody that's tried it to be real honest with you, it puts a big smile on somebody's face. And it feels good being on the receiving end of having someone
31:44get your product and enjoy it and find joy in it, but then also too, being able to buy from other people. I have a lot of joy when I go in and I support other  farmers at this farmers market, right? Or if I'm coming up to them and I'm like, I don't have any cash right now that I'm able to, because I got to make  my hay bill, but I do for whatever reason have a surplus of this chef, can I trade you X thing? And I'll tell you nine times out of 10, they're excited because
32:13It's one thing they're not having to spend money on. And if they take that piece of bread home, OK, well, then that's one more piece of bread they're going to consume that they already have.  So it's really just an interesting way that  money doesn't even play into farmers markets as much as people would think, as much as it just being the gratitude and being able to feed the community. Right. Money is great. Don't get me wrong. It makes the world spin. Sadly, I wish it would go away in some senses, other senses, not so much.
32:43But it's being able to fill a need in the community directly that I think people need to take away from farmers markets. You're filling the need of the buyer or, you know, of the producer. And then they're feeling the need of you needing an item. So the way that works, it's just this, believe it, what is it called? Osmosis, where it transmutes back and forth equally. Symbiotic. Symbiotic. Thank you. I always say the wrong word for whatever reason, but that symbiotic like relationship.
33:14is really more beneficial to your community.  If your community makes more money, then they're able to do more things in the community. They're shopping more locally. They're going to invest in different projects around there. They're gonna invest in people that are around them. It's been proven that it helps your community. Every dollar you spend,  one dollar is like $10 when you're spending it with a small producer. So that's a huge.
33:41like benefit instead of spending $5 at Walmart and it really only being a dollar that comes back into the community. If I spend it with a local producer, that $5 then turns into 50 essentially with how they're going to use it and spend it and it's directly in my community.  I am so glad that you are a proponent and  a fan and an ag, ag, ag, can't say it,  advocate for all of this because I'm right there with you, sister.
34:10I know, yeah, it's been so exciting. What a season of growth. mean, we're still doing the damn thing, just like we always do, but it just changes. We just kind of, we see a need and we feel a need in our community. So instead of focusing so much on doing the agri tourism this year,  and then gardening ourselves, we found that if we can fill this need with milk, it really is just, it's gonna help us in the long run farther. And that's sometimes hard, right, to give up my passion of gardening for our family.
34:40to doing milk, I see the need is more with the milk and I'm able to barter the milk for the produce that I would be growing anyways. So I'm just helping out all around. It's a good feeling. And I encourage everyone like Google on Facebook or not Google, do the little search bar, like type in your city, type in farmer's market and see where it's at. I bet you there's a farmer's market, if not four or five that are going on every Saturday. It seems like  more people, at least in Montana, are hosting farmer's markets. So I think...
35:09I want to leave everyone on a challenge note up here, right? Cause I always tell people like your followers like, Hey, try something new.  would like, I'd like for you guys to go to a farmer's market in the month of August, because that's when a lot of places are going to have the produce all around from Montana, all the way down to Florida and spend $10.  That's all I'm asking.  Spend $10 of your money in the community and watch how that producer feels at the end of that transaction. And then,  then go home,  enjoy your item and see how you feel after that $10 been spent.
35:38And I would guarantee that it's a more satisfying feeling. And if you really like what you bought, go back next time and thank the person that made it or grew it.  Absolutely.  Yeah, I have people that come up to me, other producers, and they tell me how much they love my item. And it just makes me feel so good. Like, it's just a very positive atmosphere. So I'm super excited that you guys are doing well with the, you know, the cabbage and you guys have a bunch of tomatoes. So I can't wait to check back in in a few months and see where we're all at.
36:09I think we're all going to be doing just fine.  think  the more local we live, the better off we will all be because  you can't rely  on your state or federal government right now. Rely on your local  government and your local resources. Correct. And like uh some horse people will know her, but Trissa all
36:32Trisha Aldridge, owns Audios Pantaloons, what a name, right?  But he's a million plus dollars  stud and what her Motivational Monday was is that no one's coming to save you, but also no one's coming to stop you. um
 

Today I'm talking with Ronel at Zebulon Heritage Farm. 
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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:28Today I'm talking with Ronel at Zebulon Heritage Farm in Tennessee. Good morning. Ronel, how are you? Good morning. Doing well. How about you? I'm good. Is it hotter than Hades in Tennessee this morning? It just about is. Yeah, I looked at the map that was on the news yesterday and the whole country was red. I was like, that doesn't happen very often. Mother Nature, what?
00:56What got up your butt and irritated you? Because you're hot. There's something wrong.  Right. It's been a hot month for sure. It's been hot month. It's been terrible.  And  like I said to my co-host on my other podcast, I have two.  The other one is Grit and Grace in the Heartland. um I said to her the other day, I said, I'm trying to keep a really good attitude about this.
01:24it's getting exceedingly more difficult with every day that the dew point is over 70 in Minnesota. That doesn't happen. Right. Cause that's a little different than here in the East where we have a lot of anyway. Yeah, absolutely. Minnesota is, is yes, close to a great lake, Lake Superior. It's right next to it. But last I knew great lakes weren't the same as ocean.
01:49I grew up in Maine, so we had a lot of humidity in the summer in Maine. But you would not expect it to be this sticky. Well, I guess it is mid-July now, but usually we get the sticky in August. So it's been a bit much to swallow, Ronel. Let's just put it that way. I totally get it. I totally get it. Yes. So I would love for you to tell me a little bit about yourself and about what you do at Zebulon Heritage Farm.
02:19Sure, sure. I guess, well, it's kind of a long story. mean, going back, I guess as a kid, I grew up on a homestead where we would bring you some bottle calves back then you could buy them for $5 from a dairy. And we milked some goats as a kid. I was never so fond of the goat milk though. So I guess later we got a family cow, I guess I was about 12. And my dad's like, here's a cow, milk her, take care of her, I want butter.
02:49And then I milked the family cow for a lot of years. And I guess about 12 years ago, I decided at that point, I already had my own family. I decided I want to start a herd share. Some herd shares have been legal in Tennessee for quite a few years. So I added a second cow and then a third cow. And I guess over the past 12 years, it's just gradually grown and become
03:19Well, full-time business.  Very nice. So  I know what A2A2 milk is. Is that what it's called? Right? Sure. Yes. But not all of my listeners will know. Can you explain what's special about A2A2 milk? Okay. So I guess there's a lot of different opinions, but I guess the short answer is it is the betacassin, which is the protein  in the milk.
03:48but I guess it's dependent on the cow's genetics. there are a lot of different variants. And I guess most people don't know that. Most people assume it's either A1 or A2, but there's actually a lot of different variants. And A2, A2, which is both markers are A2, is the desirable one. It is believed to be more digestible, associated with better health. And I do believe there's merit in that because I have more than one
04:18hard to share member that has told me they had raw milk. mean, most of the time if people can't drink store milk, they can drink raw milk, right? Because it's more digestible, it's less processed. But I have a couple of share members who have told me that they reacted badly to raw milk that wasn't A2A2 and they are able to drink my A2A2 milk. So there is definitely something to it and it is definitely something that a lot of people
04:47or after because it's  associated with better digestion and better health. Thank you for explaining that because if I had attempted to explain that, I would have butchered it. It would not have been good. I was looking at your Facebook page and your website. Is it just jerseys that you milk or is it another  breed as well?
05:08Yes, we have only jerseys. I mean, we do have a beef herd too that we  raise grass-red beef. But as for milking, we only have herded registered A2 jerseys. So it didn't start out that way. I just had some random jersey, you know, that I had no idea, you know, anything about her really,  as far as this A2 registration goes. But I gradually, um I guess, built up to the registered herd. So I bought like one registered cow and then bred her  and  tested. I bred only two A2 bulls.
05:39And the calves I tested and I got lucky in the sense that even though if I had 50 % chance, I ended up getting mostly A2 cuffers. So my herd became fully A2 very quickly.  And then I just continued breeding to A2. So from there, we just went off with A2 cows. Okay.  I'm going to say this for me.  I would get nothing done if I had a herd of jerseys because I love their faces.
06:07And all I want to do is hang out with them  and kiss their noses and stroke their ears. They are so pretty. Sure. I'm biased too. mean, know every breed has their perks and they definitely have their place, but I'm biased too. mean, the jerseys are just super pretty and they're just so curious. mean, they just have personality and they can be different too. mean, some are definitely nicer than others, but generally speaking, they're just  so like  part of the family kind of temperament, know.
06:37They always look like they're going to be really sweet. I'm not saying that every single Jersey cow is sweet, but they look like they're going to be very sweet critters. And they are. I mean, I think I've had ones with my kids were a little, it's like before I could stop them, you know, they would call them on the cow or crawl under the cow. I was like, Oh my goodness, you know, you shouldn't be doing this to a cow, but you know, this particular half-puff, she didn't care. Yeah. It's just that, um, you know, some of them are just really gentle. Some of them not so much. mean, most, most of ours are really.
07:06well-behaved.  I don't keep cows that aren't, but some are really friendly and they will be like upping your business.  Yeah, yeah. I would love to meet your cows. I think that it's so fun. I don't have any cows. We don't have room.  If we had room and I was about 20 years younger,  we probably would have cows.  Right. And I will say this to people starting out,  cows are a digger.
07:33You know, I never had any intention of having the amount of cows I have right now.  It just kind of like every time a pepper was born, was like, I cannot sell her. You know, I have to keep her. And then I end up with, you know, 40 something calves. I'm going, okay, I got a problem.  Well, if you're that smitten with the Jersey breed, you must be just absolutely beside yourself  in love with the babies every time there's babies. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. They're just so cute. But I mean, they just look like a little deer. Yeah, I
08:02I have a hard time every time I need to make a decision to keep one or not keep one, know.  Yeah.  Yep. And I can't believe that you remember when you could get  a calf for $5. Do you know how much a calf is going for right now? Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I just sold one this morning. I  mean, it's just a jersey bull. This one I sold, so they're not bringing as much, but the beef couch right now. Oh my goodness. They're, yeah, it's crazy what they're bringing right now.
08:28Yeah, just a couple of years ago, I think you could still get a beef calf for like 50 bucks.  Right.  Right now. I heard the other day over a thousand dollars. Right. Nope. That's basically the heifers are going for  a thousand and upwards.  That's a hell of an investment.  Right. Right. And I mean, haven't, you just a few years ago in the time that I was running a herd chair, if I sold an adult cow that was like
08:58kind of a, you could say a call, you know, maybe when she wasn't breeding or whatever, but she was a nice, fat, healthy, otherwise cow. When you sold her, you would be getting like $200. I mean, I sold more than one that I got $200 for. And I'm like, those days are so gone. Yeah. And I'm really afraid that the days of owning cows and steers or bulls is coming to an end because I keep reading about how the
09:26I'm going to say bovines. The bovine herds across the United States are shrinking because farmers can't afford to keep them. Right. Right. And that is a concern because it's so, mean, buying replacements.  mean, initially it was like, you know, if a cow, if you didn't want a particular cow or there's something wrong with her, you just bought another, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't a big deal. But right now it's like, you have to, you know, you have to like take out a loan to buy.  You know, they're so expensive, especially if you're trying to buy a nice one.
09:56Yeah, it's hard to get started in the business right now if you don't already have cows because they're so expensive to get. Yeah, if you're not part of a family that  is raising steers or dairy cows, trying to get in at 20 years old is almost impossible. Right, and I feel really bad because there are some people who want so badly to get into the business, but you know, it's so expensive to get started and then we're not even talking about everything else, farm regulating that.
10:25farm related that is so expensive to get started. It's  really tough. It's really it is. And it's really sad.  like I said, my co-host and I talk about this all the time because she's a rancher in Nebraska. they raise steers for beef. They don't eat dairy. And  she loves you dairy people.  I swear she hugs every dairy farmer she meets. She loves you guys so much.
10:53Well, we appreciate the beef farmers too. Like I said, I do have a beef herd too and  it's been the same way with them. The prices are just crazy. Yep, and it's a lot of work and a lot of heart to put into it.  So, um I know what a herd share is, but not all of my listeners do.  And I want to preface this whole next line of conversation with the fact that Minnesota allows raw milk sales, but only on the farm.
11:22Okay. They don't sell raw milk in stores here. It's illegal. So  can you explain what a herd share is? Okay. So  in 2009, herd shares became legal in Tennessee. So a herd share is basically um potential customers, you could say, or potential share members. um If they wanted to acquire raw milk, they needed to like buy a share of the herd or even the cows. So you can get a cow share too. So
11:52they had to like put a deposit down or put like a payment down and buy the share of a cow. And that would like, um, allow them or entitle them to a portion of the milk. So  I guess what it's basically comes down to is they're getting milk from their own cow, a cow that they own  in part. And that way it's not like, I'm not selling raw milk.  Um, I'm selling shares of herd and then  people can get raw milk by buying shares of the herd. then they can get.
12:22um a portion of milk that way. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, it does. It's kind of on the same  idea as a time share, only you get better results. Yes, yes. And  a lot of people do the shares  because  I think it helps the customers be a little more uh committed  because they feel like they have a part in the herd. So it's not like... um
12:47It's not like you're just buying milk this week and then not next week or whatever. You know, most of the share members, they um are committed to getting the milk on a consistent basis. Good, good, good. So, so I think I missed it when you're explaining this.  Is,  is raw milk illegal to buy in Tennessee unless you do it through a herd share?  Um, yes and no. So I guess there's two ways that you can acquire raw milk in Tennessee, either through a herd share, which is what I do.
13:16or you have to be licensed as a pet food seller. And then you have to get like a license through the state and then you can sell it labeled as pet food.  mean, a lot of people do that even though it's not really their pets, you know, drinking it.  I am my own. I am my own pet. I will drink the milk. Yes. Right. Which is a perfectly great way to, you know, sell raw milk too. But I personally chose the herd share  model. Yeah. I found out last time we were in Maine.
13:44or I grew up that raw milk  is not illegal at all. The little general store down the road from where my parents live now,  they sell raw milk in their coolers. oh And I was just like, wow, Maine is so progressive. Yay. Right. Right. And that is nice. Some states are definitely being much more um lenient than others. So that's really nice.
14:13Yeah, I was surprised. I actually asked the cashier, I was like, how long ago did it become legal to sell raw milk at grocery stores?  And she looked at me and the first question out of her mouth was, where are you from?  said, well, technically Maine, I grew up here, but I live in Minnesota.  And you should have seen her face grin from ear to ear. She was like, one of my friends is from Minnesota.  She said,
14:40I thought I picked up just the tiniest little cadence of Minnesota in your voice. was just so excited. She it up. That's fun. Yeah. And I said, I'm so confused that you picked that up because I try really hard not to sound like I'm from anywhere. She said, well, you don't sound like you're from Maine anymore. So check that off the list. I was like, uh-huh. Okay. Thank you. That's funny. So we had a whole long discussion about raw milk and that everybody loves it.
15:09and that it's better for your stomach than pasteurized milk. It was a very interesting 15 minute conversation at the counter. That's great. That's great. So I want to hear a little bit about your beef cattle and then I want to hear about your class or whatever it was I read on your website. So tell me about your beef cattle. So I guess we have a small herd. I actually have a few of the last beef cows. have, Gary has.
15:38Um, mostly Angus, Geltbee,  um, the mixture of both, um, most people know Angus, but Geltbee is definitely a less,  um, common breed.  Um, if I had to sum up Geltbee, it would be like Angus, but it's a little bit bigger, um, than it looks a little different. So, um, the mix between the two seems to be a good combination. They are a little bit bigger. They grow fast like the Angus do, but they're a little bit more sized.  And, uh
16:05The mama cows have a lot of milk. So it seems to be a pretty good breed adapted for our  area here.  So we have heard of those and they just raise their calves. And we uh usually process the steers between like,  you could say 20 to 24 months old um for grass-fed beef. And we have a  customer base that we sell all that to.  Either by the  calf, the steer or whole steer.
16:35Very  nice. Thank you for doing that. That is,  I feel like that's,  I don't want to say harder than dairy, but it is right up there with dairy because there are so many regulations that go with beef. Right. mean, the day to day work is a lot less.  Um, I feel like when there's an issue, it's harder to deal with. It's like, you know, a beef cow, you can't just walk up to her and say, okay, let's pick up your feet. Let me see what's going on with it. know?
17:04You'd have to get her in the chute and she's fighting you. It's a little different. There's definitely more calving problems with the beef cows than with the jerseys. Jerseys tend to have no problems calving if you're breeding into a jersey. But the beef cows, especially the heifers, there's definitely more of struggle there. Sometimes they need help calving. So yeah, it's a different ballgame for sure. Yeah, I'm so impressed with everybody who raises the large animals.
17:32We have chickens and we tried raising rabbits for a year that did not go well.  Not every rabbit understands that they are supposed to screw like rabbits.  Right. My daughter had rabbits at one point and there's definitely something to making them  have babies for sure. Receptive, yeah. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes. And it's like the female, if she doesn't like the male, it's not happening.  No, she has all the say as she should.
18:01um But yeah, we have chickens, they're super easy as long as you have a coop and you have a source of food for them and a source of water for them. They do great. Rabbits are kind of touchy, finicky, fragile. And that's pretty much the only thing we've tried. And that's mostly because we don't have any land for big animals to graze.  We have three acres, it would not work. uh
18:28Well, chickens are a good start. mean, where we are chickens, the worst part of, or the worst struggle, I guess, with having chickens are the raccoons because we have a lot of raccoons. But besides that, chickens are, like they say, the gateway animal. You're getting with the chickens and then next thing you know, you want this and you want that too. Where's the goat? Where's the sheep? Where's the cow? Yeah, we have barn cats. We have a dog. We have chickens. I think we're full up on critters for where we can handle it. That's good.
18:57But again, I have so much respect for people who raise large animals because you've got to be brave, I think. You've got to do a lot of research. You've got to be healthy and strong because just because those jerseys love you doesn't mean that they're going to move when you want them to move. So you got to kind of nudge them, right? Right. It's physically demanding. mean, there's definitely that. And there's, mean, it can be dangerous. I have not had the cow hold the jerseys hurt me.
19:27not on purpose anyway. I sometimes they like, you know, knock it over by accident or whatever, but yeah, if you're dealing with large animals, some of you might get charged by the bull bull and that has happened. Ironically, it was my beak bull, not even my jersey bull, yeah, these things happen and they're hard to keep in. know, if they get out and you know, if a bull bull figures out he can walk through the fence, he's walking through the fence every time. So there's definitely challenges to it. There's definitely challenges and where we live, also have...
19:55you know, a way out the boondocks. So finding a veterinarian to come out can also be a challenge. So that, guess that eventually just forced me to learn to do a lot of things myself.  Which is probably good because then you don't have to pay the vet bills if you are skilled enough to do it yourself. True, Yes, yes. I mean, initially my hands were shaking, you know, if I needed to like set an ITV or something, because I had no idea what I was doing. But you know, after so many times you figure it out and you just know that, you know, this is you have to do because that's not available.
20:24You know, a lot of times they're just not available.  Yep. And sometimes,  I've actually heard a couple stories like this,  sometimes you may know something that the doesn't know because you learned it from somebody who learned it from their grandpa or their great grandpa a long time ago.  Right. And that is another thing because I have a couple vets, but the  one I have, I literally um felt that  he had no experience with dairy cows. So if that had a problem, there was no
20:52There was no use asking him because he didn't know. And it's not like I'm not shaming the vet, but he just had no experience with the dairy cows. He just had no idea.  Absolutely. And that's kind of, this is going to sound funny.  It's kind of fun that you have the skills to handle some of the things yourself.  You must feel a great sense of pride in that. Well, it's taken blood, and tears in a lot of years, but I do, I do. And which is why I guess, um
21:22I like to share that, you know, knowledge because I like to, I feel like it took me a lot of trouble and pain to learn it.  And  I would like to make that available to other people who want to learn so they don't have to learn the hard way and know the way I did.  Which leads me to the last part of my question for you.  I see on your Facebook description. says we also offer mentoring to family cow owners on school, S-K-O-O-L,  at Homestead Family Cow. So tell me about that.
21:51Sure, that's actually a little more recent. The school platform is actually a more recent venture. I've been mentoring, kind of like, cow people for, well, a lot of years. I guess for a lot of years. just like on Facebook groups or whatever, I would give advice if I could. But more recently, I started the platform on school. So that way, felt like if I'm making educational content, I can keep it all neatly in one spot.
22:20so it's not like spread out over the internet. So that way I can make educational videos and put them all on the platform. And then if people want to join the platform, they can read through or listen through the videos and the educational material on there. And they can also ask questions and hopefully we will eventually be able to do like Q &A sessions to help people learning about family cows.
22:45I guess back in the day, grandma and grandpa's, you a of people's grandparents knew these things, it's kind of disappeared for a while. But now there's a whole group of people or a whole bunch of people who is trying to get back into the family cow thing, but they're starting from scratch. So I think it would be great for them to have access to a lot of material where they can learn how to do it. Yes. And the school platform is fairly new, right? It's only been out for a year or so.
23:16It's been a few years, I think. yes, it's not that old at all. Like I said, my group or my community school is pretty recent too. I just wanted something where I can  put all my educational content in one spot and keep it easy to maintain.  Well, thank you for doing that as well, because not everybody has the patience to teach. I don't. I'm terrible at it. I have a hard time with it.
23:41That's why I chose to do a podcast because I know a little bit. I like talking about what I know. like talking with you guys about what you know. And then people just learn from the conversation. Right. Right. So if I wanted to find Homestead Family Cow on school, do I just go to school.com and type in Homestead Family Right. If you search it in the search bar, it should show right up. If you put in Homestead Family Cow, it should show right up in the search bar. And there's a picture with a banner. I guess it's my face with a cow.
24:10So it should  pop right up.  Okay,  I'll put the link in the show notes if I find it. If I can't find it for some reason, would you message it to me? Sure, sure. can definitely do that. I appreciate that. Oh yeah, I want to make it easy for people to find you because I know there's a lot of young people  coming up  or stepping into the role that their parents that have aged out or the grandparents that have aged out had.
24:40and they're new. mean, if  it's a family business, they may know a little bit, but I'm sure they don't know everything.  Right. And most of the people that I have mentored over the year uh who are not coming out of a family business, they were coming in first generation, know, trying to get  in and starting from scratch. Yeah. And it's so much easier when you have a mentor or a friend
25:07Or I don't know, a complete stranger you met at the county fair. Sure. got talking and they were like, I can help. Right. I totally agree. mean, back when I started out, the internet didn't exist. You know, and I was like, we're getting books from the library and I made a lot of mistakes along the way. And I was also quite young, but I made a lot of mistakes along the way. like, I like to help people not, you know, make those mistakes. If I, if I had this information at, you know, at my fingertips, I would have changed a lot of things.
25:38I always joke that if I had had access to the internet when I was 15, I would probably rule the world by now because I was a bookworm and a word nerd. Sure. Sure. And I spent a lot of time with my nose in books. Can you imagine me at 15 with access to Google? I would have been the biggest knowledge sponge on earth. I imagine that. Yeah, I look at my kids, my oldest daughter, I mean, my oldest kids are adults, but
26:07I look at them and I'm like, oh my goodness, know, they just have a head start on knowledge, you know, and just this information that I had, you know, from an encyclopedia. Oh, yes. And I'm going to step out on a limb here that I don't know if I'm supposed to step out on, but I'm going to do it anyway. I was talking to my daughter the other day. She's 36. She's married and her husband is into guns and he likes to go to the range and target practice. And he's very curious about all the different kinds of guns.
26:38And she has learned to shoot with him. And she called me, she called me the other day and she said, I got a question. And I said, what is it? And she said, what do you think of this idea? And she said, you know how women aren't necessarily brought up to handle firearms? And I said, well, they didn't used to be. I said there, there are more now. And she said, well, she said, I've been learning a lot over the last couple of years. And I said, yes.  She said,
27:08I have a TikTok account and I was like, yes. She said, I think I want to do some, some TikToks about gun safety and gun culture and  gun stuff as it were. Sure. And, and my daughter is gorgeous. She's five foot nine. She has the most beautiful face  and she just is so  passionate about helping people.  Sure. So, so she said,
27:34She said, do you think that people would want to watch these TikTok videos if I do them? I said, well, you'll probably know within five TikTok posts, whether people are interested or not. So she's talking about doing that. And that's, you know, it's a little aside. Yeah. think it's great. I think that's great. It's a little aside from my topic on my podcast here, but
28:01I think that women especially these days have so many avenues open to them to either teach  or have a career that they love that they can just throw their whole selves into compared to how it used to be. Sure. And I think that's great that we have these opportunities, you know, and it's that's her passion and teaching people about, you know, gun safety. think that's great because
28:27For a lot of people, they don't know anything about safety and that just makes it more dangerous than it should be. And if that's her passion and she can teach about it, I think that's great. think sharing our passion is really, I mean, that gives meaning to the life, right? And I guess that's why I do what I do. I not only love my dairy cows and I love milking, but I also love sharing about them and teaching about them. Yes, absolutely.
28:56I am so glad that you do and I'm going to die on this hill.  Without people like you, the industry might die and we don't want the industry to die if we like drinking milk and we like eating burgers and steaks.  Right, right. And I'm grateful for the people I learned from, you know, because  we all need someone to teach us some things. And I am grateful for the people I learned from and I hope to pass that forward.
29:25Good. Please keep doing it  and do me a favor. Smooch those cows for me because I don't know anybody with jerseys right now.  Most certainly I will.  All right. So where can people find you? um As in online or as... Okay. So I mean, besides for my Facebook page, which is Zebulon Heritage Farm, I also have a website, which is EvalonHeritageFarm.com.
29:55I guess  my farm is listed on  multiple raw milk, I guess databases or  places where you find raw milk. So the farm is listed in multiple places there too.  And then like I said, my school uh community, which is Homestead Family Cow, that is for learning about family cows  that is on the school platform. Fantastic.  Ronel, I so appreciate your time.
30:24And I say this to everybody who takes the time to talk to me.  I know you guys are busy.  You are being productive. You are helping in the world. So thank you for sharing your time with me and my audience. Sure, no problem. Thank you so much for having me here. I enjoyed talking to you. Good. As always, people can find me at AtinyHomesteadPodcast.com.  Ronel, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you. You too,
 

Today I'm talking with Connor at La Terre 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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:29Today I'm talking with Connor at La Terre Farms in Mississippi. Good morning, Connor. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. Enjoying this breeze out here. So. Yeah. My first question is usually, how's the weather? So how is the weather in Mississippi today? Honestly, it's very nice.  We've been in the hundreds, I think, the past month.  So it's kind of nice to have a breeze out here.  Would you believe that they're suggesting, and I use that term with a lot of hope,  suggestion.
00:59that it's going to be 104 here on Sunday in Minnesota. Oh my gosh.  Yeah. Wow. Minnesota. Yeah. Yep. I'm praying that the forecast changes between now and then because  I keep saying this. shouldn't keep saying it, but I'm going to anyway. I hate high summer. I hate being hot.  I would rather it be minus 20 out because when you, you,  when it's that cold, you can put on a whole
01:28megaton of clothes and be warm. But when it's so super hot, you cannot be any more naked than naked.  You know, that is very true.  I must prefer cold weather too, honestly. So the springtime is my favorite summertime.  I absolutely hate farming. Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah, I don't I hate saying that because summertime can be wonderful.
01:55but not when we get these crazy swings in temperatures. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. Now you were saying that that tropical storm is moving toward you or you're just getting some of the side effects of it. I think they're just getting, honestly, I have not kept up to date with it. My wife has. She keeps me sane. So she keeps up to date with everything. I just stay in here and look pretty, you know.
02:23Well, that's a nice job to have  and your stress levels probably stay a little bit lower because of it.  Alrighty, so it's a beautiful day in Minnesota. It was 57 degrees at five o'clock this morning  after a couple weeks of really muggy, really hot weather. So 57 felt like 27  and I was so happy  to feel a little bit of a chill in the air. I was like, wow, that's novel.
02:52It was it was lovely. I was drinking my coffee with the window open on the front porch and I was like,  oh, that's good.  And it's also sunny today and there's a slight breeze  and it's just perfect July weather for Mary Evelyn. For me, this is great.  It's going to start going back up tomorrow. So I'm going to enjoy today for all it is worth.  I would love to hear a little bit about yourself and what you guys do at La Terre Farms.  Yes, ma'am. So.
03:21Um, around COVID, um, I had a, job. worked at a science museum and I was a tour guide. And by COVID, uh, we kind of had like a shutdown period, you know, just like everyone did. And so I started to hang out with mom and dad up here a lot, just cause we kind of isolate ourselves from everywhere. Um, and I just, you know, I just wanted to be with mom and dad, make sure they're okay. Um, you're a good son. I try. Um,
03:51And so we were sitting on top of our barn at the time. Um,  and I was just looking out and I'm like, man, this place is beautiful. Like, why aren't we doing anything up here? You know, like, yeah, it's family land  and  it's beautiful, but I really think I could do something.  And fun fact, my grandpa is actually, was actually a farmer. So we have land in Tallulah, Louisiana  and  my great-grandpa was a
04:21So it runs in the family. Now I'm not growing cotton or soybeans or any of the hard stuff. ah I'm sticking with flowers. But I just had like an inkling to start farming for some reason. just had like a, I wanted to do something on my own  and thankfully mom was on board with me and now she's stuck with it so she can't escape. uh And so we just  looked up the most profitable
04:51crop to grow. And number one was lavender. Yeah. And then number two was cut flowers. And I was like, well, I'll be down. And so we started doing that. From the beginning, we didn't know what we were doing. So there's been a lot of trial and error, you know, a lot of failures, but honestly, that's the best teacher, you know, so. And so we sell the florist, we do events up here at the farm at the house and pavilion.
05:20And we, we, uh, sell the New Orleans floors. sell the base and Lewis force I dell. So we, we never stop, honestly.  That's awesome. have a question about your lavender.  Oh, yeah. Do you, you, um, sell that to places that distill the oil? Um, so I honestly, in the summer, just in heat in general, in our zone,  um, throughout the whole season.
05:50The only lavender that I know of that can grow down here is Spanish lavender. Um, and I have tried to grow lavender. Uh, unfortunately it does not work out for me. So like, example, we're in Nucleus and Lizzy Anthus, which I grew this year. And I I saw your, your video of it. It's beautiful. Yeah. So I used to, uh, I gave it to the florist. That's why he kind of saw the.
06:20the last bit of it. But I had heads three times that size. So it's very exciting because it's a really hard flower to grow. Yeah. And then ranunculus, same thing, I would love to grow that but each each state has their own zones are each, you know, state has their own zones. So we're zone nine B nine A, think. And so we can't grow ranunculus.
06:48We're a 4B here in Minnesota, at least where I am. Yeah.  Yeah. you probably could peonies and all that.  Oh, darling.  I have so many peonies. It's my favorite flower on earth.  I have  like 50, 50, I don't know.  I don't want to say plants because they spread. I started out with about 20 and now I have at least 50 clumps of peony bushes.
07:18along my driveway. And that's beautiful. Are you interested in the colors? Oh yeah. No, I honestly, love, I love peanuts too. So yeah, have yellow and baby pink and Hello Kitty pink. I don't know if you know what that is, but  Hello Kitty  is a popular little girl's thing. And this color is, is associated with Hello Kitty. So I call it Hello Kitty pink  and
07:47I have burgundy, have yellow, have coral, and I have white,  like pure white. And every spring,  Connor telling you, it gets to May 1st and I'm just looking at these peony shoots coming up.  And I'm like, please don't get frosted. Cause if they get frosted, they do not bloom. The little buds just freeze and turn black. And this year we had hundreds of blooms. was so beautiful. You know, speaking of frosts.
08:17You know, it's funny, people are like, man, I wish I could do what you do. You know, I wish I grow flowers and walk through the flowers and  just enjoy the beautiful air. I'm like, do you understand  what goes through on how to grow flowers? You know, it's truly, it's a very delicate situation with flowers, you know? And so like I have to constantly remind myself to keep going.
08:46Cause like in the summertime, I ain't cranky. I'm like, I don't want to do this. I'm out here. I don't want to do it, but I'm out here. So I had to constantly remind myself like, man, I got a good life, you know, but once they start growing and once they start blooming, that's when I say I have a good life. Yeah. I am constantly saying on this podcast that growing produce or raising animals is a crap shoot.
09:14It is a wonderful life, but you've got to be equipped to deal with highs and lows because it's not always in the middle. No, it's it never is. You know, actually we lost. Sorry, I'm just rambling here, but we lost. Let's see. So the big snowstorm that happened in Mississippi a couple of years back, definitely suffocated all of our flowers and we're like, oh my gosh, they were all black and we're like, oh, this is terrible.
09:44And sure enough, snow is a great insulator for  anything, honestly, but especially for flowers. they came up and like, were just gigantic. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. But any other time with just a normal frost,  ice or anything, they're dead.  So.  frost is a different phenomena than snow. Yeah. uh
10:13It's pretty humbling experience, but you know, I love what I do.  And by the way, my grandpa was a farmer, so it's just in the blood.  And I to hang out with my parents. So that was nice. Yeah. So you were saying that your mother is stuck with this now.  I'm guessing your mom is totally fine with this. Oh yeah. No, she, uh, honestly, she keeps me going because, uh, she's always thinking about the next step. Whereas I,  she calls me, uh,
10:43was it, um, where I just walk around, I go at my own pace, which drives her nuts. Um, which is a very slow pace, by the way. And she's like, we gotta hurry up. And so she's thinking like 20 steps ahead where I'm, you know, steadily just making the beds and, know, do no labor. I'm like, man, I don't know what I'd do without you. You gotta teach me your ways. She's a, she's like Yoda. Yes, she is definitely Yoda.
11:12Her name is Terry.  Yes, ma'am. Terry Wiley. Shout out to Terry. What a great mom. And what a great really what a great mom for supporting you in this idea. Yeah, she. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty amazing. So very, very lucky guy. So  and it's going to sound like I'm stalking you. I'm not. looking at your website about page.  And it says as soon as I retired from practicing law.
11:39Connor and I started taking classes, traveling to workshops and conferences, blah, blah, blah. Your mom was a lawyer? Yeah. You know, I've never won an argument with her.  What kind of law was she practicing?  Environmental. she. Aha. Yeah. Yeah. So it's funny. She keeps  she keeps me updated with all the, you know, DAQ and environmental things because my dad and I.
12:08love building, like digging everywhere, you know,  with our excavator. So ah we're very careful with pitcher plants and all that healthy environmental stuff, you know, like their own ecosystem. So she keeps us in track because we get too excited.  That's awesome. So,  so I love that that's what she does. She still do it or she's retired.  She's retired. So she does this full time with me.
12:38Um, but I keep telling her, I'm like, you know, at some point I want you and dad to like go on trips. You know, I you to retire. I know you say you love doing this with me. I love doing it with her as well, but at some point, uh, you know, take over and, know, let them enjoy their lives. I don't want them stuck at the farm. how old are your parents? Are they in their sixties or their fifties? Uh, seventies. Oh, okay.
13:07I thought you were like in your early 20s. Oh, no, no, I'm 33. So, okay. That's not on my part. Oh, no, you're good. They don't look their age. It's kind of creepy. They don't act their age apparently either. Yeah, no, Yeah, my dad is always on the tractor. Diesel is very boring up here.
13:35My mom's birthday is tomorrow  and I think she's going to be 80. And I have to confirm that with her tomorrow.  I always am off by a year and I thought that I had it last year and no, I didn't have it. I made my daddy year older than he actually was.  And my dad's birthday uh is July 30th. So they  are, you know, seven days apart,  but they're three years apart.
14:05So my dad is either gonna be 80. My mom is either gonna be 80 or 81 tomorrow. My dad is gonna be either 83 or 84 on July 30th. And my dad still acts like he's 50. I'm 56. He acts younger than I am. It's just crazy to me. And I swear the thing that keeps him young is his dog. He has a 10 year old border collie.
14:34Duchess her her  her name given name is Duchess her nickname is Dutchie  and she acts like she's about to because my dad has basically given her the run of their 14 uh acre property the whole time they've had her and she is always out running and playing  and guarding and going down the river and getting a drink she is keeping herself in fabulous shape
15:01Because my dad is so in love with his dog and has been since she was about eight weeks old He is always going out with her. So he gets his walks and she walks him. He doesn't walk her Yeah, it never works like that.  Yeah, so so if you want to stay young get yourself a good dog Well, you know, I have a black laugh. Her name is Sonny.  She's ten years old as well  and and with the two puppies here just cuz
15:30My sister and her family are here for a bit this summer. So she has two puppies to deal with. She just like sits there and watches them go at it. She's like, yeah, no, I'm good. It's quite funny actually. She keeps me alive too. So yeah. I think if you have passions and you have things that you're responsible for, it extends your life. I really do. Now.
15:55I have other questions for you and because I am 56 and I am in menopause, bad word,  I get brain gaps here and there. So I looked at your Facebook page earlier. I was like, oh, I know all the questions.  And now I forget what I was going to ask.  Do  you guys grow anything besides flowers? ah So we have tried vegetables. Now we did do okra very well. Okra? Yeah, okra. ah
16:25Stuff is very pokey though. It's not fun. So you definitely need to wear gloves when you're picking up. Didn't know that. oh But yeah, just vegetables require so much more care than flowers. So  yes, they do.  Yeah. I mean, it's it's ridiculous. So like the summertime crops.  Sorry, I go back to flowers. I'm just trying to, you know, relate to different between vegetables and flowers like
16:52sunflowers and zinnias and,  um, Azerothem, Amaramp, all those summer annuals  are like, basically just put it out there and, you know, I fertilize every two weeks  and then I have irrigation everywhere, all the timers. You just let that be and they're good to go. Whereas  festivals, you have to constantly, constantly watch them and make sure no, uh,
17:21Rodents are getting in there eating all your crop. ah It's a headache.  Yes, it is. My husband grows a 100 foot by 150 foot farm to market garden. Wow. It's his baby. It's his passion. It's his Zen. It's his thing that he loves to do  when he's not at his full time job. So not only is he growing that garden, he has a full time job. Wow. And he came in.
17:49on Sunday and he said, the pole beans are doing great. And I said, okay. He said, the regular green beans are done. I said, done? He said, yeah, we're not going to get a single one. He said, they have rough spots all over them.  And it's from all of the rain and all of the hot that we've had. They just haven't made it able to handle it. And the other problem with growing produce, not flowers, is that you have to actually weed.
18:18because if you get weed pressure and insect pressure, you're not gonna have a crop. Yeah, we've learned that the hard way. you know, the beauty  where we are, we have power line.  Sorry. I feel like everyone's been at the farm. Sorry.  So we have a power line  on our property  and they allowed us to do beds there with flowers. And so that's where all of our flowers are right now and by the barn and
18:46Also, another feel I just made. the  airflow,  you know, the air that blows through all the flowers, like I think, again, I don't know, but I'm very confident that's why we've not had any pest problems  or any, you know,  mold or anything. And they have been super happy this year, thankfully.  Good. Yeah. um
19:10How many, I don't know if you do this in acres or if you do this in feet, we do our garden in feet because we have three acres of property, but our garden is not an acre by any stretch.  How many acres of flowers do you grow? um I'd say about two to three acres. ah Now our overall property  is 500 acres. Wow.  Yeah.  So we literally just do like
19:40two or three acres of flowers. And usually the powerline field is my biggest field. They're about 100 feet long, three feet wide. And I have some 50 feet, some 75 feet. it just kind of varies with our topography, whether I can do like a full 50 foot or full 100 foot, you know, so that varies. Yeah, absolutely. And then the other question I have for you is it says,
20:09You have a workshop. that just for you guys or do you teach? uh So,  so during Christmas time we do garland  and reefs as well. ah And so we have workshops where I teach them how to make Magnolia reefs, cedar reefs. ah Basically those two are what we do because it's kind of hard to put boxwood in a reef.  yeah. ah
20:40And then the workshop also is where we have our Garland machine, which I tell you what, I cried when I got it. I was like, Oh my God, this is awesome. And so it literally makes Garland for you. Now you have to manhandle it, you know, make sure you get it through the hole and stuff. But man, it is, it is quite a blessing. So I didn't know there was such a thing as a Garland machine. Yeah, well we did it. So actually, fun fact, that's how we started out. So we started out.
21:10I mean, obviously doing flowers, but more so the garland and wreaths.  We actually did it in the backyard of our family home or the garage in our family home that we sold a couple years back.  And  I told mom,  I always joke with her. I'm like, you know, Jeff Bezos  and  everyone else who succeeded started in their garage. saying. Yes.  But I mean, obviously I'm not saying the next Amazon.
21:39Don't want to be that anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I'll  read people's status. um
21:51Uh huh. Okay. So the other thing that I saw on your website is that you guys, you guys still grow holly.
22:00Uh,  no. we,  we try it one year.  Uh, it did pretty good, but then,  uh, it kind of stopped working.  That's a tricky part about it. Just it works one year and you're like, what happened this year? So  I bought a Holly plant at around Christmas time, one year just for, for giggles and grins  and,
22:26I thought that I could make it survive through the winter and maybe I could plant it outside.  Minnesota is not built for growing holly. Holly does not grow here outside. Yeah, no, definitely not. I didn't know that.  I was like, but Holly's associated with Christmas. Christmas is associated with cold.  Holly should grow in Minnesota.  No, no, that is not the equation. Yeah, yeah, no, it's,  it's definitely hard to gross.  I'm sorry.
22:56My cat is hanging off the porch.  I don't know how that even happened. Is it oppressive? Is it okay? Yeah, she's okay. She's just running from the puppies.  It's just not cool.  huh. Absolutely. I love cats. We had house cats for a while and then we got a puppy and  we had one house cat left and I was like, guess what, Molly, you get to go outside.  She didn't want to be inside to begin with. And so she ended up being an indoor outdoor cat for a while.
23:27Yeah, then she ran away and we don't know what happened to her. So now we just have a dog. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That's okay. It was five years ago, but She ran away for six months She was gone for six months and she showed up after six months and I was like, well, hello It's good to have you back  and she came right up to me and she was purring and she let me pet her just like I always did and let me pick her up
23:54And about two months later, she disappeared again and never came back. I was like, well, I guess, I guess our place is not the kind of hospitality you want. found a different place to live. So. I'll buy him. It's OK. We have barn cats too, and they're friendly as well. it was a barn cats took a little bit of staying out of losing our pet. But cats are weird. They they deign to live with you.
24:22They don't make you happy. They want you to make them happy. Very true. Yeah, she she kind of runs the house now, actually. So it's quite comfortable. One of the things that I love about my dog, I never had a dog of my own up until the one we have now. I love the fact that she wants to make us happy. She wants to do what we need her to do. And that didn't happen until she was about two.
24:52Up until they're two,  they think they want to make you happy, but they also want to chew shoes  and tear things apart. She turned into a stellar, well-behaved dog at two years old. Wow. That's actually very impressive. She's really good, other than the fact that she has no off switch when she is being a watchdog. So she's a very loud, perfect dog. Yeah.  And I'm OK with this. It works out great.
25:19Alrighty, so uh I have time for probably two more questions because I try to keep these to half an hour. It says that you do you pick  and you're an event venue. So are those two things still correct?  Yes, ma'am. So tell me about the you pick. You picked. we,  like said, the power line field and other fields, we just come up and we'll have a band out there playing  around the barn area.
25:47You'll start at the barn and then you'll walk out to the field  and one of us will guide you out there and then let you cut away. And then you can make your own little bouquets after, hang out,  eat some food, um drink some alcohol if you want, you know?  So that it's, pretty much September and October is when we started doing the events again. Senator Ralph Flowers, cause  obviously as we all know it's
26:17hot.  So nobody really comes out during the summertime except for, you know, the shed that we have. We have flowers bouquets over there as well. So uh it's more just like a pick up and go, you know, right now. So like what we would call in Minnesota a farm stand. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Okay. Oh, sorry. And um was there other questions? Event venue. What kind of events do you do? Yes, ma'am. So we
26:47We do, uh we have florists in the Bay. name is Martha  and she comes up and does flower arrangement classes. um We also  do flower, you know, pick your own flowers. You pick, yeah, but you know, it's more like we pick them for you and then you make your bouquet. And then um people will usually just like hang out after and  we do a lot of  We.
27:16never stop. So there's always something to do up here. And we also have  farm the tables.  We have chefs come up and cook you a meal. And, you know, we have a big long table out here. yeah,  so it never stops.  That's so fun. Okay. Do you have like  a funny story or a sad story at all from from  your experience doing this? ah
27:46Well, actually, so there is a,  let's see.
27:52There is a funny story where, like said, Holly's cat around here, no Clover, and Holly's my sister's cat. And I was literally out there in the field cutting and Clover comes out and starts chasing birds. And so all I see are birds flying everywhere. I'm what the hell is going on?
28:21And she was trying to be a huntress, but she didn't catch any birds.  um, um I mean, that was kind of a lame story, but  not really a lot of crazy stuff happens up here. Besides when you get home to the farmhouse and all these animals are here  where, you know, you can honestly have to keep an eye on them because they'll go off and adventure off.
28:45Yeah, that's that's one of the things that they do that you're like,  um, are they trampling all my flowers?  Yeah, they, um, that's why I try to keep them at the house.  But Tulip, my sister's dog,  she hears a side by side on and she's like, I mean, is,  I've never seen a dog run so fast.  So you really have to like just gun it as soon as she's in the backyard, you just gun it and hopefully you make it in time before she gets in.
29:15Oh my goodness.  it's  honestly, it's quite comical  how much craziness happens up here with the whole family here, but especially at the house. Not so much in the fields because I keep them away, you know? ah But man, it's just  like I just had to go grab Holly, my sister's cat, from the puppies.  And she was  climbing up the screening porch while they were barking. I was like, dude.
29:45trying to do an interview here.  That's okay. We keep it real because we don't want to act like AI.  Yeah, true. Nope, no artificial intelligence here. It's actual intelligence here. um And that's a good line. I should keep that. That was good. Yeah, it was really good. Actual intelligence. That's my AI. um I have a little short funny story about our cat that is no longer with us.  Less than five pound female cat.
30:16came walking out of our tree line with a more than five pound wild rabbit in her mouth that she had caught. Wow. That's awesome. Yep. looked like she was going to tip over. And I was like, that rabbit is bigger than she is. How did she to get it?  That was nuts. My husband looked at me. looked at him and we're just like, I don't understand how she did that. That's crazy.  So that's  the craziest thing I've seen here since we moved in  six years ago in August.
30:47Yeah, that is great. Yeah, nuts. uh Okay, so where can people find you online, Connor?  Let's terraforms.com  and uh the whole story of our  beginning adventures  and ever expanding is on there. And then  also Facebook. I am thinking about doing a YouTube channel maybe  at some point. I think you should. I know I uh
31:17It's funny, I got a new phone. I had a phone for like four years just because I'm cheap. I really don't care. But I got a new phone and finally I had like good camera quality. So I did the video. Yeah. I was like, man, it took me four years, you know? Well, you're handsome and you're well spoken. I don't see any reason why you can't do a YouTube channel. well, thank you. I appreciate that. You're welcome. Connor, thank you so much for taking the time today to talk with me.
31:46I say this to all my guests. know you're really busy and I do not ever take for granted the time that you share with me. Of course, it is my pleasure and I appreciate you reaching out to me and it's exciting. It's my first podcast ever, so it's pretty awesome. You did great. As always, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com. Connor, I hope you have a great day. Tell your mom, thanks for being awesome and...
32:14I hope the tropical storm doesn't do any damage for you. Yeah, same here. I'll take this breeze though.  Have a great day. You too. Thank you.
 

Today I'm talking with Hannah at Linden Hill Ranch LLC. 
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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:29Today I'm talking with Hannah at Linden Hill Ranch LLC in Missouri. Good afternoon, Hannah. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you. How are you, Mary? I am a little frazzled. I don't know why, but I am.  I think it might be the heat. So I always say, how's the weather? You're in Missouri. Clearly it's hot.  Yes.  It's  think upper eighties today, but we're going to be back in the nineties real soon.
00:57And humid, of course.  Yeah, the humidity, the dew point is just kicking our butts here in Minnesota. We don't have tropical dew points  for more than a few days in a row,  usually in the summer. And it's been tropical dew points for over a week.  like, um I feel like Frosted Snowman at the end of the show when he melts.
01:25Yes. I'm dating myself because I don't think that that show is even played on network TV anymore at Christmas time. But I was born in 1969. So Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and all those cute little cartoons that they played at Christmas time. I got to watch those every year growing up.
01:52And I'm talking about winter stuff to make myself think that it's not as hot as it is. So,  all righty. So,  tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do  at Linden Hill Ranch. Sure. So, um right now we're running a  small regenerative grazing operation with commercial katan hair sheep.  We have livestock guardian dogs that help keep them safe.
02:21And we've recently  introduced horses into our rotational grazing program. And we also have, let me count.  I think we got 26 birds, uh combination of chickens and guinea fowl and turkeys. Okay. I have to know, did you have experience with horses before you introduced them to the farm? To the ranch? So that's, that's, I'll try to.
02:50try to sum that up. So I had a little bit of contact with Western pleasure in my earlier life. uh My daughter, when she was in her  preteen, early teens got into English  dressage. And so she's been  getting a lot of horsemanship in her life.  We've sort of been reading and learning and...
03:16We really wanted for her to have a horse of her own on property just for the, there's a lot of value. Horses are deeply sensitive, very attuned animals. And we couldn't get one, you have to get two because they need a friend. So we, you know, did like what we did with everything. We read, we studied, we learned, we found people who've done it, you know, for years and years that we could kind of pull on their knowledge.
03:46And yeah, so we've had our horses here on property for,  I'd say,  let me count  pastors because we're rotating them. I would say it's been close to a month and a half now. Nice. Are you enjoying it? I'm sure she is, but are you enjoying it?  Oh, I'm loving it.  I  used to in my previous life have a pretty stressful job that I worked  and em
04:15Having the horses, my horse is, he's  a 15 hand quarter horse gelding. And he kind of picked me because I wasn't sure that I was looking for a horse  and he's  lovely. I'll just go out there, we'll breathe together and he wants to be hugged and cuddled.  So  he's my buddy. And so that's kind of what I get out of it now.  And then the other horse was.
04:44I'm unhandled and he's my daughter's project horse. He's coming along nicely. Nice. Um, it sounds like you got yourself a puppy dog horse.  Nomad is definitely, definitely like that. And I appreciate him just for what he is. And  I just, I like,  I love that horses, have to find your zero. You have to find  your, some people might call it Zen space. I'm not in the Buddhist tradition.  So
05:12I hope I'm not misusing that term, but it's that place of, you know, sort of passionless peace. And that's what horses like to be. And then you can be with it, with them, if you learn. Yeah, I call it centering. m And that way I don't have to worry about offending anybody or appropriating anything because  appropriating is a terrible thing nowadays. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I say that kind of with a curl to my
05:41my lip because I feel like I've always been told that that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Yeah. But I feel like now imitation is the highest form of insult and it kind of drives me a little crazy. Yeah. It's it's a complicated world out there isn't it? It is. And if I'm 56 and I'm having
06:12trouble feeling my way through all the changes in words. Can you imagine how it is for my almost 80 year old mom and 80 almost 83 year old dad? Yeah. They it's so funny. My dad is very, very with it. He's very hip. He's very, very up to date, but he's 83 years old. He's seen a lot of change or he will be 83 years old.
06:37I keep thinking he's 83 because he'll be 83 on July 30th.  And my mom  is  with it  and very up to date, but she doesn't really follow. She's not very social, so she's not with younger people very often.  And so my dad will say something and she'll be like, what's that? Because she wasn't with him when he heard the new term. So it's been really interesting watching how they
07:05gather information and how they perceive it. Yeah. I think part of the key to all of this and to livestock and to homesteading is empathy. Yeah. It's whenever we put ourselves in the shoes of others or even our animals, our plants and think about, if I, what do I, what did they need? What would
07:33If I were them,  if I were a  sheep or a livestock dog or I'm an apple orchard, what do I need? What are my needs? I think, I think people,  it's, we're all, we're all kind of the same. We're all part of this universe together. And like, this is, this is something I'm learning. Like empathy is, empathy is so important and relationships. And I just think it might apply to almost everything. Yeah.
08:03I think so too. And if you and I can just put that bug in people's ears with this episode of having compassion for your fellow man  and instead of saying, why are you like that? Why don't you say what happened to you? Yeah. It changes the frame. Yes.  So we could do a whole psychology episode, but we're not going to.
08:29I want to hear about your Katatins, but I also want to hear about your livestock guardian dogs because  we do not have a livestock guardian dog. We have a small Australian Shepherd. Her name is Maggie. I talk about her at an ad museum because I love her to pieces. She will be six in August and she is a fantastic watchdog. That is her job at our homestead.  So tell me about yours.
08:55Okay. I love to talk about my dogs. So here it goes.  So,  um,  let me talk about them in the order that we got them. So  just for some clarification,  we moved to our current larger acreage, um,  homestead, farmstead, just a couple of months ago. Before that we lived in a big city  and we had a small property under 40 acres,  um, where we basically ranched our sheep.
09:24And so we were doing the driving back and forth. ah One of the things that was really key for us for that was our livestock guardian dogs. So we got our first, um well, back up even further, we got our very first livestock guardian dog, a purebred Anatolian Shepherd female a little over five years ago. And we got her while you were still in the city. Oh, wow. Hoping we were,  yeah, this is how we learned about Anatolian Shepherds, but.
09:53She's been able to manage her pretty well. I've had no incidents to report of anything negative happening with her, but she, yeah, we raised her in the city in our home and I took her on walks and the hope was that we would be able to get property sooner. And sometimes things don't happen on the timetable you want. So we ended up with this lovely, lovely, very protective watchdog, as you can imagine.
10:22who adores us  and is a little suspicious of guests and visitors. So, you know, she has a place where we can put her where she's safe whenever we have visitors out here. But that was our first introduction to Livestock Guardian Dogs. OK, I have a question. How old was she when you got her? We got her at about 10, 11 weeks.  Oh, so not only Anatolian Shepherd, but Anatolian Shepherd puppy.
10:49We raised, we raised a puppy, but she wasn't the first, she was the first puppy that we raised, not first one that didn't actually  get to be with livestock. But  yes, a puppy.  we  had, we don't, we don't go, we, go all in. um Um,  but we, but we really work hard to educate ourselves, um, and get mentors and read and study and learn and practice because you have to be careful. I mean, I think.
11:19I would not recommend that for a lot of people to get that kind of a dog. You must have been what about 20 pounds when you got her? I don't even remember. She was just little and she was lovely. mean, we didn't have issues with her except that she reached an age where we would have to put her someplace safe.
11:47so that she wouldn't be an absolute  menace.  We had people over and they're not all that way. uh Our second dog is uh allegedly an Anatolian shepherd. I think he's got about a quarter of great Pyrenees was kind of a rescue situation. And we got him  a month within the same month that we got our first sheep. He was about five or six and he had some issues. uh
12:15He was afraid of everything. He's something that I suspect is that they use fear to train him. And the result is that he's kind of anxious  about a lot of things,  but he's very bonded to us. So we still have him,  but  he can't be with sheep because he wants to run away and hide when he hears thunderstorms,  know, gunshots, fireworks. So that was a bit of a challenge, but
12:45We also, and here's this, even, it's hilarious just saying this, cause like, is  almost,  this is about, wow, four years ago that we did this. uh I'm losing time here, but uh we also got three puppies that,  see, it's funny,  three puppies that were raised to be livestock guardian dogs  with sheep and goats. And two of them had grown up. uh
13:13you know, up to the point where we got them around 11, 12 weeks again, uh, with sheep and goats. So they already knew the drill.  Um, and we, we endeavored to keep them separate from the sheep when we weren't on property with the sheep. And then we would let them out and do training, supervised training for a couple of hours at a time.  Um, and we've got two really great dogs out of those three,  uh, one,  uh, one of them, unfortunately, uh, we're not sure if it was a copperhead or a hornet.
13:43Uh, she was stung by something highly venomous  and dumb and she died and we were, we were heartbroken.  Um, but we still have, um,  so we still have, um,  two Anatolian crosses. One's Anatolian Maremma and the one is Anatolian Akbosh  and the Anatolian Akbosh, um, looks like a yellow lab, but whiter. Um, and he, sometimes he acts like it, but he's, uh, he was a handful. had to really, we had to actually separate him out for.
14:13a year and a half because he got way too chasey with the sheep, even  as an adult dog. And now he's back in uh the other dog, the Anatolian Maremma. She's always been wonderful and she's,  she's fantastic. She was born to do this job. ah She'd rather be with sheep than people.  Very nice. But she's a sweetheart too. So those are our, those are our dogs.
14:37So I didn't know that chicken math could be switched over to dog math, but you got it covered.  Oops.  Yeah. You know, at the beginning we were just, we were ready to try things and the dog that we got who was already an adult, he, um, he's, he's very empathetic and I actually took him through the canine good citizen program thinking that he might be a really good therapy dog, but  I realized, you know what?
15:06I  need some grounding and some centering sometimes.  I like having him around and  kids can hang on him and he's just really happy to get to be there to be loved.  That's purpose.  It sounds like you said it was crazy listening to yourself tell the story,  but it sounds like it's all worked out just fine. A lot of work, a lot of tears, a lot of  ...
15:35anxious, agonizing about, my God, how do we solve this little problem over here? And I think we just had to stick with it and not give up and find resources and work hard. And that's probably every Homesteader story at this stage. absolutely is. I have yet to talk to anybody who has a farm, a ranch, or a homestead who says,
16:02Oh, I get up in the morning, I make coffee, everything goes exactly the way I want it to and I go back to bed at 8 o'clock at night. Oh yeah. No, that does not happen. No. And if you're lucky, if you're really lucky, the things that go wrong are minor. Yeah. If you're not lucky, it can be a disaster. So, and I don't want to put people off of this lifestyle. I think that it's wonderful. But the one thing I would tell anybody.
16:32who is looking to move to property. And I said, do not have to be acreage. Let's just make that clear.  When you're looking to move to more than an acre and have animals and have gardens,  just be aware that where you have livestock, you have dead stock. um that gardens are a crap shoot. One year you can have the best garden ever,  and the next year you can have no garden at all because you did all the same things and it failed. Yeah, yeah, that's real.
17:01You got to be tough and you got to be committed  and you've got to be ready to handle whatever happens. That's how I feel about it anyway.  All right. So, Catodon hair sheep. I have met some. They are  lovely animals and when they blow their coats, it makes your yard look like it snowed in the summertime.  Yes.  Yes.  So tell me about your Catodons. Sure. um
17:29So right now, we're kind of on the smaller side. We've got about 65 head. We've sent some to market. We've sold a few to another homesteader. And we've got two breeding rams, we're like, honestly, we've been doing the sheep for about three or four years now. And we're kind of
17:58We've experienced three lambing seasons, all very different. uh One decent one,  one really wonderful, magical one, which was year two, and year three.  And this, I'll  throw this story in for people thinking about doing hair sheet because everything that you do matters. uh we were keeping all of them on the same property about
18:2630, little over 35 acres. em But there was some miscalculation on the fences between the rams and the ewes.  Now, if you know anything about Katahdin hair sheep, they cycle in and out of estrus. Usually it's after the summer equinox, approximately. And that's if they're nursing  lambs, that might be delayed a bit. But
18:54Anyway, we aim to breed  at the beginning, I'd say actually, no, not the beginning, mid to late November. And what happened last fall, there  was, as I said, there was some miscalculation with the fence and the fence spacing and kind of where everyone was located. And we found the rams in with the ewes that late October.
19:20And if you know anything about sheep gestation, means you're going to have lambs being born uh possibly in the coldest part of the winter.  Unless you get lucky. And we didn't get lucky, Mary.  We did  not. no.  So it was, it was a very hard time because we, we had worked so hard. We thought that, you know, we were doing a lot of, we doing a lot of things right. And then
19:47You know, it was pretty devastating because there was a cold snap right around the time that they were born.  So  we lost about  close to half  of the lambs. The other half that survived are tough little guys though. Oh my gosh. But that was, that's a really, it's a really painful experience and you know, woulda, coulda, shoulda. Yeah. Like if we were,  if we were
20:16perfect, you know, livestock managers that wouldn't have happened. But you know, we're just, we're just not.  And most people aren't, maybe nobody, but I'll just, you know, there's a small segment that maybe think they are. And  I don't want to, I don't want to burst no bubbles because  learning that way though, that you made a mistake that had that kind of, you know,  results is just like,  oh, it's like a gut punch. but,  not.
20:42Not necessarily because of that. We're kind of, looking at diversifying species.  So we're, we're just kind of looking at some things. We might have some good things coming,  but we're in the deciding phase.  So, uh, yeah. I think that a lot of people are in a transition period right now.  It's been six years since COVID turned us all upside down. uh lot of people.
21:10made big, big changes during COVID. We were one of those people. I mean, my husband.  That sounds really dumb. We were one of those people. My husband and I were some of those people.  And we're trying to figure out what we want to do now too. there's a lot of things going on right now, whether it's do we keep the farm? Do we go back to closer to the city?  Do we keep doing the same things we've been doing for five years on the farm? Blah, blah, blah.
21:39Yeah, it makes sense. Everybody, everybody got shook up six years ago. Yes, in one way or another.  And a lot of people took that year where they weren't really socializing and had time to stop and breathe and think through their lives and decide what they wanted to do next. Yes.  Yes. Now we're now six years past that and we're back in the same spot of what do we want to do next? m
22:08And it's exciting and it's scary.
22:12Yeah, definitely. But uh you raised the sheep for meat and to be able to sell some of them for other people to have? Yes.  Yes. And they're very beautiful and colorful.  I love watching them. They're so neat and they're very, sheep are way smarter than people give them credit for.  A lot of  it, for me, it's back to empathy. What motivates them is very different from motivates a person.
22:42They want, they, well,  and then, and then now I'm thinking, but maybe not, but maybe not,  but they're, they're naturally, they're prey animals. And so they're, yeah, like they, I wish that I could communicate this better to people because everybody, oh yeah, dumb sheep. And I'm like, yeah, they're not dumb. They might look dumb to you, but that's because  something different's motivating their actions than  you or someone else.
23:09Yeah. So I just think they're, I think they're lovely and I didn't want sheep actually five, six years ago. I was like, let's get cattle. What do you mean sheep? But sheep was a really good, it was a good introduction for us so that we can, could be ready for bigger and different kinds of livestock in the future. So I have a really funny question. You know how mama cats are with their kittens when the kittens are little, the kittens are all curled up with them when they're done nursing and they just look like a kitten puddle with mom.
23:39Yeah. Sheep don't do that, do they? No,  they'll let those babies suck them dry. Sometimes.  Sometimes you have to keep an eye on it because they won't leave her.  They'll naturally wean eventually, but there's,  I'm thinking there might be some wisdom to separating them out. just, I think there'd be a lot of  variances to win.
24:09Okay, so  are sheep  good moms?  Do they act like they love their lambs or are they just like, do they just feed them and they're like, eh, whatever? You know what? I've seen some variety in that, but I've also seen some,  consistently I've seen  some of the ewes that are very protective of their babies and they'll stamp their foot. They'll even kind of buck up to, like if the dog is getting too close, they'll...
24:38They'll tell the dog no.  And it's really impressive to me  because  they're not natural fighters, but there's something about that mothering instinct that really kicks in on  some of them. they're just, I love seeing it. just, they can be very fantastic mothers. Okay. I was just curious because  I am a sucker for a baby animal video  and I've been watching Katie Banz likes uh
25:06YouTube videos and her Facebook page because  she lives in,  I don't even remember, Tennessee maybe. Do know who I'm talking about? I'd say the name again because I don't think of Katie.
25:21Ha, ha, haven't seen her. Running Springs farm or something like that.  Anyway, she has many horses and many cows uh and she has full size horses.  Every spring, well, every early spring, like after January, there's always foals being born. And  I just love how baby horses look and how they act. And they're like little goats, except that they're horses.
25:51She has the cows and the mini cows and again, cloven hoofed critters. Ruminants.  I just, get such a kick out of all the ruminants because  they're, they all have different personalities. They all have different energy and they all just look different even though they're from the same  breed, whatever they are, whether I'm looking at horses or sheep or or  cows. And so it's always fun to find out how
26:21a person's specific animals are  as  moms or as  bucks,  know, the breeding males or how the babies are because I never hear the same story twice.  Yes. Yes. But it's super cool. um So  so tell me again, you've only been you've only been at this ranch thing for a few months. Is that what you said in the beginning?
26:50No, no, we, so we bought our first property in 2022. And we've been, we'd spent a few years looking and planning and using some resources, Bud Williams stockmanship, Alan Savory, HMI and Greg Judy. These are all people who do different things with livestock handling and rotational grazing. So then we put sheep on the property.
27:20in spring of 23. So we've so we're we're we're just we're beginning our fourth year with sheep.  we just moved the horses are new. The horses are new. And we started flirting, which is really exciting. That's F L E R D I N G. That's when you run a flock with  a herd. So we've got the two  boy horses, the two gildings uh with our two breeding rams and
27:47It's going pretty good. We got some advice from a guy who's been breeding horses and sheep and having them together for decades. I believe he's in Michigan. And  he just kind of gave us some advice about what to try and, you know, encouraged us that, yeah, it can be done. It's safe. It's if you do it right. And so that's been a lot of fun to watch the horses get, you know, very horsey and,  know, oh, my gosh, what is that? know, oh, is it a dog? Oh, my God. You know, and then.
28:14Now they're kind of calmed down and everyone's grazing and they're chill.  Do have the horses gone over to the sheep yet?  Um, so they, kind of, I don't, well, and I've, I've got a little bit of a health issue that  it flares up bad in the summer. So I'm only able to go visit them  in the early, the cool part of the morning and the cool part of the evening.  So I don't get to see them as much as I would like, but each day that I go out there.
28:44They're grazing closer and closer and they're not startling each other because the horses, boy, oh boy, they see something strange. It's,  they get very horsey. They  run around. They don't appreciate it.  But they're, they're settling in and they're, the rams, they're very docile and the gildings, they're, they're, they're fine. They're, they're pretty,  pretty neat too. Pretty, pretty chill animals. And  it's so far it's working great.
29:13Good, I didn't know you could do that. So again, we're taking you on another episode of A Tiny Homestead. Do you have any... I don't know how to ask this. My nose is so stuffed up right now that it's hurting my eyes and I'm trying to think. Do you guys have cornfields or soybean fields or alfalfa fields anywhere near you right now? We do have cornfields.
29:41trying to think how far there's one section that's about and see this is just along the road I would say like two miles away but then I think we've got some that are about a mile to the north of us as well so not not line of sight everyone  where we are is super hilly a lot of change in elevation really fast and it's very rocky so it's not well suited to row cropping which is we like that
30:11because we're not going to do that. That's not our purpose. And it means we're not surrounded by, well, we're not super close on top of people who are spraying and fertilizing and adding a lot of chemical amendments to the soil. That's helpful. was going to say part of reason my nose is so stuffed up is the cornfield across the road from us. Oh. It's beginning to do the tasseling and the pollining thing. Yes.
30:39I have allergies to corn pollen because I grew up on the East Coast. Oh, wow. I wasn't around corn fields growing up and I moved to Minnesota where it's the land of corn fields and soybean fields and alfalfa fields and wheat fields and oat fields. pollen just kicks my butt this time of year. And my husband came in from work yesterday. He said, I got bad news. Or not from work yesterday, he came in from outside. And I said, what? And he said, the
31:08the cornfield across the street and he didn't even have to finish it. I said, it's starting to do a thing, isn't it? And he said, yeah. He said, your voice is going to be very low by Friday. So if you don't have any podcast scheduled to record, I would suggest maybe don't do any on Friday. was like, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I'm looking at two weeks, two weeks of my voice is going to fun. It always is.
31:33Luckily the field around our house that we don't own is soybeans this year. Once this particular field across the road is done, it should be better. I've said this a bunch of times, gonna say it again. I hate high summer. I hate it. It's corn season. Yeah. Partly because in Minnesota we never know if it's gonna be
32:0295 degrees with a 72 dew point or if it's going to be 69 degrees with a 39 dew point. just never know. The weather here is weird. Always has been from what I've been told. I've been here for over 30 years and the over 30 years I've been here. It's been weird every summer. So yeah, corn. Yay. Yay corn. excited.
32:30So I try to keep these to half an hour. I am really excited for you that you guys decided to do this and that you have tried some things and now you're looking to add some new things in and I can't wait to find out what they are. Me too. So where can people find you online? Right now I mostly just have a presence on Facebook. We have a page. It's Lyndon Hill Ranch LLC.
32:59And I also do TikTok and it's videos of me doing things around the farm and sometimes talking about regenerative agriculture. Those are the main two places right now. Fun. Can we take two minutes and can you give me your version of regenerative agriculture? Because I know what it means for me, but I keep hearing people have slightly different definitions. So what does it mean for you?
33:26Sure. So to me, regenerative agriculture  is it's  sourcing  food from animals and plants and trees  in such a way that doesn't take from the earth, but it puts back. So we're putting the carbon back in the ground. um We're adding it back in through rotational grazing, uh not quite so high density, but
33:56sometimes  we'll move them very frequently. then  they, and this is the animal part,  which is the part I'm most excited about. They eat for a day, we move them to the next paddock. And right now I think they're on about half, 0.4 to half an acre a day for 24 hours. And then we move them and we use a temporary electric fence. And  because that simulates, uh
34:22like the way predator pressure used to push the bison across the American plains.  And that's, mean, that  when, that was the case  across our prairie lands, we had wonderful soil, but unfortunately with  the introduction of a lot of the chemicals, which  I understand why  large scale farmers use them. I do, but.
34:50It's stripping us of our topsoil.  so regenerative agriculture, we try to put it back in.  So it's adding to not taking away, working with nature.  We also do permaculture. I'm working on my teacher certificate right now. So that plays a part for me.  But I really, feel like  it's  about giving and abundance and reciprocity.
35:18in nature, it's there and we just want to be a part of it and mimic it. Perfect. Thank you.  You did a really good job on that because sometimes it's hard to explain regenerative agriculture. Yeah, I agree. was fabulous. All right. always, you can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Hannah, thank you for taking the time today. I know you're busy, so thank you again. Thank you, Mary. Have a great day. You too.
 

Today I'm talking with Nicole at Happy Hippie Homestead. 
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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:28Today I'm talking with Nicole at the Happy Hippie Homestead  in Kentucky. Good afternoon, Nicole. How are you? Hello. Hello. How's it going? It's going good. The weather here in Minnesota is gray and it's going to start raining again any minute. And I don't know if you know what the weather's been like in Minnesota for the last week and a half, but it's been hot and we have gotten rain every day for the last seven days now.
00:53It's been kind of like that here, but we've gotten rain the last couple of days, which we're grateful for because the garden could use a good drink.  Um, so we're, we're happy that we got some. Yeah. Yeah. It's been like a hundred here. What about you guys? Like humid and hot too? A week ago, Monday. So not three days ago, but a week ago.  Um,
01:22It was  really,  really  muggy. Like it was above tropical dew point. And we don't get that very often in Minnesota. It was a very long, very sloggy day that Monday. That's hard. That's hard. Yep. we get them a lot here.  used to that. So yeah, very muggy and humid here in the summer.
01:47Yeah, it'll be muggy, but it's not like you step outside and you're in the shower. That's how it felt last Monday. Yeah. It was gross. My dog was very unhappy all day. She's a, an Australian shepherd and she has the real thick curly hair. Oh yeah.  And oh she laid around  all day and every time I would walk by her, she'd just look up at me like, mom fix it. Oh yeah.
02:16Our dogs like to go out for a little, you know, runs around the big backyard, but then, you know, are happy to come back in because it's just too much sometimes.  yeah. She,  usually if I let her out, she'll go out in the grass and she'll do her rolly pollies. So she rolled around on her back and her tummy  and,  she just hangs out for maybe 15 minutes. And I let her out that day at about two o'clock in the afternoon. She walked out to the edge of the cement pad, got on the grass.
02:46and immediately came back up the steps to be let back in.  No laying in the grass, no roly-poly's.  I was like, oh, it must be really miserable for you because this is not your routine. So yeah,  it's been bad. um But our gardens are really liking the heat and then the little bit of rain every day. So I'm very excited about our gardens this year. Oh, that's nice. That's always so good.
03:14when you have your garden going nice, you know. Oh, it looks so pretty right now. It is so gorgeous. And  every time I look at it, I'm just like, please hang in there. Just keep going. Keep going. I want many, many tomatoes this year. Please. I  I beg my garden to behave, you know. Yes,  it's yeah, it's interesting. We work because we're always like if we.
03:43plant too early, you know, and then it gets real hot and humid and then you get like, you know, you could get blight or whatever. So you try to, you know, time it. So things are looking pretty good  right now. So we're hoping, we're hoping that's a good mater year. Yeah. The last two summers have been not good for us. So the fact that we have over 190 tomato plants in the garden right now looking healthy and happy.
04:09is a very welcome site and we thought we were going to lose those because we had early blight. But somehow, somehow they recovered. I don't know how. I think the good Lord said, you guys had miserable summers. The last two summers were tomatoes. I'm going to fix your plants. I was like, thank you.  Thank you.  So, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at Happy Hippie Homestead.
04:35So um we grow all kinds of vegetables.  We have a no-till garden. um We  use all the animal waste and compost it and put that back into the garden. And we don't do  sprays or anything.  And we also use all the wasted hay to mulch the garden.
05:02kind of use like the roost out or the lasagna method if you're familiar with that. em And tell me what it is for the listener though if you want to talk about. Oh yes, yes. So it's basically where you, you know, just keep piling up plant matter and compost  and it's a good weed preventative when you do that, but it also helps to keep the moisture in the ground and keeps the ground a little bit cooler.
05:31which is nice when we have summers like what we were talking about.  So the ground doesn't get too hot and dry out. And then it helps um also with erosion.  And  it's something that, you know, we really don't want to go out and have to weed um constantly  or, you know, do any tilling. So it really helps, you know, if you just keep piling your hay on there, it helps to prevent all that. um
06:00And it also can help to keep pests down. So, you you just mulch very heavily around the plants and it makes it, you know, a little more challenging for the pests to take over. You know, gives the plants kind of time to take a foothold. But we do, you know, try to get out and we do...
06:24do a lot of succession planting. So we try to just keep things going for all season. One of the things we grow here is an organic garlic that we've grown and saved seeds from for the whole time we lived here 13 years.
06:44That's really interesting. We also raise Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats  and  make cheeses and soaps  and  other products like, you know, make some Kehita caramel and yogurts and different products also make some like sugar scrubs and stuff with the goat milk.  And we have chickens.
07:14and mostly for eggs, we will, you know, sometimes for meat too.  And we just mostly do it  for our own enjoyment and because we want to eat really good, high quality food  and we just really love, um you know, interacting with our property. We also raise bees and harvest honey and it's just interesting.
07:43to kind of be, you know, you're kind of like the caretaker of an ecosystem. And so we really just enjoy and it's just, you know, me and my husband and we do everything mostly with physical labor. We don't have a tractor. So it kind of helped to keep us physically fit too as a, like an extra bonus.
08:11pretty much working out  all day every day and just getting to be outside. It's just something that we do that we love. It's fun. When did you start doing this? Well, um we've been married for over 20 years and at our old house,  had  our whole backyard  was basically a garden.  I had grown up in a garden because my grandmother always had a garden. um
08:40So it's just something that I've done my whole life.  I picked strawberries and beans and everything out of her garden and she would always can. My grandfather was a doctor and I didn't really know  at the time, but looking back, he really  emphasized your diet and nutrition  and  to make sure that you got.
09:08you know, the vitamins and minerals that you needed. And I just realized that they, you know, showed me all that through their gardening.  And they always grew me pumpkins and things. And so I've just always  loved, you know, to grow stuff.
09:29He was a wise man. Yes, he was. They were different. You know, the old school doctors  and I've had some really good old school vets  that, you know, have been phenomenal.  And that's really what everything, you know, everything  is based on, you know, the nutrition and the management. And that's,  you know, really what we focus on here.
09:58because we want to maintain the soil health and we want uh like all the animals  and the humans that live here  to be able,  you know, to thrive in the conditions.  And we, we do a lot of rotational grazing. uh We do a lot of stuff with the goats up in the woods where we help to maintain the native plants  and eat back a lot of the invasives.
10:29um We appreciate that the goats mow for us a lot, so we don't really have to use a lot of, you know, like mechanical efforts, don't have to put pressure  on the property like that as much. And it helps to save them fuel costs.  So I have a question that I haven't asked yet of people who have goats, and I should have asked it many, many episodes ago.  Do you think that
10:59the work that your goats do for you offset what it costs to feed them.
11:06I mean, in so many ways,  you know, there's just the aspect of being around  them. Sure. You know, helps to help you  to connect with your own nervous system and to be able to regulate it. And I mean, also teach yoga,  not goat yoga, just traditional
11:35Angar style Hatha yoga. And you know, for me, just being around the animals is very relaxing. I mean, of course it can be very stressful at times when you're dealing with something, but just the day to day routine of being around them, you know, just makes our lives more content.
12:03But yes, I mean, they fertilize the property. That's why  we do  the rotational grazing so we can, you know, just kind of move them around  and.
12:15They're just,  you know, they really help to maintain the property. You know,  you would really be amazed. And we've done some videos on our page,  you know, like take them on morning turnout and take a little video and then compare it to video just a few hours later where they've completely eaten back, you know, a section of the tree line.
12:42So yes, I mean, who wants to go out to a tree line and try to beat it back with,  you know, so yes, the goats do  a tremendous amount for our property and for us, you know. I kind of thought that would be your answer, but  I wanted to hear it from your mouth because  I keep meaning to ask people this and I forget. And part of the reason that I asked is because we have 12 or 14 chickens right now.
13:12I tried to get my husband to up the price because we sell them for five. We sell the eggs for five dollars a dozen. I was like, you you could sell them for six dollars a dozen. We've been selling them for five dollars a dozen for years. And he was like, no. And I said, OK, you rarely ever just flat saying, no, what you're thinking. And he said, I don't want to give out specifics, he said, but they are paying for themselves.
13:39They are supporting themselves by selling the eggs at $5 a dozen. I said, oh, by how much? And he said, more than half.
13:51said,  oh, okay. And he said, we want our neighbors to have good eggs. He said, I don't want to charge our neighbors another dollar to get good eggs. I said, that is your baby.  You decide that that is fine. So I'm not pushing anymore.  Now I would like to circle back because to  add on to the answer to your question. Sure. There is a point where there would be too many.
14:21goats. oh that's something that each  property  has a certain amount of pressure  from livestock that it can take without it starting to be in the detrimental zone.  that's part of it too. try to maintain a balance and be very specific about the size of our herd because that can get
14:49very out of control very quickly um when you're breeding.  you want to make sure that you keep it a manageable amount, not only for the pressure just on the ground,  but also  the parasite load.  And  we also try to breed for  parasite and disease resistance.
15:18So, you know, all of that is a delicate balance too.  And, you know, everybody has to decide for, you know, for their own farms, what is that number? um So that it does stay in some sort of uh you know, favor.
15:38Yeah, that does make sense. Absolutely. So I have a question about predators in Kentucky, because oh I'm in Minnesota. The only real predator we have in southwest Minnesota is coyotes, and coyotes are shoot on site here. So what do you guys have in Kentucky? Anything? Well, I might get a little bit of blowback for my answer, but I don't.
16:03I  don't have the same ideas about coyotes. I feel like they show a good ecosystem. My parents were cattle farmers  and we live next door to a dairy. We never have any sort of issue with coyotes.  And honestly, I can say that, I don't know, we live  on like a one lane road with all cattle farms and I don't know one farmer that's ever lost one to a coyote.
16:33So they're not an issue for you guys.
16:38I mean, no. what would be a problem would be black vulture. People do have problems with them. And there are, you know, different predators, of course, for the chickens and stuff. But the way I look at it is I'm here in nature.
17:00We're surrounded by nature and we're in, you know, the animals ecosystem as much as they're in ours.  Okay.  And it's our responsibility as the caretakers to take care of our chickens. So we don't leave our chickens out, you know, unattended at night  or out, you know, we have them in a predator proof coop in at night and then they can go out during the day. And then we have some movable fences for them.
17:30And you know, but what I'm saying is  it's my responsibility to take care of the animals  and make sure that I predator proof my areas because I have to realize that they live here and they also have a purpose. em You know, a lot of those coyotes eat  other different vermin that may or may not carry disease. And we also don't want
17:59those vermin to be overpopulated on our property as much as we don't want too many goats or we want to keep everything in a balance. So everything has its own purpose.  that why you thought you'd get blowback because you're saying that you don't want to deal with the predators because they have just as much right to be there as you do? I mean, it's just a different take. A lot of times people don't  necessarily understand or agree with that stance, but
18:28I always feel like there's always people so worried about coyotes and I've been around a long time. I don't really know farmers that are having a problem with coyotes. Sure, I think that it's overblown. I think that the worry  is overblown if you will make sure that you have some good enclosures for your animals. It's a non-issue, I guess is what I'm saying.
18:56The fences are your responsibility, our responsibility. And  I don't have any coyotes climbing over my fences or anything. So you know what I'm saying? just  have a different take on how I interact with predators.  Sure. Yes. em And we haven't had any coyote issues here at our property.  But coyotes.
19:25are definitely, there's a lot of them  in our area. And if we didn't take care of our chickens, if we didn't have a good fence for our chicken run, and if we didn't have a good chicken coop,  we probably wouldn't have any chickens, because the coyotes would be availing themselves  of Yeah, definitely.  I know what you're saying. And the pests that we have actually had issues with,
19:52is raccoons. lost raccoons last year, or chickens, raccoons last year. Because we had the corner of the fence had come loose and we didn't know the chicken fence. And we lost like five chickens one night, two, a mama raccoon and her four babies. Oh yeah, that's never fun. My husband was like, should I, you know, shoot them? And I was like, no.
20:22And he said, why not? I said, because if you fix the fence, they will go away. They will find an easier food source. Yeah, exactly. And he fixed the fence and they left. They didn't stay because there was no food source for them. Exactly. So I'm with you. I am not pushing back. I'm agreeing with you. Yes, yes.  What about snakes? see it a lot. poisonous snakes.  We... Oh, I was just saying, we just see it a lot here. Everybody's just like, you know.
20:52ah hunt them down and  try to get rid of them.  And I think the evidence for that shows that if you try to take all the coyotes out, you're going to have a bigger problem with other ones coming into the territory. um So that's an interesting thing too. Yes, we do have poisonous snakes here. Luckily, I don't encounter very many of them, but yes, we do.
21:22What do you have? Copperheads? Copperheads, rattlesnakes. uh I have seen a rattlesnake,  not on our property, but somewhere else  nearby.  And I don't know if I've seen a copperhead here, but we've seen a lot of other snakes here.  And we mostly try to leave them alone too. um We would like
21:52relocate them, know, if we find one nearby. But yeah, we don't really worry about them either because again, I think they do a great job getting, you know, some of the other varmint too.  Nature has a system and it's worked for a very long time.
22:15agree.  We just keep messing with it. And if we'd stop messing with it, maybe things would be a little bit better. Maybe. And that's kind of what our take is. You know, we want people to look  at different ways you can do things. And it doesn't have to be, you know, everybody doing the same things. em
22:40But you can also learn stuff from different people doing stuff differently too.
22:48And that's one of the interesting things about social media, you know, is you can get a lot of different really great ideas,  you know, from other people.
22:59I agree, however, I have a caveat.  yes. You live in Kentucky.  I live in Minnesota.  Your growing season is completely different than mine.  You have things that grow in Kentucky that will not grow in Minnesota.  I bet we have stuff in Minnesota that won't grow in Kentucky. Absolutely. So you're going to take advice from somebody on social media,
23:26I see good to talk to somebody near where you live. Yes, it can be. It can be. um
23:38I also think that you can experiment. Like I've had friends in California that we sent each other different varieties of things and tried to grow them. You might be able to get into some really cool experiments like that too.  And just try it. That's one of my big philosophies is like,
24:00People are so afraid to fail or make a mistake. I mean, I do  trials all the time, because my mom was a science teacher. And  you have to do the experiment without the attachment to a particular result. But sometimes I'll do trials in the garden, like, um...
24:26Okay, we did a parsnip trial. You know, well, the parsnips,  what will they do if we just let them re-seed and,  or  we'll do like, does the rhubarb like to be here or here  in the garden?  Or,  you know, you try different things and just be open to the different answers. I think the trying to force everything or like force the square peg into the round hole.
24:57You know, sometimes that can mess stuff up, but if you're open to like other possibilities, things might work out even better.  Absolutely. Yes. I think that experimentation is super fun.  But I also think that if you are going to outlay a lot of money for a new thing, talk to  your area so that you don't end up losing out on that, because that can get real spendy really fast.
25:27Yes, um but that's smart for like anything I think to be like, let me see this in person and how this works, which would probably be more like getting a mentor. You know, like when we got bees, we got a mentor and got into a group. And I think it's a good point you bring up because you should also do a lot of research about animals or things that you're going to get because they're living beings and they deserve that. ah
25:57So like I do not recommend like buying a goat if you live in Kentucky from somebody from California and you've never had a goat and you don't know what you're doing and you can't get hands on, you know, mentorship or help.  So a lot of times I've met a lot of really good people at farmers markets.  I've been involved with like our local extension service. I was in a bee group and I always
26:25do best when I have like some hands  on instruction. Like I have somebody in person, you know, that taught us how to, how to slaughter chickens. I, you know, I trim horse hooves. you know, I had somebody show me in person how to do that. So like for me, that's the way I learned and I really, you know, highly recommend that so that you can get some in-person feedback too.
26:56But like I wouldn't buy a car from New York without going to see the car probably either, you know? So I don't think it's just farming. It's like everything, you know, for me, if you're going to spend a lot of money on something, you know, to do a lot of research. Yep. I'm always telling people when they come up with a brilliant idea to see who else has done the brilliant idea and ask questions. Yes.  I think that's great advice.
27:26because it's so hard when you're so excited about something and you get sunk into it and then something goes wrong and you're disappointed. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't have disappointment. I think that it teaches us something. But if you can avoid the real pain and the sticking points because you did your research, I think that's a good plan. Yes.
27:54And  some things are unavoidable.  There is going to be uh disappointments if you do  this kind of thing a long enough time.  There really isn't any escaping that. So it's kind of like, what do do with the disappointment?  Yeah,  hopefully you learn from it and do something differently the next time.
28:23Yes, because everybody's going to make mistakes. And I think that's part of it too. Like, people don't always talk about it, you know, because you're afraid you'll be judged, maybe. You know, I know I've been,  you know, in those places before where I didn't want to, but it's like, you know,  everybody is learning at their own  pace. And sometimes you're going to make  mistakes and sometimes they're stupid.
28:49you know, stupid mistakes that you could have avoided, but hopefully you won't do them twice. And  yeah, yeah.  And sometimes you do, sometimes you do uh do a dumb thing more than once also.
29:09you hopefully you learn then,  I mean, you know, everybody, I think that that's one thing that goes on is, you know, there's a lot of,  especially on social media where people feel like,  you know, they can't really be honest  and that's why I think you get all the highlight reels from everybody and stuff and they don't talk about like the hard stuff all the time because
29:37I don't know what people think if everybody just thinks like all of the homesteads  are Martha Stewart has a barn or something. don't know. You know, it's it's like everybody  is just trying to do what they can the best that they can.  Hopefully.
29:56And you know, nothing's perfect. None of us are perfect.  And we just try to do what we can, you know? Yeah,  I had up until two Sunday mornings ago, I had a row of six beautiful apple trees.  I now have a row of five beautiful apple trees because one snapped off in a storm two Sundays ago.  And of course, it's right in the middle of the row. So now my perfect line of six trees is a perfect row of five.
30:26I don't care because we still have five apple trees and it looks really weird. It looks like it's got a missing tooth.  But it's cute. But it's okay. Yeah. And I was just It's like character, know. Yeah, I used to think like that too or whatever. You know, like our
30:50You know, we've lived here while so our fences aren't perfect anymore. And, you know, some of them have been had to be patched and some of them aren't perfectly painted.  I mean, I don't really want to be around people that are judging me because I need to paint a panel on my fence.  Like I really don't.  That's not the kind of vibe that, you know, I'm interested in. So it's OK. Like, I feel like we all probably judge ourselves.
31:19any, you know, for all that anyways.  And,  you know, are you saying we're our own worst enemies, Nicole?  Yes, I am. mean, it, I think you can be. And I think that that's a whole nother thing too, you know, about  self-talk, you know, and that's, that's the mental health aspect that you can really  work on if you're paying attention. um
31:49when you're farming. It gives you a lot of  opportunities to change your mindset  because you simply can't do it if you can't change your mindset. You cannot have the type of endurance and stamina if you don't have some sort of hope. How could you keep doing it?  I feel like it's really hard to be type A on a homestead.
32:19Well, I'm doing it.  Yeah, but I'm saying type A typically means that you're more of a perfectionist. And I think that if you are trying to be a perfectionist on a homestead, you're going to drive yourself insane. I think that's a perfect thing for a type A personality because you need to know that perfectionism is like an obsession for the unobtainable. Yeah.
32:48It's just you couldn't ever do it. And you  most type A people like us need that type of lesson. And that's one of those lessons you might need to experience it a few times before it's really like,  it's really okay that all my zinnias are not 1.5 inches apart or whatever it's nobody who is measuring this.
33:18Um, other than us, you know, so I think you have, have to be  easier on ourselves, but not that easy. You know, that's about, that's a balance too. The thing that I have learned the most from living here for almost six years is that you have to learn acceptance of what nature plans, not what you plan. Yes. um
33:47The reason I'm saying this  is  one of our female barn cats had kittens July 4th. We know that because she was pregnant  on July 3rd and the morning of July 4th she was no longer pregnant and she was due.  She was ready to pop.  She is not a super friendly barn cat. She is okay with people but she's not going to take us to see her babies.  And you can usually tell a mom a cat because you can see her teats.
34:17Well, there's no evidence that she's nursing babies. We're  we think that she probably does not have surviving kittens.  Oh, hot as it's been.  Maybe they couldn't regulate their temperature. We don't know. And I have been looking forward to this batch of kittens since  May. Yeah,  And I'm  I'm like really torn about this because
34:46If these babies had been born and survived,  this would be a really rough stretch for them because it's been so hot. And I may be pleasantly surprised. She may bring out three or four kittens in four weeks and they're fine. Don't know. But  the uncertainty of a lot of things on a homestead will drive you insane.  I'm just accepting the fact that if she didn't have surviving kittens,
35:15There's a reason. And if  she comes out of the barn  with three or four kittens in four weeks,  I will be so happy to see them and I will name every single one of them.  Aww.
35:28We had something like that happen last year where we had a broody hen and she sat, you know, and then none of the eggs were good because it was so hot. And so we had to throw them out, but she ended up having another, you know, clutch. She said another clutch of eggs and. But yeah, I know what you mean. It was very, you know, discouraging when we were like, oh, you know, we thought she was going to have.
35:57babies and not  one, know, and,  you never know, it can happen later, you know. Yep. It is absolutely a lesson in patience and acceptance. And if you can't open your palms to the sky and say, thy will be done,  you can't do this.  It will put you under so much anxiety and stress that you will just give up.
36:26Yeah, puts you in a position where you have to really, but I mean, I think that's life.  You know,  I think that's just life. That is  a huge part of it. And I think as we get older,  you know, we start to be able to cultivate more of those qualities too. Yup. I've learned a thing through a few podcasts and a few books lately that emotion
36:55is a very strong driver for behavior. But if you can get through the first 90 seconds of your feelings,  take a breath and count to 10, your brain will regulate itself and then you can think and you can move forward. That's what I've learned lately.  I like it. And 90 seconds is a very long time to be feeling angry or sad or scared. But if there's no
37:25imminent danger to you to you bodily if you hang in for a minute and a half It's okay, and there's tricks It's like if you can name five things you can see four things you can hear three things you can smell Two things you can touch one thing. I don't know whatever it is. It's it's a way of grounding yourself in that 90 seconds
37:50I like it.  Yeah, I like that. The human brain is insane. It's it is so weird how it's all  driven by your environment and your brain will trick you into thinking that things are worse than they are. Yeah, because because for a long time humans had two responses fight or flight.
38:17We don't necessarily have to fight or run anymore. We just have to sit in how we feel and get through it.
38:25Yeah, and I mean the nutrition and what we feed ourselves is the basis for a lot of those chemical reactions too. And I mean there's a lot of evidence that just, you know, being able to be outside on the soil, you know, has good bacteria that really helps, helps your mental health as well. And, you know, of course your gut health is very linked to, you know, to your brain.
38:52And that was another thing my grandfather taught me. I always thought this was so, you know, like as a kid, he would be like, how's your BM, you know, bowel movement. And he was basically taught me that like, if, if that is not, that is the one of the first places that you can see a problem. And we, we always look at all the animals poop.
39:16We know what everybody's should look like. And that's the first place that you'll see something is a rye, you know, but the gut is basically, you know, I mean, that's,  it's,  it's everything. I mean, it's the motor,  um,  and the digestion and making sure to get rid of the toxins.  And it's, you know, it's very interesting. So,  you know, he taught me a lot, but I don't really know.
39:44then but I can look back on it and just be like, yep.
39:49And that's so important, you know, to have your body functioning optimally when you're doing this, because a lifestyle like what we do, you know, in 100 degree heat and freezing temperatures, I mean, that will wear you down if, you know, if you can't  maintain  everything working in your body and keep yourself in a good state of homeostasis.  absolutely.  I'm really glad
40:18that it's your grandpa that you're talking about? Yes.  I'm really glad that you remember the things that he taught you. Yeah. I was able to spend a lot of time with both sets of my grandparents and that was really important to me that  my grandmothers both taught me how to cook. And I think that really um just really started my love of food. And I mean, then I
40:45you know, you're able to really get that connection when you grow the food and then you can prepare it. So, I mean, our garden is a sensory experience, you know, just as much as it is, you know, a culinary um experience to be able to just go out and all the  colors and the smells and the scents and the flavors of everything. And we grow all heirloom varieties.
41:15So it's  just fabulous,  all the different uh forums  that the beautiful food comes in.  Really amazing. Preacher to the choir, darlin', I am right there with you. ah I try to keep these to half an hour. We are now 11 minutes over that and I am good with that. This was really fun.  Where can people find you, Thank you. You can find us at Happy Hippie Homestead  on Facebook.
41:45We're the one in Kentucky with the goats. We're the original Happy Hippie Homestead. All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Nicole, I hope you have a lovely evening and thank you again. Thank you.
 

Today I'm talking with Courtney at Busy D's Acres|Busy D's Caprines. 
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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:28Today I'm talking with Courtney at Busy D's Acres in Belle Plaine, Minnesota. Good morning Courtney, how are you? Good, how are you?  I'm good. I'm a little sick of the weather.  I really, really wish we get back to the, you know, 79 for the high and a light breeze and the sun shining. This, this gray and hot and sweaty is pretty bad. Yes, it is very hard for us to get in the fields to cut hay and to get in our garden.
00:57And on the other hand, it's been really great that it's been warm  and enough rain. Because if it was just out or if it was just rain, we would be all screwed. Those of us who grow things. So  on one hand, I want to complain on the other hand, I want to be thankful. So I guess we're somewhere in the middle. I don't know. Yeah. I'm so excited to talk to you because you make goat ice cream, goat milk ice cream. Yes. And you're only on
01:27property creamery in Scott County, Minnesota, right? Yes.  So I need to know about you and how this happened and what you do. So I'll give a little backstory. The farm has been in my family since 1885. ah Our son is the seventh generation here. ah Back in  the 70s, my grandpa got rid of the dairy cattle and they switched over to Hereford beef cattle. So we had those my entire life growing up.
01:55And then 10 years ago, we decided to get two Nigerian dwarf goats because my husband and I cannot drink cow's milk. So we're like, let's see how this goes.  Um, I chose the Nigerian dwarfs cause they're really high in butterfat. Cause I was like, well, maybe it'll be fun to try making cheese.  Um, and then here we are 10 years later, we're, uh, on farm licensed creamery.  Uh, we have four different kinds of cheese that we make. And then the ice cream.
02:22And  my parents are technically busy these acres and we're busy these Caprines, but we're all on the same farm.
02:30Oh, okay. So it's a family operation. Yeah. So my husband and I are the creamery, which is the Caprines. And then the acres is the entire farm.
02:41Is there a Facebook page for Caprines?  Nope, it's all the same page because I run them both.  it's Busy D's Acres  and then Busy D's Caprines is in the parentheses.  Instagram is way more friendly that it lets me put both of them.
02:56Okay, cool. Facebook won't let me put them both because they're too close in names. huh. Go Fig. Love Facebook.  I do love Facebook. That sounded really snotty.  Facebook has been really weird lately. So I don't  know what's going on with it. The algorithm is  sick. I think it's got a cold.
03:19So  anyhow, uh I have questions about the creamery because  I know in Minnesota we have the cottage food license stuff, registration stuff, and I'm guessing the creamery is not cottage food because that would be really weird. Nope, it is not. I actually have my cottage food too. We've been doing farmers markets for  over 10 years, so I have the cottage side too, but
03:46The creamer is actually licensed and inspected. So it's the Minnesota department of egg that comes out and inspects. actually have five different inspectors.  have one on our farm side, which is what the goats are considered. And then the milk areas, the milking house  and,  um,  the milking area. And then I have a plant inspector that inspects my, it's pretty much a commercial kitchen, but it's called a plant.
04:11And then I have an overall inspector that oversees all of them. And then I also have the retail inspection. And then I have  a  lab officer that I have to do my own antibiotic testing before I process each batch of cheese. So  I need an honest answer from you.  Do you feel like there's too much overreach on the regulation or do you think that it's okay?  I am okay now  in the beginning with all of the paperwork and having to get everything
04:41submitted, it was a lot. My final inspection,  was  way more, I thought it was gonna be way more than it was.  It was actually a breeze, like the final inspection, but there was so much beforehand. ah My dad was a union iron worker, so he read blueprints his entire career. So he actually made us a blueprint for the barn because I had to submit that with all of my barn planning.
05:04So all of that beginning stuff like down to like where I was gonna have my milk filters with a cover had to be on that map
05:13Wow. Okay. really specific. Yes. I had to have a detailed list of all my equipment with links so they could approve it. And they can tell you whether or not they approve things, but they cannot give you too much guidance because they are state workers. And so they cannot be biased, which I understand.  But somebody coming from, you know, just milking in a little makeshift milk house to becoming licensed, the milker was the hardest thing for me to find.
05:44Mm-hmm.
05:47Okay, so tell me again, how long have you been doing it?  We have had goats for 10 years and I've been in milk for eight years. And then I've been making cheese since we started having milk.
05:58Okay, so eight years you've been in it with the milk. Yeah, we bred. So we started out with our first two does in 2016. And then in 2017, we got our first buck in weather. And then we had our first babies in 2018, May of 2018. So then we started milking in July of 2018.
06:26Okay, so you're  kind of an old hand at this at this point. That's long enough to get your under you and grow a pretty decent business.  So  are you  happy with what you've built? Yes, it is a lot of work, which is good. I am not complaining because I'm happy where we're at. ah It's just, it's a lot of work with everything. And right now  my husband still works full time while we're getting this all the way off the ground and
06:55Um, when I used to make cheese on the stove top, I could do it all in one day. Now with the size of batches that I'm doing, and then also with my antibiotic testing and my pasteurization and everything, it just adds more to it. Okay.  And  are your products, are your cheese, well, are your dairy products, not cheese products,  are your dairy products for sale off the property too? Yes, we are in a couple of local butcher shops,  um, in a couple of local farm retail stores.
07:26Our cheese curds are most popular.  then,  um, second would be probably our spread. Our goat Vita is getting popularity. People it's, I have to explain that one to people. What it is, is it's Velveeta, but real cheese. So it tastes just like Velveeta. You can use it just like Velveeta, quesadillas, queso,  grilled cheese, homemade mac and cheese.
07:49And then we do a crumble, which is similar to feta. And then we just rolled out our ice cream two weeks ago. That one took me a little bit longer to perfect with the pasteurization step because it changed the molecules of the fat.
08:04Yeah, um, your cheese tastes like Velveeta.  I am quite positive that your...  I'm sure your version is way healthier than Velveeta ever had thought to be. Yeah.
08:19Mm-hmm.  Yeah, I can't do Velveeta. We ate a lot of that when I was a kid and anytime somebody brings it up, I'm like, nope, I'm good. Yeah, the things that we can eat when we're kids and then now as adults, what we know is in it. It's like, oh no,  we're not eating that.  Well, I didn't love it when I was a kid and now I certainly don't want it. So, you know, it's partly bad too. Yeah. So I  have a question about goat milk ice cream.
08:49Yes. it very different from cow milk ice cream or is it just ice cream? I, it's a richer flavor, which there are richer ice creams.  Um, because our goats are so high on butterfat, all of their cheese  and their products are a little bit more of that rich taste, but they are not that goaty taste.  Um, people, when it comes to goat products, milk, cheese, they don't, they love the goat.
09:15flavor or they really don't like the goat flavor that like that tangy goaty flavor with our Nigerians what we feed them  and also with their high butter fat. Our flavors taste very in line with cow's milk.
09:30Okay. And the reason I ask is because people are always like goat cheese is so good. Chev, chev, however you say it.  C-A-V-R-E.  I'm not a fan and I do like cream cheese, but I don't like goat cheese. Yeah.  Right. It's just, there's something about it that I can't get past. And I was like, Hmm, I wonder if that's a thing with the goat ice cream as well, but it sounds like it's not.
09:57We actually don't make chev because I made it when I was testing out different cheeses. I've made pretty much almost every kind of cheese because before we were licensed, I had to  make different cheeses because I wasn't going to fill our freezer with a bunch of stuff, you know, personal. So I tried almost every kind of cheese. And I made chev and I have a couple of friends that I passed it out to that really like it and the consensus is they actually didn't like it because it didn't taste like chev.
10:24They wanted the goatee flavor when they saw that name. So that's actually not something that I even make because it doesn't have the flavor profile people are looking for because it doesn't have that sharp taste to it.  Yeah, that's the thing that gets me. And it's the same thing with sourdough bread. I can't eat sourdough bread that has that sharp tang to it. don't like it. And I love that people love it. It's just not my thing. um So how many goats, is it rude to ask how many goats you have?
10:52No, it's not rude. is a very common question.  Um, so going back to just to see how  goat math works, we started out with the two and then we got the two boys. We've got a couple more girls. And then here we are 10 years later, we have 66 goats, 38 of them are in milk. We have eight that are due in the fall. Um, we have four bucks that we run so we can mix up our bloodlines.
11:17You're busy. That's a lot of hoes on the ground.  do you  machine milk them? Because that's a lot of goats to milk by hand. Yes, we do. So originally when we started, we actually made our own milker because we didn't know how the milk was going to taste. So we didn't want to invest in a milker. And then we ended up not liking it. So we actually made our very first milker with a hand vacuum seal pump  and two syringes.  And then we just used plumbing line.
11:46Well, after a week or two of doing that and tasting it, decided, okay, we're going to invest in a machine. So we invested in a machine and then we just could milk one at a time with the machine. Well, then we had one goat that she take would take 20 minutes to milk on her own. So we had to go to two, to a bucket milkers. We can milk two at a time.  we had milked two at a time until this past May, when we started using our other milker and now we can do four at a time. So we have four stanchions, four goats at a time.
12:15And my husband actually helps me at night so we get done quicker because it's a lot of goats. It is a lot of goats. And then the other question I have is, you have, you know how at dairy, cow dairies, I don't know how to this right. They have the coolers that the milk goes into. Yes. Do you have a cooler for the goats milk? Yes. So I have a bulk tank. So we milk in the buckets and then we dump into our bulk tank.
12:44And then um our bulk tank, we have a little pipe that goes through the wall that I have a hose that goes from my bulk tank to my vat through the wall to transfer the milk to make the cheese.  Okay. And then I'm really not trying to be nosy, but there are people listening.  There are people listening. I'm sure who are very curious about how this works because  they may be 18, 19 years old and thinking  I would like to have a goat dairy someday.
13:12but I don't know who to ask questions of. So I'm trying to help those younger people to come up the line. uh Do you do your own testing? know, cause at Dairy's they have to do testing on the bulk tank before they send the milk out into the world. So do you have your testing that you do as well? Yes. So every time I move my milk, I have to do an antibiotic test to show that there's no antibiotics in it. But then I...
13:37also have to bring in to a  offsite lab every month, a sample that does, it's called my official test. So it does antibiotic testing to make sure there's no antibiotics in it, somatic cell and bacteria count. And then I send that to my,  to my state lab officer.
13:58Good, so you're a very conscientious dairy goat person. I love that. Yeah. And I know if you're not a very conscientious dairy goat person, you don't stay in business for long. So it's very smart to do it the way you're doing it. um So  what else can I ask you? um Barring the making stuff with the goat's milk, is it fun for you to be around the goats or are they just a means to an end to have the goat's milk?
14:27No, they're fun. So with the Nigerian dwarfs, they're the smallest of the dairy goats. So they come up to our like knees when they're full grown and goats are just really funny in general.  Um, if I am around, I can let them out to free range because they will listen to me and I can watch to make sure they're not eating hostas or the garden or something they shouldn't be. If they get out on their own, they can get a little naughty, but they are like, they do like their little Irish jig jumps  and they.
14:54walk on their back feet and they're just, they're funny little animals and  they, headbutt each other. They literally will get back up on their hind ends and knock each other's skulls. It's just what they do if they're fighting or if they're getting introduced to  a new goat.  Um, we call it scuffle budding.  Um, but that's just the, and each goat has their own little personality.  I have some goats that will come in to milk just fine.
15:21No problem. I have other ones that I have to coax them in every day They're fine once they get in and I have one goat where she does not like to be touched But she will come in every day and milk and she's a really good milkers. So they're just all different Yeah, my husband and I were joking one time because we lived on a tenth of an acre lot in Jordan before we moved to Lusor and I was saying I would love to get a couple goats and you can't have
15:50goats on a tenth of an acre with a house and a four car garage. doesn't work. And definitely not in city limits. I'm sure Jordan would not have been pleased with us. But I used to joke about getting a goat or two and telling the city that it was a dog with a effed up feet and a broken bark. And the first time I said it to him, he almost peed his pants laughing.
16:16from then on. was like, oh, that's one of those dogs with F to F to feet and a broken part. We would see goats and he would just giggle.  So yeah, they're great. I mean, I've talked about it a lot. I'm not going to get into it past saying that I had a friend whose parents raised goats when I was a teenager. And every spring when the babies were born, she'd call me and say,  can your mom bring you over? Babies were born last night.  And my mom, God love her, would drive me 35 minutes to go see my friend.
16:45and hang out with the babies. So that's how much I loved baby goats and that's how much my mom loved me.  Baby goats are a whole nother avenue of fun because they just want to learn to hop around and  they're so funny. We've never put pajamas on them. We haven't gotten to that point, but I have done a lot of videos of them dancing.
17:10They're super cute and  I love them the first 24 hours because  you can hold them and they don't jump. They don't try to get out of your lap. They're just like,  there's just like any newborn baby. They just want to be loved on. Yeah. So I was always thrilled when she would call me, you know, the next morning because they knew the babies were healthy. The babies were nursing and the babies were up and around, which meant that I was welcome to pet them all I wanted to. Yeah.
17:39Her  dad was such a pain in my butt.  Oh my god. His name is, was, think he's still alive, Lou. And Lou was a trickster. He was  very sarcastic, very dry sense of humor. And he would tease me because I was so in love with the baby goats.  And every time he'd do it, I
18:03I just look at him and I'm like, I don't know what you expect me to say. I just love your goats. If you don't want me to handle them, I won't.  And I guess I looked hurt enough that he would be like, Oh, Mary, no, it's okay. I'm just teasing you. Like, okay, how about you stop teasing me and just be impressed that I love your goats.  So it was rough and I'd go to school and my friend Elaine would be like, my dad loves you. I'm like, okay, good to know. Cause sometimes I really wonder.
18:33if he just loves giving me a hard time.  I  wanted to mention before we get done, we've got about 10 more minutes to go. I've been talking about the fact that our barn cat was pregnant and she is just under a year old.  She is no longer pregnant. She showed up not pregnant on July 4th morning.  either she's not a good mom or the baby's died because she's  not.
19:02She's in our yard too often to think that she's being a really good mom.  she  was due right on July 4th, because I know when she was bred. So it'll be a miracle if we see any kittens coming out of the pole barn in eight weeks.  I'm so sad.  I think that they died and I don't know why.  So that's the update on the barn kitties here, because we were talking about babies, so I figured I'd throw it in. ah
19:32Our other barn cat that's a female, I think that she is newly pregnant. So hopefully she will have babies in September. Because you know how this is barn cats disappear or they get hit by cars. And we have we have four barn cats right now. We were really looking forward to gaining a couple. Yeah. I don't think we're going to gain any from this first litter because I don't think they survived. I'm kind of really sad about it. Yeah.
19:59But there's nothing you can do on a farm as you know, you know how this goes.  Yes. Yeah. We just have two male kitties that are here. um My mom was a vet tech.  So our animals,  she spays and neuters them. Right now we just have two boys  and they stick around and they're the one is a really good mouser. So we're okay with that right now. We're okay with not having babies because strays show up here all the time.
20:26Yeah, we've only had one stray show up. Well, that's not true.  had a very scary looking stray show up. I think the third summer we were here. This is our fifth full summer here, I think. um And it didn't look good. It looked ill. And  my husband dispatched it. He was like, no, we're not adopting that one. Yeah.
20:54I felt really bad about it, but I was like, if he's sick, it's going to infect our cats and we don't want to have to kill a bunch of cats, you know? Yup. Yup. Biosecurity is a real thing on farms. Yeah. My husband's ah uncles live in Wisconsin and  on one of their farms, they had a lot of barn cats and people would drop stray cats at their place and there was no stopping anybody from dropping them.
21:24And my husband in his teens helped his uncles hunt down at least 50 cats because there was rabies going around the cats. Yeah. And he tells that story and he tells it as a lesson. But to this day, you can see in his face that it hurt them to have to shoot those cats. Yep. So it's you got to be careful. um So do you guys have a garden too?
21:54We do. Yeah. I couldn't tell you the size.  That's one thing that I've always been bad at my entire life is looking out and be like, how big is an acre? Like just growing up on a farm, I had no concept of how big things were. So yes, we do a garden.  We do a lot of our canning for ourselves. And then we also do a farmer's market. So we do canning for that too.
22:19Nice.  Do you grow the usual suspects as I call it, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, kohlrabi, corn, potatoes? Do you grow all those or do you grow other things? We  do. We don't do any lettuce. I never get to it in time. It always ends up bolting. Next year, my goal is to try, now that the barn is done,  I'm trying to get it in in April early. um Yeah, do cabbage. My mom is like known for her sauerkraut. um We don't.
22:46My husband is the corn guy. does popcorn over sweet corn just because it turns out better for him.  We do a lot of different varieties of squash and then melons. try to do some, our son loves watermelon. And then my dad's kind of known as the garlic guy. So we have a lot of garlic.  Nice.  I,  we have such bad luck with garlic. We don't grow it anymore. We've tried. Well, it just does not go well. Yeah, I'll let you know.
23:16Yeah. We grow winter squash, fall squash, whatever, butternut, buttercup. What's the other one? Acorn. Yep. And I am a huge fan of those because I like the sweet winter squashes. really do. I will roast a butternut squash and eat half of it right out of the oven. Yes. So it's so good. We do one called candy roaster and it's ginormous.
23:46um But you can eat it just the same as a buttercup.  You don't even  need any sugar. You can just do a little bit of maple syrup and butter and you're good.  Yes, the best seasons we've had with our winter squash are when you don't need to put anything on it. It's just you just scoop it out of the shell and eat it after you roast it.  We've had two or three years where the squash has been that good.  It's so good for you. So many people don't
24:16know that winter squash has such a nutritional benefit for you if you just can bring yourself to eat it. Yes, we also do a lot of pumpkins. We use them as natural dewormers for our goats. So we plant like over plants of pumpkins  so we can get as much as possible to feed the goats in the fall. Now I have a question about that. Is it the pumpkin flesh or the pumpkin seeds or both that are natural dewormer? The pumpkin seeds.
24:46Yeah. The raw pumpkin seeds.  Yeah, I think  that you can do that with dogs too. If your dog likes pumpkin,  they'll eat the seeds and I think that works for dogs as well. Yeah. And squash works too, but because we eat the squash, we try to do the pumpkins for the goats.  Yep. When my dog gets sick, her veterinarian told me that if she just has a sick tummy to give her  cooked up.
25:17cannot think today,  Ground beef  and squash or pumpkin, you know, the flesh cooked  and rice. And just give her a little bit of that, see if she keeps it down. And then like six hours later, give her more and give her three days on that. And then see if she'll eat the kibble and not be sick again.  And it worked every freaking time.  So, and she loves it.
25:43She sees me putting those three ingredients together on the island  and she is sitting at my feet just waiting for me to put it in her bowl even though she has a sick tummy. Yeah. I'm like, you're so weird if I had a sick tummy. I wouldn't want to anything, but you're right here ready to go.  She's crazy. Okay, so  I want to let people know where they can get hold of you or find you if they would like to get some of your dairy goods because I think it all sounds amazing.
26:13Yeah.  um, call, text, email, I can give those  out.  and then also we have our Facebook or Instagram  and they're under busy these acres.  Um, and then it's busy. These Caprines, like I said, as a branch of the farm. we have a shared page just because it's all one when it comes to farmers market and everything. And then, um,
26:41Because when I do our postings for like the garden and all that stuff, it's just so much easier for me to have one page rather than  multiple.  yeah, absolutely. It is so hard keeping track of different pages all the time.  I  keep it super simple. Yes. That's the to do it.  And I didn't ask the obvious question. Why is it called Busy Bees?  So when my parents
27:07joined with my grandparents back in the  80s. Both of their last names started with D. So then when they combined as a partnership, that's what they named the farm. So it combined them both. And then  when we did it, because it was on the family farm, we wanted to keep it a link to it, but then also make it our own. then Caprines is um the species name for goats. just thought it was cute, the busy D's.
27:34rhymes was busy bees and I was like hmm.  I wonder if there's something there with that too.  All right, this was a joy Courtney. I'm so glad that you are doing something that makes you so happy and it sounds like you're living the dream. Please keep doing the things that doing.  Thank you. As always people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Hope you have a great day Courtney. Thank you again. Thank you.
 

Today I'm talking with Sheila at Backlund Acres. 
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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:28Today I'm talking with Sheila at Backlund Acres in Belle Plaine, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Sheila. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I'm good. We're having a hot one again today. Right. I'm a little tired of it, are you?  Yeah.  Yeah, the plants love it, though. So  I can't complain because everything in the field is just doing amazing. Well, I guess I guess the good news is that at least we've been getting rain along with the heat.
00:58Exactly.  If we were just getting the heat, we would be in trouble. It's definitely, yeah, it's definitely a bigger problem. And when we had the early heat, I think was it in May or June?  It was  so dry and it was just heat. And so we had trouble with like our spring crops bolting early.  Yeah, our asparagus went to seed super fast this year. I was very sad about this.  Yeah.
01:27We planted asparagus five years, five springs ago now. And this was the year we were going to be able to have a bunch to sell at the farmers market, right? No, it all bolted so fast that we couldn't keep up. So I have a question about your asparagus. So you planted it five years ago and you can just start harvesting now or you're just saying it multiplied enough where you had  enough to sell? We got
01:53We got enough to have a mess as my mom would call it two springs ago. And then last year we had enough to have some to eat and some to sell on our farm stand. This was the year where we thought there was going to be enough to actually sell it at the farmer's market. So  we thought that it would have been  long enough that it would have multiplied and sell it.  But no, because it was so hot,  it just went poof because it's a breath.
02:23as a grass. Oh, I didn't know that.  We are on year two of our asparagus and it was ready  really early. Now, I know you're not supposed to harvest it the first year,  but we  bought like and  we have a whole field of it, I'll just say.  And  they, the company we got it from said we could harvest it for a week the first year. And then the second year it's three weeks. So anyways, yeah,  I was ready in April though, which was really weird.
02:53We're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, but we're on asparagus. I'm going to ask this, and then I'm going to ask you to tell me about yourself. Was your asparagus super sweet this year? Because ours was. It was delicious. Yeah.  But then we had a freeze and I had no idea that it all will freeze and die. Oh, yeah. You know, if you're only allowed to harvest it that first week, everything that was above ground froze. And so if I would have known that, I would have taken like I probably would have had an entire
03:23There was a lot  that I could have brought in and pickled or done something with, but I just, I guess I didn't know.  Live and learn, right?  Right. Yep. Yep. That's all this farming and home setting and ranching is, is living and learning every freaking season. For sure. It's fun and it's frustrating.  So anyway,  please tell me a little bit about yourself and about Backland Acres. Okay. So we...
03:50So I grew up, me and my husband actually grew up in Eden Prairie and had never planted anything. um So we  got married out of high school, lived in Chock-A-Pee, had never planted anything in my life.  And  my son came home with like a styrofoam cup with  a little plant from, you know, that you do in kindergarten. They plant the seed in the styrofoam cup and bring it home.  So he brought that home and we planted it next to our house.
04:20in Chakapea, just dug a hole, had no idea what I was doing, just dug a hole and planted it and it turned into this big plant and gave us summer squash. was crooked neck summer squash. Nice.  And I just became  really infatuated or  yeah, just really, really excited. So  I went to the store and I bought a bunch of seeds and I had no idea what I was doing, like literally  nothing. don't even, I didn't.
04:46don't even know if I had a smartphone then. I didn't know how to look anything up. I didn't look anything up. I didn't read anything. I just started dumping seeds in the ground. But I dumped a whole packet in the ground. So I would dig a hole and dump a whole packet of bean seeds in the ground. Or unknot seeds or whatever. You got the bug. Yeah, I did. And it was really fun. And we had some things, obviously. We had weeds and everything. And I had no idea what I was doing. But yeah, so from there, we had some...
05:16friends who wanted to  purchase a farm  and start like an organic  meat farm. And so we  were good candidates for that.  we, um they wanted to purchase it and start this business and  they wanted somebody else to live on the property and run the business. So we agreed to do that.  And I just started planting more and more. I don't know how much you want me to tell, but I started planting more and more. um
05:46when we came out here and learned a little bit  more about what I was doing, you know, that I needed to weed, that I needed to  space the plants apart  and um start some seeds ahead of time.  And this was 12 years ago? Yes, this was 12 years ago. Right.  I'm impressed. You...
06:15You caught the bug knowing nothing and you have turned it into a business in 12 years.  Right. Yes, exactly. And so when we first moved here, we started with a lot of animals because they were really interested in the animals. So we raised like a thousand chickens a year.  We um had pigs, we had cows  that we had like put up all this fencing to have cows on our land. was someone else's cows, but we were just,  we had 15 acres. So, you know, it was either hay it or have animals on it. So.
06:45um We were learning how to move cows around and how to move chickens behind them. And we had some sheep at  one point. We had goats. We tried  everything.  But the thing that we did for our business first off was the chickens and the pigs. um So that's more of what we were focused on. But I slowly just started growing uh vegetables. Well, actually not slowly. Before I even moved in here.
07:12We rented a tiller and for some reason I thought I had to bring the sod up. So I got a sod cutter and um we planted a whole bunch of stuff.  But just again, still had no idea what I was doing. Didn't have a greenhouse and had all this stuff in my basement um and was doing a lot of throwing,  like digging a hole and still throwing seeds in the ground. um But yeah, so over the
07:40course of 10 years or 12 years, guess,  we  have transitioned to doing less animals and more. Now we have, now we plant five acres of vegetables and flowers  and we have tractors and a greenhouse and  high tunnels and oh all the things.  You also have a model for your CSA that I read about on your website that  I think is super cool.
08:09people can come and work at the farm. yes. this is.  It's a SDS share, right? Correct, yep.  And this is how that started. So we start, I really started selling vegetables, you so we're still doing a lot of animals. I think in one year I raised like 3000 chickens because I was raising for somebody else as well.  So we're still doing a lot of animals, but.
08:35We had these gardens that were quite big and they were just for me and there was no reason to have that much garden space. And it was during COVID and I had friends.  So this was, think, so yeah, COVID six years ago. um I had friends coming over because there was nothing else to do with their kids and the kids were playing and we were  weeding the garden. And I just said, let's all take care of the garden together and then we can just split the, whatever we produce.
09:03So that same year,  a farmer's market reached out to me because I think they needed vegetable vendors, I can't remember, and asked if we would  sell vegetables at their market.  And I was like, oh my goodness, I've never even,  you know, I don't know what I'm doing at all.  Like, we're just, I can grow things, but it's very messy process. Like there's lots of weeds,  things are imperfect.
09:30So I asked my friends and we said, let's do it. So we all went  on it together and just started planting and um taking care of what we already had and started going to the farmer's market together.
09:46I so far, love your story and I'm going tell you why. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get people to grow something because things are so expensive right now and seeds are cheap compared to a tomato. Yes. I feel like almost everybody can find a bucket and get a scoop full of dirt and grow a tomato plant. I feel like they really can. I do too.
10:16And  I also feel like you with your situation  your your child brought home a seedling and you were like, let's plant it and see what happens.  That's not luck. That's intention.  So you are just uh solidifying my my constant push to get people interested. You happen to luck into it. But guys, if you have space, grow.
10:46something. Right, plant a seed. Yeah. You know, and don't be, I mean,  and I guess I had to be willing to dig out, you know, I didn't have a perfectly manicured yard or whatever. dug a hole in the side of my house and I had to be right next to my lily. There was lilies there. There was other perennials.  I  had to be willing to just  see what happens.  I think
11:10a lot with this. think something about my personality that works with farming, I've talked to my husband about this, is that I am not a perfectionist. whatever the opposite of a perfectionist is me and I am willing to just try things or throw a seed in the ground. I was just doing a lot of throw seeds in the ground and see what happens and see what happens instead of trying to learn everything there is to know.
11:40try to do it perfectly so I can have this perfect looking garden.  You're an experimenter, that's what you are. Yes, yes. I  remember the lady who  purchased the farm, I was growing vegetables for her because I was going to provide for both of our families.  And she kept asking these scientific questions. And I was like, Kate, I don't know. And she's like, so you're...
12:08You're saying it's more of an art than a science. And I'm like, yes, that's what I'm saying.  We're going to see what happens. And every year is different. there's not like a formula. At least I don't think people might, other farmers might disagree with me, but I don't feel like there's a formula for a perfect um plant or system or growing season. There's just way too many variables.  Yeah. If there was a system or a science to growing things.
12:36Everybody would be doing it and people would be a lot better off Right. Yeah, but there isn't we I'm not gonna lie the last two summers have been rough here with our farm to market garden because in Luzor we got rain  Every day in May and into June both years. You know, I've been getting a lot of rain the past two years I've been watched because I'm always watching the radar. Yeah, and it always stops when it gets to me So we've actually been dry super dry the past two years
13:07And you're only like half an hour away from me, which is just crazy.  It is crazy. I don't know if it's something to do with the river, but me and my neighbors talk where like, it's so weird how it always splits around us. And I am watching the sewer Mankato. That area is always just getting like  red, you know, on the radar. It's like red after red.  There's storms or rain. Luckily this year has been  perfect. Oh, good.
13:35And I'm really afraid to say that out loud because I'm afraid I will jinx it.  But we have apples on our apple trees.  have uh tomatoes forming on our tomato plants. We've already picked cucumbers and kohlrabis and zucchini. This year is looking to be across everything I have and knock on wood a good year. But the last two summers have just been hellacious because of all the rain. I'm sorry. My husband.
14:04went out to, well, he wanted to plant  last spring on May 15th, because that's the day we do it.  the garden was mud. It was slow up. He was like, I can't plant anything because I'm, I'm sinking into my ankles if I step into the garden. Yeah. It's like, Oh, that's fabulous. So he ended up planting three different plantings of tomatoes to get
14:32maybe 50 pounds of tomatoes last year. Oh, I'm sorry.  Yeah, the timing of everything can be really frustrating. ah So  so we have one hundred and  seventy CSA members and then  people who shop at our farm store each week. So I don't know.  I just feel like probably 200 families, you know, that we're  getting vegetables for each week. ah
15:00So we have, so the timing can be very frustrating because we have to have, start June 1st, we start sending out vegetables June 1st or the first week of June.  So we have to have vegetables ready.  And when you, can't get the tractor in or you know, you have plans to like this year we had, we were in really early. And  so I,  I test the water, like I do some extreme things. I plant extremely early on some things.
15:30where everyone around, know,  people who have gardened forever, they'll stop by the greenhouse and say, Sheila, you're planting too early. And I'm saying it's going to be fine.  But things like lettuce, all the brassicas, celery, celeriac, all the cold weather things, I'll plant extremely early um because then we can have them, you know, the first week of June.
15:53But if it's too wet, you can't get tractors in the ground. This year what happened is we got them in really early and then there was some really cold weather coming and it was very scary. Everything survived. You know, I think it got down to like 26 and all of my cauliflower, everything survived. You were very lucky. So that was an experiment that worked out good. Yeah. And people who don't do this.
16:21have no concept of the worry that we all have. Oh,  right. I think about that all the time when people are saying, you know, I'll be in the farm store and customers are coming in saying there's a big storm coming. There's a big storm coming. I'm like, you don't know what that's doing to my  anxiety right now. Let's stop talking about the storm. Let's pretend it's not going to happen. Oh, yeah. We lost an apple tree, uh, two Sundays ago, two Sundays ago.
16:50That storm that came through early on Sunday morning, it snapped right off at the base.  Oh my goodness. Yeah, and  I'm sad,  but I'm not as sad as I would be if it had been a different tree. It was a honey gold variety and we have four. We now have three. Okay. And I don't love honey gold apples. My husband does.  And the other two trees, two of the three trees are loaded with apples. So we should have some honey golds for.
17:19sale and for my husband to snack on when they come in. But I would have been heartbroken if it had been the one Regent or the one Harrelson that we have. Right, right. So I felt very blessed that if it had to be an apple tree, at least it was one of those. Yes, Honey Gold is a good one. Yeah, last year we had, I think it was in June, we had some big wins and I had no idea it was coming. I'm happy I didn't know because I would have been so stressed out.
17:46But it happened in the middle of the night and it ripped one of our high tunnels out of the ground. Ugh. And just to give you an idea, high tunnels,  I mean, they're thousands  of dollars. They're so expensive.  And the time and the, you know, I had built it myself. We did end up fixing it this year, but it was really, really... So then em it ripped, you know, so then whatever was in the tunnel was like exposed to the elements all year, which ended up being completely fine. It was cucumbers.
18:16Yep. But it was, it was pretty, pretty darn stressful. So I think  the more infrastructure  and investment  I have in the game, I think I'm realizing the more stress, the more that's on the line, it's just more stress with weather and  things happening, you know, just adds to, adds to that stress, the weightiness of, you know, carrying it on your shoulders, I guess.
18:44But would you give it up for anything?  Maybe the high tunnels. The high tunnels are stressing me out. Yeah. But no, the rest of it. No, in the field, I don't get too stressed when there's storms. It's more of just those. mean, I'm trying to think. I think the high tunnels that I just put in were like 15,000 apiece.  Uh-huh. So it's quite a bit of  money we're talking. You know what mean? That like if something happens to that, um that's a
19:14big loss.  Yeah. And I feel your pain on a smaller scale. We just had a basically like a high tunnel style greenhouse. So maybe a quarter of the size of what you're talking about. And I watched it go over and it was a lot. It was loaded with seedlings that all got knocked into the ground, their seed trays. So that is my number one.
19:41I don't even want to talk about it, but that is definitely my number one fear is my greenhouse, something happening to that during the, during, you know, like March and April. Yeah, this was three or four summers ago, springs ago. I watched it go over and I cried. And what did you do?  Well, all the seedlings were big enough to be planted. So we had  basically surprise gardens all over our property. Okay.
20:11And it was really kind of fun because you know,  squash seedlings, they don't necessarily look different from each other. So we didn't know if were planting a squash or summer squash.  So we had a few patches of zucchinis  and butternut squashes growing in the same plot.  that's funny.  Yep. So we rescued as many of the babies as we could, but  I never want to see a greenhouse go over again. It was
20:41It was heartbreaking. Right.  So I don't know how to make my greenhouse stronger, but that is definitely my number one fear. Like a winter storm taking it out while it's  still freezing out and things.  I don't know what I would do.  Well, we have a hard-sided greenhouse now that went up three maize ago.  The wind is not going to take that one down. It's like a house.  OK, that's cool.
21:11So, and that was funded by a grant from the market  entry fund. if you, if you want, if you want to come up with the money for a hard sided greenhouse, I would suggest looking into grants because that way you're not shelling out the money to build one. oh I put a hard side on  one  side, but it is still like a hoop house. Yeah. So anyways, you know, it's a lot. So, um,  so you grow flowers too, right?
21:41Yes, so during this time,  so six years ago, once I started growing and selling the vegetables, um I started planting flowers in the green. I basically just plant any seed that comes my way.  So I was planting everything and I was planting in the greenhouse and then I had to plant it outside, of course, and I knew nothing about flowers.  Never grew a flower in my life.  And I  became equally just...
22:10excited and completely obsessed with  flowers as I was with growing vegetables. I think it's,  if you like to grow, it's a great way to, um you know, get like, em get creative. Use time being creative and it's an art form that I think if you already like to be outside and you like to grow things, it's just a great outlet, I guess. you do annuals, perennials or both?
22:40Both. I am trying to build up my perennial gardens. was just looking, was, that's fine. I was just outside looking at the colorful echinacea that I planted last year and it's really taken off and really bountiful right now and it's just gorgeous. My flower gardens this year are outperforming any year and they're just insanely beautiful. So I need to...
23:09somehow get like some drone footage or something so that people know can get a good idea of what they look like. It's so hard to have  pictures do justice. Yes. And so I just want, yeah, I want everyone to come out and experience it. We have pick your own flowers  on Fridays and Saturdays during like our  on-site market here. And  people have really been enjoying it, but I just want to make sure everyone knows it's a possibility.
23:39um And that we  have loads of beautiful things here. Post on Facebook to your friends if anybody has a drone you can borrow or  if they want to come over and do it for you. Okay, yeah, was just talking to my husband and  his friend apparently has a whole production company.  Well, maybe that's solution. Yes, yes. So I'm like, we'll get him over. And I'm like, Nick, ASAP right now because  these flowers, you know, they don't let, we need people picking them now.
24:09Yeah, can you believe it's past July 4th? I can't. The season goes so fast for me now. Yeah. I think I'm probably over halfway through my growing season because we plant everything again for the fall. I don't know if you do that, but we plant. I deliver until the second week of December. Wow. OK, no, we don't do that. Yeah.
24:36So we plant everything outside again. So all the cold weather stuff in the fall or the  spring things like the cabbages and the lettuces and  all of the, you know,  leafy greens and radishes. I plant all of that again. And then I also planted another time in our high tunnels. So in December we're harvesting out of our high tunnels.  Very nice. That is so cool. uh
25:06Echinacea is also called cornflower or cone flower, right? Yes, think people even call it purple cornflower, but there's a variety from Johnny's that is a colorful mix. trying to remember what it's Cheyenne? Cheyenne spirit? Well, it sounds beautiful. I haven't seen it. The reason I asked you, I asked you, geez, I can't pronounce, I cannot pronounce ASK today for some reason. We...
25:35got a bunch of cone flower plants two years ago and they just do not do well here. They were fine and then nothing came back this year. Weird. So tell me about your soil. Is it, probably because of the wet? Maybe. Did they drown? I don't know, but our dirt is very, it's not sandy, number one, and I know they like
26:05Sandier dirt, know sandier soils that might have something to do with it I'm not sandy at all. I'm thick clay Okay, I don't know near the year that they didn't come back for me. So two or I think four years ago I planted them. They didn't come back the next year because it was too wet Then maybe that's what it is because we put them in three Four three, I don't know three or four springs ago
26:32And they did well the first year and then the next two years it was bad. So what I'm discovering is that sometimes the things that you think will do really well in your area that are, you're cultivating, don't do as well as the wild things.  Yeah, for sure. For sure. mean, right. They're good. um
26:59lilacs and wild plum all over the place here in Minnesota. And our wild plum tree does well every year. But lilacs? Nope. And coneflowers? Nope.  And crocuses and daffodils? Nope. Yeah. Isn't that funny? And then you see it in fields in all these weeds, know, poking one of weeds and  nobody's taking care of it, but they're just growing like crazy. Yeah. I'm like, what did we do wrong?
27:29What did we screw up? And I don't think it's anything we screwed up. think that plants grow where they're planted, but they may not grow well if you force it. And they must have just like they found the perfect soil that they needed. You know, that's what I noticed too, like different weeds coming up. Different weeds will do really well in different years, you know, depending on whatever the soil has that year or how wet it is or.
27:59Yeah, it's a crapshoot. Mm-hmm. That's  yes. I really do think so. I really do think so. I've had so many years where I'm like, there is no what was it this year? We had something so amazing and I was like, there's no reason why is that doing so well?  I've planted that for years and for some reason this year it's doing well and I want to know why I'm trying to remember what it was.  Well, I don't remember, but cauliflower.  have I'm having a really great cauliflower year.
28:28Nice. Are you having a really good call Robbie year? Cause we are. Yes. Yes. Basically everything's doing pretty good for me this year. Trying to think of what's not. Yeah. We had, you know, here's a weird thing. We've never had this happen, but all of our radishes did terrible. Like they bolted super early and they didn't get very big radishes. They're so dependable. Same thing.
28:56Yeah, they're so dependable. Like every year they're just the same for me except for this year they were not. oh my husband brought in four French breakfast radishes for me  and I always try them before I do anything with them because if they're too hot, I won't be able to eat them. They hurt my mouth.  I took just a little tiny slice and bit into it I was like, nope, those are hotter than hell. No. Yes. And that's what people did say about my radishes too. They're wow, they're really hot. So it must have just been
29:25that early heat that we had. But I don't know, I've grown them in the high tunnel. just didn't, there was nothing that made sense because in the high tunnel they didn't do well either. So what I want our listeners, my listeners, whatever, however we're saying that these days, um, to know is that gardening is surprise, is a surprise a minute and it can be a really good surprise or it can be a bad surprise, but it's worth the effort. Absolutely. Absolutely.
29:54So um I try to keep these half an hour almost there.  What I would like to know as a last question  is you have a CSA. Is it still open for members or are you done with new members for this year? We are closed for delivery,  we are still open for what I call, I call it our UPIC CSA.
30:18I think I need to change the name to market style CSA because people think that they have to come here and go to the field and pick their vegetables. But it really, you pick just means you come to the farm store each week on Fridays or Saturdays  and you pick out which vegetables you want in your bag. So most CSAs you get a box or a bag of vegetables each week, the farmer picks. They give you, and that's how our delivery system works. We pack bags  and we give you what the best thing out of the field.
30:47On Fridays and Saturdays, set up, you pick,  we set up like a market  and we get other local things from other places as well. And you come here and pick whatever you want in your bag for the week.  That's fun. Yeah. And then it's been really fun because in addition to that, there's available, there's options for you to pick extra things from the field. So like you can get a pint of peas for one of your items, or you can go to the field and get a half gallon of peas.
31:17if you pick them. So there's really the people that are taking advantage of the pick your own are really making off great. They're going home with like  five gallon buckets of spinach or kale and  they're going home with a lot of vegetables. So  if you're willing to put a little work in, you can really  do well here.  So where can people find you if they want to if they want to take advantage of your business?
31:42Well, yeah, they can just come to the farm store. We are in Belle Plaine. We're right between Belle Plaine, Jordan and New Prague. So they can come to the farm store on a Friday or Saturday. And all of the information for this is on our website.  But come on to the farm store Friday or Saturday. Fridays 11 to 4, Saturdays 8 to noon.  And we can help you get signed up. Otherwise you can just shop. It's open for non-members as well. Just not all of the exact same benefits. um But it's open for non-members to just shop.
32:11Like it was exactly like it was a farmer's market. oh And your website is backlandacres.com and your Facebook page is backlandacres, right? Right. Yes. Okay. So that people can go find out and get the address to be able to show up. Yes.  Awesome. This was awesome. And I'm  so  thrilled that you're doing what you're doing. I wish more people would do it. I don't want them to do it right next door to you because you don't need the competition, but I wish that...
32:41I wish that people in the areas would do this because we need No, I agree.  I agree. I wish more people would do this, even if it's around me, because I think it creates a market for people to,  know, people get used to getting their food just locally when it's available more locally.  And so I just think that the more people, the better, really.
33:10Yes, and I keep saying this and I'm going to say it until I die. If you get your food from someone who's grown it locally, it is more nutritionally dense and it's better for you. Right, so you're getting more for your money. Yeah. Yeah, and I tell this to people too, you our prices don't, like you can't compare our prices to a grocery store because it's just not even the same vegetable. Right. It's not the same product at all.
33:36ah And some of our things are less expensive than the grocery store. Some are more expensive than the grocery. We have to charge what we need to to to grow the vegetable ah But it's not even  the same thing. So you can't really compare  Well, I'll tell you what the last time I bought a couple stems of rhubarb at a grocery store years ago They were super sour and they didn't taste like rhubarb. They just tasted really sour
34:04The rhubarb that grows in my yard tastes like rhubarb and when you add a little bit of sugar to it, it's really yummy. tried adding a little bit of sugar to the stuff from the store and it was still kind of sour, bitter and gross and stringy and woody and it was just disgusting. True.  just not even the same thing. Yeah, I don't want to knock grocery stores. I think that we kind of need them for certain things.  But I also feel like we live in a country where we can get food.
34:33from our neighbors who are growing it because they love to grow it and because they want to share it. So why not support them?  Right.  Yes, I agree. All right. So as always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Sheila, thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Mary, thank you so much for having me on. It was really fun. I would like to talk to you again. I know we should do this again. It was fun. Cool. Thank you. Yes. Have a good day. You too. Bye.
 

Today I'm talking with Kathryn at Fairview Farms: Second Harvest. 
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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:28Today I'm talking with Kathryn at Fairview Farms, second harvest in Michigan,  which is only two states away from me.  Good afternoon, Kathryn, how are you? I am doing well, how are you? I'm good. Is it hot in Michigan? Because it's a little better here in Minnesota now.  Very hot, very humid.  I'm hoping that it goes away soon. um I looked at the long-term forecast for where I am in southwestern Minnesota.
00:55And it looks like it's gonna be in the 80s for the next at least seven days. Yes, that's gonna be us too. Which is better than 95 with a tropical dew point. I'm okay with it. But yeah, I don't know what it was like for you on Monday morning this week. But I got up at five, stepped out on my porch with my coffee and there's a window into the porch. It's a closed in porch. And it was like stepping into a steam bath. And that was 5 a.m.
01:24I was like, oh, today is going to suck lemons. And it did. It was really useful.  And then it got better over the course of the week. And as I'm talking, I can tell that my voice is not what it usually is. So listener, I'm sorry if I sound like I'm dying. I'm not dying. have wicked allergies today.  So Kathryn,  I would love it if you would tell me a little bit about yourself  and your place, because I looked at your
01:53pinned post on Facebook and there is some real history there. Yes. um So  I  live in Rochester Hills, Michigan,  and we purchased a historic home in Rochester Hills District.  It is 179 years old  and we purchased it from a family that has lived here since 1975. And  during his time living here, he obtained and researched
02:22a lot of history on the home in the area and was able to pass that to us when we purchased the home. So we have a lot of personal letters and personal stories that we can share and a lot of hidden treasures inside of the home. The home is wonderful. It's a four square and we have a lot of original architecture in the home. it really neat.
02:52Our piece of property in Rochester is almost two acres currently, but it was a farm of almost 780 acres uh back in the late 1800s.  And this farm itself  did raise cattle for uh beef and dairy, and then also it had chickens  and did produce.
03:16And I decided living here, really what brought me in was the history of the home, the old home. I really wanted to love the old bones and be the next loving family here. And then I decided, I think I need, I think I need to love the land too. You know, I have two acres here in the middle of the city and that's something very rare around here. And I wanted to,
03:43put something back into it.  love to grow my own food.  I love to can.  I'm a do it yourself-er, so I like to um demo things and refurbish things.  I myself have a degree in education  and I have homeschooled my kids  and just kind of really enjoy doing the homesteading portion of life and um going in all natural.
04:13option  and doing things a little bit differently than how society, some of society is going forward  with how busy life is today. So I'm trying to pull, pull back a little bit and relax a little more in life. So  I thought this would be a great project.  am  so impressed, so excited for you because history is so freaking cool. I hated it when I was in school because history in school is about dates and places. There's no stories.  Right.
04:43I love the stories in history. that's,  and that you're trying to help your community is just so amazing. Right, right. I definitely want to give back. I know that there's a lot of people in our area locally that are from here or have lived here for a good portion of their life. And,  you know, running this new page that I have, I've realized like how many people truly are still here and still value.
05:10the idea of what I plan to do and I feel like a lot of local support is huge. um And  I have also  decided to try to join the Historical Society  so that I can figure out how to be supportive in other historical areas of Rochester Hills. So I'm very excited and  hopeful that the community has my back in some of the small projects and ideas that I have.
05:40Very nice.  Michigan is a fairly hefty size state. Where are you in Michigan? So I am about an hour north of Detroit, so I'm barely sitting up in the thumb. OK, cool, because Michigan is shaped like a mitten for people who don't know. um I was listening to somebody talk about Michigan the other day, and they said that if someone says, where are you in Michigan, they hold up their hand and they point on their hand.
06:10where they are because it gives a good  representation because Michigan is shaped like a mitten. Yep. That's exactly how we all do it. Yep. I didn't know that. I  don't think I've ever actually been into Michigan or up into Michigan. um Anyone who's listened to podcast long enough knows that I grew up in Maine and I live in Minnesota now and I do not like airplanes. So anytime I'm traveling from Minnesota to Maine, we road trip.
06:41And I have gone the northern route, as we call it, and we go through, we get very close to Michigan because we go way up into Pennsylvania to get to New York. And so I haven't actually been into Michigan, but I hear that it is absolutely beautiful. And I think I should probably add it to my bucket list for before I die. I agree.
07:10If it's anything like Minnesota and Wisconsin, I'm sure it's worth the trip. Yes, I'm not too familiar with Minnesota, but I am Wisconsin and it's just beautiful land. em There's a lot of opportunity here as far as different things to do, whether it be mountains or water,  or you know, there's just, there's a lot and the weather's really great during the summer. Some of the best summers em are up here in Michigan, I feel like out of everywhere I've lived in this country. So.
07:38And really good cherries and a pretty decent football team. I will say that a pretty decent football team and great cherries.  See, I can say a pretty decent football team because I don't have any allegiance to the Vikings because I didn't grow up in Minnesota. That would be very true. Yes. If I grew up in Minnesota, I probably wouldn't be allowed to say that because they would be like, you're a traitor.  Yes.  And honestly, Maine doesn't have a football team. So.
08:07So the biggest football team is Boston and right this second, ah Patriots. Oh, okay. Patriots is the team that we would half-ass root for in my household because  my family wasn't really a sports  family. Thanksgiving, Christmas, in the afternoon, after dinner, there'd be football on the TV, but it was more background noise. Nobody was glued to the TV set.
08:36But yeah, the Patriots have done pretty well and the Packers have done better than the Vikings for quite a while, which is very sad.  And that's about as close as I get to sports, religion or politics. So there you go. uh So do you have critters on your land? um I do have critters.  So  right now, I mean, I have  the household pets, but  we have
09:05chickens. We have seven chickens currently. um And that's all that our Sydney ordinance will allow us to have. But in the past, em living outside of the city, I've had goats and pheasants and ducks and different things like that. So I'm very familiar with farming animals. But right now we just have the chickens and that's what the city allows.  That is craziness. You have two acres and you can only have chickens.
09:30right. And I think it's because the farmland that originally was attached to this house is all now,  you know, it's neighborhoods, it's developments. And,  you know, if I was to bring a donkey in in the middle of my two acres,  I'm sure some of my neighbors wouldn't love that so much. So  I'm sure that's why I don't get to have more than chickens.  That is so sad. Our neighbors who are about a quarter mile away from us have a donkey and they have a cow.
09:59in the mornings as the sun comes up, the donkey and the cow are kind of talking to each other. So you hear the donkey bray and you hear the cow low and it's so cool.  I guess I get it if you're a city person and you hear that, it would probably be irritating, but I kind of really love it.  So what are your house pets? Do you have cats and dogs?
10:24I do. have two dogs. have an English Springer Spaniel and then a miniature Schnauzer. have two cats and then we have a miniature lop-eared bunny. So that's about it. Does the bunny have the run of the house by any chance? No, it has the run of upstairs. Very sassy bunny, very small and in charge.
10:54quite the personality in that one.  my sister has a rabbit and it has the run of the house. And I guess uses a litter box. Yep, ours does too.  Yeah, she told me about this years ago with the first rabbit she had and I was like, what do mean it's not the cage? And she said, Lynn, and Lynn is my nickname.  She said,  rabbits can be can be  litter box trained just like cats. oh
11:23And I was like, are you kidding? And she said, no, she said, he just goes in and jumps in the box and does his business and hops back out. Yep. Actually rabbits will  use the restroom where they eat. So to litter train them, oftentimes you'll put their hay in their litter box. And so they'll go in there with their food and use the restroom at the same time. So how convenient.  It's a  less mess.  Oh yeah, for sure.
11:53Um, so  I got to know how did you break your ankle? told me you broke your ankle. I did. So I,  um,  own a boat and we were taking it out to the lake  and I was coming up to a dock and was going to hop over  onto the dock and I just, I landed wrong on my left ankle and it just, it kind of snapped.  Um,  and then got right back on the boat and went to the emergency room. So.
12:23Geez, I'm so sorry. Does that like ruin your summer?  Well, I feel like it does, yes, because the type of injury that I have, um it could be about 12 weeks before I'm able to safely just stand on it. um And I know here in Michigan, our summer, which we wait  all year to have,  you know, will be about four good months. And so
12:53I feel like I've just lost my summer, but I'm going to make the best of it and  just kind of keep working with my foot and,  and hope that, you know, I can make it stronger, faster. So we'll, we'll see how this goes, but I'm definitely a mover type person. So I don't stop even I think the day after I broke it, I was doing dishes and laundry. it's, I just don't, don't stop. Yeah. Are you on crutches? Um, I have those too, but I got, I ended up getting a really neat scooter.
13:22So the scooter makes me zoom through the house. I need to get a little bell on it so people know I'm coming. Yeah.  Yup. Absolutely. Can you use the scooter outside or is it just inside?  Nope. I can use it outside. Okay. So your summer isn't completely ruined because it's not like you're stuck sitting  all day. Correct. Yeah. I mean, I plan to go back to my daytime job em on Monday and we'll see how that goes. But
13:51We're going to attempt the boat tomorrow, so I'm hoping that I can safely get on and off the boat so we can watch the fireworks over the water.  hope you can. I really hope you can eke out some real enjoyment tomorrow.  too.  Did I see that you're growing a garden? Yes. So I currently have a smaller garden.  It was prior to me coming up with the idea of um the Fairview Farm second harvest, but currently I am growing
14:20corn  and  tomatoes, peppers, Brussels sprouts, broccoli.  I have raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. um And then I've got some squash going. ah We started our orchard. So  on the property when we originally purchased it, we found out that there are two apple trees. They've got to be about 100 to 120 years old and they produce thousands  of beautiful apples.
14:49Um,  and then it also came with a peach tree, some of the best peaches I've ever had in my life. And I don't even like peaches.  And, um, we planted cherries and plums and also a lime tree this year. So we plan to extend  the orchard and the garden will probably make up about,  um,  over a quarter of an acre of land alone. So we'll be doing that project next year.
15:18I didn't know you could grow limes in the northern tier states. Well, we're going to we're going to try it out. um It's still alive,  but not much growth, but it's actually a lime tree. So um it can get about 15 to 20 feet tall. So I'm assuming maybe it's a slow growing. So we'll we'll see what happens with it. But it's it's been um alive and well, looks healthy for the last three months. It's been in the ground. So we'll see what happens with it.
15:45I want to know, I'm going to follow your Facebook page until it doesn't exist anymore just to see how the lime tree does.  Yes, yes, yes. We planted a couple of cold hardy peach trees here a couple years ago and we didn't get any peaches last year because the couple that were on there, the deer got them before we could. But the year before that,  there were 12 peaches on one of those two trees and we got to have six of the peaches.
16:12didn't realize that we actually did have deer in the area because we never see them.  my husband went out to pick the other six and they were gone. Deer got them. it's so awesome that we can grow peaches in northern tier states where it gets minus 20 to minus 30 below in the wintertime.  Right. Right. I agree. oh I always thought that it was Georgia and Florida and that was it. em
16:42Fruit trees are so satisfying. It takes forever for them to get established. But boy, once they're going and they're producing, it is fabulous. Yes, I agree. We're very excited. So um I'm guessing that the plan is that you're going to be supplying food to your community. But does that mean
17:11like through food shelves and selling  or one or the other? um So I really wanted to keep it a close-knit community um when it comes to being able to sell the produce. So  I will be doing my own farm stand. So I live right off of a main road and there is a  walking path that travels right in front of my historical home. So a lot of people are out there running or biking, walking their dogs and
17:39I really just want to give back to the people local that want to come and visit the home. And  I might do a couple of farmers markets or, you know, local pickup, even straight from the orchard, but nothing, any,  nothing big.  I don't want to go too big. I really just want to focus on, keeping it very local. So. Well, either way you're going to be helping. And right now everybody needs a little help. Yes. um
18:08At the risk of jinxing it, our tomato plants, our over 190 tomato plants  are looking  really good out in the garden. Yes. And uh we'll be selling those at the farmer's market and in our farm stand this year, but we're going to be overrun with tomatoes. So I'm quite sure that my husband will be taking bushels down to  local farm, to the local  food shelf for the people.  Because we're not going to be able to use them all. No, yes, that's wonderful.
18:38Yes.  I can't eat enough tomatoes to get through what we're going to have.  Right, right. I have a lot going this season as well, and I know that I'm not I'm not going to eat them all as quickly as they are ready to be, you know, pulled from the vine. So that's not a bad idea at all to be able to get back to a local shelter or food bank or something like that that can utilize them. So that's a great idea.
19:06Yeah, I just don't want them to go to waste. The work that my husband puts into this garden, I want that stuff to go to people who need it. um And the reason I'm even talking about this is last year and the year before our garden suffered badly from heavy rain in all of May and into June. So this is the first year in two years that we've had a really good garden going. That's really good.
19:32That would be my house pet Maggie barking her head off.
19:38Um, so how you said, you said that your home is a four or something. What is it? It's called a four square. What does that mean? Yep. So back in the day they would make the homes pretty simple when they were farm houses, especially. Um, so it would just be two levels and it would be a complete rectangle. And what kind of fits inside is all that they get. their, um, rooms are very tiny. Um,
20:07They didn't have any bathrooms back then. They had the outhouse and then um kitchens were very, very tiny.  We still have the  location or the original fireplace um for the wood burning stove. That's all they actually have in this house. They don't have any fireplaces, but four square just means it's basically a perfect little itty bitty rectangle. Okay. And  how many square feet is it? Do you know?
20:34So this house over the years has had some extensions done to it. So it's, it's 3000 square feet now, not including the basement. Um, but I would say that the original four square was probably about.
20:5012 to 1400 square feet and that's the top and bottom or first and second floor. Okay. And how many bedrooms did it have originally? you know? Yes. So originally it had three, three bedrooms. And then it had one, like one closet.  Most of the bedrooms didn't have closets in them. So there was a hallway closet and then a dining
21:18Was it two bedrooms up and one bedroom down? Correct. I think I live in a four square house. Oh, ours is about a little over 1400 square feet. It was built in the early 1900s. Oh, and it has two bedrooms upstairs. Good size bedrooms, but just two. And then the downstairs has a really big open kitchen, a fairly
21:48Yeah, fairly small living room, but it also had a bedroom off of that living room. And when they remodeled it, they opened up that bedroom to be included in the living room. So it used to be one bedroom downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs, and it was a little about 1400 square feet. So  I might be in that kind of layout. Yes, I bet so. Yep. And it's completely remodeled. So you would never know that it was built in the early  1900s. It's really pretty.  Right, right.
22:18I'm going to shoot my dog.  She doesn't usually bark this long.  Her  dad is outside and I think somebody's at the farm stand looking at  produce. She's losing her mind. She wants to be out there.  Even if she was out there, she'd be scared. She's afraid of strangers. she's just going to bark and that's fine. That's why we got her. I sound like I'm complaining about her all the time on the podcast.
22:45we got her to be a watchdog because we live in the middle of cornfields and soybean fields and our nearest neighbors are quarter to half a mile away. Right. And so I want to know when somebody shows up. Thing is, we got her two years before I even had an inkling that I was going to start a podcast.  Oh, right. Well, so.  Good job.  Yeah, she does a very good job at doing her job.  Do you have kids?
23:13I do. I have four children. My oldest is 21. I have a 19 year old girl, an 18 year old girl and a 14 year old boy. Okay. So that's, that's a good range. I bet you were terribly busy in their younger years. Yes. Younger years were, I don't know how I survived, but I did. It's a lot more calm now, but
23:42all great kids and  all doing great things in their lives so far.  we're pretty proud, proud parents. And like I shared before, I homeschooled them when they were younger. So I was with them all the time.  I thoroughly enjoyed that. got my degree because I was homeschooling them. So now that they're older, I run a childcare center local to me as the director of the building.
24:11So  that's what I do with my day job.  On, I think it's going to sound crazy.  I think that if you have the privilege of being home with your kids, they actually teach you more than than you teach them.  I agree. I agree very much so. And  my children taught me to slow down a little bit.  I was just going to say number one at the top of the list is patience. Right.
24:40Because when you've got four kids, if you're not patient, no one is going to survive that situation. Right, right. I raised four as well. My oldest is a girl. She's 36 and the other three are boys and the youngest is 24. He'll be 25 in December. So yeah, it's. I always felt like people judged me when they saw me out with four kids and.
25:07At the point that they were all older, they weren't little anymore,  I was like, yeah, judge me, go ahead. Look at these beautiful functioning grownup kids. That's right.  Behold what I have done for the world.  Yes,  I feel the same. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of joy. And if you're lucky, it's very little sadness. Right. Right.
25:37So  are they into the whole  being at the farm and are they into the history of it and are they into what you're trying to do? ah They  are  to an extent. I think they know that it's like the thing that I love the most. They share in my excitement of things. So when things start growing, they're  very excited to hear what I have to say. uh My youngest will help me.
26:07um with the chickens he loves when we get new baby chicks and he'll take care of them and collect eggs and I  definitely think that they support what I do and I know that I love it so much but I think they're off kind of you know doing their thing I would  say that not any of them  would follow in my footsteps.  Well they may surprise you. They might.
26:34I've talked to a lot of people on this podcast who were like, I'm getting out of here. I'm moving as far away as I can. I'm going to have a career totally opposite of what I've been raised in. And then they find themselves going back home and being very into what their parents were into. Right, right. I am hoping that some things will pass off to them, you know, when they, when they realize the value behind it and the reason why, but.
27:00They're still young yet. And one of them is going to college for psychology and the other ones in the military.  um, you know, they're just, they're busy finding their ways, but maybe one day they'll, they'll come back with a, a few things of, yep, mom, were right.  They will. I know they will. I've had a couple of mine do that to me already. And Michigan is one of the most beautiful States in,  the, contiguous States. So they'll be back to visit no matter what.
27:29Yes, I sure hope so.  Yep. So I think that's all I've got for you, Catherine. I try to keep this to half an hour.  So where can people find you?  So I have a Facebook page and Instagram page. You can locate me at Fairview Farms Second Harvest  and it's located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. uh Or you can contact me via email and that's going to be fairviewfarms.secondharvest.gmail.com.
27:57I will put that in the show notes because people sometimes are listening to this when their hands are full.  So I will,  I'll make sure it's in the show notes if somebody wants to get to you.  Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Kathryn, I hope you have a wonderful July 4th weekend. Yes, you as well. Thank you for having me. Thank you. All right. Bye bye.
 

Today I'm talking with Felicia at Patchwork Acres Farm. You can also follow on Facebook.
This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company.
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www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment.
Or just buy me a coffee 
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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.
00:28Today I'm talking with Felicia at Patchwork Acres Farm in Indiana. Good morning, Felicia. How are you? Good morning. Really good. How is the weather in Indiana today?  Actually really beautiful, uh but we're supposed to get rain tonight. And does Indiana need rain? It doesn't hurt. We had a really, really dry, hot spring and then it has turned into cool and very rainy for the last couple of weeks.
00:58It's just kind of catching us up.  Good. Good.  I talk about this a lot on the podcast, but we had the last two years, not 2026, but 24 and 25. We had rain all of May and into June and our gardens suffered for it.  This year has been unbelievably  moderate. Our garden looks like it's going to be incredibly successful. Fingers crossed and knocking on wood.
01:26And  we're very excited because we have a farm to market garden. And in twenty twenty three, we had tomatoes coming out of our ears like we had  hundreds if not, I bet we got to a thousand pounds of tomato. Oh, wow. You had a good year then. We did. And we sold a lot and we gave a lot away and we got kind of a  minor reputation in our area for having really good tomatoes.
01:54And then terrible weather. And then 24 and 25 hit and people were like, do you have tomatoes yet? Do you have tomatoes yet? Do you have tomatoes yet? And we're like, no. And even when we did, we only had a few. So everything is crossed. Hopes are up for a really good tomato season this year. Yeah, that would be great. So really thankful for the moderate, beautiful spring that we have managed to eke out here in Minnesota this year. It is sunny and cool and lovely outside right now here.
02:23Yes, I always do a weather update because mostly for me because if I listen to the episodes I can get an idea of what the weather is gonna be from the previous year's one weather Yeah Because it does kind of follow trends like that It does and I figure if we get two years of really terrible winter or a really terrible spring We're due for a good one. So I just have to go listen to what I want to find out. Yep, exactly
02:50I'm almost as good as the farmer's almanac and I can say that tongue in cheek because I've actually interviewed the editor of the old farmer's almanac. Her name is Carol and I can't remember her last name. Oh, that's cool. She's super fun. I'm going to ask her to come back and visit at some point here this fall probably. So anyway, I wanted to know about you and what you do at your place. So can you kind of give me a little introduction and what you do at your place?
03:20Yeah, we do a little bit of everything.  Mainly goats. We raise goats, dairy goats,  and uh show and milk and make soap and all that stuff. And then  about six years ago, we started with the sheep and we've got a fine wool breed of sheep called CVM. So we raise them for uh fleeces and we sell lambs and then we process some of them. ah So we've kind of done that for the last about six years.
03:49And then the last couple years, chickens. What's CVM stand for? California Variegated Mutants. They are an offshoot of the Ramadale breed. And Ramadales are all white. That's the breed standard. So CVMs are a colorful Ramadale. Because  if they're white, they can still be a Ramadale. a gray CVM can never, you know, they're considered a CVM.
04:18uh mutant. uh Because they're a mutated color. Yes, yes. So I thought the black sheep of the family literally. Yeah, I thought maybe the M was for mutt like a dog that's behind a
04:35So, okay, keep going. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. You said you have chickens. Oh, yeah. And we have  chickens and we just got ducks again this year. just a little bit of everything. Exciting. So do you have a background in  animal husbandry? Did you grow up doing it or your grandparents or anybody? ah No, I have always loved animals since I was a little bitty kid and we lived in apartments. So um that was not really a thing. But as soon as I got
05:04older and had my own money. I had animals and I started volunteering at vet clinics when I was about 10. And so that's just, I've always been obsessed with it. That's anybody who met me as a kid, like that's, they're not surprised by this now. So it's kind of like when you're a kid and you want to eat ice cream every day for dinner and your parents are like, absolutely not. And then when you get into college, you're like, I'm getting ice cream every chance I get.
05:34I wanted to be a zookeeper in kindergarten and that's about where I've gotten.  Well good.  I think if you have a dream you should live it out. Yeah. So it's been a lot of fun and that's my grandparents had uh a market garden. They had a big vegetable garden. They did the markets  and my grandpa raised honeybees. So I grew up doing that with him  and uh so they had a farm and I grew up mainly on their farm.
06:05I had lot of fun doing that, but he didn't do animals. Okay. But he did honeybees. Yes. So did you, did you learn about that from him? Oh yeah. I, uh, I was real involved in the honeybees from,  I think five or six years old when he got them. And my grandma custom made me a tiny bee suit so that I could go work them with him. And I was involved in the whole thing of that for as long as he had them. We had a lot of fun doing that.
06:35Awesome. So do you think that you'll ever get into keeping honeybees yourself? Oh, yes. We had them for a while.  And then when we moved to this property, it is not  we live, we're a long, skinny property between four cornfields.  So  it's not good for honeybees. They get sprayed and they die. I can't keep them alive here. So I need something that is more buffer from all the cornfields. Yeah.
07:03I understand. live in the middle of on any given year, Felicia, it's corn, it's corn or soybeans or alfalfa. Yep.  So I get it. And they just went through and sprayed some  fertilizer on the soybeans two days ago. And we never quite know what they're spraying. And we like the people that own the land. So I'm not going to complain about it, but we have a dog  and  her lead.
07:33goes like a foot into the field. So anytime they're gonna put manure down or they're gonna spray something, we make sure that she goes potty and she comes back in right away. Because we don't know  what it is, we don't know if it will hurt her. And she's like,  on a good day, she's 35 pounds, on a fat day, she's 40 pounds.  And so she's not a big dog and we  don't know  what they're using and we don't know how it will impact her.
08:01brain mostly so we're very careful so I totally get it.  I feel like my voice is really rough.  Does it sound really rough to you? Oh not too bad. Okay I've got some allergies going on like wow I have real gravel in there.  Trying not to sound like I smoke a hundred thousand cigarettes a day. Allergies do that to you though I've always got the allergy cough and yeah.
08:30Yeah, it's been like this time of year. It's one of the joys of springtime because we're not as well. No, it is officially summer. I'm sorry. Today's the 24th.
08:41I think so. Yeah, so summer started two days ago. It feels more like spring now though than it did in the spring. So it feels very springish now. Yeah, well we've hit summer allergy season and I always joke that Minnesotans talk through their nose because they have two seasons. They have cold season and allergy season. That's about right for here too. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm not from Minnesota but I've been here long enough that
09:10I have learned that it is really hard not to sound nasally when you are sniffling and snorkeling. Uh huh. In the 65 days a year. Yup. So, all right. So I have a question for you. I've not asked anybody this about sheep and goats because it never occurred to me until I saw that you have both. Do sheep and goats get along? Like can they be in the same pasture and be fine? Technically, yes. Okay.
09:40I don't keep mine together. Mine have totally separate pastures. And then when we put them out on the big pasture, we rotate them so the sheep are out at night, the goats are out during the day. um They have different mineral requirements  and the sheep are a lot bigger than the goats.  And the way they play and interact is quite different. um So for the most part, it would probably be fine, but I raise  a lot of Nigerians.
10:09And I  don't need a sheep headbutting somebody and losing kids or any of that. Yeah. So  I don't really run them together. And we also run our ram with our ewes year round.  He wears a  anti-breeding apron. Yep. And so I don't want him riding my does or any of that either. So everybody just stays separate. And it works out perfect because the sheep don't like the heat.
10:37They don't like being out during the day. They like to go out and graze at night  and um the goats would be horrified by that. So the goats put themselves up right before dusk and they don't want to go back out. And that's when the sheep want to go out. So it kind of works out perfect to just rotate them and everybody's happy.  OK, thank you for that, because  I was looking at your Facebook page yesterday to refresh my memory about what you do.  And I was like, huh, I haven't asked anybody this yet. I get to find out something new.
11:06Yeah, some people do run them together. And especially in maybe a small herd that works a little better. But the mineral requirements and the feed requirements are different. My goats are on uh heavy alfalfa hay and a totally different mineral. And the sheep are on a grassier hay because they'll get way too fat on an alfalfa.  And  sheep are not small. I mean, are there many sheep? Like there's many goats and many cows and many horses?
11:36But your sheep are not minis, right? No, we have full size sheep. So there's a big difference between like my smaller breed goats and then my sheep is a huge size difference. So. Are your sheep like five times as big as your goats? Not by weight, but close. They're because the sheep are around probably 150, 200 pounds and then the goats are
12:04you know, 50 to 70 for the most part. So it's a, it's a pretty big size difference. And goats do a lot of like rear up on their back legs and head, butt down, and they don't stand back and ram each other like sheep do. Right.  So the disagreements have a big difference in how they act, but sheep are real chill and they don't fight much. And the goats, you know, they play fight more than they actually fight, but
12:34So they will antagonize the sheep into  play with me and the sheep don't take that the same way.  I feel like  it's the difference between a four-year-old sibling  and the 16-year-old sibling. Yeah. The goats are the four-year-old.  Yes, they are.  Yep. And then I have a really dumb question. I don't know the answer because I've not looked it up.
13:03and I feel stupid asking it, I feel compelled to ask, can goats and sheep breed and have babies? uh Technically, rarely, yes,  but  rarely successfully. Okay. They typically die, you know, they can conceive and then usually  that baby is aborted. Usually it doesn't like come to term. Yeah. And most of the ones that come to term,
13:31they're born and they live maybe a few minutes to an hour and then they pass. Like they aren't very successful, but every blue moon, you know,  one does survive.  Are they called a GEEP? G-E-E-P? Yep.  Okay. Yeah. Sometimes.  I saw somebody post a photo of what they said was a GEEP.
13:58I was like, in the day and age of AI, I don't know whether I believe that.  I thought I would ask you because I figured you'd probably know. Yeah, they have occurred, but they're  very rare. Because I've had friends who ran  goats and sheep together have their ram breed their does and get them pregnant. But then they lost all those pregnancies. So basically, you just wasted a breeding season.
14:27They got halfway to term and then lost them. So  it's kind of hard on the dough to do that. And it's very rarely successful. Most people pick up like hair sheep and they think that they're like at an auction or something,  or I've seen them at a sales where they're trying to call them a geep or something and sell them for a bunch of money, but it's most likely a hair sheep. They're just kind of,  know, swindling people. uh
14:56Yes, and we don't want to do that, people. And hair sheep look like they should be a cross between a goat and a sheep, you know. They sure do. That's the, you know, kind of their vibe. Yeah, we. This is sound really stupid. We don't want to swindle people. We want agriculture to be a upstanding. Yes.
15:25Endeavor full.  People with integrity. Yes.  That's right. Yes. Don't lie to your customers because they won't come back and they won't support anyone else in the industry. Yes. Because it makes people not trust anybody. And there's so many scams in  in  all. Well in everything but in farming and homesteading and like.
15:52People just getting after beginners who don't know any better and taking advantage of them is just terrible. Yeah, it is not cool. Don't do it.  Don't be mean. Don't be dishonest. Be kind. Be honest. Be helpful.  I'm trying so hard, Felicia, to have a good attitude right now in this world that we're in. And I'm trying to encourage people to have the same attitude of be kind, be honest.
16:22whatever the other one was, I forget. Just  try to be a good person. Because the world is so freaking hard right now. There are so many things that are weighing on so many people. If you can just make somebody feel good for a minute, you're not throwing the world. Well,  if somebody's wanting to get started in something, help them out and give them good advice and help them get started. Don't say, they're new, so they don't know any better.
16:52That's just terrible. And I see a lot of that because I'll have people contact me.  Every few years where they bought, you know, dough, they can't get bread. And you go out and, well, they bought two bucks and they didn't realize that the other second one was a buck. know, somebody sold them this  story.  And I've had that.  I get that really an incredible amount of time.  When I was sharing alpacas, I used to run into a lot of people who had
17:21Maybe four males and they picked them up at an auction and they were sold as three females and a male and they paid a ton of money for them and they've got four boys. And like that's just a really rotten thing to do. I've had people do that with sheep, you know, like  kind of always check what you're buying and  especially from auctions. Auctions rarely know what's going on and they're just, they go by what the person told them. They aren't checking anything and
17:49It's kind of terrible how often that happens. Yeah. Do your research before you go to the auction. Oh yeah. Make sure you know how to tell the sex of the animal that you're  A surprising number of people do not know how to do that.  the most difficult animal I've ever had to sex is a rabbit. Oh yeah. so hard to tell apart. Rabbits are terrible. And if you buy baby rabbits, I can see somebody accidentally doing that with young rabbits.
18:18But  goats and sheep,  they're born with it.  It's real obvious. You're just being mean to somebody at that point. Oh, absolutely. And with rabbits, they're always like, the boy has a donut and the girl has a taco. And I'm like,  I have seen rabbits. Because we had rabbits. And you can't always tell what's what.  You really have to get your hands.
18:48into their belly and pull the skin up and  make things show. And even then sometimes people make mistakes. Plus rabbits don't like being on their backs except when their baby's in their nursing. Yeah. Yeah. Rabbits are terrible to tell. And I don't hold that against anybody because they're, you know, unless you've been doing it for a long time and you really do a lot of rabbits, most people aren't good at rabbits. No, it's difficult.
19:16We had Baby Bunnies  the second summer we were here, I think. We've been here six years in August.  And I had to wait till they were like seven, eight weeks old to even begin to make a guess of what their sex was.  And it was great because I was picking them up every day. So they were totally fine with me holding them and looking at their parts. But  I wasn't sure until they were 12 weeks old what they were. uh
19:47I wouldn't claim to be able to do bunnies. I've done a few, but not that I would tell anybody, like with accuracy. Yeah, I can sex a kitten from the day they're born. Yep. Yeah, I think kittens are much easier than rabbits, but I can see why people have trouble with kittens too, because they are kind of a little more fickle. Yes, if there's a big distance between their parts.
20:14They're a boy. If it's no distance between their parts, they're a girl.  Yes.  I'm trying to not be graphic here. So  we have kittens do here in a week. So I'm like, oh my God, baby cats, can't wait. Oh, there's not much cuter than kittens.  Yes, they're barn kittens. And mama's a little bit skitty about being touched or picked up. She'll come see you and she'll she'll let you pet her along her back.
20:43once and then she walks away like, nah.  So we may not actually see these kittens until they come out of the barn with her.  Yeah, we had somebody drop off a cat and I had an appointment for her and for like two weeks later and she had kittens like a week before that. So we had kittens a couple of years ago and that was fun. She was at least super sweet so you got to play with them from day one.
21:13in your business.  yeah. Yeah. There is nothing like a newborn kitten. They are so  tiny and so cute and so fragile. Yeah. Like you got to be really careful when you pick them up. Yeah. But they become your friends and they follow you all over the place and they try to help with chores. It's really fun.
21:37Yeah, I had them in my milk room and they were helping milk goats, which is not helpful,  it was a lot of fun.  Yeah, did you squirt them in the face? My grandpa's friends down the road used to squirt their barred cats in the face with the milk from the cows.  Oh yeah, and they figured out I feed all my kids on a bucket feeder. So it's got nipples in a row on it. And they figured out how to squeeze the nipples and get milk out. So I'd be filling the bucket feeder and I'd have a whole line of cats down there.
22:06Chewing the end of the nipples and squeezing them with their paws to get milk for themselves.  It was a rodeo every day trying to get my kids milk together and get it out the door before it had kittens in it.  Uh huh. Exactly. And I'm sure the baby goats were not thrilled to share their food with the baby cats.  Oh, not really. Or even the grownup cats for that matter. Yeah. Okay. So I was looking at your Facebook page and I saw a really curly haired Auburn colored dog. Is that that's your dog?
22:36Yes, that's Gus. What is Gus's breed? He's a Boykin Spaniel. I have I've never heard of that.  Oh, yeah, they're uh, they're from South Carolina So it's always funny that most people around here don't know what he is either. But when we went to Tennessee to pick up goats uh everybody in Kentucky and Tennessee knew right what he was  and We're all excited to see him. But you come north of Indianapolis. Nobody knows what he is. So it's always kind of funny
23:06He's beautiful. Did you get him as a puppy? Yes. My husband  hunts ducks and then he's got his field bred golden retriever and he was doing hunt tests with him. And so I was going to the hunt test and there was a lady there that had boykins. And so I got to see the breed and  mess with him and I love spaniels. And so I was hooked. So I got him  just shy of three years ago. He's going to be three years old next week.
23:34Is it B-O-Y-K-I-N? Yep. Okay. I want to put it in the show notes because people will be curious to what we're talking about. Oh yeah. The perfect dogs.  Well, they're all perfect dogs if you're in love with the one you have.  Well, yeah. I just got to give my husband a hard time because he thinks his golden is the perfect dog. Yeah. And I think my Maggie, who's an Australian Shepherd, is perfect. Oh yeah.
24:04And she's actually not perfect. is. She is the most amazing, perfect watchdog, but she's also the most obnoxious watchdog because they're interchangeable.  Yeah, basically. uh I've got a Commodore livestock guardian dog and she is  yes, she's always barking. She calls her all the time. I've not heard of a Commodore either. What's that?  They're the mop dogs.
24:34They're usually corded and they have big long white cords. Huh. So they look like a big floor mop. But I keep her shaved because she's a she works. She's outside all the time. So it's too hard to keep her. Not awful when she's corded.  I am going to have to look up Commodore. Oh, yeah, they're beautiful dogs. Is she what color is she? She's white, real curly hair. She looks like a really big
25:03poodle when she's shaved. You have the coolest farm dogs.  She's a real good with strangers. So that was kind of why I picked the breed is the ones I had met before  were pretty good with people and not real bad about escaping and climbing fences and obsessing over that stuff. And she's just been wonderful. She doesn't give me any fits  about trying to leave the property or, you know,
25:31She's great with all the babies, great with the other dogs. People come over a lot, so I needed something that was not  people aggressive.  she isn't, she really likes everybody. So that's kind of nice. She's a big dog? Yes. Like a hundred pounds big dog? Yeah,  she's right about a hundred pounds. Okay, cool. um Our dog  loves people  once she's decided that they're her people.
26:03Until she decides that they're her people she barks and barks and barks and barks at them and Yeah, well, she's all teeth in the front and she's all wiggle button in the back because she's yeah She's like I have to protect my people. I'm afraid of you, but I want to be your friend All in the same moment and I'm like me for the love of God. It's okay be their friend Take ten minutes at least to finally be brave enough to sniff their hand
26:31And  once she's realized that they're not a threat and that they're her friend, she is in their pocket the whole time they're here. Yeah. Yeah. On your barks and makes a ton of noise. And then once she's out with somebody and I tell her it's OK, like I've let them in and we're all buddies, she's fine. Yeah, don't I don't have the off switch. It's got to be the off switch. it is insane.
26:57God just loves everybody. He has never met a stranger and he thinks that everybody comes here to see him and talk to him and that's it.  Well, of course he does. Yeah, he doesn't bark. He doesn't. He's just thrilled to death that somebody has arrived. Well, he looks like he's a really nice dog and he's very handsome. So of course he thinks that everybody comes. And he's not been wrong yet. So that's that doesn't help either is that he's he's always right about that. Uh huh.
27:27You would think that the people who come here, if we gave them treats to give to Maggie, she would just stop being obnoxious.  Nope.
27:41But it's okay. She's the perfect dog. We're sticking to it. That's our story. That's right.  Yes. And I'm so thankful for her. Like  I had no idea how in love I would be with owning a dog. I have never owned a dog before. Oh,  oh yeah. There's nothing better than having a dog. Yeah. My parents did, but we weren't,  I and my siblings were not responsible for the dogs. My parents  were responsible. So we just got the benefits.
28:11but it's a whole different ball game when you get a little tiny puppy and you raise them.  huh. Yeah. If I, if I had to give up everything and I could just have one thing, it'd be a dog. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a dog person through and through. Yes. And it's,  I'm doing it again.  I don't care. I'm doing it again. Dogs, when you get them as puppies and when you treat them well and you, you train them well.
28:39They literally just want to do what you ask them to do and they want to make you happy. Pretty much. That is the best feeling on earth.  Except for maybe terriers, you know.  I've never met one. Oh, really? Oh, no one I know has ever had one.  Oh, I had I had one. That's why I haven't had chickens for the last eight years, because I had a
29:07a little terrier that I was supposed to be fostering briefly for a rescue organization and he was ridiculously charming as terriers are. And so once I signed the paperwork and said that I would keep him, then he said, well, actually I do eat chickens. I've just been good for two weeks to make you think that I didn't. So he knew when the ink was dry on the adoption forms that like,
29:35Okay, now it's official. I can become my true self. Oh, a sneaky little brat. Yes. So he was he was a wild thing. He was a lot of fun, but he was a there's a reason they call him terriers, you know, they're little terrors. Exactly. Well, what's interesting is I was never really a dog person. I liked other people's dogs, but I didn't want one because I liked cats. And then friends of ours.
30:04their two dogs had their first litter together  and we had bought this house and we had decided that when we bought a house with land we would get a dog and I saw these puppies and I was like oh my god they have puppies we're ready for a puppy can we get a puppy and my husband was like yep so we got Maggie and I swear to you the  minute she settled down so it took like  took like
30:318-10 weeks for her to really find her footing because she was a baby. She was a day younger than eight weeks when we brought her home. But once she got comfortable and started showing her personality, I was like, that's it. I don't ever want house cats again. This dog. Yeah. Cats deign to put up with you. Dogs want to love you. Yes. I like the dogs want to love you better than the cats deign to put up.
31:00Yeah, I've got both. I've always had cats with my dogs and they all get along great. Gus has his own cat  that kind of adopted him from a puppy. I've got a real big orange fluffy haired cat  and Gimli. And Gimli just when Gus arrived, decided that was his dog and they have been bestest friends ever since.  And it's just hilarious. Gus will pick him up and carry him around the house.
31:28And Gimli, like his back legs and his tail just drag the ground and he loves it. He'll go when Gus gets home and I open the front door, he runs over to see him and rub all over him. He's all excited see him. So it's funny. So  cute. ah Maggie loves kittens and I don't mean she wants to eat them. I mean, she loves babies. Oh, yeah. And she hasn't had any baby kittens, you little baby kittens in her life for two summers. So.
31:56When Smokey, the mom of cat, brings her babies out in eight weeks, or however long it takes her to bring them out, just depends. Maggie is going to be sitting at the end of her lead, waiting for those kittens to come over and be introduced. Yeah, Gus loves kittens. Which he's been raised though with baby goats and chicks and all this stuff now. And so he thinks all baby things are his and that everybody wants to see him.
32:25He occasionally gets himself into trouble because he travels with me for work and he'll go to somebody's house that doesn't have dog friendly cats and he thinks, oh, this cat wants to see me.  So he's gotten thumped a couple of times by an angry cat that did not want to see him at all.  yeah. He says, sure that they do.  They're so funny. Dogs are so funny. All right. So.
32:51I try to keep these to half an hour, Felicia, we're almost 33 minutes. So where can people find you?  Mainly we're on Facebook at Patchwork Acres Farm. ah That's where I'm kind of most active. And then we do have a website for the goats. ah I'm hoping to get the sheep on there  soon, but it's just time.  But we have a website at patchworkacresfarm.com  also. Fabulous.
33:18And before I forget, I was going to ask you the AGDA, ADGA, whatever it is, for goats, what does that stand for? American Dairy Goat Association. ADGA, ADGA. ADGA. And then the other one, the other designation I saw on your website for the goats. AGS is American Goat Society, and NDGA is Nigerian Dwarf Goat Association.
33:45Okay, so there's just a whole bunch of them A's and G's and N's in there. Yes.  But ADGA is like the big,  the main registry in the US. So like if you are registered to ADGA, you can down register to all the other organizations, but they don't always up register to ADGA. Okay. So ADGA is usually like the big one that everybody's looking for.  Would you like to come back and talk to me in a couple of months about the specifics of all that, all the GOAT stuff? Oh, sure. uh
34:15I feel like I've talked about some of it, but not all of it with people and maybe there's more to know. Oh yeah. There's a, Dairy Goats are a whole thing. There, you'll spend a lifetime learning about Dairy Goats. It's kind of fun. I like that about them that they're such a challenge. Cool. Well, let's schedule a time, I don't know, maybe in September to talk again. All right. I will message you and we'll get a date on the.
34:43Thank you Felicia, this was a joy. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Hope you have a great day. You too.