A Tiny Homestead

What happens when your husband suggests raising fallow deer while you're in labor? For Becky Compton of BRC Fallow Deer in Kansas, it eventually led to a whole new way of farming.
Mary talks with Becky about raising fallow deer alongside cattle, rabbits, bees and a garden. Becky shares how her family got started with deer, what makes fallow deer different from whitetails, and why fawning season is her favorite time of year.
They also talk about bottle-feeding baby deer, teaching children responsibility through farm life, the importance of safety around bucks during rut, and the many ways fallow deer can be raised as an alternative livestock option.
And yes, Mary gets plenty of answers to her very important questions about baby deer, including what they sound like!
Learn more about Becky and BRC Fallow Deer at brcdeer.com and on social media at BRC Fallow Deer.
Thanks for listening to A Tiny Homestead!
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What do Naked and Afraid, homesteading, gardening, wild foods, and curiosity have in common? A lot more than you might think!
In this episode, Mary talks with Alexandra of Barefoot and Breathing in upstate New York about her unforgettable experience on Naked and Afraid, living off the land, teaching children where their food comes from, and discovering just how resourceful we can be when we have to be.
Alexandra shares stories about surviving in the Colombian jungle, starting fires with flint and steel, making a heated bed from hot coals, raising animals, gardening, natural dyeing, and learning homesteading skills through travel and hands-on experience.
They also talk about wild berries, chickens, kittens, ducklings, cooking, getting kids connected to food and nature, and why you don't need livestock or a huge garden to start homesteading.
The biggest lesson? Homesteading can look different for everyone. It can be as simple as cooking from scratch, growing a few plants, learning about wild foods, or becoming more curious about the natural world around you.
Alexandra reminds us that experience and curiosity are two of the greatest teachers, and sometimes the most interesting paths in life begin when we simply say yes.
Find Alexandra at Barefoot and Breathing:Instagram: @barefootandbreathingWebsite: barefootandbreathing.net
Learn more about A Tiny Homestead at atinyo­homestead.com.
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What does homesteading look like in Florida? Mary talks with Jess from The Coastal Homestead about raising three homeschooled kids, keeping chickens, gardening, raising golden doodles, and starting a flower farm on one acre in Central Florida.
Jess shares what it's like to homestead without traditional seasons, how she prepares for Florida's growing season, and why she started breeding golden doodles. They also talk about puppy genetics, raising puppies with young children, the joys of watching a mama dog with her babies, and the importance of giving puppies a good start.
Of course, Mary and Jess spend plenty of time talking about dogs, including Maggie, Mary's Australian shepherd, and the many ways our animals become part of our families.
The conversation also touches on something bigger: learning to let go of other people's opinions and being confident in the choices that work for your own family.
Jess also shares her new garden mail club, which sends seasonal seeds, growing guides, tips and fun extras right to your mailbox.
Find Jess at The Coastal Homestead:Instagram: @the_coastal_homesteadWebsite: thecoastalhomestead.netFacebook: The Coastal Homestead
Thanks for listening to A Tiny Homestead!
 
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Mary welcomes Diane Graber of Montana Country Homesteading back to the podcast for a conversation about something Diane is passionate about: helping women build skills, create income, and become more financially prepared for whatever life may bring.
Diane shares how women can turn their talents, passions, and homesteading resources into income. They also talk about cooking from scratch, preserving food, stretching a grocery budget, using what you already have, upcycling, and finding creative ways to make life work without spending more money.
The conversation also turns to parenting, teaching children practical skills, the satisfaction of a job well done, and the importance of getting kids outside and involved in everyday life.
At the heart of the conversation is community. Diane explains why connecting with other women, sharing knowledge, and helping one another can make a tremendous difference.
Mary and Diane's conversation is full of practical ideas, personal stories, and encouragement to become more capable, resourceful, and connected.
Learn more about Diane and Montana Country Homesteading at MontanaCountryHomesteading.com or find the community on Facebook.
Find Mary at ATinyHomestead.com.
This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company.
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In this episode, Mary chats with Nikki from Purely Chickens about backyard chickens, homesteading, raising kids around animals, and how a pandemic-era chicken coop video turned into a thriving business and more than a million social media followers.
Nikki shares her journey from kindergarten teacher to chicken expert, her experience raising multiple flocks, and what she has learned about caring for chickens through the seasons. They also talk about winter chicken care, deep bedding, keeping chickens comfortable in cold weather, and the realities of caring for goats, geese, and other animals.
Mary and Nikki also discuss the importance of helping children connect with gardens, farms, animals, and the food they eat. Nikki shares how her own children help with the chickens, garden, and family food projects.
Plus, Nikki talks about her books, including Chicken Keeping Pure and Simple and her upcoming book, A Healthy Home Flock.
And of course, there is plenty of chicken talk, a few stories about ducks and geese, and some good laughs along the way!
Find Nikki and Purely Chickens on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.
Learn more about A Tiny Homestead at atinyhomestead.com.
This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company.
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In this episode of A Tiny Homestead, Mary talks with Caitlin and Joe of Our Humble Homestead in Garland, Maine.
What began with a garden and a desire to provide healthier food for their family has grown into a working homestead with Jersey cows, chickens, turkeys, a farm stand, and a growing connection to their local community. Caitlin and Joe share how their homestead evolved from focusing on self-sufficiency to embracing the idea of community sufficiency.
They talk about raising and caring for animals, making their own milk, cheese and butter, the realities of processing livestock, and why respecting the animals that provide food is so important.
The conversation also takes a fun turn into Jersey cows, barn cats, kittens, and the personalities of the animals that become such an important part of farm life.
Most of all, this episode is about faith, food, community, stewardship, and the sometimes difficult realities of living a more connected life.
Find Our Humble Homestead on Facebook at Our Humble Homestead, on Instagram at For Me and My House, and online at ourhumblehomestead.net.
Find A Tiny Homestead at atinyhomestead.com.
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In this episode of A Tiny Homestead, Mary talks with Andrea from What the Farmer’s Wife Reads in Owatonna, Minnesota.
Andrea shares what life is like on her family’s fifth-generation dairy farm, where they milk around 250 registered Holstein cows. She also talks about raising calves, farm life, family, and how a love of books eventually led her to create a space where she can combine reading with her farming life.
The conversation turns to favorite authors and childhood books, the importance of helping children discover a love of reading, and why parents should advocate for their children when it comes to education. Andrea also shares her plans for a farm-inspired mystery book subscription, complete with books, treats, stickers, and bookmarks.
It’s a warm conversation about farming, books, family, animals, and finding the things that bring a little joy to everyday life.
This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company.
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Fall is here, and Mary is joined by Leah Peterson, also known as Clear Creek Ranch Mom, for a conversation about one of their favorite times of year: harvest season.
Mary and Leah talk about preserving the abundance of fall, including canning, freezing, pickling, drying herbs, and making the most of whatever produce is available. They share practical tips for beginners, including why you don't have to preserve everything in one day, why you don't need a garden to get started, and how buying produce in season can make preserving more affordable.
They also talk about food security, the satisfaction of eating food you've grown or preserved yourself, and why traditional food skills are worth passing on to the next generation.
The conversation turns to affordable beef recipes and creative ways to stretch a pound of ground beef with rice, pasta, beans, vegetables, and good seasoning.
And because it is harvest season, Mary and Leah have an important reminder for everyone driving in the country: slow down and give farm equipment plenty of room on the road.
This episode is full of practical ideas, memories, laughter, and encouragement to slow down, get back into the kitchen, and enjoy the simple satisfaction of making and preserving food for your family.
In this episode:
Preserving the fall harvest
Canning, freezing, pickling, and drying
What to do when your garden doesn't produce as expected
Beginner-friendly preserving ideas
Stretching beef and cooking on a budget
The importance of food security
Cooking and preserving as a family
Passing traditional skills to the next generation
Harvest season and gratitude
Farm equipment safety on rural roads
Finding joy in simple, homemade food
Find Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom on Facebook.
Find Mary at A Tiny Homestead.
This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company.
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Today I'm talking with Hayden at Blackwood 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 Hayden Blackwood at Blackwood Farm in Washington State. Good morning Hayden. How are you? morning.  How is the weather there? You know today we're in like the mid 60s and we're finally starting to get some actual clean air again. We've been witnessing a lot of wildfires kind of surrounding the Skagit Valley which where we call home and you know it's been kind of a sad
00:58pattern here for a few years now where, you know, it gets dry in the summertime and all the vegetation from the winter gets struck by like lightning or whatever way of ignition will start. so our valley around here has been either blue skies or gray smoke filled skies. It's kind of a mix here for the last few weeks.  Yeah, it's been crazy with wildfires all over the country. I just saw something, some
01:26I don't know what the heck it's called.  The thingy at the bottom of the news screen that mentioned the wildfires in Texas right now.  Yes, yes, yeah.  It's one of the things I learned, and this was just rather recently, but I always kind of, guess, inherently thought, oh, if you got a really wet, drenched out, rainy winter,  that would kind of, you would think,  make a wildfire season not as dangerous, but it's actually the opposite.
01:56that all that hydration up in the high country causes more vegetation growth and can cause even more of a severe fire season like we've been experiencing up here in like, you know, kind of the north, you know, northwest part of the state and the country and our friends up in Canada as well.  Yeah, it's bad. And I hope that you remain safe and that your property is okay for the rest of the season.
02:22I'm in Minnesota. It is it's kind of nippy here this morning. It's a little chilly and it's partly sunny and there's no wind and We the town I live in Has something I still don't know what it is. I've lived here for six years I still don't know what causes this but every once in a while the air just smells gross It smells like fertilizer
02:50And it's not necessarily anyone is fertilizing the fields around us. So we've got that going on. And man, at 10 o'clock last night, I thought we had a gas leak in our gas cook stove and I checked and everything was fine. I stepped outside and I was like, oh no, it's outside. So that's what I'm smelling.  Yeah. And it's only once in a while, so you can put up with it, but I still don't know what causes it. Still have no idea.  One of those unfortunate mysteries.
03:19Yes, but where we live is really pretty so I will put up with it So, um, I usually say tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do and I want to hear about that But why is it Blackwood farm because Blackwood is your last name? Yes, exactly. Okay All right. Well, then tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do well What we do is my wife and I and our four kids we went and we purchased a five acre farm here
03:49old number of years ago.  And I guess just to put it real simply, what we have been doing here seasonally is we run a you pick pumpkin patch during the fall where, you know, in our town of Cedar Woolly where we live, there's not a lot of like,  real like, you know, agritourism like stuff to do specifically in our town.  So us and there's one other small little
04:19patch.  We both kind of opened up simultaneously close to the same time and we we open our venue, you know, we have pumpkins and you know, general public will come through.  But our attraction that we kind of try to host within this is more of kind of like a traditional kind of like coming to grandma and grandpa's farm as a way I kind of try to portray it. And this comes from just my own childhood.
04:45going to see my grandparents when I was young and when my folks lived in town before we moved out to the country.  And I had so many fond memories as, you know, growing up, remembering just how excited I was to go see, you know, Grandpa Ron's barnyard, you know? And so I've kind of, in a sense, took in that legacy and just that nostalgic, you know, great feeling. And I've tried my best to, you know, share it with, you know, the guests that come through here. And it's been a lot of fun.
05:14fantastic and I'm glad that I messaged you when I did because in a week or so you're gonna be straight out busy and you would not have time talk to me.  Oh I would have made time for you anything.  Okay cool thank you. Yeah of course.  So do you I gotta know I was thinking this this morning and I was like I should save this to the end but I'm gonna ask you now. Okay. Do you have leftover pumpkins at the end of the season? You know we
05:43Don't and I'm one of the kind of the strategies that we've done with our kind of our marketing is first of all Raising four kids which actually was five our nephew kind of came in with our story and so we we've had five kids come through our house and We've always been just extremely mindful of you know budgetary expense, I mean your dollar only goes so far and
06:11So one of the things we've always tried to do is we try to kind of like model our prices to like the local grocery store instead of trying to like gouge the visitors coming through. We make it so, you know, they get a good bargain and we're not losing our booty at the end of it. All of that makes sense. You know, kind of just run really lean and mean on your expense. You can pull it off. But to answer your first question though, the pumpkins that
06:40We have that are left over. I've had enough of a calling from neighbors that surround our community here with animals and whatnot,  but livestock feed. It's been a great resource for livestock feed and a lot of people don't know either, but pumpkins are a natural dewormer. So there's people that will actually want them.  you don't want to give them to a horse,  like goats, cows, I've even heard a sheep eating them. Chickens love them. And so
07:09We sell, know, like again, it's affordable, but people come in by the pickup load and just clean our field off and then take them away and go have their good time with it.  So if you did have a surplus,  have ways to get rid of it. would compost if there was. Yes. Yes. We're, big into composting. Okay.  Um, on the natural dewormer thing,  roasted pumpkin.
07:37with no seasoning,  nothing, no oils, no nothing, just roasted in the oven.  The flesh is a really good thing to give dogs when their tummies are sick.  Interesting. I did not know that.  Yeah, we have a dog. She's six. She's a small Australian shepherd and she has had a sensitive stomach since we got her at a day shy of eight weeks old. And she came down with some kind of tummy thing when she was
08:06I think she was probably nine months old and I called the vet because I wasn't going to take her in just because she threw up.  The vet was like, do you have any squash or pumpkin? And I said, yes, I have roasted squash from our garden in my freezer. And she said, did you season it with anything? And I said, no. And she said, take some of that, know, warm it up and cook up some burger with no seasonings, no nothing.
08:35and make some white rice, no seasonings, no nothing. Mix that all together and give her like a quarter cup and see if she keeps it down.  wow. That is incredible.  Yeah. Yeah. And it works. And it was so stupid because she was so puny. She was laying on the floor looking at me like, I'm sick.  And like a little kid will look at you when they don't feel good. Yeah. Yeah. And I
08:59cooked up that burger and she could smell it. And by the time I put the rice and the burger and the squash in the bowl and stirred it together,  she was sitting at attention at my feet like, okay, I'm good enough to eat that.  that's great. Oh, thank you for sharing that. That'll be one of those. mean, one of the things I love to do during the fall, you it's like, you'll have visitors that come through and they visit, talk and...
09:26And so anytime I could bring up something like, hey, have you heard about this? Like one of the things that my wife came across this years ago is,  I don't know if you've ever heard of pumpkin chili.  I have heard of it, Oh, it's amazing. If you have not done it, you have to try it. It is so good. And it's one of those, everybody kind of like when you mention it, face to face, you'll get that like cringy looking like, oh, I don't want to eat that. I don't want to have pumpkin spice chili, but you don't.
09:56You don't even taste the pumpkin in it. I mean, it's just, gives it more of a stock and more of a hearty. it's absolutely amazing how you can't rant enough about it. So if you haven't tried it, go for it. There's a ton of recipes out there.  Oh yeah. I'm one those people who put cinnamon and really good cocoa in my chili.  So, yeah.  Yup. Love to cook.  I don't want to, I don't want to get too far into the whole thing with the dog, but, uh,
10:25I'm talking about winter squash. When I say squash, winter squash, not zucchini,  not yellow crook neck.  And dogs actually like zucchini and yellow crook neck and cucumbers and watermelon. And those are all safe things to give them too.  Yes.  You don't want to have your dog be a quote unquote vegetarian because they really do need meat. They need the protein. Yeah.  But they really like.
10:54fruit snacks and veggie snacks now and then. Yep, I imagine it probably does good for their enzymes and their stomach and everything. Yeah, and pumpkin and winter squash is really good for their coats, for their fur. Yes, yes. And it's good for people hair too. It's really good for your hair.  Pumpkin is a great food for your hair and your eyes. Well, we've noticed when we do this thing for our chickens, we'll take a pumpkin and
11:22kind of hang it up off of the roof of our coop. So it's just kind of like hanging there. It's almost like a chandelier, but they can reach it if that makes sense.  the egg production,  we will always notice an uptick in our hens laying the minute they get fresh pumpkin introduced into kind of the rest of like the dietary program that we give them.  And yeah, there's some great goodies to it. It's more than just carving out and putting in a candle in it, you know?  Yes,  pumpkins.
11:52Dude, pumpkins are so great.  And we have baking pumpkins in our garden right now.  they're, waiting for the first frost because they're always better after the first frost. Yes. Yes, exactly.  So how, I got to know how big is the biggest jack-o-lantern pumpkin you've grown? Do you know? So the largest one was a couple of seasons ago. And I believe, I mean, this was just kind of like grabbing and just, you know,
12:22doing the two arm lift and, you know, guesstimating, but it was probably right about in the range of about 85 pounds, 90 pounds, somewhere around in there. So we were talking about three feet round. It was a really big pumpkin. It was one of those, mean, I've had people tell me that if I would have continued onward, you know, the potential, oh, you could start doing like those giant competition pumpkins and all that.
12:51That's always intrigued me. We haven't gone there yet.  But it was for a jack-o-lantern. It was big.  was like everybody's like, where did that one come from?  That's a lot of freaking pumpkin seeds to roast.  Oh my gosh.  Yeah.  And that pumpkin was more than twice the size of my dog. My dog weighs 40 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. No, was a lot to lift. it actually took two of us. put
13:19you know, some lifting straps on each side and we kind of team lifted it up and carefully delayed it into the bucket of our loader tractor and got it out of the patch. But yeah, that was our that was that was the king so far.  Absolutely.  So how has your growing season been in 2026? This year has been really well.  Kind of one of the things that's attributed to a very good growing season is last winter we experienced
13:49some significant flooding through our fields and everything from the Skagit River that kind of runs through the valley out here where we live.  And anytime you get a big flood, you get big nutrient boost in your soil.  it's been just, you know, the earthworm activity and everything going along in our soil this year has been just phenomenal. And so, yeah, we're going to have a really, really good year.  Fabulous. So how long is your
14:17I don't know, let's call it a selling season. When do you open to start selling pumpkins and when do you close? Oh, so we open up right at like say the last weekend of September.  So we're usually about four to five weeks is a season. So we open up the last weekend of September and then we run the entirety of October and then.
14:42after like say the beginning of November, that's generally when people come in and they start buying feeder pumpkins. So you might have like one more week following into the first week in November, you're selling off the feeders and then you're done for the year.  It's like on for 27.  So.  Nice. Okay. Yeah. And how much, you don't have to tell me exactly if you don't want to, but how much land are you growing on? So we utilize our five acres and then we
15:12lease the neighboring five acres as well. You know, with running a pumpkin patch and kind of just, you know, keep, you know, our insurance and all the, the kind of the behind the scenes logistics in line, we use probably about three acres of our property as like a staging area.
15:36for the pumpkin. So we grow the pumpkins on our neighboring property and then we bring them into our property on our farm where we can like set them out and people can go and grab their pumpkins and then have fun and all that on the kind of the petting zoo kind of theme that we have and everything else.  So to answer your question, we farm a total of 10 acres.  Okay, cool.  And do you have other things besides just the pumpkins to draw people in?
16:06We do.  One of the things,  this kind of, know, everything kind of is like a chain of events to bring us to this part of where our trajectory has kind of brought us with our little farm here.  To go back here a little bit in time when we first moved onto our farm,  you know, the county around here, you know,  we encouraged, you know, small plots of land to use them in agriculture.  And so...
16:33Originally we had you know, just a small head of beef cows that we were grazing on the property and when the flooding threat was starting to kind of show its face we were like, okay, we need to you know, reevaluate what we're doing here and not have livestock here and I said to my wife and in just kind of a humorous remark I go, you know, I'd rather see pumpkins floating away than ever seen an animal because that would be terrible. Oh, yes. And so
17:01That's how the pumpkin patch started was we had a flood a couple years ago and there was a little section of land that I was like, you know, ought to try it here and away it went, but kind of circling back around.  Um,  we've in the, you know, got kind of a small little like a, create like composted arbor chips that come in because we used to use those with livestock. And then we also put up hay, which again,
17:27We do have a few little farm animals here, so I put up my own hay just to kind of offset the cost and make feed.  everybody around, there's a lot of land in our valley here that is kind of like offline from major farming because it's too small for big farms to use. And so I get a lot of invites, especially haymaking. like, hey, I've got a couple acres here, a couple acres there. so like this summer alone.
17:54We put up over a thousand bales of hay and sold and then we still have enough for our own. So we have these little kind of pockets that kind of come in a passive income that kind of support the hobby in a sense. If that makes sense.  That's the way to do it, sir. Perfect.  Anything a farmer, rancher or homesteader can do to supplement the income is all right by me.  I completely agree. And you have to.
18:24in this day and age you can't just do one thing.  That's exactly right.  you know one of the um I guess one of the passions you could say that has really been instilled in me is you know if you kind of go back in time you know if go back as far as like the 1950s for instance farming community used to be you know you'd go out there and you'd help your neighbor. I mean you know you there was there was this very tight kind of like you know
18:54Bond within the community itself and you know, it's not gone but it's just not quite as polished up as it used to be and One of the I guess for myself I I get a lot of just joy out of it It's like for instance when selling hay is most of my clients that I sell hay to They're small operations. Like I just took up, you know a delivery here this week to this elderly lady who is a third generation
19:24homesteading family and they've got like about 15 sheep and she's like, oh, I'm so grateful that you can come in and bring us a load of hay and stack it. You she goes the bigger farms won't come to us because we're too little. And it's kind like, I always like to tell people like, hey, I'm small and you're small. Let's stick together. You know, that's kind of my MO.  Yes. And that is, that is honorable.  And my parents live in Maine and they live on 14 acres and okay.
19:53They wouldn't call themselves homesteaders or farmers or anything, but they have a big field in front of their house,  like a sloping hill.  And there's a guy that comes in and haze it every, I don't know, every couple of months in the summer. And my parents don't charge him. And what they end up doing is if he has venison or beef, when fall comes, he will bring them some butchered venison and or beef.
20:22Yeah, and barter is a fantastic thing in this time frame.  Yes. Yes. All right. Let's get back to your pumpkins.  What varieties do you grow? Do you grow the white ones by Enchant?  Yes. So yeah, we they're on the seed package. They call them the Cinderella's. So we grow the Cinderella's.  best seller, which we mainly focus on, are just the traditional carvers.
20:51We, mean, if you're going to put it in a percentage, I mean, we probably have 90 % is in carvers and about 7 % we do Cinderella's because again, a lot of people like those for around here anyway, or flower arrangements. Yes. Very popular with like, you know, like, you know, fresh grown dahlias and stuff, know, they, people just love them for that. And then sugar pumpkins, we have quite a calling for those for baking.
21:19And another one we've done in the past and this year as well, are the little tiny Jack B Littles. You know what I'm talking about where they're just cute little pocket size miniature pumpkins.  We've raised quite a few of those and majority of those, my wife's a school teacher, so they'll go to her classroom.  She gives them off to her students.  We call those baby pumpkins around here. Oh, okay. Yep. Yep. So.
21:47Yeah, those are always a hit.  Yeah, um, the Cinderella pumpkins. I swear I bought one probably 10, 15 years ago and it was on the smaller side and we ended up cutting it up and eating it in a pie. Really? Yeah. And it was really good. I bet it would be because it got such a dark color to their, you know, I don't know if you want to call it meat or whatever, you know, the inside is gorge.
22:14Flesh yes, yes, yes, but it's it's it is it's a very dark. They have a lot of sugar content to it I don't remember it's been so long Since we did it. Yeah, but it doesn't really matter with pumpkin because you can always add sugar to a pumpkin pie. Absolutely
22:36Um, we grow, we grow butternut, buttercup and acorn squash. And the last time we had a really good crop, which was a while ago, probably six years ago, seven years ago,  they were so sweet that I didn't even have to add sugar to the pies or the pumpkin breads that I made with that squash. Nice, nice. This year, that's not the case. So far, they're not sweet. They're just squash.  Yeah,  they're just doing their thing this time.
23:06Yeah, but we're due for a frost here in two weeks according to the old wives tale that when you hear the first locust sing, it's six weeks till your first frost.  Oh, okay. Okay. So supposedly two and a half weeks from now,  according to my ears,  we should have our first frost. Now it depends on whether that's a light frost or heavy frost.  I believe it because every time
23:34Every year I listen close starting at the end of July because it can frost at the end of August here in Minnesota.  No kidding. Yeah. And I did know that.  Yeah. I listen real close because it gives me a gauge on when all the garden stuff is going to go.  Yep.  So.  Well, it's like out here in the Pacific Northwest. mean, we honestly don't really experience any sort of frost activities.
24:04almost as late as like November.  Like it's such a warm kind of just, you know, our four seasons are almost kind of more like one season in a sense. But to kind of backtrack on that statement, I mean, it's like right now our trees are just beginning to change color right now. Like some of the early autumn signs are definitely starting to show that summer is wrapping up.  So.  Yes, I haven't seen.
24:33I usually have a pretty good gauge on my prediction for whether we're going to have an early fall or a long extended fall,  early winter,  rough winter, easy winter, whatever. I've been pretty good at it for many years.  And last year I had no idea.  None of the signs that I usually rely on were around. Yeah.  And it is literally the very end of August right now and I have not seen a goose fly over.
25:01flying north have not seen anything, haven't heard any geese. We have one maple tree that's starting to turn, but that started a month ago because we had such hot temperatures and then we had a ton of rain.  I don't have any sense this year of what the next eight months are going to be.  Yeah, I totally understand. Yeah, I kind of assume out here where we're at, we're going to be probably experiencing more of kind of a dry, you know,
25:32Like last fall it was it got wet and it cooled down extremely early this pattern what you kind of look at you know if you're you following like your extended forecast and everything it looks like to be more of a dry and just you know we call them like Indian summers out here is one of the the traditional names for it and I kind of feel that's what we're gonna have this year but you honestly never know.  You know try to predict the weather is you know one of those things that just not my forte.
26:01Well, I feel like nature is kind of screwy right now. We had woolly worm caterpillars showing up in the spring this year. No kidding. Yeah, my husband came and he was like, I've seen five woolly worms today. And this was back in April. What was the weather like then? Was it warm? It was warm-ish. Okay, okay, that's interesting. And I said, I said, what? And he said, yeah, I've seen five woolly worms today.
26:30I said, are they all one color? And he said, no. He said, they look just like the ones you see in the fall.  Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, mother nature, what are you doing?  Exactly.  So I'm, I'm really kind of concerned that we're going to lose our, our old wives tale or folk tale indicators of how to gauge weather. I agree. Yeah.
26:56It's kind of like how it is the minute you think you got it figured out it'll throw a curveball just to put you back on your Humbleville I guess but yeah, it's I agree And the thing you were saying about the flooding that made this season growing pumpkins so great My mom's dad used to call the last couple of snows in the winter used to call it poor man's fertilizer I have heard that did he actually plow like plow it in I've seen
27:26I don't know. I have no idea. But it's the same theory that you're getting more minerals and I guess the stuff in the earth moving with the wet ground.  Yep, I have heard that.  I have a friend of mine who grew up out in Iowa and he said that there was always this belief that there was nitrogen
27:51that was atmospheric and when it would come down early like that and you could capture it and put it into the soil, it wouldn't like evaporate that you could actually lock it in.  it's fascinating.  All that stuff is so fascinating.  really is. And people are like, farmers are dumb. And I'm like, farmers are some of the smartest freaking people you will ever meet. You might want to check yourself.  Yup. They'd learn to adapt.  That's the biggest like talent.  Yes. And even if farmers were dumb,
28:21which they're not farmers feed us. They're some of the most important people we know.  And I will die on that freaking Hill.  We are surrounded by corn field, not cornfield, soybean fields this year at my place. And I kid you not, these soybean plants are as tall as my hip and I'm five foot nine. Oh wow. They look beautiful. My whole, my whole property.
28:49is surrounded on three sides. We're like in the middle of it. And it's so beautiful. The dark green on these plants is just gorgeous this year.  Oh, that's great. That's great. When do they harvest? When they're dried out. So probably not until October. Oh, OK. OK. So little more time. Yeah. It's going to take a bit this year because we've had we've had really good sunshiny days and then really good rain.
29:17So I suspect it's going to be end of October before they decide to get in there and take anything out. Gotcha. Gotcha. And is that also with the first? I'm sorry to interrupt.  No, go ahead.  Oh, is that also with like when the first frost comes through, is that kind of promote the dry out of the beanstalk in the first place and then they can go and start thrashing? I think so. OK. And we have a huge cornfield on the fourth side across the street from us.
29:47Okay. And my God, that corn, again, I'm five foot nine. That corn dwarfs me. Oh, wow.  Yeah, that's a good stand. Yeah. And I think I don't know if it's field corn they're going to use to feed animals or if it's corn that goes to like ethanol or whatever that is. The fuel. Oh, yeah.  Yeah. But it's been such a lovely green.
30:17fun growing season.  I say fun because the last two growing seasons here in our southwest area of Minnesota has been rough because we had a ton of rain.  And rain is not good for tomatoes or cucumbers. It will blight your plants and that's how grow.  And so we've been picking, my husband's been picking 10 pound flats of tomatoes for the last three weeks and people are just like, yes, sign me up. I want to buy them.
30:45Oh, perfect.  So we're tomato and cucumber focused here.  Yes. Yes. Well, that's a good you're having a good season. Now, do you have like a farm stand that you sell them from?  We do. Nice. Nice. We do. We bought a they call it a garden shed, but it looks like a little barn. It's barn red with the white crosshatch, you the ax on the door to get in. It looks like a little bitty barn. It's very cute.
31:14And we just put tables in there and a big old bulletin board or whiteboard and we just write down the names of what's in there and the prices.  And people show up at least once a day to get eggs and produce and candles and homemade soaps and homemade lip balms. And it's just, it's a really fun way to help the community.  Yes. You know, and that's like going back to like with our pumpkin patch. That's one of the ways that we've conducted our sales in the first place is
31:43We have the mini farm that we open up like Friday through Sunday, but during the week we have a,  it's kind of just almost like the entry to our pumpkin patch. We have that kind of in an area where you can come in and then you got to go through the gate to go into the farm itself. But we allow people to come in during the week and do kind of a farm stand with the pumpkins.  And, you know, I mean, it's, very simple. We have a cash box and a Venmo QR and
32:13You know, I've had folks before questions go, aren't you worried about somebody stealing from you? Which is always a big topic. But my honest feeling is it's like, you know, somebody's hard up and they need to steal a pumpkin. They might as well take two of them because they need them worse than I need them. You know, it's like, I'm not concerned. Like it always seems offset. Somebody is more generous than they should be in the first place. So if somebody was to be, you know, having to take one in the end, it balances out and it works great. You know,
32:42Yes, that's our take too.  And we've had our farm stand open for at least three summers in a row, maybe four now. And we have, as far as we know, never had anyone steal. Yeah, yeah. Which is great.  I mean, I honestly don't know. I'm assuming not. Looking at the numbers and how, you know, what is there and what we earn, it looks like everybody has always been just generous and we've had no problems.
33:11And I've encouraged many people kind of through our community that are up and starting. I'm like, just put yourself out there. Just do it. you know, sometimes the reckless move can be the most rewarding when it comes to like doing kind of like curbside that, know, you don't have to overmanage it yet. You know, just get it out there, get it set up and let it do its thing.  And, you know, one of my friends, she's been doing a Dahlia farm for a while now. She's starting to do that. And she said the same thing. She was, I got stolen one time and then.
33:40After that she goes, it's amazing. She goes, people, the ones that keep coming back, they know which colors are coming out on what days.  you'll have this kind of phantom group of purchasers.  You may or not ever meet them, but they know what you're doing and they love what you're doing and they come back.  It's just a great thing.  You end up with fans and that sounds really weird.  do. you do. You end up with people who want to support you in what you do.  Exactly.
34:10It's fabulous. I love it. I think it's great.  So I'm really glad that I got a chance to talk to you with you today, Hayden, because you're getting to be fall and it's pumpkin season and it's pumpkin spice season. Yeah. And it's candle season here soon. I'm I love fall. So I was like, hey, he's got a pumpkin patch. I need to talk to him.  Yes, absolutely.  And if it's OK,  one of the things I would just ask the listeners to is follow us at Blackwood Farm.
34:39We're on Facebook and we also have TikTok and Instagram and all that, but it's kind of a family.  My oldest son, does a lot of our kind of he's the behind the scenes and the tech guy and does all the editing and we have a good time with it though. You some of the videos we've put out in the fall and whatnot have been pretty fun where, you know, last year we were going around and kind of trying to help showcase and support other small neighboring little farm operations.  And I'm big on building community.
35:08I mean, that's probably one of the biggest drives that I have over all of this is like, you know, I don't want to see farming kind of fade out as a thing of the past. I think that there's still a solid pulse out there. It's just a matter of, you know, it's evolving from in a sense where people used to rely on it as full income to now it's more people have a full time job and then they do kind of like with us. This is a hobby, but
35:38It's a hobby that builds a lot of friendships, a lot of fans, as you put it. And it's been just a heck of a ride so far.  Good. I'm glad that it's been a great experience for you. I'm going to say it again. If you want to find Blackwood Farm, can find them on Facebook, literally at Blackwood Farm.  Yes. Yes. And on TikTok and Instagram as well. Yeah. I'm waiting for you to put a website up, buddy.
36:05You know, it's in the works. Good. Yeah, we need to do that. That's one of our on the tour list per se. So yeah, we really need to do that. Good.  All right. As always, people can find me at Atonyhomestead.com. Hayden, again, thank you for taking time out of your day. I know it was a little bit early because you're in Washington and I'm in Minnesota and it's a two hour time difference. So thank you so much. Of course. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Have a great day. You too.
 

Today I'm talking with Joe and John at Farmstand: Fresh & Local. 
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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 Joe and John at FarmStand, fresh and local in Oregon.  Good morning guys, how are you? Well, how are you? I'm good.  So, number one, how's the weather there? I always ask how's the weather?
00:46John, you want to take that?  Yeah.  It's been pretty decent. Yesterday was hot. It was in the low 90s. Today is supposed to be more of the same, not quite as hot, but we're getting a little smoke blown in from some of the local fires, unfortunately.  But overall,  pleasant.  Nice. And we are at the end of September, so things are going to get better. Well,
01:15They're going to get better and then they're going to get worse, but it's going to be very fallish here soon.  How's the weather in Minnesota? It is lovely. I was just pulling out my weather bug app to tell you what the temperature is. is 71 right now. The high today they're saying is supposed to be 87, but I don't think it's going to make it because it's overcast. I don't think we're going to get to 87.  And it's just nice out right now. There's no rain.
01:42And it's not hot and it's not muggy. It's just lovely considering a month and a half ago we had three weeks of tropical dew points for a three week straight. It was horrible.  I was like keep saying Minnesota doesn't get a three week stretch of tropical dew points ever. So it was very weird.  I feel like Minnesota do you guys get you get really hard winters. So
02:12The summertime is like kind of in the Northwest. Everybody just lives for these few months of the year. We're always looking forward to it. Is it the same there?  Yes, but the last two winters here have not been nearly as hard as they have been up till now.  So usually the area that I live in an hour Southwest of Minneapolis, you'd be getting at least five, six feet total for the winter.
02:42of snow. The last two winters we've been lucky in our specific little area to get even a foot of snow for the entire winter has been the weirdest thing.  So I can't give you an answer on what the winters are like anymore because they're changing just like they're changing everywhere. But yes,  true dyed in the wool Minnesotans, which I am not,
03:11live for summer.  I am a transplant to Minnesota and even after living here for 30 years,  I'm like,  it's weather.  Wait five minutes, it'll change because that's what I grew up with in Maine. So I don't think I have the same culture about it that people who grew up here have. Sure.  And that's fine. I don't have to. I just have to agree. I have to smile and nod.
03:39a lot here because sometimes I'm like, yeah, that's not what I grew up with. But okay, yes, you're right.  Anyway, can you guys tell me a little bit about yourselves and what you do?  go for it, Joe.  Okay.  Yeah,  we,  my family of six, my wife and I, four kids live in Clackamas County here in Oregon.
04:08We have a small five acre hobby farm where we raise pigs and chickens and bunnies and we have dogs and cats and all of the things.  We homeschool our kids, have a little community co-op in Malala that the kids will go to.  yeah, full time, I'm a fireman for Clackamas Fire District, currently working in Damascus.
04:38Oregon with John, which is kind of how this whole business kind of got going.  Being that John and I work together all the time,  we got to brainstorm and talk and to come up with this idea.  Okay. And John? Yeah. So I grew up in Southern Oregon,  came from a big family. I'm the fifth out of nine kids.
05:07And, uh, yeah, I grew up on acreage, uh, met my wife down there and ended up getting hired, uh, in the fire service up in, uh, the Portland area and, uh, moved my family up here.  And we currently live in, uh, in like a suburb of the Portland Metro area.  Um,  uh, a little town called Westland and, uh,
05:36We have a little garden and my wife and I have four kids as well.  And yeah, I met Joe a handful of years back and we fortunate enough to get placed together on the squad, working together out in Damascus.  And yeah, this year we jumped into the 4-H game with our kids. My oldest daughter really wanted to
06:06raised some rabbits.  we just last week finished up fair, which was our first 4-H year participating.  Growing up, we always went to the fair and had friends doing that.  And my wife's family was big into that as well.  So yeah, so just a fireman, a dad,  a husband.  And yeah.
06:35enjoying this farm stand journey that we're on.  When Joe came up with the idea and shared it with me, was like, yeah, that is a fantastic idea.  Because my wife also, she makes tallow and we had a garden. We always have a garden, but last year our garden was going crazy with kooks and zooks, we called it.  And so I was like, man, we got more than we know we can do with.
07:05You know, we just put a box out for free, you know, and, and, still it was like, there's so many, it's just people, you know, would come and take as many as they wanted, but it's like hard to get rid of them all, you know?  And so, yeah, when Joe came up with this idea last year, it was like, yep, that's, that's genius. We should make that work.  So.  So I want to talk about the farm stand idea, but I also want to say thank you.
07:35for being firefighters because with all the wildfires that we've been going through in this country for the last, I don't know, four or five years, it seems like there's getting more and more and worse and worse. So thank you for doing what you do. Our pleasure, yeah. It's an honor to be able to do it.  And at the end of the episode, I actually want to ask, I want to pick you guys' brains about the things that we...
08:00homesteaders, farmers and ranchers need to be aware of regarding fires on our property, because I figure you're probably going to have some answers for me. But we can talk about that at the end.  So tell me about this farm stand idea.  How did you, I mean, you just said because you had so much, but tell me more. Yeah.  So, so last year around this time,  we were
08:29or I was driving home from work. And as I was pulling into, I live in in a little gated community out here in the country. There's like nine lots.  We all have like five acres.  And last year we decided to make our own farm stand so we could share the goods from our garden or, or my daughter likes making baked goods. So she would put baked goods in it. And so we had this farm stand.
08:59which was off the beaten path and behind the gate. And I thought as I was driving through the gate, I thought, if this ever was available to the public, how would they find it? Yeah.  There are resources online that people currently use to market their farm stands and their farms.  But you potentially are lost in the mix. It's really difficult to find what's close to you. And so
09:27I had the idea of developing an app, which is what Farms and Fresh and Local came from. But I've had a lot of ideas for a lot of different little businesses in the past.  And I usually bounce them off my wife first and she shoots most of them down immediately.  because she knows all the time and effort it takes to start a business.  But this one was unique because she was in love with the idea from
09:56the start, and so was everybody else. And so that's when I thought, well, maybe, maybe I'm onto something. Nothing like this specifically for farm stands existed. There was some other apps that would market farms or farmers markets, but not specifically farm stands. And when the idea came about it and realized that, that there was a farm stand movement that was kind of going to start.
10:25And so since then, yeah, I had to, I had to figure out how to develop this app. I am not a tech savvy individual, but I have a friend who is in, in that world. And so I started picking his brain and I always envisioned somebody else developing the app. But that wasn't going to be feasible because I didn't have the funds to pay somebody to do so.  I had, I had to research.
10:55how to do it myself, using all the available resources to me. And yeah, so over the last about eight months, I've spent hundreds, probably over a thousand hours developing the app, constantly tweaking it. And I've got it to the point today where it works really well. It seems to be adding value to people's farm stands. And yeah.
11:25We were seeing pretty decent growth at the early stages for app. Very nice. Do you happen to know the average number of how many people use the app? Do you have any idea?  Well,  daily average users. So we have about 515 farm stands nationwide. And originally we were thinking about
11:54We're trying to target locally first to build up density within our, our County or the state of Oregon. But once you get it on the app store and Google play, everybody has the opportunity to download it and to add farm stands. And so we're seeing, we have 500 and about 15 farm stands nationwide. Uh, and we have about, uh, we're, nearing 3000.
12:23downloads and of those about a hundred people a day are using the app. And so we envision more people using the app once the inventory in the form of farm stands and small farms. Once that grows, the consumers will then find value in the app and use it more regularly.  makes all the sense in the world.  Can I?
12:50Can I make a suggestion that you may have not thought about for the app if you want to keep playing with it?  Absolutely. We have a notepad right here. Yeah.  In the Northern Tier States, when we get into winter, we're not growing things outside like we were. But what we are doing is lots and lots of fall festivals and fall craft shows and things like that because people are getting ready to buy gifts for Christmas.
13:17Is there any way you could maybe add that kind of stuff in?  Absolutely.  Yeah, farm stands,  this thing is constantly evolving.  Initially it was fully focused on farm stands and we want to do one thing well and not expand into a bunch of things too quickly. But we want to connect people with local goods,  homegrown food and fall festivals are right in that same line of
13:47of thinking.  We actually,  John was talking about our county fair and 4-H. We just met a couple who live on a pumpkin patch and they have a fall festival every year. So we're going to meet up with them probably this week,  talk to them, see what they have, take some videos and help promote their farm and also put them on the app so people can find their farm when they're going out and looking for these.
14:16pumpkin patches and fall festivals. So yeah, we're headed that direction. I don't know how many times in the past my wife and I have been looking for Christmas trees and you want to find the best place and the best prices. Well, it's really difficult to do.  So hopefully this app will fill that gap as well.  Awesome. I didn't know if it was on the radar yet, so I thought I would throw it out there for you. Yeah, thank you very much.
14:42We haven't had a Christmas tree for two years because Christmas trees are so freaking expensive now. Live trees. Oh my God. Yeah. What do they cost over there?  Oh, a really, really nice Christmas tree. Like a balsam fir last year,  a six foot tree was at least $60 and that was the low end. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's, that's, uh, that's pretty much the prices over here. They can well, and they can, we
15:10The Christmas tree to have over here is probably a noble. And then there's duck furs, but they'll cost you anywhere from 50 to well over a hundred dollars, depending on your location.  isn't Oregon one of the biggest Christmas tree growing States in the United States? Oh yeah.  Yeah. We actually grew them on our property over the last 10 years. And last year was the first year that we had them. But we leased our land to a big Christmas tree.
15:40grower and five plus years ago they were selling over 600,000 trees a year I think just in the Willamette Valley.  Yep it's a beautiful beautiful state you guys live in one of the most beautiful locations on earth. Well thank you.  Not as beautiful as where I grew up because you know I got to be loyal to the East Coast. Sure absolutely.  But Oregon from what I've heard is stunningly gorgeous.
16:09Okay. Fantastic. So, um, the app, people can use it for free. Yes. Yeah. It's, totally free to anybody who wants to use it. Uh, and, and initially we thought, how are we going to monetize this to make it worth our time? Cause it's, it takes a lot of time away from our families.  Um, and we initially thought, well, there'll be free features and there'll be premium features. Well, we quickly realized that.
16:39we want people to use the app to its fullest. And if we are saying, hey, pay us, even though the app isn't, isn't built out with a bunch of inventory and people using it,  people wouldn't want to use it. And so we made it completely free and John and I and our wives said, you know what, if this thing succeeds and we get the users that we envision,  then monetizing something later,
17:07not on the backs of the consumers and the farmers, it'll happen.  right now, it's completely free.  And yeah, we want people to use it.  Yeah, and if I can jump in there too, think there's this struggle with any app or any tool that is brought to a farmer or even to a consumer.
17:35It needs to be useful. Farmers are very busy people and growing up on acreage and realizing the amount of work and time dedicated or required just to like farm is a lot.  And so nobody wants to download something that's not useful to them.  So we believe we've created something that is useful, but we right now we're in the initial startup phases and the building phase.
18:04of telling people that it's useful and informing them like the tools and features of it.  And it's kind of this teeter totter of building users,  building the platform with farm stands and because nobody wants to be on the app if there's no farm stands on it and no farm stands want to be on the app if there's not users. So we're trying to build both those simultaneously, which is
18:34challenge, but I think we've seen constant steady growth and we've gotten a lot of really good feedback.  People like the idea and yeah, so I think with that monetization side of it,  it's always going to be free for the users.  It has to be in order for it to be a useful tool.  absolutely.
19:04Um,  one of the things that we did started three years ago with our farm stand is I printed out our Venmo QR code and we put it on the board that we have in our farm stand so people could pay using Venmo.  And it's been great because people do want some way to pay that is digital. And, um, I didn't even realize that Venmo had become the thing.
19:32that people use to pay for things digitally that seems to be the most popular.  And so that's one of the things that I tell people when they ask me questions about the farm. How are you doing that? And I was like, you go to Venmo and they have a QR code and you print it and you put it somewhere where people can scan it with their phone.  it's interesting too, because in the Pacific Northwest, I'd say Venmo is the primary
20:02you know, digital platform to allow people to pay like that.  And regionally, like I have a brother who lives down in California and down there, it's like everybody has cash app. Which I'm like, okay, same thing, but there's all these tools now that make it a lot easier to have those transactions, you know, seamlessly.
20:28Yes, and one of the other things about farm stands that I've discovered over the last few years is you don't just have to have produce in there. You can have homemade lip balms or soaps or candles or goodies like, you know, cupcakes or cookies.  humans are impulsive. There's a reason that they put candy in the checkout aisles. They're called impulse buys.
20:55If you have things in your farm stand that aren't necessarily produce or I don't know eggs, people are very likely to buy a lip balm for $5. Oh yeah, absolutely. We have some friends who have a farm stand locally and one of the main things they sell is sourdough loaves. know, people come home from work, they want to buy a sourdough loaf for dinner. Well, she also has cookies there and she sells the cookies out just as fast as sourdough because people grab cookies and eat them on the way home.
21:25Yeah, and then they ruin their dinner, geez.  Do I sound like a 56 year old mom of four or what?  Just to finish up on the Venmo conversation,  in the future,  hopefully sooner or later, we're going to add a feature of pre-orders.  so people will be able to purchase
21:55products through people's pages via the app. And the idea came about,  was reading someone's Facebook post and they were from Alaska and they were wondering how they could keep their products from freezing in the winter time. And so I reached out and talked to the person and then I thought, well, if you could pre-order in Alaska,
22:24that would prevent your things from freezing because you could make them have a time you could come pick them up and they would be there all paid for and off you go. And this would apply for, for everywhere in the country.  So that, that is to come.  Nice. Awesome.  I'm so impressed. I just talked to another person.  Um, today's Tuesday. think it was Friday and
22:51His business is very much like yours. It's called Vine Stops, V-I-N-E-S-T-O-P-S.  And I interviewed him. So I'm running two different farm stand things back to back this week.  And I try not to do that, try not to do things that are so close one after the other. But you guys are doing it differently than he is. He's doing it differently than you are.
23:21There has to be competition in the market. There just has to be.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that just proves there's a need to market farm stands and farms.  the, yeah, the small town America farm sometimes gets missed, you know, and we're all just trying to help promote them.  Exactly. And that's why I have this podcast because I want to promote.
23:50farms and ranches and homesteads and bakers and crafters and people who are adjacent to those things. And you guys are actually, I don't know, farmerish and adjacent. So it works out great.  I had a question as I was trying to explain that I lost it. I know what it was. Does Oregon have cottage food laws like Minnesota does?
24:20Yes. Yes, I do.  And is it in Minnesota right now, it's free to take the class and then take the test and then have your registration? Is that what it's like in Oregon?  I'm not 100 % sure on that portion of it because I know there's business licensing and certain things that go along with that. OK.  And I don't know if that's where they
24:50I know there's a cost associated with that.  But as far as like getting your cottage license and all that,  I'm not 100 % on that. Okay. I'm just glad they have it because I think I could be wrong, but I think all 50 states have cottage food licensing or registration now.  I think.  Don't quote me. I mean, I'm being quoted because I'm being recorded, but whatever.  I know that a grand majority of states have cottage food producers and it's a
25:20wonderful thing.  Okay, so we have like six minutes left and I wanted to ask you guys about what people who live on acreage, even if it's only one acre and they're doing homesteading or farming or ranching,  what can we do to make sure that our places are safe if a wildfire comes?
25:45You want me to take lead on that Joe? Take lead, Joe. All right. Perfect.  Um, yeah. So I think the biggest thing is having one, a plan for if there is a wildfire, right?  Anticipating, um, you know, uh, do I have a defensible space around my structures,  right? Is my firewood stacked right up against my house, right? And as when I grew up, that's how it was, you know, um, do I have
26:14overgrown bushes or trees or, you know, down in southern Oregon, I always joke that it would be taken over with by blackberries and poison oak if all humans left for 10 years, you know.  It's just there's so much foliage that is, you know, if you just let it go, it can become a fire hazard.  So making sure that you have a plan on, you know, what would you grab if you had to leave in a hurry.
26:44to making sure that your your home has a defensible space and and by that we mean keeping the the the trees trimmed back the the brush and all that Keeping debris off your roof because most fires When there's a big wildfire event that comes through most of the fires Aren't initial most of the homes lost aren't lost on the initial flame front
27:13burning through. mean, on rare occasions, like, unfortunately, we just saw in Spokane, or down in California last year, you get those crazy wind driven fires and yeah, burns a whole neighborhood.  But in general, in wildfires, it's the slow creeping fire that burns through the grass, and then comes right up against the house and then catches the sighting on fire.  So just keep in keeping your house.
27:43you know, clean around it.  um, yeah, I'd say that's probably one of the biggest, both Joe and I have been out on wildland deployments before where, uh, one of the things we do as first responders is we, we try to get ahead of where the fire is going to be and triage homes, right? And, and we have different categories for those homes. Like, Hey, this house is salvageable based on it doesn't have a bunch of stuff piled up against it, you know, um,
28:13If there's things that we can do to like prep a home for a fire front coming through, we'll do that. But if there's too much stuff, have to say,  okay,  this one's a write off, we're gonna have to go to the next one. And we try not to do that if at all possible. But there are unfortunately some of those homes that fall into that category just because it is unsafe.
28:40For us to try to stay in there. Maybe it's an access issue to where there's a one way in and one way out and the you know, there's no turnaround or something like that So yeah, so those are just a few things that that people can do to try to Better their their or make their homes more resilient in the event of a wildfire
29:07I did want to circle back one other thing back on the farm stand app, if I may.  One of the cool things that FarmStand Fresh and Local does is we really want to empower people to support their neighbors, even if they don't have a farm themself, but they know of their favorite farm stand or their favorite flower stand just down the street. Users can add that farm stand on the map.
29:37And I think with empowering the users to be able to support their neighbors in that way and their farmers in that way,  that's just kind of one of the cool features of this app is it not too many other of the other apps that are out there have that feature.  And so I think that that's kind of one of the unique things with ours that we're trying to we're trying to give.
30:07empower people to help support their local farms so that we can all eat healthier and help the local farms.  That's amazing. I love that.  And as I keep saying, a rising tide raises all ships and that's what you're doing. So fabulous. And I'm always saying on this podcast,  we need to we need to shop local and we need to support our local producers because
30:36We can't always rely on a local or federal government to come in and bail us out. If we are connected with our communities and we know who makes what and who grows what, we're better off shopping in our own little bubble. Yeah, by 100%. Yeah. And it makes us all healthier, right?  yeah, because you know where your food's coming from. It's just better.
31:05Yes. And you were saying that you had Zooks and Cukes last year.  We have tomatoes this year.  Oh,  So many tomatoes. And my husband has been selling 10 pound flats for 25 bucks and they're just gone. They're gone. People are like, do you have tomatoes? Yep. Sure do.  awesome. That's great. Yeah. And I don't know, we're selling San Marzano.
31:33tomatoes,  they have aroma,  and beef steaks. And I don't know if either one of those are determinate or indeterminate. So I don't know if we're going to be swimming in tomatoes until the first frost, which is supposed to be in like three weeks, because we heard... I don't know, do you guys know this old story about how when you hear the first locust sing, six weeks from then is the first frost? I have not heard that. That sounds like a Midwest thing, but...
32:03I would buy that.  I heard him singing last night.  we're getting close. Yep.  heard the first one two or three weeks ago on a Sunday night and I went, well, I know when the tomatoes will be dead. Six weeks from now.  That's awesome.  but anyway,  I don't know what I was saying. Oh, just we have so many tomatoes. We're probably going to be giving some away here in a couple of weeks.  Yeah. That's great.
32:33Because you can't let them go. You can't throw them away. You got to give them away. No, no. Yeah. That's a fact. Yeah. Have you ever canned any of them? We do. We make tomato sauce for spaghetti sauce in the wintertime.  And it is so good.  When we have to buy tomato sauce from the store, I'm like, God, I don't want it. don't want it. Well, let's build out the farm stand app and then you don't have to buy it at the store.
33:02Yeah, exactly.  Exactly.  All right, guys, this has been wonderful. Where can people find you?  We are. Oh, go ahead, Joe. No, you first,  Okay.  We are on both the app store, the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Just search for FarmStandFresh and local. We're also on social media with Facebook and Instagram under the
33:31The tag farm stand, fresh and local, just all spelled out.  Yeah.  All righty. Awesome.  You can find me at atinyhomestead.com and I'm on Facebook at Atiny Homestead podcast.  Thank you so much for your time, you guys. And thank you for the hints about trying to make the outcome better if you're faced with a wildfire barreling down at you. I appreciate it. And I appreciate the work that you do.
34:02100%. Thank you, Mary. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Mary. was nice meeting you too. All right. Thanks.