60 Acre Wood

Today I'm talking with Stephanie at 60 Acre Wood.

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00:00
You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free-to-use farm-to-table platform emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.  You can find them at homegrowncollective.org.

00:25
Today I'm talking with Stephanie at 60 Acre Wood in Arkansas, United States.  Good morning, Stephanie. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I don't think there's an Arkansas anywhere else, but I figured I'd throw the U.S. on there anyway. Sounds like a plan.  How was the weather in Arkansas this morning? Well, it was real beautiful and now we're raining, which we need for the gardens. I'm pretty happy.  Good. Good, good, good.  I've got everything crossed that the weather is not as insane.

00:55
this season as it was last season, because we had rain for six weeks straight in spring and our garden was terrible.  So, and I've talked about ad nauseam on the podcast because it just drove us insane last year.  bet. Yeah, we've had a turbulent spring,  more tornadoes than any other season.  I think in history or something, it's been a rough spring and now it's kind of calming down. So it's pretty nice.

01:22
Fabulous. I wish you all the luck with all the things you're trying to grow because man  It will break your heart when you put all that work into it and it just doesn't go Yep, and if you get hail and we do get hail so  We get little  we get little pea-sized hail. I'm really hoping that I never see golf ball size I really don't need to that.  No, I we don't like to see it at all, but it does happen here. So  Good

01:52
Okay, well, tell me about yourself and what you do at 60 Acre  Woods. Wood. Wood. Wood or woods? wood.  Acre Wood. Okay. Well, my late husband and I had a dream to be self-sufficient. We have six children and five grandchildren, and we wanted to not be off-grid 100%, but more self-sufficient. Just raising our own food,  staying away from the grocery store.

02:19
And when he passed away, I said, you know, I'm going to make this dream happen.  And I moved to Arkansas, bought a farm site on scene, never even been to Arkansas, which is crazy.  And started building this farm that was in  the end of 2019. I  closed on the farm in the beginning of 2020 and been doing it pretty much ever since.  We do a lot here.

02:47
We have a lot of animals for food and we have a lot of pets and we homeschool and it's, it's, it's a busy life and it's really rewarding and we love it. We love being that. We love that self-sufficiency. We're at about 65 to 70 % of our food comes from our farm now. And for us, that's Number one.

03:14
Congratulations on being a strong, capable woman. Proud of you. Thank you.  Number two, that much food grown on your own property is amazing. That is astounding. It's huge. It really is huge for us. Yeah. And are you still a single mom? I am not. I remarried  a wonderful man who  thinks I'm crazy, but lets me buy goats. So  keep him.

03:43
I'm going to keep him. Yeah. I would love to have goats and I've talked about this ad nauseam on the podcast too. We don't really have the room because we don't really have anywhere for them to eat, to graze. And I'm sure you've noticed that feed prices for every animal known to man have gone up in the last year or two. So we just visit goats. don't have any here.

04:11
Well, you know,  our goal also is to start growing food for them. are not right now, but we have a goal to. the thing, goats have been our hardest animal so far. Believe it or not, we have, we have cows with pigs, we have chickens, donkeys, horses. If you name it, we've probably got it on this farm, but the goats have been very, very hard because there's a large parasite load in Arkansas.  We've had a lot of problems with the, with the goats, but milk is

04:40
Cheese butter. I love them. They're fun Most of all they're But they're hard to grow hard to grow here so what's the what's the pesticide load not pesticide, um, what's the  What's the problem? What what is it that's making it so hard? So the parasites here are very I want sorry parasite.  They're very What is the word?  resistant

05:10
to a lot of the common things that you use here. And we tried doing the natural, we do black walnut, we tried doing all the natural things and then we switched over to some of the not so natural things because we didn't want these animals to suffer. But we have just a resistant population of parasites, which we had just got under control probably in the last six months  because we just could not

05:38
We finally had to, you know, the vet came out and said, well, this is what's going on, but they're resistant to everything. we found a combination that worked for them, thankfully, because it was a very rough go when we started, but we're on track now. So your goatees are okay now? They're okay now.  Good. Do you breed them? We do. Do you have babies on the ground now? We do.  We have one little, well, we have one right now.

06:06
who my granddaughter is raising, bottle raising, because his mommy didn't like him. So he is kind of thinks he's a dog and spends a lot of time with our granddaughter. And oh, they're so much fun. They are so much fun. They look fun. The story I keep telling is that my best friend in high school, her parents raised goats. And so she would call me in the spring and say,

06:31
your mom bring you over there's baby goats and I would go hang out with the baby goats and that was a lot of fun and they are so soft. Yes, they're wonderful. And then a current friend as an adult right now has goats and she just went and picked up a new one to add to their genetic line and he came to visit in the back of their truck because they picked him up and then came here. He was eight weeks old like two weeks ago. I think it was two weeks ago.

07:01
And I haven't actually petted a baby goat in a very long time and he's black and white and his ears are speckled black and white. That's crazy because that's exactly the one that we have. His name is Fanta and he is black and white and his ears are white with speckles.  Yeah. So cute.  And I stood there and just kept trying to get him to come to me because he was in a big dog crate thing in the back.

07:27
It was hot and they'd given him water, but he was, it was hot and it was a  new situation. He was shy and he finally came over and sniffed my hand and let me pet his ears. And that was it. I was like, Oh my God, I wish I could have a baby goat.  Yeah, they're definitely good entertainment. And like I said, they make the best milk. They really do. So that's,  they're fun. They're fun. And it's so good for my grandkids to have that experience of raising them. She actually delivered him.

07:57
my granddaughter.  And that was  huge. She delivered him. She clamped his cord. She bottle fed him. And she told me, Grandma, I don't want to be a mommy anymore. And I'm like,  Oh, what a great experience you just  had.  So but she's  wonderful with him. And they, you know, they don't wake up a lot in the middle of the night. But we told her if you want

08:22
to do this, have to wholeheartedly do this. She's almost 11. And  she said, oh yeah, yeah, I want to do it. And waking up in the middle of the night, you know, at least once to give him a bottle. Now he doesn't need, he's not even, he's weaned now.  But she, that experience for them is  huge. Just a hands on.  Yeah. That reminds me of my human story regarding a baby.  I have four kids, my oldest,

08:52
was 12. My next one down was 10. Next one down was four and a half and I had a newborn. And none of the older kids want kids of their own. And I think it's because they remember the youngest being up in the middle of the night all the time with me. maybe, maybe having your granddaughter take on this challenge, this charge to

09:21
deliver a goat baby and take care of it in all the ways that matter.  Maybe she'll be ready  when she decides she does want to have a baby because she'll know what  she's getting into. I think she will. think  she wants to be a vet  and I'm a large animal vet and I'm so excited for that. I love that for her.  And she said she's very mature for her age. She says,  I want to have a baby someday.

09:47
but I want to go to school and I want to go here and I want to do this.  so, but I think it does help them to know that real deep responsibility for another life.  And it's,  it's, it's great. It really is.  It sounds like it's a blast cause your voice is just ringing when you're telling me about it. I'm so proud of them.  All of them. My older kids are all in there.

10:14
Well, let's see, the youngest is 16, the oldest is 35. So they're all grown. And so the grandbabies, we homeschool, there's five of them and we homeschool them. And it's been so different of an experience with them being on the farm for one, but also just, it's like I'm a different person from when I was a mom. Do you have more patients? I think I have more patients and I also have less

10:46
Um, what's the word? Like when I, when they, when my kids were little, I wanted them dressed in their cute clothes and I have expectations. think I have less. mean, I have a lot of them, but not that way. I don't know if that makes sense. It's changed. The priorities have changed. The priorities have changed. Yeah. If they want to make cookies and throw flour all over the kitchen and get dirty, it's.

11:13
perfectly okay where with my kids it's like, please don't make another mess. All six of you trash, know, tearing up the house.  So I think it's just like rearranged. What, what's very important. Yeah, exactly.  I, I remember just being in deep, deep in the trenches with the four that I had and  the last baby, the one who still lives here, he's 23.  Um, I was a lot less crazy with him. Like,

11:42
My first baby, my daughter, only daughter, I didn't know what I was doing. I was 20 years old. I had all the energy in the world, but  I was very nervous and very anxious and very overly concerned about everything all the time with her.  I was also madly in love. You have your first baby and you're like feeling all the love in the world for the first time.  Every bit of it. Yes, absolutely.

12:11
And with the last one, I had the other three sort of helping. I mean, they really were a help. They would bring me his diapers and bum cream and, you know, the stuff I needed to do things if I was holding him. And  the two older ones really did adore him and held him a lot. So it freed me up to do other things. So I wasn't nearly as stressed with the last baby as I was with the first.

12:37
Yeah, that I think the stress definitely with the first, well, even with my second, I, they, mine were very close together. They were a year and 10 days apart. So I don't think I came out of shock from the first one when I had my second, but yeah, definitely by my last he's 16 and he's like, can I just go ride my motorcycle through that dangerous patch of blackberries? I mean, yeah, don't die, you know, but the first one it would have been like, bubble wrap on it.

13:05
Yeah, knock yourself out. Go see how much damage you can actually do to the second one. Isn't that crazy? That's how, you know, you just, it's like learning anything. It's like learning anything, I think.  Exactly.  So, um, does the farm support or the wood support itself, or is it just a way of life for you?  Um,  we, so it helps  support  like the homeschooling.

13:32
and the animal feed, it's pretty self-sufficient in that. As far as like 100 % of our expenses, it doesn't. We still have to work outside. Okay. Yeah.  But that would be a wonderful goal to have us both home. And I think it can do that.  Just time and effort, time and effort. And we've been at it for five years now, just over five years. And we're doing pretty well so far.

14:01
on that respect? feel like five years or almost five years is the number because we've been at our place for five years in August, this coming August. And this is the summer that we have been building towards since we moved in in August of 2020. We have our farm stand set up. We have a heated greenhouse now. We have a high tunnel. have a 100 by 150 foot farm to market garden.

14:28
We have barn cats, we have a dog, we have like 25 chickens. And we are looking at probably clearing anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 this summer from what we produce on the homestead. That's wonderful. And it just depends on how the weather goes and how many people come to the farmer's market and buy things. But it's so exciting.

14:54
when you get to a point where you're like, oh, everything is starting to come together. And that's where we're at. Our greenhouse is going to go in this fall.  We're putting  a 10 by 30 or 12 by 30 foot greenhouse in. was supposed to go in the spring, but with tornadoes, we haven't been able to get it done.  And we have these beautiful 100 year old buildings on our property. They're just gorgeous. And one of them is going to

15:21
be part of this greenhouse. once that's established, and yes, the five-year market seems like everything now has kind of gotten into a rhythm.  And it's also just kind of humbling  just to look around and go, wow, what we have done. But with 13 people, we have 13 people on our farm. Each one of my older children, we gifted them  property and they're building houses. Nice. So they're all here. So to feed everybody, I...

15:50
don't have a lot of the produce to take to the farm. do the farmers market all summer and it pays for school books and everything for five kids, which is pretty darn good.  It's an expensive venture homeschooling.  But it,  like I said, it's the five year mark does seem to be where everything just starts to it's okay. We can breathe. This is, you know, this is working now. Oh, and look at this is working and we can do this. also raise Highland cattle, which

16:19
are, I don't know, everybody's dream.  And they're just beautiful fuzzy cows that we just love and they help a lot. And we're just coming to the point now with them  where they can start supporting and  giving back where we have a big enough herd to start selling and stuff. that's going to be a game changer for us. again, really exciting.  Very, very exciting.

16:47
Yeah, I have been waking up every morning for the last week because  Farmers Market Day is Saturday, our opening day for Farmers Market in our town is Saturday coming up.  And my husband said to me yesterday, he said, why are you so excited about the Farmers Market? You don't even go. I go to the Farmers Market.  And I said, because you love it. You're so much happier in the summer because you get to go see your people. Oh,  that's awesome. And he was like, oh, I said, plus I said,

17:16
we get to sell actual produce on the first day of farmers market season. We haven't been able to do that.  You know, we've been, he's been going to the farmers market for two years in a row. is third year. And in Minnesota, typically no one has actual produce. They grew  at the first part farmers market because you can't get anything in the ground yet.  And because of the, uh, the greenhouse, we were able to get things started really early this year for the first time. So we'll be selling.

17:46
radishes and lettuce and I think baby spinach and  I can't remember what oh cabbages we actually have little cabbages. how fun that's a neat thing about Arkansas our growing season so we've had plants in the ground since February.  We're already eating potatoes from the garden asparagus of course lettuce  we have almost mature peaches the weather here I moved here from Wyoming where our growing season is very very small.

18:15
And being here and watching like we're eating, I'm like, wow, it's February  25th or February, whatever. And we're eating asparagus already out of the garden and berries and strawberries. have dew berries and  five acres of blackberries that are just about around the corner. And that was huge coming here. Just this, difference in the growing season and what I can, when I can pull things out. It's been amazing for us. Like, oh, we're gonna go just.

18:44
have a salad out of the garden in March. And that's without a greenhouse. So next year,  it's going to be phenomenal.  do you just get butterflies in your, in your heart because it's going to be different? Yes. Yep. I am so giddy and just over the moon with the thought of having  those veggies in that greenhouse. It's just, yes.  Well, I can relate because back in April,

19:13
My son came in with a small bowl behind his back and he said, I have something for you. And I said, what? Cause when kids come up to you, doesn't matter if they're adults or kids, if they're of your body and they walk up to you and say, have something for you and it's behind their back, you don't know what they're going to show you. And I said, what you got? And he turned, he pulled his hand out from behind his back. It is small bowl. It had about eight strawberries from the greenhouse, red strawberries in April.

19:40
Wow. That's awesome.  Never had that happen before. And they were so delicious.  I don't know if it was because it was April  or if it was because they were just delicious, but I was just like, oh my God, strawberries in April and we grew them.  So first off, yes, the thing with the kids with the thing, my oldest son brought a five pound totem behind his back the other day and he's 33 years old. says, mom, I got something for you. And my first question is,  is it alive? huh. Before he puts it in my hand.

20:10
And so yes, I know that feeling.  And the other thing,  I don't know what the difference is between the work you put into it  or what, but the flavor of everything that we put in our mouth from our garden seems 100 % better. Now, I mean, I know some of that's just like if we're eating lettuce from the store, it's like a week or two old  or a tomato that's been in a box  suffocating for two weeks.

20:37
I know that makes a difference, but it's like something about the work you put into it and the sweat and the tears and everything that goes into it makes everything taste heavenly. It's pride of ownership is what it is. Yeah, that's yes. Yes. Yeah. I had the same conversation with somebody six months ago because she's a big gardener, da da da. And I said, what is it?

21:02
Why is it that we think our food tastes so much better? And she was like, well, because the stuff you get at the store sits at the store for weeks and weeks and weeks.  And I said, it can't just be that. And I said, is it maybe pride of ownership? And she was like, yeah, there's a bit of that in there too. Yeah. It's like the spice on top of it. It's extra. And I see that with my eggs  and our meat, everything. And it's  like this extra umami.

21:30
It's just that work that went into it and that pride that you did that it's it's the love it's the love energy we throw into it. the love and regarding the eggs we have some Some chickens that are just starting to lay I think the first one out of the the 12 or 13 and we have their new later first egg a week and a half ago and Most people who don't have chickens don't know that when chickens start to lay they're like half

21:57
the size of the eggs they will eventually lay. So we call them fairy eggs.  And my son brought in the first one and I just grinned and he's like, you love the little fairy eggs. said, I do. said, they only happen  now.  one time for that one  for that little chicken. Yes. We also call them fairy eggs  around here. And it's always like this. It's like a little bit of magic.  It's just a little bit of magic. And we have good gravy. We probably have 70.

22:27
I know, 70 something chickens. I don't do math well with chicken. I don't do the chicken math at all. It's not a real number. Have as many chickens as you want. Have as many chickens as you can afford. And we just hatched for it. So every year we hatch, we use the incubator and we hatch babies for our classroom for one, but also just to have the babies. And we had 46 babies hatch. Somebody went a little overboard this year. So we have

22:57
all these little babies at different age ranges around the farm right now in brooders and everywhere  waiting for them to come out. sell a lot of the babies each year. The kids use that money for pocket  money from selling chicks.  And  I just loved, I love chickens. They run our yard. are free range.  So they have, we also have roosters with them and they run everywhere.

23:25
Definitely make it make the farm a fun place. Well, the farm can be a lot of fun. And  I just listened to a podcast this morning from somebody I interviewed the other day. has her own podcast and she was talking about how  it's really good work, but it can also be really hard. And  I don't want people to think that having a homestead or a farm or I don't know, an acre lot with a house on it, they can have some chickens on.

23:54
is perfect all the time because it's not. Homesteading and farming, it isn't idyllic. It doesn't look like what you see on Instagram. There's those tough days where there's money boots and animals that have passed away and unexpected surprises. I want to say there's a 90 % of the time everything is good and hard work.

24:23
And that 10 % it's heartbreaking and hard work. Yes. Yes. And the reason I even bring it up is because I've been trying really hard for a little over 18 months now on the podcast to let people talk about what they want to talk about and tell their stories. And people want to talk about the good stuff because that's what they want to think about. But I think that if we're going to be honest, we have to share that there are bad days on

24:52
the farm. We had chicken get killed by a predator the other night. We don't know what killed her. it wasn't like gross to look at because there was hardly any blood, which makes me wonder what got her. But there were feathers everywhere and her body was split in half. And if I was new to this, that would have made me really cry. I was just like, we've been here almost five years.

25:22
Shit happens  all the time. And yes, this is the worst thing that happens this year We should probably count ourselves lucky and that's kind of why I I touched on the goats because a lot of people  Love how baby goats are adorable. They're cute. They're fun. They're full of energy and  and They die  it happens,  you know, and we like I said, we had a very bad go with the goats and it was heartbreaking

25:50
And  if I had had those goats five years ago, I would have gone,  I am done. I cannot do this because they're so cute. They're so much fun. They're  wonderful little animals.  And we fought, you know, and fought and we lost some. that's  it. It's, I don't, it's not easy, but it's worth it. I think is that one phrase you hear everywhere. It's not easy, but it's worth it.  exactly.  And that's the perfect way to put it.

26:20
because  it is not easy. And even on your best day, it's not easy because you're working really hard. Yes.  I mean, my husband loves to garden. That's why we have a farm to market garden. I don't love to garden. It's not my thing. And I asked him the other day, said, you've been doing this for four summers now. I said, do you still love it?

26:47
And he  gave me the most beautiful smile that climbed from the side of his face, the other side of his face. And he said, I do.  said, but you're so tired. He's like, I'm getting old. He saw me 56 in two weeks. I was like, Oh, okay. Okay. Well, we'll, we'll chalk it up to that.  And I said, I just don't want you to do it unless you love it. I said, you don't have to do this. And he said, I don't have to do this. He said, I want to do this. I said, okay.

27:16
And I, you know, that I am also in my fifties and people ask me, why  did you get to this age and then decide to start a farm?  It's like having a whole new career in life.  And, and that is the reason I love it. I love the animals. I love the food. I love  the, I love that my kids and my grandkids know where their food comes from. They watch it go from.

27:42
this little tiny seed to a full grown plant or they see it grow from a tiny egg to a full grown chicken. They know where their food comes from the very beginning. When, you know, like when we raised pigs to the last and they always say only one bad day on our farm grandma, only one bad day. So they've watched the pigs go from being born to Sunday dinner, which it's, know, there's ways to run a farm without eating your animals. know that.

28:10
But we eat ours. That's what we raise them for. And my grandkids had it best. just say one bad day. They have one bad day and that's it.  And I'm like,  that's a good way to think about it. And I learned so much from them. They, the way they see things and that. Yeah. That's what kids and grandkids are for. Yeah. They're the best teachers. Yeah. I can remember watching my daughter cause I didn't have my next kid.

28:40
until she was six, I think. And I remember the time I spent with her from when she was born until she was about four, four and a half. And just watching her discover the world and I got to discover it too  through her. It was so fun and I learned so many things from her.  Yeah,  I say I homeschooled them, but I actually, think they teach me

29:08
so much. I learned so much from them. Then again, through their eyes, through their actions, I've learned so much. It's kind of just the coolest thing.  I'm  glad you're a grandma. You are the perfect person to be a grandma. You're very good at it. I can hear it.  I adore them. I adore them.  Awesome.  So I don't know what else to ask you because

29:35
I feel like  we've just been talking about raising kids, but we haven't. We've been talking about animals and stuff too. Where can people find you?  So we are only on pretty much on Facebook, 60 Acre Wood.  I think that's about it. I think we might have an Instagram. I'm not real good at computers and stuff. I started the Facebook page kind of as a way to just document the journey.

30:02
I haven't really done much else.  You know,  you get very busy and social media takes up a lot of time, but we are 60 Acre Wood on Facebook.  And I think, and I would, I would love to just share the best advice that I was given with your listeners  is start small, but think big.  Because that's really, and there's a song out there and I wish I knew who sang it, but that's the name of the song.

30:30
Start small, think big, edit is  definitely good advice.  I'm gonna have to go find it. I think his name is Michael something, but I  can't remember, but  you'll love it. Yes, it's kind of like our war  cry song around here when people get frustrated as we listen to that song. And it's like, okay, okay, we got this, know.  Dream big for sure. Yes.

30:58
The thing with dreaming big is even if you only accomplish a quarter of it, you've accomplished a quarter of it. Yes, absolutely. And you have to look at it like that because if you look at the big picture, like if I was to sit and look at the big picture, we have 70 acres out here. It's 25 of it is solid overgrown woods that we have to clear. if I looked at the big picture and I dream about it,

31:25
oh yeah, I'd love to get this done, but if I focused on just, I'd never, I'd feel like I'd never accomplish anything. So we just kind of go one acre at a time,  one space at a time, one project at a time. And then ours is one project at a time here.  And sometimes those projects are half done and sit half done for, you know, three months while we wait for the rain to stop. But that's okay because we know we got, we started. We started.

31:54
Yeah, my husband and my son built our green, our heated greenhouse a year ago in May. And it took them all of May and I think almost into June to get it done. It's only like 20 by 30  because of all the rain, they didn't dare to be up on the ladder trying to get the top parts done when it was so wet. Yep.  So that happened with ours. Yeah. Yep. The weather impacts everything we do.

32:24
And that's a big, that's also a big thing on a farm. The weather is everything.  Everything. I mean, you wake up in the morning and you go to bed at night and you have to know what the weather is doing. I have looked at my weather bug app more times since we moved here in 2020 than I have ever looked at the weather in my life. Or your whole life rolled into one. Yeah,  same. Yes.  It's crazy how much the weather impacts.

32:51
every aspect of your life on a farm or a homestead. Yeah. And, um, the other thing that I really learned is we have apple trees here  and, it seems like  one out of two years. So every other year we get the blooms come in, they look great. And then there's a massive rain and windstorm. All the petals get blown off and we get no apples.  We have the same problem with our peach trees. I hate it. It  makes me insane.

33:21
And we also have peonies and peonies will do the same thing. If they are open and bloomed,  if there's wind, you lose the flowers because the wind just strips the petals off the flowers. Yep. Speaking of, just about, it looks like we're getting into a storm. I can hear the wind picking up out here. Yes, I was going to say, hear  your weather alert system going off.  It surely is.

33:45
All right, well, Stephanie, I try to keep these to half an hour. I really enjoyed our conversation and I love what you're doing. Please keep being you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. And it was really nice talking with you.  You too. Have a great day. You too. Bye bye.  Bye.