Blended Acres

Today I'm talking with Lawrence at Blended Acres.

https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes

00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Lawrence at Blended Acres. Good morning, Lawrence. How are you? I am well, and you? Good. Where are you? I am located in Quinter, Kansas. Okay.

00:27
I couldn't figure it out from your Facebook page. I didn't see anything about what state you were in. I was like, I have no idea where this person lives. OK, I will have to address that. Yeah. OK, so tell me about what you do at Blended Acres. We are a first generation farm with myself and my wife. We raise a

00:50
sheep for lamb meat. We also raise corn and wheat and currently some oats and millet and a few other feed crops. And then we, in the fall we sell pumpkins and kind of have a small farm market.

01:14
Very nice. How did you end up getting here? Because of your first generation, I'm guessing it wasn't family. It was not. I, uh, in 2004 when I graduated, I came to Kansas to go on a custom harvest crew. And, um, just absolutely fell in love with, with Kansas at that point in time. Um, and then, uh, it was in 2007.

01:43
when we moved here permanently.

01:52
Okay. So I get that you fell in love with the thing that you were doing, but it's a huge leap to go from falling in love to actually doing the thing. So were you just like, I'm young, I learned, I can do this? Well, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't give you enough detail there. I grew up in Michigan

02:22
of my neighbors in that area on the farm growing up.

02:31
Once I came here, it was quite a process. I mean, it started as a hobby. And...

02:45
most things were done in the evenings after work and that and over time as we've been able forward to is how we've gotten to this point where we we have our own operations. Okay so tell me tell me about the operation because this is this is not small scale correct? Not anymore no not really. We have a currently

03:13
a little over 200 years. We have 450 acres of farm ground that we rent. And then we custom farm on average, I do plant 8 to 12,000 acres a year between the different crops.

03:37
When we messaged you were like, I'm not sure that I fit what you're looking for. And when I said that you are, I'm going to tell you why I said that you are. You are perfect for what I'm doing with my podcast because there are people in the world right now who are interested in doing the kinds of things that you're doing, but they don't know anything about it. They don't know how to go from falling in love with the idea.

04:06
to making it go. And you fell in love with the idea and you're making it go and you're making it go big. So you're exactly the kind of person I want on my podcast because you're helping other people be inspired to go after the dream. What? I'm glad that that I can fill that role. Yeah because it's kind of scary for people.

04:34
especially people who maybe grew up in the city and get introduced to the idea of not being a city person anymore. And they're like, I have no idea how to get from here to there. So part of my goal from my podcast is that people get to live vicariously through the stories they hear, or they get inspired to stop living vicariously and actually go do the thing.

05:04
Okay. So that's why I wanted you to be on my show. Okay. So do you guys have kids? Yes, we do. We have...

05:19
I'm sorry, I'm counting. We had five kids. We have, our youngest is five. We have two girls that are, will be 10 here in the next, well, one couple days and the next one is in July. And then our, and Philip would be.

05:48
just turned 12 and then we had a son that passed away. He would have been 14 this year. Okay, so you're a classic farm family. You're married and you got a parcel of kids and that's way cool. It is. And that parcel of kids is gonna come in real handy as they get bigger and wanna help. Yes. And I'm guessing that.

06:16
the older of the five probably do already help. Well, he kind of, he does help in the shop some and does some stuff like that, but it's not really his cup of tea. The youngest one and our one daughter are probably the ones that are most intrigued and in love with the farming.

06:46
Well, a couple out of five isn't bad. It's real good. I don't try to force anything on the kids. We've been trying really hard to develop their likes and interests so they don't feel like they have to be part of the farm. But there's a lot of things that.

07:11
are still useful on the farm that aren't directly, you wouldn't think are directly related. Our one son is very, he's mechanically minded, so that is a very useful thing, but that also can take you into a lot of other industries. Sure. Yes, absolutely. So he's not pigeonholed into just mechanics on the farm. No. So that's...

07:42
That is one thing that I've seen a lot over the years is if you make your children feel like the farm is the only option, they're going to either hate it or they won't be around. So I try to leave the doors very open for the children. You are a smart man. That's a good plan. Okay.

08:12
lamb for eating. Yes, yes. Does that like go to grocery stores or is that to local buyers? Well, the large majority still goes to a packer. We have a contract with them. But we, in the last couple years here, we have been having our processing done at a local processor and we've

08:42
via Facebook, local ads and farmer markets here in Kansas. Okay, so my question is, because we, I've said this before on the podcast, we here at A Tiny Homestead really love lamb, but for us it's a treat to get it and cook it because it's kind of hard to come by. And so my question is,

09:08
When you are sending your lambs to slaughter to be sold in stores, where is it going? Like what states is that meat going to? Well with the packer that we have a contract with, it goes all over the country. But mostly it's larger cities and a lot of lamb ends up in the East Coast where the demand is highest. If it's sold that way.

09:38
here with what we're selling off the farm ourselves, it's mostly just been within a 150 mile radius of where we live. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that there was a huge demand on the East Coast for lamb and I am in the Midwest. So that might be why I'm not able to get my hands on lamb at a grocery store very often.

10:03
I guess you'd call it not our immediate small grocery store that's in our town, but where most everybody travels to to go to the bigger Walmart is in Hayes, Kansas. There is a grocery store that has it there, but what we've seen is it's very expensive. It's almost, it's more than most people are going to spend for a small cut of meat.

10:32
So they don't stock a lot of it, but it is available there. We've been trying to keep our prices low enough that it is still feasible for a family to try it. Yeah. And with inflation prices across the board, it doesn't surprise me that it's super expensive at the grocery stores. When we have had lamb, we have literally bought a lamb. Okay.

11:01
And and butchered it ourselves not killed it but butchered it ourselves and that made it very affordable But my husband hunts so butchering a lamb is not a lot different than butchering a deer No, they're very similar in size Yeah, so so that's how we got into knowing that we enjoy cooking lamb and lamb is is Terribly versatile for cooking with because it wants to take in whatever you season it with

11:31
Yes, it does. And if you cook it right, it's really tender and it's delicious and now I want some. Yes. We have found that anytime you cook lamb, if you have patience, it's gonna turn out amazing. It's not something I would recommend that you grab out of the freezer and try to cook within 30 minutes because it needs to be completely thawed and you cook it.

11:59
slower and you'll have a very desirable product. Absolutely, yes. I cooked a small leg of lamb in a very large crock pot one time and it was delicious. It turned out great. The other thing about lamb is the tallow. The fat is amazing for soaps and for lotions and all kinds of things. So that was part of the reason we wanted to buy.

12:29
the whole animal ourselves and butcher it because then we can have the tallow too.

12:35
Yes, there's a lot of different byproducts with a lamb. The lanolin and the wool has a lot of uses.

12:47
Sorry, just lost my train of thought. It's a very versatile used animal, I think is where you're going. We actually had some ewes that had a lot of extra milk after we were weaning some lambs. So I milked some ewes for a time. The milk drank well. And my wife was making some soap for a little while with the sheep's milk. And that was a very...

13:17
fun project and I really enjoyed how well it worked to clean my hands and it actually helped put some moisture back into my hands. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure with the work that you do, you get your hands dried out all the time. Yeah, all the time. The one thing I do want to say about lanolin is some people are allergic to lanolin and if you've never been exposed to it, make sure.

13:44
that you put like a little bit on your skin, like on the inside of your wrist before you like slather anything with Lamolin in it on your body because you can get real sick from it. Yes, some people do have a reaction. So you have to be aware of how your body handles certain things. Yes. And the only reason I say that is because I have heard from a few people and it's happened to me.

14:10
you can develop allergies as an adult that you never had as a child. So when you're doing something new, whether it's a food or something you're putting on your skin that you have never tried or that you haven't tried since you were a 10-year-old and now you're 40, be really careful because sometimes you're going to get surprised at the reaction to it. You can. You can. And just a public service announcement because I...

14:38
I found out I am allergic to capsaicin two years ago, the hot thing in hot peppers. And I couldn't breathe. And I had always been able to eat hot peppers and then I can no longer eat hot peppers. So that was a huge surprise.

14:54
So I want people to be careful and take care of themselves and be aware that things do happen that you don't expect to happen, that's all. Okay, so when do sheep or lambs go to market? When do you actually harvest them? Anywhere from 120 to 140 pounds is ideal. Some markets and some groups like them a little lighter.

15:24
and some of them like older ewes. It just depends on their upbringing and where in the world they came from. Yep. Okay. So do your lambs, do your sheep, sorry, do your sheep lamb in like staggered batches throughout the year or do they just lamb in the spring? Well, that's...

15:51
changed over the years, but currently we're trying to lamb a group in early February, March, and then we lamb again in October and November. Not every year takes for fall lambs, but there is a percentage that does. That way we have a more steady supply of lamb available.

16:21
Yeah, so throughout, well, every six months basically. Yeah, yep. Yeah, okay. Cool, see, I haven't talked to anybody about sheep yet, so you're it. Okay. You're it. Okay, so when you guys butcher or have somebody butcher the lambs for sale in your community, do you get back the bones and the wool and stuff, or do you just get back the meat?

16:50
Well, I always shear the lamb before it goes into the process, because if that wool touches the meat, it can leave a really gany flavor. So we want that hide pretty clean before it goes in. Okay. As far as I do get some of the organ meats back, but as far as the bones and the rest

17:20
No, I usually don't take that back. Okay. Does anyone ask for the bones to make um to make lamb broth? Well it um

17:33
I mean, you can get some, they'll package soup bones. That's one of the things we get back. But the people that want a lot of that product, a lot of times they'll come here to the farm and buy the live animal and harvest everything themselves. Okay. Yeah. The reason I ask is because we did make lamb broth, you know, bone broth from the lamb bones. And oh my God.

18:01
It is amazing. Like we've met our own beef broth before from beef bones and that's okay. It's, it's, it's nice, but lamb broth is just so rich and deep and, and savory. And again, I'm going to have to talk to my husband this weekend and be like, we need to find somebody who's selling lamb because I just talked to this guy and I want to make lamb again, my mouth is watering thinking about it. That's how much we like it here. So.

18:30
Anyway, anyone who's never made bone broth from lamb bones or sheep bones, try it, because it's really good.

18:39
Okay, so what do you guys do with the wool? Do you sell it? Do you spin it? Do you make things? Well, the last couple of years the price has been, it hasn't even paid to send it anywhere. It's been doing, we use it a lot as mulch around plants. That's really good for that. But when the

19:06
up enough to where we can pay for the shipping, we do send it to be processed. Okay. Yeah, I heard that the wool market is really not great. I heard it from somebody else a while ago. It is not. We in the U.S. are not able to scour and process a lot of wool because of the regulations that we have here in the States. So China is the main buyer of wool and

19:36
Our wool in the US generally is not as good as the wool that's coming out of like New Zealand and Australia and those parts of the world. The western part of the United States, the wool from the western use tends to be more desirable than the wool from the farm flocks in the eastern part of the country.

20:02
Is it really hard to process the wool to get it to the point where you can spin it? Is that why it's such a problem? It is quite a process and I think, I'm not an expert on this topic. I would want to do a little bit more research but a lot of what the issue is is getting the wool clean leaves a lot of byproduct, waste product.

20:31
And that is, the exposing of that is the main concern, is why it's not a huge industry here in the United States. Okay. All right. That makes more sense. Because I know that the sheep can get kind of grubby. And I also know that the lanolin is all throughout their wool and that makes it hard to work with until it's cleaned. And carding wool is an...

21:01
utter pain in the butt and then spinning it. I mean, back in the very old days, people had spinning wheels and they would spin the wool. But that's not a thing now. I mean, I'm sure there are people who do it because they like to do it. There are people, but they're very far or few between. I think I know four or five people throughout the country that do that. Yeah, and it's time intensive. It takes a long time. It is.

21:30
an awesome hobby to have. We watched a lady doing it at a historical reenactment a few years back. And the process of it is amazing, but it's a very long time to make it worth it. So, okay. The crops that you grow, you said wheat and what else?

21:59
I've raised millet and oats and then sorghum, sedan grass for feed also is another thing that we've raised and occasionally a soybean, but not very often. Okay, what's milo? Milo is a grain sorghum. It looks like a broom on top of the plant that has small round seeds on it. Okay. That's a feed crop.

22:29
It's pretty widely produced here in western Kansas. Okay. And is it for, is it for, um, is it for cloven, hooved animals or is it just for cows? It's, it's, it, a lot of it would go to, uh, chicken feed, hog feed, uh, some cattle feed. I use it some with the sheep. Um, but it's, it's, it's mostly, it's very.

22:57
The nutrients are very similar to corn. It just has a little less energy. Okay. Is it related to corn? I don't, I can't not direct. More of a sorghum type grass, but most, most corn is in the grass family also. So it, I guess in a way, but not directly. I'll have to look it up and see, cause now I'm curious. I'll look it up later.

23:27
Okay, so with that stuff, is that just to feed your animals or is that sold out? Most of that is sold. When we raise it, it goes to the local co-op and a lot of that, the last few years has ended up in the export market. So that's really, and they do use it as a, our local ethanol plant does use quite a bit of.

23:57
milo to produce ethanol also. Okay. So, there's a lot here. I mean, it's not just you get up in the morning and go feed the animals and water and that's your job. You have to consider all the markets. You have to consider the health of your animals. You have to consider the weather, the health of your crops, the futures. You have a complete and total farm business.

24:26
Yes, I would say that that would be the marketing and the financial end is the most challenging part of what we do. Agriculture is very capital intensive. It takes a lot of dollars to operate on a day-to-day basis. Yes, and it takes a lot of dollars even on a small scale too. It does.

24:54
We are a farm to market homestead. And so we have maybe a third of an acre garden that we grow every summer. And we are growing specifically cucumbers, tomatoes, and green beans this year heavily because that's what people want. They want to be able to can in August and September. And so...

25:22
It's not a big garden. I mean, it's a big garden compared to our little tiny garden we used to grow on our city lot. But it's not the scale that you're doing. And it costs money. It costs money for the diesel for the little tractor to till it. It costs money for the seeds. It costs money in keeping, making sure that we're fed and rested so we have the energy to do the work. It costs money. And so

25:52
So the old saying about it takes money to make money is absolutely true. Very true. Very true. And when I was a teenager, my first job ever, I think I was 11 or 12 was babysitting a six month old baby. I had never babysat in my life and it didn't cost me any money to make the $30 that I made for the night, but it costs me an anxiety and stress and being worried that I would

26:21
that I would kill a baby because I had no experience babysitting. So everything costs, but in the expenditure of whatever the energy, the form of the energy it takes, there's usually a return. And so my next question is, are you happy doing what you're doing? Do you love it? I do love what I do. There is days.

26:50
I need a disclaimer here that it's extremely stressful and then you will question is this really worth it. But I would say 90% of the time, I'm very grateful to be doing what I'm doing. And there's your return. Yes. Okay. I have one more question. Why did you name it Blended Acres? Well, there's... My current wife is my second wife. I had...

27:20
I've been through a divorce and the first time I started off it was just Libby Farms. It was my last name. It was a pride thing. I wanted to leave an absolute legacy that had my name on it. After the process of going through a divorce and raising children.

27:47
My wife came, my current wife came into my life and we became a blended family. Yes. And.

27:58
when the opportunity came to start again into agriculture like we are now.

28:08
We spent a lot of time pondering and discussing what to call this. I didn't have that absolute desire to have my name carried on, but I wanted it to be available to any of the children. Or if my children decide later that they don't want

28:35
be any part of this that it could be transferred onto another individual. And that's where we come up with the blended acres. We are truly a blended family. What we do, it's a blended operation. We have multiple facets of what's going on here. And it just, my wife presented that name to me and it just stuck. Yep. I love that. That's fantastic. We are a blended family as well.

29:03
The four kids that we have raised all have different sets of parents. I have three of my body and then my husband has one from a previous relationship. And the four kids, we consider them to be ours, but only one of them, the youngest, is actually genetically related to me and my husband. Does that make sense? Yep.

29:31
So I love blended families and blended families are the best way to teach kids compromised. Mm-hmm. I agree with that. Because there was a lot of big personalities in my beautiful blended family. And they all had to figure out how to work together and how to have disagreements respectfully. And they all do it really well. So blended families are amazing.

30:00
All right, Lawrence, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. And I love, I love, love, love that you are raising sheep because I had not had chance to talk to anybody in depth about sheep yet. Okay. One thing I would like to share if you have just a moment. I do. Um, some advice for anybody that is trying to do this. It's going to take a lot of hard work and don't.

30:29
Strive for the shiny. Do what you can within your means. You don't have to have the nicest stuff to start with. Find stuff that's reliable and build from that because I've seen people try to have all the best right off the bat and it usually doesn't last. It ends in tears. Yes, it does. So I guess that's patience and diligence and trying to...

30:59
make wise decisions in our businesses what's allowed us to get to where we are now, not just, oh, I want a new pickup. We have no new machinery here. That is not part of our operation. And to be quite frank, if it was, we would not be in business. We could not afford the debt load that goes with it. Yeah.

31:28
Absolutely. I actually have another question about what you're saying because this is what happens. Would you also suggest that people find mentors, people who are doing it already and talk to them? I would very much so. If it wasn't for my upbringing with my grandfather on his farm and the gentleman that helped shape me as a young man, I would not be able to do what I do now.

31:58
And another attitude that I've always adopted is I do not know everything, and I'm not afraid to ask to find out. Yeah. So yes. So yes, fine. I mean, I'm always asking questions, going to conferences, learning, trying to develop myself personally to continue to do a better job at what we have here. Yep. So.

32:26
So basically do what you can with what you have where you are and don't be afraid to ask questions. Ask questions. Lots and lots of questions. Okay. I think that's fantastic advice, Lawrence. Thank you. You're welcome. You have a great day. You too. Thank you. Bye.