Dawn's Dirt

Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt.

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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. Today I'm talking with Dawn at Dawn's Dirt in Alberta, Canada.

00:29
Good, I don't know what time it is. Good afternoon, Dawn, how are you? I'm really good. Thank you so much for having me. And yes, it's just after 4.30 in the afternoon here in Alberta. Yeah, and it's just after 5.30 here. And again, I tend to do most of my recording in the morning. So I'm programmed to start to say good morning. And I'm like, no, it's not morning. Stop it. It's funny how things go like that. You you get into a routine and a rut and...

00:59
But here I am throwing you for a loop already. So let's do this.  I'm all good with that. And the only thing that I request is that we don't talk religion or politics only because I haven't and it can become really divisive and hurtful. And I would just rather talk about positive things like growing plants and feeding people.  I love it. Those are my two favorite subjects to talk about, but I don't like the division and the the either. let's yeah, sounds great with me. Yep. And I just

01:29
I've come really close, Dawn. I did. asked one of your compatriots in Canada,  how Canada saw America right now. And she was like, if I say something not okay, just edit it. And I was like, okay. And she was very, very diplomatic and kind. And we kind of talked around things for five minutes. And then I was like, okay, that's as close as I want to come to talk in politics on my podcast. And she just laughed.  So worked out great.  Okay. So.

01:59
Tell me a little bit about yourself  and what you do. Yeah, so I'm Dawn  from Dawn's dirt. If you're looking me up and  I  am a farm girl.  was raised in the greenhouse industry here in Canada. So my parents had a 26,000 square foot greenhouse and they grew long English cucumbers  and

02:19
In 2007, me and my ex-husband built our greenhouse my parents sold and we took over kind of my family business and we were growing long English cucumbers as well and we started, it was pretty tough. Farming is of all types and sizes, no matter what it is, is really hard. And so we ended up branching into tomatoes and peppers and then we eventually ended up growing 20 acres of garden and field crops and I direct marketed them.

02:46
everything that I grew to  my consumers  at farmers markets and  online and things like that. So I was a vegetable farmer for many many years plus I had some chickens and some sheep. So  that's who I was. Unfortunately a year and a half ago I had to sell  and  so now I'm getting into the whole online thing and  if you give a man a fish he eats for a day but if you teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime. So I'm teaching people how to

03:13
grow food in the spaces that they have. think everyone should be growing something in their backyard and  I'm teaching people how to do it. So that's my new venture. Fabulous. And I agree on the teaching Amanda Fish premise.  And  I am trying, we are trying to feed our community too. So we are aligned on both of those points. Perfect. I love it.  I think that we've lost a connection between our food, you know, back in the day, back 50 years ago,

03:42
Grandma had a garden, know, great grandma had a garden. Everyone had a garden and a few chickens in their backyard. And I just feel like  we need to take society and shift backwards to some of that again, because  it's so important for kids to know where their food comes from. so, yeah, I just think  that's where we need to head to is to know that your carrots come from the ground and that, you know,  eggs come from chickens.  Yeah, they sure do. Weird, huh?

04:10
They don't come from a grocery store. mean,  grocery stores are  a building that houses items that we can eat. But  at the end of the day, the farmer and the field and the sun and the animals and  the earth, that is where our food actually comes from. Yeah, yeah. Yes,  absolutely. It does.  I am living proof of it. ate

04:37
butter crunch lettuce out of our garden on my taco last night.  Oh, yum. Yum. And did you grow your tomatoes too?  Well,  we do. We do grow tomatoes. We do can tomato sauce. We don't can tomato paste. Long story. Haven't tried it yet,  but  we just used our last jar of homemade canned San Marzano tomato sauce last weekend. And so we had to buy tomato sauce from the store.

05:07
That's not even the same product.  you're comparing apples to oranges almost. I'm aware. It was a very sad moment, but the taco turned out okay and the lettuce kind of made up a little bit for it.  Absolutely.  Yeah, absolutely. Well, lettuce that you find in a grocery store is best case going to be a week old.

05:25
by the time it goes from the farm to the packing house to the warehouse to the, you know, been trucked or whatever, it's going to be at least a week old by the time it gets to your shelf in your own fridge. And so  the lettuce that you picked out of your backyard is going to be the best lettuce because you you picked it 20 minutes before you ate. Yes. And having butter crunch lettuce on June  1st is crazy to us because we haven't been able to get

05:54
lettuce seeds in the garden this early. And the reason we could is because we have a heated greenhouse now. So this  was like the culmination of a lot of hoping when we built the greenhouse and then a lot of hoping and getting those little baby lettuces into the garden from the greenhouse. it was a  triumph, I swear to you. I love it.  So  like my greenhouse was 36,000 square feet. How big was your greenhouse?

06:23
It is not anywhere near as big as yours. I think it's 10 by 25 or something like that. That's still a good size space. So what are you all growing in there this year? Well, a lot of it's already grown and put out in the garden, but  we grew some, well, we grew a lot of different kinds of tomato plants. Cucumber, squash,  lettuces, radishes are out there in raised beds.  I don't even know  what else is, oh, there's a

06:52
There's a metric butt ton of basil plants that need to get in the garden this coming weekend. Yum.  Tomatoes and basil, that's where it's at, you know, make up some pasta sauce. Do you make your own pasta sauce?  Oh, yes, I do. Yes, I do. sorry. And you can make a really good spaghetti sauce in 30 minutes. People say you can't, but I do it. It's really good. So what's your trick?

07:20
Um, really good tomato sauce, fresh herbs, if I can get them and I can't get them in the winter time, but I can sure get them now. Um, oregano, fresh, uh, basil, onion, sauteed onion, real garlic, like minced garlic, a little bit of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of sugar, a little bit of salt, a little bit of black pepper. And I think that's about it. Oh, and some tomatoes.

07:50
tomato paste. Nice. Yum.  Good tomatoes make good sauce. so  my mouth as you're speaking here, my mouth is watering because I can just taste all those good ingredients put together.  And yeah, I'm jumping on a plane this afternoon and I'm coming over for dinner tonight. So, you well, you're going to be late because you can't get from Alberta to here before I go to bed. I'm sorry. That's funny.  Fair enough. Fair enough.  But no, I love to cook. So

08:19
And what I'm really looking forward to is bruschetta. Do  you know what bruschetta is?  Yeah. Fresh tomatoes and basil and... Mozzarella cheese, garlic.  I  am ready. Like as soon as we can pick leaves off the basil plants, I am doing that because I  love that so much. And it's so easy and I won't run down the recipe. I've already said it on my podcast like a bunch of times.  Okay. So...

08:49
I was listening to your episode, you have three on your podcast and it wasn't the one with the lady that makes tallow and it wasn't the one about tomatoes. It was the other one. I don't remember which one that is. I've actually got 33 I think out right now. Oh, I saw three. Okay. Yeah, no, I've got about 33 episodes out right now. And so you don't remember which one it was? What was I talking about?

09:18
I am trying to remember because my husband came home and was talking about about work and I completely have spaced what the heck that you're talking about. The lady with the towel was the second one I listened to. So I remember that one better. Either way, you are huge on growing our own food, making sure that our kids know where food comes from to the point you started a podcast and you are coaching people. So take me through like

09:48
I would not ask you to coach me because I've been gardening for quite a while and so has my husband. But if I was a newbie and I hit you up and was like,  tell it to me like I'm four years old. How do I start growing things that I can eat? How would you go about teaching somebody?  Well, the first thing is hire a coach, someone that's done it longer because they can look at your space  and figure out what's going to work where because there's, you know, cool weather crops and warm weather crops and there's

10:16
All the different things, know, what should plants eat, plants need nutrients, just like we need nutrients or we need food to grow.  And so hire a coach first off. And then with that coach or with when I coach my clients, what I do is I take them through their space.  I get them to draw maps of their space, take me pictures of their space.  And we jump on Zoom calls, group Zoom calls,  and we walk through

10:41
well you should plant this here and you should plant that there and what are we gonna do about this and what are we gonna do about that? And so I tell them,  I take all the guesswork out. See you can go onto YouTube and get all of the videos  and you can get too much information, I sometimes think.  So sometimes when you have too much information you get a little overwhelmed and you still don't even know what to do because  you know,  this person said to prune your tomatoes like this and that person said to prune your tomatoes like that but which one's actually right?

11:09
depends on your space, it depends on what we're doing.  And so that's what I help my clients do is I help them take the guesswork out of it  because they can come to me  and we can  make a plan tailored right to them at whatever skill level they have.  So  I had a 36,000 square foot greenhouse with 20 acres of garden, but I've also got clients with just a small backyard.  And so we start with the things that are easy to them.

11:36
Last year I had a client and she said, I want to grow something in my backyard and I've got this tiny little space and we looked at it and it was a lot of shade  and she said, I really wish I could grow lettuce but that's probably going to be the hardest one and I'm like, actually, no, ding ding ding ding ding. That's a cool weather crop and it's a shade crop.  So that's going to be your best crop to grow in that space and she had success with her  little toddler  daughter. They had success in their backyard.

12:04
growing spinach and lettuce and the greens and the kale and all the things, you know?  And so that's what happens when you hire a coach is you're taking the guesswork out and you actually will see success if you put in the work.  Absolutely. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a homesteading coach. And  I had joked with my husband a while back that  I should do that.

12:28
And he said, but you're still learning homesteading. And I said, honey, I've been doing homesteading since I was a little kid and my parents bought their house  on the acre lot in the Pine Barrens of Maine.  said, I've been learning about this since I was six. He was like,  oh, is there such a thing as a homesteading coach? I said, I have no freaking idea.  So now I know that I can tell them that there is, because I talked to one tonight. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing. I don't just coach on gardens.

12:56
I coach on  farm to table sales and so I teach people how to  take their little homestead and actually save money and make money off of it.  I just started myself.  So since selling my farm, I've moved to another small property and farming is in my blood. It's just who I am.  And so I got myself 150 chickens and I'm going to farmer's markets yet again because that's what I know how to do.

13:19
I've got clients that I teach how to  make money off of their chickens and how to make money off of their gardens and how to make money off of,  there's an art to it. It's a business, know,  when you have a little homestead, you have to treat it like a little business and that's what it is. It's a small scale farm  and a little business. And the more small scale farms and the more small businesses that we get up and going,  I think the better our society, all societies and our food system will be, you know.

13:48
If you know your farmer and can shake the person that feeds you,  that's where it's at for me. Yeah,  buy  local. You're supporting the people who feed you. Absolutely. And  I mean, I'm not going to get too much into it. But like, what happens if something happened with the grocery store? What happens if something ever happened with our debit cards? We don't know. I can't predict the future. I don't know. And so  if you have something in your backyard, it's just, know,

14:17
It's a way for you to just do it for yourself and do it for your friends and neighbors. And  I really think that it would be a way that we can really feed the world. If everybody  grew something that they could grow in the space they have, we would have less hunger problems globally, I think, actually.  Absolutely.  Our first farmers market for the season is this coming Saturday.

14:42
This will be the first one where we've actually had some produce to sell at the very first farmers market.  Again,  a triumph. can't, Dawn, I'm so excited. Like it's killing me  how big this feels.  And my husband is the one who goes, I am not a people person. I'm an introvert, like an extreme introvert. And I am so excited for him to go do this again for the third year because he has made  such great connections with people there.

15:12
And  people will come up to him at the farmer's market and be like,  I heard your wife's  podcast. I love what she's doing.  Why doesn't she come to the farmer's market? And my husband's like, because she's an extreme introvert and it's a lot easier for her to talk to somebody  over the computer than it is to talk to them in person. And they're like,  Oh, and so I'm, I'm hoping that by the end of the summer, I might actually be able to work up the

15:39
the whatever it takes to go to the last farmers market and meet some of these people. Oh man.  And so honestly, like I don't understand you at all because I'm the exact opposite. I'm the extreme extrovert.  I love farmers markets. I will stand there and I will say hello to hopefully every person that walks past my booth.  And  when I sold my farm, was actually the hardest part of selling the farm was not even selling the farm itself.  It was  hugging my customers and just saying like, sorry, I'm selling the farm and

16:09
the tears and the relationships. It's the farmers markets and farm to table. It's about community and it's about the people in your,  you know, building those relationships with one another based on like good, wholesome, great food. So  the fact that you're at a farmer's market is just,  I love it. I love it. love it. If you could see my face, you'd see a huge smile right now. Oh yeah.  We've been bouncing around here for the last couple of days because it's only one more, this weekend was only one more week until

16:38
the farmers market starts this coming Saturday. And my husband was just like bouncing his knee the other morning drinking his coffee. And I said, what's up? And he said,  I'm so excited. He said, we have actual  produce to sell at the first farmers market of the season. And the smile on his face was huge.  It's  so silly and it's not, you know,  on one hand, this is really silly. Lots of people have food to sell at the farmers market. But on the other hand, this is a big

17:07
freaking deal for us and we don't have anybody who can relate to this,  you know, that we really know.  So we're bouncing this  energy off of each other and it's like, we're so dumb.  No, you're not. Like I bounce it off me because I am right there with you. Like I,  I'm so excited for you to have, have your booth and to, you know,

17:30
meet people and sell things and just  build relationships. It's so perfect. And you've been doing it for three years, you said now? This is the third year,  Wow. And so the repeat customers and the knowing the good food and the...  I was known as the tomato lady. I'm going to be known as the egg lady now that I've got chickens. But  yeah, I was known as the tomato lady for so, so many years. Yeah. I think my husband is known as the free  sniff.

17:59
guy, S-N-I-F-F-S, because we sell candles. We sell handmade candles there too.  that's pretty cool. So he has a sign on the table that says free sniffs and people just giggle about it. I love it. I used to say to people, they would walk up to my booth and I would actually pick up a pepper because  a pepper, a fresh pepper is really firm. And I used to say to people, would you like to feel my peppers? They're very firm. And people would just laugh and laugh and laugh at me.

18:27
And then I just stand there stone faced.  I would just play it up. I'm like, I'm talking about peppers. What are you guys laughing at? Like I just played it all up. It was so much fun.  only thing that would be funnier and more obvious is if you sold melons.  I will admit there was one man one time and he picked up a cucumber, long English cucumber and said something and I, my face was just like,  and he said, you started it. And I said, yeah, fair enough. I did start that. So.

19:00
Whoops turnabout is fair play. Yes. Um, yeah, okay, so I Just blanked again. I swear I get into this 15 15 20 minutes spot and I'm like, what was I gonna ask her? Um So do you want to go back to farming? Are you really enjoying the co if you had the chance to go back to getting land again and farming? Would you do it or you enjoying the coaching?

19:26
I enjoy the coaching a lot,  a whole lot, and I will always do that. I'd like to build that side of it up.  But once you're a farmer and once you're growing food for people, it's in your blood and it's your whole identity and it's who you are. So that's why I'm fighting to get back into it, right?  I just,  I cannot envision my life without having  animals or garden or, you know,  food, food in my backyard. I can't envision my life without doing that.  And so...

19:55
I love the teaching side of it. I love the people side because I'm an extrovert,  but I also, I need to do it for myself too. Yeah, absolutely. I figured that was the answer, but I thought I should ask anyway.  I can't imagine not having a garden where we live. You know, my parents had a garden while I was growing up. My grandpa had a garden when I was growing up. That was my first experience with a garden was my grandpa. And he had cucumbers in his garden. And I said,

20:24
I said, can I get a cucumber? And he was like, of course, Lenny, because my nickname was Len or is Len. He's like, of course, Lenny, go pick one. And I brought it to him. And he's like, well, what are you giving it to me for? I said, well, don't you want to wash it? And he said, no. And he wiped it off on his pants and broke it in half and said, eat it. That was my introduction to a garden. That's the best food, right? The carrot that comes out of the soil with some dirt on it and that, yeah.

20:52
One of my clients actually last year too, her daughter actually, they planted the garden as a family and this little girl was probably, I don't know, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, young, young girl. And her mom told me the story of they had friends come over and the friends came up to the door or come up the walk or something and this little girl picked carrots out of her planter box and was showing the company that came to their home, the carrots that she grew and how

21:20
proud she was that she grew those carrots.  And you know that  it teaches kids work ethic. teaches them, you know, where food comes from. It teaches them responsibility. You know, if you don't water your little seedlings, they're going to die. Right? Right? Like  on a homestead, your chickens or your pigs or your cows or your vegetables or whatever,  all of those living beings are reliant on you as the steward  or,  know,

21:46
or farmer to take care of them to, you know, to actually have something to eat.  So  there's so much pride with that with kids, especially.  Plus it's really hard to get kids to eat foods that they don't want to eat, but if they grow it, they're going to eat it.  Absolutely, for sure.  And there's a huge difference in the taste and flavor  in something that you get in your back, picked from your backyard, as opposed to something you buy at a grocery store.  I had lots of

22:16
lots and lots of kids over the many years that I was doing farmers markets,  that the parents would say to me, my kids won't eat vegetables, but they'll eat your vegetables. so yeah, my kids, their kids during the winter time  here in Alberta, we didn't,  I wasn't growing year round and  yeah, those kids would go with less vegetables in the winter time because they just wouldn't eat them because they didn't taste like  nothing, right? Whereas the homegrown ones,  a tomato that tastes like tomato, not like cardboard, like there's nothing like it.

22:47
I can't wait. I can't wait till we have tomatoes again.  Every time you guys, every time I'm talking with somebody on the podcast about tomatoes, my mouth waters because I haven't had a good tomato since last August. Yeah.  Well, the grocery store one. So here's something interesting. So I was in the big greenhouse industry  and in the, I'm not saying anything bad by it. Like I love all sizes of  farming. We need it all in some, some, some capacity.

23:13
But the big, big greenhouses in the greenhouse industry, they choose varieties of tomatoes based on shelf life,  not on flavor. Whereas in my small greenhouse,  and at 36,000 square feet, yes, it was small for the industry,  I chose my tomato varieties based only on flavor.  That's all I cared about. And I even grew one variety of tomato. They split really bad. If we had a cloudy day,

23:38
the plant would suck up too much water and they would split open. And I still grew that variety even though they went bad a little bit quicker because they just tasted so much better and they were candy tomatoes. Nice. Very nice. Yeah. A cardboard tomato isn't worth the money you're going to spend on it because you're not going to want to eat it anyway. No, no. And that's the thing. Food, I think food was created to, for us to enjoy, right? Like,

24:07
When you think of a good meal  and just like you were saying, your mouth is watering. And so when you have a good meal, a good steak, a good egg, a good  tomato, like  it just tastes so much different than, know, and I'm not trying to throw a big company under the bus, but when you go and get something from fast food, something, you know,  it's just not the same. It's just, you know, it's just really, really not the same. No, it's absolutely not.

24:35
I've told this story once, think already on the podcast. I'm going to share it with you because you'll get a kick out of it. I have always loved celery. I used to love celery with peanut butter smeared on it when I was a kid. And I thought that celery from the grocery store was pretty good. We finally grew celery here last year or the year before. And I had no idea that celery is supposed to be sweet with kind of a peppery bite to it. Yeah.

25:04
Absolutely, right? And that's the thing, like,  again, I had client or customers that say, I don't really like tomatoes. And I would say to them, is it taste or is it texture? And I'd say they'd say taste and I'd say, I can help you  take a bite out of this tomato. And they go, ooh, ooh, I like your tomatoes. And  that's the thing, like when you've not had what it's supposed to taste like, like when you've not had it fresh,  you've not even really had that.

25:29
that item before, you  You never ate celery until you ate it out of your backyard, really. Yeah,  now that you said that, in my head, all I can see is the thing on the Starship Enterprise where the captain would say Earl Grey tea, warm or whatever he would say, and it would just give him tea. And I think the food thing made other things besides tea. And it wasn't really food.

25:59
Do you I'm talking about? No, because I don't watch Star Trek, or  Star Wars, or any of that kind.  I barely watch TV. don't have time for that.  So it was a machine and it would just spit out food? Yeah. Or what they called food? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.  So it  wasn't real food. No.  I'm going to be slightly mouthy because I am kind of a slightly mouthy woman.

26:28
And so I think the center aisles of our grocery store, a lot of times that's what we're getting is we're getting that Starship Enterprise,  things that they call food,  food out of the boxes that you find in the middle section of a grocery store. that's just, it's just not food. It's filler. It's not food. Well, there's one aisle I'm really fond of in the middle of the store and it's where the coffee beans are, because I'm a coffee fanatic. So I can't not go get coffee, but

26:57
I don't really want to buy pre-made food, you know?  I will take that.  I am with you there. I am a coffee connoisseur as well. I need my morning  cup of coffee and then,  yeah, I agree with you there. I will take  that portion of my statement back.  That's the only aisle I need to go to though. That's okay. I want to get back to the...

27:20
the farmers market thing really quick because I have a couple of things that I would suggest if somebody wants to get into selling their stuff at the farmers market.  I would highly, highly recommend that you spend the money and get the tent awning thingy. I don't know what they're called, but the thing that goes over your space so that you're covered if it rains  and get a couple of decent folding tables because that's where you want to display your things  and

27:49
get a sign made that says the name of your business. Those are the three things that we did and it has really worked for us. What would you suggest on?  Well, just on that whole tent thing, I used to  fill buckets with concrete and then put a little screw coming out of the top of it.  And that's what I anchored my tent to. And so if you're going to have the tent,  you need the weights because I've had my tents move across a parking lot in the windstorm,  even with 300 pounds of weights on it.

28:19
Make sure you get the weights. Absolutely know your signs.  I always say for myself if it's not priced it won't sell so make sure you have your pricing up  and Pile it high watch it fly when it gets low. It doesn't sell ironically the last bag of carrots sitting on a table  Doesn't sell it was just weird You know there could be two or three there and it would sell and then the last one just would not sell it And it's just a mental thing with people

28:45
And yeah, if it's not priceable, won't sell. Pile it high, watch it fly.  yeah, just know  the information. Like tell the truth, you know,  who grew it, where did come from, when was it picked, how was it grown? And  just tell your story. People want to hear the story behind it. Yeah, I was going to say, and make sure you actually interact with people, because if you just sit there,  no one's going to buy your stuff because you're not talking to them.

29:09
Absolutely. I think the number one rule, biggest thing that you can take away from  farmers markets is do not be on your cell phone. Just put your cell phone away,  put it down and try and say, I told my staff when I hired staff to do farmers markets for me,  I said, your goal is to say hello to every person that walks past the booth. That's the goal.  If you just say hello, then people will say hello back. And then if you just do an open-ended question,  I used to always say, hi, can I tell you about my vegetables? And then they would say, sure.

29:38
and then I would start telling them about my farm. It's a conversation. It's, know,  you're so proud of what you're selling. You're so proud of your candles, right, that you're selling. Just put the cell phone down and build that relationship and have the conversation. Yeah, because you never know when the person you're talking to is going to become a friend  or a resource or you're going to become a resource for them. And that's what it's about. You know, when you have a commodity, when you have a candle or you have a

30:06
head of lettuce or you have a dozen eggs or if you have a side of beef or a steak or  a pork chop,  that's where it's at. When we all have what we can do in the spaces that we have, then we can then barter and trade.  I heard of a story actually, I'm gonna change the subject slightly.  I heard of a story of an apartment building and everyone grew on their balcony something different and once a week they would take their something different, their vegetable items.

30:32
down to the entryway of the apartment building and then they bartered and trade.  This person had tomatoes, that person had basil and that person had zucchini. Boom,  tomato zucchini salsa.  Yeah. Yeah. Yup. It's like the stone soup story with the little red hen. Yeah, absolutely.

30:53
I was at a farmer's market. That just brought up a little story for me, actually.  So there was a class, so I was at Canmore Farmer's Market. It's one of my favorite markets, and it's the one I'm going to now again this year.  And the  teacher every year would come to my booth and she would say,  can the kids purchase  vegetable items for our stone soup?  And so they were each given a loonie or something like that. And I just collected and  donated it back to the teacher and I

31:22
donated the vegetables, but I would rip open bags of whatever and the kids would pick out so many items and they would pay me their little looney for it and then they would go and put it in their stone soup.  The kids did that, you know, and it was because the teacher wanted to connect the kids to the food,  to the farmer, you know, to make their stone soup.  Awesome.  Awesome. I'm glad I brought it up.  I didn't know that.  Go  ahead. didn't know.  I didn't know we'd talk about stone soup today. So that's fun.

31:52
Well, it's a crap shoot sometimes because I bring it up and people are like, what's stone soup? Like they haven't heard the story. It's everyone doing what they can, right?  That's where it's  at.  That will change our food system if everyone does what they can.  Yes. And if everyone does what they can, if our supply chain goes down,  people will still eat. Yeah. So important, right?  So, so, so important.

32:22
Um, yeah,  one of my biggest fears actually moving off of my farm  was  what, what will I feed my kids? And so when I was looking at, I started off looking at places in town  and every house I went to, the first thing I did was I went to the backyard and I was thinking, where can I hide my chickens and where can I put the garden?  That's, that's what I cared about when I was looking for a place. so,  um, thankfully ended up back in the country, but  yeah, it's,  yeah.

32:49
That was the most important thing to me when I was looking at places moving into town is where I can put my chickens and where I can put my garden. Boom. That's it. Food.  Uh huh. When we moved here, I keep saying this, like last year it was three and a half years. This year it's four and a half years.  We moved here four and a half years ago. Moved here in August of 2020. And we moved from in town to outside of town by about four miles. And we live in the middle of corn fields. When we were looking for a place,

33:19
My two things were it must have a flat space for a garden for my husband because he's the one who really loves gardening.  And hopefully it'll have two bathrooms because I was really sick of having one bathroom.  The garden space won out. We still only have one bathroom.  But you have land and if you're a farmer, know, drop those trousers and just do what you need to do outside. Exactly. You've got the space to do it.

33:45
If you actually have two bathrooms, just don't pee on your lettuce or something. Sorry, maybe I shouldn't say something like that. That's okay. We have a beautiful tree line. So if I happen to be the one in the bathroom, my husband really needs to do  number one, as it were. He will go out and pee in the tree line. He's like, I don't care. Nobody can see me anyway.  Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, fair enough for sure.  I think every  farmer's done it. Oh yeah. And it keeps the coyotes away.

34:16
Oh, never thought of that. But it's true. Yeah, that would that smell would for sure keep them away. Yep.  He's he's done it on purpose to keep the coyotes away from the property and it's worked. So I'm all good with that. I don't care where he pees. It's fine.  As long as I get it.  I was gonna say I have a dog outside that does that around my yard. And so that'll that'll keep  the animals away as well. Yeah, exactly. They don't.

34:44
Predators do not like domestic animals,  excrement or urine, and they don't like people's either at all. They're like, nah, that's not something I want to mess with. I'm not going on that property because there's people there or there's a dog there. So it works out great.  So try to keep this to half an hour and we're past half an hour and I thought we would be.  Where can people find you, Dawn?

35:11
So I'm Dawns Dirt. I'm on Instagram and Facebook.  And then I'm also, I've got my own podcast going Dawns Dirt.  And so I'm on Spotify, Apple, Rumble and YouTube. So  lots of different places, Dawns Dirt.  Just look up Dawns Dirt and you'll get me.  And your website is dawnsdirt.ca, right? Yes. I don't, it's not super crazy updated, but yeah, that's, that's my website there for sure. Okay. All  right. Cool.

35:38
Awesome. Dawn, I was so excited all day to talk to you and now I'm absolutely pleased that I got the chance to talk with you. Thank you for your time. And as always, people can find me  at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Have a good night, I  love it. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Bye.