Halfhacked Homestead

Today I'm talking with Heather at Halfhacked Homestead.

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00:00
listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Heather at Half Hacked Homestead in Kentucky. Good afternoon, Heather. How are you?  How are you? I'm good. You were telling me it's really freaking hot in Kentucky. Yes, it is disgusting hot.  It is.  Today will be, um,

00:29
indexes will be over 100. Some talks of areas being pushing 110 with we've had humidity levels this week of anywhere from the upper 60s to over 90s a couple of days ago. So it's just hot and wet and miserable. the dew point yesterday, I think at 630 in the morning here in Minnesota was 65%. Yeah, that is

00:55
Tropical and it's worse than tropical for Minnesotans because we're not used to that kind of heat, right? But back in January or December or whenever the heck it was because I don't remember We had a week this past winter where it was minus 25 real temp for a couple of days The day I was like, this is some crap. I don't like this any better than 65 dew point either

01:24
So we'd love spring and we love fall in Minnesota because the weather is temperate in those two seasons.  wish Kentucky had more of those. We either have uh hot season or mud season. There's really not a lot of in between.  We have allergy season and we have cold season. That's why Minnesotans sound like they talk through their nose a lot. Okay. Well,

01:52
I put up yesterday and it's still my unpopular opinion that I would much rather do all of this in the cold than the heat though. Yeah, definitely. I don't know that anybody will ever convince me otherwise. Uh  huh. Exactly.  All right. So I have to know why is it called half hacked Homestead? Well, a couple of reasons. Um,  one, my initials are HAC. Oh, okay. Yep. So if you, if you, anybody ever sees me refer to as hack, that's, that's me.

02:22
Um, the other thing is when I first started this adventure,  I  was  actually a hotel manager.  I have almost 20 years  in hospitality  and  corporate structures and things like that. And so when I started, I really didn't have a lot of time, but that business side gave me a lot of experience in working in systems  and developing efficiencies  and

02:51
really analyzing,  you know,  data and systems and all the things that go into how things operate.  And so because I was only able to focus on my personal life  about half the time, um everything just kind of became half-hacked and it became a running joke because sometimes, you know,  I do things that are unconventional  or a little, you look at it sometimes and you're like, what the heck is she doing now?

03:21
That's half-hacked. I love that. That is brilliant. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at half-hacked Homestead. So obviously in the last few years I have left the corporate life and I work part-time retail now just to support some of the things. My Homestead does support other parts of it with different things but I have

03:50
An entirely too many amount of animals right now and more on the way. So I think my latest count was about 82 animals.  Wow. How much land?  Five acres.  Oh, you can you can handle that many animals. That's okay. uh Most of them are  chickens, rabbits. got meat rabbits,  Rex's back in December.

04:15
which was very exciting. And then just a couple of months ago, I got started on my quail.

04:25
So I have the quail, the rabbits,  the chickens, and then of course, you know, there's the outdoor cats and there's a couple of dogs and.

04:39
Any goats? No. I don't have goats.  I have a very I have to be strict with myself that I have a no pet poll. Like I'm full on pets. um So everything I have has to have some kind of use now because the cats and the dog um take up the freeloader status.  Yes, they're very good at that, but they're worth it. Yeah, I don't.

05:09
don't foresee myself wanting, I don't like goat meat. And I don't see myself wanting to raise them for dairy, because I don't want to have to worry about keeping them in kid or milking them several times a day. So it's just, they're not my thing. I'll let other people have all the goats. are a homesteader who knows her limits and I'm proud of you because

05:36
There are a lot of homesteaders who get into this and they're like, I want all the animals and all the produce and all the fruit trees and all the asparagus and all the strawberries and all the rhubarb. And you cannot do that unless you have like a whole team underneath you to help. Right. And fortunately I have met some wonderful people out here in Western Kentucky who do have the goats and the dairy animals.

06:01
and the pigs  and we have created this wonderful bond and network of people  so we don't have to do it alone. Right and that's really smart because many hands make light work. Absolutely.  Alrighty so how is your rabbit adventure going because our rabbit adventure lasted a year it did not go well that's why it lasted a year. uh It's going really well so far. uh

06:30
told you I tend to do things that make people go,  oh man. And that's I have a colony set up.  And so I started out with a  trio, with two does and a buck.  And  they have now, I'm on my  third litter from each one.  And there have been, there were some challenges. The very first litters that I had, I didn't quite know they were pregnant because again, being in a colony situation,

07:01
don't have them separated. Right. So I didn't know that they had come of age and that they were  about to kindle  until that week that you were talking about where it was negative in Minnesota. It was also uh pushing zero here. And of course, that's when they kindled.  Of course, because that's how mother nature is.  Exactly. So first time mothers didn't pull enough fur. um They didn't know what they were doing. And I woke up and I went, oh, there's babies.

07:31
So did you manage to rescue them?  We did. So the first, um I had both does kindled within a couple of days of each other.  And oddly enough, I had a chicken go broody and also hatch out  eggs  during that time. So in a week, I had  28 babies born between the three different moms. um And everybody,  I did lose one of the rabbit litters.

08:02
Um, because despite checking on them  multiple times a day,  I, one of the rare days that I had to go to work  and I came back and I was like, Oh, the whole nest is now frozen.  So I did lose the whole first of one of the does, but the other doe raised her rabbits,  uh, successfully. So half a bed.

08:28
Absolutely. And if it was the first time you've ever done it, congratulations. You learned something really important on  the fact that not all mama animals really know how to be good moms. No, and in fact, the one that lost her entire litter, um she lost her second one as well to a completely different circumstance,  which was the spring floods. we um

08:53
I let her choose her own spot and I was like we're gonna do this as natural as possible we're gonna see what she's gonna do and she put them in an area that I could not reach underneath a set of concrete stairs which I've chosen to leave because it's a nice cool place for them in the summer and the rain came and it ran

09:19
just slightly downhill underneath the thick layer of straw that I have in their pen and where she had dug out the little bowl for the nest, retained water.

09:32
It happens. It is not your fault, just in case you're feeling bad about it. It is not your fault.  So I rescued one of them. were able, I found it. It had washed out and was covered in mud. And the second time I rescued Kits from the same mom.  And now she's on her third one and she had 13  and eight of them are still alive. So, and we are at four weeks now. So I think her third time she's finally figured out.

10:02
how to do this. Sounds like your buck has figured out how to do this too. Holy crap, that's a lot of babies. Yeah, they both give me very, very large litters. The other doe that I have has managed no less than 10 and she gave me 13. So out of these two, I have 16 four week old grow outs now that just came out of the nest and are running around. Your rabbits are really healthy. That is incredible numbers.

10:32
That is amazing.  have a very, I'm very proud of them and I'm very thankful to the woman that initially raised these rabbits.  Yes,  very good quality.  I would say so. Like  I'm actually flabbergasted at how many babies these rabbits are putting out. um For the listener, the deal with the colony style raising of rabbits is you don't have your rabbits in cages.

11:02
You have them down on the ground where they can burrow, right? Correct. Okay, so that leads me to a question because that's not how we did it. We had cages for our bunnies.  When the babies are born, how do you know they've been born if they're burrowed? So they,  these guys, the mamas have not  dug deep burrows. oh I have  several totes and places and things  for them to hide.

11:31
When they're not kindling, it's a lot of enrichment and ways for them to  get away from the buck and to have their own little sort of spaces.  Because despite the fact that they like being social and around each other, they also like their space. So that's where  they tend to build their nest at is in these totes. Okay, so you can get to them.  Okay, we have a neighbor down the road from us and she has a colony style.

12:01
rabbit thing. What's the word for it if it's colony style? Is there a word for it or just colony style? think it's colony style. I refer to it as the bunny pin or when I'm being funny, it's Bunningham Palace. Well, whatever. I'm guessing there's probably some term besides colony style, razing rabbits, but that's what she does. And her rabbits are literally, they literally dig burrows and dens and

12:31
She doesn't know how many babies she has until the babies come out. You big enough to come out. So  I don't want to do rabbits again, but if I did, I probably wouldn't do colony style because I would be like, can't see the babies. And  if there's a dead baby and a nest, it will kill the other babies if you don't get it out. Yeah. And that's what happened with the first one is I think one of them passed and the whole nest got cold. um Now I do have...

12:59
what I call the maternity cages that are set up that I can separate  if necessary. Nice.  So I have that just as a backup, but I will probably be now that the weather is  a little bit nicer. I think I am going to burrow a nest box sort of in the middle of the colony because I've seen where people have done that. They have the pipe and then the box down in the ground and just a little hinged lid on the surface  that they can  lift up.

13:29
So I'll probably be trying that in a couple of spots. That's a really cool idea, because then Mama Rabbit can do what she naturally would do,  but you can still do what you need to do and make sure they survive.  Nice, brilliant, fantastic. See,  homesteaders are amazing because they come up with all these  hacks just like your name. And it's great that we're all able  to share those now. ah Immediately, yes.

13:59
Yeah, this age of information I think is wonderful.  A lot of people talk about, you know, historically in the old ways and the ways their grandparents did it  and it's, we don't live in that time anymore.  No, and  okay, so here's the thing.  Back in the old days, we need to remember that families weren't just a mom and dad and like one or two kids.  Families, aunts and uncles and grandparents and the parents and a whole

14:28
hassle of children.  So a home was a community in and unto itself.  And there was  things  that were inherited, whether it be the property or the tractors or  even  the animal sometimes, and the knowledge just,  it was all passed down and passed around. Whereas now everybody seems to be having to start from zero.

14:55
Yes. And the other thing is, that back in the old days,  most people in America attended a church or they went to the town social every month or something where they were with the other people in the town that they were part of.  And if you needed to raise a barn, you let people know a couple of months ahead of time  and said, we're going to be raising a barn on this date  in this month,  show up.

15:26
and people would come and help their neighbors raise a barn or harvest the crop or whatever the project was that needed more hands. And we've gotten so far away from that that the internet has become our community.  I'm telling you Heather, if you've got rabbits you need butchered,  don't have any way to get to you to help from the  As much as I would love to.

15:51
You know,  and that's why I think it's very fortunate that  we do have the ability to connect.  it's it's not been until the last, I would say, year, year and a half, though,  that.  I'm finding more and more of us here within a couple of hours of each other. You know, there's the person that just had chickens who thought they were insignificant or just that person who had a couple of quail that  they didn't feel like they were much.  But when you put all the puzzle pieces together, now we have a whole community and we have a whole network.

16:23
Yes. And it's part of reason I started this podcast because I was like, I need to talk to other people who are doing this stuff  and  I want to learn from them. But I also want to share the information with other people who want to learn from them too.  And I think the desire is there and I'm seeing it more and more every day where people are and whether it be starting  to bake their own bread or to can or to get livestock or to

16:51
to just any little thing to do on their  own.  There's a desire for it now.  Thank God and the stars above because we need people to learn how to take care of themselves again. uh My husband brought in some asparagus  a month ago. We had a really short asparagus season this year. They went  from little tiny nubs in the ground to already

17:20
leafing or seeding out within a week and a half. It was so hot they bolted. But he brought me in so I could have some because I freaking love asparagus. I hated it as a kid.  Discovered a love for it back probably 15 years ago.  And this is the fourth year on our asparagus patch that we put in.  There is there is nothing better than  literally picked 10 minutes ago  snap.

17:49
put in a glass bowl with a little bit of water and microwave for three minutes asparagus from your own garden.  I about cried when I ate it.

17:59
I understand that I was 17 the first time I tasted a fresh green bean. And I went, what is this? It's the most amazing thing I've ever had. Why do we eat these mushy things that almost have like a metallic when we can have this? And I would agree with you, except that I don't like fresh green beans because they're fuzzy on my tongue.

18:29
It's the same principle of uh anything. Yes, yes. And I mean,  I don't necessarily like eggplant either, but I'm sure eggplant right out of the garden cooked the right way is amazing. Oh, probably.  I haven't found anything yet that I don't  enjoy fresh.  Mm-hmm.  Yep. And my mom, I've said this before a couple of times on a couple of episodes so far.

18:58
My mom used to can green beans right out of the garden and actual canned green beans, the way that people used to do this, you know, the canning process, love those compared to the ones that you buy at the store in the aluminum cans. Yes. And canning is actually where I started this entire adventure. Good. Tell me. So I have

19:26
um You know like anybody else again a corporate world doing all the things  Thankfully, my mom had you know taught me how to shop sales and things like that when I was younger um And I had an entire freezer full of meat and the freezer went down oh Probably two thousand dollars worth of meat in one day. Mm-hmm, and I this is ridiculous. I never want to experience this feeling again  And so I learned how to can

19:53
And because I, you know, again, I do things unconventional, I started learning how to can meat. And it has progressed into literally everything. I'm sure somebody at some point has brought up the concept of rebel canning. I have been a part of that from the beginning, thankfully. And so now I, I even can my extra eggs. You know, most people with chickens this year, they talk about.

20:21
water glassing or giving them away or feeding them back to livestock. And I can them so that I have shelf stable hard boiled eggs ready whenever I need them.  Oh, OK. I was going to say, how does that work? But that makes sense. they go in in the shell and they go in fresh. And when they come out, they are in the shell hard boiled.  And it makes meal prepping and cooking so much faster. And I was able to take that concept.

20:49
of shopping sales  and  shop seasons.  And because I could make everything stable and preserve  the expiration date of things  to many years out, know, including things like milk and butter and eggs and you know, my meats and the vegetables. um There's very few things that I found that I don't like canned.  But  it allowed me to start almost this little

21:18
investment snowball into my life, which was  you buy things seasonally and yes, it looks crazy going and buying, you know, 100 pounds of potatoes when they're  cents a pound. But then I didn't have to do that for the rest of the year. And I was able to take that money that I saved  and sort of reinvest it back into myself and into my pantry  on something else.  And that is not crazy. That is smart.

21:49
And so now that has turned into, I think I started learning to can in 2013 or 2014.

21:59
Yeah. Very nice. That's rolled into me having 82 animals.

22:05
You're  doing all the things. You are definitely a homesteader.  I looked at your Linktree thing on your Facebook page and it says consultations. Do you teach people this stuff?  Sometimes I do.  The consultations part is more, it's a little bit um of a side John. It's where I do,  I take what I've learned in the corporate world and big business  and the accounting and the marketing and all the things. And I actually, um

22:35
help people do. Oh, okay. So it's not necessarily homesteading. It's more teaching them how to set up systems and things. Or doing it for them. Yeah. So any sort of virtual assisting or plans or any things that people might need assistance with. I do.

22:54
And a lot of times it's, you know, with small businesses and people who aren't even, you know, micro businesses really that they just have no clue even how to, you know, set up a budget or keep track of their finances to see if it's profitable or what they're producing. Yup. Super cool. I always feel weird because I'm doing old fashioned stuff like making bread or canning or making

23:22
you cooking from scratch or whatever it is that we're doing that is an old fashioned skill, a homesteading skill. But I decided to start a podcast, which is definitely higher tech, two and a half years ago, almost three years ago. And I always feel weird because I'm like, okay, I'm going to go make dinner here in two hours and it's going to be pasta with a garlic sauce. But I'm sitting here talking to you and you're in Kentucky over a computer. ah

23:50
It's just crazy to me. It's awesome.  I think it's fantastic. And I said, I think it opens up a lot of possibilities for all of us to,  to learn how to do things.  There is somebody on the internet who will teach you literally anything you want to know.  Oh, yes, absolutely. And whether that's over the phone,  over zoom, just through videos they've posted.  What a time to be alive, Heather, I swear to God.

24:20
It is so cool to me because I am so curious all the time. Had the internet been what it is right now, when I was in high school from 1984 to 1988, I would have ruled the freaking world by now because I would have ingested every piece of knowledge I could have gotten my eyeballs on. is as I'm a very curious person, obviously, and there's almost too much some days because

24:49
What do you where do you start the executive dysfunction kicks in sometimes so there's so much information that where do you start? But if it wasn't for the internet being what it was I Wouldn't be here because I'm self taught in my canning I taught myself how to crochet and how to knit and how to spin wool into yarn And I had never seen a live chicken until I got them that day. I had never seen a rabbit until I got them I

25:18
None of these things had I experienced before I said, is what I'm going to do. Wow. That is awesome. I love that. uh I was the girl who my parents had bought a full set of encyclopedias when I was probably 12. I read those encyclopedias from beginning to end from A to Z.  You and me both. had the entire 28 volume Britannica set. Yup. I was.

25:47
Like, I didn't even know they were going to get them. And I don't know if they bought them new or somebody had a set, but they were within a year of printing, you know, that year.  they had them on a bookcase at the end of the hallway outside our bedroom door. And if I didn't have a book, I would just go grab one of the volumes and just sit down and read it.

26:14
My mom said to me one time, she said, so what have you learned? And I just grinned and said, everything. The most random, useless, you are wonderful at trivia information you could ever. It was so fun. And I thought then what a time to be alive. But man, at 56, I'm like, what a time to be alive. This is amazing.

26:44
It is it is incredible the information out there. I said there's there's always somebody to teach you  how to do things which which I think is fantastic because  coming into this and I live in a very big agricultural area.  The county that I live in produces the most wheat in the state of Kentucky. It's  big ag a lot of big players here  and  in my retail job they come in and I talk

27:12
very openly about everything I have going on because I found the more you talk, the more it opens up dialogue and conversations.  People get curious. They ask questions. And in some instances, some of these old farmers  come to me with criticism and they say, that's not how you do it or you can't do it this way. And I just say, watch me. Yeah. And then they come back later on and they're like, yo, how's that? How's that going? Or how's this going?  And a couple of years ago,

27:42
I looked at one of these who he kind of been lightly mocking me in a playful way for most of the summer. And I said, my little 600 square foot garden that I have, which started as solid clay, they had excavated the topsoil off, has produced 750 pounds of produce this season.

28:07
And he wrote, what?

28:11
I'm over a pound per square foot. Yeah.

28:17
without bringing in anything extra as far, you know, I didn't haul in topsoil, didn't haul in compost, I didn't  use all of these synthetic fertilizers and things. It can be done with a little time and effort. What did he say after you told him that?  He  didn't have much to say. He just said, wow, good job, kid, and kind of walked off.  Oh, so at least he complimented you. That's good.

28:45
Yeah, he kind of did and I was like, yeah, don't don't tell me I can't do something again because those are like fighting words to me  Yeah  When you tell someone like you you can't do that  The answer for you is always gonna be watch me  And keep doing that cuz  I'm gonna quote my dad, but I'm not gonna use a swear word my dad say opinions

29:13
are like buttholes everyone's  the only opinion that is worth anything in your case is yours absolutely and if I can do it other people can too yeah absolutely and it doesn't take  it doesn't take a lot of money or things you just got to get really creative yes  and creativity is fun that's why people end up being actors or actresses or musicians or singers

29:41
or artists or  I don't know, fiber people who make clothing. It's fun.  And  it's also hard,  know, not  Taylor Swift did not become Taylor Swift by just like opening her mouth and singing. There's a lot of work  she has done.  And there is, there's the sweat equity. Yeah. And I use her as an example because there are so many little girls in the world who just  idolize her and

30:09
I'm really hoping that the parents of these little girls explain to them how much work has gone into making Taylor Swift who Taylor Swift is. Well, I'll tell you something that really gets a lot of people when I talk to them on this topic is. And my data is outdated. I've looked up the current, but at the time when I started, really, which was about 2019, I sat down.

30:38
looked up on all of the the government websites and I said  how many hours a week do I have to work for somebody else just to feed myself? And the answer then was about 10.

30:53
10 hours out of a 40 hour work week, which is our standard full time, 10 hours, that's an entire day of working for somebody else to buy food. Yes. And I think, and that was assuming, if you look at the, I used the median numbers instead of the averages. The median was that, the median household spent $400 a month on groceries and made $30 an hour.

31:22
And I live in a very poor state. I made 12. So if $30 an hour got me 10 labor hours, my wage is half of that. It cost me 20 hours of working for somebody else just to eat. I'm glad that you brought that up because I wanted to jump in and say, I just saw yesterday on the news that the inflation rate for the month of May

31:52
was over 4%. And I'm assuming that's on everything because that was a government number that they were reporting. um The smartest thing that you can do if you live in America today  is number one, if you have  any way to grow any kind of food where you live,  do it because you're going to make money  by doing that. You're going to save yourself money and you're going to eat nutrient dense food.

32:22
that will make you healthier and stronger. that's where I teach if somebody can't at least  start canning that way you can shop price point to price point. Yeah. And I always say if you can't find the people in your area who are doing it and buy your fresh food from them because the food at the grocery store, the produce,  you don't know how old that produce is. You have no idea.

32:51
how long it took to get to your grocery store shelf. And  every day from the day that that produce is picked or harvested, you lose the nutrient density of that produce. When every day goes by, it becomes less good for you. One of the things that I saw was like onions.  Commercially, onions are harvested about September, October? Yes.

33:20
So if you were buying them in the summer, those have been sitting in storage since the previous fall. Well, I think it depends on where the onions were grown as well. Majority of them are, you know, it's those things are sitting in storage in a lot of instances. Yep. And it's kind of crazy, but they I just can't imagine spending

33:48
And now I'm sure it has to be even worse if I were to look at the actual median numbers of  what the average person spends on food and what the income ratio is. Even with everything that I do with my garden and I'm building a food forest, uh my plan's for about a half an acre food forest, which is gonna be super fun. um And I have the livestock animals,  they're small, but they're there. They'll produce a lot of meat for me, enough that I need.

34:16
can't imagine that taking 10 hours of my week, 20 hours of my week. And that opens up free time to do more, to actually live and experience my life versus being somewhere making somebody else $100 for every hour they want to pay me 10. Yes, and you're enjoying the work that you're doing at your Because there's nothing more fun than going and hanging out.

34:46
and a mass of  30 rabbits all hopping around and wanting your attention.  Yes, and even the hard yucky work like mucking out the freaking chicken coop. It doesn't take that long. And I always think that once you do the cleanup work and everything is back to spruced up,  there's such a, I don't know,  there's a word. Number one, satisfaction.

35:13
but joy in knowing that you have given your critters a nice place to live again. Absolutely. Which is where a lot of us,  especially around the online homestay community, um raising meat for food,  people really get upset over the rabbits.  They get very upset.  But  it's hard. Raising meat for food is hard. Yeah. We know from the time it's born,

35:43
what is going to be.  And we're still out there in the middle of the night, bottle feeding babies,  trying to save rabbits, dealing with chickens who just  want to drown themselves or  escape and  possibly, you you get eaten by the pack of coyotes down the road.  We're out here at all hours doing all these things knowing  that's what's going to happen.  That's the end goal. Yeah. But all of us also know

36:14
that we are giving our animals  and our quality  so much better than industrial commercial livestock operations. And you were saying that's really hard. You get a hard time about rabbits. Let me tell the listener.  Rabbits are just really cute chickens. Yes.  The meat is almost exactly the same.  It tastes the entire rabbit taste.

36:42
like chicken breast. tastes like, it's white meat. Yeah, it's really good. lean,  yeah. But everybody looks at them as these cute little pets and they absolutely can be.  There are people that have pet cows, they have pet chickens, they have pet goats, they have pet sheep. Every animal  on this planet can be a pet to somebody. And that person can think they are the cutest thing in the world. Yes, but in Asia people eat dogs. They do.

37:11
In South America, guinea pigs are  a highly sought after delicacy. They raise them as livestock. Yes, and I'm sure there's somewhere in the world where cats are seen as a food source too.  That's also Asia.  So it's yeah, when you when you're looking at producing the most calories per per square foot.

37:36
animal food always produce more. And if it means going hungry and starving, or consuming this animal, people are going to naturally choose to not sacrifice themselves for  a cute animal's life.  yes, and  I was reading something the other day.  It's a book, you know, it's like a fiction book.  And one of the quotes in it from someone who was religious,

38:06
was that the good Lord provided animals for us to eat and survive.  And I was like, you know,  that's probably true. And I have never thought about it that way.  is an interestingly enough, I was just sort of touching on this conversation that I've had,  because I spent four years being a carnivore.  health wise, it was the best. I won't go off on that one. But

38:35
A tomato plant has more biological defenses  than my rabbit.  The contact dermatitis,  the bioavailability of the nutrients, all of the anti-nutrients.  They're minor reactions,  but depending on how much you consume, you can't just go eat the leaves off a tomato plant  and  you're very likely to have some sort of contact dermatitis.  Whereas if you go eat a rabbit, you're

39:05
You're going to be fine. There's really not going to be any side effects.  And if you think about cucumbers, cucumbers have all those little prickles on them. Yeah. Yeah. Plants have...  They don't want to be eaten. We do.  and, know, in terms of the big ag and,  know,  I get into these conversations a lot. You can produce more square foot on on worse land when you...

39:35
when you eat meat versus  all of the  land and resources that are needed to support an all plant diet or mostly plant diet. Yes.  I, my theory is that we're supposed to eat meat and vegetables. You don't have to share my opinion. Listener,  you eat what you want to eat. You want to eat McDonald's hamburgers every day. You go do that. That is fine.  I am not telling anyone how to eat  what I am.

40:04
telling everyone is that if you want to be able to eat in this country in the next year or two, you might want to learn how to grow some produce. You might want to learn how to grow some meat animals.  And you might want to learn how to cook because I don't see this getting better anytime soon.  The cooking is the other part that I am seeing is difficult for people  because I  meet a lot of people who don't know if it doesn't come with instructions on a box, they don't know how to cook it.

40:33
Yeah, isn't that ridiculous? Just about a month ago, I was having a conversation. Somebody came into, I said I work part-time retail, they came in looking for a box of cornbread mix. And I said, we don't have this, but we have cornmeal. Yeah. Well, I don't know how to make cornbread with cornmeal.

40:53
I don't want to be mean about this. I'm not going to be mean. I'm not going to be disparaging. If you don't know how, that's fine. But you can learn. Absolutely. And so I did have to show them. said,  there's a recipe on the back.

41:09
And he went, is it good? I said, yeah, it's good. Try it. Give it a try and let you know, next time I see you, let me know how it was. And he did. And he said, he liked it.  He said, I think I might need to find a little dis of recipe, but, but it was good. said, see now  you know how to make it without purchasing this  convenience box that's overpriced.  And if you want, I'll give you my recipe and  it's probably much better anyway.  Yes. And the other thing that's great about learning to cook  is

41:39
those little packages to make cornbread have a ton of sugar in them.  If you don't want a ton of sugar in your cornbread or your corn muffins or whatever you're doing,  if you learn how to make them from scratch, you can take a little bit of the sugar out so they're not so sweet.  And a lot of people don't realize that those little boxes have more flour than they do cornmeal. Yeah.

42:06
So it's not even really a true and that's, know, people are so used to that now that they're like, well, I don't like, I don't like this cornbread. I'm like, but that's actual that that's cornbread. The other thing is it's a corn cake, you know, and us people in the South get really defensive over what is what. I'll tell you what I will eat cornbread no matter where, how it's made, because I really like cornbread.

42:31
But I really like people who really know how to make cornbread because it's the best.  It's a little something different.  But it's  again, it's the principle and the concept of  these  small things.  Yeah. And I go and I talk to people about making  homemade pasta or gnocchi or the fact that,  yeah, I've gone out to my garden and I've picked a bunch of vegetables and I made the fresh pasta and a fresh

43:00
Pasta primavera with fresh noodles  and  fresh squash and vegetables and tomatoes and  it's the best thing ever.  It really is. And if we can just keep talking about this with people in our lives  and  getting them curious enough to start trying things, we'll have a better situation. um The last thing I want to say, because I'm going to be making this in about an hour and a half, two hours.

43:30
I guess two and a half hours, sorry it's only two o'clock.  I'm gonna be making an Italian sauce, not Italian sauce, sorry, garlic sauce for the pasta tonight.  And tonight it's gonna be butter  and  diced garlic,  sauteed in a pan.  That's just gonna go  get mixed in with the pasta, because we're doing really easy tonight.  But I learned  months ago.

43:57
that I don't have to go crazy on Alfredo sauce.  All I have to do is make a roux  and then put whole milk in until it's thickened up  and then add a little tiny bit of real Parmesan cheese  and some diced garlic. And that is Alfredo sauce. You don't have to be a gourmet chef to make something yummy.  don't. you I  have you ever tried lemon pasta?  No, I have not.

44:27
So do do like a butter noodle with a very simple splash of even just the bottled lemon juice. A lot of places in Italy, they'll serve it with, you know, fresh squeezed lemon and a little lemon zest. It really gives it that little bit of extra. A very simple, just a little splash of lemon juice and the butter, little fresh Parmesan if you want. But it is it tastes high end gourmet.

44:56
I think I will try that some night when my husband's going to be late from work so that if he doesn't like it, he can make something else. is very interesting. some people, know, it doesn't take much. Again, it's that creativity and just that little bit of  play and experimentation and just knowing if you know how things work.

45:21
then you can figure out how to make things different.  No, no, no, it does. It does make sense, at least to me.  All right. So where can people find you, Heather? So I am pretty much just on Facebook right now.  I am in the process of building my own website because some of my adventures are taking me in places that social media does not like. OK. And so we'll be having a

45:49
I'll have my own website here. Hopefully in a few months I'll have it all completed, but who knows what will think. Yay. I wish you luck with that. love websites. I hate building them. Yeah, it's been interesting. But there's an entire piece of this closed loop system of my homestead here that nobody really, nobody likes to talk about and they don't like to deal with.

46:16
but um I find it to be absolutely critical and social media does not like um waste products and end products or what people would assume are waste products.  But we make use of  every part of everything that we can. So. From the snout to the tail.  Absolutely. And  everything in between literally.  Good.

46:43
Awesome because we have gotten away from that too and that's important as well  All right, heather. Thank you so much for your time as always people can find me at a  homestead Podcast.com. hope you have a great day heather. Thank you. Thanks, Mary you too