Honey Friend Farm LLC

Today I'm talking with Kristin at Honey Friend Farm LLC.

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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 Kristen at Honey Friend Farm LLC. Good morning, Kristen. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm great. You're in Michigan, yes? I am. Is it beautiful there? Because it's gorgeous here in Minnesota this morning. It is.

00:30
Little warm for fall weather, but that's okay. It's gonna cool down soon, I know it is. It's gonna, a promise. Yes, absolutely. All right, so tell me about yourself and what you do. So I am a mom of three kids, and I work at the high school that they go to, but I also run a farm here at the house. We're trying to become more

00:58
independent I guess. We've got chickens and turkeys and a garden and I make a lot of our food, our bread. We try to buy from the farmers and not the big stores and that's I mean it's just it's a busy busy life. We just my husband works full-time and obviously so do I and then we do

01:26
all of the other things in the evening when we get home. Okay, cool. So it's always interesting to me because when I ask women to tell me about themselves and if they're a mom, almost invariably they say, I'm a mom of however many kids and then the rest of what they are. When I ask men, they tell me what they do, not that they're fathers of six or two or one. Right.

01:56
There's the difference. Yeah, it's really interesting how different men and women are. Yeah. You know? And I'm not saying it's a bad thing that the men don't immediately say I'm a dad of, but it's just different. Right. It is. We are built different. Yes, exactly. And that's what makes life really interesting every damn day. Absolutely.

02:25
Okay, so are your kids littles or are they teenagers or? I've got an 18-year-old, almost 16-year-old and a 13-year-old. And are they all in on the homesteading stuff you're doing? They resist occasionally when it's hot out, but for the most part, they're pretty good at helping. My youngest loves to help with the baking part. He loves to cook. And then my oldest, he typically does a lot of...

02:55
the strenuous work or the heavy lifting, I guess. And then my daughter, she helps with all like the household chores. She makes the house run when we are doing all of the other things. That's a hell of a team there, ma'am. I'm impressed. It is, yep. We, you know, it's rough sometimes, but for the majority of the time, we all figure it out. Awesome, I love that.

03:20
We didn't get our homestead till most of our kids had moved out, but I suspect that had we gotten our homestead when they were younger, they all would have been all in. Yes, they love it. Kind of wish we'd been able to do it sooner. Absolutely. So why is it called what it's called, the honey friend? The honey friend, okay. So that is because my husband and I were having an adult night and I usually call him honey as a joke. And then one night...

03:50
I just said honey friend and it kind of just stuck and we're like, I don't think there's any other honey friend farm. So that's where the name came from. That's adorable. I love it. Yeah. So it's fantastic. It has nothing to do with honey. It's just what we call each other. Oh, and that's fine. I think that's beautiful. So, okay.

04:16
Tell me what an average weekend day is like for you on the farm because I ask people this and they don't usually tell me. So I'm just curious if I'll get an answer on this one. So typically, so we run a roadside stand as well. So typically the weekends are full of picking the garden and loading the stand and baking bread and bagels and cookies and all of the things for the community to come in.

04:45
share a part of that. We do a lot of pay what you can events for the community so people can eat healthier and have a healthier option if they're not able to do it themselves or whatever the case may be. So we spend a lot of time in the garden and filling the stand and doing cutting the grass, feeding the animals. That's typically when we do like

05:13
clean out for the coupes and refill the food and, you know, just spend a lot of time outside bonfires at night. And we just hang out and just kind of work all day and then relax at night and have family time, dinner together. We like to barbecue a lot, like grill out. So that's typically what we do.

05:44
That sounds like a beautiful way to spend a weekend. The bonfire part is the best. That's my favorite part. Yes, absolutely. We have had maybe five since we moved in four years ago because it's been too busy up until this past, this past summer hasn't been as busy, but that's because it rained and rained and rained and our gardens didn't do anything. So we never even pulled out the fire pit or the.

06:10
benches or the little table or anything this year because it just kept raining. I know. I know it was a very wet, wet year. Yeah. So not so much on the fire pit thing this year. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and then I guess on Friday nights we have Friday night football. So we do that now in the fall. Do the kids play or do you just go catch the game? Both boys play. So.

06:38
The oldest plays Friday nights and then the youngest will start playing on Tuesday nights this coming Tuesday. Okay, so you got a Friday night lights and a Tuesday night lights thing going on there. Yes. Yeah, okay. Awesome. That's wonderful. Okay, so I saw something on your Facebook page about a festival that you're a part of this weekend. Is it something that you throw or is it just that you're gonna be at it? No, we're just gonna be at it.

07:06
We're going to be doing jams and sourdough bread and bagels. I've got a bunch that are shaped like pumpkins and pumpkin flavored and apple cinnamon flavored and all kinds of good yummy stuff. Is this an every year thing or is it a new thing? So it's kind of new to us. We just started doing these festivals maybe within the last six months. And we just kind of go and it's...

07:35
a great learning experience because you see what other people do and you get to meet a lot of people and it's just it's fun and the kids love it they love to go and they do all of the activities and you know it's just it's a good bonding time I guess family time and we can go and hang out and sell some stuff and make some money to put back into the homestead um and then yeah that's

08:04
what we do. We're there and then we have a craft show in November and then that's it besides our roadside stand. We do that every weekend. So do you do crafts too or is it? No. Okay. No, I just, I wish. I don't have time for that. But yeah. I was gonna say I don't know where you would fit in crafting and I was gonna be duly impressed if you were like, oh yeah, I make dishcloths and I make sweaters and you know.

08:34
Yeah, no, I wish, but maybe when I retire, we can add that in. Yeah. Um, my husband and I laugh about retiring a lot around here because we're in our mid fifties and so we've got a good 10 years to go and the joke, the running joke has been for about 10 years now that there will be no, um, social security payments by the time we retire. So we're just never going to retire. Right. Exactly. Yep.

09:03
That's what my husband said. Yep. He's like, I'm going to die working. I'm like, probably. But, uh-huh. Who knows? I figure anyone, I figure anybody over the age of 35 right now will probably be working until they die. Yes. So. Unless they have good inheritance or something. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yep. I worry about my parents because my parents are still.

09:33
with us there, 78 and 81. And my mom gets slightly panicky when there's talk of a government shutdown because she thinks that they're not going to get their social security checks. And I keep telling her that that would be a very rare thing to have happen, but that I understand her panic when things get brought up like this because it's really important for them. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

10:01
when they paid into it for how many years? Mm-hmm, exactly. Yeah. Yep, and then I crack the joke that they're lucky that they get it because Kyle and I will never see Social Security payments and she's like, yes, you will. Like, yeah, I don't think we will, but I don't think so. Yeah. Probably. So anyway, I don't even know what to ask you. I'm not quite with it this morning, sorry. So did you say turkeys?

10:30
Yes, we have turkeys that we're growing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Okay. And are they just for you or do you, do you grow some others to sell?

10:41
So it's for us and then a neighbor and then a couple of my cousins. Okay. All right. Then I have questions about turkeys because I have never talked with anybody on the podcast about turkeys yet. Okay. Are they as easy to raise as chickens because we have chickens and they're pretty easy. No, they are not at all. Like we started with 14 and we're down to 8.

11:09
Okay, tell me about that. Tell me about raising turkeys. I, you know, I really, I don't know much about it. We just were kind of winging it. This is our first year doing it. And we've got meat turkeys, and we've got a couple of heritage breeds that we're going to keep just to because my youngest wanted a couple turkeys to keep. And so we're just kind of winging it, honestly. They're with the chickens, and they're just

11:38
a lot more fragile. The meat ones, the heritage breeds seem to be a little bit more hardy, but the meat birds seem a little bit more fragile, which I guess is the same with meat chickens. I don't know if you've ever done those. No, I have not. They are pretty fragile too, along with quail. We had quail for a little bit. Those were not super great. But the turkeys, I mean, they are easy and they're actually they're

12:08
and they run to you and they like come and cuddle with you. And when they like when they do their bird talk or whatever, it almost sounds like they're barking like a dog. But they're really cute and they're really sweet. And we'll see how it goes. Okay, so when you say they're really fragile, have they just killed over and died for no reason or are they? Yeah.

12:37
Like, I'll go out and check on them and there'll be one dead. And I'm like, oh, okay. And I don't know what the issue is because, I mean, they obviously have plenty of food, water, shade, whatever. And they get along fine with the chickens. And so I don't really know what the issue is. I guess it's just a learning curve. And I know nothing about turkeys. I was hoping that you would have more to tell me, but that's okay because you're brand new.

13:07
I am. I think next year maybe we'll separate them from the chickens. I don't know if maybe that's the issue, but I mean all the research I did said that they could coexist. So that might be the issue. So next year we will probably separate them. They'll have like their own coop to go in instead of coexisting. So we're going to try that next year. We're not going to give up because we love fresh turkey for Thanksgiving. It's delicious.

13:37
Yeah, tell me the difference between a fresh turkey that you've raised and a store bought turkey because I have never had a not store bought turkey. So like a farm fresh turkey is they're not typically in cages so they like free range and they they've never been frozen. I mean obviously the one at Christmas time will be frozen but for Thanksgiving they'll be fresh so they'll never be frozen.

14:06
They are so much more juicy and tender and they are just delicious. And I would say that the juiciness is the biggest difference. The juiciness and the tenderness, yeah. Like you know how turkey is typically like dry, like, oh, I got to drink something. This you don't. It's just really, really delicious.

14:29
I've only had one turkey that I've cooked in my whole life that was dry and it's because I cooked it for too long. Oh Yeah, yeah, but yes, I would imagine that that with them being that fresh. They would be really really good Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna say this my favorite thing about turkey It's the gravy that you make from the drippings from the pan. I don't Oh, yes, I don't love love love turkey, but I love turkey with the turkey gravy. Yes. Yes and on the mashed potatoes

14:58
Oh my god. Yes. Mashed potatoes are one of my favorite things on earth at Thanksgiving. Yes. I love any kind of potato anytime of the year. You would have loved the ones my son made last night. He made oven roasted potatoes. And he put, I guess I can use name brands on my podcast. I'm the one that makes it. He used the garlic and herb Mrs. Dash that we buy. Oh, okay.

15:24
and I don't know the brand, but it's a smokehouse maple seasoning. And bake them for like half an hour at 400 degrees or 500 degrees. They were so good. They caramelized up. Plus they had all the seasonings on them. I was like, you can make these anytime you want to make these. Right. That sounds delicious. It was really good. And I'm, I'm not really great on oven roasted potatoes, but these were perfect. Good. That sounds delicious.

15:53
I love it when the kid cooks. It's nice to know that he was raised by a mom who was like, you will know how to cook before you move out. Yes, and do your laundry. Clean the toilet. And make a dessert that you're proud to share with your friends. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I just mentioned this earlier. I did an interview at 10 o'clock this morning too, and we're talking about butter.

16:19
My son had asked me if he could make this recipe, their double chocolate chip cookies. And I was like, he said, do we have everything to make those? And I said, other than butter, I said, you might want to check and see if there's any in the freezer because you don't want to start making it and find out you don't have any butter. Right. And he's going to make chocolate, he's going to make double chocolate chip cookies next week. And I'm just like, oh my God, please make them soon. Right. Can you make them today? So yes, he can do cookies too. Which is...

16:48
Yeah, no, I don't want them. I got a lot to get done if I eat them. If I eat them, I will be asleep. So I have to wait till next week. I have too many things to get done this afternoon. Oh yeah, absolutely. But it's amazing when you have plans for your children when they're born about what you hope for them, and you give them the tools and they actually learn and they do the thing you hoped for them. Yes, absolutely. It's wonderful. It's amazing.

17:17
It is, it's good. Okay, what else can I ask you? I am, oh, I was gonna ask you how you got into this. I don't really know. It kind of all, I think the chickens were the gateway to all of this. So we used to live in the city and then we moved when COVID happened out to the country where the kids were going to school and doing all the things. And while I would love to homeschool,

17:46
I do not have patience for that. It would just not be great. So anyways, we needed to come out somewhere where the kids were back in school. And so we did that. And then I was like, well, we have property now, we're getting chickens. And then the kids love the chickens and I love the chickens and my husband. And then I was like, let's start making our own food. And it kind of just snowballed from there. Like it just, it just kind of happened.

18:15
I guess we just started reading labels and looking at things and the way the world is going right now. You never know what's going to happen. So we want to be able to be self-sufficient and know how so we're not caught with our pants down, I guess. So yeah, it's been four years in the making. We're still clearly very new to this.

18:43
We're just taking it day by day and learning something new every day and trying to teach the kids better, healthier habits and doing stuff like that. So I have a question. Do your kids have their friends come over and hang out? Yeah. And are these kids that are like-minded or are they kids that are living in the city? Both.

19:13
I don't think there are any other friends that homestead, but they, but like we live kind of in a rural area. So a lot of people like hunt and fish and do all of that kind of stuff. But I don't think, and have a little backyard garden or whatever, but I don't think a ton of people make their own foods and buy just from the farm and everything.

19:42
But I mean, everybody comes over and they love it. And they get excited about, like all the kids, they love to go play with the chickens and show their friends the chickens. And we hope to get goats in the fall, so we can do goat, or in the spring, so we can do goat milk and stuff. And so they're all really excited to show their friends about that. So I don't know. And honestly, a lot of people around here have chickens too, just for eggs and whatever. But I don't think anybody's like.

20:11
makes their own jam and makes their own bread and does all that kind of stuff. But they all love it. They come over and they're like, can you bake us something? Can you bake us something? Cute. And shit. Okay. Well, the reason I asked is because I was just wondering how their friends perceived their lifestyle because it is a different way of living. Oh yeah. It is. It is a completely different way. And I'm sure that if like their friends

20:41
from when we lived in the city came over, it'd be a different story. They'd be like, what are you guys doing? Why don't you just go to the store? Why don't you just go out to eat or whatever, you know what I mean? But because I think we live in a more rural area that a lot of people kind of ish homestead in a way, because like I said, a lot of people hunt and fish and do all that stuff out here. So most of their friends.

21:10
do all that. Okay and do the boys try to enlist their friends who are boys to help out with the chores? Oh yeah. Yeah. Anytime somebody comes over and we need something done we're like come on let's go we got some big guys here let's go. Yep. We moved to our homestead in 2020 as well. Okay. And my son who still lives with us he's 22 so he's still pretty young.

21:38
And there's reasons he still lives here and they're good reasons. He had a couple of good friends who he used to play video games with online and he still does. And they had come to visit, one of them had come to visit when we lived in town, in the small town that we lived in. And he had grown up with my son, so he knew that we made food from scratch and we had a garden and we had backyard chickens. And so when he came to visit the new place, he, you should have seen his face.

22:07
His eyes were the size of plates. Aw. He was like, you weren't kidding. This is a farm. Yeah. And my son said, well, it's not a farm because there's no goats or sheep or cows or horses, but we still have chickens. And my son's friend was like, yeah, but look at all space you have. And it's not that big. It's three acres compared to a tenth of an acre. So yes, it seems like a lot.

22:33
But his reaction was just priceless. And I've known this kid since he was like eight, I think. And I was like, so what do you think? When he came in, he was like, oh, I'm so happy for you guys. This is what you always wanted. So clearly he'd been paying attention to my to to us as well as my kid. And then the new friend came to visit because the new friend wanted to learn how to shoot a gun because my son is a really good marksman.

23:01
And so we have a berm where they're allowed to target practice. And my son's friend had never shot a gun in his life. And this always makes me nervous because there are, I feel like there's two types of people in the world. You give them a gun, you describe what it does, you explain the parts, you show how to use it, you teach them everything for them to be safe. And they sighted it on the thing they're trying to shoot and they shoot it and it makes loud noise and they either drop the gun.

23:32
Or they just drop it slightly, hang on to it and go, oh, that's what that's like. Yeah. Yep. It's the drop the gun. It's the drop the gun part that scares me because you never know how that's going to go. Right. Oh, I know. Yes. So my son's friend got put through his paces and was taught how to shoot a gun and he really didn't enjoy it and he hit the target a couple of times. Like, I'm good. Yeah.

23:59
My son says, you don't like it, do you? And the guy says, it's really loud. He said, the shotgun kicked my shoulder super hard. And my kid was like, well, yes, that's how that works. And his friend said, I don't want to do it anymore. So that was the end of that. Oh, yep. That's usually how it goes. Yep. And then my husband and my son have been cutting up big old logs and splitting wood for the last.

24:27
over the last month for the wood burning boiler. And, and like, he'd keep sending pictures of the, the wood pile getting bigger to these two friends that I'm talking about. And one of them messaging back the other day and said, you need to take it easy. You're going to kill yourself. And, and my son said, um, you have met me, right? You know that I'm really strong, right? The guy was like, yeah, but geez, you've been just busting your hump on this. And he was like, yeah.

24:57
I know because we need heat in the wintertime. That's how we heat our house. And it's the first time I've heard either of his friends kind of forget that this isn't for funsies. Yes, this is way of life. So that's my experience with my one child who still lives here as friends. Seeing how we live.

25:24
And I haven't had a chance to ask anybody because I hadn't thought of it yet. Yeah. So, yeah, that was a good question. Do you guys have pets along with your critters?

25:37
Oh, we have a dog. Yeah, just a dog. Yep, his name's Axel.

25:44
What kind of dog is Axel? He is a half pit and half rot. He's a big boy. He weighs like 145 pounds. Wow, that's a big mix. Yeah, he's a big boy. I bet no one comes on your property not looking for permission to be there. Right, yeah. But you know, he sounds mean, but as soon as you say hi, and then he starts wagging his tail and all he wants to do is kill you with kisses.

26:12
Yeah, and I wasn't assuming that a pit brought one that's mean, because I don't think any dog is mean unless they're raised to be mean. Yes. But that's a big dog. I love dogs and I would never walk up to that dog without making sure that he was going to be friendly. Yes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. He sounds mean, but he's a nice boy. He's a big baby.

26:42
Yeah, we have a little dog. She's 35 pounds. And when she sees people who she's never seen before, she's all teeth and bark. What is she? She is a mini Australian shepherd. Oh, that's what my husband wants next. And so, so people are actually, they back up the minute she's outside and she sees people come in. She's, she's all teeth, but she's never going to bite anybody.

27:12
Mm-hmm, and she's really loud if you get one you will know it's a really sharp shrill bark Okay, and that's why we got her we wanted a watchdog and she is excellent at it The problem is people think that she's going to eat them alive even though she's small They don't see the back end where she's wiggling her nubbin her tail nubbin So her face is saying I'm afraid

27:40
and I need to defend my property. Her rear end is saying, but I want to be your friend. I have to get through this to be your friend. Yes, absolutely. So that's what you have to look forward to, probably. Yes. The other thing that I will tell you is if you get a puppy, one of these dogs is a puppy, and you want them to be friendly, make sure you take that puppy everywhere you go.

28:08
or make sure you have people come over a lot and interact with it. Because we couldn't socialize Maggie because of COVID. Oh yeah. That's why she's so afraid of people. So if you want your dog to not react to what Maggie does, make sure they get socialized. Okay. That's a good tip. Yeah. We wish we had been able to, and it was just impossible. We weren't seeing anybody. We weren't going anywhere we didn't have to go. And we sure as heck weren't spending a lot of time in a store when we did go to a store during COVID.

28:38
Right. So exactly. Real hard to socialize a puppy when there's a pandemic going on. No kidding. No kidding. But anyway, so you said turkeys, you have a dog, you have chickens. Is there anything else I forget? Nope. We're hoping to add goats and bees in the spring. Okay. Then you'll actually be honey friend farm. We will.

29:08
Are you going to tell a child friend story about the name once you have honey? Oh yeah, maybe. Probably. All I could think of when you told me the story is the Huckleberry. I'll be your Huckleberry and you can be my honeybee song like Shelton does. Yes. Yep. That's funny.

29:37
All right. Well, we're not quite at 30 minutes, but I am literally out of questions. Kristin, I'm so glad you took the time to talk with me today. This was really fun. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thanks. You too. All right. Bye. All right. Bye-bye.