Hundred Acres Meadows

Today I'm talking with Claire at Hundred Acres Meadows.

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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 Claire at 100...

00:27
100 acres something and I can't read the screen. What is it again, Claire? Hundred Acres Meadows.  Thank you. I swear this technology doesn't work sometimes and my eyes get older every day. So it doesn't help me at all.  So what's the weather like in Louisiana? Because that's where you are.  Very hot and very humid. It's in the  90s and the air is saturated.  Is that unusual for me?

00:56
Oh no, May is usually our  kind of summer dress rehearsal. It's usually hot and buggy and icky and then it just gets hotter from there. Okay, well, I'm in Minnesota and we never know what we're going to get in May. We had a 90 degree day a couple weeks ago. And today it's like 67, I think, and it's sunny.  I,  Minnesota is weird. I don't really appreciate the swings all the time.

01:27
So at least you have sort of the gauge on May for Louisiana.  Yes.  Okay. So tell me about what you do because I think you have classes. I know you have horses.  What is it you do? So  we do a couple of things. A, we homeschool. So  we spend time homeschooling our two kiddos. And then a lot of times we'll have homeschool families over to the farm.

01:57
teach them how to milk goats and introduce them to the ponies and the chickens.  And  they take home milk and sometimes cheese if we have some that we've been making.  And then we run our farm. And then my main gig is I'm actually a vet. So that's a part-time job for me. Very nice. But that comes in handy with your animals. Yes. I mostly do small animal for work, but I'll take care of minor problems that come up here on the farm.

02:26
the major than I let somebody else handle it. Okay, awesome. And I'm guessing you're probably connected with other veterinarians if you are a vet.  Oh, yes.  So that helps.  Okay, I have a couple questions about you being a veterinarian because why not? I don't get to talk to  veterinarians  other than when I take my dog to her vet who she  loves.  Thank God.

02:54
My dog is crazy, she loves going to the vet. How did you decide you wanted to become a vet? Did you know from when you were little or was it something that you got into when you were in high school? So I always loved animals and I  thought from the time that I was, you when people start asking you what you want to be, that was  often my answer. But I actually got to college and I got a C in chemistry and I said,

03:20
they're never gonna let me in because getting into vet school is harder than getting into med school. It's a very, very competitive process.  So I actually stopped aiming for vet school and I switched over  and became a teacher. My background was elementary education with a minor in special ed  and talked for a couple of years. I got my master's in Ed specialist in gifted education.

03:45
And after a few years teaching, I said, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I love the kids. I love the teaching. I didn't like all the other stuff that went along with it. So I said, I'm going to give myself one semester of retaking science classes and see if I can make.

04:05
A's in it, not hey, I scraped by and I got a B plus. I wanted to feel confident that I could handle material. And I did that and I said, okay, well, if I can do that, I'm going to apply to vet school. So I went ahead and applied and went to vet school and graduated  later than most of my peers did, although we had somebody that was, I want to say 55 when he graduated and he owns his own clinic in Florida now. So.

04:32
age isn't a requirement with it, but it did give me a nice background for homeschooling my kiddos that I feel pretty comfortable with the education side of things.  Well, that's impressive. I'm proud of you. That that must have taken a lot of  I don't know, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and really digging into to learning the things. Yes,  yes, it did. And I actually had my son a few months before.

05:01
I started vet school, so I had him in April and we started in August. So I had a bitty baby and a toddler all through vet school, which made things extra challenging, but I have a wonderful husband and family who helped support me through it.  Oh, honey, now I'm really proud of you.  Wow. That is a big ask of your own self. Yes.  How long does it take to become a vet? How many years of college?

05:30
So you have to have a minimum of three years to apply to vet school. Most people have their bachelors before they apply, but there are a handful that do three plus their last year of vet school counts as their first or their first year of vet school counts as their last year of their undergrad.  You have four years of doing vet school after that. So it's going to be minimum three years, but usually four years of undergrad plus four years of.

05:59
pretty intense schooling.  Wow. Okay. I flirted with the idea when I was like 12, I thought being a veterinarian would be really cool.  And then I went with my dad when he took one of our cats to get fixed.  And back then  the vet basically would numb up the cat, sedate the cat and  cut off its testicles.  And  I watched that happen and I went, yeah, maybe not so much on being a vet. I'm  not sure I really can handle it. So.

06:30
That was great though. He was like, you sure you want to see this? And I said, yes, I do. And he said, okay, if you pass out, I'm not picking you up. I said, okay. A  good way to test it out.  Yeah. And not for me. I  can't be a doctor or a lawyer or a psychologist because I would feel bad if anything went wrong and I would carry  it with me for the rest of my life. It would just build up. And I know that about myself. So

06:59
when I talk to people who do do those jobs, I'm always just blown away at your intestinal fortitude for the job that you do.  Well, and I will say vets are actually the number one most likely careers to commit suicide and a lot of that has to do with we do like I can tell you each patient that I have lost and the circumstances because

07:22
We care for animals and that's that's why we're there. And then you get a lot of pushback and people say, well, you just do it for the money. And we might have doctor in front of our names, but we don't get paid the same as a human doctor does. Not that it would make up for, you know, losing a patient or taking care of animals. Most of us are just in it because we enjoy what we do. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't think anybody is a veterinarian who doesn't absolutely love animals and wants to do the best for them. They can't.

07:53
Okay, so I always really like talking to people about their professions because I don't know a whole lot about the ins and outs of how they became the thing they became and It's really interesting to hear everybody's take on why they did what they did So let's talk about your place you I know you have a horse because I saw the Facebook post about the the fly mask What else do you have for animals?

08:19
So we have four ponies, three are small ponies and one is the larger pony.  Then we have  seven goats, they're dairy goats, so they're the bigger type of goat. Then we have some chickens and according to chicken math, I don't have to count the chickens, so we have some chickens. You have some chickens, good. Some chickens, yeah. And we have a rooster that stays over in a different pen.

08:45
Um, because he didn't mind his P's and Q's and tried to peck a kiddo and we don't, we don't let that happen in our yard. So we have too many visitors and we have our kids that want to enjoy their time in the backyard. Um, and then we have a coop cat that's named Hey Hey, and she was raised in our chicken coop around the chickens. So they're just kind of her brothers and sisters and she doesn't mess with them, but she fights with them over who gets to eat the tasty mouse that they found. Uh huh.

09:14
but she has the run of the yard now. And then we have two dogs who are not allowed in the farm spaces because they moved over here with us from the city and they are not country dogs at all and they would definitely eat a chicken or a goat or get kicked by a pony. So they have their own separate yard that they live in and get attention inside rather than joining the farm outside. Well, it's good to know your limits, whether you're a dog or a person, I think.

09:44
Yes.  Okay. So I'm trying to think of what to ask you because  you have a lot of things going on there.  What brought you to having a farm-ish kind of place? So we moved out, once we left Baton Rouge, which is where the vet school is, we moved back toward here in Louisiana, and we call them parishes rather than counties. We moved back to the parish that I grew up in.

10:13
to more country area, just your money goes a little farther in the country. So we got a house and it has  about three acres  on it. then a couple of years later, the property that was behind us went up for sale and it's about a hundred acres. And my parents  decided that they were gonna buy that. They still live about 20 miles away, but they wanted to have that as  a...

10:38
That way they knew it wasn't going to become a neighborhood. They can hay the field. My dad set up some bees on the property and they um, pittle around there sometimes. But that gave us the option that I have  always loved riding. grew up riding horses and  doing hunter jump equitation shows. And at that point we had our daughter and she was about

11:02
three and she was bitten by the horse bug. She loves everything to do with horses and ponies and she would play with her toy horses and ponies. So I said, well, this is perfect. We can get a pony or two and that way she can start learning how to ride and it can be something that we do together. And my son likes animals, but he is not as horse oriented. So we went and we picked up a small pony named Nacho and he was already trained to ride.

11:30
And then we got a friend that's a little mayor for him.  And she came from up in Minnesota where there was a  hoarding case basically. And they had a whole lot of these little ponies that they needed homes for. So we brought her home and I just said, if all she does is keep them company, it's all good. But she's actually turned out to be a doll. She can be ridden by the kids. She pulls a little cart, but about...

11:55
maybe seven months after we got them home, I noticed, hey, they're both getting kind of chunky, which is not unusual with ponies. They convert that grass to fat really quick. So we switched up our feeding regimen and cut back a little bit on feed. And the gelding, he lost weight.  little Mayor, she just kept getting rounder.

12:19
and rounder and then she started bagging up and I called the people where she came from and said, hey,  is there a possibility that she could be pregnant? And they said, yeah, yeah, that's possible. We had a couple of little studs get in with the girls.  So that first summer,  we had about a week's notice where we knew she was pregnant before she gave birth, but she folds here in our yard and the kids got to come out and see the.

12:46
low foal when she was still all wet and fresh and new, which is  really, really neat. then she's been around them for her whole life. So she doesn't bat an eye. If a kid jumps off a swing set next to her dressed as a T-Rex waving  a lightsaber, she's as can be.  And knowing that we had the three of them, I said, well,  at some point we're going to need to wean her. And with horses, they're herding. So you don't want to have them with

13:16
just completely alone. So I said, well, we need to get another horse or pony so that we can lean safely and give everybody a friend. So I went to Mississippi Horse Rescue, which is a great organization, and  adopted a horse from them. And that's Dazzle, the one that was wearing that fly mask. And he's a large pony. So he's a pony that I can ride and the kids can grow into. So that got us to our

13:44
our four ponies out there.  And then just somewhere along the way we said that my son loves chickens and he had been begging to get chickens. So we got some tractor supply chickens and my husband, he generally is not, he doesn't dislike animals, but he's not all about the farm life. He pretty much limits it to,  he'll help me build things. So he helped me  build a big chicken run and chicken coop.

14:13
for the chickens and he helps me build like the goat shed, that sort of a thing. So we got the chickens because my son was  smitten with chickens and then I wanted to get into goat milking. So we have a really good dairy farm, not too far from here. So we got some dairy goats and let them grow and then got a little boy and  they did what goats do and all of sudden our herd.

14:39
doubled in size. went from three goats to six goats and now we've had another one this year so we're up to seven.  It is so amazing to listen to you talk about this because  the joy that this is bringing you is just ringing through your voice.  Yeah it eats all your time but if it's something that you enjoy then you don't notice it.  Yeah exactly but you just sound so tickled at your decisions.

15:08
How old were your kids when that little pony was born? Let's see, that was in 2022. So Ruth would have been two and a half  and Asher would have been seven at that point. So  when  they came out and saw this still wet little tiny horse.

15:35
What did they do? mean, were they just like making  excited noises? Were they asking questions? How did that go? They just stood there. They were both still in their jammies and they just stood there  staring  at her with, you know, those bright like Christmas morning  eyes as excited as can be.  And as she grew,  did you teach them about her as she grew?

16:01
Yes. So they had already learned with the older ponies since we'd had them a little bit like maybe nine months at that point. So they knew how to lead and they knew how to walk the ponies and help do, you know, feeding and that sort of a thing. But I got to teach them how to, you know, handle her with her being smaller that we can't pull on her yet.  one of the big things with foals is that you don't want to let them mouth  at  people because when they learn to be mouthy,

16:31
It can cause problems as they get bigger, you know, a  30 pound tiny little foal mouthing at you isn't a big deal. But when you have a  300 pound horse trying to chew on you, it's suddenly a much bigger deal.  But they got to learn about that and how to correct her, but still be sweet.  And Ruth has started helping me now.

16:54
get on her back and do little rides. don't do it super often since she's still pretty young. She's going to make three this summer.  But we've started letting Ruth get  on and sit and like her, her mama lady, she's just the easiest  pony to start. There's no, I'm breaking this horse or anything like that. There's no big bucks or anything like that. She just kind of sees it as well. This is one more way the kids play with me. They lay on my back and

17:24
We go for walks  and  she's just a doll.  That's so awesome.  I'm so thrilled for your kids that they got to see that baby  right after it was born and they've been able to grow up with her. That's amazing.  Yes.  I love it. I really do. Like those are the things that I wish I had experienced when I was little, but my parents weren't on a farm. They were on a one acre plot in the middle of the woods in Maine. So  it did not happen for me, but

17:53
I'm so jealous of your kids. That's so fabulous. Oh, me too. Me too. I grew up in the suburbs. we similar. We were on a on an acre. But even though I begged for pony, they would let me go ride. But I can never have a pony. So I'm just, you know, living my little girl's dream.  Yes. And through your kids eyes, which is so beautiful, it really is. I mean,  I have four kids of my own and they're all grown. And I think back to when they were little and

18:23
I wish I could have given them more. We just didn't have the means to do it.  And the thing about teaching the pony not to be mouthy,  that's true of all babies. My youngest  is 12 years younger than my oldest, 10 years younger than the next kid down,  and four and a half years younger than the next kid down. Okay?  So they were all talking, walking, functional children.

18:52
or teenagers almost, when the youngest was born. And the youngest was spoiled by his siblings. And I was trying to teach the youngest not  to hit when he was frustrated because babies will hit. They will reach out and smack you.  And the two boys,  the two kids up from the baby, thought that it was really funny when the youngest would hit.

19:17
And I said, at some point, this is not going to be funny. He's really going to catch you when you don't expect it. And at about three years old, both of the older boys were playing with the youngest. The youngest was three and they were really kind of poking at him, kind of teasing him. And youngest  smacked  the older brother in the face,  fist by accident. closed his fist, but he wasn't trying to punch him. He was just trying to get his attention.

19:47
And  kiddo got a bloody nose out of that.  And I said to him, said, I tried to tell you, you don't want to teach babies to hit because if they hit you when they're bigger, it's going to hurt.  He was like, yeah,  maybe I just like, don't do that anymore. I said, it's too late. I said, now you've really got to work to teach him to be sweet. Yeah. So it's,  you really do have to teach babies. It doesn't matter if it's animals or humans.

20:17
what is acceptable behavior. I'm really glad that you brought that up  and  I'm doing the mom thing again. But either way, yes, training your kids, teaching your kids is important and teaching your animal kids is important too.  Do you grow any produce at your place?  Not a huge amount. We have a couple of little raised beds where we have some herbs and we have some celery that we planted last fall and

20:47
It somehow made it through our five inches of snow, which I realize up in the Northeast five inches is routine. But down here in the South, that's a hundred year event.  But we got that this past winter. But  by some miracle, our celery is just chugging along happy as can be. But my kids  decided that they went to the store with my husband. They were picking something up from Lowe's or Home Depot and they talked him into buying some seeds.  They got home.

21:16
They planted the seeds,  but they didn't really, you know, like label where they put stuff or do any organization. They just put the seeds in. So  this spring we're going to have a little chaos gardening and whatever comes up comes up.  So there might be corn next to rosemary, next to carrots, next to...

21:41
green beans next to the bell peppers, who knows what they, and they don't even remember everything they planted. They're like, oh, well we threw the packages away. So,  what we get.  Nature loves a chaos garden. You will probably have the best things  this summer that you've ever had. That's what I'm hoping.  And I love a chaos garden. I really do. I love it.

22:07
with the raised beds where they have all the different kinds of herbs all just spilling off the sides of it. I think it's beautiful.  Okay, so  is your place a  hobby-ish farm or is it do you try to make it support itself? So in general, I would consider it a hobby farm.

22:30
That said, I'm trying to somewhat convert over to  do like the Facebook monetization so that we have something that helps pay the feed bill.  And we have some friends that they get milk, the goat's milk regularly and they usually do like a donation to the feed fund. Here in Louisiana, they're a little fickle about.

22:53
selling milk, you have to be an approved commercial dairy, the milk has to go through an approved processing plant. Set up with that with two goats and milk. So we share with our friends and our family.  for a lot of the friends and family that are getting milk on a regular basis, they'll make a donation so that it helps offset our feed costs. And same thing with eggs. We have a few friends that will buy eggs when we have extra.

23:22
What essentially helps offset that cost. And when we have friends that come over and like they learn how to milk,  we just do it as a, give a donation if you want to, to help the farm rather than, it's a set cost. That way anybody that wants to come can and cost isn't a big limiter, which we've had foster kids that have come. We've had people who they give a big donation and everything in between.  So.

23:52
It leaves it open so everybody can enjoy it.  Very nice. That's a great way to do it.  I have a question because we actually do sell stuff from  our farm, our homestead,  and we've never considered doing donations because I just didn't think of it.  Are donations taxed? It depends on your state.

24:16
And it depends on the threshold. So you would want to check your state guidelines  on what that threshold is.  Yeah, I will look it up now that you've brought it up. I'm really curious about it because  I would much rather do donations and help pay some of the chicken feed and the cat food for taking care of the mice in the barn with donations.

24:42
instead of having to pay taxes on actual income, but I suspect we probably do. Minnesota's pretty,  pretty good about that. Um, okay.  So you said you make cheese with the goat's milk. Do you make soaps with the goat milk? We have not yet. I have given somebody, um, goat milk to make goat soap, but I have not jumped into that whole foray yet.

25:11
Same thing and I know you can do things with the way for making cheese, but honestly at this point we don't save it. We just  dump it outside or send it down the drain depending on the time of day.  But I do usually save if we have milk that say I'm having it chill on the counter  and  it gets left out for you know two hours, three hours where I don't feel like

25:39
I really want to consume it at that point. I'll label it as so put it in the freezer. It's honestly probably still fine to consume, but we have  so much goat's milk that I don't see a reason to bother with it. And then I keep the colostrum each year from the mamas.  And I have somebody that likes making goat colostrum soap.  A little different scent to it and it's a different texture on it. So.

26:06
I save that for people who make soap.  Well, I think  I'm going to say this. think you should try making goat milk soap because I've talked to a lot of people who make it and they say it is fabulous and it's not that hard to do.  Well, we'll put it on our list of, know, when we have free time, we'll add that one. I have a nice little list of things that  need to be done around the farm and then kind of hobbies that I still want to get into.

26:36
dehydrating and doing more gardening or two that I would love to get more into but haven't had time as of year.  Yeah,  I understand. I killed my sourdough starter this week by accident because I was doing other things and did not feed it.  Oh, yeah, that's another one that I would love to get into sourdough. We have a bread maker.

26:59
But I have not used it yet. And I have friends who swear by their sourdough and have offered me starter for it. It's just I don't want to kill anything before I even get started.  I was doing really great. And then I had a whole bunch of other stuff happening and I was like, I will feed it later. It's not ready.  And then I didn't for like three days. And I looked at it today and went, I don't trust it anymore. And I dumped it and I started a new one. So  and I looked at the clock when I started it and I was like 10 a.m. every morning.

27:29
I have to take care of this.

27:32
So, since I started it and I made a note of the time, maybe I can keep it alive until next week so I can actually make some sourdough bread.  I'm telling you, all these things, you know, I feel like I have all the time in the world and then I sit down to do stuff and I look at the clock and it's five o'clock in the afternoon. Yes.  Well, around five o'clock is when we start doing stuff because middle of the day, if you go out and try to do anything outside,

28:00
you're going end up with heat stroke. yeah. Yeah, absolutely.  And for me, most of my stuff is inside and it's mostly finding people to talk to for the podcast and figuring out all the stuff that goes with podcasting because I'm still kind of new at this.  And you would be amazed how much time can slip by when you're researching things like this. It's nuts.  I believe so.  You were saying that you were trying to get to do the monetization thing for Facebook.

28:29
Are you monetized yet? am. I had managed to get up to 10,000 followers, which I worked really hard to try to get there. And I was hoping that that would kind of trigger it to monetize, but sadly it did not. And I've been doing all the weekly challenges and I completed those perfectly for months on end and I still wasn't monetized other than stars. So I kind of said, well,

28:57
It's taken a lot out of me to make sure that I'm posting two or three times a day and engaging a lot. So I kind of went on a Facebook vacation and I would post something about once a day. And if I had something that I really wanted to comment on, I would comment on it. But I just kind of left it on the back burner and didn't put a lot of energy into it. And right at that one month mark of ignoring it, Facebook said, oh, you're monetized.  So.

29:26
I kind of picked up and started working a little harder at it after that.  Uh huh. I am having the hardest time with all of this stuff because  I just got monetized for Facebook like a  couple of weeks ago and  my views have gone up astronomically since that happened.  I do not understand all of this and I'm one of those real quantitative thinkers like, like I'm a very linear thinker. need to understand.

29:56
what all of it means.  And I sat down with my husband last night and I said, okay, I have updates for you about the podcast and about Facebook. And he was like, okay, and he doesn't really get it either, but I just needed to get it out of my head. And I said, the podcast is doing pretty well. I said, Facebook is doing really well. And I have no idea why I explained to him what's going on.  And he said, honey, I don't understand either. And I thought, oh no, I need to find somebody who gets this.

30:26
Talk to a lady today who does get it. She's been monetized for over a year.  And she said, you will never understand it. She said they change the algorithm all the time. They change the stuff they're doing all the time.  Just ride the wave and be thankful. So that's where I'm at with it today. I'm just riding the wave and being thankful.  Yes.  Cause there's no linear, I do this and then this happens.  just, Facebook is a big social experiment and

30:54
They do what they do and you get what you get is what I've come to accept.  Well, I would be happy to get $10  in June to add to the feed cost. That would be fine. I would be happy with that.  So,  um, and really it's, it's funny because a lot of the people that I talked to on the podcast, they are farmers or homesteaders or bakers, or they make things and everybody  uses Facebook and Instagram and Tik TOK.

31:24
to promote what they're doing. And so it's so weird that I started the podcast to talk about old fashioned things and these  new ways of making money from old fashioned things keep coming up. Yes.  Glad they do though. I think it's great. So all right, Claire, I try to keep these to half an hour. Where can people find you if they would like to reach out?  On our Facebook page is usually the easiest place. So Hundred Acres.

31:53
Meadows is our Facebook page and we usually catch messages pretty quickly on there. Good, awesome. Thank you. I really appreciate your time and I'm really glad I got a chance to talk to you and I'm so glad you told the story about your kids with the baby horse because that was a fabulous story. And as always people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. I hope you have a great evening.

32:22
You too.