M57 Farms

Today I'm talking with Adam and Katie at M57 Farms

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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. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.

00:28
Today I'm talking with Adam and Katie at M57 Farms in Michigan. Good morning, how are you? Good morning, we are great. How are you?  I'm well. Thank you for coming to chat with me.  No problem. We look forward to it and we've been excited.  Good.  What is the weather like in Michigan? Is it sunny and bright like it is in Minnesota this morning?

00:52
It's a beautiful day. It's sunny. It's got to be probably 72 out right now  and beautiful blue skies.  Did you guys have the heat last week that we had?  Absolutely sure did.  Yeah, it was not fun this week here. It's supposed to only be. I think the highest high I saw was 79 or 80 and I thought OK Mother Nature. Maybe you've gotten your act together for at least a week. That would be really nice.

01:19
We are hoping and of course we decided to do all of our crazy landscaping projects around the farm in the heat, which I don't know why we do that to ourselves. They could have been done anytime. Because you like a challenge, I would guess. You know, as much as I say no, that's probably it. That's my wife nods her head. Yeah, it's a thing. It really is. OK, so I got to know why is it called M57 Farms?

01:47
So we have state roads in Michigan  and all the state roads begin with  M  and we live right off of M57.  So it's a pretty busy main road. um And we just kind of sat here one night and everyone always says like, oh, it's the farm right off of M57. So  we just decided to kind of go with M57. OK, that makes a lot of sense and how lovely that it was easy because it sounds like it

02:16
But M57 is a very long road.  now everyone says, where on M57?  Oh,  OK. All right. So tell me about yourselves and what you guys do at M57 farms.  I will have my wife lead.  Oh, geez. OK, well, I'm a speech language pathologist by trade. So  the farm is just kind of the hobby side for me. It's more Adam that does a lot of the running around. I like to do the dreaming and.

02:44
He likes to do the executing, so.

02:49
So I am a franchisee for Firehouse Subs and I do enjoy that, but I've always enjoyed farming, being outside. We have a 40 acre farm here and we have currently 22 pairs. So it'd mama cows and some calves. And I kinda, we do lease it out.

03:17
but we kind of manage the cows the day to day, do all the chores and we rotate them and our property, we have water located in the central of it. So we kind of have little pie sections, if you will. So we kind of put our eyes on the cows every day, do the chores and we also make crafts. So we have a little gift shop located at the end of our driveway.

03:43
And since we're kind of right off the main road, we get quite a bit of traffic from that. we make  homemade soap, we freeze dry things, we have a freeze dryer, and we also have a laser engraver that can kind of cut wood, laser engraved wood.  And the biggest thing that we do now is we have a  lavender patch  in front of our barn  and we renovated our barn into an Airbnb.  So.

04:12
We rent out the Airbnb  and  we have a lot going on at the farm. So we have cows. um And of course we have our outdoor cat,  Rubble Crew Kitty. And  we have an indoor cat as well and we have two dogs. um But as far as the kind of outside farm goes, we have our outdoor Rubble Crew Kitty.  And um the guests love him. He's pretty popular.  And the gift shop, the gift shop's

04:41
Decent size is probably 12 by 14 foot kind of gift shop shed and it's fully stocked with soaps,  keychains we make, tumblers that we engrave. My wife makes a lot of beaded things like beaded pens and garden stakes,  all kinds of, I don't know. I'd like to say we're just all over the place.  We are.  Well, that's okay because variety is the spice of life.  You said you lease out.

05:10
the beginning of this whole string of things you guys do, what does that mean?  So we lease out our 40 acres  to a local farmer to put his cows here. So they're not our cows, but we just tend to them  and,  you know, rotate them through the pasture, put our eyes on them, do the chores with them and all that stuff. OK, thank you, because I was like, I think I know what he means, but I'm not sure. And if I'm not sure, that means whoever's listening isn't sure as well.

05:40
OK, so you sound very happy. Both of you. Are you very happy? Yes, very happy. We  moved.  So I'm from the country  and my wife is from,  I guess, the city of all of what? thousand people. Yeah.  Small town, but yeah, but a townie.  And uh when I got my firehouse sub started, we ended up moving to Lansing, which is like the capital of Michigan. It's  a lot.

06:09
bigger and we made it two months there before we said we got to get back to the country.  So,  so your country, your country mice not city mice now. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

06:23
I understand completely if I if I have a choice, I don't want to live in a town or a city again. We live about four and a half, five miles outside of our small town. And right now we're surrounded by soybean fields and I don't know what they planted across the street from us. And I'm OK with that, because as long as it's green, I'm good. Yep, we love it. We feel too.

06:47
We are right off the main road, but we live on a dirt road  and you know, we can go for walks with the family. There's some road tracks down the road so we can go walk down there.  Um,  our two sons, have two sons, Cooper and Cannon.  nice. Yep. They are, they love it out here. He's got like four or five different power wheels  and you know, whatever job I'm doing, he's got to have his little tractor or Jeep or lawnmower, whatever out.

07:16
How old are the boys? Three years for Cooper and then Cannon is four months tomorrow. Oh my God, you are in the thick of it. Yeah, but it's a blessing. Cooper keeps us busy and Cannon is just great too. So we're glad to have them both. Yeah, I when I say it like that, it's because I raised four. My youngest is 24. My oldest is 36. Four would seem like a lot to me.

07:46
I think it was a good number. was a lot, but it was a lot of fun too. Yeah. So you mentioned the outdoor cats. I haven't said anything yet on the podcast about this.  One of our female barn cats is very, pregnant right now. She's probably going to pop about the end of June,  1st of July. And we haven't had barn kittens on the property in a year and a half, two years.

08:12
So we're very excited to see what she throws for colors, because she is a very interesting looking cat. Do you guys know about the cats that look like werewolves? The Loki cats? No. No. She looks kind of like that, and not because she's that breed, but that's what she reminds me of. And her coloring is mostly dilute grays and blacks with a little bit of white. But her brother and her sister, her brother is orange. He's orange.

08:41
So we have no idea what color kittens we're going to get. And we're like, oh my God, let them all be healthy. And I can't wait to see these babies in two weeks, probably. We are pulling up pictures of what they look like right now. That is crazy. Yeah. And the thing is, the reason I say she looks like a Loki cat is because she is, she's about 10 months old. I think she's just shy of a year. She was very, very long haired. And when spring hit, she shed out.

09:11
up right to the base of her shoulders and the rest of her long hair and she's tiny. She's a small cat. So I was like, oh my God, she looks like one of those werewolf cats. It's so funny.  But she's also gorgeous because the markings on her face are very much tabby. So she's not scary looking, but she's definitely she looks like one of those Loki cats. That's cool. We we have our outdoor cat, which we told Cooper he could.

09:40
name him and I don't know, the kid loves Christmas. So we said, you can pick any name you want and go ahead and name him. And he's like, how about Santa Claus? I was like, are you sure? I said, it's not Christmas. He's like, yeah, you're right. And he likes the construction Rubble Crew show. So he says, about Rubble Crew Kitty? And I was like, yeah, Rubble Crew's good. He's like, Kitty. So we have to say Rubble Crew Kitty every time.

10:10
That is a very long name for a barn cat. Yeah, we finally got it down to rubs now.  Well, our Loki cat, as I have now decided I'm going to refer to her as her name is Smokey because when she's outside walking around in the morning in the half light, she looks like smoke, like just moving through the yard. She's so pretty. She's not friendly, but she's pretty.

10:36
the and um

11:05
That's what little guy he is such a little hunter out there. He loves it. Yes. Yeah. It's so fun. They're so fun to watch and see what a cat is actually supposed to do when it gets when it's allowed to be a cat. Ours is just crazy. We live on this dirt road, so like he could totally follow us like when we go for a walk and he just knows his limits. We walk to the end of the driveway and he sits down.

11:32
And we walk down the road and when we come back, he's just there sitting waiting for us to come back. Like a yard dog. Yes. Yes. Yes.  We often refer to him as our dog.  Uh huh. Do you guys have dogs too? Yes, we do. What do you have?  We have a Shiba in you named Roxy  and we have an Australian Shepherd Siberian Husky mix named Wrangler. How big is Wrangler by is he big or is he small? Not big. mean,  I.

12:02
38, 42 pounds.  Yeah. Okay. Well, as everyone who listens to my podcast knows, I have an Australian shepherd.  She's going to be six. Oh my gosh, she'll be six in August. Her name is Maggie and on a good day, she weighs about 34 pounds. On a fat day, she weighs close to 40 and she's on a fat day.  So she's a chubby girl and she,  I swear to God, they must have, she must have Corgi somewhere in her lineage.

12:29
because she's got a very long body and short legs. And I'm trying everything I can to get her to lose a couple pounds because that kind of weight on short legs,  hard on their joints.  My husband is not in the game with me on trying to get her lose a couple pounds. So we keep going back and forth on how much food she should have in her dish at night. um Do you love Wrangler? Is he a really good dog?  He is a good boy.  He

12:59
I mean, the sweetest boy. He's very protective though.  So we kind of have to watch him around people and stuff. He's just the sweetest thing to us though, but  he's very protective and you know, he tries to save us from Amazon and UPS all the time. yeah,  it seems to be an Australian shepherd thing that they're very, very attached to their people, but everybody else is either a threat or they're scary. Oh yeah. That garbage truck, that garbage trucks like

13:29
Wow. And he can hear him from three miles away. Yes. I know barking. It's like crazy. I understand. My dog hates the trash truck. She is scared to death of it. If she's outside when it comes, she tries her damnedest to be strong and bark at it as deep in her throat as she in her chest as she can. But the entire time she is shaking. She's so afraid of it. Yep. Yep. Ridiculous.

13:58
Okay, so I don't want to spend the whole episode talking about dogs. I just think that it's funny when I hear that other people have Australian Shepherds. So I'm like, we are a special breed of people to have very special breed of dog. Okay, so you said that you guys make crafts. Do you have a garden? Yes, we have a small garden. We grow your typical stuff, know, squash, sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, things like that.

14:27
And is that just for you guys or do you sell some of it? So we've kicked around  doing like the local produce and things like that. um But really,  so many people around us have gardens and do it.  And actually, they just, you know, kind of give a lot of stuff away. So we don't really focus too much on that. uh we really focus on like the soap, um our lavender. have the lavender patch in front of the Airbnb, which  is probably.

14:57
A good 150 lavender plants. Oh, wow. Do you sell any of that?  We do. um We were going to focus more on kind of a you cut  and  bring people in. But now the Airbnb is taken off so much that it would kind of invade that privacy. So we just kind of use the lavender for us and for our products  and then just allow the guests to enjoy it.  Nice. That's amazing.

15:27
Um, so what made you want to do an Airbnb? Cause that's, that's a, that's a job and a half right there.  Yeah. You know,

15:37
I don't know, the minute I kind of mow in and I just kind of put my mind to something and start thinking about something, it's kind of, there's a meme that goes around that says, my wife showed it to me. It says, I've had this dream my whole life since lunch.  That's very much Adam. And that's me. Decide in the morning that we're going to build something and it needs to be done by the evening. So he sets his mind to it and we just do it.  Well, how long has the Airbnb been  up and running?

16:07
um Four months. Yeah. Oh, about four months. Yes. Yep. And how is it going? Do you is it working out? Do you like it? We actually quite enjoy it. We didn't know  what to think. Like my wife said, I kind of just do something and then think about the rest later.  So decided to build this.  It's just a smaller. It's probably I don't know what it would be. Four hundred and eighty, maybe five hundred twenty square feet.  It's a too bad one bath. um

16:37
just a smaller one and it's completely private from the rest of our house. You kind of have a whole acre to yourself, separate driveway  and the barn shields everything from the home  and we love it. We were booked out pretty much every weekend. um We get to meet a lot of people, which is, see, I like to talk, so it works out pretty good. Okay.  Is it closed during the winter or do you guys leave it open in the winter too? Well, we

17:06
We were originally going to close it, but now I think if the demand's there, we're going to have it open year round. Sure. Fun. So it has heat and cooling and stuff. yeah. Yep. Yep. It's got a mini split. It's got heat, um air conditioning. You know, it's pretty nice.  And what are the tourist attractions around you? Are there any?  We have quite a few  apple orchards around us in our area. um

17:36
But that's kind of it is there's  not a lot in our area. So there's no hotels um pretty much within 30 miles  around us.  So  with so many  kind of families and things like that, that we  get a lot of visitors visiting family. um And but we do have like the little hole in the wall things, Apple orchards. um I don't know, we're pretty close to some major cities. So.

18:05
A lot of country folk that would like to stay out of the hustle and bustle, just kind of stay with us and just choose to drive 20, 30 minutes into town. And we're kind of seeing that some of our guests come just to get away. Like we become more of what they're looking for. They just want to not hear the road traffic. They want to not have the big city. They just want to relax and.

18:29
Yeah, so that's becoming part of it too. So you are the epitome of the actual get away from it all.  Yes, we would like to think so. It's funny because, you know, the locals are like, hey, what do mean people are just coming there and they're just staying there and  here and we're like, yeah, yep. You know, we have the cows they can see out grazing in the field. um You know, it's a total yard. We had some people got stay before that.

18:57
There's room for them to run around and we have a gazebo with a fire pit and it seems so every day to us, but to a lot of people it's not. So it is fun for them to, you know, come and see what it's like out here. Probably some of these people have never seen a cow before.  It's amazing how many people in America have never seen a cow or a chicken or a goat or sheep in real life ever before in their lives. Yep.

19:24
It's one of the reasons to start of the podcast. was like, we are so far removed from all the things that used to be everyday occurrences and we need to talk about it. Yup. that's kinda, I don't know. We, I was pretty crazy when we thought to build it, but it's been doing great and it's pretty fun and it's nice to have a little more revenue stream off of the farm.

19:49
Yeah, absolutely. Do you guys have chickens? You know, we don't have chickens. We talked about it  and it was a big debate for a long time. you  know,  having  having a four month old right now, we kind of decided to  not do the chickens right away. um We've even kicked around goats and all kinds of other things. But right now, having the cows and having a busy life.

20:18
Having the Airbnb and the craft store and everything,  we decided that that's probably good enough. But, um you know, we do have a zip line.  Oh, nice. He loves the zip line.  Well, they're fun. They are fun. uh So your oldest boy,  when the calves are born in the spring, is he like, oh, my God, mom, dad, look at the babies. Yes, he loves it. He tries to name them all. Yes.  Yup.

20:49
Isn't it fun watching them discover all this stuff? Oh, it's absolutely awesome. And he's  very smart. We have the entire property has an electric fence around it.  And,  know, we teach him very well. He knows. So when the cows are not in there, he's like, I can touch the fence. I'm like, yeah. But he's very good. He knows the fences on when the cows are in there.

21:15
Good. But we  we love it out here and  we enjoy it and the crafts thing we spend a lot of our nights making crafts together  and we do sell a lot of soap.  The freeze dried goodies. We enjoy making that. We  it's actually awesome for a little guy. He will eat pretty much  any fruit or veggie freeze dried  and freeze dried asparagus. I'm telling you, it's so good. It is so good.

21:45
so good. I'm so jealous. want a freeze dryer so much and I cannot  do not have the money to invest in it right now. And we do have asparagus every spring because we have a huge patch. Yeah. And so now I'm like, Oh, I gotta make the money to get a freezer or just so can try freeze dried asparagus. Thank you so much, Katie.  It is delicious. And I tell you, I eat half of our profit.  Sure.

22:15
So it works out pretty good. do love it when I'm mowing and I'll be able to like sneak over there. You know, I'm just going past it. And then I'll grab a few goodies for myself. And my wife's like, oh, I don't see any money in the thing. I'm like, yeah, no, that was me. I don't think we've ever taken. I don't think we've ever taken anything out of the farm stand unless it was it was too far gone to sell it. Does that make sense? Yeah, we're just taking it.

22:44
And you have no strength. And yeah, I have no restraint. Tell me like that was last night when I'm like, I'm not going to have a snack. And then, you know, I sat for two more hours, watched House Hunters and  I had quite a few snacks. Well, as long as they're good for you, you're all set. Yeah. Chocolate chip cookies aren't too bad.  Luckily, I let my my college food  registration expire, so I haven't been making big goods for the farm stand. So.

23:12
There's no big goods in our farm stand right now. There's eggs, there's soap, and there's lip balms, and there's candles, but that's it. Oh, we do. We enjoy making candles. We make a lot of candles. And it's really neat having the engraver so we can engrave all of our candle jars and everything like that.  I never thought of that. We have a Dremel set. I wonder if we could do the same thing. Oh, that would be pretty cool. Yeah.

23:40
Oh my God, you guys, I'm so glad you were going to talk to me today because I have an idea to run by my husband tonight when he gets home from work. Yeah, we started. mean, we've been making candles now for, I don't know, 10, 12 years. And that was the biggest thing for the longest time, but it's kind of somewhat seasonal where we're at, you know, the winter time, we just tend to sell a lot more candles. So it's just a fun. We I don't know, we just love the farm out here. Yeah.

24:10
Do  you make your candles in the house? In your house? Yes,  yes. So  we have a pretty big barn and we've kicked around trying to  move all of our crafting out there. But right now we do everything in the basement and we make the candles kind of down in the basement  and kind of have all of our craft stuff down there. The laser and the freeze dryer are in our garage though. yeah. oh

24:41
Do you do scented candles or unscented candles?  We  focus a lot  with lavender right now because we use our lavender.  So a lot of our things are tailored to lavender. So we do scented  and we use our lavender for it. But we used to, you know, kind of do a little bit of everything. But with the price of everything going up, it's just easier to use our own products. Yes, of course, because it's right there.

25:10
Um, we, are getting out of the candle making business because things are so expensive trying to get it. It's so painful,  but  I have, I have a thing where certain scents are just too intense for me and they give me headaches, like bad headaches.  Yup.  And, um, I'm trying to think  leather. We got a leather fragrance oil. That one every time my husband would make the candles in the kitchen.

25:40
I would take Tylenol two hours before you even started making them for even open the fragrance bottle because it would just kill me.  Leather does the exact same thing to me and so does suede and smoke.  Yeah. I don't know what it is, but it's just too strong. And I have the same thing. Like if something drops on the bottom of the stove when we're baking stuff and  it burns, but it doesn't actually smoke necessarily that

26:08
burning smell of the  piece of pizza crust or whatever fell down in. I get headaches from that. like, you know, I wish my nose would stop harassing me. This would be great. Well, it's so funny because everyone's like, Oh, your house must just smell so good when you make candles. And every time I make them, I'm like,  I wish it didn't smell in here.  Yeah, but it's so strong. So concentrated. Yeah.  Yeah. And the thing that's funny is lavender is supposed to take the scent of lavender is supposed to take the edge off.

26:38
headaches. um The lavender fragrance oil and the lavender essential oils. If  it's too much, like if we can't open a window, that'll give me a headache too. I'm like, no, lavender is supposed to help with headaches.  Damn it. And there's a coffee fragrance oil, which is amazing.

27:01
That, the Lord, does not give me headaches. So when my husband is like, I'm gonna make coffee once this time, I'm like, yes, thank you. We had like a cucumber melon one that  was very refreshing. I did quite enjoy that one. Yeah, it's,  I am like a freak about scents. And it's so dumb because I know some are going to give me a headache. Like it's just a definitive fact that Mary Evelyn, you're gonna have a headache if you smell this.

27:30
And when we first decided to make candles, we ordered like a sample pack from Bramble Berry of different scents. And they were all the Christmas time scents. You guys, that thing came in the mail.  I had that box ripped open within five seconds and opening these little tiny bottles and just getting high on the smell of Christmas. My husband looked at me. said, you are a Christmas fiend. I said, what was your first clue?

28:01
That's what  so when we originally bought this farm  I wasn't sure what to do and I love Christmas and Cooper loves Christmas  um and all I could think was how cool would it be to have a Christmas tree farm? Yeah, yeah  and  Cooper would love it and then you know I started reading and doing all this research  and I'm like

28:25
a lot of work right at the holiday and it's cold outside and I hate being outside when it's cold.  Yeah. So it kind of unchecked a lot of boxes.  To the Christmas tree farmers, they put in good work.  Yeah, Michigan in the wintertime, cold, weird, who knew?  Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. Like, honey, I have this huge tree meal, like all trees and everything.  And then now I just look out at the cows and I'm like, wow, this is pretty nice. That was pretty relaxing. Yeah.

28:52
Yes, and cows throw heat, which means  if you have a friendly cow and you can stand next to her, you're going to be warm.  Yep. Yep. You guys said you make soaps.  Do you make the cold process lye soaps?  Yes. Yep.

29:10
And when did you start doing that and were you scared the first time you did it?  So,  so my mom makes a ton of soap  and she's like, Oh, you know, cause  we made candles, you know, for 10, 12 years and she's made soap and she's like, Oh, it's so easy. I'm like, is it though?  And you know, the lie and all that stuff, it did have me kind of a little bit freaked out, but,  um, you know, we made it with her and

29:40
found out it's actually not that hard.  But yeah, it did have me little bit freaked out at first, yes. We wear the gloves and the goggles.  Do you still wear the goggles?  I do.  I'm a little bit more risky. I should, but you know, I don't know. Usually I do have them right there and I guess I know my limits. Yeah, there's different parts of the process where it's kind of.  Where I.

30:09
The reason I ask is because I'm still afraid of the whole lion water thing. My husband is not. My husband is very brave. He has a minor fear of the unknown, but once he's done something, even if it's kind of scary, he's like, eh, I got it. I've done it once. can do it again. And so he's the one that, that makes the soaps. And  every time he does it, I'm like, you probably should open the window if you're going to do the lie and the water in the house.

30:40
And he's like, it's not going to do anything. It's fine. And I'm like, okay.  So I just, I don't know. I don't, scares me. And I'm so thankful to have a husband who is brave and wants to do this stuff because I really like cold process Lysol. I really like what it has for my skin. So, so thank God he makes it. That's awesome. Yeah. Wait, don't get any ideas.

31:09
But now we love it. We use all of our products and  I guess it's just it's a fun hobby that you know with the farm we have just a bunch of different kind of revenue streams and we enjoy it and being a franchisee gives me time to be able to be here at the farm doing the things that we love. Yes, absolutely. And you know, they say if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. So you're I guess you're not working guys.

31:39
I know, we moved a lot of rocks the other day. That felt a lot like work. Uh  huh, I know. But it's still better than sitting behind a desk.  It sure is. All right, I try to keep these to half an hour. Where can people find you?  So we have a Facebook page,  M57 Farms,  and pretty much everything is just on there. We're not crazy big social media people. So pretty much just on Facebook and then  Airbnb has our Airbnb on it.

32:10
good because I think that that would be a wonderful vacation place for people to go.  And honestly, I would suggest in like  May  and September if  it was my place in Michigan because  if Michigan is anything like Minnesota, Michigan is pretty hot between the middle of June and the middle of August. Yeah. So I always, I always suggest when people want to come to Minnesota, I'm like come in May or come in September.

32:39
That's pretty much it. Yep. And then we do have our lavender. So  if you come  right,  I'm probably hearing about a week or so,  it will be pretty with the lavender. So we do try to fight the heat with pretty. m Yeah, absolutely.  All righty, you guys. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. I really enjoyed our conversation.  As always, you can find me at AtinyHolmes.podcast.com.  Have a great day.