Mary Loofah

Today I'm talking with Mary at Mary Loofah. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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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. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe.

00:29
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00:57
It's still pretty cold. think it's probably 35, 40 degrees right now. Oh, yuck. No, thanks. But it's spring. It's coming tomorrow. They're saying we're supposed to 81. I'm like great. Thunderstorms tomorrow night for sure. Yeah, it's been a wild spring. We've had such shifts in weather and temperatures. I'm like, mother nature, if you could just find a moderate place to be for a week, I would be so thankful. That would be great. So.

01:27
Anyway, I covered the weather. I try to do this at beginning of every episode because why not? And everything we do is so dependent on the weather. I figure it's a good way to start. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Mary Luffa and explain why it's Mary Luffa because Luffa is not your last name. Well, I am Mary McDowell and I...

01:50
milk goats. So I never in a million years thought that I would milk goats.  I am a horse trainer and equestrian by first trade. And  I got into goats when I had my first child. He was six months old and I was breastfeeding exclusively. And I just stopped producing milk overnight.  Oh  no.  given reason whatsoever.

02:19
And I was in a panic, of course.  And so what happened was we tried the formula thing and it was projectile vomiting and projectile diarrhea out of my six month old who had yet to sleep through the night once. Oh God. So  tired mama,  very tired, hungry baby. And our neighbor across the street just happened to have  a Nubian milking goat.

02:43
that they were using to feed other baby goats. And they said, well, you can use her to milk if you want to try the goats milk. So we did, we milked her. I had never milked a goat. I hadn't really even raised goats before, but I got on YouTube as everyone does and learned all the things I could learn as quickly as I could. And so we started milking her and God bless her. was this, gentlest goat in the whole world.

03:12
And so the first time we gave our son goat's milk, he slept through the night  and started to gain weight and he was just thriving on it. And so  we kept milking her. Well, once we were done feeding him milk and he was ready to switch over to regular food, we had to give the goat back because she wasn't ours. She was just on loan.  And so she  ended up going home.

03:41
And I was like, you know, I really miss this goat's milk. So we ended up being gifted another dairy goat  and  one goat turned into over 30 goats.  And my main mission is I want a homestead  and I want to help other people who need help. Like women trying to feed their children healthy is my bread and butter. That is like my passion. Of course, I will sell milk to anybody who wants the milk.

04:10
But that is where my heart really is, is I want to help people who were struggling like I was struggling when I couldn't find something that would work and quickly, you know what I mean? yeah.  So the name Mary Lutha to go to the other half of that is of course we have the goats milk, but we also  have so much milk that there is an abundance. So we had to do something. So I started making soap and all the body butters and the lotions and

04:40
all the things that you can make with goat's milk, cheese, yogurt, you name it.  Well, at the time I had started growing luffas and I'm sure you know, but for any listeners who don't know, luffas are basically in the gourd family and they look like giant cucumbers while they're growing and then they dry and you've got this amazing cleaning tool inside. so  my husband was offhandedly joking saying, you should just

05:09
make a little store, you know, like an eight by eight building in the backyard and call it Mary Lufa. And I just kind of laughed it off. I was like, yeah, I'm, never going to be selling anything at that level.  Well, fast forward seven years and we have a huge shop that I have  a commercial refrigerator in for all the milk and all the other things. And I have my soap making area in there and I sell all sorts of stuff. We have an online store.

05:39
It has just grown so exponentially from what I could have ever imagined.  And so it was just this little idea that my husband offhandedly mentioned and we just rolled with it. You know, it was, was, it was great. And it's been wonderful. How fabulous. What a great story.  first go, did she have a name? Yes.  Yes. Oh shoot. Of course I'm not going to remember it now.

06:08
Um, what was her name? Her children were Opal and Diamond. Let me think about this. Do you remember her name, Trenton? It wasn't Ruby, was it? It was Ruby!  Okay. figured with Diamond and Opal, maybe it was a gemstone. It was. It was a gemstone. That's how they got the names. Yes.  Ruby. Thank I think that Ruby deserves an honorable mention for-

06:35
Basically saving your baby's life. That's fantastic. Definitely. if you've listened to the podcast at all, I love goats. do. I love baby goats the most because they're the sweetest and easiest things ever to hold and pet and think that they love you. Yes. So yeah, I don't want to go too far down the goat rabbit hole here or the goat hole or whatever we're going to call it because

07:03
talked a lot about goats on the podcast. Oh yeah. But for the record,  love them. Do not own any. Do not want to own any. I just want to visit the babies in the springtime. That's all I want out of goats.  And  we have friends who have goats and I'm going to message her later today.  I already messaged her once today about are there any baby goats coming  and if the mama barn cat's doing okay because we're going to get some kittens from her when they come.

07:31
I meant to ask her if they were going to have any goat's milk once babies come, because  that's what happens. Because I do want to try making goat milk. So we've never done it. We've done just the water and lye, not  the goat milk and lye. Yes, yes. Well, need to text It's super, super similar. I would just recommend freezing it in ice cubes  because it heats up so fast you can scorch your milk  very quickly. But if it's frozen...

07:58
it's much easier to just dissolve your lye that way and your milk will just thaw rapidly. then as it's heating up. Nice. Okay, cool.  All right. So I'm so jealous that you can grow luffa gourds in Oklahoma because we don't have a long enough growing season here to grow them. We now have a greenhouse. So I'm going to ask my husband if he will try planting some in the greenhouse.  Cause I think if we can get

08:28
through October in the greenhouse with them, we might actually get some we can use. Yeah, yeah. And they're not easy to grow here. It's kind of hit or miss, but my mom has a greenhouse, so we start them as early as possible and just  hope and pray that they make it through long enough. Yeah, I really, I want to grow them because at the farmer's market, like three towns north of us or northeast of us,

08:56
There's a woman that makes soaps and she actually pours the soaps around the loofah.  So it's basically a scrubby with soap wrapped around it.  And I love those things. I just want to be able to make some of my own.  So we're going to try it this summer. I've just got to remind my  husband to pick up some seeds  and we'll see how it goes. And obviously we won't have them this year. We won't have the scrubbies this year, but we should have some next summer. That would be awesome.

09:24
If it works because you know, it's always it's always a crap shoot on new stuff. You never know what's gonna grow and what is it?  Okay, so I was I don't know I was looking through people I was supposed to talk with this week and I swear somebody had on their Facebook page these cookies that looked like the little Debbie oatmeal cookies Is that you or am I thinking somebody else? That's not me. I do not bake

09:51
I don't know who it was. I'm so mad. I got to go find this person because evidently it wasn't somebody I was supposed to interview this week. So I got to go find the Facebook page and be like, um, come talk to me. And number two, can you ship from wherever you are? Yes. She does. I know it was a her and she does sourdough and she makes her cookies with sourdough. Um, cast off. it cast off? Whatever it's called. Discard. Yes. Not cast.

10:20
Where the hell did that come from?  Um,  Diz card, yes. And she makes these, these beautiful looking oatmeal cookies with like, I'm guessing it's probably cream cheese frosting in the middle or buttercream or something. And I was just drooling over this picture. I'm like, I want that in my life right now.  So, okay. So you don't bake. Okay. That's cool. Do you, do you buy baked goods from people who do bake? Yes, I do. I actually  barter for milk.

10:49
for a lot of baked goods. And my husband,  he is not a Suzy homemaker by any stretch of the imagination, but he has recently decided since he's seen enough reels of people baking easily that he's gonna put a hand at it. And  he's actually not too bad, but he's so impatient. I'm not sure how long it'll last. That is so funny because you and I share the same first name. my husband makes the most

11:19
fabulous yeast breads you will ever taste. So that is really funny that your husband's like, I'm going to try baking. Huh, crazy. But you don't live in Minnesota, so we can't be like in-person best friends. I'm so sad. That would be so fun. Yeah, it's okay. I have, I have friends here that I actually see and then I have all the new friends I make when I talk to people on the podcast. It's really kind of great. Yeah, that's awesome.

11:49
So you have kiddos, right? Yes.  How many? I have two. Girls? I have a boy that's seven and I have a girl that's four. Okay. And are they, do they love the goats too? They do. They love kidding season. They love playing with the goats. I think my daughter has definitely picked up the  animal husbandry gene and my son is definitely going towards the engineer side of things.

12:17
He'll run the tractor and the excavator and all the other things. He likes the mechanical side of everything, but I don't think he wants to be a farmer, but that's all right. And yet they say that boys and girls are not different. Ha! Imagine that. Uh-huh. Yeah. I have four. My daughter is the oldest. She's 35. Three boys after her. Youngest boy is 23. Oh, man. And she...

12:45
The oldest one, the girl, she was very into makeup and getting like secondhand clothes at thrift stores and then  tearing them apart and putting them back together the way she wanted them to be.  And she was very fashionable. Like she would put an outfit together that she tore apart and put back together and come downstairs from her room. And I would be like, you did that? Oh my God. How gorgeous is that?

13:13
And the boys wanted to play with trucks and be outside in the dirt and help dad grow plants in the garden.  So  I  do think that boys and girls definitely are drawn to different things. I really do. And I don't think it's a bad thing at all. No, we need diversity.  % we need it.  Yup. that's all I got to say on that. I don't want to get my  listeners in a twist. That would not be good.

13:41
So, time.  Let's just not make people mad right now. That would not be great.  Okay, so I looked at your Facebook page, not Facebook page, your website. your goats are gorgeous animals. My goodness. Thank you.  I was looking at the whole list of pictures that you have.  I was like, I want a goat dog because they just look like dogs to me for some reason.

14:11
They act like dogs that just jump on the car instead of in the car.  Yeah, they're really pretty.  And I'm a sucker for a dog. Like, like I used to say I didn't want a dog. I just really loved other people's dogs. When I would go to visit them, they had a dog. The dog would realize I didn't really want a dog and it would come see me and hang out.  And then I got a dog. Now we have a dog and I love her to pieces. She's my fifth kid.  And so when I think about

14:41
my friend that her parents raised goats when we were growing up. And the time I spent over at their place with the baby goats and the adult goats and just hanging out with her and the goats, it was like being around dogs, but they didn't bark. And I loved it. Yes. And my whole life, my whole life, I was like, I'm not in a position to get a dog as a pet. It's just not the time. And as soon as we decided to move to a place where we had land where that dog could be outside, we got a puppy.

15:11
And I'm telling you, a puppy who turns into a really good, well-behaved dog is a little better than a goat sometimes.  They can at least tell you when strangers are there.  Oh, she's very, very good at that. She  has a very, I don't have the right word. She's an excellent watchdog is what she is.  What kind of dog is she?  She's an Australian Shepherd.  Oh, perfect. Yeah. So she

15:38
It's so funny because we have friends that come  visit often enough that she recognizes their vehicles. Yes. And the minute she's always laying on the back of the couch, you know, looking out the window to make sure nothing's going on outside.  And the minute they turn into the driveway, she does this bay. She sounds like a beagle.  And then she barks. And I know that it's somebody that we know.  But if it's not somebody that we know, she does this really deep in her chest bark.

16:07
And I'm like, oh no, who's here?  So, but  I keep telling my husband that we have enough room to get two goats  because we have 3.1 acres and we have, you got enough room for 10 goats. Yeah. The problem is he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to fence in the garden, the 100  by 150 foot garden. Yes. And if we got goats, he would have to fence in the garden.

16:36
So right now it's a no, but I'm gonna try to drag him over to see the babies at my friend's house if they're coming this spring. I'm gonna try to get him hooked on what baby goats are like.  Be like, but they're pretty much the same the whole time they're alive. They don't really change from baby goats.  Well, at least when they're 160 pounds, they don't still jump on you like the babies do. That's helpful because those babies are crazy.

17:05
They're so crazy.  I feel like I need a taser half the time. I'm like, y'all, settle down.  Yeah, um, puppies get zoomies. Goats get zoomies on steroids. Yes, yes, you're correct.  It's the cutest thing though. My goodness. Oh yes, they are adorable. It's sickening. It's sickening how cute they are.  Okay, so, so goats, luffas, luffagords.

17:34
Do you actually grow a garden as well? Yeah, I do. I would not call myself a great gardener, but I sure give it a old school try.  We usually just plant things that we want to eat and sometimes  it's successful and sometimes it's not super successful.  We  mainly do like cucumbers and tomatoes.

18:00
onions and potatoes, know, the staples for our household anyways. And I try to do  another technique every year to see what works  great. You know, I can pretty much throw tomatoes and cucumbers in the ground and have something grow and have a pretty decent season of it. But a lot of other things like I can't do bell peppers and we

18:25
eat the heck out of bell peppers and the lettuce, it just turns bitter on me or bolts, you know? So it's a, I think it's a time management and pest management because we do everything organically that we can.  So  it's a struggle, but I still  try it and the kids love to pick the bugs off the plants every night. So that's helpful too.  That's really good that they want to help. That's awesome. The thing we discovered with bell peppers is that,

18:53
The potato beetles that you can get, they like pepper plants too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, great. That's awesome. Yeah. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. Yeah. And we try really hard here with our garden to not use any pesticides.  But the second summer we were here when my husband was growing potatoes, came in and he was like, there's these little bugs all over the potato plants.

19:18
And I said, did you take a picture? Because he knows if he takes a picture, I'm probably gonna be able to tell him what the thing is that he's asking about.  And he said, yeah. And I said, well, show me the picture and maybe I can tell you what the bug is. And he pulls out his phone and I look and I'm like, oh, those are potato beetles. And he's like, how do we get rid of them? I said, you're not gonna like the answer. He said, oh no. And I said, yeah. said,  I will call my dad and ask him.

19:45
but I think he used to use sevens powder and it's not a great thing, but  it will take care of them right away.  And it basically washes off when it rains and then it's gone. It's not gonna hurt anybody to eat the potatoes. And he was like, okay. So I talked to my dad and my dad was like, that's what I used. And it took like  one application as soon as I saw the bugs and then they were gone. He said, it's not gonna hurt anything.

20:12
like, okay, so told my husband he used sevens powder that one summer.  We haven't had potato bugs since. Wow. So we felt really bad about doing it because we really want to grow things as organically as we can. Yeah, sure. But when you're going to lose 25 potato plants.  Well, and you're going to lose them rapidly. Yeah. Yeah, it's they're extremely invasive.  Uh huh. They're awful. I hate those little bugs.

20:41
Yeah. Okay. So cool that you're growing some stuff for your family to eat and for you to eat. That's great. So I want to talk about the benefits of goat's milk because I know it's really good for you to actually drink or have in cheese or ice cream or whatever. Yeah. But it's also really good for your skin. Thank you, Beakman Boys for teaching me that. Beakman 1802. I don't know if you know who I'm talking about.

21:08
Oh, okay. Well, they're these famous guys, they're a couple and they were on the Amazing Race and they started a business basically on goat milk soap.  Oh, okay.  And it's become this big beauty  industry thing.  And  I don't know enough about them to keep talking about them. But anyway, that's how I learned about the fact that goat milk is really good for your skin. And there are reasons for that. Do you know the reasons for that? Well, you've got

21:38
You've got all these probiotics, prebiotics, and even postbiotics  in your goat's milk, which is never going to hurt your skin.  depending on what your goats are consuming, you're also getting those nutrients  into your milk. So anything you add topically, not just drinking, is going to benefit the skin  significantly and the moisture content. It it shoots your homemade soap through the roof.

22:06
If you can add the milk.  I would say as far as a drinking benefit, you've got all sorts of vitamins and minerals packed in there. And  I'm sure you know this, but the main difference between the goat's milk and the cow's milk  is the lactose levels. So there's only about 7 % less lactose in goat's milk, which doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it's obviously super significant since

22:36
lactose intolerant people can generally tolerate goat's milk.  And I'm not sure if that,  scientifically, if that has anything to do with the skin side of things where it benefits that, but it is just an overall healthier  milk to drink. And I'm all for raw cow's milk as well.  But it's just a little bit easier on the stomach. And it is the third closest thing to human breast milk.

23:05
second only to camel's milk and then of course the breast milk. So  it's just, it's packed with nutrients and it's easy, it's easily digested. And that's why you can feed goats milk to any species  as infants. like baby cows,  I've had people feed their baby squirrels, you name it. Obviously human babies can drink it, you know, and it is, it's a universal feeder.

23:35
Yeah, and I don't know a lot of people raising camels for camel milk. So I'm quite sure the goat is a lot more handy to get to come by.  Absolutely. Absolutely. And the overhead for feeding the animal is  way lower.  We actually looked into camel farming at one point just as a,  know, just to  just to look around, know, and the price to start your camel farm was in the tens of thousands just to get the animal, you know, they're not

24:05
common here in the States like they are  in the Middle East or even in Australia where they're actually a nuisance. Yeah. Yeah. So they're an invasive species  in some places. So yeah, it was  not something we could do, but it was fun to look at anyways. Yeah. Why not? I  mean, the more you know, the more you know, right? Yes, exactly.

24:30
And  the other problem with camels that I have read about and heard about and I keep thinking that maybe I'm wrong is that camels tend to be a little more attitudinal than goats.  Oh very much so yeah they can be quite aggressive  and just finicky. Yeah the camel spitting is not a joke. Yeah  and they're so big. mean  you get an angry camel running at you, you want to get the hell out of the way real quick.  That's right.

25:00
It's like, don't, it's like, um, there's a old joke about  being in a field with a bull and, and I don't know what the joke is now I think about it, but something about, only have to run faster than the person running behind me. Yes. Same thing with camels, I would guess. Yes. Okay.  Um, all right. What else do I got? I don't know why I'm being so silly. It's afternoon. That's probably why.  Um,

25:28
I don't know what else to ask you. What's the future look like for you guys? I don't know what the future holds, to be honest. I mean, we want to definitely keep on the trajectory of getting as much milk out as possible.  And I would love to  grow my soap side of things.  I pretty much stay sold out of milk week to week. There's usually a waiting list, but I can always

25:54
you know, squeeze in, I just need a gallon here or there and whatnot.  But I'd love to just keep growing the soap side and body care side of things  of the business. And we're just on  4.9 acres  that we live on. And my parents,  we're in Oklahoma, but my parents are from Dallas  and

26:21
They just moved up here a few years ago and they bought 80 acres across the street. they  live there and that's where we keep like our male goats  so that the milk doesn't start to smell like bucks  in fall. I can just kind of rotate and I can rotate the does over there when they're done milking and they have a chance to just kind of rest and the pastures here can rest and.

26:49
things like that and it's just a new set of scenery. I think it's good for everybody mentally after a long season of milking. Yeah, that's phenomenal that your parents moved in right across the street. That's great. Yeah, it was a God thing for sure.  absolutely.  So when you make your goat milk soap, do you use like essential oils or what?

27:13
Yeah, so I use essential oils and I do use manufactured  fragrances  from big name suppliers  for soap making  and then I of course have a line of unscented for sure and I do  a line of natural colored soaps and some that have like the manufactured micas and pigments and things like that.

27:38
But I try and be a little bit diverse with as much of it as I can. If you want to be hyper crunchy, I've got a bar for you. If you're not on the crunchy train as much, I've got a bar for you too. Nice. It's so much fun to have that freedom to experiment with all of it. Yes, absolutely. We screwed up. I can't remember if it was last summer or the summer before, but we got some pumpkin spice scented fragrance oil.

28:07
for soaps.  And I swear to you, the two kinds we got, I read  the stuff, the information before we ordered it. And I swear I thought that it was skin safe.  Not so much. So we have, I literally am sitting in my bedroom where my desk is and we have a soap drying rack up on  the bump out.  And it's got one batch of one kind and one batch of the other, the pumpkin spice scented stuff.

28:37
And they have sat there since we made them because we don't know what to do with them. They smell good, but  the only thing you really use them for is hand washing.  I wouldn't recommend you use it on your body skin, you know?  right.  So that was a mistake. Luckily, we only made one batch of each  and the bottles have sat in the cupboard since we bought it. But  you ought to make pumpkin spice candles.  Oh, we do. Oh, good. OK.

29:06
We do. We're going to make some of those again this summer for  this fall. Yes.  and stuff. But I was so bummed. was like,  um, those aren't skin safe. After my husband had made the soap and it was, it was sitting doing this upon a vacation process.  And he said, excuse me. And I said, look, it says it on the bottle. And he's like, how did you miss that? I said, I have no idea.  He says, well, he says, can we use it for candles or?

29:35
wax melts and I was like, yes. He said, okay, good. said, cause that was like, that's, that could have been an expensive mistake. I wonder if you like  graded the soap down into a wax melt, if it would still put off the scent. Oh, I'm sure it would. But you probably do that. You got nothing to lose.  No, no, they're just sitting here looking like.

30:01
you know, regular old soap bars and I'm like, we can't do anything with those.  So gotta figure it out. But yeah, I'm sure.  I actually, I'm quite sure that if we just cut it into little blocks and put it in a wax melter, it would probably do the same thing. Yeah, probably over time for sure. And it would be the cleanest wax melting container ever. That's right.  So yeah, but that's

30:25
That's part of joy of this lifestyle. You try things and sometimes it goes really well. And other times you make a mistake and you're like, what, how can I make that no longer a mistake? How can I turn it into something else? Yes, exactly. That is the beauty of it.  And, things, but just the amount of things you learn that you can use  off the homestead too. I mean, we, we have learned how to use so many different tools in this lifestyle and our, just our arsenal.

30:55
and tool bags  of,  I can fix this. Oh, I can cook that. I can make this. You know,  it's, just pretty incredible. This lifestyle is just so eye-opening and it just makes real like, it's like a modern day pioneer. You have to make things work when they don't seem like they can work. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna  quibble a titch. If you're lucky, you don't have to make it work, but you want to make it work. Yeah.

31:26
Absolutely. Cause if you have to, that has a whole different feel than want to. Yes. Yes, for sure. For sure. It's like we bought a, um, a riding lawnmower that could be used as a tractor  used  and,  it worked for a little while and then stuff went wrong with it. And  my husband was like, okay, here's the two choices. And I said, all right, I'm ready. He said,  I can keep working on this tractor to try to make it work.

31:55
and it's really too small for what we need it for. He said, or he said, we can leave it and I can tinker with it in my spare time. He said, and we can actually buy a Kubota tractor that we can use to plow the driveway and to  turn the compost pile and blah, blah. And I was like, let's just get the Kubota tractor and you can tinker with the old fashioned little lawnmower tractor when you're ready. He's like, okay, yeah, that's probably smart.  So.

32:22
There are choices to be made here and sometimes the old fashioned stuff is fantastic.  Other times you need the thing to work now. Exactly. Yes. And that's the nice thing about being in the  21st century is we have that luxury in most of the areas that we live in. And so it can it can be at well let's  put this one to the back burner and go to something that's going to get it done. Yeah. And sometimes that's got to happen.

32:51
If it isn't a gotta happen now thing, you can screw around with stuff and be creative and ingenious and it works sometimes.  So, all right, Mary, it's been over half an hour. It's been a joy to chat with you. I had a really good time. Thank you for your time and I hope you have a wonderful weekend because tomorrow is Friday. It might as well be the weekend.  Absolutely. Thank you so much, Mary, for having me on and I hope to chat with you again sometime.