Narrow Gate Homestead

Today I'm talking with Rachel and Nick at Narrow Gate Homestead.

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00:00
Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.

00:26
because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. 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.

00:56
You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. 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 Rachel and Nick at Narrowgate Homestead in Lebanon, Maine. Good afternoon, you guys. How are you? Good. Good afternoon. Top of the soggy day to you. Yeah. I'm so sorry. I usually open the podcast with How's the Weather? And I know how the weather is because I just talked to my parents yesterday morning  and

01:26
They said you guys have had a ton of rain in last, what, three weeks? Oh gosh, yeah. A couple inches. I actually, think it just finally broke. So this afternoon, I think it's going to be without raindrops. Yeah.  Well, I'm happy for you. I am looking out my window and it is sunny. It's about 74 degrees with a light breeze here in Minnesota. Oh, nice. Well, that sounds nice. Much nicer. We have had the most beautiful week of just glorious.

01:56
reasonable, beautiful, sunny, hardly any wind weather for the first time in weeks. So it's been, it's been the opening day or the opening week for May, for spring. can't talk. It's been amazing. I'm so excited about it. My words are falling all over themselves. anyway, go ahead. Anytime that there's no wind is Nick's favorite kind of day. Yeah.

02:26
You know about the weather in Minnesota, how it can be just flat still or it can just be whipping through, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. huh. Yeah. Yep. We had, I think it was three weeks ago, we had thunderstorms and off and on during the day, but we had wind gusts of like 60 miles per hour that day. It was insanity. Well, that is a, that's crazy wind. Yeah.

02:54
or the greenhouses. Yeah.  Our greenhouses survived, thank God, but  we  live on a very flat plain above the river valley. And so when the wind comes through, really comes through because there's hardly anything to break the wind.  So  it can get real iffy here sometimes, but so far we've been okay.  Okay. So you guys tell me about what you do at Narrowgate Homestead and about yourselves, please.

03:22
Oh, yeah. Well, we started this journey in 2022. Before that, we're two Navy veterans with no farming background. That's true.

03:40
We decided in 2022 that we wanted to be a part of our, knowing how our food was raised and where our food came from. I suppose it started, I'm sure most people that you podcast with are familiar with the documentary Food, Inc. Probably yes. Yes, so that's when we met Joel Salatin for the first time. Never actually physically met him, but that's when he...

04:10
That's when we kind of first got involved with the idea that the way our food is produced and cared for and put on our grocery shelves might not necessarily be the most ethical and healthy manner that is  out there and available. And we marinated on those ideas for quite a few years and really didn't do a whole lot about it. But I think it was,  COVID was kind of like the catalyst for a lot of things,  for a lot of people. And one of those things for us was

04:39
The fact that our food supply, I'm sure people remember going into the grocery stores  and something like chicken has never been a problem before, wasn't on the shelf.  So it kind of occurred to us that  maybe we should put action into words or words into action rather.  And, you know, now it's 2025 and we  have probably what?  chickens outside right now. Oh yeah.  600 here.

05:08
hundred down the road on pasture. So we solved the chicken on the shelf problem.  Yeah. You sure did.  Yeah. I mean,  kind of going off of what Nick said, you know, we, very quickly and clearly saw just how weak the local food chains are  and  being the type of folks that we are besides wanting to know what exactly we were feeding our family. We wanted to be able to be a part of raising food.

05:36
for other folks  and  be able to come home or come in at night and be confident about  what we know that we're being able to raise for folks and  helping to be another part of reviving the local food chains, which we can all clearly see are very weak across the United States.  So yeah, that has been just  one of our main drivers is to continue to

06:05
be a part of this.  like to say, you  know, a local food revival in a way.  But we just keep plugging along.  We kind of like to operate on a motto called do search. Nick likes that term. My wife told me to do something and I do it.  no. So research can get you into a lot of

06:29
just mind paralysis if all you do is the research, which is pretty much what we did for about 10 years, is talked about it, thought about it. At some point, you just gotta jump out of the nest and do it. And we find that we've been the most successful taking that first jump and just doing stuff. And I think  the further you get into it, the more comfortable you are with being uncomfortable.  And  realizing that failure is definitely real and there's actually something to be learned through your failures.

06:58
I don't call it failure. call it a learning experience.  You would be in perfectly in line with Steve  Collins down at Belden Meadows. That's what he tells us all the time. Yeah, definitely. Well, failure seems so permanent and I feel like the only failure is death, you know?  Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. And that's our culture, right? We're very  achievement oriented. You failure is a bad thing. I, know, my personal history is chock full of failures.

07:27
And as I think back over them, they were all, every single one of them, a learning experience and the product of who I am today. So you're right. They are an opportunity to grow if you want them to be. Yeah. I try to look at the world through opportunity colored glasses and not every day do I succeed at this, but every day when I wake up, I usually have something exciting planned, like talking with new people on the podcast that really helps. And

07:57
When I have a day where I don't have anything planned, I don't feel great. Like, I'm like, where's my  opportunity today?  like I said, it's not always. It's not always. I came down with COVID back in January. Those four days of that,  I,  there was no opportunity. There was just get up,  get something, get some tea, get a trip to the bathroom and then go back to bed for four days. was  miserable.

08:26
That's awful. I'm so sorry. Yeah, there was no opportunity in those days. There was just, is my bed? I'm going back to bed. And it was so weird because I'm not, I don't, I don't sleep easily during the day.  I swear to you, I slept probably 20 hours a day for four days straight. Oh, wow. Well, it was an opportunity for you to have rest.  But, but I really feel like you gotta grab life by the horns. And that sounds very cliche. Sorry. But

08:56
We're only here for a little while. We should probably make the best of it. Absolutely. It's a good perspective. Yeah. I try. I try really hard all the time. And like I said, I don't always succeed, but I try every day.  Um, okay. So you have a lot of chickens. So  I'm assuming you're selling eggs. Yeah, we definitely, we do sell eggs.  Um,  we, that I relay our hands where

09:24
the gateway to this whole  business here.  We started in 2022 with  the layer hints here and then  working with  another friend  raising our first flock of meat birds  over at his house, our friend Steve Becker,  and  came together with him and his wife and  got our first

09:53
you know, experience processing chickens. And then we, you know, kind of graduated from there to raise in our own flock of meat birds here. Um, we did 25 and then we kind of jumped very quickly from 25. Did we go to 50 or was it? think, yeah, we went from 25 to 50 and then like from 50 to. We've been doubling it every time we do it. Yeah. So now we do about what? 200 at a time. Yeah. 200 in a batch. Yeah.

10:23
Yeah, we also have turkeys and quails.  We also have, we do raise pigs  and we  just recently added ducks to the homestead here. Yeah. And then we have four children, so that counts too.  Well, happy Mother's Day early. Well, thank you.  Yes.  And Chicken Math got you in a big way. It did.

10:49
Well, we do call chickens the gateway to homesteading.  The gateway drug right there is definitely chickens.  Well, I feel like it's the easiest thing to start with because I'm not going to say they're easy, but they're probably the easiest out of everything else.

11:10
I do believe so and  know chicken especially depending on the breed that you raise can be can serve more than one purpose if  you are looking to be a sustainable  you know backyard homesteader you know you could either have them for eggs and then when the time comes then you have a meat source as well. Nothing essentially is very easy like the mundane task of feeding the chickens  on a normal day is  well that's a breeze but today with sideways rain and

11:38
You know, inches of rain coming up and underneath and the birds are wet and they're looking at you.  You need to solve the problem and you can.  Then it becomes hard. Oh, yeah. That's kind of the thing with homesteading. There's a lot of things that I think people  mistake as something that's too hard for them to do. That if they just saw what it actually was  and kind of took  the mystery out of it, I think a lot of people would be more interested in doing some of these things. You don't have to have 600 birds in your back.

12:07
Yeah,  but you could you could  But you could yeah  um so I have I have a question that's a little bit off center from from the animals that you're you're taking care of  um The homestead that you guys are on Did you have to like clear land to to get ready to have the chickens because Maine is very woody. It's very wooded  Um, we have done quite a bit of clearing but we when we first started no

12:35
We just started doing it on our lawn, essentially.  Yeah,  the lawn that we spent quite a few years  prepping, hydro-seeding. Yeah.  Yeah. No, the back we did clearing  with both Nick bringing in equipment to clear it, but then we've also utilized the pigs.  And we should be clear. So when we say we have 600 birds here, they're in varying stages of their life. We brood the birds here.

13:04
at the homestead.  We do have several layers that are normally confined to a run  and a chicken coop, but the predominant driver of what we do, the meat birds, the white rangers, we raise them at Belgium Meadow Farms once they're past the brooding stage. So  the prerequisite for a lot of grass isn't necessary, nor do we have it. So we had to figure out a way to solve that problem  and enter Steve and Alicia Collins into our life. And that's how we were able to solve that.

13:34
Yeah, they definitely, it was a, an absolute answered prayer because to us,  a pasture raised bird,  know, pasture means a lot of different things to people. But for us, we kind of had this vision in mind of what pasture was. And we didn't know that that would, if that would ever be really achievable here, I mean, maybe to a small scale degree, because this home set is actually what two acres  and, um,

14:02
you know, to do the volume of chickens that we do and to be able to do that responsibly on pasture,  we wouldn't be able to do that here. So,  you know, that answered prayer happened. Belgium Meadows Farm is  not maybe a quarter of a mile around the corner from where we live here. I mean, you could walk there  and there is an absolute beautiful pasture there that Steve and Alicia Collins allow for us to raise these birds out on.

14:32
so that they have the space, they have the lush grass and the area for us to be able to move them frequently so that it's not only good for them, but it's also good for  the pasture, the soil, because we want to be responsible of that too.  OK. Are you saying Belgin, B-E-L-G-I-A-N or Beljum? Belgin.  I-A-N. OK, cool.

14:58
I will look though, I will try to find them and I will put them in the show notes because we should shout them out too. Yeah, absolutely. Please do. mean, they are a big part of why we've been so successful and continue to be. they really, the only thing that Steve enjoys, I think more than, well, I think he's told me on many occasions and he just enjoys seeing the animals on the farm doing what they were meant to do. Absolutely. And that's what really drives him. They clearly don't worry about chicken.

15:26
We take care of that for them, in turn they get,  well, they get their fields revitalized by the chickens themselves. And they, he is driven by seeing an active farm actually work together.  Very nice. love that. I,  we're,  we're kind of working together with another homestead here because our friends have ducks and  my, my friend Tracy texted me she was like, could we sell our duck eggs at your farm stand this summer?

15:56
Oh, that's wonderful. And I was like, of course you can. Why wouldn't you? Yeah. So, so a quick little silly story.  They, we got the farm stand set up last Saturday and got it open on Sunday and I was like, you can bring your duck eggs over anytime you'd like. And she said, how about tomorrow afternoon after we pick up our new baby goat and that way you can see him.  Cause anyone who's listened to the podcast knows that I am a

16:21
Fanatic about baby goats. I think they're amazing. I don't have any goats. It's always nice to see them So they show up here and they have a dog kennel in the back of their pickup with a eight week old  male Long-eared I assume new being I don't know  Goat and he's black but he's got like black and white speckled ears and he's a baby and I'm just like,  my god I'm so in love  and

16:49
And I just thanked her up and down for stopping by after they picked him up. before, because I really, really wanted to see this go. Yeah. Uh huh. So it made my whole weekend and Tracy, I know you listen to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.  So,  um,  and the other thing that I will tell you is we cannot keep the farm stand stocked with eggs. We, we started out with like nine dozen out there last weekend.

17:18
We have 12 chickens, so we get a dozen a day.  We blew through those nine dozen in the first two days  and  we had two dozen out there this morning and they were gone by 10 o'clock. That's awesome. I love hearing that. mean, it's just,  you know, it's good, but it's also not good when we have these incidences in our supply chain, like what's going on with the eggs in the store and it, you know, it drives more people back.

17:47
to their local farmers. That should be the first place people go, but it's nice seeing folks coming back to getting the farm fresh eggs. That makes my heart so happy to hear. That's super cool. I think one of the other things about our culture is we're getting more more used to it, depending on the government, to solve all of our problems. You know what? We can solve our own problems too. We can put up a stand and we can sell eggs and we can raise chickens and we can raise pork.

18:17
Bob over on the other side of town, he's got some really great wheat that he's growing. Just like you guys are working, collabing together to sell products at a farm stand, that's homesteading. think a lot of people, and I think this might be a New England thing too, because New England I think is, I'm going to be careful here, I'm not a native New Englander. Just be careful. My take on it is they're very independent minded.

18:45
you know, that staunch New England independent minded thought process.  But and that's good because it makes them really stubborn and really tough to get through their tough winters and hard times. But it doesn't have to be that way all the time.  We could be collaborating together and that doesn't sacrifice your individuality. It just makes it better for everybody else. So.

19:11
To get out of the isolation bubbles that we find ourselves in constantly turning to the experts to solve our problems, I think we can very easily just turn back the clock a little bit. And it doesn't mean we're going back to the Stone Age.  I don't think, we don't believe that life was intended to be  the commercialized concept that we have for it, especially in the food industry. And that's kind of what Narrowgate is one of the biggest things it's all about is trying to figure out what that...

19:40
blend of homesteading is in the modern lifestyle that is sustainable and maintainable without going absolutely insane, which  is,  I don't succeed at that very well. Rachel will tell you I'm  grumpy and like, know, some days I'm wondering what I'm doing.  But then on other days we're sitting out in the field with the chickens running about.

20:03
and just watching a chicken be a chicken in the setting sun and watching our kids play with the horses off in the distance.  I'm like, this is it. This is what we got.  I do want to make sure that I do bring up, because we had mentioned how we raise all of these chickens down  at the pasture, because  that was something that we were hoping for with the amount of birds that we're doing. But  I want to make sure that we stress that for the smaller homestead are looking to do this.

20:32
They don't need acres upon acres of land to be able to grow food for them or their family or maybe some neighbors  alongside of them. We actually do a lot here, not even on the full two acres. So I just want to make sure for anybody that's listening, you don't have to always search out  acres of land to be able to grow food.  Well, that's the thing is getting used to the idea.

21:01
Breaking, what if the model's wrong? What if high overhead, being a land baron, being  millions of dollars or tens of thousand dollars in debt because you have farm equipment that you gotta make, what if that concept is wrong? What if you go with a low overhead,  do it yourself type mentality and you collaborate with other folks in your nearby area to get what you want? Why do we all, we don't need to be, I'm not gonna be a millionaire. I mean, you don't change this lifestyle to become a millionaire.

21:31
But we certainly have plenty of food,  or kids are plenty happy. Yeah,  I would say anybody can do this. You don't need two acres, you don't need an acre. You can find somebody that has a field, and I guarantee it's probably not being used, and you can sell them on ideas like, look, here's a batch of 10 chickens. We'd just like to raise chickens over here, and you're gonna benefit because now your land's gonna get used, it's gonna get revitalized, it's gonna get fertilized, and by the way, you're gonna get chicken out of

22:01
deal. Who doesn't want that?  Yep,  absolutely. You have made like three of the points I try to make on every episode for me. I appreciate that.  I have been trying to say on every episode and I haven't gotten in on every one for the last three months, but I've been trying really hard that if you live in America today, you really  should consider growing some kind of your own food on  your property. And whether that's

22:30
whether that's a bucket on a balcony at your apartment or whether that's a raised bed in your yard, because it's a good thing to do. It feeds you. And if things go to crap in the world, maybe you get to eat a little bit longer than you would normally.  And if you can't grow anything or you think you can't grow anything,  get to know your local gardeners, growers, animal  husbandry people.

22:58
And as my son pointed out the other day, you're a local trades people because trades people are important too. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Now we 100 % agree with that concept. Even if you're just growing a couple plants on your balcony,  at a minimum, what it's going to teach you is to appreciate life and the life that you're growing.  That pays dividends not only in food, but just in an awareness of what you're doing and then what the farmer is doing across.

23:25
across town on the other side of town that you're buying food from.  Absolutely.  all a big circle. And again, this sounds cliche, but it's a big circle. If you are a grower and you're selling what you grow, then the person buying it gets dividends, but so do you. It's a symbiotic relationship.  Oh yeah.  I have a cliche saying that I like to say where I said, we're also growing food.

23:54
but I also like to say we're growing community. Cause with each interaction, you know, it just continues to build. yeah, so growing food, growing community is one of my cheesy lines that Nick just absolutely loves. I put on stuff. I'm going to start, I'm going to steal that. And the one that I say all the time is freaking buy local, damn it. Well, like you kind of touched on it, you know, for the folks that, you know, again, like,

24:22
you realize, okay, I tried it, it's not for me. All right, well, again, that's why it's even more important that you do support your local, your farmers, because when everything else goes to crap, like you said, you can count on the local farmers that have been there all along, so. Yeah, and you're not, you're reducing your carbon footprint, because you're not buying stuff that's been shipped in from out of the country. Oh, yes, I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find

24:52
Like especially the lamb in the grocery store that's not from, you know, overseas. Yeah. It's, I love you guys. Cause you're, you're literally barking up my favorite tree here. I, I just, I get so frustrated because I was talking to somebody for an episode of the podcast a year ago and I think he was a former Marine, think. And his, his take was that we've gotten awfully soft.

25:23
You know, we have the  possibility of having  literally everything delivered to our door if we live in the suburbs or a city,  which means that we never get out, we never do anything, we never see anybody.  And  we don't have to do anything. And that doesn't mean that people aren't working hard. There are people who go to jobs  and work hard in whatever they're doing, 60 hours a week.

25:53
But the life skill working is  not what it used to be. Yeah, and I think it and our values, I think it comes down to what you value.  It is the biggest thing. The values have changed of what Americans value these days. you  know, I'm not trying, I don't want that to sound negative, but,  you know, as far as valuing what we eat and how we nourish our bodies.

26:21
That hasn't been at the forefront for a lot of people for a while now, just because of the convenience. We'd rather get either the food delivered to us or the ease of going to the grocery store or the easy boxed food.  And I think that's a part of that softness  to talk about too.  We like the convenience of everything  and convenience as great as it is, you're sacrificing something on the other end.

26:51
Yeah, and boxed food just doesn't taste as good as stuff you make from scratch  or  stuff you get from your own garden  or animals that you raise and butcher for meat. Right, and you know, it's, your health is a lifelong investment. So you know, what you invest in while it might be harder and it may be a little bit more inconvenient,  depending on how you look at it, whether you have to grow it and prep it.

27:19
that is a lifelong investment. you know, it may be more convenient to have, you know, the food delivered to you or to eat the boxed food,  but that does affect you lifelong.  so, yeah.  At some point, you know, the people, our culture needs to,  people need to start taking responsibility for themselves and what they consume.  We've known for a long time that there are dyes in our food.

27:44
We've known for a long time that the way chicken quite often produced is  just not completely up to the par. It's horrible. Yeah, when you see it for what it is, when you see the reports and we're all aghast that it's going on, okay, then that's the point at which you have to do something.  Now, I don't mean that every person has to get a chicken coop and start raising chickens, but maybe the step is going and find the individual that does have a chicken coop. Maybe the step is,

28:13
you know, maybe thinking about relocating somewhere else where  that food might be more  available. Maybe the step is, and we've seen this in some of the  cities where people are getting together and they're doing gardens on rooftops.  But those types of thought processes, there is a price for that.  And people have to, I think, figure out what it is  that they really want. Do they want  a life?

28:41
in the end where the food that they have been eating for so many years has made them sick  or do they want to change that  and instead of waiting for some entity to do it for them I think folks need to realize you have that power you can change that for yourself it's not easy and I'm not saying that it is  but at the end of the day  we have to start taking responsibility for what's going into our own bodies I can't believe that we're all like agreeing with the Marine

29:10
Oh. And you have to be careful with saying former Marines. They take that stuff seriously. Yeah, they're always a Marine. Still a Marine. He's still a Marine. I know my stepson. Well, my son, my stepson, he is, he told me after he got out that he would always be a Marine. Yes, there And I said, how does that work? And he said, I'm not, he said, I'm not active duty, but I will always be a Marine. And I went, okay. So I stumble over all the time because I don't,

29:40
It's like every time I say he is a Marine, I feel weird because he's not still in the Marines, if that makes sense.  Oh, yeah.  And us Navy folks like to give the Marines a hard time. So, uh huh.  We love them.  I understand. And my dad was in the Air Force. So it's all, it's all an umbrella and you guys all wear different raincoats, I guess. I don't know.  Anyway.

30:06
Do you guys have another 15 minutes? Cause we're almost at half an hour, but I have a couple more questions.  course. Yes, absolutely. Okay. I just didn't want to take up too much of your time.  How did you guys end up in Maine? Because you said that neither one of you are originally from Maine. Oh, the Navy.  We were both stationed at the shipyard in Kittery, Maine, their last duty station. And then  I got out in 2010 and Nick got out in 2011.

30:35
And he was absolutely totally opposed to moving down south. And we definitely weren't going to move to the west coast. So we just stayed.  And was part of that that you loved Maine? Like had you already fallen in love with the state? So for me, I'm being from Washington state. I'm used to the wide open spaces and big trees and Maine has a lot of the same similarities minus the mountains.  I miss the fast water of the Pacific Northwest and the snow crested high peaks, but

31:04
There are a lot of similarities in the seasons and it just seemed like a good fit for me as far as, mean, there's still some humidity, which Rachel really loves. I mean, I'm from West Virginia, so born and raised. So Maine is a lot like Washington state and West Virginia combined. be quite honest with you, I like the people.  Me too. I have some people I really love back there. My parents, my sister,  my brother actually lives in Massachusetts of all places.

31:34
I'm so sorry.  Yeah. I just get it.  Yeah, no, um, he works at a college there. So,  okay. But, he does have a lake house in Maine that he visits in the summer because that's important.  Nice.  So,  no, I just thought it was interesting because I saw that you guys were in Lebanon, Maine when I found you on Instagram and I was like, Oh, that's cool.

31:59
And then you told me before we started recording that neither one of you are from Maine. And I was like, hmm, that's interesting. Yeah. I mean, it really is a lot like both states. I mean, it's a good combination. Yeah. We... Go ahead. He's joking. I didn't catch what he said. I don't think it's like West Virginia at all, but I'm being... She tells me I'm wrong.

32:26
It has a lot. The mountainous areas are like West Virginia, minus the poisonous snakes and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's as far as I know, there's no poisonous snakes in Maine. If there are there, they've moved in since I left. Yeah. I think we're still good. I think it's still good. Yeah. Minnesota has timber, timber rattlers, but I think they're up north. I could have that wrong. They might be further south than I am too.

32:54
Minnesota has timber rattlers. I don't know exactly where they are and they're not here. So that's all good.  Um, okay. I had another question and now I can't remember what it was because you know, talking about me and I get lost.  Uh, I don't know what it was. I forget. It doesn't matter.  I started a new thing on the podcast a week or so ago and I've asked this like three times. I should have done it six times by now,  but I want to end every episode with a question for you guys.

33:22
What is the one word that you would use to describe your homestead?  Oh my. Yep.  would you say? Nick is better at articulating things than I am.

33:39
I think the word would be love which is difficult for a man to probably say but I think that's it agreed Oh, I yeah, totally agree. Hopefully I won't tear up on that one. Yeah Uncharted territory here. I mean if you don't love this and all of its, you know glory and gory Then you shouldn't be doing it really so yeah, I think you know

34:07
Rach and I obviously we have our story of how we came together and how we ended up with  four beautiful girls  and the trials  that  we both went through to get to that point.  And the  love that has kept us together through all of that. And then out of love,  you want to do better for your family.  So you start to consider things like this.  And one of the things that I think people need to understand about us is,

34:35
We're Christians, we believe in Jesus Christ, and  God apparently loved us so much that he sent his son down here to die for us. And based off of that idea, we started to think, if he loves us so much to send his son down here, it stands to reason that his creation is equipped well enough to handle the  needs of humankind  to grow food, to provide for themselves.  And if that's true, then  where do we fit in?

35:05
on all that, is there a place for us to fit into that?  And, you know, it started as a lark with  just chickens, but  it soon became a passion that neither Rachel or I could  push down or try to  suffocate even if we wanted to. you know,  people need to understand not every day homesteading is a great day.  There are a lot of bad days that are just really tough and you start to question

35:36
the sacrifices that you made, the time that you've given up, the money that you've put in. But like we mentioned earlier, then you get to see your kids that are happy and they're eating good food that you know exactly where it came from. And then you have folks go out of their way to tell you, oh my goodness, I haven't tasted chicken like this in so long. you're like, oh, that's what I'm doing. And you're a part of that.  You're sitting at their dinner table,  Thanksgiving dinner.

36:01
We raised a lot of turkeys for folks and  I'm  very fond of saying it's like, thanks for inviting me to your Thanksgiving dinner table because I'm there and I appreciate that. And I appreciate that you spent the money on the bird and you recognize the value in the animal and the time that we put into it to make sure that your memorable holiday is even better because you got something that's not injected with hormones or whatever. they were loved on  all of our children love every animal know how much.

36:31
they're here.  yeah. So yeah, think love,  we think love characterizes it the most because if you don't love what you're doing,  your passion's not gonna come out for it. I think any artist or anybody, any tradesman, anybody that's skilled at anything, you gotta love it.  And if you don't, then you're probably, you might consider doing something else and finding something  that you do love.

36:57
But,  know, and beyond that, you know, I have a full-time job outside of this. So  Rachel has two full, well, four full-time jobs in the form of children.  like  our primary vocations isn't necessarily homesteading. But we do farm on a full-time schedule. And yeah, Nick's a tugboat captain the other days of the week.  But, you we just love it so much that  we can't put it down.

37:25
And we want to convey that love out into the community that we love what we do  and the food that we grow and we want to get better at it. We want to do more of it. And we would like to bring folks along for the ride. I think it seems like a weird business model, but I would rather that more people do exactly what we do. I don't think that there is ever a way that we would ever be able to satisfy the need for just talking chicken in just our local community.

37:53
And if more people did what we did, then yes, you're right,  we would probably make less money on  the bottom end. But you know what else would get better? A lot of other people's health, right? A lot of people would be able to eat this way. And then the price of chicken overall would come down for everybody.  And there's other things to grow. I don't have to just grow chicken. That's the thing that  you don't have to be stuck in any one component. You can branch out and do other things. Rachel just started hatching eggs for

38:22
for raising layers. We never considered doing that before this winter. So, and that's born out of love of what we do.  yeah,  I think unless Rachel disagrees, I think that's the word. already said that was great.  And now she's crying. She's a cry. I am.  I definitely, yeah. am too. And  I'm not gonna cry. I'm a little choked up, but I'm not gonna cry.  I love that you chose the word love because I feel like you guys.

38:51
are hitting every note of that.

39:14
perfect people, still are just like everybody else. put our pants on one leg at a time every day. So I say love coming out of my mouth right now and in 15 minutes I might be storming off to the corner because something else is going on. So there's another problem that just popped up that we didn't anticipate.  So Rachel's got to reel me back in before I start spiraling out of control, but that's because she loves me. That is true. Uh huh, exactly.

39:40
Yep, and the thing is,  I have a dog that I love more than life itself. If she was going to get hit by a train, I would probably jump in front of the train to push her out of the way.  she was being ridiculously loud when I was trying to record an episode at 10 o'clock this morning. And I had some choice words go through my head because of course it was when I was trying to record that she was barking her head off.

40:03
And the minute I was done with the recording and went downstairs to grab some coffee and saw her I was like, oh, I just love her so much  So, you know,  it just depends on what's going on  What the difficulty is what the happy  is,  you know associated with the thing you're doing and You guys seem to have found a great balance and I think that's what it's all about  Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So anyway

40:31
We're now at 39 minutes. I said we had about, I had about 15 minutes to go and we've managed to almost get there. So  I appreciate your time. I appreciate your enthusiasm for what you're doing.  And I hope that you just keep to  get to keep doing it. Oh, well, thank you so much for this opportunity. You know, we always like to be able to connect with folks and share our story. So  we really appreciate it.  Yes. Thank you. This is a, this is a nice, um,

40:58
service that you're providing to inform people. So it's nice to have these types of conversations and kind of restores our hope that there are other folks that think likewise. You know, it's nice because the more we get into this, the more conversations we have with people, the more people that are coming out of the kind of the woodwork, so to speak, and say, Hey, I'd like to live like that, or I'd like to eat like that, or I'd like to talk about that more. So it's very nice. So thank you to you.  well, you're welcome. And I have over 250 episodes of people.

41:26
telling me their stories about why they started doing whatever they're doing  and how they're doing it.  it's amazing to me how many people have just like jumped into this both feet. And some of them are like, this is a lot. I don't know if I did the right thing. And some of them are like you guys and they love it and they're just building every day on it.  Oh yeah. That's about right.  We definitely.

41:56
jumped into the deep end first.  But it's been good. So,  yeah.  All right. You guys, I hope that the rain finally lets up for you and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.  All right. Thank you. Have a good night. You too. Thanks.