Niemczyk Family Farms LLC

Today I'm talking with Karina at Niemczyk Family Farms LLC. You can also follow on Facebook.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Karina at Niemczyk Family Farms LLC. Good morning, Karina. How are you? Hi. Good morning. Doing well. Thank you. Good. I need to close an app real quick. Hang on. Okay.

00:27
Tell me about yourself and what you guys do. Yeah, so we started our business, or technically became a business in 2023. We've been living on our farm since 2020. So it's kind of been incorporating homesteading and small farm practices in our daily life. But when we decided that we wanted to kind of pursue this more as a business

00:58
potentially grow in 2023. So that was kind of the first kind of stepping stones. And, you know, the 2023 was kind of our basic growth year. And then this year has been a year that has been a little bit more, I want to say exponential, because that's a little bit aggressive, but definitely a bigger year for growth. So it's been good.

01:27
Okay, when you say we, is it you and a husband and kids? Yes, my husband and I are married. We got married in 2019 and so we partnered together and this is kind of our 50-50% business. We have two small kids, one is three and then one is one and a half. Our oldest is a boy and then our youngest is a girl. They don't really help out too much on the farm, but they are just, I don't know.

01:56
there and around and learning as we go. So soaking up all the good farm stuff. Yes. Exactly. So, okay. So you're, go ahead. Nope, go ahead. So you're a really busy lady if you have two under three years old and you're doing produce and you're doing cottage food production and you're doing meat too, right? Yep. Yep. And we, uh, we both still have full-time jobs. We haven't, um,

02:26
transitioned into being self-sufficient enough yet where one of us can potentially, you know, move into us having it as a full-time job. So that's kind of where we're, you know, wanting to grow and potentially within the next five years have one of us be able to stay home and pursue this full-time, which would be really great. But yep, so we both have full-time jobs, have the farm as our...

02:54
know, essentially side business right now and then our two, two young kids. And, um, uh, basically, you know, the, our passion or our desire to start the farm started with actually like the meat side of it and raising our own animals, um, raising our own food, um, and doing it in a way that was sustainable and regenerative in a sense of.

03:22
utilizing the land that we have, utilizing the resources and utilizing the environment and it being a regenerative type farm and using that instead of a conventional type basis. So that's kind of where everything stemmed from was producing our own food, but then also growing into doing it for others as well who wanted to purchase and also have similar beliefs as us as where their food comes from.

03:52
Yeah, absolutely. That's fantastic. So you must be working some time management magic over there in Arlington because I don't know how you're doing it. Yep, it's a long, long days, long, sometimes long nights. We also do hay. We run about 25 to 30 acres of hay. We do that in the summertime as well. So we, that's part of the...

04:21
regenerative aspect of our farm as well. Instead of necessarily feeding animals, crops such as corn and soy and things like that, which is definitely some things we utilize into the feed of our animals, but we also use hay for feeding the animals as well, but also using it to sell to other farmers who also utilize it for their cattle or you know a lot of times people use you

04:51
Yeah, so that's another piece of our farm as well. So yeah, time management is kind of just doing it as we go and trying to figure it out day by day. Sometimes it's not always like a week schedule or a month schedule. It's just kind of like flying by the seat of our pants sometimes. Well, I'm glad it works for you. I was hoping you had some advice because I know my listeners are dying for ways to schedule their lives easier or better.

05:20
I guess one thing we do utilize if nobody else, you know, I'm sure it's a very similar thing others do, but my husband and I, we have a shared Google calendar. So if you, each of you have like a spouse or a partner, use your Google calendar. And that's where we put in like, it's always, it always changes, but like we'll block out a week or we'll have a week of like, this is what we're projecting. We're doing, Hey,

05:45
or like this is where the week we're projecting like our chicken butchering, or this is when our layers are getting delivered, and this is when we're hatching these chicks, or certain things like that. So we kind of have a general outline of, okay, this is what we're blocking off for this week. And if it doesn't work out, we can change it, but then we kind of know what's coming up. So, and then we can schedule it. Okay, this kid has this appointment. This day at work, we have to stay late. So you always kind of have a running schedule of.

06:16
what's going on and then incorporating your farm in there as well. So you kind of have an idea of, you know, when you get home from work, this is what we need to be doing. Or on the weekends, this is what we need to be focusing on. So I know it's very simple. It's kind of basic, but it's, um, you know, if you're at work, if you still have a regular full-time job at a computer on your phone, very easy. Look at the app on your phone, look at your computer, remind yourself, okay, this is what we have going on. So that's one thing we do.

06:45
utilized pretty frequently. Yeah, I didn't think you were a time wizard or anything, but I just know you are extremely on the go from what you're telling me. And the other thing is you can plan all you want, but then the universe throws you a curveball. We had a bunch of big logs delivered, I don't know, three, four weeks ago for cutting up and splitting for our wood burning boiler that we need the house with.

07:15
and my husband and my son went out to work on it. And my husband stood funny and threw his back out. He was literally at the doctor's office like three days later. And he was not laid up, but he certainly wasn't in any condition to continue doing any kind of heavy lifting or heavy chores for a couple of weeks. So.

07:40
The logs are still sitting right now and we have about two months before we have to get them done. So he's much better now, but it would have been nice if that hadn't happened because it threw a wrench in the works and that's part of farming and homesteading. You never know what's going to happen. Yes, absolutely. Oh yeah. And injuries, you can't really do much about injuries. Same with weather. That's one thing that's really gotten us behind this year is weather.

08:08
cooperating for when we wanted to do things. So that's just one thing of mother nature just saying like, hey, this was your plan, but I have a bigger plan and you guys are not not in our radar at all. So it's. Yeah. And I, and I didn't say what state you're in. You're in Minnesota. You are, you are like 20 minutes from where I live. So, yep, yep. So how did your guys garden?

08:35
fair this year because ours did not fare well at all. Very terrible, very terrible. Yeah, we had a bunch of sweet corn, all of it basically drowned out. We do a bunch of potatoes, those also got rotted, all the roots rotted out. The only thing that's been doing okay is our cucumbers. I think our carrots are gonna make it, and tomatoes are doing okay because we have them in beds. But yeah, anything that we had kind of in our, in our,

09:04
big garden, Jan didn't do well. So I'm assuming that's similar to you as well. Oh, yeah, it's, it's been, wow, that's not very Minnesota. I'm actually not from Minnesota. So anytime I say something that sounds Minnesota, it startles me. And I've been here for over 30 years, but I just typically don't sound like I'm from here. We grow a farm to market garden, anyone who's been listening to the podcast for almost the last year knows that. And

09:33
Last summer we had a farm stand on our property and it was open in mid June and we had our banner out and people would just come into the farm stand and buy what they wanted and it was awesome. This year we didn't even bother to put the banner out because we don't have enough to sell in the farm stand. We did bring in a whole bunch of tomatoes last night that look really good. Like maybe three quarters of a milk crate full.

10:02
Oh, wow. Nice. And I didn't even expect to get those. So I'm very excited about this because a lot of them are not quite ripe, which means we can sell them at the farmer's market Saturday. Finally. Yay. So it's been it's been rough and disappointing. And the thing that I'm holding on to with every fiber of my being is that the last three summers that we've had the garden going since we moved in in 2020, the garden has performed.

10:30
majestically. It has been gorgeous and lush and full and vibrant and productive. And so I'm really hoping that this year is just a fluke and we can go back to the regularly scheduled programming next year. Yep, I agree. It's definitely disheartening when all your work that you put in is a failure. Yeah, and especially when you did everything you possibly could and it still fell apart.

10:59
Yep, absolutely. It's just kind of the nature of farming and you know, it's farming is the biggest gamble in the world that you can take. So that's definitely, sometimes it can be really rewarding, like you said, and other times it can be very, very disappointing. And but you know, like you said, we kind of hope that certain years that make up for the bad years and we just keep going. Yeah, because you can't quit.

11:28
We're addicted.

11:58
And then people are like, Oh yeah. I'm like, Oh yeah. Everybody's struggling this year. Okay. I know it's kind of shocking to like how many people are, you know, your customers come and they're like, you know, asking, you know, what's going on? Why is there no produce here at the markets, this and that. But then you say it's all been drawn out. Everybody's struggling because of the, all the rain. And then, like you said, they're kind of like, Oh, like it hits them. Like.

12:26
it's been super wet. It's almost like people aren't necessarily as aware of where their food is coming from, especially at markets, and how that this is local, their local environments affect their local farmers markets. So being out there at farmers markets and inspiring the community of how, where their food comes from affects the entire community. Yeah.

12:50
Absolutely. My dog is losing her mind because my son is taking off for the day to go hang out with friends. And she's very upset that she's not going with him right now. That's Maggie. That's the dog I talk about all the time on the podcast. She'll settle down in a minute once they take off. My son has been so excited about this day trip thing for months now. And he said something about, yeah, I'll be leaving at 10 o'clock this morning. And I said, what?

13:19
He said, are you dumb? I've only been talking about this for two months. I said, oh, it's the 20th. That's right. Okay. Yes. I said, when are you leaving? He said 10. And I'm like, great. Maggie's going to lose her mind. So she is losing her mind right this second. That's all right. It happens. You got to go with it. Oh, yeah. I never, I never edit out the dog because there's no point. I live on a homestead.

13:49
We have a dog, we have cats, we have chickens. There's always going to be noise. So it's fine. Um, so I saw you guys sell lamb. I have a very specific question about that. Yes. Would you, I don't even know if this is legal in Minnesota, would you sell a lamb to somebody so they could butcher it themselves or do you have to have it butchered before you sell it? Um, so typically.

14:17
At least how we do it, I know there's a lot of red tape with the USDA, so we follow the USDA guidelines. So specifically for us to sell direct to consumer, we have to have the animal butchered already and packaged with certain food label for us to be able to sell direct to consumer. As far as selling of live animals, I don't think there's necessarily any

14:46
you know, there's there isn't anything different. You know, what does it matter if I go buy my lamb from a farmer that I'm just going to finish raising out and butcher? So I guess it doesn't necessarily matter if someone wanted to buy my live animal and then butcher themselves. But that's not necessarily, you know, there's plenty of other farmers out there that do that and like raise the animal to about, you know, you know, for lamb would be like three months, that's kind of when

15:16
finish out on grass. That's what we do. But, you know, there's plenty of other farmers that do that. And that someone could potentially, you know, buy that land at an older age and then butcher it themselves. So I think there could be options out there for people to do that and just buy a land at an older age and then just butcher it themselves. However, that's not necessarily what we do. But I guess I'm not 100% sure.

15:46
of anybody that does that. We have done it once. It was years ago. I have no idea what the legalities are involved with that. It was like a friend of a friend was going to sell some lambs off and it was already dead and skinned. No head, no hooves, no tail.

16:15
and we butchered it on our kitchen table. And that worked out great because we didn't have to pay the extra money for the processing. Yep, for sure. And anyone who's ever bought a whole or a half steer beef, what do you want to call it, or a lamb or whatever, it's not only the cost of the animal that you're buying that you're going to use for food, it's the cost of the processing of the animal too. And a lot of people don't know that.

16:43
Yep, absolutely. And the processing is expensive because butchering is a talent. It is a skill. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, we definitely were not confident in butchering lambs ourselves. Um, you know, there's, you know, if we were to just eat the lamb for ourselves or like a family friend or whatever, absolutely. There's no, I wouldn't even question if someone wanted to butcher it themselves. You know, um, that's your own food, your own.

17:13
you know, whatever you're going to do with that animal. Totally. But for us, we knew that we wanted to sell it to other consumers. And we were like, we are not confident in our own betraying skills of a lamb. You know, that's just, like you said, an art, it's if you want to get nice cuts of meat, especially with those lamb chops, you want to get them looking nice, good, thick with a bone, you know, it's just you're like, yep, nope, there's no way. Yeah, and

17:42
I am not going to get too far into my opinion on lamb here because I've already talked about a billion times on the podcast episodes, but we love lamb here. And if we were going to get lamb, we would try to figure out a way to do it so that we get the animal, dispatch it on our property and butcher it ourselves because it would just be more affordable for us. Yes, for sure. And especially if you're eating it for yourself, who cares what it looks like? Yeah. And lamb is so delicious. I hate it.

18:12
I hate, hate, hate that it comes from such a cute little critter. Yeah. But it's so good. Yes, it is a very, uh, it definitely has a taste different from pork or beef, but it's, it's very mild and it does have a very savory, rich flavor, but it does, you know, especially the way, you know, it depends on how it's raised, but I feel like the way that, you know, if they have a lot of good grass and pasture in their diets mixed with, you know, the grain, it doesn't get that gamey flavor, which is. Oh, you know.

18:40
one of the better things, one of the things you worry about with lamb is if it tastes a little bit on the gamey side. Yeah, I've never had lamb that tasted gamey. Well, there you go. We've had, we've had lamb, oh my goodness, I mean, obviously the one that we butchered ourselves, we had that for the year until it was gone. And honestly, I don't think we made it to six months, but, yeah, you know, lambs are not very big when you butcher them. Yeah, but, but we've had lamb from other places that we just bought.

19:09
you know, a roast or a leg or whatever. And I've never had gaming, gamey tasting lamb in my life. So there you go. Very good. So it's, it's a great option. If you're sick of beef and chicken and pork, God knows I am sick of beef and chicken and pork. We bought a half a year or so ago and we are, we are through all the ground beef.

19:38
We have eaten all the ground beef from that half. Yep, that's a lot. Yeah, my husband picked up beef from, I think it was Sam's club over the weekend and we didn't have a plan for Sunday for dinner. And he was like, we've got burger, do you want to do hamburgers? And I'm like, no, I really don't want to do burgers, but yes, we can do burgers. I'm so over it. Like if I could eat nothing but vegetables and pasta for the next month, I would do it. Yep, just skip the protein, who needs it?

20:07
Yeah, and you can, you can get overdosed on stuff. Yes. So, that's where I'm at and he will never be overdosed on meat. He wants meat and some kind of starch for dinner every day. Yep. And I'm like, dude, really? There are other options. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, we can have variability, can't we? Yeah, please. So.

20:33
So I'm going to beg him next week, can we please do something other than a potato and a protein at least twice? And he'll probably be fine with it. But it's really hard when you're partnered up and you're very different, but your core values are the same. Yes, absolutely. Because don't get me wrong, I adore my husband. I love everything about his soul. But I don't necessarily love his obsession with...

21:01
the things that he loves to eat because I'm the cook, which means I have to make dinner, which means I have to eat what I make, which means he's going to get what he wants and I'm going to eat it. So yes, absolutely. That's not working around here. Yup. I hear a little one, I think. Yup. I have my little guy who just came in from outside with down. So hello little guy. Who's talking?

21:31
I'm talking, I'm just working on the phone. Come here.

21:38
meet myself for a minute here. Yep.

21:42
Okay, good. So cute. What a cute little voice. Who's talking mom? Who's talking? Who are you talking to? Hi. I love. Yes, we'll be starting preschool in the fall here a couple days, so that'll be good. Don't cry mom. I know. It'll be good. He's ready. Yeah. Okay, so back to the farm stuff. Yes.

22:12
Do you guys grow? What kind of hay do you grow? So for our on our property we have um four acres that are hay that we have cut in the past but now we're uh might only cut it in the future maybe once a year and then we but for uh grazing um but we seeded it ourselves with three different types of pasture grasses and then this year uh we seeded it with

22:43
to think what kind of grasses are there mixed, but there's three different types of pasture grasses that are in there. And then the other land that we have is rented through our neighbors. So there's also around like a kind of like a county ditch area, the neighbors that we have also

23:13
We also have another rental property that is 20 acres, very similar, where they had seeded some pasture grass that's been established for many years that we cut to be able to sell those small squares to other farmers. But for our pasture, we know more specifically what grasses are in there just because we seeded it ourselves.

23:41
Yeah, I've become very aware that hay is not just hay and hay and straw are different. Yeah. And the whole bit because my husband keeps wanting to get wheat or oat or rye straw to use for bedding in the garden. And he's like, I don't want hay. And I'm like, why? And he's like, because we're going to get more weeds. I'm like, aren't you going to get...

24:08
straw, aren't you going to get wheat or rye or oat weeds too?" And he was like, not as much. I'm like, okay, fine. Yep. Yep. I know. It's a whole thing of, you know, straws for bedding, hay is for eating, you know, so it's a whole thing of, you know, you want to get good quality and certain animals prefer certain types of hay. Horses can be pickier. So certain types of grasses that are in hay, they, you know,

24:36
people don't necessarily want to buy because it doesn't agree with them or they get ulcers. So that's a thing. Cows can be a little bit less picky. So it kind of, you know, most of the time alfalfa and clover is a little bit more sought after because it has a higher protein content for the cows. But yeah, it's definitely a huge learning curve in trying to figure out which people and which...

25:04
you know, customers like certain types of things for other animals that they're raising. Yeah, and until we moved here, I had no idea that straw and hay were very different things and they were used for very different things. I had no idea. So, even in my mid-50s, I'm still learning all kinds of things about how things work. Oh, yes, absolutely. It's always learning. You can always learn new things and there's always new things.

25:35
changing and farming in a culture of ways that we can be more sustainable and ways that we can utilize the land for the soil and plants for for better utilization of them Yep for sure Okay, so I have like a couple more questions and I'm gonna cut you loose because I know you're busy You sell lamb. Do you sell poultry too? Yep, so we do

26:05
chicken broilers that we raise in the summertime, primarily on pasture grass. When they're young chicks, they, you know, stay in the barn on heat until they're able to tolerate the environment and the weather outside. Once that happens, they stay 100% outside. They never go back inside and they're on pasture. They get moved every day. New pasture with new grasses on the pasture that we seeded. So they have all that different variabilities of the grasses.

26:34
alfalfa, clover, those things that they eat, plus the bugs and the grubs and the dirt and they also eat the dirt. And then they are out there until we butcher them. They do get some supplemental corn feed that kind of just helps put on a little bit more muscle mass to their, I don't know if we marked that content too, which is sometimes nice for those skin on cuts that you like or a whole chicken.

27:00
And then we also do turkey. So turkeys will be ready, usually butchering in September, early October to be ready for Thanksgiving. And that's primarily the two poultry animals that we do. And then we do lamb. And then hopefully within the next upcoming weeks here, we'll get our first cow. We're getting a first year bred huckler who will come to the farm already pregnant.

27:28
either by AI or a bull that's on the farm that we're getting it from. And then we'll be getting two steers as well that we'll be able to finish growing out on the pasture for butcher. I was wondering if you were going to head toward cows and steers and you are. I'm very excited for you. Yeah. Okay. And then my other question is you're a cottage food producer. Yes. Because I saw the pictures of your treats. Oh my God. Yup. I do.

27:55
I want to come to your house and live in your kitchen for a day. Absolutely. Yeah. So you make? So primarily sourdough is what I do. Um, mostly different kinds. I just kind of experiment with a whole bunch of different types of sourdough. Um, and some, I do some can, not a bunch of canning kind of just what I get from the garden to kind of produce for the family throughout the, uh,

28:20
throughout the winter and if I have any extras for, you know, jams, jellies, things like that, I will bring to our farmers markets. Sourdough, I obviously bring us the farmers markets as well, but also that's kind of what we use to, you know, feed my family is I make the sourdough bread. And that's just, you know, one of the things that I like to do to be more sustainable in our own kitchen, you know, get out some extra preservatives in our diet as much as possible.

28:50
and lowering food costs when going to the grocery store. So, yeah. I do not know how you do it, Karina. I would be like crazy trying to do everything that you're doing with little ones underfoot and a job job, a jobby job. Yep, I mean, granted in the summertime, I worked with a school system, so I can have some recess, which is super nice.

29:15
So I only have to go into my job a few times during the summer occasionally, but I have summers off which makes it really nice so we can focus on going to farmers markets, being consistent at farmers markets, bringing our products, having consistent baking type of thing. Just kind of, so I mean, that's one thing that is nice about the summertime is having that option for our farm and everything.

29:44
especially with taking care of the animals and everything because we obviously have a lot more animals in the sire time throughout the winter. That's one most benefit. Yeah, and if you don't mind me assuming something, I'm assuming you're not like 40. I'm assuming you're probably in your mid to late 20s. Yes, I'm 28. I'll be 29 pretty soon. My husband's also 29.

30:11
So you have the energy of your 20s kicking you too. You're like, I can do it. I'll sleep when I'm dead. It's okay. Yep. Pretty much. It's kind of like, and you know, it's fine. We're just going to do all these things all at one time. And then eventually once we work the kinks out, it'll be fine. But yeah, we just, uh, uh, have the mentality. I mean, both my husband and I have very strong work ethics. We're very, uh, you know,

30:38
very, if we're sitting still, something's wrong. Like there is no sitting on the couch. There's no watching TV and, you know, chilling. If we're sitting down, it's like, okay, something needs to be done or we need to do something. So that's just kind of how we both have been for forever. And it was just kind of, you know, happen sense that we both met each other. And that's probably why we, you know, hit it off so well. And, you know, have the business that we have enough.

31:07
mentality and the momentum that we have is, you know, just having that dedication, that passion of, you know, strong work ethic and just wanting to better ourselves as well. So, yeah. Yeah, we have a good work ethic, but we do not have the energy we had when we were in our 20s. I know, it changes for sure. It does. It really does. I miss those 20s days. I really do. I miss my 30s too, actually. Yep.

31:35
I don't know, you know, 30s I hear are good years, so I'm looking forward to that too. 30s were the best years of my life. I will die on that hill. 30s and up to about 45. Yep, I've heard the same thing. I've heard the same thing. So I'm happy to hear that, that it's, you know, good years are ahead. Yeah, and I don't want to discount my 45 to 55 stretch here either. I mean, these have been good years too, but in a different way.

32:06
All different, but all good seasons and phases of your life. As long as you're breathing and you can walk, life is good. Yep, absolutely. All right, Karina, you keep on keeping on. Give those babies kisses for me. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. Yes, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. If any questions come up, please let me know.

32:35
again we're Niemczyk Family Farms LLC. We are located in Arlington Minnesota. We do have a website so you know feel free to look and you know there are ways that you can contact us through our website too. So let us know. And I will put the website address in the show notes okay. Fantastic thank you I appreciate it. Absolutely have a great rest of your day Karina thank you. Thank you. Bye.