Promised Land Farms

Today I'm talking with Brian and Sarah at Promised Land Farms.

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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 Brian and Sarah at Promised Land Farms. Hi guys, how are you? Great, how are you? I'm okay. I'm starting to turn the corner on this being sick crap, so.

00:26
I had to cancel two interviews last week because of it. So I'm really happy to be talking new friends today. You guys are in Elko, is that right? Yes. Okay, so tell me about yourselves and what you do. So yeah, we're in Elko New Market, just south of the Twin Cities, and we've got a small farm, 37 acres, and we are raising grass-fed grass-finished beef, pastured pork.

00:54
laying hens, and then we're direct marketing all of our meat and eggs. Okay. What do you define direct marketing for me? So we are selling direct to customers. We had always, since we started doing this, we were, we were selling eggs before we even had a farm when we were living in the suburbs. And then, um, so we would just start, start it all with beef and selling quarters to friends, quarters and halves.

01:24
And then that just kind of turned into kind of selling everything. So cuts of beef, quarters, halves, whole steaks, hamburger, same with pigs and then eggs and some chickens. And we were just using Facebook and word of mouth. And in the last year, we signed up for Barn to Door and we're using that as our kind of our marketing tool and inventory tool. And what do you...

01:53
Think of Barnador.

01:57
It's really helped us streamline our business. It helps us cut down on human error. If somebody Venmo'd us a deposit and then there was an oversight and them getting the next cut of meat. This has helped everything just to funnel into one place. They have got a lot of really great training. I've been very impressed with their support. Yeah, it's been good.

02:27
It's helped us expand and get going with some email marketing and yeah, they've got a lot of great resources available. Awesome. I actually need to contact them and get them to talk to me because I'm hearing that they're a really good help and resource for people who are doing what you're doing. And they've contacted me, but I'm not a big enough place to need their services right now for what we do.

02:54
It hadn't occurred to me to see if anybody from their place would want to chat with me. So I'm going to have to email them and be like, hi, don't need your services, but I would love to promote your services. Sure. They have a podcast as well, which is super helpful. I listened to it. I don't know if Sarah does, but, um, all the resources that they have, they're kind of putting out on podcasts too, and it's just good stuff. They're interviewing farmers all the time and best practices and yeah.

03:22
Okay, I'll have to go look them up and see what they're up to. Okay, so how did you guys get into this?

03:31
Well, I caught the farming bug before we were married. So Sarah's dad had a small farm in central Iowa. And when we just started first started dating, we were going down there for a funeral. And I stepped foot on that farm and, you know, walked out in the pasture down to the creek and look at cows and just something inside of me came alive. And I'm like, wow, I could see myself doing this someday. And that just kept growing in me and became a passion. And, you know, then I was looking for.

04:00
the five or 10 acre fixer upper. And we were, we were doing a big garden in our, in, in the suburbs in our backyard and then doing backyard chickens and way too many chickens that we were supposed to have in our, in the city that we're living in. But, uh, yeah, just kept looking and then we just came, the Lord showed us a property that was amazing and we went for it. And so that's how we started farming.

04:25
I love that. I hear that story or some version of that story a lot. You have no idea. Okay. So here's what I want to get into with the beef and selling the beef. Most people don't know how it works. So if you could run me through how someone could acquire a whole or a half or a quarter or an eighth. Yeah. So it's kind of a...

04:53
It's kind of a clunky process actually. So if you're selling a quarter, half or whole of beef, the way it goes is we sell by the hanging weight. So somebody contacts us and says, hey, I would like to get a quarter of beef. And so we put them on our list for the next available. And I don't really know the weight of the animal until it's brought in to the butcher. And then we get the weight of the animal

05:23
pay based on that. Okay, I'm going to interject and give you the simplified version of this. I don't think it's a clunky process at all. I think especially since we started with Barn to Door, it has streamlined it and made it very simple. So, if somebody wanted to purchase a quarter or half, then all they would do is go to our online link and they would select quarter beef, put their deposit down online right there.

05:52
And then when the cow goes in to be processed, the processor will reach out and contact that customer and walk them through what cuts they would like to get. And then when it's ready, they will be contacted, they go pick it up, and their final payment is done through our website. We take care of it. So I think it's pretty simple. Yeah. And because you have barn to door, it is really simple. But there are lots of places that don't.

06:21
use barn to door to sell their beef. So I'm going to interject too. We bought our first half a few years ago. And when the butcher called me for me to tell them what cuts we want, I was very lost because I didn't know what the cuts meant. And I apologize all over the place. I was like, I'm really sorry. I'm not educated in this. I don't know what that means.

06:50
She was so great. She was like, Oh, okay. So tenderloin is this. Cube steak is that whatever. And she ran me through the whole thing. She spent a good half an hour on the phone with me, which I'm sure she was not planning on doing. So anyone who wants to do this, if you're, if you're lucky, and I think it's probably pretty common, the butcher will talk you through it. If you don't know what you want. Absolutely.

07:20
Absolutely. They're super helpful. They get new customers, first timers all the time. So they're used to that and prepared for that and absolutely will guide people through the process. Yeah. And you don't have to get fancy cuts. I mean, if you want half of the meat as ground beef, they'll do it for you. Yeah. Some people even get the whole thing as ground beef. So yeah, there are a lot of

07:50
that's tough. If you're going to buy beef in bulk, you probably should really learn how to cook it because it's so easy to screw up a steak if you don't know how to cook. Indeed. There's also a difference between cooking grass-fed versus corn-fed too. There sure is. You're absolutely right. The first half we got was grain finished. The

08:20
was grass-fed and I didn't really like the grass-fed. My husband and my son were fine with it. I didn't love it. So it can be very different. And if I had known that there would be such a big difference for my taste buds, I probably would have been more picky in who I went with because I would have been like, is it grain finished or is it grass-fed finished? So there are things to educate yourself on if you're gonna do it.

08:49
And the other thing is that right now, I'm sure you guys know, because you are in the business, buying beef in bulk is a lot more money than it was a couple of years ago. And that is not the farmer's fault at all. It is just the fact that everything has gone up in price. Exactly. Yep. Not just the beef, it's everything. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We were looking at

09:18
getting another quarter here at some point and I looked at the prices and said, we can't afford it right now. We literally cannot put out that money right now. We don't have that money right now. And it just blew me away. The cost of a quarter right now is more than a half cost as two years ago. Well, you know, and to that point, we like to offer options because not everybody

09:46
can afford to buy in bulk. And also not everybody has enough freezer storage. And so we do have individual cuts available that people can purchase online as well. So if you only want 10 pounds of ground beef or only want a few steaks, you can go ahead and go with that option too. That's awesome. Cause not everybody does it that way. I'm so glad you said that. Yay, you guys are great.

10:17
Okay. And do you also sell chicken meat too? We do. Okay. And eggs? Yeah. There's always an interesting tension of supply and demand with the eggs. But yes, we do sell eggs. Yeah. I had somebody message me yesterday asking if we had any eggs and we got rid of our chickens months ago because we weren't going to feed them through the winter time. I felt so bad telling that person, no, we got rid of our chickens for the winter.

10:46
Like I didn't answer them for two hours. I didn't want to tell them no. And I finally was like, I'm sorry. We don't, we got rid of our chickens for the winter. We'll be getting new chickens in the spring. And I didn't get any response back. And I'm like, Oh, I broke their heart. So yeah, it's, it's hard when you're, when you're trying to help your community and then you make a decision for your household that impacts your community.

11:16
I don't enjoy it. I really want to get back to being capable of meeting people's requests with a smile and a yes, you know? Absolutely. But that's not where we're at right now. So it's going to be better this year, I think, I hope. Well, last year's been straight. Yes. Last summer was rough. I don't know how it was in Elko New Market, but here in

11:48
We produced a lot of thistle last summer in our garden. That's for sure. Yeah. We, we had a lot of weeds too. We didn't even bother to weed anything because nothing was growing except weeds. We're like, okay, it's a great crop of weeds. What can we do with that? Oh, we can stare at it. Feed it to the pigs. If we had pigs, we would've gone. Yup. It was a rough year, but we're now into 2025. So everybody's got everything crossed that it's going to be a better season. Amen.

12:18
So do you guys have jobs outside of the farm?

12:24
Um, I work full time on the farm. I quit about four years ago. I was a carpenter and struggling to do both of them. We were just getting at the scale where I wasn't able to really do anything well between when I was at work, I was thinking about the farm and I wasn't getting enough farm work done and family life was struggling. So made the break about four years ago to focus on the farm and relying on Sarah's income right now for.

12:54
carrying the farm through. Yeah, I work full time doing pampered chef. Fun, that is a fun job. It's super fun, I love it. So when you say you work for them, does that mean that you are an independent contractor and you go and show off their products and sell them, or how does that work? Yep, I am an independent sales consultant. I've been with them for coming on 20 years in May.

13:21
And so yeah, I do parties for people. I do in-home, I do virtual. And my passion really lies in my team and training a team and helping them have success. So that's our bread and butter. That's my passion. And you're right, it is a ton of fun. So. Cool. So I have a question about that because so many people don't cook now, don't cook from scratch.

13:49
Do you find yourself creating converts when you show off the stuff? Yeah, we kind of get the whole gamut. We get people who don't cook at all, people who want to cook but don't have time. That's probably the biggest one we get. And then some people who are total foodies and do everything from scratch. And so what I appreciate about this job and about Payward Chef is

14:17
you know, showing people these tools and recipes that can make it doable to get a meal on the table with their families. And even with a busy schedule or even if they don't feel like they're great cooks, we can show them tips that make it easy and quick and doable. Because that's, you know, the meal time message is so important. That's where life happens is around the dinner table. And the more we can cultivate that, the better.

14:45
families will be in the better the world will be really. Yeah, I think that if you sit down at a table across from each other and have to look each other in the face, there's a word, I hate this. I'm always gonna say something profound and I lose the word. It helps communication, it helps people open up and start talking. Yeah. Facilitate. There's a lot of interesting statistics too about families that eat together a few times a week. There's like higher grades.

15:13
lower substance abuse, lower teenage pregnancies. It's really fascinating just by eating dinner together. Yeah, I think the kitchen table or the dining table is the touchstone for families. It's not the TV. It's the kitchen table. So the reason that I asked is because I was just talking to a guy. I haven't put the episode out yet. He started a magazine called Home Cooked Magazine. So nice.

15:40
And I kind of pressed him on why in the world he would start a magazine about cooking when so many people don't cook. And he had the best answer. Like I'm not going to paraphrase it because I will murder it. But he was just like, it's not just for people who cook, it's for people who are interested in cooking. It's for people who love to eat. It's for people who like to look at pretty pictures of food. It's for everybody. And I just, I loved that. It was like, okay, so you hit on everything.

16:10
Good job. You know, another thing with people who, you know, not everybody cooks is, you know, as you mentioned, the cost of everything has been going up so much that eating out typically is something that gets cut from people's budgets. And so sometimes they need to start to cook or eat at home just for budget sake. And so that's where we can come in and help too.

16:39
on both ends of providing some clean food and some recipes and tools to make it easier. Sure. I keep saying that I need to write a cookbook of like 25 recipes that are from start to finish half an hour to start cooking it to on the table. Because I always hear that people don't have time to cook, but I also think it's that they just don't have the energy when they walk in the door. And so the shorter cook time.

17:08
the shorter prep time. I'm not saying this right. The less time from starting to cook to eating it is the important thing there because the less time, the less energy expended. And so I really need to sit down for about three weeks and get my recipes that I've been doing for years into a book form and get it out on Amazon because I bet that it would sell. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think a big piece of that too is just

17:37
having a plan, like if you take 20 minutes to plan your meals for the week. Brian and I just sat in the parking lot at church yesterday and said, okay, let's map out our meals for the week so we're not stressed the day of, because that's half the thing is not knowing what to make for dinner. But if you do have that plan, right, then it's easier to get it on the table. And then with your cookbook coming out, then it'll be super easy for people. Yeah, it'll be at least a year before it's out.

18:05
I really should do it because I've had it down to a science for years because I've raised four kids and trying to keep those kids fed every evening, Monday through Friday was a trick and having dinner ready within 10 minutes of my husband walking in the door from work was like the goal for the day. Making sure everybody got something to eat that they liked and that food was on the table 10 minutes after he walked in the door from his job.

18:31
because his job was stressful and I felt like he worked his ass off. The least I could do for him was have something he wanted to eat in front of him in 10 minutes. You're a good wife and a good mom. I tried. I still try. Um, so there was something else in that whole food thing. Oh, the other thing is that once you learn to cook, you can cook ahead and you can put stuff that tastes good, pre-warmed in the freezer. And.

19:00
Then if you really don't have the energy or the time, all you have to do is pull it out, thaw it out and cook it. Like heat it up, it's all ready to go. Exactly. Yeah, we love leftovers. Yeah, we did that for years. Like I would cook for an army just so that I had stuff in the freezer so that I could be like, oh, you don't like what I'm making? In that freezer right there is something you like, take it out and nuke it and eat it. And that way everybody won. Everybody was eating something that was good for them that they enjoy.

19:30
Exactly. I called it feeding the freezer. My husband used to laugh at me. He'd be like, you're cooking for 20 people. And I was like, yes, I'm feeding the freezer for six weeks from now when somebody wants this. Hey, I think that there's a title for your second cookbook. Feeding the freezer? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta, I gotta get on this. I'm telling you. I'm not getting any younger and the days don't get any longer. So.

20:00
But either way, cooking is really important. And cooking and the people that produce the food that we're gonna cook are even more important. So you guys are amazing. So we've got like 10 minutes. My brain is fried from being sick. I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to ask you. What would you guys like to tell me? Anything you can think of right now? I don't know if you wanna share about your...

20:28
your practices, your rotation raising or how you your pasture raise pork or anything like that? I think so many people are interested in doing this. Getting on land, starting to raise some food and I grew up in the suburbs. We lived in the suburbs before we had this and honestly it was reading some books and YouTube and we figured out how to do it. We made a lot of mistakes along the way and learned a lot of things just by trying and starting.

20:59
And now we're kind of getting into a pretty good rhythm with things where life is a lot easier just as far as animal husbandry and knowing what we're doing. So he mentioned that my dad was a farmer in central Iowa, but he passed away. And so it's not like Brian just learned from him. And additionally,

21:27
Brian had very different farm practices than what my dad did. So even though my dad was a farmer, I didn't grow up on that farm. And so essentially, Brian was learning everything from scratch, from YouTube, from podcasts, from vlogs and blogs. So I think your point is anyone can do it if you have the desire, right? Yeah, for sure.

21:55
If you have the desire and the physical capability. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Cause it's hard work. It don't, don't ever think that it's not hard work listeners because it is. It's, it's hard on your body and it can be hard on your brain. You know, you were saying that you guys had made mistakes. Well, that's where the learning happens, but it's hard on your brain and it's hard on your heart when you think you're doing it right. And then you find out that you screwed it up.

22:24
That happens for sure. Yeah. We, uh, I bought my son one of those, um, those mushroom kit thingies that you can grow mushrooms in your house. Okay. And it was a cute little wooden log with holes dug in it. And then they would put the plugs of the stores in and you spray it. You put it in a plastic bag and you spray water in there and then you tie it off and you let it kind of hang out and get all

22:53
rainy in there and we put it where it was warm because it said it needed to be somewhere warm. Well come to find out it was too warm and once the mushrooms started growing we pulled the plastic bag off of it because that's what it said to do. These beautiful little mushrooms dried out completely they were like petrified mushrooms. I know. Could not eat them. Prettiest little cedar log you've ever seen but they were useless as food. I was...

23:21
I was so bummed out. I took a photo of it because it was beautiful. That's the best thing that came out of it. So that was a mistake. We learned our lesson and we're trying it again but we're being smarter this time. So I'll have to get photos of it this time when we actually use the mushrooms that grow that are edible. It'll be great. But silly things like that happen all the time and that was a minor in extensive fail. I can't imagine what happens when you've sunk.

23:49
thousands of dollars into something and it doesn't go right. Yeah, it's definitely had punches to the gut for sure and you learn and you make it better moving forward. Yep. So do you guys, if you're doing beef cattle or beef cattle, do you also do dairy at all or is it just beef?

24:17
Uh, so we currently just do beef. Um, our first four cows that we bought were dairy cows from a local grass-based dairy, because we were buying raw milk. We thought, oh, we're going to have a farm. Let's go ahead and milk some cows. Um, so our first four original cows were, uh, Dutch belted and milking shorthorn from a dairy. But we never milked them. Um, I was still working full time, trying to figure out how to add this milking enterprise.

24:44
So ultimately, they just became good mamas and they could really great mamas with their milk supply. And through the year, in the last couple of years, I've really felt like I should add dairy to our farm. We have so many people asking us about if we do raw dairy. And I just know, you know, there's such a demand for it. And I just believe it's so beneficial that it's something we're going to add this year.

25:15
slowly, slowly jumping into it. So I still have some cows that have the capability that I could milk. And then we'd probably add a couple other cows to the mix. But yeah, that's something that's coming on our farm this year.

25:30
Well, that's exciting. I'm just slow to jump into it. Yeah. Um, the reason I ask is because I didn't know if you guys are breeding your, your cattle, or if you like go buy calves in the spring and raise them for a couple of years and then butcher them. I didn't know how that worked. Yeah. So we have a closed herd. We do. Um, we've, I've always had my own bulls. Um, and are basically almost all of our animals are born on this farm. And then.

26:00
You know, they, um, to the point of when we take them to the, to the butcher to be slaughtered. So I do, I will calf my cows in the last week in May through June and first week in July. Um, and so that's when I would probably start milking some of my cows once they freshen up. Yep. Um, but we might add a dairy cow before that, or just take one of mine and work out the kinks in the system to get her in the barn.

26:30
Yeah, and what breed do you guys have for your beef? Or do you have a beef? Beef is quite a mix. Our first four cows were Dutch belted and melting short horn. So Dutch belted is kind of the Oreo cookie cow, but it's the dairy breed. And then I bought belted Galway, which is the other Oreo cookie cow, but it's the beef breed. And then through the years I added some red Angus.

26:58
So we have quite a mixture. None of our cows really look the same. A lot of them have a white belt to them, but they're a mixture of milking shorthorn, Dutch belted, belted Galloway and red Angus. So kind of an interesting looking herd. Yeah, and some really good beef there, I bet. I bet it's really great. So in the winter time, I'm gonna ask a dumb question cause I don't know the answer. In the winter time.

27:26
Are your cattle in the barn or you guys have them out in the pasture? Ours are outside as much as possible. We do have some barn space that I can get them in. Um, you know, if we get this like freezing rain in the winter, that's probably the hardest thing on them. Snow is not that hard on them. As long as they can kind of get out of the wind, um, they're, they're better and they're healthier outside. So right now I'm actually, I feed my hay out on pasture whenever possible. So it just keeps them.

27:56
kind of outside, separated. The more they're together in close confinement, the more likely if you've got any kind of viruses going around, respiratory things, they all get it. So I really try to keep mine outside as much as possible. Okay, cool. And then are they, such a weird question. Are they friendly or are they not friendly? Mine are very friendly. And I just try to be around them a lot. I try to handle them.

28:25
peacefully. I try to never really get them too worked up. So I've got a lot of cows that I can just go up and you know, they'll come up to me to get their head scratched or get pet. Even my bull. My bulls have always been that way where they'll kind of come up and want to have their head scratched. So yeah, I just try to always be real calm and peaceful around them. I think that I think there's a couple things that go into that. One, the fact that your calves are all born and raised here, raised with you.

28:55
in knowing you and then to just cultivating that peaceful atmosphere because you're gentle with them you show affection to them and so it just has created them to be peaceful and Yeah, we'll go out. We'll do farm tours and We've brought children and adults out into the herd And of course you have to be careful you right now, but it yeah, we've got a good hurt. Yeah

29:23
There's a couple flighty ones, but just trying to be pretty calm and gentle around your animals just makes handling them so much easier. So even when I'm loading them, it's not stressful. And they just stay pretty calm. Wouldn't it be nice if people were calm and kind with other people like you are with your cows? Come on. That's right. Wouldn't that be amazing? I would love that. Okay. So.

29:51
You guys, I am so sorry that I lost my whole train 10 minutes back. I'm sorry. It's been a hell of a week, I'm telling you. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today and I wish you all the luck in your business, and I love what you're doing. Hey, yeah. Thanks for just giving us the honor of being on your podcast. We appreciate it. It's a pleasure to chat with you. You too. I just wish I had been more on my game. Maybe we'll talk again in the fall and you can tell me about how all the babies did.

30:21
That was good. That would be great. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks.