Self Sufficient and Homesteading Community Forum

Today I'm talking with Susan and Jasmine and Sean and Teresa at Self Sufficient and Homesteading Community Forum. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
After listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This Homestead Holler Shoutout is to our friends over at Freedom Rain Farm in Buffalo, Minnesota. Their new little farm shop is the perfect spot for seasonal fresh goat milk products if you're local to the Buffalo area, while their online shop makes it super easy to order shippable items right to your door. From natural handcrafted goat milk and talo sauce to grass-fed talo skin care and beautifully arranged gift boxes.

00:29
Each product is crafted with care and love. Check them out at redomarinefarm.com or follow their Facebook page to stay in the loop. Let freedom reign. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I am talking with Susan and Jasmine and Sean and Teresa at Self-Sufficiency and Homesteading Community Forum is the name of their Facebook page. That was a lot to say.

00:56
Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Great. Awesome, we're doing good. Good. I don't, where is everybody located?

01:09
Um, Sean and I are located between Bloomfield and Ottumwa, Iowa. Okay. Um, I'm not far away. I'm over by Drakeville. So I'm about nine miles away from them. This is Susan. Okay. I'm about 160 miles from them. I'm located north of Ames, Iowa. So very much central Iowa. Okay. So you guys are all my Southern neighbors in Iowa, cause I'm in Minnesota. Is it really sunny in Iowa right now?

01:39
Yes. Yeah, here too. It's, it's just gorgeous and it's supposed to hit 50 again today for the third, third day in a row, fourth day in a row. So that's a nice change from last week. I assume it was very cold in Iowa too. Yes. Yeah. I think, I think we might be rolling into spring, you guys. I think it might be happening. I'm going to hope it is anyway. I hope so. Now if we can just get rid of all the mud, that would be wonderful.

02:08
Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if mud season was like the next couple of weeks and then the end of March and April and May when we all need to get in our gardens was dry? Yes. Well, not too dry, but not muddy. That would be great. Yes. Okay. So tell me about, well, I don't know how to do this. Whoever wants to go first, tell me about yourself and then the next person can and the next person can and then you guys can tell me about what you do. Well, kind of what information do you want to know?

02:38
Um, just do you guys have gardens and stuff at your places too, or not?

02:49
I'll go if nobody else is jumping that way we can get it. My name is Sean. I'm the husband of Teresa. Daniel is my oldest son. Matthew is my youngest that lives at home, our sons. And we've been interested in home studying for quite some time. We've got a goal to be off the grid within the next, no.

03:19
year, year and a half, possibly even sooner. The good Lord blesses us. I am the camp manager of Forest Lake Baptist Camp outside of Atoma. I'm also a pastor for Cedar Community Church in Cedar, Iowa. We are avid outdoorsmen, my entire family. In the wintertime, we trap. In the summertime, we...

03:48
We do a lot of foraging. I would say close to maybe 90% of our food comes from what I call God's grocery store. The woods, we have gardens, chickens. Our next goal is to get a milk goat. And just working towards becoming off the grid and...

04:13
going and doing whatever is, you know, God wants us to do and requires us to do, but He'll also meet our needs and give us the desires of our heart. Yep, go ahead. But as John said, you know, we do want to become full-time, well, somewhat full-time homesteaders. Obviously, you know, we still have a job, but as well as all that, you know, we homeschool our two sons, they're 16 and 18.

04:42
You know, I, I am in charge of the kitchen here at the camp. I'm like the program director. So we have a lot of things going on, but I think our biggest goal is we just want a simpler life. And so right now in this time of, of waiting, I would call it waiting. Um, we're learning skills. We're trying to learn as many skills as we can from other people, from other homes setters, from other self-sufficient people, and, um, just build a network of people.

05:12
they can help each other. Awesome. Okay, Susan, do you want to go next? Sure. So my husband and I actually farm. We grew up, both of us grew up on farms. He grew up on a dairy farm up by Oskaloosa. I grew up down here by Drake'sville. So we have actually the agriculture side of it where we row crop and do hay. And then we have two herds of cattle. We have Angus and we have Highlands. And we actually

05:41
call our business Hall Highlands. We are just getting into direct to consumer meat. We are, we're not organic, but we try to stay as natural as possible. So we use Dr. Paul's products. You know, we don't vax, we don't have hormones, we don't use antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. So that's, we do that on the ag side. And then I also homeschool.

06:06
our son and then we have an extra kid that showed up here a few years ago and she loves the farm and she never went away. So she actually works for us. And I am a big proponent of natural health and so I am a certified herbalist. I have, I'm certified in multiple other modalities for natural health. So we do a lot of herbs, of course canning. I mean, that's, you kind of grew up with that being on the farm, gardening, you know, all those sorts of things. Which just slides right into homesteading. We have one milk cow.

06:36
So we just, because we're already ag, a lot of the stuff is still encompassed within home studying. And yeah, we just really enjoy being out here and doing those sorts of things. Fantastic. And that leaves us with Jasmine. So Jasmine, go ahead. Thank you. So I'm from central Iowa. I was raised on a farm over in Grundy County, and now I live one county over in Hardin County.

07:07
Again, really raised in that traditional self-sufficient model of my great grandparents, their homesteading efforts gave me the foundation with the food preservation and the gardening and the natural medicine to carry that knowledge with me into my adult life.

07:37
It's an unpoisoned lifestyle. My husband is a chiropractor. I am an alternative health practitioner. A lot of people in Iowa don't know what that is. It's very similar to what Susan said. I'm a certified herbalist and my modalities are natural health, nutrition, massage therapy,

08:05
The things that make the body do what the body was designed to do, which is live healthy. We can develop resistance to disease through nutrition and exercise and quality self-care. So that's the primary source of income for our household. My husband and I share a practice in Story City, Iowa. And we try to practice what we preach. I grow a lot of our food.

08:33
We have an orchard and chickens. I co-op with my best friend who lives about a mile and a half down the road for some beef cattle. So we are really picking Susan's brain this year on natural cattle care because this is new territory for us. And I really think that, like Teresa said, our mission as a group is building that networking

08:59
learning skills from people who are well practiced in the homesteading arts and the natural living craft and really trying to fulfill God's purpose as a community. Even though we're so far apart, with modern technology, that's becoming easier. Like you're demonstrating today with your broadcast. So that's where we're all coming from, is just building that holistic lifestyle and the community to...

09:28
teach each other, share with each other, network, and build self-sufficiency. Okay, so you guys are all in the homesteading community realm here in your own lives, so that's great. I don't have any livestock here except for chickens. I'd love to have a cow, but we don't have room for a cow, so we don't have one. But I wanted to get this in before we get into the community forum stuff.

09:57
We had our first egg this morning from our 20 week old chickens that we just got two Saturdays ago. So we're very excited. They're beginning to lay. They're excited. They're beginning to lay and we've had chickens before. This is just a brand new bunch because we culled our older chickens in the fall. So it's a bunch of it's a it's a flock of 12 and they're the ISA brown variety. They used to be called ISA reds, I think.

10:27
I looked it up and they were supposed to start laying between 18 and 22 weeks and they're 20 weeks old. So dead center, 20 weeks old and first egg. And it was really funny. My husband went out to feed the chickens this morning. When he comes in from feeding the chickens and giving the barn cats food and water, because you have to feed your barn cats a little bit in the morning and get them going. Most people don't realize that, but you really should give them some food. Usually when he comes in, I say, is everybody okay? And he didn't answer me.

10:55
and he walked in the living room and held out his hand and he had this pretty little egg in his hand. My heart literally thumped, you guys. No joke. So we're going to have eggs again. Thank God. Because I don't, I assume you have seen the price of eggs at the grocery store right now and I don't want to pay that. I would rather have our own chickens and pay for the feed. Oh yes. Yes, yes. So that's our nod to homesteading here.

11:23
And they're better eggs too. Yeah. The quality is better. They taste much better. Yes, they do. Um, we've been buying eggs for three and a half, four months at the store. And I had really been just avoiding eating them because I didn't, I'm not a big egg eater anyway. And I made a, a, uh, can't think. Egg salad sandwich, like three weeks ago from the store, bought eggs. And.

11:53
I threw away half the sandwich. It just didn't taste right. I was like, this is not what I want. And so I am so looking forward to the first egg salad sandwich, you know, week and a half, when there's enough of our chicken eggs to do it with. Yep. So anyway, little silly thing from our homestead. So tell me about this community forum. And I saw that you have an event coming. So tell me all about that. Anybody. I don't care who.

12:25
Well, can I add something to this about the community thing? Oh yeah. This group. Sure. We have other members that are not here. And, uh, but the neat thing is how we all came together and we just started networking and working really as a great big family and you know, it is a, it's a godsend to us that, you know, we have such a huge family.

12:53
that wants to network and come together and share our knowledge with others and learn their knowledge and make it, that's what homesteading is all about. Not one person can ever get all of this and keep it in their head. Right. And I am just really thankful for each and every one of our board members that is on this committee to make this work. Because without them,

13:23
this would not work and we're a team. And it is very, very, um, re encourage is encouraging to me watching how this team has worked together in the last year. And so, yeah, I just want to say that about our group. Yeah. Many hands make light work as a, as a saying for a reason. Mm hmm. Right.

13:50
Well, I'm really glad that you are expressing your appreciation for the group because sometimes people in the group, some people don't really get told that they're doing a good job and they leave. So it's really good to let people know that you value their work. Well, and I think that as a group, we're really blessed because I feel like we all genuinely really like each other. I mean, we really genuinely all like each other. We all have very similar mindsets.

14:20
sure we all have different skills, but we genuinely like each other as people. Even if we weren't part of this group doing this together, I think we would still like each other. We would still be involved in each other's lives. Yeah, definitely. Nice. So, you've built a family around this group or the group, the family, however it worked. So tell me, tell me about the community that you've started, the forums.

14:49
Well, self-efficially during 2020, when COVID hit, supply chain issues happened all over. And I kind of got to thinking, you know, we have this technology to network with people. And having met Sean and Teresa previously and attended a Homesteaders oriented event

15:20
They have skills that I don't have. I have skills that they can learn from. There's got to be more people in Iowa with this mindset that I can learn from or that are producing things that I need. And then I came across this meme on Facebook that was a picture of an elderly woman smack in the middle of her garden, in front of her barn, and it said,

15:46
Grandma survived the depression because she knew how to do things and her supply chain was local. And I thought, Eureka, if I can create a page on Facebook to make a local supply chain where local producers and Iowa homesteaders can meet, so to speak, then we can all do business with each other.

16:14
and we can create a local supply chain. And Sean and Teresa and obviously Susan have the same ideas. So being that we were like-minded and technology gives us the advantage of being able to get together even long distance, you know, we came together and now we have Facebook pages with thousands of members. And...

16:40
Other groups have created expos and events. And so we're playing off of their model a little bit as far as creating the event that we're working on. But we've decided that our mission is going to be different because our mission is not profit oriented. Our mission is basically the biblical version of community drawing together.

17:10
And together we can stand as a self-sufficient network. And so that idea of fellowship, that idea of community, that's why we called it a forum. We want to invite people with knowledge and interest and the products they create to come and share their skills, teach what they know, learn from others.

17:37
And that was really the direction that we wanted our event to go. And, you know, and, and with that said, you know, none of our speakers are getting paid. They, the only thing they're getting out of it is we're not charging them to attend the event. They get to come share their knowledge and then learn from other people, other skills. And, you know, we want to keep it very.

18:06
reasonably priced for people so that it's not hard for them to come. We want to be able to make it affordable and just about the community of helping each other. Obviously, we have to charge something because, you know, where we're going to have the event, we have to pay a usage fee for the facilities there. So we do have to make a little bit of money to cover those costs. But none of us

18:33
about money at all. It's all about community and helping people learn from people. Yeah, and whatever you're charging for people to come to the event, it gains them education and it gives them an entree into a different community they may not be part of yet. So I think it's worth it. So what's the event entail? What are you guys going to be doing?

19:06
So I have just been finishing and finalizing our current schedule. The lineup as is right now. We have a lot of different classes we're going to be doing. Them about an hour apiece. We have a lot of different things that we're going to have. We've got rope making,

19:36
Rendering fat. We're going to do some round tables, especially for things like canning and dehydrating. Because we know that there's a lot of people out there who are kind of rebel canners, if you will. And if you do the official classes, everything has to be just so. And this is going to give people to actually jump in and share what they do also. Cast iron care.

20:06
Beekeeping, sourdough, soap making, a couple of different animal nutrition, cattle care and animal nutrition, herbal remedies, gardening.

20:26
and have more knowledge than others. And so for that reason, you know, we brought in a lot of different people who are gonna share just the things that they know. And then we're also gonna have vendors that are gonna be in our main area. And I do believe we're going to have buckskinners there to show what the buckskinners do. And then on Saturday, we're also gonna have like a Dutch oven contest. Nice.

20:56
So it's basically an expansive homesteading crash course. Nice, that's exciting. Have you done this before or is this the first time?

21:12
Well, yeah, we did this before prior to this. We belong to another group and we've actually had this be Teresa and I's third year of doing this. But we all decided to do our own this with this group of people because

21:40
We are, this group of people is like-minded. And I'm not going to say much more than that, but we've been in this three years. And, you know, you can, it's more of a community networking and sharing our skills with each other. Yeah. The reason I asked is because when it's a first time event kind of thing, there's always jitters and there's always.

22:10
I don't know, kinks to work out. And I feel like after you've done an event like this, it's a lot easier the second year and then the fifth year is like a cakewalk. Well, and I think that, you know, as we have, you know, two of the members that aren't here today were part of the original group with us as well. Um, but I think that, well, that was a great thing that, um, this group.

22:38
that we've created now or that we've all come together and created, we all have a very much like-minded mindset. We're all about community and helping people help each other and I feel like that God has really blessed this event for us and is blessing this event because it feels like this event is coming together easier and faster than the previous ones we've done.

23:09
And I mean, it's just like we're having people reaching out from all over the place. We had to turn people away to do classes because we ran out of space and time. We had to say, you know what? We can put you on the list for next year, but we don't have a space because we had so many people that wanted to be part of it. And that's not a bad problem to have. But we just feel like it's been very blessed by God because we feel like.

23:37
we're doing it for the right reason. And he's gonna honor that for us to have a good event to help people. Yeah. And none of us about any of us or what we're doing and our skills. And obviously it's taken all of us to put it together, but none of it's really about us. It's about helping other people. Okay, so is your attendance completely full now? Well.

24:03
We're not gonna sell tickets ahead. They're just gonna pay at the gate. So we really don't know how many people. We feel like we'll have several people, but we really don't know. But we do know that who's supposed to be there, God will bring there. And when is the event? I thought I saw May 2nd and 3rd, but I could be wrong. Yes. Okay. So May 2nd and 3rd, you guys are gonna be very busy.

24:32
It's I'm guessing that's a Saturday and Sunday. It's a Friday, Saturday. Okay. Cool. I I'm so I'm not even envious and jealous is the wrong or the wrong words, but I'm excited for you guys that you're doing this because it sounds absolutely wonderful. And the people who attend are going to gain so much everything just by going.

24:59
And that's our goal, to be honest with you, is to share knowledge and learn from them. Mm-hmm. Yup. So I don't even know if you guys know the answer to my question here. How much time do you think you have sunk into making this happen?

25:21
A lot. That's a lot. Yeah. I mean, I spent a lot of time, a lot of legwork, a lot of calling people, talking with people, a lot of, you know, passing out flyers, putting it on different groups to advertise it, just a lot of things. But you know, Jasmine and Susan spent a lot of hours working on the schedule. And I mean, Jasmine did like.

25:49
hours of work trying to get it all just right for us because that's a skill she has scheduling. That's not something I have. I would have been like, oh my gosh. But you know, just, but you know, and that's the good thing about our group too is we all have different skills. So it's been good that way, you know? Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah, that's been great because while I am able to put a schedule together, I do not have the skills to create it.

26:18
in a readable format that can be advertised on a computer. So Susan totally took what I put together and magically changed it into something that's actually usable. So that's one of the blessings about our group. We are like-minded and like Teresa said, we all have different skills. So what one person can take and mold a little bit into something useful

26:48
the next person on our committee can mold it a little more into something even more usable. And I think God knew that we were going to need that. So He put us together. And like Teresa said, He's given us a mission. And that mission is to develop a homesteading, self-sufficient community. And I think our committee itself really shows no one person can do it all.

27:17
you need different skill sets. So I'm really grateful to have spent time with this committee and learned from them. And I think that's such a appropriate foundation for the event that we're doing. Yeah, I just want to jump in and say that I am so impressed with how complimentary you guys are of each other and both words, C-O-M-P-L-I and C-O-M-P-L-E.

27:46
because you're very good about giving compliments to each other, but I feel like all of your skills compliment each other.

27:57
Well, it's all of us together, working together. And God brought us all in each other's paths and for a purpose. And to be quite frank, I encourage everybody to come, give it a try. For $10, what do you got? What do you have to get in the gate? And you're going to walk away with a ton of knowledge. A ton of knowledge.

28:24
You can't, you can't YouTube these kinds of things. Um, you know, and what you're going to walk away with is a network and a group of people that, you know, six months down the road, you find something that happens to you, you can call and say, Hey, I don't know what this is, but Hey, Teresa knows how to do this or Susan knows how to do this or Terry and Tonya know how to do this, she always say in that networking. And getting quick answers.

28:54
You know, and shoot, I do that to Jasmine anyway. I mean, if I got something, I need a question about something. I call her up, hey, what do you think about this? She gives me her, her knowledge, you know, and, and someday I'll repay that to her when she calls me and says, what kind of mushroom is this? Don't need it. Absolutely. Um, I think the best thing.

29:22
in the world about being human is that we all have some form of community. I have very few close friends and it's partly because we moved four years ago and all of my friends have jobs where they live and it's half an hour away from where we moved. So I don't see my old group of friends very often but we still talk through messages or on the phone. And if I know that somebody that I moved away from knows something,

29:51
You can bet your butt I'm going to call her and say, how do I fix the zipper on my brand new coat that broke? Because she's, she's good at that. And I'm probably not going to fix it. I'm probably going to run it up to her and have her fix it. But, but if I could, if I can fix it and she can tell him, talk me through it, I'm going to ask her, of course. But the thing that we've gotten away from is community. I mean, there's all of these McMansion.

30:19
quote unquote communities and no one knows anybody in those communities. No. And I- Most people do. Yeah. I hate it. Yeah. And one of the areas that, I mean, I love that about this group. Everybody's got their niche. I can, we can ask each other, talk to each other, share with each other. And it's so amazing. But even in my own life, you know, one of the places that I see so many people struggling right now is like-

30:48
young mothers. You know, back years ago, you had such a community where, you know, grandmas and aunts and neighbors and everybody was willing to come and help. You know, they had tricks up their sleeve with the kids, you know, young families, all these different things. And we don't have that anymore. And I would love to see, you know, besides just home studying at large, just community to start to grow and find roots again. And I'm hopeful that we're seeing a move back towards that.

31:18
direction. But that was the other reason that we wanted to keep the prices low on this. And then anybody under 15 was free was because we want to see these young families. We want to see these kids coming in and trying things, you know, making ropes or watching because these were things that we got from grandmas and grandpas or neighbors that used to do stuff like this. And there's not that much out there anymore.

31:45
I'm going to jump in. The other thing is, is that I'm old enough to be a grandma. I have a step-grandchild right now. She's 11. And I feel like a lot of people my age, I'm 55, did not like, I mean, they may have seen their grandparents do stuff, but they didn't actually learn it. And so it's really hard to pass on what you don't know how to do.

32:12
So I love that you're inviting kids in to learn these things. Well, exactly. Cause Susan and I have talked about it many times. I'm 51 and Susan obviously is younger than I am, but we talked about it many times that there are, most of the people our age and younger don't know how to can. They don't know how to do any of those things because they either didn't get taught or they weren't paying attention, you know? And so...

32:40
And it's such an amazing skill. And, and you know, I find it rewarding because, you know, to be able to walk in my canning room and see all this stuff that I did that, you know, that that's. And, you know, and I, and I know what's in that jar. I don't like, I don't have to worry about what's in it. I know what's in it because I put it there. The only thing you have to worry about is if it's got spots on the lid that are going to kill you. And I'm sure that you know what to look for.

33:07
Yeah, but you know, I mean, but most people wouldn't have a clue how to do it, or they'd be terrified to even begin to figure out how to do it. So, you know, if we can help them even just a little bit get over that, that fear of trying it, and, you know, give them that little push forward to give it a try, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's worth it. Yes, there's a reason that it worked for hundreds of years, and it still works.

33:37
Um, it's really funny. We had a little girl who would come to with her mom to our CSA thing here a couple of summers ago and her little girl was like five, I think. And she wanted to taste something right out of the garden. And the mom said, is that okay? And I was like, yes, even if it has dirt on it, it's probably not going to kill her. I said, we don't spray, we don't spray anything.

34:05
on our plants, it's fine. And just wipe it off. And her little girl just picked, I don't know what it was, I think it might have been a green bean or something. So clearly something you can just pick and eat. And she bit into it and she was like, that's not like the canned ones. And I said, no, because it hasn't been canned. And she said, it's crispy, chewy. And I said, yeah. She says, I want to grow these. I said, good.

34:34
Talk to your mom and dad about growing those. And I was just so excited to see that light come on in her eyes of, oh, this is what it tastes like before anything happens to it. So it's- Building off of what you said about the McMansions, there are so, so many housing developments and places where people don't grow anything.

35:03
Uh-huh. And that part of our movement is to teach, maybe plant the seed of the self-sufficient mindset. You cannot grow everything you're going to need yourself, but you should start growing something. Like you said, Mary, these skills were grandma skills. And fortunately for me, my gram and great gram raised me. So that's where I learned.

35:32
didn't have a choice but to learn. It was expected of me that I would be helping in every aspect, from the planting and sowing to the harvesting and then the canning and preserving. So these skills haven't been taught and we want people to learn these skills. We want to plant that self-sufficient mindset. Like Teresa said, when you open that jar,

35:58
you know exactly what's in it because you put that in it and there's nothing in there that you can't pronounce. So that's part of our mission is to create that movement toward the self-sufficiency, the homestead minded, doing it for yourself in a very pure way and networking with people who can contribute to that holistic life.

36:26
The more I'm picturing both of my grandma's kitchens when I was growing up, and both grandma's, one was in Maine, one was in Illinois. Both grandma's kitchens had all of their tools kind of out and displayed all the time, everything they used all the time. And the juxtaposition between their kitchens and the kitchens that we have now, it's crazy.

36:50
The chasm of disparity between what their kitchens look like and what people expect a kitchen to look like now is so different. Yeah. And I'm totally into like grandma core anyway, so like my kitchen has stuff everywhere. Yeah, you should see. But we use it, so it goes both ways. You should see mine right now. We've got jackets on the back of chairs around the table because it had been cold. That haven't been hung up yet.

37:18
We've got a table full of seedlings started for the spring planting. And there's little baby basil plants sprouting and there's peppers and we have tomatoes planted, but they haven't started yet. And, um, my counter is almost clean of dirty dishes. Cause I've already done dishes once this morning, but I always feel bad because when we bought the house, clearly it was empty and that kitchen, our whole house was remodeled before we even saw it.

37:48
So the kitchen is just gorgeous. It's like a modernized country kitchen. So the cabinets look like old cabinets, but they're brand new. But they did keep the original cabinets over by where the kitchen table is. And those are just the flat faced made out of wood cabinet doors. They're not fancy. I love my kitchen. Like I could rave about my kitchen for days and you would tell me to shut the hell up after two minutes. But.

38:17
But I always feel bad because my kitchen is always a mess because that's the room we do everything in, you know? And I got up this morning, came downstairs, looked at my kitchen and went, oh my God, I need like two days straight to get this thing looking like it did when we moved in. And then I stopped myself and said, but it's not supposed to look like when we moved in, we live here now. And that made me feel a little bit better. So I am going to stick with the grandma core thing.

38:46
and it's okay to have a clean colander sitting on the counter. I'm okay with that. Absolutely. Those kitchens are the healthiest kitchens because they have realistic expectations. My kitchen's always a mess too because I'm always doing stuff. With everything else we have going on, sometimes the kitchen table doesn't get cleared off, so there's mail. We have jackets on the back of our chairs too.

39:15
But I think there's a quiet comfort that comes in a home with a busy kitchen. The centrifugal meeting place for a family. When we were raising our kids, we ate supper at the supper table because sometimes that's the only quality time you spend with each other. I'm with you. I've frequently said I need three of me to clean the house, keep up with everything else, and go to work.

39:46
I really agree that that messy kitchen is a cozy, safe, comfortable, healthy place where your family actually likes to be. Because if they didn't like to be there, it wouldn't be messy. Well, my- Well, yeah, exactly. And you know, if a kitchen is like, in my opinion, like if a kitchen's neat and perfect all the time, is it really being used? No. You know?

40:14
No, it's not. And my favorite thing about our kitchen is that it's the size of a, I don't know, it's probably the size of a small great room, a living room. So it's bigger than a galley kitchen by probably four times. And we have an island in our kitchen because it has very little counter space on the outside walls.

40:37
And that island is the most wonderful thing on earth because my husband and I and our adult son who still lives with us all love to cook. So if we're gonna make a big meal, like it requires chopping vegetables and doing prep and stuff, we can all stand around the island and work together and talk. And it's my favorite thing about my kitchen. Yep. Those memories will last the rest of your life. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.

41:06
I have a son who is currently in culinary school because from the time he was a little tiny kid, he wanted to help in the kitchen. And now he's creating a legacy for himself with those skills because he was, well, he was expected to help out, but his own interest in it really grew. And so now I'm thinking back to when he was a little tiny kid and here he is in college going to be a professional, you know? Yeah.

41:36
Yep. Good job, mom. You did great. All right, guys, I try to keep those to half an hour. I would love to make it two hours, but that probably won't go very far with my listeners. So I'm gonna let you guys go, but thank you so much for the discussion today and your time. I appreciate it. Now, so we leave this up? Yes. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you.

42:06
Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Now, would you like us to send you a flyer or like online? Do you want me to like send you a flyer or anything like that? Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, if you could, that'd be great. So I can share it in the show notes thing. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you guys. Have a great day. All right. Thank you.