Still Farms VA

Today I'm talking with Sofia at Still Farms VA.

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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 Sofia at Still Farms VA, which I assume stands for Virginia. Is that right, Sofia? That's right. All right. Where are you in Virginia? I am in Wakefield, Virginia. It's this itty bitty town right between Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia Beach area.

01:23
Okay, awesome. I can find you on a map now. That's good.  How's the weather there?  Beautiful, sunny,  80s, lovely. I'm so happy.  Oh my god, it is gray and it's actually muggy here. I think it's 69 degrees in Minnesota right now. Yeah, no, we are finally with the sun out and my seasonal depression has lifted and it is lovely.

01:48
It is spring and you, I assume, grow things. So you have to be beside yourself.  I do. I try to grow things more than I actually grow things. But yeah,  we are very happy to have the sun out again. All right. Well, tell me about yourself and what you guys do at Still Farms Virginia.  Sure. So I am very new to homesteading, farming, agriculture,  any of this sort of life. I grew up in Boston.

02:17
I was actually a makeup artist for most of my life.  I wore red bottom shoes and that's all that mattered to me.  And  then COVID happened and I was bored and I tried to think of a hobby and  I went to Home Depot and I bought some tomato plants and killed them.  And I bought one bean plant and realized that I couldn't feed my family off of one bean plant  and became addicted. So  we started doing a small garden when I was living in Norfolk at the time.

02:44
We started doing a small garden and year after year, I really started to just love the connection to the earth, connection to my food, learning how broken our food system is,  trying to make small changes in my life that I can feel really good about inspiring the people around me.  Then about, just about a year and a half ago, my husband and I decided to take the plunge. sold our business and we bought 11 acres here and have slowly  been trying to

03:14
grow food and become the people, do the things that the people we want to be do. So we've got some chickens, we just got some dairy goats, we've got some livestock dogs and we're building high tunnels and greenhouses and really trying to do the thing.  That sounds very familiar except we have three acres not 11.  And my husband and son just,  I hesitate to say the word

03:41
finished our high tunnel because the door needs to be hung. Okay.  other than the door being hung correctly because the  hinges that we had were too flimsy and they bent.  as soon as he gets the correct hinges, it will be finished this weekend. Well, you're a little more ahead than me. I've still got to the whole top on.  we're waiting for a not windy day to be able to tackle that project. We get horrible wind here.

04:07
I understand they had to wait two weeks to get the plastic on because every time they were ready to go out and do it, the wind was picking up. Yeah. And like I said, I hesitated to say the word finished because God only knows if it's actually finished. He might have another idea for it. That's what I'm learning. Things are never finished. They're just, you hit one stepping stone and then you get to the next one. Yes. And you're not alone, Sophia. Does that make you feel better? It does. It makes me feel so much better. Good.

04:37
Good. It's so funny because I mean, I've been talking to people for over a year and a half in the homesteading realm and  the song or the tune is the same, but the words are different  because not everybody's doing the same things, but they're definitely humming the same tune. Sure. We're all feeling each other's pain. And joy. And joy. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

05:03
Yeah, we have to make sure this sounds like fun because we people to be interested in it. It's fun and it is so rewarding and it's honestly the best thing that I do every day that I question  every day, but it is the best thing I've done every day. Oh, we've had moments of saying, I'm questioning my life choices. Yep.  Every week, I think it's said at least three times.  You know, I look in the mirror and it's almost like five years ago, Sophia would not

05:32
recognize who I am today and I'm so  grateful for that but also  it's shocking. know, like just before you called my cat, dropped a skink at my feet and I'm like, oh, thank you.  Thank you for that gift. Where, you know, years ago I would have cried and screamed running away. So  it's definitely been such a  transforming thing in my life, which has just been really wonderful. I am so glad and

06:01
your story about the, the, what was it? A sphynx? sphynx? A sphynx. So it's like a little lizard. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I said it wrong.  Um, that reminds me of the saying that, uh, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.  Um,  20 years ago, that was funny. Now it's true. Yes. Yes.  For sure. Yep.

06:26
My  husband and my son have both managed to injure themselves here and it hasn't killed them. So it has made them stronger.

06:38
Well,  thank goodness for that blessing.

06:42
Uh-huh. Absolutely.  they come in the house and I say is everything good every time they come in the house.  That's right. Cause how many fingers do we all have? Yeah. The one time I don't ask, I'm going to hear, I need a bandage or I need you to call 911  or so. Right. So I'm always, I'm always asking and checking in with them. Cause I'm like, um, you guys are doing the hard work out there. Did anybody get hurt?  So, so you said you have chickens and you have goats.

07:12
Right. Okay.  How many how many chickens do you have? Sure. So when we bought the property, it came with 21 hens.  We lost a few and then last spring I introduced another 14. So I think we're down to I think we're at 32 right now, including two roosters.  And then for goats, I got two mama goats last

07:41
March, I believe it was, March of 24. And then we just had babies in January and I retained five of them. So we're up to seven goats now.  Nice.  Very nice. Do you have babies now this spring?  They were just born this past January. So they're about four months old now.  Oh, okay. All right. Cool.  how did that go? Was that a new experience for you? Totally new experience.  I was really

08:11
lucky.  I found myself  along the way just these incredible blessings where things just fall into place amazingly.  And I'm so grateful for that. And I was posting online  in one of the homesteading groups and I just mentioned that I was looking for some opinions on which breed of goat, if anyone had any ideas for beginners because I like to overthink and overthink and overthink before I jump into things.  And someone had commented mentioning how

08:40
they breed goats and that,  you know, one of the things to look for in a breeder is to make sure there's somebody that wants to mentor and really be a part of helping you be the best goat owner you can be. And it turns out she's only an hour from me.  So I went and I visited her  and  she's absolutely amazing. She's from Rockville Ridge Farms, if anyone's  interested. Her name's Tara and she's such a wealth of knowledge and she answers my questions at 2 a.m. when I'm like, why is my goat making the sound?

09:09
Really, she's great.  But so she, I went out there a few times and I actually got two of her,  we were discussing if I was gonna get babies or adults.  So I got one of her does that was already had been milked before and  had done the whole mom thing. And then one that was a yearling. So that'll be her first time kidding. And  I had them about a year. We got them pregnant in August and then they kidded in January and.

09:37
We almost lost one of the babies. My very good friend was here with me and she's living the farm life with me. She's still in Norfolk in the city, but she's here every weekend. She's  mucking the stalls with me. She's raising these babies and  she actually brought that baby back to life. He was born less than two pounds. He was itty bitty, so cold. It was the coldest night in January.  And now he, his name's Francis and now he's everybody's favorite.

10:04
He goes to school, if he was a kindergarten teacher, she'd bring him to school to bottle feed him and all the kids were taking care of him and it was just such an amazing thing. Sanefrancisco is famous and he's everyone's favorite.  Less than two pounds. Oh my God. He must have been about the size of your hand. He was like a brand new kitten.  was, he was so small.  Wow. You are really lucky that he survived. That's amazing. We really are. And,

10:33
He is definitely just such a joy and he's so sweet and I'm looking at him right now eating dandelions and letting the puff go out in the air.  He's just such a good boy. Do you know how much he weighs now? I don't. I would estimate probably  maybe 20 pounds give or take. I'm really bad at estimating so that may be way off but I think about 20 pounds. Do you think he'll always be small?  I definitely think he'll be smaller when I look at him compared to the other.

11:02
babies in that  that kidding.  His mom had four, so he was the littlest of the four.  And he still is he's still much smaller than his siblings. The one  the other mama only had two and her babies are  almost the size of her now they're enormous. Yeah. Well, congratulations on saving the very runt of the lid  of the litter litter.  Yeah, yeah, kidding litter. I'm not sure.

11:30
I'm not good with terminology. you know, just say the words that sound right at the moment. Yeah. I don't know what a group of baby goats is called. I have no idea. know cats and dogs, but beyond that, I don't know. We can go with litter. I'll go with that. Yeah. And did you know actually that it's not a litter of kittens. It's a kindle of kittens. I did not know that, but that sounds adorable. Isn't that cute? Yeah. I learned that like a couple years ago. But it is a litter of puppies for sure. So. Okay.

12:00
Well, good, then we're good on that. Uh-huh, I love Kindle of Kittens. It's so perfect. The one thing that I haven't brought up yet on the podcast with anybody about research and stuff is that it's really great to have all this stuff available to us online to research and study, but it's also really good to have real books in your home. 100%.

12:26
We have probably six or seven books on farming, homesteading, gardening. And that way, if God forbid the internet goes out like it did here yesterday, all day, we still have our books if we need to refresh our memory on how to do something. I 100 % agree. I print out every recipe I can think of. I've got binders for any medical information I need, how to, you know, which mushrooms are edible. And, you know, I think you're absolutely right. Having those tangible items.

12:56
You know, God forbid if anything happens that you're able to access is so important Yeah, and actually learning the skills and practicing them for real is really important too because  you can watch somebody on a YouTube video Whittle the most adorable gnome out of a piece of wood. That doesn't mean you can do it Yes,  I 100 % agree with that. Absolutely do do as much as you can  with whatever you can, you know, even if

13:24
you're living in an apartment building, there's no reason you can't grow a tomato plant. There's no reason you can't can that tomato, make some sauce,  learn to bake bread, grow from seed. There's no reason you can't do  what you can do in the place that you're at. I 100 % agree. Yes, just do it to scale.  Absolutely. And I love that you said that because part of the reason I started the podcast is because I wanted people to know that you can do this stuff.  Whether you live in a

13:53
I don't know, 100 square foot tiny home in  somebody's backyard  or if you live on  250 acres.  doesn't really matter.  could just, ugh, can't talk.  You just have to do it to the size that you're at. The size that you're at and also building that community also.  Everyone doesn't have to be great at everything and building  actual tangible resources  with people that are like-minded and have the same similar goals and have...

14:22
understanding of your area or your culture or whatever it is,  it's so important to have those people because this is a hard life  and you know things do get tricky and you know when you've got a chicken that's dying in your arms or if you're trying to deliver the scope baby and you don't know what you're doing it's so important to be able to  really reach out to somebody that's a real person and not a YouTube video that isn't able to interact with you. Right, because the YouTube channel can't.

14:51
can't hug you when you're crying. Sure. And that's really important too because if that baby goat had died you would have been crying.  I was crying when he was living.  We were crying no matter what. We were crying  from the sun up to sun down that night. was a night filled with tears and  it was stop and go for a while, know, touch and go for a while. were  worried about it but luckily we had Tara. We were Skyping with her. I think it was about two in the morning.

15:19
And she was walking us through all the different options, what to look out for, what to know, what's viable, what needs more  attention to address.  it's so amazing to have those sort of mentors and people that have been there and done that in your life.  I agree. And I  have tried to be a mentor to people when they ask me things about what we're doing here.

15:46
And some of them appreciate it and some of them their eyes glaze over and they go,  oh, okay.  I get a lot of that too. A lot of my family gets the glazed over eyes when I talk and just, oh, that is lovely. I'm so glad that that excites you so much. I am excited, know, type of thing.  Yeah, it's actually really amusing to me. My parents own 14 acres in Maine. Okay. And they have chickens and they have a backyard garden there in their, well.

16:14
My mom is 78, my dad is 81,  and my dad is talking about not doing a garden this year for the first time in forever. And my  mom is really hoping that he changes his mind. And I'm like,  give the dude a break. He's getting older. But when we bought our place, they were thrilled for us that we were getting off the 10th of an acre lot in town and moving to the three acre lot out in the cornfields. They were thrilled for us.

16:42
And then we started talking about our plans for it  and all the things we were going to do.  I swear I could hear their eyes glazing over over the phone. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's not what they're doing with their place. Their place is just their home. It just happens to be 14 acres. Right.  So even your parents will get like,  duh about what you're telling them if you tell them too much.  Of course. mean, I think anyone,  you know, I  think it's that way with any sort of

17:13
passionate thing. My niece is a ballerina and as much as I love hearing her talk, there's times that she's saying words that I'm just like, don't know what any of this means or how this relates to anything.  I think that that's just kind of the nature  of conversation. But  yeah, most of the people in my life are pretty good sports.

17:33
Although there are some people that are like, just don't need to hear about how, know, grass fed beef is so much better for the world. And I'm like, no, you do need to hear it. It's important. We all need to know it. It's very important. There is a video out right now. I have not had a chance to look at it with somebody and Joel Salatin talking about how cows aren't bad for the earth. And they're not wrong. Cows aren't bad for the earth. It's okay. Really. It's fine.

18:02
Right. But I'm really curious to see what that's going to be. I have to sit down and watch it tomorrow. I did not have time today, but I'm so curious to see what they have to say about this. Okay. what's... I don't even know how to ask the question. Do you have plans for your little piece of heaven? I do. So my main goal was I really wanted to...

18:31
farm and grow food in a regenerative way. can never say that word right.  I really wanted to make sure that my husband and I, don't have children. So my contribution to this world, that my legacy that I'm leaving behind is that the land that I'm on is going to be better when I'm gone than it was when  I got here.  So where I am, I'm in a very, you know, conventionally farmed spray.

18:59
pesticides and actually they just sprayed the fields next to my house two days ago and so all the beautiful hay that was  growing and looked nice and lush and green everything's dead now.  And so there's been a lot of spray there's been a lot of chemicals here and I really wanted to do what I can to build the land back  and grow food and support my family and do it in a way that the earth is is better off for doing it this way.

19:26
So we started with the chickens and really starting to get them in place and we've got the goats and goat manure is just super good for gardens and everything.  And then our goal  is probably two years from now because I like to overestimate so then I can surprise myself if we get done earlier.  I'd love to get some beef cows. That's my long-term goal is to get a couple beef cows,  maybe raise one or two calves a year  for meat.

19:56
use the rest of them  to rotationally graze and build the pasture back up.  Nice. That's a wonderful plan.  Are you thinking like full-size cows or are you thinking mini cows? That I have to see. We  seeded our pasture. We've only got about maybe seven and a half acres that would be available to the cow. So depending on what we can get  on pasture, how

20:26
good we can get the grass because I would like them to be grass-fed as much as possible and only supplement hay in the real cold season.  So because of that, I've just got to kind of see what our land will be able to support. I don't want to put too many animals on it where it just has the opposite effect of what I'm looking for. So there's a scientific balance that I don't fully understand. So I've got to read a few more books and talk to a few more people and get things in place before I really know. But I would love a full size.

20:55
That's just what's in my mind, but I don't know yet what that would be. Okay.  Cool.  just,  I know that you can have, I think it's two mini cows,  might be three mini cows per acre.  But the bigger ones, the bigger cows are a little bit more. we've got a pretty long growing season. So we do get grass most of the year.

21:23
our pasture is really trying to get any grass.  We can grow it, I should say as a caveat, we should be able to grow it, but to grow it organically without spraying  has proven to be a little difficult without tilling and all that.  So depending on what we can get going and when, will depend on what we'll be able to support, you know,  off the pasture.  Uh huh, okay.

21:46
And I'm looking at your Instagram page right now  and you have the most beautiful cat or you did the white one with the gold and black.  Oh yeah.  So she's a story of a friend of ours. So it's a long story. we, when we first moved here, I'm not a cat person. I am a dog person. When we first moved here,  we got two puppies. I got my great Pyrenees Gus  and a great Pyrenees German Shepherd, McSam.  And one day I was in the yard.

22:14
and Gus jumped the fence, which was completely unlike him. He's a good boy and he stays in the yard. And he, sorry, we've got helicopters overhead.  And he jumped the fence and found a clutch, or no, was it? Kindle? Kindle. A Kindle of three baby kittens. So he nursed them. They ended up being his babies. He was raising them as his own. He loved them every day. They'd come out and see him in the yard and he'd play with them. Sam adopted one of them. Gus adopted the other.

22:44
We got, we had, we ended up getting a home for one. We kept a boy and a girl. We got the boy neutered, I don't know, a few months ago.  He came back and then we had scheduled the female to get spayed about a month ago. And it was at one of the mobile clinics. Long story short, she got out of the cage. She got lost. We caught her. We brought her back, but then she got scared and ran away. And I was devastated. So that cat is my husband's friend  knew that story, heard that story.

23:13
and said, well, I've got a cat for you and brought us her,  brought us their cat,  which was an indoor cat, which of course wouldn't work out because we needed an outdoor barn cat. So we found her a lovely home. She's not with us anymore.  Her name's Pepper and she's with a lovely family with a little boy and two other cats and she's very happy. But we had her for about a week.  okay. Well, she's really pretty. I love cats.  I love cats. We have two right now that are barn cats. Okay.  And we have

23:42
to at my friend's house that were just born on  Easter day, think. Oh, brand new, okay.  And she's gonna, she doesn't know whether they're boys or girls yet because they're tiny.  And so once she knows, she's gonna bring us a male and a female when they're eight weeks old, because we need more barn cats because we have,  have  foals, V-O-L-E-S-es. Oh yeah, uh-huh. Here and we have mice.

24:09
And we have a big old pole barn and the two cats are barely keeping up with the mice. we,  shortage of feral cats is not  an issue that I experienced here. We've seems like every other day I'm like, who are you now at my yard? another cat. really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a lot in the area.  Um,  as we're saying this, my,  the one kitten that stays, that is still here, Nacho, he's rubbing up on me and he's just the world's best cat. And even my husband who's severely allergic and

24:38
never liked cats is obsessed with him and he follows us around to do chores and  he's a good boy. He's the one that dropped the skink at my foot. Oh, nice. Very good job kitty cat.  Yeah. It'll be fun to have kittens on the farm again because we had,  we had three litters of kittens over a year and a half from our mama cat and then she flaked off. We don't know if she  got taken by a coyote or she got hit by a car,  but her kittens were luckily eight weeks old when she disappeared. So.

25:08
She just had enough and said, I'm done.  I actually said that to my husband. was like, I wonder if she was just finished. Three litters was enough. She's on her next adventure. Yeah, yeah. She's retiring.  But she was so pretty. She was a calico and she was friendly and she was the longest haired cat I've ever seen. She was gorgeous. goodness.  Oh, nice. So we kind of miss her. So having  a new couple of kittens on the farm for the year will be nice because I've...

25:36
Our dog actually loves the kittens. Yeah.  And she's been kind of looking at the pole barn like, why are no kittens coming out of the pole barn? It's April.  yeah, we'll have new kittens I think in about seven and a half weeks at this point.  kittens are always fun. Yeah. And I had asked my husband, you know, he was saying we needed more barn cats. And I said, well, do you want two more males? And he said, no. He said, I actually want an unfixed female.

26:06
And I said, why? said, because we can find homes for the kittens.  But if we have to buy cats to be barn cats, that's a lot of money.  Yeah. Get the cats working for you. Yeah. I was like, are you sure? He's like, yep.  I said, you know that every time the mom and cat has babies, I spend eight weeks worrying about them, right? And he's like, yes. And it always works out. like, okay,  Fine. We can do that.

26:36
So how happy are you that you had chickens when Alice Craisen has started with the cost of eggs? It's one of those things that I'm swimming in eggs. And when we first moved here, I was so psyched because I was getting a dozen, a dozen and a half a day. Now I'm getting two dozen a day. My husband doesn't eat eggs. My dogs are now allergic to eggs. So I am swimming in eggs. I can't sell them and give them away fast enough, it seems. I'm just...

27:03
So I eat quiche every day and we're just doing everything we can trying to make pasta and doing everything we can to go through these eggs because I'm the only one in the house that seems to. The cats can get an egg, the chickens get eggs. I feed them back to the chickens a lot. But yeah, so we've just been absolutely swimming and a few of my friends, this is the first year that I've had people hatch out any of my eggs. So we had, I think we've had five clutches that have hatched so far.

27:32
So that's been exciting to see. I'm like, I'm a grandma now. Yeah, exactly. You said you're fairly new to this. So did you know that you can actually crack the eggs into the bigger size ice cube trays and freeze them and they're perfectly fine for baking with? I have done that and I've tried that, but I have so many fresh that I end up never even using them. So I find that if I just feed them back to the chickens, I just use less feed that day.

28:01
Okay. Yeah, I've tried storing them a few times then they just sit in the freezer because then I just use whatever's fresh so true. Yeah, yeah Yeah, was a better one. realized my dogs couldn't eat it because I'm like come on guys They eat so much that you know an egg or two a day was a a nice dip in the grocery bill, but not anymore Yep You this is the other thing about this lifestyle. You think you figure out a solution and then something new pops up

28:30
100 % 100 % now we've been getting the goat milk. So I've at least been able to give them some of that nice  So are you just using the goat milk for drinking it or do you make soaps or anything out of it?  I've made cheese with it. So I've only started milking  pretty consistently  Maybe the last month or so because prior to that any milk that I was getting was going straight back to the babies So we've made butter a few times  We've made cheese

29:00
I do use it  in my coffee and I'm not a big milk drinker, but any place I would use milk, I use it. And then I'm excited to try some ice cream this weekend. We're actually gonna try to make some goat milk ice cream. So that'll be fun. Is the goat milk butter, does it taste different than cow's milk butter?  It definitely,  I find goat milk actually tastes better. I have  Nigerian dwarfs  and  I know when I've gotten goat milk at the grocery store, it's been quite goaty and I'm not a fan of it.

29:30
Yeah. And I think there's a few reasons to it. One is that Nigerian dwarfs, even though they produce less  milk than, you know, a full-sized goat, its butter fat is way higher. So it's a much sweeter milk. It does on day five, six and seven,  it can start tasting a bit goaty,  but fresh.  It's so sweet and it's so creamy. And it's really,  there's no,  there's no  aftertaste or anything until, until it's, you know, aged a few days.

30:00
Okay, I was just wondering because they're different animals.  they are different. Yeah, for sure. Okay, cool.  Um, so we're at 29 minutes and six seconds. I try to keep these 30 minutes and honestly, I'm sleepy. So I'm going to cut you loose. I'm so glad you came to talk to me, Sophia. I appreciate it. for having me. I really appreciate it as well. Thank you for teaching me some stuff. didn't know.  Well, you have an awesome day and thank you again for having me. I hope that, uh, that somebody got some value out of this.

30:28
I think they probably will.  All right. Thank you, Sofia. Have a good night. You as well.