The Homestead Farm

Today I'm talking with Jesse at the The Homestead Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
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.  You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe.

00:29
share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jessie at the Homestead Farm. I love the name of your place, Jessie. Good afternoon. How are you?  I am great. How are you doing? And thank you by the way. Oh, you're welcome. I'm great. It's a beautiful day in Minnesota. You're in Washington state and you said it's raining.  It's actually dry right now, but it's very wet outside. The mud goes up to your knees down in the cow pasture.

00:54
Gross. That's no fun. We're excited for a sun tomorrow. 74 it says. We'll see what happens. Well, maybe you'll get a couple of days and we'll dry it out some. It'd be nice. It'd be nice. And then we've got thunderstorms and rain coming up after that. But hey, spring is here, but summer, guess, is slowly approaching. So we'll have dry soon. Yeah. Let's not wish spring away because here in Minnesota, winters are long and cold. Yes. Yes, absolutely.

01:23
We have to eke out every piece of beauty and an amazingness from the point that spring hits until winter arrives.  Okay. Nice to see all the green things popping up everywhere. I love that part of spring. The baby's being born on the farm and everything else. It's awesome seeing all the new life.  Yeah. If I, if I actually lived on an actual farm, I would never be inside. Yeah.  Ever.  So.

01:53
All right, so tell me about yourself and the Homestead Farm. So I am Jessie. Hello everybody.  And I started the actual business, the Homestead Farm,  just over three years ago.  I bought this place nine or 10 years ago  with a dream of having a hobby farm and living off the land. It's only nine acres here, but we are using  every square inch  of  it.

02:19
So yeah, I moved in nine years ago, 10 years ago, and  I owned a cleaning business. I went to college before that for graphic design and just it wasn't my thing sitting at a computer.  I worked my butt off and  met an amazing man who made help to make all this possible. And I actually am now a stay at home farm girl, which has really been my dream for a long, time.

02:45
So yeah, we've got cows, goats, chickens, turkeys, some guinea hens, and a bunch of dogs. How many dogs?  Right now we have nine, but  five of those are puppies that are going to their new homes very soon. We've got some great Pyrenees puppies that are just awesome and they're in training right now to be livestock guardian dogs.  Well, if anybody's in Washington state and looking for a great Pyrenees puppy, you know who to contact now.

03:13
Yes, I love it. We've got three three left available. So, okay good  Yeah, only have one dog. I talk it talk about her all the time I probably should not even bring her up, but I'm going to anyway  Her her name is Maggie and she is a mini Australian Shepherd and she is  the love of my life Even though I have four adult grown children.  I  Love dogs. I think they're just the best thing on this planet. So I have I had kids though. So there's that

03:43
Yeah,  our oldest son came to visit just like a week or so after we got Maggie, so she must have been nine or 10 weeks old.  And  I have never had a puppy.  I was  as anxious about a puppy as I was about my newborn babies. And he was like, she's a dog. I'm like, no, she's the baby.

04:08
And he was like, oh god, you're going to be so in love. I said, I'm already so in love. I can't stand it. This is making me insane. He said, this is why we never got a dog when we were kids, because you wouldn't have been able to raise us. You've been too busy raising the dog. I sense a bit of jealousy there. He's giving me hard time, because I don't think he remembers seeing me that in love with anything. And his youngest brother is, I think.

04:38
10 years younger than him. So he sort of remembers when we brought the youngest home. But it's a whole different kind of love, you know?  You don't hold a baby and pet it and kiss its nose and tell it it's a good girl. You know,  it's a whole different thing.  So  anyway, that's my thing about Maggie today. Maggie was  not feeling well last night, so I've been a little concerned about her this morning. Poor Maggie. Well, we'll be thinking about her from over here.

05:07
Yeah, but she ate her breakfast and she hasn't been sick yet. I think something just messed with her tummy last night. So let's keep our fingers crossed. It's nothing major because major is bad when it comes to dog  doctors. we're not... Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. That's a real hard thing to come by out here, it feels like.  Yeah, we have a great vet, but  veterinary care is extremely expensive.

05:30
So I would just assume not have to drop like, you know, $2,000 in this dog right now. you're lucky. Come on, think you got this, girl. Yeah, she's fine. Oh, good. She's fine until I realize she isn't fine and then we do everything we can for her. So we're good. Okay. So I saw that you have some big event coming up on the 27th. Is that correct? I do.

05:55
actually going to be teaching our very first workshop at the Woodland Corner Store, which is our local little  corner store. We  sold vegetables there last year.  They sell all of our,  we make goat milk soap and tallow and a bunch of  all natural skincare that I source what I can locally and it's all made right here on the farm by me.  I do have a couple other helpers too.  But yes, we will be doing a workshop. And that was kind of one of the things when I started this

06:25
quote unquote business was  we wanted to share the knowledge that we have with our community on the lost arts, if you will,  just the old ways of doing things that people just don't even  know anymore. And of course, there's a lot of things we don't know that we would love to learn from our community. I really had just really huge dreams and goals of creating this kind of communal space of sharing, which this is kind of the first step.

06:53
towards that and who knows what it will end up looking like in the long run.  yes, very excited. We're going to be doing a, we call it the homestead kitchen.  So it will be based on kind of tips and hacks in the kitchen ways to avoid using  chemical things like living the toxin free life,  zero waste  situation. We  try to put everything to use on the farm. So

07:22
If we  harvest an animal, know, the dogs get anything that the people don't eat and  we use the bones in the garden  if the dogs don't eat them.  So just things, you know, trying to  share with people ways to save money, save time,  and just kind of get everyone back to their roots. It's just something we've just become really disconnected with a lot of things in today's society. So really excited to share with some people.

07:49
Yep, you're speaking my language, Jessie.  When I think of  trying to clean things without using any store-bought cleaners,  the first thing that comes into my head is vinegar. Yes, that's one of the stars of the show.  And it works. It actually works.  and you know, the thing I often hear from people is, I hate the smell of vinegar. And I myself don't, you know, I'm not a big fan either, but...

08:16
We're actually going to be doing infused vinegar cleaner. So you can, you know, infuse it as long as you'd like until it does not smell so bad if that's your thing. You know, a lot of people don't mind the smell of vinegar, but there are ways around a lot of the things, you know, reasons why people don't want to use these things. There are ways around it and other options. And that's another thing was I'm going to be sending everyone home with a workbook on ways to kind of make it work for you and your household if, you know,

08:44
the mainstream thing isn't working. So,  and then just ways to use natural products like beeswax is another huge one. mean,  we just sealed my guys boots with it last night.  And then we're gonna be making the beeswax food wraps and baking soda is a huge one. It's just a lot of simple things that a lot of people have in their house. If not in their house, they've got them available to buy in their community that's made, you know, in their location.  And they're just very valuable.

09:14
Yeah, baking soda is fantastic for unclogging drains.  Yes,  and kind of fun too.  Yes, yes, volcano cleaner. huh. thing about vinegar though is that people think that if you use vinegar to clean with your house is going to smell like vinegar all day.  It doesn't, it dissipates really fast. Yeah.  Yes, it does. You've got it. Absolutely. And especially using, you know, we have a lot of trees around here.

09:42
You can find, you know, we save tree  branches from our Christmas tree and that's one of the things I love infusing in my vinegar and it smells like pine or fur, whatever you choose, cedar.  That's another really awesome one. Yeah, and you can put, I  hear, I haven't done it, you can put lemon peel in vinegar. Lemon peels, orange peels, lime peels. I actually have some grapefruit peels for our class on Thursday.

10:09
So if you really hate the smell of vinegar, you can make it not so bad. honestly, okay, we're going back to Maggie for a minute. When Maggie was a puppy, she chewed on everything. She was a puppy and she was teething. And I found out about this spray called Bitter Apple and all it is, is apple cider vinegar and white vinegar mixed together, half and half. And most dogs hate the smell, the fume smell.

10:39
of it when you spray it.  And  we would spray that on our furniture because she was trying to chew holes in our futon mattresses. And if we sprayed it on there, she would not go near it. However,  if you dripped any vinegar on the floor, she loved the taste of vinegar. like, what are you doing?

11:01
So we sprayed this bitter apple stuff at least three times daily if she was chewing something she should not have been chewing. And our house didn't smell like vinegar. It did right then, but half an hour later, you'd never know we'd used it. Yeah, yeah. So  I can attest to the fact that it goes away really fast.  Yes, it does.  And for anybody with a puppy, try that bitter apple mix because  it works.

11:30
She does not chew on anything she's not supposed to chew on. Good, she learned it. Yeah, she'll be five this August and  she doesn't chew on anything. And if she's being crazy for no reason, like if she's just bouncy and we need her to calm down, we just spray that in the air once, one pull on  the spray bottle trigger. The minute she smells it, she just lays down looks at us like, okay, I get it.

11:59
It works.  It really, really works. Yeah.  That's a really good tip for new dog owners too.  Yeah. And it doesn't hurt them.  does not hurt them at all. Yeah. You're not yelling at them. You're not swatting them with a rolled up magazine. You're just putting something in the air that they do not like. you,  you obviously you don't just spray it for the hell of it.  If they're doing something they're not supposed to do like chewing on your mattress, you spray it and you say,  no.

12:29
You don't yell, just say no. And they start to associate no with they're not supposed to do it because they don't like the smell.  Yep. Easy peasy.  It's fantastic. I'm so glad I read about it. I found it on Google. I was like, how do get my dog to stop eating everything? anyway, good hint for the people who are going to adopt your three leftover puppies. Right? There we go. Just tell them.

12:59
Tell them and explain it and make them believe it because it'll make their puppy such a good dog. Okay, wow, I didn't know I was gonna be talking about Maggie this much today. I've been trying... I love dogs so I am more than happy to talk about Maggie. Yeah, I've been trying to avoid talking about her because honest to God, the first six months of the podcast, Maggie comes up in almost every single episode.

13:22
I'm like, dude, I am sickening with my love for this dog. No, you're not. Other dog owners and dog lovers totally get it. Uh-huh. And those who can't stand dogs are like, I wish you'd stop talking about that damn dog.  So anyway,  all right. So  you said you have critters. now that I talked about Maggie, I can't remember all the critters you have. know you have dogs. Yeah.

13:50
Yeah, we've got,  so I'd say the biggest,  we have a lot of chickens. I don't even know how many, I think last time we really kind of did a count, had about 200. Oh wow. Of course, we live  out in big cat country and  there were a lot of coyotes before we got  our, Whiskey is our main lifestyle guardian dog.  She's amazing.

14:13
We've actually had neighbors all up and down the mountainside thank us because there's a few coyotes left everywhere. She's around about a town but we free range our birds. We have no fences and we do have a lot of open area on our property. So we do lose some birds here and there. I it happens.

14:35
But for the most part, they just kind of, we don't buy chicks. They repopulate on their own by going off into the bushes and coming back with, I think 16 was our biggest clutch of chicks that a hen showed up with last spring. So that was pretty impressive. So yeah, we stay right around 200 or so. We tried to do turkeys a few years ago.

15:01
big snowfall overnight snowfall. I mean, you probably  wouldn't blink an eye at this, but I think we got like eight or nine inches overnight when they said it wasn't going to snow and it collapsed our  netted in turkey, big turkey run. And we've had free range turkeys ever since then. So  they also did the same last year they went out and tried to have babies  off in the woods  and never came back. So we have very few turkeys now they're more just pets at this point.

15:30
They're such nice birds, but my gosh, they're a lot,  you know, they like to travel a lot more than the chickens do. So  it's hard.  And then we've got goats. We breed  dairy goats that I use the milk in our soaps. And then  we have cows,  just meat cows and just four of them.  And we're not sure where that's gonna go. The cattle prices right now are just insane.  So we'll see how that goes.

15:59
We're talking about adding pigs again. We've had pigs before,  but they just,  I don't know, we didn't have the best pig experience. So let's hope this go around. We, you know, bring our knowledge with us and make more better choices.  How many you looking at getting?  Probably just a few. We have about two acres that are, it's brush and trees and we kind of want to get that cleared out. So we thought we'd fence it in and let the pigs do the work for us. Every animal has a job. So.  Yeah.

16:29
Okay. You said that one of your chickens brought in 16 or 17 chicks. have a question about that because I haven't talked to anybody who just lets their chickens do what nature does. Do the mama chickens actually like take care of the chicks? Do they teach them anything or? They take care of them until they go off and start mating with and doing their own thing. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Awesome to watch these mama hens protect their babies. I mean,

16:58
They are, if our dogs go anywhere near him, she's chasing our dogs off.  It's really impressive. Chickens are amazing moms. However, we do have one chicken. She was born with one eye. We don't know if maybe she got pecked when she was really little, but I think it's more of a, or she's deformed, I guess. don't know.  she was, she's,  she's never sat on eggs. So it was kind of weird. My boyfriend was down in our neighbor's pasture helping them with something and.

17:26
He comes up to the house, Jessica, go get the car, get the car. Henny had babies down in the neighbor's pasture. I'm like, what? This chicken's five years old, okay? So the fact she's even still laying is cool, but go get her babies and we get them set up in a tent here up by the house in the yard. And she literally, the first chance she could get, she took off. It was like, okay, mom, dad's got the babies, bye. Oh wow.

17:52
I don't know. She's never been one to be broody or sit on a clutch of eggs. So I don't know what tickled her to do that, but she did and just trusted us enough to take care of them.  Well, congratulations. You're now the parents of chickens.  Right. All the time. Let me tell you. Oh my goodness. yes, there's a reason why most people don't just let natural chicken things happen. I mean, I will tell you they, it's,  I laugh.

18:20
Because it's I can laugh at it now, but it's like you said spring is upon us. But for us, spring means, oh my word, the chickens, the chickens are going to start doing their thing. We've had babies born in places that you wouldn't even know. And it's like, oh my gosh.  we find that our eggs are just spectacular without having  fences. I mean, our eggs are just amazing.  Not to mention we have very little issues with chicken health because they're not stuck in a pen.

18:49
And I know this isn't an option for everyone, so no judgment of course, this is just what works for us. And when I say works,  it's a gray area.  They're definitely a lot healthier because I mean, they're out eating whatever they want. They can forage anywhere on nine acres  and our neighbor's house, if I'm being honest. Their kids love it. So,  but yeah, they get to eat their natural diet, you know,  and then whatever we feed is just supplemental really. Yeah, we have...

19:17
12 chickens right now and my husband's been letting them have the property to roam, is three acres. Perfect. That's awesome. That's a big space for 12 chickens. Yeah. And those chickens are going to be some angry come May because we try to get our garden planted the last two weeks of May. And my husband doesn't want to put a fence up because he mows around the garden. The garden's 100 feet by 150 feet.

19:43
And if he puts the fence up, he can't get the edges.  like all the weeds grow up along the fence.  the chickens are going to be relegated to their run come mid May. And the run is pretty big. You know, it's, not like a little tiny tunnel. It's a big fenced in area around the coop. So they'll be fine. And they definitely enjoy being able to be outside and scratch and dig for bugs and  worms and stuffs.

20:13
But my husband also, when he's getting ready to plant the garden, he digs, know, he tills a little bit. And if he finds any worms, he puts them in a can and he takes the can over and he throws the worms into the run one at a time. And the chickens lose their minds. So there's ways around not having them free range, but having them have some room to play. Yep, yep. And fodder too, that's something that...

20:41
I tried because it was all over the internet there a couple years back and I was like, okay, I'll grow some fodder for my chickens that sprouted seeds and trays and they could care less. I was so disappointed because they did a big thing on our social media like, oh, watch us grow fodder for our chickens and they literally looked at that and walked away and I was like, okay, I guess they do free range but I was so disappointed. I'm like, do you guys realize how hard it worked for this?

21:09
They did not, but good job trying. I swear my husband grows kale for the chickens. Yes, we grow it for the goats. Yep. I mean, he'll take some of the farmers market and people who want it for those smoothies will buy it, but a lot of kale goes to the chickens over the summer. Well, it just grows so prolific. I mean, out here anyway, it grows amazingly. And last year we even had it survive the winter, which was the first, because I didn't pull it up.

21:36
And it was flowering in the spring, so the bees had some early  flowers to hit and it was pretty cool. Yeah, the other thing that chickens like, and we didn't know this until we found out by accident, is they like basil plants. Oh really? Yeah, in Minnesota, once the temperature gets down to 40, the basil plants get like black spots on the leaves and they're basically done.

22:02
And so my husband was like, I'm going to throw one of the plants in the chicken run and see if the chickens will eat it. And they like the basil almost as much as they like the kale. So they ended up eating basil for like two weeks last fall. Oh, that's awesome. And no, the eggs did not taste like spaghetti sauce, so was fine.

22:23
It me, we salted our sidewalk because it was super icy here and I just, had some rock salt. So was like, I'll see what this does. And my goodness, if all the chickens and turkeys didn't come up and start eating this salt off the sidewalk, I was like, no, we don't need salted eggs.  We don't use salt anymore. So were the eggs salty? No. No. Thank goodness. Oh my gosh. My boyfriend's like, go sprinkle some pepper out there, hurry.

22:52
Already seasoned eggs right in the shell. Pre-seasoned.  I love it.  Maybe it's sad that that doesn't work that way. I don't know. I mean, in a way, it could go either way. mean, if you have full control over what they're eating, it might be good. That's too funny.  Okay. So you said you have four beef cows.

23:21
Yes, so we've got two steers, a bull and a heifer.  So  really we wanted cows for a long time and  just hadn't  done it yet.  And I found a cow,  the dairy farms  were selling off their little boy cows for  pretty darn cheap  a few years ago.

23:45
Um, so we found a cal for, think he was 50 bucks out in Tillamook. And so we're like, let's go get him. Let's go get him. And my gosh, if we didn't put that calf in the car, that's two and a half or so hours from here. And they, he took a big old dump in the back of the truck. Okay. Excursion. So it's like a big SUV.  As soon as we pulled out of there driving, I'm like, Ollie, you're going to be special. you?  So we've got him.

24:12
We found another one that was on death's doorstep. I think we got him for the same amount, 50 bucks. And  we're like, well, I guess we're starting our cows, know, however we need to do it. And then we found  our heifer. She's actually black Angus. So we're hoping to bring her with our bull. I'm not sure what happened, but nature didn't take its course just yet. So we're hoping, hoping soon that'll work out so  we can replenish our cows.

24:40
So yeah, the steers will just be harvested and then the bull and heifer hopefully will fall in love. hope so. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for you because baby cows are the best thing ever. They are. We just drove by some yesterday and oh my gosh, was stinking little and cute they are. They're just amazing. Yeah, where we used to live, we used to go for a drive to get to a place to hike and there was a big, I don't know if they were dairy cows or

25:08
cows, but every year they had babies. And the field that we would drive by would just be full of mama and baby cows.  And they were very curious about the cars going by. So we would very slowly pull over  mid-fence,  midway between where the fence started and where the fence ended for the field.  And we would roll the windows down and I would go,  and the mamas would pick their heads up and the babies would follow suit.

25:38
And the babies would moo at me. And I'm like, oh my God, they're actually talking to me. This is cool. My husband's like, you're so dumb.  It's the little things, man.  It's the little things. That's awesome.  Yeah. First time he heard me do the mer noise. It was better than that because I do a pretty good cow call.  And he was like, where did you learn that? And I said from my grandpa's friends down the road in Maine when I was growing up.  And he's like,

26:08
He said you sounded just like a cow. I said, yep, I'm a cow. That's what I'm gonna stick with right now  But So fun and these babies would come right up the fence I mean if I didn't think the farmer would have been mad I would have gotten out of the car and gone over and petted their noses  I don't recommend anyone do that unless they know the property owner.  Yes and the cows Because mama cows can be quite  quite ugly sometimes. Uh-huh

26:37
Exactly. I mean,  if I'd known the owner,  I definitely would have gotten out of the car and gone over to the mama and the baby that were right at the fence. And I would have talked to the mama first  and scritched her nose and then waited for her to get comfy and then scritch the baby's nose. Cute.  Oh  my goodness. Yeah. I love it. And honestly, I'm 55 years old and we don't have room here for cows. So we don't have cows.

27:06
Three acres is not enough for cows, not the way we're doing it.  But if I had been 25 when we got our place, we probably would have had many cows.  Yes, oh, I love those. Because you can have like two mini cows on an acre and they do just fine.  And they stay little and cute. Oh my goodness, we have a farm down the road here that has the highland cows and oh my gosh, I could just park and watch them. They're so adorable.

27:35
Yeah, and little is a relative term because a full grown mini cow can be 500 pounds. Yes, yes, you are right about that. So it's not like they're the size of a dog when they're done growing because they're bigger than that typically. It's not a goat, it's not a goat. No, it's not a goat. But that's fine. It's not supposed to be a goat, it's supposed to be a mini goat. Very different attitudes on both of those animals. We'll just throw that out there.

28:05
Yeah, most goats really do like people. They  act like a dog more than a cow will ever act like a dog. They are spicy though. Oh my gosh. And that's one of the reasons.  That was the very first thing I got moving in here were goats.  I used to work on a farm, helping manage a farm  when I was in college.

28:27
They had dairy goats and I just fell in love. So as soon as I got up here, I got my first two goats, Rip and Tear were their names.  And it all just went from there. So I think we had as many as 21 goats  a couple of years back and I had to kind of lighten my load as the skincare side of the business was really taking off and things  here were just getting too much.

28:51
We definitely lightened our load  on the livestock end  within the last couple years to kind of free up a little bit of my time.  Just too widespread. Okay, so before we run out of time, because I can do like 10, 12 more minutes.  The skincare line, tell me about that. Yeah, so I started, you know the first thing you say to yourself when you're like, I'm going to be a full-time homesteader is, well, how are you going to pay your bills? Right? That's something we all have to do.

29:20
So from day one, was like, well, I learned how to make soap from the lady that owned that farm I worked on. And I actually learned cold process soap, and I now make hot process soap, which is different than most anyone else does. I like to do things very differently than anybody else. That's one of the things about me. So it kind of all just started with soap. And I made my own little farm stand down in a neighboring town.

29:46
And the soap just really was huge and I made some balms and things and then tallow kind of hit tick tock and all the  social media stuff.  I kept getting requests for tallow. So I bought some tallow or some fat from a farm  and it just went from there. And now our tallow is in like seven different locations locally. And we have a website now and sell online and

30:10
The tallow is just amazing.  We use it for cooking. We put it in our dog's food when they aren't wanting to eat their kibbles.  You know, we use it  all the time. Again, it works well with the beeswax to seal wood or boots or anything else. So tallow is another one of those key factors in,  you know, community resources that you can use in your life all the time for a lot of different things. So,  yeah. Isn't it weird how tallow got such a

30:39
bad reputation for a long time. Yep. And now look at it, star of the show.  Finally. It's great for you though. mean, I'm just happy people are  finally, you know, kind of  opening their eyes and seeing the other side of things, I guess, if you will, the  other way of life, the other way you can do things, you don't have to be reliant on the system.  You can step outside the box and

31:09
I just, can't wait for it to take the world by storm even more than it already is. So it's, it's coming.  We're going to do anything we can to help it on its way. That's for sure. Yeah.  And, and I feel kind of weird about saying it that way, but  this stuff that we do is so  good for us.  It's, it's not like we're trying to take over the world so we can blow it up. We're taking over the world to make it better.

31:37
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, it's not just strengthening us, our bodies,  our communities, you know, relying upon each other to get these things.  But it's also  good for the earth, for the animals, it's good, you know, stewards to the land. I mean, it all works in a cohesive circle. Everything gets along with each other when you start to rely on plants and animals. it's just crazy how everything works together. There isn't a lot of backlash, whereas if you

32:06
live life the other way, there's always some price you have to pay for something. But when you kind of look at the way things were done back in the day, everything kind of helped each other out in a way. So I'm hoping to get back to that.  That would be awesome. sound like me. I say stuff like that all the time.  I would love to end the podcast there, but I'm not going to because I have a thing to say about Talo, which led me to bacon grease.

32:34
A lot of people think that number one, bacon's bad for you and bacon is bad for you if you eat an entire pound by yourself. Probably not going to be good for you.  But you know, a couple pieces with your eggs once in a while is not terrible or with your French toast. And when you cook bacon, you get leftover bacon grease. That's how it works. And  I tend to have about a half of a jelly jar of bacon grease in my fridge at any given time. Because if you make bacon potato soup,

33:04
You can put a little bit of that bacon grease in the soup and it makes it even more  flavorful.  And  I don't know what we were thinking, but like last year I was making, I was going to make French toast and my husband had fried up the bacon and he poured the bacon grease off and left the pan on the stove. And he went to get me a clean pan so we could cook the French toast in butter. And I was like, no, I don't know. We're going to cook it in the bacon grease that's in the pan.

33:33
He's like, but that's terrible for you. I said, it's not any worse than butter.  And he was like, okay. So I cooked the French toast with the little layer of bacon grease that was left in the pan.  And it was really good. So good. And no one died.  So now,  now when we have French toast, like once every couple of months, if we have bacon, we fry up some bacon and I pour the...

34:02
the most of the bacon grease off. And then I fry up my French toast and the bacon grease and that's how I like it. That is brilliant. You know, we, I've gotten into the sourdough kick. So I actually made my own sourdough starter about a year, year and a half ago. And, you know, I was too busy to actually learn and start making sourdough. So I had all kinds of discards. So

34:25
We started making sourdough picklets. If anybody hasn't heard of that, look it up. Oh my gosh, they're so delicious if you have sourdough discard. But I am going to use what you just said and I'm going to make these sourdough picklets with bacon grease. Cause usually we use butter and that is brilliant. That sounds so good.  So what is a sourdough picklet?  So it's, don't even know where it's from. Maybe it's French. I'm not really sure. I haven't looked into the history, but it's basically you have your, cup of sourdough discard.

34:54
And then I think it's like  a half a teaspoon of baking soda, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of salt. And the baking soda reacts with your  sourdough starter and it kind of expands and kind of foams up, if you will. It's really fun to watch it. And then you drop it into,  it says to use hot butter,  but how about let's try bacon grease next time.  And you just drop it in there. It's kind of doughy.  And we usually do it in like a three or four pieces.

35:22
and you fry them, flip them over and they're just amazing. They're just delicious. It's like a take on a pancake, but they're crispy, crunchy on the outside. They're so good. Nice. I, yeah, I, I told someone a month and a half ago, I was going to start Sourdough Starter and I haven't done it yet, but I need to just to make that. Yes. Yes. That's pretty much all we, all we made for the first year of the Ciclids.

35:48
The reason I keep saying I want to start a sourdough starter, which sounds really funny to say in that order that way, but it's because someone was telling me that you can make sourdough crackers and I really do like crackers, but I don't like store-bought crackers. Yeah. So you can make crackers. My sister actually just did a recipe that was homemade Cheez-Its. So you spread the starter out on  a baking sheet and you sprinkle cheese on top and you bake it. And she said they were amazing. So I'm definitely going to add that to my to-do list.

36:19
Because I'm sure you don't have enough to do as it is, right? Right, but hey, you gotta make room for the little things that make you happy and cheese is one of those things for me. uh-huh.  Absolutely.  We're making  sausage, gravy and biscuits tonight for dinner.  Oh, stop it. Can I come over?  It's a long haul for sausage, gravy and biscuits. but it'd worth it.  Yep.

36:44
Yeah, we had one pound left of ground pork and I was like I can make sausage gravy and biscuits if you guys want it. My husband and my son were like, yes, please.  Oh my  god. Well, good. You'll enjoy that.  Yeah. And the reason I say that, well, the reason I even bring it up is because I feel like it's a very homestead meal to make homemade biscuits  and homemade sausage gravy.

37:11
Yes,  yes, yum. Oh my gosh, I don't know anyone who turn that down.  Well,  I have heard that there are people who don't like sausage gravy, so they're going to turn it down. But anybody who likes it, they're always going to try it.  All right. I have yet to meet those people. So  more for us then, right? Yeah, absolutely.  All right, Jesse. Well, I wish you a lot of luck with your workshop because that should be fun.

37:38
for you, but it should really help a lot of people too. Thank you so much. Hopefully it's the beginning of something awesome. Anything to kind of help people on their way to realizing that they can do it themselves. Yes. All the encouragement in the world to everyone that you talk to because  we need to, we need to know how to take care of ourselves.  got it sister.  All right. Thank you so much for your time today, Jessie. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. You too.