The House and Homestead (and surprise! a bit about Homestead Living Magazine)

Today I'm talking with Anna at the The House and Homestead. 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 Anna at the House and Homestead. Good morning Anna, or afternoon Anna. It's one o'clock in the afternoon here. I  screw up the intro all the time.  Good afternoon Anna. How are you?  I'm good.  sorry Mary, where are you located?  I'm in Minnesota. You're in Minnesota. Okay. So I'm a West on Vancouver Island. So it is actually morning here for me still.

00:57
Okay, well, it's one o'clock in the afternoon here, sort of. Fair enough.  Yeah, Vancouver Island, right? Yeah, that's right. In Canada? Yes.  Yes. I looked at your Facebook page this morning or your website or something and I saw Vancouver and I was like,  I swear there's a Vancouver in Washington state, but I think she's in Canada. So now we know.  Yes, yes, there is a Vancouver in Washington state as well, not too far from us as the crow flies, I guess, but we're out on the island now, which is...

01:26
Lovely. Yes. And would you believe that I scheduled two interviews on the same day for two women in Canada? I talked to somebody in Canada this morning as well. Oh, no way. Cool. I was like, wow, that was weird. Who knew? And Canada is a great place. have been to visit once. We took the Northern route from  Illinois back to Maine. So drove up to Canada and then across and back down to the Maine because I grew up in Maine.

01:53
Oh, cool. You've probably seen more of Canada than I have then. I've been only to Quebec once and I've never even been to like Toronto or anywhere back east. I've traveled way more extensively in the US than I have across the rest of Canada because it's actually quite expensive to get back and forth across Canada using our airlines. Yeah, there's not a ton of competition here. So the prices tend to be high. I used to actually work as a travel agent funnily enough in another life and it was

02:20
often cheaper to, I kind of joked it was often cheaper to go to London, England than to London, Ontario. So, you know, if I was going to book a trip, I'm like, well, I may as well go somewhere, somewhere else, you know. Expand your horizons. Yeah. I think I was a teenager when we did that and I actually got wet from the Niagara Falls spray. we stopped in Niagara Falls too. Yeah, it was pretty neat. Okay. So tell me about yourself and the house in Homestead, please. Well, I

02:51
grew up with zero homesteading background. I did a little bit of gardening when I was a kid. remember with my grandpa, that was about as close as I ever got to growing food or anything. I remember he had a little backyard garden in the city where we live. I grew up in Vancouver in the city or in a suburb of Vancouver. And yeah, when I was a kid, I remember my grandpa had a little garden in the backyard and he would grow

03:15
beans and peas and tomatoes and a few things like that. And that was always a novelty to get them fresh from my grandpa's garden in the summer. And then I would help them out there. But other than that,  I really had no experience growing food or doing any type of like food preservation or even like cooking. didn't like get into cooking for myself until I moved out in my twenties  and, kind of had to figure some of that out.  So I, you know, didn't come from any type of

03:44
home setting background.  in  about my mid twenties,  my husband and I, we were engaged at that point, but we were kind of trying to determine what our future would be and where are going to stay in the city? Where are we going to look elsewhere? And  I was just feeling very  disenchanted  with city life. was like that typical kind of stuck caught in the rat race and like, is this how it's going to be forever? And I was struggling with anxiety and  depression and mental health issues at that time.

04:12
I'd always noticed that like when we got out into nature and just kind of got away from the traffic noises in the city and the hustle and bustle, I just felt at ease. I felt calm.  And I wanted to, I knew at that point I wanted to get out of the city, but I didn't know what that looked like. And around the same time,  we started watching a lot of documentaries on  Netflix and whatnot at the time. And it was right when

04:37
all those big food documentaries were coming out like Food Inc and Farmageddon and all those big kind of food expose, I guess, documentaries. And we started watching those and we're just horrified. I think I knew at the time like industrial meat production and farming and all that stuff was bad, but I didn't really know the ins and outs of it. it started to really open our eyes to that and A, how unhealthy it was, but

05:06
be how unsustainable it was as well. And we were just like, you know, this is not going to last forever. And, you know, there's got to be other solutions to this, right? So at the same time, as we were kind of looking at moving out of the city, we were kind of getting it,  the seeds started being planted, that, you know, maybe there was another way to live. And in these documentaries is the first time that I heard the term homesteader come up, at least in the modern sense.

05:31
because, you know, they would kind of do these exposés on big egg and whatever. And then they would introduce you to people who were doing things differently and who had chosen to go back to the land and start growing their own food. And it just opened my eyes to this lifestyle as even a possibility. I had never even considered it before. And so, you we kind of put two and two together and we're like, well, if we move out of the city,  maybe we can start doing some of this. Right. And, and, and that really appealed to me at the time because I wanted to be out in nature. I knew I wanted to get back.

06:01
the land in some way just for my own mental health.  And so that then kind of became my obsession and I started taking out every book I could, you from the library on homesteading and small scale farming. And,  and then, know, one thing always leads to another.  You inevitably then find, you know, resources on preserving food and on, you know, herbs and making herbal medicine and all these things that kind of fit in with this lifestyle. And so at that point, I was just really learning about it, but I was set on

06:29
that wanted to do this and luckily my husband was on board. So after we got married and I finished school, we decided to move out to Vancouver Island. So that's where we are now. So we are in a place called the Comox Valley,  which is about midway up the island. So  a couple hours from the biggest, like the next large city,  but we are growing here as well, but we're kind of just on the outskirts. So we've got kind of a

06:54
town, it's still I guess would be considered the you kind of a town, not a big city, but it is growing but we're kind of on the outskirts with I like to say kind of one foot in  rural living and one foot still in suburbia. We are on a quarter acre on a cul-de-sac that kind of backs onto a green belt. So from the front, it looks like we're a pretty average, you know, suburban lot.

07:19
And then in the back, backs onto this green space. But out front, we have a large garden.  That's our south facing area. we  just on our quarter acre alone, we grow hundreds of pounds of food every year. We have some backyard chickens.  We're expanding the gardens this year. We're building a greenhouse. do a ton of preserving now. You  know,  the sourdough bread, all the things.  And so in between that, basically to backtrack a bit, I'm getting a little bit off course, but

07:48
We had moved out to Vancouver Island and rented at first and we were on, um,  we were on a little bit larger lot,  um, close to an acre, but we had, uh, we were able to put in some raised beds. The owners let us put in some raised beds there and they had a big old apple tree and an old cherry tree. And so that is where I actually started to learn how to garden and how to preserve food and all that. then, so when we bought our place here, um, I had some of those skills and we've just continued to expand ever since.

08:18
I love it. I love it when the people I talk to are like, I was a city girl and then I was like, I need more. I'm going crazy living in the city. And then I moved to this lot where we had a little bit of room. We put in some raised beds. We started growing things and wham, I decided I needed to be a homesteader because that's a lot of the stories that I get, it is.

08:42
I also get the stories from the people who are like, my grandpa was a farmer, my other grandpa was a farmer, I grew up steeped in growing things and I just had to keep doing it. So  yeah, definitely those are the two ends of the spectrum. I think what I  am trying to lean into right now, because sometimes I feel like because I do this in the space, I write the blog, I help teach others how to do this. I'm the editor of Homestead Living Magazine and I have people reach out sometimes and they're like,

09:07
Oh, you know, we're going to be in the area. Can we come see your farm or do you do farm stays? And I'm almost embarrassed sometimes that like to say, well, I don't actually have a farm and it's actually not, you know, I don't think it's what people expect, but where I'm trying to really lean into that is a lot of people are in this situation where they are on a quarter acre or less on a suburban lot. And so what I can show you and tell you for sure is that it is possible to do it on a smaller lot. You don't need to have.

09:36
you know, 10 acres and a milk cow, as I like to say, you know, sprawling property in order to, you know, start growing some of your own food.  No, you do not. And I've told the story a billion times in the podcast, but I'm going fill you in really quick.  Before we moved to our three acre lot, we lived on a 10th of an acre lot  in a little town, like a block and a half off Main Street through that little town. And we grew hundreds of pounds of food in our tiny backyard.

10:05
just like you're doing.  when we dug out the backyard to get it ready to grow stuff, our neighbors were like, what are you doing? And we told them and they were like, oh, okay. And they seemed very,  very perplexed. And then that fall, when we went around and gave them bags of cucumbers and tomatoes and fresh herbs,  they were like, oh, we get it now. Yeah, totally. Well, I think our neighbors totally think we're crazy, but.

10:31
You know, the one good thing is the area that we chose to move to one of the reasons we chose this area Comox Valley  is because there is a very  strong  regenerative farming, organic farming and gardening community here. So  there's a lot of that a lot of local farms that sort of thing, which is great for us because it helps supplement us with whatever we can't produce. you know, we don't have a lot of enough space to be doing a lot of meat production, that sort of thing.

10:55
but there's a lot of local farms in the area and a lot of people who are very on board with what we're doing from a sustainability and food security standpoint and you know, all that sort of thing.  But there's a lot of gardeners in the area too. It's just kind of baked in the culture here. So it's not like we're doing anything out of the ordinary.  But you know, I think our neighbors, because everything is in the front and we are still on a cul-de-sac,  do look over at us sometimes and like, oh, what now? So right now, for example, I'm looking at my office window and there's a giant pile of mulch in the driveway that we got.

11:24
dropped off from a local arborist  and we have been collecting  cardboard for the past year and we are expanding. have a large fenced front garden, which is what I call the market garden because that's where we have our rows, our in-ground rows.  And then we had, you know, another few hundred square feet of grassy front lawn where we have two septic tanks. So we couldn't put in-ground beds, but

11:47
We're now building raised beds. So we are, we've been saving cardboard for the past year. We have now cardboarded over all of the grass and we're putting all this mulch on top. And I said to my husband yesterday, as we were out there, I'm like, I'm sure the neighbors are probably just like, what  are they doing now?  Covering the entire front yard and we're putting gardens in there. So, but there, where there is a will, there is a way. And it sounds really impressive to say, you know, we grow hundreds of pounds of our own food, but when you start doing it, it actually isn't that hard to do that on a fairly small lot.

12:17
No, because a good size tomato weighs a pound. Well, exactly. It adds up really quickly. And if you employ, you know, things like vertical gardening and that sort of thing, you know, a lot of the things that we grow, we trellis up and that allows us to grow more in a small space or we, know, prune ruthlessly, we do companion planting. We can get into that if you want, but, you know, we do things that allow us to produce a lot and make the most out of what we got. So have you trellised squash, winter squash yet? I have.

12:46
kind of accidentally, had pumpkins naturally climb our fence a couple years ago and I kind of just let it happen. And it seemed to work really well. So I know that sometimes they, I've heard they can get heavy and they can fall off and that sort of thing. think there can be some trickiness to doing heavier, you know, fruits like that when you're chelusing, but we didn't have any issue with it and we grew. I can't remember if that was the same year that we grew. We had a,

13:12
some pumpkins. They weren't volunteers. We had planted them, but we planted them right beside our compost bin. And I think it was just great soil. I don't know what the conditions were, but we got 20 pumpkins off one vine that year. We are so I didn't even bother planting them last year. We're still eating through all of the period pumpkin in the freezer and canned pumpkin on our shelves. So.  Fabulous.  The reason I asked about trellising the winter squash is we did it on purpose two summers in a row at the old house because the backyard was not big.

13:40
And  we had a couple like 10 to 12 pound squashes grow. the stems on these guys were huge because  the plant should grow a stem big enough to support the growing fruit.  And  it was really funny because when I told my dad we were going to do this that first year, he's  grown a garden for years. He knows about gardening.  And he was like,  your squashes are going to fall off. And I was like, not true.

14:10
And he said, okay. I think the trick is maybe that  it's maybe if you let them grow and then you try to trellis them, that's maybe where people have the issue.  Then they're not used to supporting that way. But if you let them actually grow  on the trellis, then they kind of it's almost like flexing a muscle, right? They develop that thicker stem and vine to support that fruit as it grows slowly. Yeah. Well, we took pictures as they develop so I could send them to my dad so he could see the process.

14:39
And when we harvested the  squashes, I laid them on my kitchen counter and I measured that. put the ruler  along it  so that he could see how long the squashes were and how wide they were at the bottom. were butternut squashed. And I said, these are the squashes that did not fall off the vines. And he was like, I will be damned. had no idea. Yeah. So  he was very impressed with our gardening skills for never really having garden before. Yeah, no kidding. Oh, grateful.

15:07
Yeah, it was great. And I keep asking my husband if he's going to do it here. And he's like, no, because we have the room for them spread out into the yard. I'm like, yeah, OK. But then we could do something else with that space. That's what I'm always thinking. As we're expanding our gardens now, I'm trying to set it up so that we can have cattle panels set up so that we can. Because the one thing with our garden where it is, the way the rows run north to south,

15:36
or sorry, yeah, if not, that's not true, east to west. And so where the sun comes up,  if we put archways over the rows, right, connecting the rows, then the the whatever's growing at the back would get shaded out. Yeah, if that makes sense. but the way that we're going to set up our new beds, hopefully we'll have them running  north to south, so that then we can put  more

15:58
trellises up, more archways up between the beds and then grow more vertically. So, but these are all things too that we've learned and that we're still experimenting with. You know, we're about 10 years into  actively gardening now.  And you you learn new things every day, as you know, you're kind of never done. There's something always that is, you know, new to learn or experiment with. So we'll see how this goes for us. Something new for us. Yeah, I compare gardening to writing a book.

16:26
because yeah, you'll eventually reach the end of writing the book. But I have talked to a lot of people who have written books and they're like, I'm always thinking of ways I could have done it differently. Yeah, or like editing, you know? And I said that the other day, we just dug up our blueberries and strawberries and replanted them for the third time because as we do expand, then, you know, it makes sense to like reconfigure a bit. like, actually, they should go here and we should do the bed this way and then we can fit this in. And  right. And I'm like, I feel like everything that we ever, this is why I do like.

16:55
I love perennials because in theory you plant them once and then never have to do it again.  But it seems like with all of our perennial plants, whether they are edibles or I'm getting more into flower gardening and ornamentals and stuff, it doesn't matter what I do. I always end up digging everything up at least once and putting it somewhere else because I'm a very visual person too. So when you plant

17:16
a seed or root stock or a bulb, I need to see it  in full bloom and like in its full glory before I know if that's the right spot for it, right? So that's where annual gardening is actually really nice is because if you do something wrong or you don't like it one year, like just restart and do it all over again the next year and do it differently, you know?  Absolutely.  And speaking of  perennials,  I love peonies.

17:41
Like anyone who's listening to podcast knows I freaking adore peonies. And we  have a bunch we put in when we moved here.  And the problem with peonies is you can't see them in full bloom for three years.  So when we started putting peonies in, my husband was like, where do you want them? And I'm like, I don't care. I just want them in the ground because I want flowers three years from now.  And he was like, OK. He said, here's what I'm thinking. And he showed me what he was thinking. He wanted to line the driveway on the house side.

18:10
And he wanted to do like a circle of peonies where the driveway rounds out.  And I was like, that's fine.  And I trust him. He's the gardener. He loves gardening. And  last year was the first year where everything really bloomed heavy for the first time, because it was the third spring.  And it's gorgeous and I'm in love with it. And I remembered him saying, how do you want me to do this? And me being like, I don't care. Get them in the ground.

18:39
So one morning it was just pinks and corals and yellows and burgundies and whites and I came in and I was like, I love you so much. He had no idea what I was saying.  And he said, what happened? And I said, have you looked at the peonies spread out there?  He was like, well, yeah. I said, you did it exactly the way I said. I said, get it in the ground so I'll have flowers in three years. with those.

19:06
Yeah, I was gonna say that's my philosophy too. I'm like, as long as I get in the ground, if I do have to move something, like whatever, but at least I've got it now, you know? Yeah, exactly. So anything that takes three years to bloom, I think not being me, being somebody else, anyone else would want to maybe think about where they want to put stuff. Me, I was just like, I don't care, just put them in. Yeah. So totally. Well, it's good to know on the peonies because I actually want to get at least one peony bush, I guess it would be.

19:34
in the ground this year. I tried roses last year. Do you grow roses?  Not here, no. Okay, yeah, because I tried.  We planted some bare root roses last year and they just died right away. Yeah. And I think we didn't soak them first. that this is, want to get into roses necessarily here,  you know, I am, it's funny because now we've been doing the vegetable and even fruit gardening for a number of years, edible gardening, but flowers is something new for me. And there are little things that they, and especially each variety that

20:02
needs that is different. I'm, you know, I've already had my share of struggles with flowers. Some of them have done really well, but the roses, of course, the most expensive things I purchased, bare root roses, and they both like died right away last year. So I think we didn't soak them properly. But I also think we probably planted them in the wrong area. So we'll see. I'm going to try them again this year. Luckily, they're going to send me some replacements this year. So I better get it right.  Can I, can I give you a couple hints or suggestions? Yes.

20:31
We grew William Baffin climbing roses at the old house and they went up a trellis because they were climbing roses.  They are one of the closest to wild roses you can get. They did fantastic and they do like three blushes of blooms a summer. do the spring, midsummer and then you might get a third one in like September. They're  not the roses that you would ever cut and put in a vase. They're more like a bush.

21:01
They're beautiful and they're pretty forgiving to grow.  nice. Well, I do have some David Austin roses on order.  got them, my order in nice and early this year because there's,  you can't get them as easily here in Canada.  So there is one local supplier, but they sell out of most of the varieties pretty quick. So they're shipping in a month or so, but  I have looked at the wild, the more like closely related to wild roses as well.

21:28
Simply because I would imagine, I if you know this, but  I would imagine those have similar medicinal properties then to wild roses. The rose hips, Yeah, with the rose hips and that sort of thing. Because we do that, actually, we have a lot of wild roses that grow around where we live.  So we will often go gather rose hips in the fall  and make medicines and syrups and things out of them. But yeah, so I've thought about adding some wild type roses to our property as well for that. But we have a lot of that stuff that we can forage as well.

21:58
Uh-huh. Yeah. The farther away you get from the wild rose, the less the roses smell good. The William Baffins, every time they bloomed, we'd have the windows open. You could just smell them. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah, they were so pretty. I don't have roses here because roses are a favorite of  the black beetles. I can't think of the names. Not Asian beetles. Japanese beetles. Mm-hmm.

22:22
And  we don't have any Japanese beetles on our property. I don't want to give them a smorgasbord. Yeah, no kidding. can't eat. So we just haven't done it.  Well, we'll see. Our garden that we're expanding this year, so we're doing, so like I say, we have our large,  what I call the market garden just because the way we grow is in like market rows.  And we do a lot of companion planting where we're planting certain vegetables with others that do well and support each other.  But we do tend to just because of the way my brain likes to organize things.

22:50
plant everything together in one row, right? So it'll be like all the broccoli and onions together and some nasturtiums, but they're all in like one row together.  Just that makes it easy for me too, as far as then I know where it was, then I can rotate it.  But the way that we're expanding our new garden, this year we're doing it more of like a cottage garden. So my hope for it  is that it's gonna be just kind of a mix of like ornamental flowers. My daughter is eight years old and she's really into like making little.

23:17
flower bouquets and I'm really trying to bring her into the gardening world, but she's not as into like weeding  the garden and growing the vegetables as I am, but she's into the flowers. I'm really trying to support that. So we're cut flowers. We're doing kind of ornamental flowers in the garden.  Lots of like herbs and medicinal herbs and that sort of thing. And then I want to be able to kind of throw in the odd food plant. So it's going to be much more organic feeling, I guess. Nice.  All plants breathe out  oxygen. So grow all the plants.

23:46
Doesn't matter what kind.  Exactly.  OK, can we  can we chat about Homestead Living for a minute or you not? Yes. No, no, Let's go for it.  OK, so you're the editor in chief. How did that happen?  Yeah, funny story. So Homestead Living just  briefly for anybody who doesn't know, we are a  monthly print  and digital magazine.  started up  the company itself, started up, I believe it was twenty twenty two.

24:16
and launched with a  digital quarterly magazine and basically  included articles on everything related to homesteading. So gardening and preserving and herbal medicine and  raising livestock and all that stuff. And had people from all across the homesteading world, at least people who are in kind of the online world and publishing and that sort of thing as well, submit articles for

24:44
the digital magazine and it gained a lot of traction pretty quickly. And over the course of two years, they put out four or four digital issues per year.  And then comb that culminated in an annual issue, which they offered as print and the response was really great to print. think homesteaders in specific, while a lot of other print publications are dying out and going to digital, we're doing the opposite because homesteaders really like tangible things they can actually hold in their hands and keep on their shelves and refer back to over and over again.

25:14
So by the end of 2023, they had decided that they wanted to go full on with a monthly print magazine.  And so  one of the co-founders is Melissa K. Norris, who runs  the Pioneering Today podcast  and her website, melissakenorris.com. And so  she had kind of been acting as editor until then, but she also runs the Modern Homesitting Conference and  has a bunch of businesses and things that she does.

25:42
I don't know how she does it.  Yeah, me neither. I  honestly don't.  Yeah, she's got a lot of things going on. And so she just couldn't take on the role of full-time editor,  especially for a monthly print magazine. So they were looking for an editor. And at the very same time, serendipitously, I had actually been running my own digital magazine for the past four years prior to that.  So I had a magazine called Modern Homesteading Magazine.

26:08
which had gone from being a monthly digital to a quarterly digital  as production costs got higher.  And people again, really wanted print and me being in Canada  made it, and most of my readers being in the US made it very difficult just as far as the logistics and the cost of printing and shipping. didn't matter how many times I crunched the numbers or tried to make it work.  There was no way it was gonna be sustainable.

26:34
I would have had to charge an arm and a leg to even break even, let alone make a profit. And so I just, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this. so I decided to end it  and actually put out my own print magazine just as a thank you to anybody who wanted to order and support that.  And it was kind of a culmination of everything I had put out for the past few years. So as I was advertising this and saying, hey, we're shutting it down, but as a thank you, if you would like to order this commemorative print issue, here it is.

27:01
Melissa saw that and it just happened to be the right timing that as I was shutting that down, they were looking for an editor. So they asked me to meet with them and I was offered the role of editor in chief, which was just amazing because  I love doing this. I actually have a background in journalism. went in my first degree. went to school for journalism. I've always loved writing and creating content.  I have a magazine that I made when I was six years old, like, you know, handmade for a class project that I still have saved. just, I loved, I don't know why.

27:30
It's always been a passion of mine to create content and share my own passions with the world. And that's what first led me to writing my blog. But so I basically came on with Homestead Living in January of 2024, and I have been the editor ever since. So I now kind of run both things. technically my day job is with Homestead Living. And then I also run the house in Homestead on the side.

27:57
you know, have some courses in a membership program  and that sort of thing through there.  you becoming editor in chief, Homestead Living was kismet. That's what It really was. And I said, you know, call it God or whatever you want to call it. But I felt like that whole year as I was trying to, you know, work out the logistics and what do I do? And I don't  want to shut this down, but because I kept saying, you know, if I could just do the editing part, not worry about all the logistics, right?  And I just, something kept saying, you need to let it go.

28:27
You need to let it go. And so I listened to that voice.  And when they, had the meeting with them, they said, well, what, what, what are you going to do next? I'm like, you know, I don't know. Maybe I'll do a podcast. Maybe I'll do you too. I'm not, I'm not really sure. And then this was offered.  And so it really was as one door closed, another one open. And it was exactly what I was looking for. I had said this to my husband. like, I, I could just be the editor  and not worrying about, you know, the marketing and the shipping and that's exactly the role I'm in now. So it really, really was  meant to be, I feel like.

28:55
Well, congratulations, however many years later, because that's a great story. Yeah. For the listeners who haven't actually subscribed to Homestead Living, I have a subscription to it and it is a beautiful magazine.  really is. you. And you have like people like Joel Salatin, but you also have like everyday people too, who write. Yeah. And that's really great.

29:21
Yeah, really,  we're so lucky to have Joel. He's a regular contributor. So he's in every issue and he's so great. He's so funny. I always, he's just says, you know, feed me, feed me what you want me to write about. So  for any listeners out there who are subscribers, if there is anything you would like Mr. Joel Saliton to write about ever,  please write in and let us know. But I'm always just feeding him ideas and he's like, great. Yeah, I'm on it. And he'll write about whatever we want him to share information on. Of course, he's a wealth of information and knowledge on home setting.

29:50
But you know, I also like to showcase people from maybe that either aren't as well known or are different points in their journey or are homesteading in different areas or, you know, kind of specialize in different things because there are a lot of beginners out there too. And sometimes a Joel can make it feel like, well, this is great, but I'll never be Joel Saliton, right? Or this is way, even sometimes with some of the things he writes is beyond where I'm at.

30:16
right? And I'm like, okay, I'm to take your word for it because I'm not this far into, you know, certainly farming and raising livestock and all that sort of thing. So I really like to have a blend of all sorts of different people doing this homesteading thing, you know, at different points in the journey and in different areas and that sort of thing. Yes. My son is living in Nebraska right now. They moved in two winters ago and he had been living in Phoenix, Arizona, where it's hot.

30:46
and you can't really grow anything.  So this is their first summer where they're really gonna get into putting in a garden.  And I asked him, said, will you and your wife please come on the podcast and talk to me about the beginning of what you're doing?  And he was like, we don't know anything. And I said, that's the point. You don't know anything. Tell me about your plans. Tell me what you're thinking.  And I asked him this last year and he was like, I don't want to. And I was like, okay, fine.

31:14
So then it came for Thanksgiving this past year and I said, so you ready to talk to me on the podcast yet? And he's like, let me find a time. Yes, we're ready.  So that will be fun because they are, they are pretty new. mean, he grew up watching his dad garden, but they're new at doing it themselves. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm very excited about this. I wonder what they're going to tell me and what they're going to tell me we did wrong.  Well, and the fact is too, like most people are new to this. You know, if you just look at like,

31:43
everybody who's  been getting into this homesteading movement, especially over the past few years, ever since COVID especially, right?  There's been a big movement to like try to produce some of our own food and obviously sourdough took off  when COVID first hit and like there's been a renewed interest in this  once again.  And so I'd say still like the vast majority of people are still in the beginning stages of this, right?  Even the feedback that we get from people when we say, know, what do wanna learn about? Most of it  is how do I get started?

32:13
How do I start a garden? How do I start with, you know, baby chicks? Like, what do, what is the first thing I do, right? But then we do have people that are much further along as well. So again, from a content perspective, I try to kind of appeal to all of that and include something in every issue that is going to be good for, you know, a beginner and intermediate and somebody that's more advanced. Yes. And the first thing I would say to anybody who is asking about how I get started with chickens is make sure you tell them that first egg is going to be worth about a

32:41
thousand dollars of their money. Right? Oh my goodness. you know, now, yeah, nowadays, I feel like it's definitely worth it. It's funny because my family being in the city, a lot of them still, I think a lot of them still think it's like a phase we're going through, like, yeah, okay, your little homesteading thing and you'll come around one day, right? But my dad called the other day and he was like, you guys still got those chickens? I said, yeah. He goes, okay, good thing because, you know, I hear they're going to be going to like $11 a dozen or something up here soon.

33:09
And my stepmom actually, he probably got that info from her because she is very high up in one of our national grocery chains here. So we get all the kind of advanced info on what food prices are going to do. But yeah, all of a sudden we don't look so crazy, right? So it is a big investment at first for some of these things. But I have definitely seen a payoff in the long run, for sure.

33:32
Yeah, us too.  We have chickens too. Again, we have new chickens and they're giving us these beautiful eggs.  We've gotten like three double yokers in the last three weeks. Oh, nice.  And it's always so...  I was gonna say we've got some actually ready to hatch. think possibly today we're waiting. It looks like one's  starting to break through their shell and incubator. So that's another first for us. We've had chickens for a number of years, but this is the first time we're hatching our own. So that's really exciting.

33:59
fun. Your kids are going to be so excited to watch it. Yeah. Totally.  Okay. I want go back to Joel real quick. Um, I don't want to fangirl about Joel because I'm not that kind of girl, but he said yes to being on the podcast months, months ago, months ago. And he came on the episode was released months ago.  He is one of the most generous souls with his information and his time.

34:25
Yes. And I just, like him so much. I've never met him. I probably never will,  but he is just so kind and so helpful. He is. And it's so funny you say that I try not to fangirl out too much either, but Joel really was pivotal in our journey as he is in so many people's journeys. Because I mean, well, think about it. was saying that  we kind of got into this when we started watching some of those food documentaries and he was in a lot of those. Right?  So that was, you know, one of the first.

34:53
faces that we ever put to this homesteading movement.  And I have been so blessed throughout my  career, both as a blogger and doing my own magazine and then now doing Homestead Living,  to have got to meet sometimes virtually, sometimes in person, so many incredible homesteaders across the space.  I got to for the January issue of Homestead Living  interview Ivan and Eve Kilcher, who are on Alaska, The Last Frontier. that was, we used to watch that show when we still lived in our like city condo.

35:21
And so that was a full circle moment for me. And same thing, like we were on Zoom, but they were just on their couch and  so down to earth. We could have chatted all day.  So it's just, yeah, I totally understand where you're coming from. And you never know, I got to meet Joel in person twice last year at the Homestead Festival down in Tennessee, and then the Modern Homesteading Conference in  Idaho. And I'll be at the Modern Homesteading Conference again this year in June. So if you ever make it out there.

35:48
Lots of cool people that get to meet in person and just having that kind of in-person camaraderie with other people who are all into this lifestyle and doing the homesteading thing is very cool. Yeah, and these conferences that are popping up all over the place.  To the listeners, if you're interested in homesteading  and you want to find out how to get started,  if you can swing it, go to one of these conferences because  I've talked to so many people.

36:17
over the last eight months who have either been doing a small little get together  or a huge conference  and  they're everything they're teaching is is stuff you want to learn to get started in this.  So go, go do it if you want to. And a lot of it you can learn online again, right? That's the beauty of the online world, but there is something different about being in person. Like the energy is just different, you know?  And then there's some things like Joel often teaches,  you know,

36:47
like a master class basically on chicken butchering, which is something that's a lot harder to find online. I think there are paid courses and that sort of thing that you can get that sort of information through. typically YouTube's not letting you post all the graphic details of that. And if you're wanting to learn how to do it,  you need to be able to see it close up and hands on and everything, right? So there are some things that I think just being in person for you can't, there's no real substitute for it. So.  Exactly.

37:14
All right, well, Anna, we're at like 36 minutes. I try to keep these to half an hour, but I definitely wanted to talk to you about the magazine and I wanted to talk to you about what you're doing.  And anyone listening, if you want to see what a homesteader does in their spare time, quote unquote, spare time,  go check out Anna's  Facebook page for the house and homestead because she's got so much stuff on there. I learned something today when I looked at it.

37:39
That's so funny that you said that. soon as you said that, like, what's, I have, there's no spare time. Every spare time, every spare minute we're, you know, building, we're doing something, but it is really what we love to do. And  yeah, for sure. I'd say,  check out, just go straight to the blog even. I'm not, I don't do as much on Facebook as I probably should.  But yeah, if you head to the house and homestead.com, I've got tons of resources on there.  If you're just getting into this too.

38:04
I developed an ebook for,  I presented at the Modern Homesteading Conference last year and had an ebook to go along with that presentation that I've got on my website now. So it's called Homestead Wherever You Are. And I basically just walk you through like, here are the different things that you can do as far as growing food, preparing, preserving food, making your own medicine, making your own personal care products, all that stuff.

38:26
here's what you can do at an apartment level. Here's what you can do at, you know,  a small suburb on a small suburban lot. Here's what you can do on a larger scale. So that no matter where you are or where you're starting at with this,  there's an entry point for you.  Yeah. And I would say that you are swimming in the deep end of homesteading. So you're the one to go to.  We're definitely, we're definitely in deep for sure. And it's funny because I would love to have more.

38:53
land one day, but at the same time, I'm like, I'm perfectly happy where we are.  I don't think I could almost handle taking on more than we're doing right now.  So like I say, we're growing a lot, we're doing a lot here. And then we  go to our local farmers for everything else, right? We get our side of beef that we put in the freezer in the fall from a local farm. And,  you know, and so that's been really, you know, great for us too. And something that I always recommend to other people is if you're not able to do it yourself, find somebody close to you that is doing it. And then, you know,

39:23
connect with them, right? Because a lot of this is about finding community with others that value, you know, food security and sustainability as well.  Certainly.  Anna, it has been a joy to talk with you today. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. All right. You have a great day. You too.