A Tiny Homestead

A Farmish Kind Of Life

Today I'm talking with Amy at A Farmish Kind Of Life. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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00:00listening 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.
00:25Today I'm talking with Amy at A Farmish Kind Of Life in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Amy. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good.  Amy is who I want to be when I grow up. don't even know who I want to be when I grow up. That's funny.  Amy is an author. She's a podcaster. She's a blogger. She  falls under the homesteading umbrella.
00:55but it's more of a farm, right? I mean, what is a homesteader? know, isn't that what we're always trying to figure out? What is the definition of a homesteader, I suppose? I still We do have a farm. Yep. We do have a farm. I'm here. I have five acres in central Minnesota with, you know, a ton of different animals. We've been through, you know, all the different animals and we got all the gardens and we've got space. So yeah, it is farming, although...
01:23there are people around here that have such huge farms that they think we're just kind of playing farm. So, you know, our little five acres is just kind of a little thing.  But it's not. It's a big thing. It's a big thing.  So tell me what brought you to this whole farmish kind of life, Amy.  What brought me to the farmish kind of life?  You know, when my husband and I were first married, we lived right in town  and  he had always lived in town. When I grew up, I grew up at
01:53I grew up out in the country, but we didn't have a farm. We were more like in the woods and we had a creek and you know, all of that didn't grow up with, you know, the farm animals or anything. And we got married, we lived right in town and knew that was going to be a temporary thing.  But  we just we really wanted to be out in the country and have space, you know, to just kind of breathe. And I don't know if ever intentionally in the beginning, it was going to be we're going to have all these animals, we're going to can all this food and all this stuff. just
02:22You just kind of  morphed into that,  suppose. think part of it was when we were first married, you we were,  you know, you're trying to make ends meet and stretch the dollars and then you have the babies, you know, and things get crazy. And  I think frugal living and just trying to figure out, you know, can we make this from scratch? What can we substitute? How can we do without this? How can we do something different? That and various other things just led us to whatever you want to call this.
02:52this life, this farmish thing or this homesteading thing.  Right there with you. That's how we got found ourselves in this, this, uh, this quagmire of trying new things all the time. Oh yes. Yeah. There's always something new to try. Yep. I, uh, front of mine brought me sourdough starter Monday night.  Thank  you Tracy.  And, uh,  it's fine. The starter she, she brought me, I,
03:22got up this morning and I have water on top of it. And I was like, that doesn't look good.  So I had to go Google it and find out if it was still alive. And apparently it's doing really well. So I threw some more flour in there. It's good.  And then I realized,  yeah. And then I realized I didn't know anything about sourdough starter. And I've been doing home studying stuff for a long time. So I went back to Google and,  and, when looked in Wikipedia  and I Oh,
03:49this is not as hard as I think it is. I'm going to start my own starter too and see if I can make it go from scratch. So that now has water on top of it. And I'm like, okay, this, don't know what to do with it. So. I feel like, you know, like home setting is such a big thing. there's, there's, there's so much to learn. think for us this year, it was, I mean, we've been at the farm for 14 years now and just this past winter. you know, like not that many months ago, we finally tapped our maple tree.
04:19And we've been here 14 years and we're like, wait a second, we have maple trees. Why are we not tapping these and trying to do this whole maple syrup thing? And it went way better than I thought it would. it's just, you know, I think there's just only so much you can have on your plate and process at once. And then you're like, wait a second, we could do this thing. We could do this thing. So there's always something new to get into. Well, yeah, I've been dragging my feet on the sourdough thing for six months. And she texted me about selling duck eggs in our farm stand. And she said, when I bring the duck eggs over,
04:47Do you want me to bring some sourdough started? It's already started because I think the reason that you're not doing it is because you don't want to start it. I was like, sure, I'll give it a shot. Why not? And the dumbest thing is I don't even like sourdough bread. So we'll see how this goes.  You'll have to make it for someone else, I guess. Yeah, I it. took the discard yesterday from hers and made  sourdough crackers. And my son was like, these are good. These would be really good in dip or in soup. And I was like, OK.
05:17I can keep going. Winning, winning.  Yeah. So how much rain did you guys get in St. Cloud yesterday? You know, I was at a meeting last night and people were saying two inches, but I was just on Snapchat and a friend  sent me a picture and their rain gauge said three and a half inches. So our rain gauge is not out yet. So I don't actually know, but man, that rain was something else. That was epic.
05:45Yeah, my son went out to feed the new chickens and they are in a low spot, the coop's in a low spot. And he came in and his feet were wet up to his ankles, his sneakers were soaked.  So yeah, we got a lot of rain yesterday here in Minnesota. It was not welcome. mean, everybody says we need the rain, but  I don't know that we needed that much right now. I think  the problem of it coming all at once was maybe the, yeah, we definitely needed it. have, you know, everybody's
06:15The fields around us are planted and we already have corn coming up.  But man, it was just driving around. It was so dusty and it was just crazy. so I think it was all the people saying, hey, we need rain. And then it all just came in one giant go.  So apparently everybody's saying we need rain is  equivalent to the rain dance and we need to stop doing that for a little bit.  Maybe for a little bit. Yeah. Okay. So.
06:42I was looking at your Facebook page, that's kind of how I found you. think we have a mutual acquaintance on Facebook, but I don't remember who it is. And you have a book that just came out called, don't say it, I wrote it down. It is Peace, Love and Bacon. Is that about your farm? It is about my farm. And the funniest thing is that it's actually the 10th book that I've published, but it is the first book that I've published about homesteading, which is so crazy because most people know me as a homesteader.
07:12So I finally, know, 10 books into this process, wrote a book about homesteading and it is not a how-to book. It is not instructional. It is more, here's been our experiences on the farm, laugh at them, learn from them.  You know, just, it feels very much like you're sitting down with your friend having coffee and  talking about the homesteading life. So there's funny stuff, there's sad stuff, there's, you know, oh my gosh, that actually happened stuff. So yeah.
07:41So it's like a homesteading memoir. Yeah. Nice. Very nice. And the cover is adorable. There's a little piggy on the cover, I saw it. That little piggy. How long did it take you to write the book from idea to published?
08:00You know,  I'd had pieces of that book written for many, many, many years. And so when I finally sat down and thought, what am I doing? I just need to put this book together. It really came together in probably two months.  And it's self-published. so, you know, once you decide that's what you're going to do, you just, you know, do the process. And yeah,  it's really nice to finally have it out because I was just, you know, it was fun to go through all the different files and reread the stories, you know, that I'd already written.
08:28or maybe the things that I thought when I wrote this one part five years ago and I'm like, well, that's completely different or now I've learned this. And so was this, it was fun to put it together because I think when you're doing the home sitting thing and that's your life and it's your normal, you kind of forget, wow, we're actually doing this and this is how far we've come and this is what it used to be in here. we've, know, here's the progress that we've seen. It's  kind of Yeah. Where can people get it and can they get it?
08:55as a paperback, a hardcover or an ebook or all three? Yep, you can get it  on Amazon. It is available as a paperbook. It is available for Kindle. It's also in the Kindle Unlimited program, which means if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, you actually can read it for free. And yes, I still get paid for that. So don't feel bad.  I'm in the process right now of finishing up recording it as an audiobook.
09:21I'm assuming next month sometime, maybe the end of June, maybe that will be out. We'll see. you recording it? Your voice? Yes. How's that? How is it? You know, it's really funny. When you write a book and like you're looking at it and you're reading it in your head, it's totally different than reading it out loud. And you realize how many like tongue twisters you put in there and like phrases you
09:47skip over and you have to say them six times before they come out right and it's just, yeah. I have the podcast and so, you know, recording the audiobook is, you know,  it's nothing. It's just like doing a really long podcast. But yeah, it's fun to be able to have the equipment and the ability to do that myself and not have to hire that out. So. You are a freaking Renaissance woman. I love you. You're great. Oh, This is funny.
10:16It's funny though, because when you do it all the time, like this is just your normal, you forget, like, you know, maybe it's not what everybody does. I don't know. You just get caught up in your own world and that's just your thing. yeah. I'm pretty sure not everybody has written 10 books, does a podcast, does a blog, does social media and has a farm. That's me. It sounds a little weird now that you say it, okay. I love it. I think it's great.
10:45I think you should just keep doing all your dreams in public  and let the whole world applaud. That's what I think.  I'll do that. I'll consider it. Okay.  So, I  wanna, I want to hear about your farm and then I want to ask you about your podcast cause  I'm fairly new to podcasting. So I wanna, I want to talk to you about yours too, but let's talk about your farm.  What do you do on your farm when you're not doing all this other stuff? What do I do on my farm?  mean,
11:14What do we have? have, let's see, what do we have right now? We chickens, have ducks, we have rabbits. We should be getting pigs here shortly. We've had all sorts of animals. We've had goats, we've had horses, we've had pheasants, we've had turkeys, we've had all the different animals. And it's fun to, like the animals, you move to the farm thinking we're gonna be awesome and we're gonna be your favorite. And then they weren't your favorite. Now you don't have them anymore.
11:42When we moved to the farm, wanted, or I,  I wanted goats. That was my whole thing. I mean, we already had chickens, so, you know, they came with us, but I was like, oh, we're going to have a barn. We're going have all this space. We're going to get goats. And my husband was all going home about getting horses and we got goats. And  they weren't my favorite. And then  we got the horses and they weren't what he thought it was going to be. So it's just funny. Like that was our whole thing. We were going to get to the farm and do these things. And then that wasn't...
12:12It didn't start out, you know, like we thought it would. So, um, what else?  Oh yeah. Yeah. We have big gardens, big vegetable gardens.  Um, we've got the raspberries and strawberries and blueberries and fruit trees and grapevines. And I just started garlic last year, asparagus.  Um, yeah.
12:36Lots of different stuff. I walk all over the yard and I'm like, oh yeah, there's one more thing I can do.  It's good because it keeps me busy and I'm one of those people who really need to stay super super busy. So it's just my personality. So a farm is a really good thing to have if you want to stay busy, right?  Oh, absolutely.  So do  you sell your  produce or does the farm generate an income for the farm?
13:07No, no. mean, we have, I'm one of those people where, you know, I could sell stuff, I almost like we have enough extra that we just end up, we give it to people that we know, like we're passing it along the neighbors, or I bring it to church, or my husband will bring it to work. And it's just, I don't know, I've never, I've never gotten too into the selling thing. And I think that's maybe because I just feel like it would be more work.
13:36You know, like, I don't know, I feel like there's a certain thing that comes along with that. I feel like if I, you maybe we got to be a little bigger or I did a little more stuff, maybe I would sell, I don't know. That's just not where the drive is for me. I would rather the farm do the food and do the things. And then, you know, I work on my books and do all that stuff for the income. Okay. Well, that's  fine. You don't have to sell anything off of a farm. You can just grow it for the hell of it.
14:06Right, right. Well, then the other thing is like, you when we first worked out, it's like, oh, we have all these chicken eggs and we can sell them. Well, the problem is when you live out in the middle of the country and everybody's got chickens, everybody has eggs for a sale, you know, so then it can get a little bit tricky to find customers who, you know, are there all the time that you can depend on that make it, you know, kind of worth it. It's so funny you said that because we got 12 chickens back a couple months ago and we
14:35We have a farm stand that we open in usually June. We opened it in beginning of May this year.  And  we got 12 chickens. That's a dozen eggs a day if they all lay.  we can't keep  eggs in stock in the farm stand.  my husband just picked up 14 more laying hens on Saturday. They're not laying yet. We have to wait three weeks. Right, right.
15:02That is so awesome though that you can do that. You know, that you have  the community that will support that. That's so awesome. Yeah,  I thought maybe we'd sell a dozen every couple of days. No, we put them out there and they're gone within an hour and a half usually. That is awesome. To the point that we didn't have any fresh eggs for us.  So that was the other reason that he picked up 14 more chickens on Saturday.
15:29You gotta have eggs for the farmer. Yup. So, so very excited that we are able to provide our community with really good eggs at $5 a dozen instead of really crappy eggs from the store at $8 to $10 a dozen right now. That is awesome. You're doing good stuff. Yeah. And our gardens are doing really well so far. They've been being put in over the last three weeks because we did it early.
15:57Don't tell Mother Nature we put stuff in early. will ruin us.  But yeah, think,  fingers crossed, I probably shouldn't say this out loud on a podcast, but we think we might have our first tomato by the end of June.  Because we started them in the house and then we moved them to the heated greenhouse and then put them in the garden. So they have like a  month or so head start. Yeah. And then are you going to sell that as well?
16:26At the farmer's market, yeah. And in the farm stand. The farm stand ends up with the produce that doesn't get sold at the farmer's market.  is so cool. We  have this really old,  what is it? It's not a, oh, a really old corn crib. Okay. And so we moved it out  to our, like close to our dirt road.
16:50And that's just where we moved it when we moved in. So it's been sitting there for 14 years. And last year I was looking at it going, we could do that. And that would be such a cute farm stand. Like that did go through my mind. You know, like I could fix that up. That could be a farm stand. We could sell our stuff out of there. And then I, I lose the ambitions for that. We live on a dead end dirt road that nobody goes on.  So it's that whole thing. Like we don't have a like a good spot for it. And then  I don't know. I don't know. That was an option, but.
17:21We live off of a two-lane highway that connects Lasur to  Arlington. I think it's going to count over, I think. So you've got some traffic then. Constant, constant traffic. Wow, that's perfect. And lots of semi-trucks, is, wow,  but it's okay.  It's okay. It's better than the church bells and the train that went through town in Jordan where we used to live.
17:50Yeah, yeah. Anyway, very excited about all of this stuff this season because last year was rough with all the rain. I don't know how it was for you guys in St. Cloud, but it was really hard to grow anything here last summer.  we're trying to keep the enthusiasm tamped down because we're afraid if we say anything  that will set off the universe, nothing will go right. So. It happened.
18:18Uh huh. Yeah. Don't, don't jinx it. Tell God, play your plans and he laughs. So, yeah. All right. So we're 18 minutes and I want to know how you got into the podcasting part of this because not everybody starts a podcast. Oh my God. How did I get into podcasting? So I think I started my podcast back in 2018. Why did I start a podcast? I think I was just one of those things I've been starting to listen to podcasts and I thought,
18:48Maybe that's something I could try and then I decided that'd be cool and then my husband and my boy, know who are now adults You know, they were like, oh we're gonna set this up for you mom. It's gonna be so awesome And then I was like, well crap now they now they set it up for me. No, I You know, like they set up this whole office and all this system, you know, they're like, alright mom go and then I was like, okay, so we're gonna do this So, um, I don't know like I've always liked this
19:16I grew up in theater, in musical theater. was in competitive speech when I was in high school. So I was like speaking to people. And so I think when I started listening to podcasts, I was like, oh, that's another way that, you know, I can get the message out about homesteading, not just, you know, writing, you know, and having the blog, because the blog and the website was, you know, big back in the day. And then I feel like things kind of shifted to podcasting and YouTube and all that. So this is another way for me to be able to talk.
19:44And let me ask you a question. So when you started your podcast, did you, when you hear yourself, are you like, who is that? Like, cause it doesn't sound like you. you know that it's doing? I hated it for the first six episodes. I would listen to it back and be like, I hate listening to my voice. And then I got into like the 20th, 21st one and I was like, it's fine. Yeah.
20:08Isn't that crazy? just like listening to yourself.  It doesn't sound like you, know, because obviously you're hearing yourself in your head and now 307 episodes in so it doesn't even bother me anymore. But that was so weird to get my head around. And here's the other question I have for you. Do you realize, have you always lived in Minnesota? No. Okay.  Where did you live before? I grew up in Maine. Okay. Okay. Cause I was going to say you don't have a super sick Minnesota accent.
20:36No, I  don't have any as far as I know. Nope. So when I started my podcast, and I started listening back to when I would say certain words, I was like, oh, there's the Minnesota accent that I literally have never heard out of myself until I started podcasting and listening back to myself. There it is. There's a long, oh, there's almost a boot when I say about, you know, it's, it's pretty crazy.  yeah, it's not bad now.
21:04If I didn't know, I would really have to listen for it. So really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, yeah. You learn things when you listen back to yourself. So, well, I have a question for you since you started doing the podcast. When you listen to people talk on TV or on the radio, are you way more aware of how they say things now? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how it just changes.
21:32like how you listen to that. And that's the same with like when I do YouTube videos now, like I pay attention to how people film things, you know, and like how they put videos together. I never, I never would have done that before. Like I was just watching the thing on TV. Not anymore. No, that's a whole filming thing. It's a whole speaking thing. It's crazy how you get into these new things in your life and then it just makes you pay attention to other things.  See, yeah. See, this is why I'm really glad I never learned to read music.
22:02Because if I learned to read music, my brain would have been translating every sound I heard into a note on a piece of paper. Yeah, that's true. That's true. your podcast is really good. Like,  I listened to two episodes and I thought, huh, I really like this. This is really, really good. Oh, thanks. I like doing it.  I've been a little...
22:31I've been a little lax on my recording lately just because of life stuff that's been going on. But I love to sit down and do it. I love talking to people. I love hearing from people. you know, my podcast episodes are pretty short. They're usually 20-ish minutes long. And I hear from a lot of people that they really appreciate that they're not hours and hours long. know, because there's some people that do some podcast episodes that are pretty long. And I'm like, oh, it's fun to listen to that. I want a little bite size.
23:01Okay, let's go. Right? Yes. For the record, I had never listened to a Joe Rogan episode because people are always talking about Joe Rogan being the dude in podcasting. So I finally, finally went out and looked him up and I pulled up the Jeremy Renner interview. Okay. From the guy that got run over by the  snow cat or whatever it was a year or so ago.  And
23:28I was like,  I don't understand why he's such a big deal. Like I'm not saying he's a bad podcaster, but I do not get it. Yeah. So I have officially listened to one episode. got about half an hour into it and went, yeah, I'm good. I now know what Joe Rogan podcast is. I'm good. Yeah.  I feel like I need the quick notes, you know, of.
23:52Am I dating myself there by using the term cliff notes? probably am. know, there a thing with cliff notes anymore? don't even know. Spark notes? Maybe. I don't know what they're called now. I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't matter whether you're dating yourself or not. You are as old as you are and you have earned every day of it. I like the perception. Well.
24:13The other option is not being alive. I think that living is a really wonderful privilege and everyone should think that too. Okay, so with the podcast, how long have you been doing it? 2018, I believe. The year that I started it, right at the beginning of the year. Wow. So seven years. I say things like that and then I'm like, oh my gosh, I've had a podcast for...
24:42That's why I have to talk to people, you know, like you, to be like, hey, you're actually doing something. This is good. This is good for my, this is good for my mental health. Thank you. You're welcome. And I'm sorry, eight years, really, if you started it to a 2018, it's almost eight years, right? I can't do math on the fly. It's been at least seven, been at least seven years. Um, I've only been doing mine. I've done my, mine will be two years old in August. Yeah. Yeah.
25:12And I've done over 250 episodes and I still freaking love it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So how often do  you do an episode? Well, right now, not as often as I should be.  Everybody I talk to right now, the people I'm trying to get hold of right now are all farmers and farmers are busy right now. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I have to really dig tomorrow and Friday and Saturday and Sunday to get some
25:42interviews lined up for next week or I'm not going to have a podcast Amy it won't be good. Do you  ever run out of content doing it that often or you just  talk to other people? Around Christmas time it gets real dicey  and May and June get hard because like I said  everybody's busy in May and June so  if I have to  I will
26:11to a solo episode and it'll be 10 minutes.  I don't want to do that. I haven't done that yet and I really don't want to.  But either way,  your podcast is about your experiences on your farm, right?  much. Everybody should go listen to Amy's podcast. It's really good. It's a far. The podcast is the same thing. It's a farmer's kind of life podcast, right?
26:38podcast. it know, it started off being very I'm going to teach people about homesteading and then like COVID hit and all of that craziness. And I started talking about other stuff and I kind of branched out into more,  just kind of life stuff. And I've had a lot of people say,  what they like about my podcast is that I don't just talk about homesteading. It's homesteading, but it's like it applies to a lot of different things. And so sometimes I'm doing the deep thought sometimes I'm
27:07I'm talking a lot about homesteading now because it's that time of year and people are getting excited about homesteading and gardening and animals and all of that. So yeah. Yeah. And the thing is homesteading is life stuff. Oh yeah. I mean, you're, you're building a life, you know, it's, it's not just, you're building a homestead. it branches out into everything. So yeah. interviewed a lady the other day and she
27:36She has four kids and two of them were adopted. Two of them were embryos when they were adopted, as in she carried them. And I so wanted to like ask a billion questions and I didn't, I was going to only ask two. It only took like five minutes of the whole thing. And I said, ma'am, said, if this was a podcast about adoption, we would be talking for six hours straight because I think it's so interesting the things that people can do now to have.
28:06kids. Yeah. And so I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't fall off the adoption cliff that day. was like, okay, no, we're not going to do this.  But, uh, but yeah, I mean, I find myself getting into these philosophical, psychological discussions with people because that's where they're at with their, their experience with homesteading. Right.
28:31Yeah. So it's just like, Oh my God, why am I talking about marriage counseling and adoption and  my dog, you know, all part of it. And I think that's, that's kind of the fun thing is that sometimes with the internet and with social media and with all of this, you get into the thing where we're homesteaders and we're doing the homesteading thing. And then we forget, like everybody has a life and everybody's deal. You everybody has a favorite TV show and everybody has a
28:58know, stuff that they like to do after the chores are done. And they have a favorite restaurant they like to go to. And they have family stuff they're dealing with and, you know, like junk in their life. And so when you start bringing that in, it's like it reminds everybody that everybody's people and we're all just here doing our thing. And so I think, you know, that's really important to celebrate. Yes. And not forget. And yeah. Yeah. We all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time.
29:26This is true. just depends on whether your label says Gucci or if it says Levi's. That's  right. Okay. tell me  one word that describes a farmer's kind of life.
29:43Honest. Honest? That's what I would say. Honest or real. I Yeah. I love that. That's great. Honest sounds good to me because we need more of that right now. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yep. So where can people find you, Amy? You can find me at my website, afarmishkindoflife.com. You can find just about anything you need to know about where to find me. Otherwise on that.
30:11website, but I'm on social media. Facebook is mostly where I hang out. yeah, FarmishKindOfLife.com is pretty much going to tell you what you need to know, I guess. Awesome. you need to be found. I love everything that you're doing. The books, the podcast, the blogging, the gardening, the animals, the everything. You are a fabulous person. I love it. Oh, thanks.
30:39And everybody can find me as usual at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  And  if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, let me know, because I'm looking for people to talk to right now. Perfect.  All right, Amy, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
 

5 Acre Wood Homestead

Today I'm talking with Marissa at 5 Acre Wood Homestead.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
 
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00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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 Marissa at Five Acre Wood Homestead in Washington State.  Good evening, Marissa. How are you? I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.  I am so excited to talk with you because you have everything going on at your homestead. So tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, um...
01:27I, so  we weren't always, you know, Homesteader, Homestead life.  I really just stumbled into it as a lot of us do, right? But I did, I am from a very small, tiny town in Idaho.  And there was a lot of, you know, Homestead like things that went on there. And so I did have that very early  young childhood.
01:52experience of that. Like I have memories of the things my parents had to do to get us through winters and whatnot, you know. And my mother and my grandmother, you know, they  sewed and crocheted and canned and did all the things. And so I kind of always had that influence in my life.  But growing  up,  we were, I was, you know,  displaced to the city here in Tacoma.
02:21And that's where I spent 40 years was the middle of the city  and had my kids there.  And  at a certain point in my life, I was, I just decided that.  You know, we,  it's nice to talk about how we want to get back to the country and  the small town life and be self-sufficient and do all the things.  But at some point you just got to do it.  And that's really how this.
02:50how the homestead came about.  And we've been here six years now. Okay. And still no animals.  Still a work in progress, right? Because  our homestead was was vacant for five years before we got it. And so nature kind of just did what nature does and took over.  And so  it's been the last three years has been
03:18a lot of rebuilding and a lot of taking down and a lot of getting  the property back to where we need it to be so that we can incorporate the things that we want to have. It's been a lot of work.  Well, I'm going to jump in for one second. You don't have to have animals to be a homesteader. It's totally cool if you don't. I know. I know.  And  so many people have told me that because I feel
03:46you know, kind of some days like  we're not a real homestead because we don't have animals yet.  And you're right. That's not that's not true at all.
03:58Yeah, my friend, she's become a friend. didn't know her a year ago, but now I do because of the podcast.  My friend Amy Fagan at Grounded in Maine is her podcast. She asked me to be a guest and she  basically introduced me as  a homesteader who was bucking the system because we only have three acres and we don't have cows.  And it was kind of tongue in cheek. And for anybody listening.
04:23If you are doing something that's an old fashioned skill as a part of your everyday life, you are practicing homesteading. Yeah, that's true. That's absolutely true. And I do it on so many levels.  And I think the animals and the husbandry is probably the only thing that I don't do. And honestly, that's probably a good thing because we tried raising rabbits here and number one, they were dumb and didn't procreate the way they were supposed to.
04:52And number two, having to call or butcher those babies, not babies, I call them babies because they were my babies, but having to butcher those rabbits and put them in the freezer about killed me. I don't, don't want to do it again. really don't. It's that's a part that, um, you know, it's not everybody can handle that part. Now my dad, um, did have a family farm down in Corvallis, Oregon.
05:22It's not in our family anymore, but  my third great grandparents came over on the Oregon Trail.  And  so for many, many years there were, there was acreage  in my dad's line. And he was the last one, right? And at the time when he tried to pass it down to my brother and I, my brother did move on to the farm with his family and tried to do it and decided and realized that that wasn't the life for him.  He wasn't cut out for it.
05:51And  at the time I turned it down because I was in the middle of the city raising three little kids and I couldn't, you know, pick up my life and move to the country and become a farmer. Like I didn't think that was possible for me at all. And I didn't think that was where I was going in my life.  But now to be where I am now and look back on that, I'm really sad I missed that opportunity and that, you know, the family lost that piece of land, but I can remember  I have memories of yeah, the sheep and the, and the pigs and  it,
06:21It's hard. That's just a part of farming that, you know, it's not for everybody.  Yeah. I feel like when you take on livestock, you are taking on more children because that's how I feel the responsibility  level.  if you're gardening, it's not nearly as stressful. Yeah, no. I mean,  there's been years where, you know, I've lost whole crops and it's just like, well, this sucks, but what are you going to do? You just got to keep going.
06:50No, and we do. So it's funny because I say we don't have animals. Well,  Homestead has been adopted by Mr. Darcy, who everybody sees pictures of and talks about and loves. My neighbor's peacock.  And  peacocks are, I found out, they're free roaming birds. They just do what they want and go what they want. you know, he adopted us.  He ended up coming over three and a half, four years ago now, and he loves it over here.
07:20And he spends the majority of his time here. And last year,  his wife, Lucy,  five eggs in my garden bed and we had five baby peacocks. And then three days later they were killed in the backfield.  Oh no.  Yeah,  was heartbreaking. was so hard. And now I say that was the first homestead loss that I endured with animals, even though those animals were not mine, it didn't matter.
07:50It still hurt just as much.  And,  um, yeah, Mr. Darcy,  love him. He's, he's a staple on our homestead, even though he doesn't belong to me, I still claim him and he claims us. that's so funny. And,  and great story up until the baby peacocks died.  Yeah. Yeah. He has two new wives now though. We call them the sister wives. They are sisters, they're twins and they look identical.
08:21So we're hoping that there will be more babies this year.  Yes. And for anybody who doesn't know a female peacock is called a P hen, right? A P hen, yes. Yeah.  And they are called P fowl.  And aren't the females not as brightly colored? they like brown? right.  They are more, they don't have the long tail feathers and their heads are more greenish most of the time.
08:49Yeah, they are still very beautiful though. Yeah. Yep.  We had somebody who lived up the hill from us when we, before we bought this house at the old house, somebody lived up the hill from us and they had some peacocks  and the peacocks would come down the hill and it was basically a wooded hillside. The peacocks would come down the hill and walk down our street and just call.  And I didn't know about this at first and I had moved in with friend who became my husband.
09:19And I heard them yelling and I was like, what is that god awful noise? And he was like, oh, that's the neighborhood peacocks. Yep.  I said in town. He said,  yeah, it's really weird. was like, oh, okay. Good to know. go where they want and do what they want.  Yep. They're like great Pyrenees dogs. They come home, but they also go wander. Yep.  Yep.
09:46So did I see that you can see Mount Rainier, how do you say it, Rainier? From your house? Yeah, Mount Rainier.  We live about 30 minutes outside the Perk entrance, one of the Perk entrances.  Yeah, and we can't see her from the homestead because this is Washington and there's trees everywhere.  the trees block our view of her, but  we...
10:15can see her from the highway, is a half a mile down. So  when I go to town every day, I see her and I try to snap a picture coming up over the hill because it seems like everybody's favorite Rainier picture that I've posted so far is of that view. So there's been quite a lot of them.  It's really beautiful. Your photos are gorgeous. You know, John Mirror, who  was the famous hiker and explorer guy that  he  has said that
10:43Rainier was the most majestic  of  all the volcanics in this area. And he's not wrong. I mean, I love all of our mountains,  but that one  is, she's just  majestic and amazing. And every time you see her, you  just are awestruck. Yeah,  I live in Minnesota. There are no mountains anywhere near me.
11:12But I grew up in Maine. And I was right between the White Mountains and the ocean. Like my house was dead center between those two landmarks, geographical formations, whatever. And when people are like, why did you leave Maine? And I'm like, because I was married and I didn't think I was going to get divorced at the time.  If that had not happened, I would still be living in Maine, honestly. But I'm jealous that you
11:42I'm jealous that you have a big old mountain near you. Yeah.  This  part of the country is,  it's definitely not for everybody. mean, most people, when they think of Washington, all they think about is rain. our  rain is what makes it so beautiful all the time. And we're going to ever going to stay for a reason. I mean, we've got  just about everything and I can drive two hours and
12:10any direction and be in a different climate. Two hours and I'm at the ocean, two hours I'm at the mountain, two hours I'm in the desert and Eastern. Like it just is  everything you would  want to have.  It's all very close. Yeah, I have not been out that far yet.  I don't know if I'll ever get that far west in the United States, but I  have friends who have traveled to Oregon and Washington state and every time
12:39I hear about it. They're like, it's so beautiful. You have to go.  It is. It's absolutely amazingly beautiful.  Nice. Okay. So you don't have animals on your homestead, but I know that you have started a blog on Facebook and you're doing a series  of recipes and you grow plants, right? Yep. We have a huge garden.
13:07multiple gardens, I should say, because we've got the big vegetable garden and then I've got herbs just about everywhere and then we've got, you know, different flower gardens all over the place and we've got an orchard up in the front and we've got more trees out in the back.  Yeah, and we've been adding, so it's slowly growing. Okay, forgive my ignorance about the state of Washington, but like I said, never been there.
13:36When is your do you guys get snow number one? We don't get a lot of snow  on the you know  where we're at right here is.  It's  just a couple hundred feet above sea level. I mean, and it's really crazy this area.  I would say between you know Seattle, Tacoma area in general and.  Because we have this two huge mountain ranges, right? We have the.
14:05Cascades going one way and the Olympics going the other and this huge metropolis right between them.  But the valleys are really only a couple hundred feet above sea level.  And so  it takes  literally the perfect  storm to get snow where we are.  It rarely happens.  And when it does,  it shuts down the cities.
14:33like completely, get a half an inch of snow and people are losing their minds. Well, when you're not used to it, it is dangerous. Yeah, no, it is. It is. And I mean, I was born and raised in Idaho, in the mountains of Idaho. We got five and a half meters snow every winter over there. So, know, I
14:53It was just I'm used to the snow. It doesn't bother me and I know how to drive in it. And I still, even though I know how to drive in it, won't because the people around here don't know how to drive in it. And that makes it scary. Uh huh. Yep. Absolutely.  Um, it's always amazing to me here in Minnesota because the first snowfall we get where it actually builds up even a little bit on the highways,  you would think people who've lived in Minnesota would know how to drive on snow, right? Oh, absolutely. Nope. That first snowfall, there's a
15:23shit-ton of accidents  on the first snowfall and every time it happens unlike people, you know how to drive on this. on.  You should definitely know how to drive in snow and ice if you live in Minnesota.  You would think, yes.  I would have tried to not swear, but that was the perfectly appropriate. No, and I can completely relate to that because
15:50You know, everybody knows that it rains about eight months out of the year here. And when we get hard, steady rain up here, people don't know how to drive in that either. And you would think that, you know, the people that live in Washington state year round would know how to drive in the rain. No, no, not at all.  Okay. My, my 23 year old son would have some very choice things to say about this whole discussion and it would be very funny, but he's not here right now. So,  um,
16:17Okay, so how cold does it get in the winter like on average?  Um, I would say on average  it  I mean there's been years there was a year a couple years ago where it got down to like nine degrees  Um, and that was a first for me. I don't think i've ever felt temperature that low um, but usually normally it's you know, it can get down into the mid  20s  and When it's that low it's almost two two
16:46cold to snow.
16:49Yeah, so you have a fairly temperate climate, really. We do very temperate, yep.  And most of the time,  the winter weather,  it's 30, 35,  cloudy, freezing,  but not snowing.  Yeah. So does that mean that you can plant your  spring garden in like March?
17:17certain things yes, certain things no, because of the rain.  We don't plant out here  my tomatoes, my peppers,  all of those things I usually start in the greenhouse  in  March, first of March, and  I don't plant them out until Mother's Day weekend.  That's kind how we do it here too, only because we're afraid it's going to frost and kill everything. Yeah, no, it won't frost here, but
17:46Not that way usually, but it's the rain. It's just some years it's just so wet in the spring that it will wash everything out. Nothing will live. It will be a soggy mess. Yeah, that sounds about right. That's what happened to us last year. We are, I'm going to talk about this again. People are probably sick of hearing me talk about it. Last year from May until mid-June, it rained almost every day here.
18:15And our garden  was an absolute failure for the year. there was, yeah.  Yeah, we were so sad.  Oh, I know. The year that the garden went in here at the homestead,  I was so excited and we got those beds built  and  it was like just,  we happened to have a good weekend that it was not raining and we decided to, yep, we're going to do this. We're going to build the beds, get them ready. Right. So we did. And that was in.
18:45April, I want to say. And they sat there until 4th of July weekend when it finally quit raining. Yep. I don't know. There's much more frustrating than that for a gardener. It's  so maddening because you're like,  if it would just stop raining for a couple of days, maybe I could get something done. Yep.
19:12But I've learned  over the course of the last five years  that every year is different and you cannot judge from the year before how this year is going to go and it just it's going to go how it's going to go and you have no control over that.  You just kind of have to roll with the punches and do the best you can.  Yeah. And on that note,  we usually don't plant anything in the garden until May 15th. And my husband, my husband looked
19:41long-range forecast a couple, well, last week. And he said, you're not going to be happy. He said, but I'm going to put the tomato plants in this weekend. Don't do it. I said, And he said, oh yeah. He said, I'm doing it. And I said, what if they get frosted or what if it rains for two weeks after you put them in? He said, I can't stand it. He said, the weather has been beautiful. My garden is tilled and it's dry. I'm putting those in. like, I said, okay.
20:11And he put them in on Saturday, I think it was, maybe Sunday. And it has not rained, it has not frosted, it has not been cold, it has been beautiful. And they've grown like an inch and a half since you put them in the garden. We are so excited. So keep your fingers crossed for me. Yeah, I will. I definitely will. That's bravery because I never not.
20:36I'm not putting my tomatoes out for Mother's Day weekend. I'm just not doing it  because it's been beautiful here too. It was 77 degrees yesterday. Uh-huh. No, I know.  If I had had any say in the matter, those tomato plants would still be in the greenhouse. But  I couldn't break his heart. I was like, go ahead. It's beautiful. I'll go for it. But I did put my foot down on the basil plants because basil plants are a lot more thin. Oh yeah, and peppers.
21:07Yep. Yep.  This, this is the summer that we have been dreaming of since we moved here four and a half years ago. Yeah. Yep. The infrastructure is finally in.  Um, it looks like it's going to be a reasonable summer according to the farmer's almanac and I kind of trust them. And we just got our farm stand open so we could sell eggs and we have sold eggs every day. Yep.
21:37I'm hoping that we will get our farm stand built this year. That's one of my goals this year is to get that done.  In and amongst all the other things you do?  Yeah. Yeah. Because that's been a lot. It's because for us here,  a lot of this  general area.
21:59You know, there's a lot of small homesteads and there's a lot of small family businesses and we all kind of do that. We all kind of put up our farm stands  and we go by the honest system and it works. And that's also a place for pick up and drop off. So if you have something you're selling, you know, you're reselling from the thrift store or you're, know, you made a quilt and you're selling, you know, it's that's the place. So  I just know that that barn stand is another, um,
22:27It's another opportunity for me that I really need. Yes. And it's going to open doors. I'm going to give you a hint if you don't know about this yet. Do you use Venmo as a payment thing? I do. Did you know that Venmo provides you with a QR code for your account? Oh, do they? And you can print it I didn't know that. Yep. Ours is hanging in the...
22:54in the farm stand so that people can just scan the QR code and pay for their stuff. That's great. That's very handy. Yep. And we also have the little container for actual cash because we don't figure anybody's gonna.  If somebody steals money out of the cash thing, they need it more than we do.  Right. Yeah.  And  there's a few places around here that do, you know, just mason jars with lids.
23:22And there's other, you know, it's about half, would say half places do lock boxes with slits in them and the other half just do mason jars. And I've really only heard of a couple, you know, places that people aren't paying or have stolen or, you know, it doesn't happen very often, thankfully. We also have a sign out front that says under 24 hour surveillance. Right.
23:51If anybody steals money, we'll know who it is. It's fine. So not too worried about it, but I didn't realize that Venmo provided you with a QR code for your account. Yeah, that is very handy. Yep. And we've got two printed out to have at the farmers market this year, because I guess people were asking us if we had a Venmo account last year. My husband's the one that does  the farmers market. And I didn't have a Venmo account  last farmers market season, but I do now for the business.
24:20And so he's going to put the printed out Venmo QR codes on the tables so that people can use them.  So if for anybody who's listening, that's really handy to have if you're going to do a farm stand or a farmers market.
24:36So, do you  you quilt? you do quilts? What's that?  Do you do quilting? I do do quilting,  I  had got into sewing in high school back in the  90s, right?  When they still had home ec classes.
24:58Yep. And my mother had an old like 1950 singer at home and I hated that thing so much. I tried to eat my fingers every time I used it. And so I didn't use it. And for many, many years, I couldn't, I didn't have the room or the money to spend on a sewing machine. And so I didn't have one of my own. And then
25:26As it happened, my sister bought a new one and she had this little starter machine, this little brother, this little basic  brother machine.  And she handed it down to me when she got her new one. And so I jumped right in  and started sewing. And I actually made two quilts with that little machine  before my
25:52Mr. Homestead decided to surprise me and buy me a new singer. And he did that for Christmas or right after Christmas this past year. I do have a brand new sewing machine that I've made a couple of quilts with. And the last couple of months, it's been just sitting on my desk in my bedroom because I've had so many other things going on right with the garden and with the Homestead page and all this stuff.
26:21Um, haven't done a lot of sewing in the last few months, but yeah, I've made what four quilts I think in the last year  or since September.
26:33So yeah, I didn't think  I was gonna enjoy it as much as I did. And  I really did. The artistic  adventure of that is just,  I love it.  One of my friends just took a quilting class and she made the most beautiful quilt and she drove herself  crazy with it. But the quilt came out so gorgeous. Had to come out to my car because it was really the only quiet place.
27:03Okay.  All right. So,  we have like four, three and half minutes left. So let's see if we can make it work.  Your series on Facebook that you're doing with the recipes, tell me about that. So my Homestead  from Scratch series, I basically,  you know, I was trying to think of things to post on the page that  was...
27:28was,  you know, when I was trying to think of, okay, what am I going to post? How am I going to get interactions? How am going to?  And I think it was  Mr. Homestead that said, you know, just do you like, what are you good at? Do cooking? Do your from scratch stuff? Do your mixes? Do all that stuff? Like, and so I thought, you know, that's a good idea. And I did started posting them  and  it only took two or three days and it just exploded.  And now everybody is like  sharing and talking about this  and
27:58You know, and so I turned it, I actually did turn it into a series.  Um, and I post at least one or two things a day.  Um, and I'm just, I'm trying to start at the mixes  and the gravies and the bullions and the spice mixes and all that stuff, because, you know, that's like the basis of, of everything that we do from scratch.  Um, but slowly we'll get into.
28:27actual meals and maybe even meal planning.  And  I'm thinking maybe in the future videos.
28:35So I've got a bunch of stuff going around in my head that I want to do. Are you going to start a YouTube channel for the videos? You know what? I have a YouTube. I've had it for years  and it's the same name and I just don't use, I don't post as much as I should over there. And  that was one of the goals that I set for myself this year. Also, um, aside from the, from the homestead page on Facebook,  um, I really do need to start growing the YouTube channel and get over there and just start doing it.
29:06Okay. The other thing I was going to ask you is would you consider doing an actual blog, not just the posts on Facebook book, but would you start a blog for your  series? I think yeah, I probably, I'm a pretty good writer. I can, I, I've been told that, yeah, I can, I can do that.  I think that  this whole Facebook page really was just for me to dip my toes and get used to it.
29:35and get myself in the pace of, okay, now I'm trying to look at the homestead as a business and  grow it  and do all these things that I want to do. And I have a clear plan in my head of how I want that to go.  just, I need to take these baby steps to make that happen so that I don't overwhelm myself because I tend to do that. And then I just stop.  Anybody else? Yeah.  Yup. I've done it  many, many times.
30:04So I'm trying not  to do that.  only reason I'm asking if you would start an actual blog is because if something happens to Facebook, you lose those posts. Right. I know. I know. be sad. It would be sad. But I do,  all of my  posts that I put up, all my pictures of the recipes that I make, I do back those up on my computer so they wouldn't get lost. I do have them.
30:33Okay, good. Good. Good. I'm glad because what you're doing is actually going to help people. And part of the reason I started the podcast was to help people. And when I see other people doing things that actually help other people, it makes me really happy. So please keep doing it. Yeah, I will. Thank you for saying that because that's, you know, that's, think a really important, it should be a really important goal for, you know, all of us homesteaders, farmers is
31:02to help each other because we need to learn from each other and we need to support each other. And my thing is... yes. Yeah, you've got to teach. You have to keep the old ways alive. Yeah, because sometimes the new ways fail and we need the old ways. Exactly. Exactly. All right.
31:28All right, Marissa, thank you so much for your time. really appreciate it. And I really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it too. And I will never forget it because this is my first podcast.  Well, you did great.  Thank you.  All right. You have a good night. You too.  Bye.
 

Hot Mess Ranch

Today I'm talking with Steven at Hot Mess Ranch. You can follow on Facebook as well.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
 
Muck Boots 
Calendars.Com
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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.  Good morning, Steven. How are you?  I'm good. How are you?  I'm good. I'm really excited to chat with you because  I understand that you have a ranch, but I also understand that you  are all over social media. And I want to talk about that too. So  first off, why is it called Hot Mess Ranch?
01:26Well, when my wife and I started the ranch, uh, 2021, we thought for months on what to name the place. And one day when we were watching TV, one of my daughters walked through the living room, did something funny or whatever. My wife looked at her and said, Oh my word, you're such a hot mess. And then it was like a spark went off and instantly
01:53My wife and I looked at each other like, let's just name it Hot Mess Range.  Uh huh. And it was kind of a joke for a little bit. And then it just kind of stuck  and we named it the social media that and that it kind of, that that's how it got started. So it's named after my daughters being silly.  Well, I love that. And honestly, every time I see a hot mess before someone's name on any social media,
02:22channel I'm like hmm what kind of hot mess is that one? Right. So it's a good way to get attention too.  Yes. Okay so what what brought you to doing Hot Mess Wrench?
02:34My wife grew up on a Longhorn cattle ranch  for most of her life.  And we had kind of kicked around the idea of getting land for years and we had always looked at it and  coming out of COVID, we just,  we found some property and then kind of got serious about it. And I have a daughter with autism  and she was kind of having a rough time in the city and
03:04Um, you know, kids can be kind of cruel and,  and, um, we were like, let's just give this a go. Um, really my daughter is what kind of pushed it over the edge. And so we found this place and got out here and that  main reason for her, uh, being a, a, um,
03:29I'm a word I'm kind of brain farting here.  The main reason for moving out here with my daughter, uh, played out really well.  And, uh, she's  her  self-esteem is through the roof now and she's feeling great about herself and she's settled in with the animals. And so that's kind of really what it was all about. And then that's, that's why we came out here and got started.  I have a question about your daughter and if you don't want to answer it, just don't, and I will edit it out.
03:58Autism presents in a whole lot of different ways with kids. So how did you find out that she had autism?
04:08Um, my wife is a teacher and so she holds a, well, she does now she holds a doctorate in elementary education.  And so she's got a lot of experience with that, especially with kids in the,  in school. Right. And so we could tell, she could tell kind of an early age that there was a chance she was kind of on the spectrum. And then we went and got her diagnosed.
04:35Uh, early on, so we've, had known for quite some time. You can, you can generally tell they're not a,  they're not as  social  as a lot of people, you know, she gets a lot of anxiety and in heavy social situations, a lot of people around a lot of noise,  um,  uh, over, over stimulation happens pretty quick, but the noise is really kind of.
05:05you know, was a telltale sign. And she even to this day, if we go back into large gathering, you can tell she just kind of gets overstimulated pretty quickly. So that was one of the main signs that we noticed and she still has today. Okay. I was just wondering, don't want to make this about me, but I have a couple of things to say about this.
05:32I,  we moved to our homestead because we lived in town, like right off main street in a small town. And there was always  noise and there was always someone knocking on the door. And  I don't love it. I grew up in a very small town in Maine, surrounded by pine trees,  basically in the woods. And that was perfect for me because I really did not love being with people, like lots of people. And
06:01I've never been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, but I would assume I probably am.  And I feel like this was a thing a long time ago, but there just wasn't any science to define what it was. And  back in the old days, people would just say, oh, she's really shy or,  oh, her ears are really good and can't filter out things. So she hears everything  or she's crazy.
06:30And I don't know, like I think everybody has things that bother them and always have. So just because you're on the autism spectrum doesn't make you less or weaker than anybody else. It just makes you different. Right. So I just want to get that in because I feel like people get really weirded out about talking about things like this.
07:00And it shouldn't be weirding people out, it should be educating people.  The spectrum is very wide range too. So,  you know, with different levels of certain stimuli that, you know, can over stimulate  and  there's kind of a hyper focus to it too, where, you know,  my daughter's exceptional with the animals and it's something that she's gravitated towards, but she's also  really good at with art. And so,
07:29You know, she's got a heavy artistic side.  Wonderful because those are both Fantastic things for her  to be able to be interested in and then pursue later in life. So that's great. Awesome  Okay, so I don't make this about autism, but I did have a couple things I wanted to say about it So you are all over social media with your cows your steers your your horses. Do you have goats too?
07:59We do newbie and dairy goats.  Yeah. And so I'm guessing that that is  probably part of your income at this point. A little bit. Yeah.  Good. Good. And you're really good at it. So  my question is, do you,  do you just walk around with your phone and you're like, Oh, this would make a great video and just whip out your phone, hit record and just do it. Or do you actually set anything up?
08:28It's a little bit of mix of both. The whole thing was a little bit accidental. You know, it started out with just being a general person that  records stuff, just like you do if you're on your own Facebook page or whatever. You're just sharing with your friends, right? We didn't even mean to, well,  TikTok ended up being just  a thing that we did because my wife was on it for school.
08:58because they were trying, they had this big social media initiative for trying to get awareness out for some of the things that they were doing in education.  And that's the only reason she ended up on the app. And then we, I was watching some videos with her one day and I was like, it'd be funny if we just started the HMR TikTok account and posted some funny stuff of our horses and you know,  little, literally zero expectations.  And, um, people
09:28tend to gravitate towards a hot mess. And  we posted some videos and it didn't really do much for a long time until we got Rosie and we showed her at the, winning her at the auction and then just kind of general everyday life stuff. think people tend to  appreciate the reality  of  life isn't always
09:59perfect, know, a lot of, a lot of times on social media, you always see just the good stuff, but we try to share everyday stuff. And I think people can re it can relate to it. So good relatable content is, is kind of where it's the most. Engagement that we get on the platform. Yep, absolutely. And your horses are like dogs. They love you so much. They're like dogs.
10:30Yeah, they just live in our kind of our front yard. Um, you know, and they get a lot of interaction, which we started this whole thing with the horses. We, and I, I didn't have a lot of experience with horses and, uh, we, I got a few from sales. never knew the right way to pick them up. The horse industry can be kind of difficult to be a part of, especially if you're new.
10:59Uh, there's a lot of opinions on horses and everyone has a different one. And so trying to get any kind of idea of what to do or the best way to do things is can be challenging, especially if you're new. And so  I just kind of noticed that there was a lot of performance horses that once they were done with their performance career, they had kind of spent their life just doing that. And they weren't very personable.
11:27They had a tough time with kind of their second career in life, which is  usually a lot of times they end up being just a family horse.  And so they have to kind of learn how to be around people.  so that was one of the things that I wanted to do is just make them.
11:47very personable so that, you know, at some point, if they need to have their second career outside of doing performance, that they could adapt to that well.  And, those horses that adapted that well seem to have staying power in a family, right? Where if you have a horse that's kind of neurotic and, you know, can't adjust well to life outside of the arena, they tend to get into the sale pipeline a lot. So I just try to give them a lot of attention and hands on and
12:18Learning about horses and a horse herd has been really fun.  know, and it's just their dynamic and how they interact with each other and their body language.  They talk to you a lot. You just have to be able to know how they're communicating with you. And so it's kind of, it's been fascinating, but they're that way because I spend a lot of time trying to make them that way. You you ride kind of a fine line of them being
12:49too in your business sometimes, but it's like, they've got to have good manners, but  you want to, I try to let them be a horse and let their personality come out as much as we can. Yeah. We want them to be like a well-behaved 16 year old teenager, not a five year old who jumps in your lap and says, read me a story. Right. Right.  Although I do think some of my babies would like to get in my lap. just have to tell them.
13:18They don't understand that they weigh so much.  they will smush you. They will break you because they're so big.  Did I also see that you have, I know you have at least one donkey named Hank, right? We do have a donkey named Hank.  And we got him from us.  We got him just  randomly one night out of a sale.  found I was in there looking at horses and I was live and my wife saw him and his mama. We have Hank and pickles.
13:48He was just a tiny little fluff ball when he came here for the first time. Uh huh.  And, uh, that's how we ended up with the mini donkeys. And then we have a few others  after that.  have Daisy May, who's a regular size donkey and her baby, Mocha May. And then we have Sage, which is, she was a little bit feral when we got her, but she still doesn't really let you pet her too much.
14:17I think she's kind of permanently that way.  We've, we've tried, but she just, we can get her to get a treat out of her hand and that's about as close as she'll let anybody get.  Yeah. Um, the way that I found you is  your video with, um, Hank came through and I heard you mentioned Clutch of Colors, Hank, and I follow Clutch of Color because I follow Katie Vance likes page and I was like,
14:42I was like, why is he talking about Hank from Clutch of Color? And I watched the video and I was like, oh, I got to talk to this guy.  A different Hank.  Yep.  And Hank at, I can't think of her name right now. Alana's place. He's got a very  big, very beautiful bray. Does your Hank have a very beautiful bray? Hank doesn't really talk that much. It's, it's kind of, you know, they're all different personalities, but Hank's not a real big talker.
15:12Um, I don't know if it's cause I don't know. He's just not a very big talk. Now Mocha, who  is just a little bit younger than Hank, she talks a lot  and she's kind of very squeaky Bray.  It's kind of like feels very little kid  and she does what we call winding up. Like it starts real small and she kind of winds up and gets going. But we don't have. Yeah.
15:40Can you make the donkeys bray at you? Like if they're not making any noise, can you walk up and make a bray noise and then they start talking to you?  No, but if we walk anywhere close to where Mocha is at, she'll start talking to you.  That's the only way we can kind of, I could like get one to bray at me. Mocha will talk to you if you get, if she hasn't seen you for the day and you know, you get within about a hundred yards over, she'll start braying at you real slow and start walking towards you. Okay.
16:10The reason I ask is our dog, okay,  let me back up a step. A dog that my parents had back when I was a kid, his name was Otis, he was a Samoyed.  My dad would go, brrr, at him. And he would just start making all the talking noises that dogs do when they're trying to communicate with you, but they're not barking.  And our dog, who is a mini Australian Shepherd, she'd never done it before.  And she's four and a half now.
16:39and she was mad about something outside. She saw somebody pull over at the  end of our driveway  and she's barking at them. And you know when dogs whine down, they do that brrrr noise or that thing in their chest. And she was doing that and I mimicked her. And then she started talking to me the way that Otis used to talk to my dad.  And I was like, oh, I finally figured out how to get you to actually talk to me, not bark or whine at me. This is great.  So I just, love animals. I love
17:08I love the fact that you said that you've learned so much about how horses communicate and what they're indicating to you by how they act, because almost every animal will do that if you pay attention. um, yeah, I focused on it with horses because like I had rid horses, I had ridden horses as a kid, but, so my entire context for horses was
17:38You know, the horses that people put you on as a kid.  And then I haven't been around horses much since then until, you know, now that I'm older. And so when, when I got horses, my entire expectation was what they were like then. And, you know, having your own horses that are not in a lesson program or at a camp or your, you know, your uncle's super broke kid horse  is they're very different.  Um,  and.
18:08Like  what that I got from somebody.  just expected, I don't know what I expected, but I got, I was just going to get on and ride off into the sunset. Right.  That thing threw me into the side of a barn.  I was like,  that was my first moment of, huh,  this is, this is not what I expected.  But the reason I started looking into the herd dynamic and how horses behaved is because  I started riding horses and so.
18:35They were doing a lot of things like they had all these behaviors and all these things that they were doing. And so I'd go back to the person I was taking lessons from. And I was like, I don't understand why they're doing the things that they're doing. And,  it could be a training thing, of course, but sometimes it's not some, know, sometimes they're telling you that they've got an itch or something bothering them or, and I, I didn't know any of their language. I didn't understand any of things they're trying to tell me. And so  I just,
19:04I kind of doubled down on learning herd dynamic and horse behavior and why, why are they doing the things they're doing? And because I don't know at the time, I didn't know the difference between is this horse just kind of being a little bit stubborn and not wanting me to do something or is there actually something bothering them? Or, you know, I just, I just asked a truckload of questions on the why.
19:34And so I've spent  most of the last four years just really  in depth and trying to understand why they act the way they act. there, you know, that question will never be fully answered  from anybody in the world. Why horses do what they do. But I feel now that if I'm riding a horse, now I can at least get a little bit of an idea of is this is something going on or is, you know, are they just being a little bit.
20:03Like they don't want to ride today, which is fine. We can work through that, but you know, especially how they behave in a herd. It's very fascinating dynamic watches horses in a herd and the way they talk to each other and the way that there's a hierarchy and there's an alpha and beta mare and the mares usually lead the herd and,  and how they watch over each other. And  it,  they're, very fascinating  animal when you just kind of sit back and watch them.
20:33know, just be and watch lot of their natural instincts and stuff. Yeah, I feel like if horses weren't so big, horses would be man's best friend. Dogs wouldn't be. There's a lot of truth to that for sure. Although I think donkeys would be more. Donkeys are  donkeys are kind of a next level personable animal. You know, they really are.
21:01They're literally very close. Although there's a, you know, people think that donkeys are more stubborn than horses, but donkeys just have a higher sense of self-preservation than horses do. It just makes them appear as though they're more stubborn than horses, they're, yeah. Just maybe smarter a little bit than horses.  Um, I don't know. I don't know about smarter. think just different and just their higher sense of self-preservation and
21:32You know, they just some donkeys I think are a little bit just more confident. Like they just kind of know what they want and stick with it. They're not as easily redirected as horses are. They, they will replot, they will respond to pressure like horses do, but not as easily horses. Yeah. Okay. So I should have asked this back 20 minutes ago when we started this and I didn't, um,
22:00What is the purpose of Hot Mess Ranch? mean, are you breeding horses for sale? Are you breeding cattle for sale? What's the purpose?  So past us coming out here for my daughter, the core  of our ranch is registered black Angus cattle. Like that's the actual main part,  business of the ranch. So to say that's the agriculture full.
22:28you full agriculture side of the ranch. So they are, they're all registered, uh, black Angus grow in that cattle program  is, is the main thing that we're trying to do. The only other ag part of the business, I would say is the dairy goats, which,  um, has actually gotten pretty well.  And we're,  you know, we get some goat milk and we're  experimenting with maybe soap or some other stuff, but.
22:57Those are the two main agriculture part of the business. The horses is more. We, we are breeding horses. What we're trying to make in the horse program is something that can run, uh, barrels  and also do breakaway roping. so you kind of have to have a cow run cross mixed in that. But the horse program is really kind of more of, I love horses and it's,  you know, more of a hobby. It's not really  ag. I got them all tied together into one.
23:27just out of not having the knowledge of the separation of the different livestock programs. as I've,  the ranch has kind of matured, my knowledge level's kind of matured, I kind of see the differences.  Horses are more for fun, and the  real part of the business is the cattle and the goats. Okay, what is the breakaway roping thing? I don't know anything about it.  So I don't know if you, so you have different types of roping.
23:54Um, most of what I think people see as team roping, where you have two people on either side of the chute when the calf comes out of the chute at the rodeo, the head person will rope around the,  uh, usually around the horns and then the healer will come in from behind and rope the back legs. And then they have to kind of  stop. And when the calf stops and pulls tight, then the timer stops and breakaway roping, it's a little bit different. So it's one person that comes out when the
24:23calf  comes out of the chute. And as they're running forward, they rope the calf  around either the horns or the neck. And then the horse stops. And then the as the calf keeps running off, the calf runs off with the rope and the rope breaks away from the saddle. Okay. At the point where that breakaway occurs, the timer stops. And so a lot of there's a lot of people right now that are running barrels  and doing breakaway roping.
24:52But horses are expensive. So  they can have one horse that can do both competitively. Then that's a, we've gotten feedback that that would be a nice to have for, for a lot of people out there. Okay. Thank you. Cause  I know nothing about horses and rodeo. I was not brought up around it. I grew up in Maine. We don't do a whole lot of rodeo and rodeoing in Maine.  And, uh, Minnesota has some  of that.
25:22up in Hamel, it's like an hour north of us. They have a Hamel Rodeo every year, but I've just I've never been into it. So  when I see something new, I have to ask it's my got to know it is kicking in.  Okay, so what's the future look like for you guys?
25:42We're always learning that every day.
25:48It's real, it-
25:51It's kind of unknown at this point as we  have learned that in order to continue to grow through the cattle program, we're just going to physically need more land, which is a challenge to get these days. Uh, land's really expensive and even finding lease land these days is few and far between because the cost of land is so high. People are choosing to lease.  Um, and so it's, it tends to get taken up. We'd love to, we'd love to grow the cattle program to where it's,  you know, as it can be like a
26:21a full job instead of just a part-time kind of thing. But we're very much like a hobby ranch at this point, right? Like, I don't even know if we're a full, even a hobby ranch yet. It's a little less than hobby. We're getting, it's very beginning stages. Are you a dab, you're a dabbling ranch, not a hobby ranch. Yeah, there you go. We're dabbling in things and learning things.
26:51And at some point we hope to, I hope to have enough land that we can  grow into a hobby situation and then into a  cattle operation at some point. So we're, have the training wheels on at this point, just everything we're doing is, is learning.  so we'll see.  I, don't know.  I have hopes and dreams, right? Like that we can grow into.
27:19lack of a better term, real program  instead of a of a beginner program. But there's a long way to go to get there. yeah, we'll just kind of see as the future kind of unfolds and we'll have to kind of watch the real estate market and see how land prices do and see if the, I don't know if they'll ever come down again, but you know, maybe we can find something, you know, it's a decent price at some point, but.
27:48We are watching and waiting to see how the future goes. Uh-huh. Maybe you'll find a farmer who is trying to get out of his, his thing because he's aging out and you'll manage to strike a deal. I'll, I'll keep that in mind for you. I'll hope that for you. There you go. Thank you. Um, my dog must've just heard somebody pulling driveway cause she's barking. She's a really good watchdog. Um, I was going to say COVID was the thing that kicked us into looking for a new place.
28:18And I am so thankful that we started looking in 2020 because if we had waited till 2022, we  wouldn't be living where we're living now because we would not have been able to afford it. Yeah. Yeah. That's another big problem right now, right?  I think that the cheap interest, those 2 % interest rates, a lot of people got a really good deal on a mortgage, but I actually think there was a double edged sword.  It was, it was bad in general because now the
28:49interest rates are high and people aren't leaving. So it's just kind of, people are sitting on those 2 % rates. so just people aren't moving about the country, you know, because they're just kind of, some people are sitting on stuff and it's too expensive to get in stuff. If, if those, if that never would have happened and rates would have stayed at, you know, in the three or 4 % range and then current rates would be the,  in the same range, people just kind of keep moving around and stuff would keep flowing. But right now it's just.
29:16Stuck. Everything's kind of, everything's stuck. You know, I mean, like we're, we're same boat here, right? I think we got a two and a half percent rate on this place. It's just, I mean, it's wild. Yeah. I can't, I can't remember what we got in this place. I think it was actually lower than 2%, which is unheard of.  uh, the other thing that I said to my dad and my husband back during COVID when, when the government was  handing out all those rebate checks. Yeah.
29:46I said, last I checked when I was in school and we were learning about finance,  when you give people money,  money loses value. I said, this is gonna come back to bite us in the butt. And  my dad said, well, I don't run the government. And my husband said, well, I don't run the government. And I said, well, do we have a choice?  Can we not take this money? And my husband was like, why would you not wanna take money? And I said, no, I mean our country.
30:13Can we be like, no, this is a bad plan. And both my dad and my husband were like, no, that's not how it works. So I kind of knew back when that started happening that the cows were going to come home or the chickens were going to come home to roost on this. And I think it has hit every facet of our finances, everybody. Yeah. think hindsight's 20-20. I mean, you know, you're faced with a massive unknown.
30:43the effects of what COVID was going to do.  I mean, you look back on it  and it was a huge overcorrection for sure. was like, at the end of the day, it was a bunch of  funds and cheap interest rates that fueled an already good economy.  And there was a  certain  group of people like in the service industry that should have been the,  you know,  the main
31:13Um,  recipients to that kind of thing, because,  know, they're fully forced out, right? Like they can't do anything as restaurant worker. You're, you're sitting there. Absolutely. I mean,  absolutely would have been the right call. Everybody else,  especially in, uh, like high tech, for example, where  we all work from home anyways, all you did was fuel people that. And  low interest rates to people to be frank, that just didn't need it.
31:42But it's a hard thing, right? When you look at the Fed and the decisions that they were made, I mean,  how are they supposed to know? It's a pandemic that  easily could have gone sideways. I don't really know whether it would be kind of trying to predict that,  Yeah. Tough thing.  But that's what ended up happening. They  just poured gasoline on a blazing fire that was already hot, right? Like it just, and then it just.
32:11That's why it wrecked everything. And then supply chains were disrupted. had everybody bought everything. You know, when we started the ranch, that was one of the problems we had. Everything we bought had to be brand new because there was nothing used. Everything was gone. Yeah. You know, just getting a pickup truck for me, like that there wasn't any, there was literally nothing. think there was five trucks in the area. Like I had to go get something. And of course they're wildly overpriced. The only tractor that was available.
32:41They had  one left and it was new and it was one left in the region. And I just happened to walk in there and that was the last one. And it was like, you know, getting anything was just a challenge. so everything we had, we got a great rate on the property, but  everything we had was  overpriced and brand new.  I never liked to buy that way. I loved to buy, you know, get a deal on something used and I combed everywhere. And it was either.
33:10The only thing used you could find was just something that was rotten away in a field or brand new. Like there was like nothing in between and it was just really challenging. Now there's stuff now, but man, 2021, 2022, the inventory was just deleted. There's nothing there. It was a crazy, crazy time. I really do remember it because we moved here in August of 2020 and basically there was nothing here.
33:39We had a house, we had a pole barn, but no infrastructure, no tractor, no nothing. And we ended up buying a brand new  small Kubota tractor because we needed one.  Who knew when you buy three acres that you're going to have to actually  need  some kind of tractor to actually  mow because you can't use a push mower on three acres. And you're going to need something to pick up big old logs and trees and stuff.
34:08You you can't buy acreage without having some  form of tractor. So yeah,  I don't even want to get into this. There's so many things that we had to do when we moved here.  I actually try to keep these to half an hour, but I do have one last question for you.  If you had to choose one word to describe Hot Mess Ranch, what would it be?
34:33One word? mean two words. It's a hot mess.  Well, how do you feel about it? guess one word to describe how you feel about it.
34:46challenging.
34:49This depends on the day, think. Mm-hmm. Challenging, educational.
34:58watching my daughter sometimes it feels inspiring.  well, that's a whole lot of words. You're not playing. depends on the day. It's so hard to pick one, right? Because it's like this life. There's just so much that goes on that.
35:16And I don't want to say challenge. don't want the, you can use the word challenging and it,  that can sometimes carry a negative connotation to it, but I think it can also carry a positive connotation to it. Sometimes challenging can be a good thing. Uh huh. Um, I think challenging is a perfect word for you. Yeah.  So far I've gotten love, I've gotten dream, I've gotten prideful  of all words.
35:44And I think the person who said it meant proud, but used prideful instead.  So I just, wanted to come up with a question at the end of the podcast that, that let people know  that it's everything. This, this life when you're growing animals or growing produce is  everything. Like there are so many parts and facets of it. And I figured if I started asking  for a word that would more illustrate it.  So.
36:14All right, Stephen, I really appreciate your time today and I love what you're doing and you are clearly having a ball doing it. At least what you're showing on your videos, you look like you are just so tickled at your life. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, there's days that it's not fun, I would say it's like 80 % fun. Okay, where can people find you?
36:43All platforms, it's just Hot Mess Ranch. It's pretty easy to find. And you have a website too. What is it? We do. Hotmessranch.com.  We'll have our first little test run of goat milk soap soon. So I think we got 11 of them. So it's not very many, but we'll see what people think about it. I hope that goes well for you because it gets, it can be addicting once you get into making soap. We do it too.
37:11Really nice. Yeah. Yep. All right, so you guys can find me at a tiny homestead podcast calm  you can find Stephen and his  Hot mess ranch at hot mess ranch calm  and  I hope Stephen has a wonderful weekend and I hope my listeners do too. Thanks Stephen. Thank you. All right. Bye
 

Organic Urban Farm

Today I'm talking with Jesse at Organic Urban Farm.
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00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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 Jesse at Organic Urban Farm. Good morning, Jesse. How are you? Good morning, Mary. How's everything?  It's good. If I lose you, it's because we have some really high winds happening here in Minnesota today. Not a problem.  Just a call away. Okay, cool. All right. So.
01:25I had to go look up Long Island, New York because  I never even wondered about where it is. I grew up in Maine, but never even wondered how  Long Island fit into the state of New York. And it is literally a Long Island.  Yes, it is. So is it very populated because that helps me raise my questions here?  Yeah. So I've lived on Long Island my whole life. I've lived in the town of Oceanside since  basically I was
01:54Around three years old, we moved over here.  The Oceanside is about 40 minutes from like New York City. So Manhattan and you you're very close to the boroughs. You're only a car ride away really from anywhere.  But for me, I grew up upstate a lot in upstate New York with my grandparents,  raising chickens and horses and other animals. With my papa was a big thing for me growing up.  And I spent most of my summers over there.
02:23I always loved it. So once my papa passed, I  decided to  do a little nice chicken coop in my backyard and start something small  just in  his memory and something that made me happy to do. But around us, we really don't have many chicken coops. I'm probably one of the few people in our neighborhood who has a chicken coop. So it is rare  to have this over here, but it was something I love and it was something that  I really wanted to do. But yeah, this is really more of like...
02:53Urban city. This is more of you know a fast-paced area. It's You know more of a city suburban life,  and it's a little bit different than  Then  what you would see on most forms I would say yeah, that was part of the reason that your Instagram page grabbed me because I was like organic and urban don't necessarily shake hands well unless you  work some magic Yep, absolutely so
03:21You know, we don't have our certifications and stuff like that, but we raise our chickens all organic when it comes to free-ranging them and then as well as feed. Right now, we use Scratch and Peck, which honestly is one of my favorite brands. It's a little pricey, but the chickens really do love it. And honestly, I haven't had any problems with it, even when they were babies with the coxodosis. you know, I was raising chickens, you guys know.
03:51that the babies tend to sometimes eat their poop and stuff like that, which will make them sick. But a lot of people use the medicated feed, but I don't see a need for it, honestly. I've noticed that the organic feed, as long as it's a quality feed, seem to be, you know, you don't seem to have any sicknesses or anything. But that also goes with how neat you keep your coop and how neat you keep the brooder. Because that's very important when it comes to that.
04:19When it comes to the health and the sickness in a small area like this, especially when you don't have a big farm, you really have to be neat. It's the most important part of it. Yep. Absolutely. Because those bacteria nasties will take any opportunity to get in and wreak havoc. Absolutely. Yep. So, um, so how big is your, uh, yep, go ahead. No, I'm sorry. That was, I was just getting, uh, in somewhere. Well, go ahead. What were you saying? How big is your, um,
04:48your  lot that  you have your chickens on? So  we have a very big backyard.  So like by us, depending on the area you live, you could have like a smaller backyard, like a city type backyard, or you could have like a nice amount of space, almost like an acre to two acres of space, depending on really where you are. So we're more like on the acre side. So it's, we have a very nice size backyard and  it's very
05:17open.  like we're able to, we do have neighbors that could like see right into our backyard and everything like that.  And they see the chickens, everything, but they don't bother them. Our chickens are very well behaved. don't really make a lot of noise. Honestly, I know the more chickens you have, the more noisy it becomes, we haven't had it really much of a problem.  We have very high hedges up around the whole area, so they can't fly over. They try to sometimes, but
05:45We haven't really had that issue yet. You know, it could always become an issue or something. So we're always ready to really  maneuver anything we have to and adjust, which is a big thing over here because I noticed when I did this on my grandfather's property, which was in upstate New York where there's acres and acres of property. It was a bit different. You had a lot  more room for error. Over here, you have to be very precise with the things you do or.
06:14Number one, the chickens won't be happy and healthy, which is our most important part of this because for us,  we started this as well, not just because of my grandfather, but we  had some health problems in my family.  So we really wanted to know where our food was coming from. And we wanted to know how it was being raised and if it was being raised correctly.
06:38So we really wanted to take that into our own hands. So before we even started this, that was like our main concern. So that is really why we chose to go with like the organic method. And we chose to spend a little extra money to get more benefits out of it. And for us in this area where we are, since there isn't a lot of people who do this over here and there's not a lot of people who...
07:05You know, it's a pretty far drive away if you want to go get organic, like healthy eggs, and you know where they're coming from in our area. You would have to drive at least either an hour and a half up north, or you would have to drive another hour and a half to like the Montauk area where there is farms over there, but it's a far drive for people. like over here, we don't have a problem getting, you know, seven to $10 a carton for organic eggs, which I know is crazy in certain areas.
07:33But over here, we tend to be able to sell them for a little more, but it also costs a lot more to do things over here. The shipping for the food and everything else, because there's no really tractor supply. mean, the closest tractor supply is about an hour and a half away. Then,  you know, the feed stores by us, they really don't have much because a lot of people over here don't follow the hobby as we do. Yeah. How many chickens do you have? Right now we have 15 chickens.
08:01But we also have some babies right now that are  We have around Another 20 babies right now and another five ducklings. So at the end of this we'll have around 35 ducks I mean chickens in about five ducks  okay, so so  I Know you said you used to spend time with your grandfather and you you missed having access to the chickens and livestock and stuff so
08:31Are you  raising these chickens so that you can have your own eggs and so that you can sell them too? Correct. Yeah. So we raise them right now just for like the first  group of chickens that we have.  We raised them just for us.  And then everybody kept asking us for eggs. They wanted eggs. They wanted organic, like healthy eggs. Because when people come in our backyard, they really love like our whole setup. People want to just sit back there and enjoy it.
09:00And  you know,  friends, family, they come over all the time just to like hang out and be around it and everything like that because it's something that you don't really get over here.  But  at this point, we needed to get more chickens. And honestly, that's actually our biggest problem  is I think that we've kind of created something where  we've maxed out our space, especially with the baby chicks  we have growing up right now, because they're about six, seven weeks old  now. So they're almost pullets.
09:29in a couple of weeks, I mean, to be honest with you, I think that our main goal is to actually start moving this operation to our house in Monticello, New York, which is about two and a half hours from here.  We have family who live over there, my dad,  my uncle and everybody. So  we're actually debating on moving and doing this as a whole  organic farm upstate and having like
09:59hundreds of chickens because we really enjoy this. It's honestly become our life. were working in offices and you know,  it's not really the greatest life. People,  you know,  who do it and enjoy the money and this and that, yeah, it's okay. But once you start doing something like this, it's very freeing. It's very exciting. It's a different way of living. And honestly, we all, my whole family, we just
10:29fell in love with it. And we're honestly on the cusp of  maybe moving over there and continuing this and growing it even bigger. But  that's within the next year. We have some planning to do before we could just start doing something like that up to over there. Well, that's exciting. I hope that whatever it is you want to come of this happens for you.  I also feel like if you've been working in an office for years and you get into this, it becomes addicting to you.
10:59in the best way. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Absolutely. For me, it's,  it's,  I'm not saying this in a bad way, it's like the best drug in the world. It's, you're, you're loving earth, you're loving  the creatures of earth. It's,  it's a beautiful marriage because this is like what we were supposed to do.  You're not supposed to be sitting in an office all the time and on your phone. So  what I've learned is like, you start to appreciate other things. You really start to.
11:27enjoy the more simple things in life instead of chasing things that don't matter. For me, I truly do not see myself doing anything else. Like for me,  we  did it from like the eggs in the incubator and started it from like scratch. So to see a life form like that and everything, you know, at a young age when I was doing that with my grandfather and
11:55him just teaching me everything about it. I always had this in my blood. So like some people don't get to experience this until later in life. I experienced that at a young age, but because of where I lived, I was limited. So I mean, now that I, you know, I am able to get out of this setting and I, I'm not saying I have a million dollars or anything like that, but I'm able to move upstate, which is actually a cheaper area to move to. And I think I'd enjoy life more personally. And
12:23You know, like people say, chicken math, right? You think you're get one chicken, two chickens, then you have four, six, know, 10, 20. That's how it goes. And it's funny, I'll show you a picture one day. I'll send it to you after we get off the phone. When I started this, bought this little $100 chicken coop. I put it together, I'm very handy. So I built the whole coop you could see on my page and everything like that. So, but when I first started doing it, I just bought a little chicken coop and a...
12:52I came and I was so small, I like, how are they supposed to live in this? And like, this isn't right. And then I was like, you know what, if I'm going to do this, let me do it the right way. I ended up building a whole coup, a whole operation out of it and everything like that, a whole run. And they love it. They're very happy. They're very healthy. They come out, they come right up to me. They want to be held. They want to be paid. Some of them, but you know, some, they all have different personalities, but.
13:20You know how you raise them to is important the more love and care you show them the more they want to be around you Yep, they're just like any other animal and honestly if you're nice to a baby alligator It's going to bond with you. So it's just the way that you treat them The chicken math thing. I thought I had it beat. I really did We um, we got 12 chickens back a couple months ago. They were 18 or 20 weeks old because
13:48We've been buying eggs at the store. We've had chickens before. got rid of the ones last fall that were done laying  and we're going to start again in May. Well, a couple of months ago, I said to my husband, said, can we please get chickens soon because the eggs from the store are terrible. And he was like, sure, let's, call our chicken dealer. And she's a really good friend. She's also the owner of my dog's parents.  And I said, uh, I said,  you got any chickens?
14:15And she was like, we do, they're not laying yet,  but you'll be getting the first eggs from them they've ever laid. And I was like, great.  So we got 12 chickens  and we opened up our farm stand two weekends ago  and we've been putting a couple dozen eggs in every day to be for sale.  And we've been selling out almost immediately within an hour of the farm stand being open. The eggs are gone. We haven't had eggs to eat for ourselves.
14:44for two weeks because we've been selling them. So my husband says to me on, I think it was Tuesday,  he says, do you think Gene might have any more laying hens available for sale?  And I said,  probably why? He says, cause we have people in our community that really want our eggs and we're going to end up not having any eggs for ourselves. And I was like, okay, let me check.  So I got hold of her.
15:11And she said, of course we do. And they're 18 weeks old. And I said, Oh, are you doing these on a rotating basis because everybody wants chickens? And she said, yes, I am. So we're actually getting 14 more chickens tomorrow. So we'll have 26 chickens by tomorrow afternoon instead of just 12. That's chicken myth. Yep. Right there. That's a perfect story to illustrate it. It's crazy. But I.
15:39I really would like to have some eggs to bake with. And right now I don't have any eggs because they're all going away to customers. And that's great. I appreciate the fact that the community is  supporting our little business, but we need eggs in our house too. That's the problem we ran into.  Yeah.  And regarding upstate New York, like I said, I grew up in Maine. I live in Minnesota now and I don't fly. So when we go home to visit family,  we drive through
16:08the long state of New York.  And upstate New York is beautiful. It is.  is. Holy God.  So upstate actually used to be like a very popular area before like flying became like a big thing.  And before there was more modes of transportation and people can get to all these islands and stuff like Monticello, New York and like the area we're in.
16:34That place was like a very popular area. Like you could look it up online. There was like, it was a, there was all hotels there and everything like that. was like almost like Montauk.  don't know.  Not everybody listening is going to know what Montauk is, but Montauk is like on the tip of Long Island and it's a very popular place. Not my type of place. It's like a very  richy rich area. And like a lot of people go up there and just spend money drinking and eating and this and that, but  it's.
17:04That's kind of what it was like over there, but now it's like very, it's back to its old ways where it's more just like the mountains and the trails. Like I'm a big  rider. Like I ride dirt bikes, quads, all stuff like that. So when I go upstate, we have a bunch of trails, hundreds of acres of trails up there like that. We go hunting and stuff up there. And  it's, it's a very different lifestyle than where I was explaining before in Long Island. It's more of like,
17:34of most people who have farms, that's probably the type of area they're living in.  it's, you know, obviously a little more hilly than certain areas, but it's way more rural and it has a lot of like, of the same qualities you get in more of the middle States. And that's kind of why I love the, you know, both worlds of it. It's very two different worlds, but  my dad and my grandparents, they...
18:00always were upstate and everything.  we had a couple different houses upstate, but the one in Monticello is the one we were most likely expand to because it's the closest because my wife, she probably wouldn't want to move full-time over there. So  I would probably have to do a lot of driving, but for me  it would be worth it because, and  also for me, I wouldn't have to be there every day because we do have other family members up there who are very into this as well. So.
18:30It would really be more about me putting in the time to go build structures for them to live in as well as also, like for example, right? When we have our backyard chickens, if you do it the right way, you're not really too worried about a crazy amount of predators depending on where you live. Like in Long Island, I'm really not worried about much other than raccoons.  The occasional, I guess,  you can get mice and rats in there, but like if you,
19:00Like build it the right way and you do it the right way. haven't had any problems, but in a Monticello it's different. have bears, have mountain cats, have cats and like this and that. So wolves, not wolves, I'm sorry, coyotes, stuff like that. And it's, it's a bit different, but when you have a bigger flock up there and you want to raise them organic, you really are going to have some losses. it's sad because you know, you don't want that to happen, but if you're raising them right and it's just nature taking its course, you
19:30really can't be too upset about that. But if you do it the right way where you have a couple of guard dogs, a couple of guard geese, and you do it the right way, you could really let them free roam. You could let them enjoy life the way they want to enjoy life. And you know how chickens are. They board themselves up every night by themselves. They're smart. So other than the cleaning aspect of hundreds of chickens, chickens really do take care of themselves if you build things the right way. Like a big thing for me, even with my small coop.
20:00Everything's automated. I set up a whole PVC watering system.  set up PVC feeding system.  I very rarely have to do those things, which gives me more time to spend time with the chickens and also, you know, make sure the coop's clean for them, make sure it's neat for them so they don't get sick.  And it's basically the same thing, just at a higher operation,  like in a place like Monticello.  I  think it's a great idea.
20:30I mean, you clearly love  doing this on a small scale. I think you would be really successful doing it on a big scale.  The only thing that we have automated in our chicken coop  is in the winter time, we have these little heating pucks that go in the water so the water doesn't freeze.  That's the only thing that we have quote unquote automated. those are very smart to have. Like it's great to have those, especially because, you know, in the winter, I know probably in Maine, it's a little cold.
20:59I mean,  it's probably nothing crazier than over here,  over here,  if you leave those waters out, they're gonna freeze, especially if it's a little bit of water, not a little bit, but you know how much those water things hold. It's not a huge barrel of water. It's gonna freeze quicker. So what I decided to do, and it's honestly very easy, and even if you're not,  I'm a handy person, but if you're not a handy person, this is a  thing I would recommend to everybody.
21:27It just makes your life easier and honestly keeps the water a lot cleaner and it's just, it's less of a worry.  If you could do it, try to set up a PVC watering system. It's very easy. All you need is a barrel and a few PVC pipes. There's a hundred videos on YouTube. There's all different, you know, kits. If you don't want to go to Home Depot and buy each part by yourself, cause you don't feel confident in that you could just get a kit online.  And I'm not a salesman for these things or anything. I just know how well they work.
21:56And I really would recommend it to anybody.  And also, you know, the feeding systems, the bigger feeding system you have, the less times you're going to have to change the food. But there's ways to take up less space too. You could, you know, use the PVC pipe feeding method, which is something I used in my coop.  And for me,  I just fill it up with a couple of, you know, 50 pound bags and I don't have to feed them for, you know, weeks at a time. It's,  it's very rewarding because you have more time to do the fun things and then you'll enjoy.
22:26you know, taking care of your chickens more. It doesn't become a chore. something you like to do. Yep, exactly. And there are so many ways to make things easier on a homestead like we have here. And I grew up in Maine. I live in Minnesota now. So on our homestead in Minnesota, we. Okay, okay. So it is colder up there. That's freezing over there.
22:46Oh yeah, mean Maine was cold too, but Minnesota has a couple weeks in the wintertime where it's minus 20 at night and it's just like, oh my God, those poor chickens.  chickens are really resilient, you know this.  As long as you don't,  we do not heat the coop in the wintertime because chickens get acclimated to the temperatures that are going on around them. If you heat the coop,
23:11and then the heat goes out, they will freeze to death because they're used to 70 degrees and it's minus 20 outside. That's a good point because  if you think about it even as a human being, right? Like if you go in from a Jacuzzi and then you get out and it's cold out, you're to be freezing cold. So you just adjust into the temperatures. It's a bit different. So  for me, I just like to keep everything,  you know,  like  obviously the wind's a big thing and
23:40temperature changes and this and that. But if you could keep everything at a constant, that's the most important thing. People, a lot of people worry because in the beginning, people have, don't always set up  the brooder the right way and  they lose chicks because of the heating situation and the lamps and things like that. And they think that they're not resilient, but as soon as they start getting feathers, they become very resilient. Like for example, one day before I put a top on one of my brooders,
24:08I had this one bird, it's actually my favorite bird, it's a speckled sausage. She's a beautiful bird, very beautiful looking bird, but she loves me. If I go up to the things she wants to be picked up, she's like a beautiful bird. They're very resilient and people don't realize. One day she flew out of the brooder and I was sleeping and I have dogs. My dogs are very calm, they're not gonna like...
24:36go out of their way to do something, but if there's a chick on the floor, like I'm sure my dog's gonna go after it. So I wake up and I count all the birds in the brooder and there was one missing and I'm looking all around the house.  She was hiding underneath the radiator  and I found her and she was, other than hiding from the dog, she was fine. She's in great shape. She's a bigger bird now. She's a beautiful bird.
24:59It's funny because I feel like she remembered me saving her that day and every after that day she always wanted me to pick her up and this and that. But going back to my main point, they are very resilient. You don't really need to spend a bunch of money in heating and this and that. They really just live well in the environments. Because  if you're,  then their nature's  pet. It's like they were born to live outside. So they could live in, you know.
25:27hotter temperatures and they can live in those negative 20 degrees of temperatures. you don't really have to do much. no. I mean, this is why they say that chickens are the gateway drug to homesteading and farming because they are. I completely agree with that. If I had more land, I'd have a million more animals. Oh yeah. And like we have three acres here and you would think we'd have more animals. We don't. We have like two barn cats, a dog and the 12 chickens right now. And part of it is that
25:57Some animals don't do really well in captivity. Some, we had rabbits, we don't do rabbits anymore because they didn't  procreate for some weird reason. I've actually talked to a couple people  who raise rabbits for meat about what happened with our rabbits and they're like, I have no idea what happened there. So,  they're known for that.  I've never had rabbits personally, so I really don't know much.
26:25don't know much about rabbits but yeah that's true so I wonder if some maybe that's weird I am surprised by that.  Yeah we were too and  the reason I've talked to a couple experts is because I feel like we did something wrong but these couple of experts I  they asked me really specific questions I answered them truthfully  and both of these women said I don't think it's anything that you did wrong I think that that maybe your male wasn't fertile.
26:53or you happen to be the lucky recipient of a couple of females who weren't fertile. And I'm like, great, of course we were.  So we don't do that anymore because it was a bad experience. And the best thing about this lifestyle is that if you're not getting  the results you want, you can change your mind. You can do something else. Absolutely. You can adjust. That's the biggest thing in life is being able to adjust. It's a hard thing to do, but  it's important. And like from talking to you and...
27:21You know, hearing you talk about all these things and how knowledgeable you are on them,  I doubt it was something you were doing. It must have just been something, you know, like they said,  either one of them being unfurred or something just rare like that. And it happens, but once you get a bad taste in your mouth,  sometimes you just want to move on to the next thing. And sometimes it's better. just certain things you're not, you're not made like you don't want to do as much as others. Right. And the podcast doesn't cost me feed money.
27:51and time with fuzzy bunnies that don't procreate.  honestly, my husband is big into gardening. So that's his thing here at the homestead.  And that's revving up beautifully this year. Last year sucked. It rained here a lot and our garden was a fail.  So  we're very excited about this season.  And so that's what he's spending his time on right now, other than his full time job too.
28:18That's funny to hear you say that. don't know where you guys are from, but we're Italian and  gardening is a very big thing. So we love that. But where we live, it's very hard to do that because it's just all, there's not a lot of place to grow. You have to have  pots and this and that, and  it just becomes a lot.
28:42But growing your own food like that,  it's awesome. And I wanted to actually touch on one of the things you said before. You said the store bought eggs taste different. And  if you've never had an  egg that was farm laid or from somebody that you knew  was coming from the right place, it's a completely different tasting thing. I don't even eat eggs from the store. I think they taste disgusting,  if you want my honest opinion. And I just, feel like
29:11If anyone's ever had that like or even just your own grown vegetables that don't have all the pesticides over them like you're talking about I think that's  something everybody needs to experience  I I do too  and I don't think that the store-bought eggs taste terrible. I think that they don't taste like anything Yeah, yeah. Yep. than what you season them with it's so true.  Mm-hmm.  And the other thing is is that
29:37Part of the reason that we think that our chickens lay the best eggs is because there's pride of ownership in that too. Absolutely. So, you know, it's all very subjective, but there's also studies that prove that chickens that are fed certain foods and not given antibiotics and stuff actually do produce a more nutritious egg. I couldn't see it being any more true because think about it, it's all what you put in your body.
30:07As a human, a chicken, it doesn't make a difference. Yes. If you eat chocolate candy bars  and Doritos every day of your life and that's it,  you're probably not going to live a very long life. you eat, I don't know, apples from the apple trees that your grandpa's farm  and cucumbers and tomatoes from your grandpa's garden when you're growing up,  you're probably going to live a longer life. Absolutely. It's very true.
30:35We're not  just blowing smoke here, listeners.  There's actual science behind all of this. It's very true. And honestly, I've seen it just in my family, just with health problems, and them just turning to a better alternative and not eating the junk. It really changed their lives, and for the better, obviously.  I mean,  especially for people who have the space  and  listen,  I really
31:03went through some hoops to have like the coop and everything else that I have like this in this little spot that I have. But if you have the acres and everything,  you really should be doing something like this. It's something you'll enjoy. It's something you'll love. And  I'm not going to say it's not work, but it's work that's rewarding.  Yeah. And just give it a try. If it doesn't work, you can pivot. You can change your mind. It's okay.
31:29So I had another question when you were talking and I of course just lost it right out the window.  So I try to keep these to half an hour and I have one question that I've been asking everybody at the end of the episodes.  Jesse, do you have one word that you could use to describe how you feel about your organic urban farm?
31:52One word.
31:56I think it would be prideful. Okay. I think prideful because for love, I think prideful would be better because for me it's not just about the chickens and raising them and giving them a great life. It's also about commemorating my grandfather and how much love and care I put into all this. So I do feel very prideful about it. And also, you know, the
32:23the product I'm giving to other people and their families. do feel like giving people the best possible quality food and everything like that to nourish their bodies, it's just a very rewarding thing.  It's  just something that will always  make you feel good about yourself. It's a nice thing.  Absolutely.  All right, Jesse, thank you so much for your time today. Where can people find you if they want to contact you for eggs?
32:52Thank you again, Mary. You guys can find me at Organic Urban Farms on TikTok, Instagram.  If you want to come get eggs from us,  we're very low right now, but as I said, we're going to be upping our operation pretty soon and we do have  some younger chicks growing up right now. But we sell right from our house, right in Oceanside. If you message us on our Instagram or TikTok, we'll be more than happy to give you all the information.  Come to us, get your first couple of eggs free on us as well.
33:22Also, we have duck eggs, great for baking and stuff as well. So come find us and more than happy to help you out. Answer any questions as well if you're interested in the topic.  Okay. And I'm going to repeat it. You can find Jesse at organic urban farm on Tik TOK and Instagram,  and you can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com.  Jesse, thank you. Have a great day. Thank you. too. Bye. Bye.
 

Home In The Pines

Today I'm talking with Lindsay at Home In The Pines.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
 
Muck Boots 
Calendars.Com
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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 Lindsay at Home in the Pines. Good morning, Lindsay. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you doing? I'm good. Where are you located? We are in East Texas. Okay, cool. Is it sunny there? Because it's gray here in Minnesota. Same here. We've had a lot of rain lately. I mean, honestly, it's just the humidity. I feel like we're just one big
01:26ball of humidity. It's just like walking through steam all the time.  Yeah. Yeah. I keep waiting for the first really nice moderate spring day and it just hasn't happened yet, but we're supposed to have a gorgeous weekend here. I'm so excited. good.  Yeah. So tell me about yourself and what you do. And  I have one quick question. Your Instagram page shows you as home in the pines, but it also shows you as something else. What's that something else again?
01:57Um, Homestead Hustlers in Progress. Yes, that. So tell me, tell me about yourself and Homestead Hustlers in Progress. Okay. Um, well, my husband and I are actually originally from Minnesota. So we get through this stand. Yeah. We know what you're going through this time of year. Um, we both grew up in the city. My husband really inner city and I was, you know, more on the outskirts suburbs. And, um, when we first got married, I was teaching. He is a basketball coach, now teacher and.
02:27Um,  we were led to go to Iowa a couple of years after we were married  and, um, he was coaching at a Christian college there. We adopted our two older boys while we were there and we were in a neighborhood, but we had about an acre of land. It was a super big yard for, for the neighborhood. And we  absolutely loved it, especially both coming from the city.  Um, my husband will say like, I never want to live on top of anybody ever again. And, um, so we just really got like that.
02:58it to like, oh, this is nice. This is kind of nice having a little bit of space, you know.  After a few years, we moved to West Texas where we worked in a  facility for at-risk youth. We were both teachers, both coaches.  Again,  we had our two older boys and then we had a baby while we were there. And we lived  on,  was like a working ranch. We lived on the ranch there.
03:25but we also bought some property about 15 minutes away. So we would go there on the weekends. My husband liked doing projects, being out there, bringing the kids, you know, just having some freedom and fresh air, that kind of thing.  Excuse me.  So then just two years ago, we moved over here to East Texas where we purchased a major fixer upper. it  had been abandoned for a few years  besides all the critters.  And
03:55had another baby, so we four kids,  three boys and a little girl.  And  I work part time from home. My husband still teaches and coaches. And we just, we have about 13 acres here in the middle of the woods and  we love it. It's just, it's like been a gradual progression from like where we started to now kind of just like fully immersed in this like own land,  you know, work it, that kind of thing.
04:23Okay, that's a fabulous story. I have to know, was your husband living in Minneapolis? Is that the big city? Yes. Yep, right there in South Minneapolis. Okay, cool. Yeah, I had no idea that you were from Minnesota, but the minute you said no, no, I heard the big O and I was like, oh, I would have known either way. everyone's like, where are you from? What accent is that? I was like, I'm the one with the accent. But it's funny. Uh-huh. Yep.
04:50It's really interesting to me and I swear I should just start a podcast about people's accents and the way they talk because it's so  amazingly intriguing to me.  I grew up in Maine and I moved to Minnesota when I was 22, I think.  And I had a Maine accent. I didn't have the real thick down east accent, but I definitely had a Maine accent. It was not well received in Minnesota. Every time I would open my mouth, people were like, you're not from here, are you?
05:20No,  no, not.  And so I adopted a generic Southern drawl because apparently it's better to be from the South than the Northeast if you're moving to Minnesota.  And spent years just trying to eradicate any accent that I could possibly get out of the way I speak.  And when people ask me where I'm from, it's with that absolutely open faced dumbfounded look of I cannot figure out where you're from.  You got all of it.
05:49And I'm really proud of that because I've worked really hard to dump anything that would indicate where I'm from.  But  that big O in snow here,  it slips out all the time and I never had it before I moved to Minnesota. That's funny. People  usually get us on bag instead of bag. feel like, it right. We are bag.  That's the big one. My husband is born and bred Minnesotan and he says big.
06:19And he says bagel for bagel. And every time he does it, I just want to be like, it's not big, it's bag.  And I learned a long time ago to not do that because number one, it's how he grew up saying it and it's how he knows it to be said. I cannot change it. Also, it's really rude  to comment on people's accents as I learned moving here.
06:47So I try really hard to just appreciate all the different accents and they're beautiful. They're incredibly beautiful. That's fun. So that's my dissertation on accents for the morning. And typically I don't get too deep into it, but I just love it so much, you know?  So thank you for letting me get that off my chest.  For sure. That's great.  Okay. So what do you think of Texas? Do you love it? Yeah, we love Texas. We'll probably...
07:16We'll probably be here forever. So  we kind of have family all over the place now, like in Utah, Minnesota, still Minnesota. So  we really love it down here. Cool.  I think if I moved to Texas, the thing that I would love most coming from Northern tier States is that my growing season would be a little bit longer. That is true. I know I keep telling them, I loved the weather in West Texas, the dry heat.
07:42We would have snow like once a year just for a couple days and I'm like, okay, this is good. Two days, we're done. So I'm kind of struggling with the humidity, but you're right, like the growing season, I'm like, wow, we actually get to plant things in the fall too. That's cool.  Yeah.  And Minnesota gets really freaking humid these days too, just so you know.  That's  comforting. It's gross. Oh my God. The last two summers, we've had a couple of weeks in July.
08:11where you didn't want to go outside because it was over 90 degrees and it was tropical humidity. It was gross.  So  at this point, I'm not sure it matters where you live unless you live in  Australia  or one of the two  poles, the southern pole and the northern pole.  You're going to get everything. Yeah, it's just the way it is, right? Yeah, it's  so weird. I don't know what happened.  Okay, so
08:41Tell me  about what you actually do  at your place. I know you have chickens.  Yeah,  again, we're in progress, right? So we  were learning so much. We didn't grow up like learning any of these skills. So it's been fun, too, to think, OK, we can teach our kids this and this and that kind of thing.  We did have chickens. Unfortunately, something got in there.  So  yeah, so we're  working on.
09:10fixing that up.  And  then got the garden going. We're starting small this year and hopefully adding on, you know, each each season.  And yeah,  our dog had puppies. So that's been really fun for the little kids to play with those. And  like I said, we have we're in the woods. So my husband's created like a path so can like walk the circle, which is  really awesome.
09:38Yeah, like I said,  the home needed a lot of work. The land needed a lot of work. So we spent a lot of time, especially my husband, just outside cleaning up, fixing things,  you know,  making it nice.  Hence the in progress part of your name. Yes,  exactly.  Little steps. I knew that your dog had puppies. Is your dog a Pyrenees?  No,  the neighbor dog is. Okay, so what's your dog?
10:07It's Pepper Healer Mix. Oh my, that's a very high energy dog. Yes, yes she is. She owns the place.  Well the puppies are gorgeous. They are, they're precious. Yes, the thing I love about Instagram and Facebook is when I ask people to be a guest, I get to go see what they're up to and see all the photos.  And this time of year there's always babies, whether it's puppies or kittens or calves or kids or...
10:34Whatever, there's always babies. So I love this time of year because I'm just innately entertained by all the  pictures. Yeah. Our dog, her  mom just had a litter of eight babies  at a place where we got her  and her. I don't even know how to say it right.  I call the other set of puppies cousins because they're not actually related to Maggie. the other
11:02Australian Shepherd dog just had five or six, like a couple weeks ago. So I'm getting to see all those Australian Shepherd puppies on my friend's Facebook page. And I remember Maggie at that age because I met Maggie when she was two weeks old. So it's really fun. And I always mentioned to my parents when Maggie has new siblings or cousins, because my parents have a border colleague. And I told my dad that Maggie had new
11:31siblings and cousins and he said are you getting one and I said  absolutely not one dog is more than enough.  Australian Shepherds though they're cute.  Yeah she's a good looking dog. I swear to God I should just do an episode about Maggie like a solo episode just me raving about this dog because I talk about her all the time.  She is beautiful like you know the  Australian Shepherd you see on commercials on TV.
12:01how they're always the perfect specimen. She's like that. could  be an advertisement dog. model dog?  Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And I'm so in love with her that it is sickening and I'm going to stop right now. Hopefully she won't bark because she's been really good lately about settling down when I'm recording.  All right. So you said you have four kids and you said that you
12:29You adopted two and then you had one  that's a boy and then you just had another one a little while ago. It's a girl.  And  younger two were adopted as embryos. Oh,  okay. Cool. Yeah. So I birthed them, but all four of our kids, Cam,  family of adoption. So it's really sweet. They have awesome stories. That is fantastic.  I  have a question. If I'm being nosy, just tell me and I will edit this out. Does it cost a lot?
12:58to do the embryo adoption?  And I'm an open book about it. no, that's totally fine.  It depends on the route you go.  A lot of adoption agencies now have an embryo adoption branch. And so that would tend to be more expensive just because you're working with an agency.  Some clinics do it here in the States. And then we actually went to Mexico, worked with an awesome clinic.
13:27Being out of country, was a little bit cheaper. yeah, it's just crazy, the cost of adoption in general. Okay.  I was just wondering, because I know nothing about it.  I'm one of those very fortunate women that get pregnant when somebody sneezes.  And I'm not a baby factory. I have four kids. One is  a stepchild.  And there's...
13:53Oh God, my daughter was born in 89, next son was born in 97, and next son was born in 2001. So it's not like I've had 10,000 children. But it's very hard for me when friends say that they're trying to get pregnant and they just can't. I have this weird guilt about the fact that I didn't have an issue with being pregnant. Yeah, you shouldn't.
14:23I mean, that is nice of you to like understand or feel empathy for people because, you know, some people if they don't understand  that pain, like, you know, but the fact that you  understand and can empathize with them or sympathize, it's  nice. Nothing to feel guilty about though. Yeah, one of the grandest joys of my life has been being a mom.
14:47And my kids would probably be like, bullshit. And no, is. They are the best things I have ever done. Totally agree. Produced, created, whatever word you want to use. Yeah. Okay. So what else can I ask you? Because I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole on adoption. Because if this was an adoption podcast, we would spend two hours talking. Yes. There's lots. Yes. Congratulations though on being a mom of four.
15:17And you absolutely are a mom. I do not think that anyone has  any say in whether people have biological children or adopted children. I don't think it makes you any less of a mom if you adopt. Thank you.  Yeah, totally agree. Thank you. My stepson is the child of my heart.  He's the one that I didn't have to carry, but he still feels like I did. Yeah. Yeah, it's just a different  carry.
15:46Yep, exactly.  And I didn't meet him until he was six. I didn't get to see him as a baby. I didn't even know his dad when he was born.  yeah,  that's cool.  Yeah. Okay, so  off the mom  soap box, back onto the homesteading soap box.  How  are you feeling about all the work that you're doing? Are you excited? you at the frustration point? Both? I guess it depends on the day.
16:16I really try to focus  on  how far we come. I probably get more frustrated with just the home still needs a lot of work, you know,  and I'm home with the littles all day. And so sometimes I can get like, oh, we to do this, we got to do this, we got to do this. Oh, I feel like I'm living in a construction zone still. But then I just have to remind myself, you know what contentment we've come so far.  There's no rush. Like, this is not what what life is about the perfect home. It's it's it's the journey, you know, little steps.
16:45Um, and I'm just super thankful. Like I'm excited that my kids get to run through the woods free and they're not focused on the mess. They're not focused on, know,  if there's a baseboard that's not put in yet, you know, that kind of thing. So  really trying to, we're really trying to focus on their childhood, giving them the best that we possibly can and seeing it through their eyes.  And  you're right. They don't care as long as they have.
17:11good food in their bellies, a place to sleep at night and parents that love them, they're good. Yep, exactly. One thing that we've been trying to focus on too is, and shoot, I mean, I know a lot of people are probably since maybe COVID is, you know, our food. So like, I'm trying to learn more like skills like canning and, you know, like we had these flowers in our yard the other day. I was like, huh, I wonder if these can be used for anything. So I'm like Googling and I like.
17:38I'm out there with my little bucket collecting flowers and  drying them for tea. You know what mean? Like, I just love it. I love learning all these things.
17:49Yeah, absolutely. Do you guys have catnip? Do you have catnip that grows wild in Texas? I don't know. We might. I'm not sure I know what it looks like. It looks... I don't know how to explain it. Google it. You'll find pictures of it. But you can make tea out of catnip that is safe for humans. And apparently it has really good...
18:16There's a word, qualities. It's not the word I was looking for, but it's okay to make tea out of it. And I guess it tastes pretty good too. I have not done it, but I was reading the other day about it and I was like, I  hope our catnip comes back this year. We didn't have any last year because of the drought.  Oh yeah, I'll look it up.  Yeah.  And there's another thing that grows here called pineapple weed and it's wild chamomile basically.
18:44I want to make our whole yard that so when we mow the whole yard smells like chamomile. Oh, nice.  That's a great idea.  We're not going to do it because it would require taking everything out and putting that in.  I just, every time my husband mows the lawn, well,  the yard, we don't really have a lawn.  It smells really good because the people that lived here before put in some really nice grass in the yard part of the property.
19:12and he mows and it smells like sweet hay and I'm just like, you can mow every day if you want. He's like, I don't have enough diesel. He says, I don't have enough diesel. I can't afford the diesel to mow every day. I'm like, okay. Well, then you do. Yeah. Mow every day. That's fine. And I wish that people grew the sweet smelling hay here in Minnesota, but I don't think it's a thing anymore. I can remember growing up in Maine and we would drive up to see my grandparents about an hour and a half north of where we live.
19:41And we would drive by these fields where they'd been mowed and it was hay. And it just smelled so sweet. I don't think that people in Minnesota grow that kind of hay anymore. mean, I can't think of what the smell would be. So probably don't, right? Yeah, I wish they did because it smells amazing. And we are surrounded by corn fields here where I live.
20:07That's the last two summers. was alfalfa fields, but they changed over to corn. corn smells really weird when it's cut. Like when they harvest the corn, it smells strange outside. I can't quite put my finger on it. Yeah. think, I think I know what you mean living in Iowa. think  I know that smell.  Yeah. It's really weird. It's, it's,  I'm, this is going to sound really weird.  It's  wet. Like it smells wet. Like any cut plant smells,  but it's this.
20:36very specific scent and it's not sweet, it's not bitter, it's not sour, but I just know it when I smell it. It's weird. Yeah, the things you learn when you move to the country, who knew? The city, you know, different smells there, So are your kidlets into what you're doing, the ones who are old enough to be doing things? Our second son, they're both in high school.
21:05He definitely loves the garden. Well, one thing he's always been interested, probably since we moved to West Texas, was horses. He got to work at the horse barn there and he just, he loves it. yeah, he's really into the garden. He loves the animals. It's been good. Our oldest is such a hard worker. So anytime my husband needs like, here, help me carry this big old branch or tree around, he'll...
21:33And he's always barefoot.  We just laugh at him all the time. He's walking through the woods, just barefoot, carrying these heavy things around. Just, you he's definitely a man of the woods.  yeah. our littles, our littles love it because, you know, they get to run around with the puppies right now and hopefully chickens again and help dad out and you know, all that fun stuff. So they do. They seem to enjoy it.
21:59You love this so much. can hear it in your voice. I do. I do. It's just funny. I,  I told, I tell my husband when I was little, like I always wanted to live on a farm. I always wanted a cow. Like I, I would put, we lived in a neighborhood. Like I'd go in my backyard and put on like a long dress and pretend I was like Laura Ingalls Wilder  in the prairies.  So it's just, just, it's just cool to look back and see kind of like.
22:25the process of where we're at  now. Like I said, we have so much to learn, but we're just enjoying it while we do it.
22:34Nice.  Did you read the the Laura Ingalls Wilder books?  Yes.
22:42Okay. I I read all of them when
22:49Okay. I read all of them when I was growing up in Steep Falls, Maine. That's where I grew up with no inkling that I would end up living in Minnesota. Oh yeah. And when I ended up moving to Minnesota, I found out there are all these places that you can actually visit where Laurie Ingalls Wilder grew up. And would you believe I have not made it to a single one? I think I've only met a couple, but that is really cool. Especially if you like the book and the story and...
23:18and everything.  Yeah, I can remember reading about Mankato. I can remember reading about  Plum Creek. And in my head, you know, when I was 12, I was like, oh, that's really cool.  I'll never see that.  And I've been to Mankato at this point. You know, I know what Mankato looks like. It sure as hell doesn't look like it did when she was there. A  little different.
23:49Very different, yes. Mankato has been built up huge in the last 20 years, let alone the last 100 years.  It's been a while since I've been there. It's just weird when...
24:02Yeah, it's just weird when you're growing up as a kid and you read about places and you think you're going to stay in the same place your whole life that you are in then.  then life happens and you end up living in a place you read about and you're like, oh my God, this is so surreal. Yeah. And like you never would have thought back then, you know, here you are.
24:26No! I had no intention of ever leaving the state of Maine. I freaking loved Maine.  I still do. I just can't afford to live there. It's so very expensive.
24:38I will, yeah. of living. Go ahead. Oh no, you're okay. I've only been as out east as far as New York, but I was like, man, I would love to visit like way up, you know, Maine, all the way up there. It looks beautiful. It is unbelievably beautiful from about mid-May until about mid-October.
25:02The other months, nah, it's not so much. It's kind of like Minnesota. The weather kind of goes to crap and it stays cold and nasty for five months and then all the beauty happens again.
25:15worth it maybe those few months, right? Oh yeah, it's the same thing as Minnesota. I'm sure you heard growing up here that we suffer the winters to enjoy the spring, summer, and fall. Yes. I'm so excited. It's spring, Lindsay. I cannot. I don't have enough words. We had sleet more than snow. Okay.
25:44Yeah, this last these two but I cannot talk these last two winters we've gotten less than a foot of snow  Where I really use or yep. Yeah the whole winter. It's been the weirdest thing and we've had stretches of cold like I've never  Seen and I've lived here for lived in Minnesota for over 30 years. It's been  a week at a time of like minus 15 minus 20 over my goodness
26:15Yeah, I loved the snow. Like, I miss the snow,  yeah, just the like half the year of the cold, just not so much. The snow is beautiful though.  Well, while we're talking about different states, and  we're digressing, but we only have like four minutes to go. Yeah.  Was it weird for you when you moved to Texas, the different foods? Because I'm guessing that the food culture in Texas is different than the food culture in Minnesota.  Yeah.
26:44Yeah, it is.  I love it. Like the Tex-Mex. I mean, I would eat probably at a Mexican restaurant every day of the week if I could. And there's plenty to choose from. So  yeah,  not as much casserole based maybe.  Not as much like meat and potatoes, more like barbecue, Tex-Mex kind of thing, which I prefer.  Yeah. You said casserole. It's not a casserole in Minnesota. It's a hot dish.
27:14Oh, see, I've just been gone way too long. I'm just going to wrap it up because you're having connection issues and I really do want to get this in. Thank you so much for your time, Lindsay. I appreciate it. For sure. Thank you so much for having me. It's been fun. All right. Have a great day. You too. Bye. Bye.
 

Plotting To Plate - The people on plot 11 & 5

Today I'm talking with Matt and Deb at Plotting To Plate - The people on plot 11 & 5.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
 
Muck Boots 
Calendars.Com
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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 Matt and I think you said Debbie. I might have screwed that up. At Plotting To Plate. Hi guys, how are you? We're good. Thank Very good. Thank you. Did I get the name right? Yes, it's Deb. Okay, good. I blanked for a second. I was like, what is her name?
01:24Okay.  You guys are in Staffordshire or Staffordshire, England, right?  Yeah, we're in Stafford, which is in Staffordshire. It's a market town,  about 71,000 people. So it's quite a big town these days. It's so medium to large.  And it's in the Midlands. Okay, cool.  And how is the weather in England today?  It's  lovely.
01:52It's really nice. So if you're wanting to go outside and get some time and sit and have a cup of tea and read books, it's great.  If you're growing vegetables, not so good because  this has been the driest spring that we've had since the records began.  So obviously we have two hats on these.  Oh, no.
02:19Unseasonably warm and dry for the UK at the moment.  I really wish that Mother Nature would get her act together. Well, just give us more warning about what she's going to be because we've got seedlings and things we need to look after.  So, you know, you need to be able to plan for that, don't you? Yes. And we went through this last year here in my town  because we had six weeks of rain straight in May and June. Yeah.
02:49And it was bad. Our garden was terrible.  And I've talked about it a lot, so I'm not going to talk about it anymore right now.  tell me about what you guys do, because I  know in England you can either have plants growing where you live or you can have allotments. And I'm not quite sure I understand what allotments mean. So tell me about it.  Yeah. So an allotment  is  a large piece of land.
03:17that's often owned by either a council or an association.  And then it's subdivided into plots.  And  the sole purpose of the plot is to grow  fruit and veg. And you rent that land from either the association or the council.  So we rent  two plots  on our site.  There's plot five and plot 11.  And there's about 150 plots on the site. So it is a massive site.
03:47But it's urban, so it's completely surrounded by housing. There's nothing rural about it  outside of the gates until you get in the gates and then there's all  the small plots that are put over to fruit, veg, flowers  or whatever you want to grow there.  Allotments,  it's quite an old tradition in the UK.
04:15the 1970s became popular and then it died off again. Then it came back to life in the 1990s and has sort of grown ever since. We found that we actually took ours on in just after lockdown in 2021 because during lockdown, know, we love food, we love eating well and we love eating organically. So lockdown gave us the time to think and consider about having.
04:43a more sustainable and simpler life and part of that was to get these two allotment plots. We haven't looked back since actually, just absolutely love it. So as far as allotments for the third, as quite large. So normally in the UK they're about 300 yards, but as a bigger, so with the two together, I think we have about a quarter of a plot, something like that, isn't it?
05:13A quarter of an acre. Not a quarter of a plot. That wouldn't feed us. It's about a quarter of an acre, which it's not too big. It's just about as much as we can manage because Matt still works. I'm retired but he works. But it does sustain us to be able to eat seasonally, to eat organically and to also grow just enough to keep some for through the winter.
05:43basically everything that we cook has got something that we've grown in it  or something that we've preserved with it.  That's so beautiful. I love it.  So when do you guys grow? When does growing season start?  We  tend to do it based on temperature.  because,  well, so you can see from plotting to play, it's our diary.
06:10and it shows what we decided to do with it was to keep a diary on how things progressed. But what it has shown us is every single year is different. So the first year we planted straight away, which was kind of February, we started seedlings off in a unheated greenhouse. But then the following year we could see from the posts that everything was a month later. So.
06:37We kind of stick with the 15 degrees thing now. So as soon as the temperature is regularly at 15 degrees, we know that the seedlings will be all right in the unheated greenhouse that's on the plot. yeah, so it depends on the year. So sometimes we can start things off February, March. Other times it's a little later. OK, is there a greenhouse for the whole?
07:08set of plots or are there greenhouses for every few or how does that work? Well  when we took the plots then they were completely derelict  so it was just  a piece of land that was covered in weeds and brambles and  we had to build everything so fortunately I married a man who's very handy  so  there's the first thing the first plot we had was 11 and
07:34We cleared it all and then Matt built a shed. And then the shed wasn't quite enough for what we wanted to do, so we then designed and built a greenhouse. But you can't use glass on the site. Obviously, there's rules on the site as to equipment and things that you can do. So yeah, he designed and built a greenhouse, which has just been brilliant for, and big enough to do all of our seedlings.
08:03And then on the second plot, which was number five, again, had to build a shared clear it.  But on there, we've got a huge polytunnel  so that we find that with the greenhouse and with polytunnel,  we can get enough seedlings going  for the whole of the two plots.  OK, what's the second thing that you're saying?  Polytunnel.  So you describe the polytunnel in that.  I know you definitely have them.
08:33stateside. It's  a hoop tray covered in plastic  shikoo. We've got  a large  semi-agricultural one.  It's just over 20 foot by 10 foot, which we've  got  tomatoes and chilies.  We're trying  sweet potatoes.
09:02this year because we can get a consistent temperature.  We've built an irrigation system which is  driven off solar panels. So we haven't got to be there every day to water. So we've brought an element of  automation into it.  it's  because it's  because you're out
09:31in the public, our site's got public right away. You have to be wary of  the potential.  We don't have massive vandalism,  but you don't have anything too valuable there because  it can get damaged or stolen.  everything we do is an element of a compromise associated with it. Okay. That makes sense.
10:01So  I know  that smaller towns or cities in England have this allotment system, but do the big cities have it too? Yeah, they do. So there were some laws that were brought out  so that  every council has to offer allotments where there's demand for them.  And you find that in the larger towns and cities  that the waiting lists for allotments are years, years and years and years.
10:30Yeah, it's quite shocking really. There's a few sites in some of the big cities, London and Oxford, places like that, where the waiting list is like 15 to 20 years to get on. You're literally waiting for people to die before... Or give up. give up. Predominantly it's...
10:58There's a huge demand these days for allotments. We're very lucky to have  two  plots on the site where we've got one in my name and one in Debbie's name. That's fabulous. I love that there is such a demand because  here in the States,  not as much demand. We definitely have cities that have community gardens. That's what we would call an allotment here.
11:27And I've talked to on the podcast a couple of places that do this and a lot of the lots go empty.  They  just don't have people who want to use them. That's such a shame, it?  You know,  you find that  in a foodie culture as well these days, which is getting more popular,  the chance to get organic vegetables that you know exactly where it's come from.
11:56is growing. So you think why do people not just want to try and do it themselves? I think they think they're too busy.  I I don't know what the culture is like where you are, but here a lot of people  work a lot of hours during the week. They're gone a lot. Yeah. To afford these big fancy houses and boats and fancy cars  and
12:24They are not, they don't have the time to actually enjoy the time that they have off. Yeah.  And you're right, you know, because  we were able to do this now because I have retired.  So Matt still works.  I don't.  And it was  a conscious decision to really simplify because I've come from that, you know, for 30 years, I've got very corporate life  where I was not at home very much. And,  you know, I'd sort of.
12:53leave on a Monday, come back on a Thursday night.  So the chance to do this actually felt like quite a dream at the time. And  now that we are able to do it, it's do feel really, really lucky.  So the plus side is that, you you're out and about,  you know, enjoying doing something that's completely natural, but the bounty of it,  because you're able to eat and produce great food.
13:21from your labors, if you like.  So it's a shame that you can't  get that balance with  both things. I know we couldn't, when I worked and we were both working, we couldn't do it.  I suppose  a lot of people on our sites,  do both work,  but you find that they're  not getting quite as much out of it or able to do  as much, but they get little bits of it, you know?
13:51Yeah.  it's also, I think it's an incredible way to decompress.  Even if you're,  I am not by nature a gardener, but  I  just, just for being outside and doing,  it's cheaper than a gym and it's more rewarding  digging.
14:19building, but just being outside and seeing other people. There's  hundreds of people on our site with the plots. We're from all different backgrounds, different cultures,  different opinions,  ages. It's a massive cross section, but we've all got the one thing in common, that we've got an allotment and we're all trying to do our best.
14:50Just the talking to people, getting advice, sharing opinions and forgetting about your corporate life, forgetting about work, being immersed in something natural. It's just a fantastic way of... Cleansing the clutter from your life.
15:18Do the other people that have allotments as well, do you and they end up helping each other sometimes? Yeah, it's brilliant for that. There's all sorts of things. So ours is quite  a  social allotment. So there's lots of things that  bring people together as well. So we have like  cake days where we sell cakes to make some money for  other social events like barbecues, bonfire nights,  things like that.
15:46So there's a social aspect to it. But we also share produce. So we've got some, obviously we've got neighbours either side on our plots and our friends, all share what we grow. So if we have a surplus of something, then we share it with them and they do with us. But it's not just the physical, know, like swapping your strawberries and your packed choy, but it's also advice and knowledge.
16:15So there's a real character next door to Matt on plot number five. And he knows everything. He's gardened on the site for over 20 years, know, on various bits of the site. And he knows every single pest, every single problem that you're going to come across. But the funny thing is it makes him a little bit paranoid as well. And Matt was harvesting onions.
16:44last year and Steve came over and said oh my goodness you've got some onion pest and you know because that's all flat and Matt just said no that's where I fell over  so  you know it's  sort of every week there's some kind of conversation where  you laugh just laughing about something.
17:08So it is great, it's a nice community, really is good.  Everybody's got time for each other as well.  And as far as help's concerned,  yeah,  we've helped people  like, motivate their plots if they're struggling and, you  know, others have given us slabs where we want to put paths down and  segment the plots out. So  it really is a nice culture there.
17:37I love it. I love it. love it. I'm so glad this goes on in other countries too.  Okay. So what do you grow in your plot?  Well, take  two different views on this. So  Matt's plot is all about potatoes  and onions.  And his mission this year is he wants to grow a huge onion. That's all he's interested in this year.
18:05Then my, and so Matt's plots got, you know, huge beds for potatoes and the onions. Whereas my plot is lots and lots of fruit. we do, but it's things that we, so on my plot on 11, we tend to try and grow things that you can't get in the supermarkets or are really expensive in supermarkets. So we've got a little orchard there, which is apples, pears.
18:36green gauges, cherries.  We grow strawberries, but we grow white strawberries.  So they're white with a red seed.  Then we've got a fruit cage which has blueberries, red currants,  white currants,  raspberries, gooseberries. Oh, we grow lots of blackberries.  Then the next  bit of the plot is all down to
19:04vegetables.  we have permanent beds for asparagus.  always grow bulotti beans. We always  grow  globe  and Jerusalem artichokes.  But then lots of beetroots  and salads, squashes,  kale, anything that we like to eat  and anything that's a little bit unusual.  things like we've grown tromboncino, which you don't get in
19:33supermarkets, which is a really long squash. Yeah, grow, if we grow courgette, we'll grow round ones. You know, just things that are a little bit different. Is courgette eggplant? No, it's zucchini. Zucchini. sorry. There's a word for eggplant in Europe and I can't think of it right now. What is it?
20:02Aubergine. Aubergine, yes, I love that word. I don't know why I couldn't come up with it right now. Oh, we grow those too. So on the polytunnel, on my foot we grow aubergines. We've actually started to grow a kiwi, which is a hairless kiwi, but we haven't rooted yet, so I don't know how that's going to go. And we've grown watermelons and things like that in there as well. it's quite
20:27diverse, but it's always based around what we like to eat. Yeah, because why grow it you're not going to eat it? Exactly. How far are you from your allotments? Five minutes in the car. Yeah, it's round about a mile. think within Stafford, think there's a total of about six or seven allotment sites within
20:57our time and so forth. So we're quite lucky though. It's a five, 10 minute drive to get there. So it's a hopscape and a jump really? Exactly, yeah. Okay, good. I started watching Clarkson's Farm on Netflix. Oh, it's A year ago, maybe a year ago. And I never really liked Jeremy. I thought he was kind of snotty.
21:26I watched the first season and he was  all, I got this, this is easy, it's all going to be great, I'm going make money, it's going be great.  And then they got the sheep and then they had babies, had lambs. And I watched that man melt and I went, okay, there's a heart in there. Yeah. Did you see him with the pigs when you... Yes, yes.  And when he was so distraught about what happened to the piglets that he redesigned the thing.
21:55that he, you know, so that  they wouldn't get crushed.  Honestly, I was crying.  I could not stop crying at that one. And like you, I never really liked him very much  when he was doing all Top Gear and  Grand Tour, but  saw him in a completely different light in that program. Yeah. And I love his farm shop. I love that  Diddley Squat farm shop as well. We must go, Matt.  Yes, I just...
22:22I always thought that he was terribly arrogant and arrogant is one of my least favorite qualities in a person. Yeah. And I think the thing that he learned and we all learn when we grow things or have a farm or a homestead or whatever is that it will humble you in ways you could not have imagined. Absolutely. Yeah. Because you go in with loads of confidence, don't you? Thinking this is all going to be great. And then it just takes a couple of weeks of bad weather and you've lost your crop.
22:52or something's too hot.  We planted, got a real thing for wild garlic, so we planted some  a couple of weeks ago and because of this sustained dry weather it looks like we've lost it.  That's what you have to try and get your head around, isn't it? That  not everything you try will work, but you've just got to keep trying  because it's worth it. About two years ago  we were growing  sweet corn.
23:22I was going up daily and I knew the sweet corn was going to be ready any day soon and kept checking and I was thinking tomorrow this sweet corn is going to be perfect. So I went up there to harvest the sweet corn. We've got badges on the site and the badges are just totally, they've eaten all the sweet corn but they're also
23:50destroyed the sweet corn bed and just scattered about it.  I stood there and I just didn't, literally didn't know if to laugh or cry. And I couldn't believe I was  that emotionally moved by a vegetable and  losing a vegetable. But I took comfort in that I'd contributed to the wellbeing of badgers  and
24:18The badgers had been fed well  and they were happy. But  I'm  mentally scarred and I can't grow sweet corn. And I struggle to eat sweet corn now because the badgers ate my sweet corn. But that's how you know and it's right. Badgers come for it.  That's how you know you care about that sweet corn.  Oh my.  Isn't there something about you can't kill badgers?
24:48They're protected. Yeah,  are protected.  But  they're big. They are magnificent creatures  and they're beautiful to see. But I was mildly upset when they ate my sweet corn.  Are they protected because they got hunted down to almost extinction? Is that why they're protected? Yeah, there's a big...
25:16controversy about badgers in the UK at the moment because some of the dairy farmers believe that they spread tuberculosis. So in certain parts of the country, the farmers are licensed to shoot badgers, but there's a lot of pro and anti badger things. Apart from the fact they
25:46at the sweet corn.  I like to see them. think they're beautiful creatures.  I  understand the  resentment.  I've  got to be very careful because I don't think it's been 100 % proven  that they do spread tuberculosis. But I think there's enough suspicion.  I understand that the farmers who lose their dairy
26:15um, yields due to the TB, why, why they're so anti badgers, but personally, I think they're beautiful creatures. Okay, cool.  Um, since you brought up tuberculosis, which leads me to bird flu over here in the States, have you guys had any issues with bird flu with chickens? The, on  our allotment, you're not allowed to keep chickens, but with,  within the UK, a friend of mine, um,
26:43does keep chickens on is  on a different allotment site.  And it's only the, it's about six  weeks, two months ago that the restrictions have been  lifted on the  birds being allowed to be outside. There's been quite a impact on some of the commercial  poultry.
27:11establishments with the bird flu.  Once again, there's a lot of  people believing possibly there's been overreaction. I don't know enough about it, but there's been a lot of restrictions in place.  Yeah, we've been  kind of going through it here in the States with that.
27:36We have our chickens here. have 12. We're getting 12 more on Saturday because we can't keep eggs in stock because people buy them in our community from us.  And thank you community for buying our eggs. We appreciate that.  But when my husband said he wanted to get 12 more chickens so that we'd have  eggs for ourselves,  I said, realize you're going to have to put them in different coop for at least a week or so, right? And he said, why? And I said, because if they happen to be sick, we don't want the birds we already have to get sick.
28:06And he said, oh, well, it's a good thing we have that other shed ready to go. I was like, okay,  we're good.  So  I had other questions about England that aren't necessarily about you growing things.  But I'm going to ask one about you growing things.  Do you do canning? Do you can your produce? Yeah. So we tend to  do, cause we always have massive gluts of
28:35tomatoes, lots of pasta sauces which are canned.  Then we do lots of preserves, chutneys and jams,  lots of those.  There's a great book called  The Modern  Preserver. you  know, there's like  blackberry and gin jam and  lovely flavours, so I'll get a lot of recipes from there.  Don't tend to do
29:05anything that hasn't got masses of vinegar or sugar in  just because the worry is,  you know, not just going off but  botulism isn't it? Yeah. I would want that as well.  Yeah, so I do do it but tend to be quite safe,  you know, about what I do and what I preserve. But we give lots away as well so,  you know, we are that mad old  couple that
29:30turn up at your house with a string of onions  saying, you need these. Please take my produce. Yeah. Exactly right.  And the other thing that I've really enjoyed  started last year was starting to do fruit, gins and vodkas. So  rhubarb and strawberry was one.  Blackberry was another one.  And  they have been  lovely. I want to read current one.  And they have been lovely.
29:58We don't like waste, you  put all the fruit into the gin or the vodka, leave it for a few months and then bottle it.  And I actually made  a conserve out of the fruit that had been marinating  in the alcohol.  Oh my goodness, you cannot have it for breakfast. But it's  really good. it does go with that, don't waste anything. Kind of ethos.
30:27It's an after dinner compote, yes?  Have you ever heard of anything like that?  I think it's a brilliant idea. Yeah,  you'd lose the day though if you had it on your toast.  Oh my goodness. Yeah, that would not be  advised, I don't think.  No.  Okay.  All right. So.
30:51I added a question into the end of my interviews like a week or so ago and I'm asking everybody this question and we're at almost 30 minutes. So here's the question. How would you describe  your experience with this,  with what you're doing? One word.  For me, it's joyous. Yeah,  I'd go for joyous or  I find it relaxing.
31:17You can have both at the same time. Awesome. And I don't need you to explain it because I've been listening to how happy you guys are  with what you're doing through the sounds of your voices for the whole 30 minutes because you love what you're doing. can hear it.  Yeah, we do. It's special. But yeah, we enjoy it a lot.  And it's something that we actually do together,  which is quite unusual  really. So yeah, we do. We do it together without arguing too often.
31:47Well, that's good. That helps. All right, Matt and Debbie, thank you so much for your time and what a pleasure to talk to my, my probably relatives in England. Who knows? It's been great to talk to you. Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Bye. Bye.
 

CT Farms Mobile Processing

Today I'm talking with Ty at CT Farms Mobile Processing. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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 Ty at CT Farms Mobile Processing in Le Sueur, Minnesota. Good morning, Ty. How are you? Good. Hang on one second. My computer is doing something weird. Okay. Nevermind. We're good. Okay. So, um, Ty is not far from me. Where are you in LaSore, Ty?
01:26Uh, right outside we live over by the Cambria plant. Oh, okay. Yep. And we live over by Michael Foods on Highway 8.  you're maybe  five miles away from me, I think. Yeah, not terribly far. Yeah. So it's a hyper local episode today, guys. I'm very excited about this.  What does CT stand for?  Uh, stands for Chad and Ty. So  I'm Ty, the son of the operation and then Chad is my dad.
01:57Okay, awesome. That makes sense.  I would normally I would ask how the weather is where you are, but we have been having the most  glorious streak of beautiful weather here in Lesor. Oh, God, yes.  Today is just beautiful.  My husband and my son have been outside all morning watering plants and getting our plant sale set up and  all kinds of things. And I've been taking
02:22I've been taking care of stuff in the house and doing dishes and the stuff that the girls do so So tell me about yourself and what you guys do, please um So kind of just all started, you know I was Wasn't having fun really doing concrete breaking my back for a whole lot of money, you know processing pretty easy money We've been doing it
02:49I've been doing it for a very long time now. My dad used to do it when he was younger. So it was kinda like in our family. You know, we knew what we had to do. We knew that it would provide everything for us. You know, it cost us less money if we just butchered the animals ourselves. Saved us money and it provided food for our family. So you know, it was kind of a big plus to it. There's one guy getting out of
03:18mobile processing for chickens  and we just kinda started questioning if we could do it.  We were gonna go buy that trailer  but it sold so we were like alright well we can kinda base our trailer off of that. So we did, we tried our best and it turned out pretty good.  As a business getting into something  obviously there's some stuff that needs to adjust.
03:47which we are slowly  working towards.  Our business is definitely getting better and better every year.  Our customers love our birds that we do for them. They love us. And we love having them come to us.  So yeah, I mean, it's pretty fun.  Awesome. So  is it only chickens that you guys butcher or do you do other things as well?
04:16Uh, we mainly stick to chickens.  Um, we do butcher our own animals at home. have a little hobby farm per se. So.  Yeah. Cause,  a friend of ours was looking at getting into mobile butchering and discovered that, um, the state of Minnesota does not really smile upon much else except chickens for mobile butchering. Yeah. They don't really like you doing everything else really because
04:45You know, there's just a lot of stuff going on in the government. Uh huh. Yeah. All the rules and regs that you have to follow and,  something about that, that the USDA inspector person has to come out and  be there  for butchering of anything other than a chicken or a rabbit, think. Yep. Yeah. And that's, that's difficult to schedule and they don't really like to do it from what I've heard. So.
05:14Yeah, that's a big thing.  If you're  approved, they kind of just got to come out there,  just have a little office, you know, cornered off or something. Just always checking in, making sure everything's going as planned and whatnot.  Kind of just making sure everything's legal. You know, nothing's getting infected with anything such. because cleanliness is next to godliness when
05:44when you're butchering animals for sure. Like  you want to make positive that everything is clean, everything is followed to the letter because otherwise  people do  have issues with it and we don't want that to happen for you or anybody else. Yes.  Yes.  So what,  the reason I wanted to talk to you about the mobile processing stuff is because how, how does it work? Like somebody calls you and says, I have chickens, I need
06:15Dispatched butchered whatever and then what happens on your end? All right, so they'll text us through we mainly go through Facebook Me and my dad have a joint account So we both get the messages we can both respond to them, you know If I don't know the question to it, you know, I'll text him. Hey, can you answer this? I don't really know You know the process of it. So he's like, yeah, that's fine. I'll text them
06:44So once they do that, we get a date set out with a range of price,  kinda. We'll get their address, we'll put it in our calendar to make sure we have it down for good. Then we'll be like, hey, we got a job coming up, let's prep the trailer, get it all cleaned up, shiny,  and we'll prep everything the day before.  And then kinda we go from there as we go to their house, butcher for them.
07:13Obviously if they're not there, that's fine. We can we grab everything ourselves  And then if they need it put in the freezer, we'll do that too. So I Love that your chicken wranglers because I freaking hate chasing my chickens. I hate it It's not my  thing to do  I used to be pretty scared of chickens, but it just kind of They're not gonna do anything to me when I'm You know ten times bigger than them or something. I
07:43Yeah, they're just they're just crazy. You think you're right on top of them. You go to grab them and they take off out from under you. I'm like, um, I was right here. I had you and you're gone again. Exactly.  They're sneaky. I don't like them.  Um, okay. So how,  how do you guys base price on,  on when you take a job, how do you do it? Do you do it by number of chickens? How do you, how do you do that? So from the years prior, we have
08:12Like based ourselves  off of everyone else. So we have a couple competitors.  We talked to one of our main competitors.  They have a really big company  and we kind of went off of them. They're at a higher price. So we went a little bit lower, you know, since  they're USDA approved and whatnot.  But we kind of just went a little lower, make sure.
08:40You know, we can maybe get a little bit more customers, hopefully. You know, show them what we can do. But other than that, we have like a spreadsheet for all of our prices and everything. They'll tell us  like the range of chickens because you never know when one's gonna die or not. So they'll just give us a range.  So that's kind of how we base it off.  We have the spreadsheet, like I said.
09:09So at the end of the day, we'll write up everything on a receipt, price all out, and then we'll give them a receipt and they'll pay it from there. Okay, so say this is just a ballpark idea and don't anybody quote Ty or me on the numbers,  but say I had 40 chickens that I needed butchered.  How much ballpark would that cost? All right.
09:37I do believe it'd be like 200 bucks.  And then if you wanted like hearts, livered, gizzards and such that would add onto your price.  If you wanted the feet, necks  and everything like that. I mean, that also add onto your price too. Okay. And then  we do charge for like mileage. You know, we don't drive the most gas efficient vehicles. So.
10:07You know, a little something for that too. Okay. So it's not exorbitantly expensive. mean,  we've butchered our own chickens and it's not the most fun job, especially when you're just learning how to do it. So I would be happy to have somebody else do it for that kind of money. That would make me ecstatically happy.  So do you guys have your own chickens? Do you butcher your own chickens and sell them or is it just that you
10:36We do have a bunch of chickens growing so every time we butcher chickens we do expect chickens in the next week.  So right now I believe we have roughly 40, 46 turkeys roughly and then  about 20 or 30 chickens.  So  we have some moving in, we have some moving out. That's kind of just how we do it.
11:06always have some stuff moving in and out which is what we like. Okay so if somebody wanted to buy a turkey or a chicken butchered from you do they just contact you or do you sell them anywhere else?  So do you know about the farmers market in Leesore? Oh yes we do my husband has sold there for the last two years his name is Kyle.  Oh well  I believe last year
11:34or two years ago is when we started selling at the farmers market.  This year we're going to get back and we're going really try and boost our business because we're going to have my sister and my dad doing that. I'll be running the business.  So that'd be awesome. That's kind of how we do our business. Other than that, we do  Facebook too. We're really big into that. That's how we get all of our customers.  So yeah.
12:04Awesome. I'm sorry my dog is barking in the background. That's our mascot, Maggie. Oh no, that's all right. I posted on Facebook and Nextdoor and stuff this morning because we have a plant sale going on here today at our place.  And  she's a watchdog. So anyone who pulls in the driveway, she's going to do this. So I'm really sorry, guys, if you can hear her. OK, so  she's distracting me so my brain is frying.
12:33You said you guys have a hobby farm. So what else do you do on the hobby farm? Right now we have probably about 20 cows, just mini cows.  They're a lot easier to probably handle around here. You know, they can't really wreck a bunch of stuff.  We have about 20 of them. Some of them are mini size and some of them are close to full grown size.  So those get pretty...
13:02Decently big we have a couple over a thousand which is pretty well kind of what we want For minis because that's pretty darn good  We have rabbits  We used to show rabbits actually that's kind of what we have for county fair  We do show county fair so we show turkeys  chickens rabbits my sister likes to show cows so that's kind of what we kind of focus on is
13:32All of them. What breed are the mini cows?  Uh, Herefords.  Really?  Yes. What do they look like? I don't know what a Hereford looks like.  Uh, they'd be,  uh, red and white with like either like a red little spot around the eyes. It was kind of what is like a good show cow kind of for Herefords. You know, I mean.
13:59So do they look kind of like Holsteins only they're red not black and white?  Yes. Okay, cool.  I don't know if I've ever seen one. I mean in real life. I might have seen pictures, but I don't think I've ever been introduced to one. Yeah. Okay, cool.  And do you guys grow any produce or is it just animals?  We don't really,  we just grow the animals and then eventually butcher them after so long, but we don't really grow the produce.
14:29Okay, well we're doing that for you. We got you covered.  We're going to have so much stuff this year if the weather holds that we're going to be swimming in produce. So if you need anything, let me know, Ty. We'll have it. All right. Yes, because local shopping, local bartering, local supporting each other is really important right now. It always has been, but it's really important right now. Yes, it is  very important. Yes, we purposely grew more.
14:57plants than we needed this year because we wanted to make sure that people could buy bedding plants to start their own little backyard or raised bed gardens because  I have this sinking feeling that the tariffs are not going to help us out a lot this year and people are going to need local food. Yes,  very much so. And I don't talk politics on the podcast, so that's as close as I'm going to get to that. But I keep encouraging people that if they have any room at all to grow something.
15:27that's edible, do it and support your local meat producers because not only are you helping them but you're helping yourself to not have to pay the exorbitant prices at the store. Yes. For a lesser quality meat, you know? Yup. So this dog, I didn't think she was going to do this. Okay, so we're 15 minutes in.
15:55You said that you guys have been doing this as a family for a very long time. When did it start? So we kind of got into rabbits when my mom got diagnosed with cancer. Rabbits is supposed to be like the number one food cancer patients can eat. Oh, okay. So we tried that. It worked out really well. We started growing probably
16:23100 rabbits to about 150.  then as my mom passed away, we still kept going, you know, into it. We were still really big into it. And then we kind of slow it. Once we got all like the bigger animals  and stuff, we kind of slowed down on rabbits  because we always wanted cows and stuff, you know, really big breed takes up a lot of room. So we got to focus on them a lot. we started cutting down on our rabbits.
16:53Then we started focusing on chickens and cows. So that's kind of what got us all started.  But, but when, how long ago did it get started? At a rough estimate, probably around.
17:10Six years when we started buying them. Oh, so it hasn't been that long. No, it hasn't been. And you're doing pretty well from what I can tell, so that's awesome. Yes.
17:25It's so exciting to me when people start a new endeavor, whatever it is. I don't care if it's ag or I don't know, knitting sweaters and they're starting it as a small business and six years later they're like, look what we've done. I know that that is definitely the cool part of, you know, watching the business grow and you know, putting more money into making your business better. That is definitely like the fun part of it.  Yeah.
17:54I don't know. Like for us, this is the summer we've been waiting for. We moved here four and a half years ago and it was a blank slate. It's three acres and there was a house, a pole barn  and a one car garage and a useless two car garage here. That was it.  And now we have a greenhouse. We have a farm stand. We have a high tunnel that comes down in the fall. You know, we don't leave it up. And this is the summer that we have been building.
18:24Ford for four and a half years. And I woke up the other day, grabbed my coffee, looked outside. It was gorgeous outside and looked at everything we've done since we moved in and almost cried because I was just so full of happy at what we've done. And so I get it. It's, it's amazing when things finally start to click and come together. Yes. So other than my dog barking in the background.
18:55She's usually much more well behaved than this. Okay, so what's the future look like for you guys? Are you going to expand or you just going to try to maintain for a little while? Oh, we're definitely looking forward to trying to expand our business. I would love to become a full time in the summertime. know, I really don't like working, working terribly hard in the heat, getting
19:22killing my body, processing, I'm running it myself. I don't have to really listen to anyone. I can kind of do myself as I please. I mean, I think it's gonna work out good as long as we can keep our business growing. Yeah, so this is gonna be a weird question. I don't know how to phrase it correctly. The people that you have done the mobile processing for.
19:48What did they say? Are they like, wow, that didn't take long or wow, that was easier than I thought it was going to be,  you know, because people have a real, I don't know, trepidation fear about having people come in and do something like that. You know, there's been a couple of people where they've been really,  really skeptical about us coming there and butchering their chickens. So they, you know, my dad would be there talking with them. I'd start butchering.
20:17You  know, it really eased them into it. And they really were like perfectly fine with us doing it afterwards.  You know, I mean, we're not there to try and ruin nothing. We will do our job and try and help the customer out.  But they really been happy with it afterwards.  And then I know a bunch of people we have  returning customers. They are really happy to help us.  And we've had a couple.
20:46Couple customers help us in the last year,  kind of help us get it moving faster.  I mean, yeah, they've been really happy with it. So we try and make them happy. Okay. And what do you need from the customer? saw something about that you need to have an electric hookup somehow  and a garden hose, right? Is there anything else? No, that'd be all. mean, other than a
21:15probably a spot where maybe your grass or your gravel will get little wet and whatnot. I mean, we have water going in and out of the trailer. Other than that, that's about all we need. Awesome. And is it just a regular electricity hookup or do you need a certain voltage? No, regular 110 hookup would be fine. We have a generator or 20. Okay.
21:43mean, anything bigger than 110 we have covered.  Okay, awesome. Fantastic. I would love to make this episode 30 minutes, but she's not going to stop barking and I keep getting distracted. So Ty, I'm going to cut it short a little bit today. Thank you so much for coming and sharing the information with me and your time. And  I will let my husband know that you're going to be at the farmer's market again this year and maybe we can get you some more business. All right. Thank you.
22:13Okay, because I really love what you're doing. It's really important. Thank you. All right. Have a great day. You too.  Bye.
 

Heather's Homestead

Today I'm talking with Heather at Heather's Homestead.
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00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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 Heather Richards at Homestead from scratch. Good afternoon, sorry, good afternoon, Heather. How are you? Good, how are you?  I'm good. I have to keep reminding myself of what time it is  because I almost said good morning again, and it's not morning, it's afternoon.  So how's the weather in Montana?
01:23It's beautiful today. We're supposed to be expecting a lot of rain though this week. So we're trying to get things kind of ready for that and  things buckled up a little bit because it's going to be a rainy week. So  got a batten down the hatches. Yeah. Yeah. It is a beautiful sunny day here in Minnesota, but it's going to be really hot in about an hour and a half.  Nice. Well, I've actually been like waiting for it to get really nice and hot here. So I'm kind of jealous.
01:51Yeah, it's too hot for Minnesota right now. This is not beginning of May weather. This is end of July, 1st of August weather.  And actually  on,  oh, I can't remember what day it was. A couple days ago, my husband planted the tomato seedlings and  they got burned because it was so hot and sunny. I don't know if they're going to recover. They're still looking a little yellow today. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that they're going to.
02:21They're going to bounce back, I hope.  All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Homestead from scratch. Well, it's Heather's Homestead, technically. But I do say that's my little bit of a, I don't know what you would call it, my tagline, I guess.  But yes, Heather's Homestead.  We just started building this about  four years ago, but we've only been here about three. We're kind of building, I guess, what you could call a family compound. We have five children.
02:51And most of them are raised. have one at home that he's 18. But the goal is to someday hopefully have everybody want to build here and live here on the property. So we kind of gave each one of our kids a few acres apiece so that they can have. And just so we can kind of just live closer, I guess, as a family. And that's pretty much the goal. we have, like I said, I five children.
03:19ranging from almost 29 down to 18. Three of them are  married. Yeah, and one of them's about to get married, maybe this summer. That's the plan for him, maybe. So we might have a busy summer. But  yeah, we  are raw milk producers, I guess. We sell  raw milk  and  eggs and have a little bit of, I guess you could call a little mini homestead. We have all the animals.
03:47Actually, my husband's going to pick up some pigs today. So we'll be adding those to the farm this week. yeah, other than that, that's kind of been a little bit about me, but it's been a fun adventure for us. We started this place from scratch with nothing on it, and we've built everything ourselves. So it's been kind of quite the undertaking, but we've had a really good time and learning as we go.
04:17So  as we all do, yes, especially when we're not in our twenties and we have all the energy in the world to just dive in  and beat ourselves up. So  you said you sell raw milk. What are the regulations in Montana? And then I will tell you the ones here in Minnesota. So we have to get our animal disease tested once a year and we have to get the milk sent off twice a year to, you know, to a lab to make sure everything is good.
04:47The  counts are good. so yeah, we are actually pretty  low key here. It's really nice. We don't have too many restrictions, I guess, but  and we can sell from our, from our farms to anyone. We don't, can't sell in stores, but  anyway, gives people the opportunity to come out here and check us out and pick up their milk. So kind of nice.  Yeah. Can raw milk be sold in any grocery store in Montana or is it not allowed?
05:16Nope, it's farm pickup only. I mean,  I can deliver it to like a draw point, which I do. And  we were doing that this winter, but my cows have slowed down and we kind of just do this honestly to  sell the excess from what we aren't using because we had two cows in milk  and that was a lot. So we would sell the extra. And of course, you know, I  have it for my family and for us  specifically. And so
05:44If I have it, I sell it. If I don't, I don't. So just kind of one of those things. have a  customer list that pick up regularly here.  So it's someone who  I know who's picking up on what day and how much they get each week.  And it kind of keeps us still. It's not like a random pick up. So  I know who comes to the farm. Yes.  Right there with you.
06:11I don't like it when people pull in the driveway here and I don't know, I don't recognize the vehicle. Yeah.  I still get twitchy and we've been here five years in August. So. Oh wow.  It's like, who's beat up pickup truck is that? Cause I don't recognize it.  Um, okay. Here in Minnesota, it's only, you can only pick up milk, milk from the farm where the cow produced the milk.
06:38And it's not allowed to be sold in stores anywhere.  And I think that the, I don't know what the word is,  the owners of the milk cows, let's put it that way, have to be tested a certain amount of times a year, just like you do, I think.  So it sounds like Montana's a lot like Minnesota in the rules.
07:03I mean, honestly, I mean, I guess you don't want to get me started on what I really think. I think there should be more food sovereignty and people should have the choice and there shouldn't be so much,  you know, dictating on what we choose to consume. But also at the same time, I mean, I get it that people want to have  a peace of mind. But I think  also when you let the government get involved,  you know, it can get tricky.  I think.
07:33There's a fine line, I guess. So  yeah, what I say is that I come across in the nicest terms possible  is that government has a purpose, but I feel like they end up making us trip over our feet a lot for no reason.  agree. 100%. That's, that's the nicest, easiest way I can say it. Yes.  I agree.  So  what else do you have on your farm besides cows? We have goats. We have,  um,
08:02horses, horse chickens,  and the pigs are coming. And then obviously we have the cows. And actually this week we are adding some Highland cows.  We picked up a little Highland bull a week or so or two ago, and  we will be picking up some mama cow, a mama cow and her baby this week. That one's kind of exciting. So we decided we want to start  raising the Highland breed.
08:32We'll see where that goes.  Highland breed is the one that's like really fluffy and sort of burnt orange colored. Yeah, well they can come in different colors, but yes, I mean they have like really shaggy hair over their  eyes. They don't and they're just super, they're a heritage breed and very,  you know, from Scotland is where they originated. And yeah, so we're really excited about that. So,
08:59not very many people do raise them and so we're kind of excited to start on this adventure  and see how it goes. Yeah, I always see a muppet cow when I think of a Highland cow. Yes, that's good description  for sure.  Okay, do you grow produce too? We do. We have a very large garden.  It produces a lot. In fact, we're still eating carrots and beets.
09:26and squash from it and onions and garlic from last year. So yeah, it's  quite the garden.  We put a lot of effort into it. I have an orchard of fruit trees and that's something that we actually, when we first moved here or when we first started building, we put the garden in first  and the fruit trees in first because I knew the value of getting those started.  And I'm hoping this year is a good year.
09:54Last year wasn't a very good year. Sometimes, you know, your fruit trees do well and we had a late frost and Didn't didn't do too. Well, but hopefully this year will be a better year. So we will see Yeah, I'm so jealous of people who live in the southern states because that late frost thing doesn't happen quite as often Yeah, it's it's pretty discouraging. I'll be honest, but it's part of Montana.  We're kind of used to it We get our late we get late frost, know clearing to June and so
10:22I don't even really plant my garden until  usually Memorial Day weekend. You can put in a few cold hardy things like radishes, lettuce, few things like that, spinach. But I just kind of wait till the very end and then I just kind of put it all in. And so I haven't got mine ready yet. It's still kind of getting cleaned out  because what they say, fall me is not very happy with my spring me or my spring me is not very happy with my fall me, I guess that is.
10:51because I let it go, but now I got to just get it cleaned up and get it ready to put things in the ground. So yeah, for anyone who isn't living this particular lifestyle, there's a whole lot of planning that goes into doing all the things in the seasons you're doing them in. And it is a lot of planning. Yes, for sure. And I would say too, in the fall you have so much going on with
11:18Getting things buttoned up and ready for winter and all of the produce, you know, getting  canned and stored and put away. I think I just get a little bit burnt out. So I leave it  and then I regret it in the spring. So I wish it was ready for me to just get into, but  it's not. that's, I kind of do this to myself every year. So we're just kind of attacking it a little by little. Um, you know, when I can get in there for a few hours each day and
11:48kind of get it ready. hopefully we'll be ready to get it all in at the end of the  month.  I wish you  all the fortunate favor in that.  You sounded so giddy when you were talking about getting pigs and the Scottish Highland cow  here today and then soon.  And I just had like a 45 minute conversation with my daughter this morning. hadn't talked to her in a month.
12:15And a month ago, it was not really spring here yet. It was still kind of, it was kind of late winter, early spring a month ago, still here. And she says, so what's new on the homestead? Cause she lives in Florida. I said, well, the crab apple tree has bloomed and it's losing its petals as we speak. And we have apple trees that the petals are starting to fall off of. we think that maybe there might be some apples this year and the tulips have bloomed and they're almost done. And.
12:45We don't have any lilac blooms for some reason, they didn't bloom. And we have fresh asparagus in the fridge from our garden. And she went, you do? I said, oh yes, we're going to have like enough asparagus to sell in the farm stand for the first time this year. And just kept reeling off all the things that I absolutely love about spring since we moved to our place four and a half years ago. And I got done. And she said, it sounds.
13:13It sounds like you have built such a, a cute, lovely life there.  And I, I  had a little minute of  cute. It's work, you know, but I know, but I know exactly what she's saying because I was talking about everything blooming  and she knows how much I love flowers. So, so I realized how I had come across  and how she was perceiving it.  And I said, is a, a  cute and lovely life.  Yes.
13:44It's also a lot of work. It is. She said, I know. She said I was just going to follow it up with, you, are you tired? That's pretty much our middle name, I think sometimes. Yeah. There's a lot of, um, a lot to do, but also at the same time, it brings me so much joy. So, you know, you go to bed at night, exhausted, but happy. I think that's a good way to put it.
14:14Yes lifestyle. We love what we're building. We love what we can produce. We love that we can feed our families  and You know local people and It just feels good  Yeah, the thing I compare it to is when you were a kid  and You went to the lake or the swimming hole or whatever at 10 o'clock in the morning and you spent like four hours screwing around the beach and Swimming and hanging on the dock and sitting on the  beach and talking with friends
14:44And then you come home,  you get cleaned up, you eat some food, you hit the sack early because your body is tired and your brain is full.  And it's the most wonderful sleep ever.  will say we sleep quite well here. We are definitely, you know, when our heads hit the pillow, we're out. So  it's a good thing.  I wish I could say that my husband's my husband snores. So.
15:12Well, yeah, mine, I can relate to that.  Uh huh. Yeah. And I shouldn't say that on the podcast, but I've said it before and he knows I've said it, so it's fine.  Okay. So  what brought you to this? Because I don't think that you mentioned that at the beginning. So obviously, you know,  well, raising my family, I always wished I could do this. We lived in a home that we built and we'd lived there for 20 plus years  and raised our children there and
15:42And I just really wanted it, but you know, we just kind of were comfortable. lived on a little, I don't know, a two acre piece, had a garden, had an orchard, you know, had a few chickens, but it was never, you know, I always dreamed of the milk cow and the goats and the whole, you know, horses. And I just kind of wanted all of that. But it just never was the right time. And honestly, COVID came  and we kind of just felt this nudge that it was time to go.
16:10and it was time to do it. So it's  quite an interesting story how we found this land.  Obviously we're from Montana. My husband was born and raised here, but we've lived here for 30 years.  Most of 30 years, we had a little stint in Las Vegas for about a year and a half between that time.  anyways,  we just kind of were like, it's time  to find the land and start the you know, the life that we kind of dreamed of and get a little bit more
16:40you know, reliant on ourselves a little bit.  And we actually decided we were going to move to Idaho. And all of my family is there and we found a piece of property over there and  tried to buy it.  And we had cash in hand to do that and it would not close. And we were just, what is going on? Why is this not closing? It's so simple.  Um, and it was quite a few months and it just, you know, maybe the backup of COVID and all that kind of stuff just
17:11Anyway,  the day that we were supposed to close on that land, we had friends of ours that kind of lived out here where we live. And we kind of had told them that we were looking for land and they ever knew of anything to come up, you know, let us know. And this is kind of before we had put money down on this land in Idaho.  anyways, he, they called us the day we were supposed to  close on this land and said, our,  our farmer neighbor,
17:41wants to sell his land  and do you want to meet with him? So we were like, well, what the heck, let's go meet with him.  And we knew immediately that that was, we were supposed to come here and he didn't even have it on the market. And he wrote up his little first sale agreement or whatever, buy sale agreement. And next thing you know, we owned this land and we walked away from the land in Idaho. So it just felt right.  And just,  it was kind of a neat little
18:10how it all happened,  yeah, next thing you know, we're building on here and starting from scratch, I guess.  so yeah, all my kids said, you know,  when we were wanting to move to Idaho, they weren't gonna move to Idaho. And if, you know, and I had this dream of this little  family, you know,  homestead compound, I guess you could call it.
18:32And none of them wanted to move to Idaho. And when we, when this came about, everybody was like, we would do it if you're doing it here. So it just kind of worked out really well.  Um, yeah. So that's how we ended up here.  And we just kind of started within like probably a month or so.  And  then I guess the journey began. So yeah, that's kind of how it began, how it started.
18:58So that's phenomenal. love it. And yes, COVID really  pushed people who were debating about changing their lives to change their lives. Yes. Yes. I think, you know, and I look back on that and I think, you know, at the time I thought it was the worst thing that could ever have happened. mean, I have a very strong opinion on  on what it was really, I guess you could say  that there was more to it than what was really.
19:28Anyway, I don't know how to get into that, guess, but I was very passionate about getting away from everything and realizing that I don't want to be controlled, I guess. And this was one of those that I knew that if we could build a life, raise our own food, get a little bit away from that system, that we would be fine. And that's kind of what we did. And everything just kind of
19:57went into place and we just, we got right to it. So it was a, it was a really a blessing in disguise. So I always look at COVID being the worst thing that ever happened, but the best thing that happened as well.  That's how I look at it too, Heather. I really do.  And  we bought our place  in, I think we closed on it the last day of July of 2020  and we moved in,  technically moved in on August 7th.
20:25Um, we actually were just moving stuff from the house half an hour away to the new house for like a month  in basically an SUV, like a little Ford escape and  a Ford  something. What is it? Escape? Not escape. Um,  I can't think. Focus.  We didn't even rent a van to move stuff. We were just moving boxes in the back of the SUV for a month. And I can remember when we finally got everything here.
20:54and just crying because I felt so bad that I was so freaking happy  when there was so much sad going on. Yeah. Yeah. I felt that same  way, but new.  I felt like this, like I couldn't have been more at peace that we were making the right decision. You know, like it was time  and you know, I waited, I would say, you know, I dreamed of this my whole life.
21:24And, you know, just was never something my husband was super on board with. You know, he owns a business, he works hard. And I think that the thought of it was a little bit terrifying to him to  bring on the responsibilities of all the animals and starting over again after we'd, you know, built our first home by ourselves. And it was so much work doing that. And we were finally at a place where we were, we could say we were done.
21:55Like everything was built, everything was, you know, done. And I think starting over was a little bit, you know, a little bit scary for him. Do we really want to do this? But I think, you know, I mean, obviously no regrets. It's been a lot. I mean, cause my husband is a builder and he does most of it himself. And so running a business and doing all that at once, you know, can be a little bit overwhelming at times as well, but also.
22:24we have like zero regrets. Like it was the best thing that we ever, ever could have done. I love that you have zero regrets because that's so important when you make this kind of leap.  Um, one of the things I have not actually said on the podcast, when I tell the story of how we got to our place, I keep forgetting this because it doesn't matter anymore.  The house that we lived in was, was rough. Like we did everything we could to make it cute and
22:53livable and a nice place to visit when people came to visit. But we knew that there were foundation issues starting to happen.  It really needed to be  sheetrocked because it was plaster and lath. And I don't know if you know about plaster and lath, but plaster and lath gets old  and it cracks and it leaves dust everywhere.  And we didn't want to sink money into a house we didn't love anymore.  So that's the other reason that we moved.
23:23really COVID was the thing that kicked our butts into gear  because we lived in town. Like we were like a block and a half off Main Street  in a town of about 6,000 people.  And it was so hard being surrounded by people, not being able to be with people. Yes. Yes. And I was like, I don't really want to be with people anyway. Can we just finally get out of here? And my husband was like, start looking. Yeah.
23:52The blessings, so many of them. Yeah. Yup. And I was lucky enough to not lose anybody I love to COVID  and it hurts me that other people did. I hate that part.  And  I actually just came down with diagnosed COVID back in January  and the test came up positive. I was like, you have got to be kidding me now.  Yeah.
24:22No fun. don't wish it on anybody, but it's a lot less severe now than it used to be apparently.  So yeah, that was a rough four days, four days of misery. And then it took a month to get rid of the cough. Yeah. I kind of, I'm wondering if that maybe made its way through our family as well, but I don't know. We never did any testing and so we never know. But I figured, well, it's not going to do me any good to know. just going to.
24:51I'd hit it just like I would hit it any other way.  So we kind of never have done it that way, but I'm sure it's hit us, you know, once or twice in these last few years for sure, but we made it.  Yeah. I just, I knew that I was going to be miserable. Whatever bug I picked up  whenever I picked it up because I haven't been sick since December of 2019 until this past January.  Sick with nothing.
25:17Because I haven't been around anybody because we moved to the middle of nowhere. It's been wonderful. Yeah  So what part of Minnesota are you in? Are you in like close to any big cities like Or are you out way far we are an hour southwest of Minneapolis Okay. All right, and we are half an hour  northeast of Mankato. Okay  Yes, it's
25:44I could spend six hours telling you how thrilled I am with where I live, but I'm not going to do that because we don't want to spend six hours. What I can tell you is we live in the middle of cornfields. Our lot is completely flat, which is just bizarre to me because we're right up the hill from the river valley. you know how when you're coming into a river valley, you're driving on flat roads and all of a sudden you're going down a hill and there's the river?
26:13were on that flat part at the top.  And when we moved here, it was a blank slate. The only flowering plant that was here was hostas  and the crabapple tree. now we have a whole bunch of peonies coming up that we put in.  We have apple trees.  have  three peach trees, no, two peach trees,  four plump
26:43three or four plum trees,  a couple cherry trees, some honey berry plants.  Oh nice.  We have wild black raspberries growing in the tree line. That's nice.  And they think, oh we have a couple elderberry trees that we never get to the berries on because the birds get them before we do.  That's the fun part. Yeah, I'm thinking about getting some of the netting to put over them.  that's good idea.
27:12See if maybe that would help because I would love to try making some elderberry syrup and I wanted to do it last year and the year before.  And by the time I realized that, I should probably check the berries. They were gone.  Oh darn it.  Yeah. We have every bird known to man on our tree line. I swear to you there. They're all over the place and they really like those berries. They also get drunk on the crab apples that, that get left on the tree.  Oh, feeds them then. Huh?
27:42Well, that's good. mean, I know there's that part of, you know, the advantage of being out there, but then realizing you have to deal with a little bit of nature that is a little bit challenging. am all for sharing the produce with the animals. It's fine. We lost six peaches to deer last year, which was a bummer. We only had 12. It was the first year they put on peaches. And so we got six and the deer got the other six.
28:11Here we have a very big, big six foot fence that goes around the whole garden. If I didn't have that, I wouldn't have a garden. We did put that up. actually, like I said, built that first and made sure that I would get little bit of help with  protecting it. And it's been really nice until we make the mistake of leaving the garden fence open.
28:41Last year we got to, all my chickens got in there, so that wasn't very fun. They destroyed my garden while I was out of town. I had some farm hands that day, that week.  So we were kind of a little bummed about that, but it also was an exhausting year. And so it actually made my life a little bit easier because I didn't have to, you know, can as much.  So yeah, a little bit of another advantage, I guess, to an  unfortunate situation, but.
29:11It's all good. It's all good. Yeah, last summer was  rough for gardens. It doesn't matter whether your chickens ate your garden or whether it rained too much  or it didn't rain enough. I've  heard so many stories about last summer being really hard on gardeners.  It was. It was. We had things  that always grew, not grow. And it was very, very different than past years.  you know, like I said, we're still eating quite a bit from it.
29:40The things that really mattered to get us through the whole year,  you know, we they survived so we did okay, but It's it you know, we I have such a large garden that I  probably am one of those that overproduced You know  make too much and then I overwhelm myself at the end of the year When comes to taking care of it, but  I don't there might be some different, you know things we might do this year to make it a little bit easier and I actually might Since I sell milk
30:09I might have vegetables out there in the milk kitchen and sell more of those and things like that. So we'll see how this summer plays out. Well, let's see how the economy is doing by then too because people might actually need your produce this year. Yes, that's true. So although I saw on the news this morning, the tariff thing is starting to look like they might be dropping them a little lower. So we'll see how that plays out.
30:36Yeah, that is definitely interesting. I'm kind of just sitting back here and just waiting, right? Just  waiting it out. See how it's going to play out. is the most ridiculous ping pong match I've ever seen in my life. That is true.  So, all right. So, um, I'm going to ask you a question. It's kind of putting you on the spot, but please play the game. Okay. Um, tell me, tell me the one word you would use to describe your homestead.
31:08tough one, maybe I would say productive.  I think we really do  produce quite a bit and I just am super proud of that.  think that's,  we, know, all the bases are covered here. So,  you know, I think  my daughter is now down to doing bees. And so I feel like, you know, almost everything, you know, is able to be  done here.
31:37for the most part  to  live.  that's, so I guess maybe that would be my word. I love it. That's great.  All right, Heather, I so appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. Thank you. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate that. And  this was really fun. Yeah, it was. Like I said, I don't do very many of these things, so it's kind of nice to be able to chat and tell a little bit about  our story. So thank you for having me.
32:08Oh, you are so welcome. And I love all of your stories, yours and everybody I've talked to and anybody I'm talking to in the future. So.  Well, thank you. I appreciate it. All right. You have a great day. Thank you so much. Bye bye.
 

Narrow Gate Homestead

Today I'm talking with Rachel and Nick at Narrow Gate Homestead.
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00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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 Rachel and Nick at Narrowgate Homestead in Lebanon, Maine. Good afternoon, you guys. How are you? Good. Good afternoon. Top of the soggy day to you. Yeah. I'm so sorry. I usually open the podcast with How's the Weather? And I know how the weather is because I just talked to my parents yesterday morning  and
01:26They said you guys have had a ton of rain in last, what, three weeks? Oh gosh, yeah. A couple inches. I actually, think it just finally broke. So this afternoon, I think it's going to be without raindrops. Yeah.  Well, I'm happy for you. I am looking out my window and it is sunny. It's about 74 degrees with a light breeze here in Minnesota. Oh, nice. Well, that sounds nice. Much nicer. We have had the most beautiful week of just glorious.
01:56reasonable, beautiful, sunny, hardly any wind weather for the first time in weeks. So it's been, it's been the opening day or the opening week for May, for spring. can't talk. It's been amazing. I'm so excited about it. My words are falling all over themselves. anyway, go ahead. Anytime that there's no wind is Nick's favorite kind of day. Yeah.
02:26You know about the weather in Minnesota, how it can be just flat still or it can just be whipping through, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. huh. Yeah. Yep. We had, I think it was three weeks ago, we had thunderstorms and off and on during the day, but we had wind gusts of like 60 miles per hour that day. It was insanity. Well, that is a, that's crazy wind. Yeah.
02:54or the greenhouses. Yeah.  Our greenhouses survived, thank God, but  we  live on a very flat plain above the river valley. And so when the wind comes through, really comes through because there's hardly anything to break the wind.  So  it can get real iffy here sometimes, but so far we've been okay.  Okay. So you guys tell me about what you do at Narrowgate Homestead and about yourselves, please.
03:22Oh, yeah. Well, we started this journey in 2022. Before that, we're two Navy veterans with no farming background. That's true.
03:40We decided in 2022 that we wanted to be a part of our, knowing how our food was raised and where our food came from. I suppose it started, I'm sure most people that you podcast with are familiar with the documentary Food, Inc. Probably yes. Yes, so that's when we met Joel Salatin for the first time. Never actually physically met him, but that's when he...
04:10That's when we kind of first got involved with the idea that the way our food is produced and cared for and put on our grocery shelves might not necessarily be the most ethical and healthy manner that is  out there and available. And we marinated on those ideas for quite a few years and really didn't do a whole lot about it. But I think it was,  COVID was kind of like the catalyst for a lot of things,  for a lot of people. And one of those things for us was
04:39The fact that our food supply, I'm sure people remember going into the grocery stores  and something like chicken has never been a problem before, wasn't on the shelf.  So it kind of occurred to us that  maybe we should put action into words or words into action rather.  And, you know, now it's 2025 and we  have probably what?  chickens outside right now. Oh yeah.  600 here.
05:08hundred down the road on pasture. So we solved the chicken on the shelf problem.  Yeah. You sure did.  Yeah. I mean,  kind of going off of what Nick said, you know, we, very quickly and clearly saw just how weak the local food chains are  and  being the type of folks that we are besides wanting to know what exactly we were feeding our family. We wanted to be able to be a part of raising food.
05:36for other folks  and  be able to come home or come in at night and be confident about  what we know that we're being able to raise for folks and  helping to be another part of reviving the local food chains, which we can all clearly see are very weak across the United States.  So yeah, that has been just  one of our main drivers is to continue to
06:05be a part of this.  like to say, you  know, a local food revival in a way.  But we just keep plugging along.  We kind of like to operate on a motto called do search. Nick likes that term. My wife told me to do something and I do it.  no. So research can get you into a lot of
06:29just mind paralysis if all you do is the research, which is pretty much what we did for about 10 years, is talked about it, thought about it. At some point, you just gotta jump out of the nest and do it. And we find that we've been the most successful taking that first jump and just doing stuff. And I think  the further you get into it, the more comfortable you are with being uncomfortable.  And  realizing that failure is definitely real and there's actually something to be learned through your failures.
06:58I don't call it failure. call it a learning experience.  You would be in perfectly in line with Steve  Collins down at Belden Meadows. That's what he tells us all the time. Yeah, definitely. Well, failure seems so permanent and I feel like the only failure is death, you know?  Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. And that's our culture, right? We're very  achievement oriented. You failure is a bad thing. I, know, my personal history is chock full of failures.
07:27And as I think back over them, they were all, every single one of them, a learning experience and the product of who I am today. So you're right. They are an opportunity to grow if you want them to be. Yeah. I try to look at the world through opportunity colored glasses and not every day do I succeed at this, but every day when I wake up, I usually have something exciting planned, like talking with new people on the podcast that really helps. And
07:57When I have a day where I don't have anything planned, I don't feel great. Like, I'm like, where's my  opportunity today?  like I said, it's not always. It's not always. I came down with COVID back in January. Those four days of that,  I,  there was no opportunity. There was just get up,  get something, get some tea, get a trip to the bathroom and then go back to bed for four days. was  miserable.
08:26That's awful. I'm so sorry. Yeah, there was no opportunity in those days. There was just, is my bed? I'm going back to bed. And it was so weird because I'm not, I don't, I don't sleep easily during the day.  I swear to you, I slept probably 20 hours a day for four days straight. Oh, wow. Well, it was an opportunity for you to have rest.  But, but I really feel like you gotta grab life by the horns. And that sounds very cliche. Sorry. But
08:56We're only here for a little while. We should probably make the best of it. Absolutely. It's a good perspective. Yeah. I try. I try really hard all the time. And like I said, I don't always succeed, but I try every day.  Um, okay. So you have a lot of chickens. So  I'm assuming you're selling eggs. Yeah, we definitely, we do sell eggs.  Um,  we, that I relay our hands where
09:24the gateway to this whole  business here.  We started in 2022 with  the layer hints here and then  working with  another friend  raising our first flock of meat birds  over at his house, our friend Steve Becker,  and  came together with him and his wife and  got our first
09:53you know, experience processing chickens. And then we, you know, kind of graduated from there to raise in our own flock of meat birds here. Um, we did 25 and then we kind of jumped very quickly from 25. Did we go to 50 or was it? think, yeah, we went from 25 to 50 and then like from 50 to. We've been doubling it every time we do it. Yeah. So now we do about what? 200 at a time. Yeah. 200 in a batch. Yeah.
10:23Yeah, we also have turkeys and quails.  We also have, we do raise pigs  and we  just recently added ducks to the homestead here. Yeah. And then we have four children, so that counts too.  Well, happy Mother's Day early. Well, thank you.  Yes.  And Chicken Math got you in a big way. It did.
10:49Well, we do call chickens the gateway to homesteading.  The gateway drug right there is definitely chickens.  Well, I feel like it's the easiest thing to start with because I'm not going to say they're easy, but they're probably the easiest out of everything else.
11:10I do believe so and  know chicken especially depending on the breed that you raise can be can serve more than one purpose if  you are looking to be a sustainable  you know backyard homesteader you know you could either have them for eggs and then when the time comes then you have a meat source as well. Nothing essentially is very easy like the mundane task of feeding the chickens  on a normal day is  well that's a breeze but today with sideways rain and
11:38You know, inches of rain coming up and underneath and the birds are wet and they're looking at you.  You need to solve the problem and you can.  Then it becomes hard. Oh, yeah. That's kind of the thing with homesteading. There's a lot of things that I think people  mistake as something that's too hard for them to do. That if they just saw what it actually was  and kind of took  the mystery out of it, I think a lot of people would be more interested in doing some of these things. You don't have to have 600 birds in your back.
12:07Yeah,  but you could you could  But you could yeah  um so I have I have a question that's a little bit off center from from the animals that you're you're taking care of  um The homestead that you guys are on Did you have to like clear land to to get ready to have the chickens because Maine is very woody. It's very wooded  Um, we have done quite a bit of clearing but we when we first started no
12:35We just started doing it on our lawn, essentially.  Yeah,  the lawn that we spent quite a few years  prepping, hydro-seeding. Yeah.  Yeah. No, the back we did clearing  with both Nick bringing in equipment to clear it, but then we've also utilized the pigs.  And we should be clear. So when we say we have 600 birds here, they're in varying stages of their life. We brood the birds here.
13:04at the homestead.  We do have several layers that are normally confined to a run  and a chicken coop, but the predominant driver of what we do, the meat birds, the white rangers, we raise them at Belgium Meadow Farms once they're past the brooding stage. So  the prerequisite for a lot of grass isn't necessary, nor do we have it. So we had to figure out a way to solve that problem  and enter Steve and Alicia Collins into our life. And that's how we were able to solve that.
13:34Yeah, they definitely, it was a, an absolute answered prayer because to us,  a pasture raised bird,  know, pasture means a lot of different things to people. But for us, we kind of had this vision in mind of what pasture was. And we didn't know that that would, if that would ever be really achievable here, I mean, maybe to a small scale degree, because this home set is actually what two acres  and, um,
14:02you know, to do the volume of chickens that we do and to be able to do that responsibly on pasture,  we wouldn't be able to do that here. So,  you know, that answered prayer happened. Belgium Meadows Farm is  not maybe a quarter of a mile around the corner from where we live here. I mean, you could walk there  and there is an absolute beautiful pasture there that Steve and Alicia Collins allow for us to raise these birds out on.
14:32so that they have the space, they have the lush grass and the area for us to be able to move them frequently so that it's not only good for them, but it's also good for  the pasture, the soil, because we want to be responsible of that too.  OK. Are you saying Belgin, B-E-L-G-I-A-N or Beljum? Belgin.  I-A-N. OK, cool.
14:58I will look though, I will try to find them and I will put them in the show notes because we should shout them out too. Yeah, absolutely. Please do. mean, they are a big part of why we've been so successful and continue to be. they really, the only thing that Steve enjoys, I think more than, well, I think he's told me on many occasions and he just enjoys seeing the animals on the farm doing what they were meant to do. Absolutely. And that's what really drives him. They clearly don't worry about chicken.
15:26We take care of that for them, in turn they get,  well, they get their fields revitalized by the chickens themselves. And they, he is driven by seeing an active farm actually work together.  Very nice. love that. I,  we're,  we're kind of working together with another homestead here because our friends have ducks and  my, my friend Tracy texted me she was like, could we sell our duck eggs at your farm stand this summer?
15:56Oh, that's wonderful. And I was like, of course you can. Why wouldn't you? Yeah. So, so a quick little silly story.  They, we got the farm stand set up last Saturday and got it open on Sunday and I was like, you can bring your duck eggs over anytime you'd like. And she said, how about tomorrow afternoon after we pick up our new baby goat and that way you can see him.  Cause anyone who's listened to the podcast knows that I am a
16:21Fanatic about baby goats. I think they're amazing. I don't have any goats. It's always nice to see them So they show up here and they have a dog kennel in the back of their pickup with a eight week old  male Long-eared I assume new being I don't know  Goat and he's black but he's got like black and white speckled ears and he's a baby and I'm just like,  my god I'm so in love  and
16:49And I just thanked her up and down for stopping by after they picked him up. before, because I really, really wanted to see this go. Yeah. Uh huh. So it made my whole weekend and Tracy, I know you listen to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.  So,  um,  and the other thing that I will tell you is we cannot keep the farm stand stocked with eggs. We, we started out with like nine dozen out there last weekend.
17:18We have 12 chickens, so we get a dozen a day.  We blew through those nine dozen in the first two days  and  we had two dozen out there this morning and they were gone by 10 o'clock. That's awesome. I love hearing that. mean, it's just,  you know, it's good, but it's also not good when we have these incidences in our supply chain, like what's going on with the eggs in the store and it, you know, it drives more people back.
17:47to their local farmers. That should be the first place people go, but it's nice seeing folks coming back to getting the farm fresh eggs. That makes my heart so happy to hear. That's super cool. I think one of the other things about our culture is we're getting more more used to it, depending on the government, to solve all of our problems. You know what? We can solve our own problems too. We can put up a stand and we can sell eggs and we can raise chickens and we can raise pork.
18:17Bob over on the other side of town, he's got some really great wheat that he's growing. Just like you guys are working, collabing together to sell products at a farm stand, that's homesteading. think a lot of people, and I think this might be a New England thing too, because New England I think is, I'm going to be careful here, I'm not a native New Englander. Just be careful. My take on it is they're very independent minded.
18:45you know, that staunch New England independent minded thought process.  But and that's good because it makes them really stubborn and really tough to get through their tough winters and hard times. But it doesn't have to be that way all the time.  We could be collaborating together and that doesn't sacrifice your individuality. It just makes it better for everybody else. So.
19:11To get out of the isolation bubbles that we find ourselves in constantly turning to the experts to solve our problems, I think we can very easily just turn back the clock a little bit. And it doesn't mean we're going back to the Stone Age.  I don't think, we don't believe that life was intended to be  the commercialized concept that we have for it, especially in the food industry. And that's kind of what Narrowgate is one of the biggest things it's all about is trying to figure out what that...
19:40blend of homesteading is in the modern lifestyle that is sustainable and maintainable without going absolutely insane, which  is,  I don't succeed at that very well. Rachel will tell you I'm  grumpy and like, know, some days I'm wondering what I'm doing.  But then on other days we're sitting out in the field with the chickens running about.
20:03and just watching a chicken be a chicken in the setting sun and watching our kids play with the horses off in the distance.  I'm like, this is it. This is what we got.  I do want to make sure that I do bring up, because we had mentioned how we raise all of these chickens down  at the pasture, because  that was something that we were hoping for with the amount of birds that we're doing. But  I want to make sure that we stress that for the smaller homestead are looking to do this.
20:32They don't need acres upon acres of land to be able to grow food for them or their family or maybe some neighbors  alongside of them. We actually do a lot here, not even on the full two acres. So I just want to make sure for anybody that's listening, you don't have to always search out  acres of land to be able to grow food.  Well, that's the thing is getting used to the idea.
21:01Breaking, what if the model's wrong? What if high overhead, being a land baron, being  millions of dollars or tens of thousand dollars in debt because you have farm equipment that you gotta make, what if that concept is wrong? What if you go with a low overhead,  do it yourself type mentality and you collaborate with other folks in your nearby area to get what you want? Why do we all, we don't need to be, I'm not gonna be a millionaire. I mean, you don't change this lifestyle to become a millionaire.
21:31But we certainly have plenty of food,  or kids are plenty happy. Yeah,  I would say anybody can do this. You don't need two acres, you don't need an acre. You can find somebody that has a field, and I guarantee it's probably not being used, and you can sell them on ideas like, look, here's a batch of 10 chickens. We'd just like to raise chickens over here, and you're gonna benefit because now your land's gonna get used, it's gonna get revitalized, it's gonna get fertilized, and by the way, you're gonna get chicken out of
22:01deal. Who doesn't want that?  Yep,  absolutely. You have made like three of the points I try to make on every episode for me. I appreciate that.  I have been trying to say on every episode and I haven't gotten in on every one for the last three months, but I've been trying really hard that if you live in America today, you really  should consider growing some kind of your own food on  your property. And whether that's
22:30whether that's a bucket on a balcony at your apartment or whether that's a raised bed in your yard, because it's a good thing to do. It feeds you. And if things go to crap in the world, maybe you get to eat a little bit longer than you would normally.  And if you can't grow anything or you think you can't grow anything,  get to know your local gardeners, growers, animal  husbandry people.
22:58And as my son pointed out the other day, you're a local trades people because trades people are important too. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Now we 100 % agree with that concept. Even if you're just growing a couple plants on your balcony,  at a minimum, what it's going to teach you is to appreciate life and the life that you're growing.  That pays dividends not only in food, but just in an awareness of what you're doing and then what the farmer is doing across.
23:25across town on the other side of town that you're buying food from.  Absolutely.  all a big circle. And again, this sounds cliche, but it's a big circle. If you are a grower and you're selling what you grow, then the person buying it gets dividends, but so do you. It's a symbiotic relationship.  Oh yeah.  I have a cliche saying that I like to say where I said, we're also growing food.
23:54but I also like to say we're growing community. Cause with each interaction, you know, it just continues to build. yeah, so growing food, growing community is one of my cheesy lines that Nick just absolutely loves. I put on stuff. I'm going to start, I'm going to steal that. And the one that I say all the time is freaking buy local, damn it. Well, like you kind of touched on it, you know, for the folks that, you know, again, like,
24:22you realize, okay, I tried it, it's not for me. All right, well, again, that's why it's even more important that you do support your local, your farmers, because when everything else goes to crap, like you said, you can count on the local farmers that have been there all along, so. Yeah, and you're not, you're reducing your carbon footprint, because you're not buying stuff that's been shipped in from out of the country. Oh, yes, I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find
24:52Like especially the lamb in the grocery store that's not from, you know, overseas. Yeah. It's, I love you guys. Cause you're, you're literally barking up my favorite tree here. I, I just, I get so frustrated because I was talking to somebody for an episode of the podcast a year ago and I think he was a former Marine, think. And his, his take was that we've gotten awfully soft.
25:23You know, we have the  possibility of having  literally everything delivered to our door if we live in the suburbs or a city,  which means that we never get out, we never do anything, we never see anybody.  And  we don't have to do anything. And that doesn't mean that people aren't working hard. There are people who go to jobs  and work hard in whatever they're doing, 60 hours a week.
25:53But the life skill working is  not what it used to be. Yeah, and I think it and our values, I think it comes down to what you value.  It is the biggest thing. The values have changed of what Americans value these days. you  know, I'm not trying, I don't want that to sound negative, but,  you know, as far as valuing what we eat and how we nourish our bodies.
26:21That hasn't been at the forefront for a lot of people for a while now, just because of the convenience. We'd rather get either the food delivered to us or the ease of going to the grocery store or the easy boxed food.  And I think that's a part of that softness  to talk about too.  We like the convenience of everything  and convenience as great as it is, you're sacrificing something on the other end.
26:51Yeah, and boxed food just doesn't taste as good as stuff you make from scratch  or  stuff you get from your own garden  or animals that you raise and butcher for meat. Right, and you know, it's, your health is a lifelong investment. So you know, what you invest in while it might be harder and it may be a little bit more inconvenient,  depending on how you look at it, whether you have to grow it and prep it.
27:19that is a lifelong investment. you know, it may be more convenient to have, you know, the food delivered to you or to eat the boxed food,  but that does affect you lifelong.  so, yeah.  At some point, you know, the people, our culture needs to,  people need to start taking responsibility for themselves and what they consume.  We've known for a long time that there are dyes in our food.
27:44We've known for a long time that the way chicken quite often produced is  just not completely up to the par. It's horrible. Yeah, when you see it for what it is, when you see the reports and we're all aghast that it's going on, okay, then that's the point at which you have to do something.  Now, I don't mean that every person has to get a chicken coop and start raising chickens, but maybe the step is going and find the individual that does have a chicken coop. Maybe the step is,
28:13you know, maybe thinking about relocating somewhere else where  that food might be more  available. Maybe the step is, and we've seen this in some of the  cities where people are getting together and they're doing gardens on rooftops.  But those types of thought processes, there is a price for that.  And people have to, I think, figure out what it is  that they really want. Do they want  a life?
28:41in the end where the food that they have been eating for so many years has made them sick  or do they want to change that  and instead of waiting for some entity to do it for them I think folks need to realize you have that power you can change that for yourself it's not easy and I'm not saying that it is  but at the end of the day  we have to start taking responsibility for what's going into our own bodies I can't believe that we're all like agreeing with the Marine
29:10Oh. And you have to be careful with saying former Marines. They take that stuff seriously. Yeah, they're always a Marine. Still a Marine. He's still a Marine. I know my stepson. Well, my son, my stepson, he is, he told me after he got out that he would always be a Marine. Yes, there And I said, how does that work? And he said, I'm not, he said, I'm not active duty, but I will always be a Marine. And I went, okay. So I stumble over all the time because I don't,
29:40It's like every time I say he is a Marine, I feel weird because he's not still in the Marines, if that makes sense.  Oh, yeah.  And us Navy folks like to give the Marines a hard time. So, uh huh.  We love them.  I understand. And my dad was in the Air Force. So it's all, it's all an umbrella and you guys all wear different raincoats, I guess. I don't know.  Anyway.
30:06Do you guys have another 15 minutes? Cause we're almost at half an hour, but I have a couple more questions.  course. Yes, absolutely. Okay. I just didn't want to take up too much of your time.  How did you guys end up in Maine? Because you said that neither one of you are originally from Maine. Oh, the Navy.  We were both stationed at the shipyard in Kittery, Maine, their last duty station. And then  I got out in 2010 and Nick got out in 2011.
30:35And he was absolutely totally opposed to moving down south. And we definitely weren't going to move to the west coast. So we just stayed.  And was part of that that you loved Maine? Like had you already fallen in love with the state? So for me, I'm being from Washington state. I'm used to the wide open spaces and big trees and Maine has a lot of the same similarities minus the mountains.  I miss the fast water of the Pacific Northwest and the snow crested high peaks, but
31:04There are a lot of similarities in the seasons and it just seemed like a good fit for me as far as, mean, there's still some humidity, which Rachel really loves. I mean, I'm from West Virginia, so born and raised. So Maine is a lot like Washington state and West Virginia combined. be quite honest with you, I like the people.  Me too. I have some people I really love back there. My parents, my sister,  my brother actually lives in Massachusetts of all places.
31:34I'm so sorry.  Yeah. I just get it.  Yeah, no, um, he works at a college there. So,  okay. But, he does have a lake house in Maine that he visits in the summer because that's important.  Nice.  So,  no, I just thought it was interesting because I saw that you guys were in Lebanon, Maine when I found you on Instagram and I was like, Oh, that's cool.
31:59And then you told me before we started recording that neither one of you are from Maine. And I was like, hmm, that's interesting. Yeah. I mean, it really is a lot like both states. I mean, it's a good combination. Yeah. We... Go ahead. He's joking. I didn't catch what he said. I don't think it's like West Virginia at all, but I'm being... She tells me I'm wrong.
32:26It has a lot. The mountainous areas are like West Virginia, minus the poisonous snakes and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's as far as I know, there's no poisonous snakes in Maine. If there are there, they've moved in since I left. Yeah. I think we're still good. I think it's still good. Yeah. Minnesota has timber, timber rattlers, but I think they're up north. I could have that wrong. They might be further south than I am too.
32:54Minnesota has timber rattlers. I don't know exactly where they are and they're not here. So that's all good.  Um, okay. I had another question and now I can't remember what it was because you know, talking about me and I get lost.  Uh, I don't know what it was. I forget. It doesn't matter.  I started a new thing on the podcast a week or so ago and I've asked this like three times. I should have done it six times by now,  but I want to end every episode with a question for you guys.
33:22What is the one word that you would use to describe your homestead?  Oh my. Yep.  would you say? Nick is better at articulating things than I am.
33:39I think the word would be love which is difficult for a man to probably say but I think that's it agreed Oh, I yeah, totally agree. Hopefully I won't tear up on that one. Yeah Uncharted territory here. I mean if you don't love this and all of its, you know glory and gory Then you shouldn't be doing it really so yeah, I think you know
34:07Rach and I obviously we have our story of how we came together and how we ended up with  four beautiful girls  and the trials  that  we both went through to get to that point.  And the  love that has kept us together through all of that. And then out of love,  you want to do better for your family.  So you start to consider things like this.  And one of the things that I think people need to understand about us is,
34:35We're Christians, we believe in Jesus Christ, and  God apparently loved us so much that he sent his son down here to die for us. And based off of that idea, we started to think, if he loves us so much to send his son down here, it stands to reason that his creation is equipped well enough to handle the  needs of humankind  to grow food, to provide for themselves.  And if that's true, then  where do we fit in?
35:05on all that, is there a place for us to fit into that?  And, you know, it started as a lark with  just chickens, but  it soon became a passion that neither Rachel or I could  push down or try to  suffocate even if we wanted to. you know,  people need to understand not every day homesteading is a great day.  There are a lot of bad days that are just really tough and you start to question
35:36the sacrifices that you made, the time that you've given up, the money that you've put in. But like we mentioned earlier, then you get to see your kids that are happy and they're eating good food that you know exactly where it came from. And then you have folks go out of their way to tell you, oh my goodness, I haven't tasted chicken like this in so long. you're like, oh, that's what I'm doing. And you're a part of that.  You're sitting at their dinner table,  Thanksgiving dinner.
36:01We raised a lot of turkeys for folks and  I'm  very fond of saying it's like, thanks for inviting me to your Thanksgiving dinner table because I'm there and I appreciate that. And I appreciate that you spent the money on the bird and you recognize the value in the animal and the time that we put into it to make sure that your memorable holiday is even better because you got something that's not injected with hormones or whatever. they were loved on  all of our children love every animal know how much.
36:31they're here.  yeah. So yeah, think love,  we think love characterizes it the most because if you don't love what you're doing,  your passion's not gonna come out for it. I think any artist or anybody, any tradesman, anybody that's skilled at anything, you gotta love it.  And if you don't, then you're probably, you might consider doing something else and finding something  that you do love.
36:57But,  know, and beyond that, you know, I have a full-time job outside of this. So  Rachel has two full, well, four full-time jobs in the form of children.  like  our primary vocations isn't necessarily homesteading. But we do farm on a full-time schedule. And yeah, Nick's a tugboat captain the other days of the week.  But, you we just love it so much that  we can't put it down.
37:25And we want to convey that love out into the community that we love what we do  and the food that we grow and we want to get better at it. We want to do more of it. And we would like to bring folks along for the ride. I think it seems like a weird business model, but I would rather that more people do exactly what we do. I don't think that there is ever a way that we would ever be able to satisfy the need for just talking chicken in just our local community.
37:53And if more people did what we did, then yes, you're right,  we would probably make less money on  the bottom end. But you know what else would get better? A lot of other people's health, right? A lot of people would be able to eat this way. And then the price of chicken overall would come down for everybody.  And there's other things to grow. I don't have to just grow chicken. That's the thing that  you don't have to be stuck in any one component. You can branch out and do other things. Rachel just started hatching eggs for
38:22for raising layers. We never considered doing that before this winter. So, and that's born out of love of what we do.  yeah,  I think unless Rachel disagrees, I think that's the word. already said that was great.  And now she's crying. She's a cry. I am.  I definitely, yeah. am too. And  I'm not gonna cry. I'm a little choked up, but I'm not gonna cry.  I love that you chose the word love because I feel like you guys.
38:51are hitting every note of that.
39:14perfect people, still are just like everybody else. put our pants on one leg at a time every day. So I say love coming out of my mouth right now and in 15 minutes I might be storming off to the corner because something else is going on. So there's another problem that just popped up that we didn't anticipate.  So Rachel's got to reel me back in before I start spiraling out of control, but that's because she loves me. That is true. Uh huh, exactly.
39:40Yep, and the thing is,  I have a dog that I love more than life itself. If she was going to get hit by a train, I would probably jump in front of the train to push her out of the way.  she was being ridiculously loud when I was trying to record an episode at 10 o'clock this morning. And I had some choice words go through my head because of course it was when I was trying to record that she was barking her head off.
40:03And the minute I was done with the recording and went downstairs to grab some coffee and saw her I was like, oh, I just love her so much  So, you know,  it just depends on what's going on  What the difficulty is what the happy  is,  you know associated with the thing you're doing and You guys seem to have found a great balance and I think that's what it's all about  Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So anyway
40:31We're now at 39 minutes. I said we had about, I had about 15 minutes to go and we've managed to almost get there. So  I appreciate your time. I appreciate your enthusiasm for what you're doing.  And I hope that you just keep to  get to keep doing it. Oh, well, thank you so much for this opportunity. You know, we always like to be able to connect with folks and share our story. So  we really appreciate it.  Yes. Thank you. This is a, this is a nice, um,
40:58service that you're providing to inform people. So it's nice to have these types of conversations and kind of restores our hope that there are other folks that think likewise. You know, it's nice because the more we get into this, the more conversations we have with people, the more people that are coming out of the kind of the woodwork, so to speak, and say, Hey, I'd like to live like that, or I'd like to eat like that, or I'd like to talk about that more. So it's very nice. So thank you to you.  well, you're welcome. And I have over 250 episodes of people.
41:26telling me their stories about why they started doing whatever they're doing  and how they're doing it.  it's amazing to me how many people have just like jumped into this both feet. And some of them are like, this is a lot. I don't know if I did the right thing. And some of them are like you guys and they love it and they're just building every day on it.  Oh yeah. That's about right.  We definitely.
41:56jumped into the deep end first.  But it's been good. So,  yeah.  All right. You guys, I hope that the rain finally lets up for you and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.  All right. Thank you. Have a good night. You too. Thanks.
 

The Kitchen Mechanic

Today I'm talking with Kevin at The Kitchen Mechanic.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
 
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00:00Did 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.
00:26because 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.
00:56You 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 Kevin at The Kitchen Mechanic. How are you, Kevin?  I'm Dandy. And where are you located? I'm located in Reno, Nevada. Oh, well, not quite Sin City, but close. What's Sin City? Which one? There's so many.
01:26The one near you. Okay. Is it hot there?  Not yet, but it's still early. It's so, it's so, I only moved here like eight months ago.  And so I'm still getting acclimated, but you know, where I moved from, had tomatoes in the ground in March. I'm still waiting to put tomatoes in the ground here. Cause I, they, the locals say you have to wait till the snow melts off of this certain mountain peak to know that you're going to have any more frost issues. So.
01:55I'm waiting for the snow to melt.  Okay, where did you move from? I moved from the Sacramento area.  Okay, yep, that makes sense.  I don't have you grow. Okay, I'm really garbling this. I'm sorry.  I didn't really know you could grow a lot in Nevada. Well, I'm still figuring it out. We'll see. But they have definitely have a shorter growing season.
02:24Yeah, so I'll know for next year, you know, get my hydroponics out and get them started early and be ready for them. Because right now I'm still waiting for seeds to emerge from my little starts. So we'll find out. Okay. Well, tell me about what you do at the kitchen mechanic. Well, I mean, I retired from the culinary world some time ago, but I've kept one foot in it.
02:52I do a lot pro bono stuff like, you know, schools do fundraising events  or like the city of Orangeville did a day of service for the city.  And  I ended up donating my time making breakfast for about 1200 people  for that event. And so just looking for opportunities to give back and, you know, do some teaching.  I started an online store. I've been off of it for a couple of years because of
03:22everything that's going on in my life.  So I just decided to  get back on it. So  I got a cookie sale going on. But  you know, I make stuff and I sell it people over the internet or locally or whatever.  Okay, so why did you call it the kitchen mechanic? Because I am very much  not mechanically inclined.
03:51Matter of fact, on the back of my calf, have a picture of two knives crossed with a sharpening steel going through the middle of them. I walk into Home Depot and I walk up to them and I say, see this? These are the only tools I know how to use. The only thing I know how to fix is dinner. So I need you to hold my hand. So that's kind of where it came from, the kitchen and candy, because the only thing I can fix is dinner.
04:17That is very funny. I did a TV cooking show in Phoenix back in the 90s. And I wore an oversized tool belt with big, huge kitchen tools in it for effect. And basically, we did the whole thing there based on the premise of the kitchen mechanic. It's kind of where it all grew from. That's fun. I love that. OK. So what's your favorite thing to cook?
04:47Well, if I had a dollar for every time I got asked that question.  And it's funny too, because a couple of chef sites that I'm on, not Facebook, people bring us,  what do you say when people like, what are your favorite thing is? It's like saying,  what's your favorite child?  The emphasis on my training is in pastries and chocolate. I was actually a senior chocolatier for Dub Chocolate Discoveries for a bit.
05:16That's the stuff I enjoy doing for other people.  I used to teach a class for Williams Sonoma on exotic cheesecakes and so  that's kind of one of my things I'm known for is my crazy cheesecakes.
05:32And  yeah, I lost my train of thought.  So anyways,  oh, so my passion is international cuisine.  I try to make iconic  dishes from different countries exactly the way they are supposed to be made according to  the culture. I don't try to Americanize it or make it my own or all that other stuff.
06:01And because I think it does a disservice and disrespect to the culture by taking one of their iconic dishes and then trying to make it into something that it really is. And I think the best compliment I ever got was an Indian lady from the office that I was at at the time telling me that my butter chicken was better than hers and she wanted my recipe. And it's like to me, that was like total validation that I accomplished exactly what I wanted.
06:30accomplished.  If your grandmother says it's good, then that means I  achieve success.  Uh-huh.  In the town that we used to live in, there was an authentic Mexican restaurant called Delia's.  And it was a Mexican family who made Mexican food the way that they were taught to make it by their parents, grandparents, great grandparents.
06:59I always thought I hated Mexican food until I had their tacos. Yeah. And they're fabulous. Yeah. There's a big difference  between gringo Mexican and real Mexican. Where I grew up at in my early years, town  had quite a large Mexican population because of the industry that was located there  and in its proximity  to Texas. It was in Kansas.  And back in the day, a lot  of
07:30Mexican people were coming over through Texas  back in the  70s. so their culture kind of got intertwined with the local Mexican culture.  And  from that point on, I never knew what gringo Mexican food was because nobody in town sold gringo Mexican.  And so I fell in love with fried flour tacos and  different relays,  authentic kind of stuff.
08:00Yeah.  All right. So you've mentioned like a bunch of things about what you've done in your lifetime of working in food.  Can you take me back to the beginning? What got you interested in food and then talk me through till now?  How much time is this segment? Half an hour.  I'll just kind of try to paraphrase as much. I started cooking very, very young, know, 12, I guess, maybe.
08:29at the elbow of my mom. First thing I ever learned how to make was fried chicken.  And that's always been my favorite meal, my birthday meal. Now it's my daughter's, you know, since then.  And it's funny because when I was a small child, even before that, we lived out in the country.  And again, I was very young. I found an old pan and
09:00there were some wild onions growing  out by the shed. And I cut some of those up  and  what was it? found worms. I made sauteed worms with chives, green onions. Okay. To me that was my gourmet meal. course, it didn't taste like a gourmet meal, but hey, I was too young to know better. So I got into college.
09:30And was cooking was kind of in the background, not really serious. And then you get into the dating scene and you know, I figured out that women responded more to think come over Saturday night and I'll make you a five course gourmet dinner versus, hey, come over Saturday night and I'll change your oil. Yeah. So, um, I just started.
09:57building a passion for cooking from there and started in the culinary world at a Holiday Inn Resort and went through a number of experiences from that time forward  and ended up in Phoenix, Arizona,  teaching classes at a Williams Sonoma there at War Shopping Center  and that led
10:24There was a TV producer that came by wasn't there at the time, but he said we're doing this new cooking show. It's featuring these two popular radio DJs, Beth and Bill,  and we need somebody to be the guest chef on the show. And their job is to teach Bill, who's a bona fide bachelor,  how to fit for himself in the kitchen.  And so that's where cooking with Beth and Bill  came about.  if you go to my
10:54page, there you scroll down, there's a  link there you can click on to see a clip from the pilot episode of the show. But it's real tongue in cheek and it's more humorous than serious.  know,  we're making fun of Bill because he doesn't know anything about cooking. You know,  he's making fun of me for whatever reasons. it was a lot of fun and I did that.  And then right after that I ended up
11:20getting recruited by a company in the corporate world and moved back to the Bay Area, Concord, California, and kind of left the the culinary world from there. Then fast forward years later, wasn't all that long ago, I got an opportunity to cook for a Greek restaurant. And I was making desserts
11:50from there like a...
11:54baklava, ice cream sandwiches,  fun,  stuff, but also some very traditional Greek desserts. And all my international skills, Greek is definitely in my top three. That's one of my  favorites. So I did that for little bit. And then I ended up  moving to Reno because my daughter wanted me to be closer. And I was originally two and a half hours away.
12:21So she wanted me to be closer to her while she finished school. So I'm here for the next less than two years. She finishes and I go live where I want to live. You're a good dad, Kevin. I know. Probably the only 66 year old that you know that has a 16 year old daughter. I think that's impressive, actually. I'm 55 and my son, my youngest is 23. So.
12:50She was the running joke is She was born the same year or same month that I got my AARP card. Uh-huh. So Rooster can still crow. Uh-huh. And when I used to you know, talk to audiences and stuff and do the usual, you know stick I would you know, would use being a geezer dad as an example and I'd say, you know, I love being a geezer dad, but it sucks for my wife because
13:18by the time my daughter gets out of diapers, I'll be going into diapers. Mm-hmm. Yep. That sounds right. So, yeah, so I left Kandorino and still trying to acclimate, but here I am. Okay. Thank you for doing that because you were mentioning all kinds of things and I'm like, I need a timeline here. so do you cook at home?
13:46for people and sell it or do you work at a restaurant? I do not do the restaurant thing anymore. One of reasons I retired for was because of back issues actually, guess back surgery. But I do, if you want me to come make a meal at your house, I've had people hire me to make their Thanksgiving dinners before. I've had people hire me to make a Christmas prime rib before because they were intimidated and didn't want to waste a hundred dollar prime rib.
14:16And I told you earlier, you know, I do the pro bono look for opportunities to give back  and  Yeah, that's pretty much it You know the guys always say hey  If you want to have a nice romantic Valentine's dinner for two hire me and I'll come over and fix it and serve it all romantic Reunion your day. Yeah, just fun stuff  Nothing too serious Okay, you brought up prime rib
14:45I have tried to do that once and it did not turn out really well. So what's the secret to a good prime rib? Low and slow. Uh huh. Ignore these recipes that say turn your oven up to 500 degrees and put it in there for 30 minutes and then do this and do that. Um, it's just, it's so silly. Um, there's a technique called reverse sear. It's gotten really popular, you know, for cooking large steaks and tri tip and stuff.
15:13And I apply the same principle to make a tri-tip. You put it in the oven, you cook it at 165 until it reaches the internal temperature that you're looking for, like 125 probably for rare. And when it reaches that point, let it sit until you're ready to get close to eat. And then put it in the oven under a broil and brown the top part, the fat cap and bada boom, beautiful.
15:43Okay, that's what I did wrong. I followed the directions on the recipe. should have just found you and talked to you first. Yeah, well, you know, going back to Mexican food, everybody has their version of tacos. One's not necessarily better than the other, but sometimes, you know, keeping it easy is the best solution.
16:05Yeah, I actually just went through this with our tacos. I hadn't made tacos in three years because I was sick to death of making them with ground beef.  And I understand that if you make a taco with really nice sliced thinly sliced steak, it's probably gonna be a lot better, but we had ground beef. So I was craving tacos and I looked up a recipe and it was like, oh, you just use a little bit of tomato paste and a little bit of water, some cumin, some garlic.
16:33and a little bit of salt and pepper and ta-da there's tacos and I was like that sounds way too easy.  And I made them and I was like  this is as close to what I understand a taco to be as I've had in years. And I was screwing it up before because I thought you were supposed to use tomato sauce and it was supposed to be  wetter I guess is the word I would use but no it's supposed to be more like a paste.
17:04So, we've now incorporated tacos into our meal plan like once every two weeks because everybody in the house is enjoying eating them again. Now, do you do yours with corn tortillas or do you flour tortillas? Flour. Yeah, I don't love corn tortillas. I like flour tortillas. I do not like the flavor of masa.
17:28But I do like  a good cornbread or a good corn muffin, but that's a totally different taste. Yeah. For the ones that you make with crema corn in them, it's so good. Yeah. So moist and it's really nice.  Mm-hmm. Yup.  And the other thing, I saw that you had a  series on your Facebook page for Thanksgiving turkey.
17:58Yes, I do. I've been doing that for decades because my passion is teaching. I love to teach people that are intimidated by cooking or unsure of themselves or whatever. I'm here for those people. it's kind of my favorite. The only celebrity chef that I like is Alton Brown because he teaches. The big thing people finally discovered
18:28Was brining brining your turkey brining this actually any protein you can grind And that was you know, that was became a big deal. I learned about it in 1993 from cooks illustrated Who I used to also test recipes for But you know, asked people, you know, do know what you're doing? You know why you're brining they say well supposed to make it juicier, you know why? And they don't know why and so just like Alton is like
18:56If you understand the science  and biology behind what you're doing, it helps you to better understand  your cooking.  so part of that  series is explaining why you brine and what brining means in the whole scientific breakdown. Because  so many these chefs, say, do this, do this, do this. And  no explanation why or what it
19:25does or anything so  I'm totally the opposite.  Okay well  I have made a lot of Thanksgiving Day turkeys in my lifetime and I have never brined a turkey so tell me why  why do you brine a turkey? You introduce a saline solution to a protein what it does is it causes the protein strands in the muscle to unravel
19:51And when they unravel, become loose, they attract water molecules and then those water molecules get trapped within the protein strands.  And so in the process  of cooking  very slow, low and slow,  that  moisture that's trapped in the protein strands gets redistributed throughout the meat  and helps it  become juicier.
20:17And of the big mistake that most people make when comes to turkeys, they're still cooking it to their mom's standards of like 180 degrees, know,  particle board white meat.  And it's like all the bad stuff, the capillobacter  and  all the bad stuff is  killed at 163. So  what I tell people is, okay, there's
20:42process called carryover cooking where you take the product out of the oven and because of the heat that's built up it will keep cooking. So it's like you take it out  at about 160 and the carryover cooking will take it as far as almost 170 because you always want to your turkey set for about 30 minutes before you carve it up and I guarantee it'll be the juiciest turkey you ever had. Might have to brine the next turkey I make in
21:11September we try to do a turkey every month from September through March Yeah,  and if you look up the recipes just ignore all those recipes that say adding all these herbs adding sugar I did just salt water just salt water And how long how long do you let it sit in the brine? It depends if you're using table salt or kosher salt  I like using kosher salt because it's not as harsh as table salt
21:38One cup of that to a gallon of water and I usually let it set overnight So if I'm cooking if I'm making it the turkey on Thursday, then I'll brine it Tuesday night And Wednesday morning, I'll take it out of the brine rinse it off real good dry it real good and put it on a rack in a pan in the refrigerator and what happens is the evaporative effect of being in the refrigerator pulls all the moisture out of the skin Yeah, and so it makes it crispier and also
22:07it makes it prettier after  you bake it.  Don't baste the outside with butter because it doesn't do anything for the meat. All it does is create brown splotches on the skin. Just baste it with either clarified butter that doesn't have any fat solids in it or any  milk solids in it  or peanut oil. But I'll have to send you a picture of my turkey when we get on.  It makes a picture perfect bon appétit turkey if you follow that.
22:37that process. Well, thank you for the science of why brining works with a turkey because I've always wondered and never looked it up in my life. Appreciate that.  And the other thing that I would add here is that anyone who thinks that it's hard to make a turkey, it really isn't hard. It's just time. You have to have time to devote to it. Right. If you put the time and effort into it, it's well worth it.
23:06You know, cause anything worth  doing is worth putting the time and effort into it.  Absolutely. Yes.  Yeah. And my God, do not use those stupid baster bags and whatever they call them, oven bags. my God. don't want a soggy turkey. want a crispy turkey.  Yeah. Soggy turkeys gross.  Um,  and I don't really want to disparage Butterball turkeys. If people like Butterball brand turkeys,  have at it.  I don't love them.
23:36at all. inject that  and you do not want to  brine a butterball turkey or any turkey that has  been injected with solution or whatever they want to call it because it's high sodium and you'll end up over salting your turkey if you brine it on top of that. Just buy a good old Foster Farms fresh turkey or if you like spending money you'll get one of the boutique turkeys like willy willybirds.
24:05you know, what you'll pay like three times the amount per pound for. Um,  but they're fresh.  They're everything free, you know, and they're just really, really good. But foster farms fresh, you know, Turkey with no injections, nothing. That's what you want.  I agree with you. Okay, good.  Um, so, um, we're rolling into summertime here in Minnesota. I mean, we, we just had our really
24:34first nice spring day on Sunday, like 74 degrees with the high, no real wind. It was just beautiful outside. And that means that it is, I hate to cook in the summertime season coming up. So, so what do you suggest for people who don't really want to spend a lot of time and heat up their kitchen in the summertime? Do you just suggest sandwiches and salads and things or  what would you say? Well, you know,  you asked me earlier what
25:03You know, I cook for myself at home. I don't cook for myself hardly ever unless I'm wanting to treat myself. I get up in the morning, I have a bowl of cereal with some blueberries and some yogurt. And then later midway in the day, know, I'm not going be a pervert yourself. I make myself a loaded salad, which is basically mixed greens with arugula and spinach and candied pecans and orange slices and gorgonzola cheese.
25:33You know, and that's my treat for my lunch or my dinner.  And of course I'm in a weight loss mode. So that helps with that. you know, a couple nights ago, I felt like treating myself. So I made some,  some beef short ribs on the grill and baked potato and some corn on the cob. And that was my treat meal for the day. So, you you cook for other people, don't really feel like cooking for yourself.
26:03Mm-hmm.  Yes, and you just reminded me I have to I have to start looking for a new grill our grill has died so  Cooking outside is the thing that saves us here in Minnesota from mid-june till end of August Yeah, a four burner char broil brand Home Depot has a blowhouse  I'm on my third one of those  And
26:32love it to death. Of course, I have the big five burner version, so it's like 70,000 BTUs. it's  called my Charb-A-Q.  Uh-huh. But their four burner version is really nice  and really, really good. And that's the key. Yeah. We have a fire pit with the ring, the rack that goes into it so you can actually cook on an open fire  the way God intended.
27:00And we can we can definitely do some stuff on that we have done a hobo dinner, do know what a hobo dinner is?  Yep, it does a Boy Scouts. Yeah, we've done that and they turn out great on that fire ring. I love it.  But I  actually  prefer cooking steak over coals.  So I'm with you on that. Yeah, and
27:27Really cooking is so much fun once you get into it and you get hooked onto it.  It's so fun because there are so many different techniques you can use. Right.
27:38like I learned how to make gravy  with cornstarch and that was the way my mom did it. And then I learned that, I can make gravy using flour and butter or flour and some kind of fat, whether it's pork fat or beef fat or whatever.  honestly, it's all gravy. know, a cornstarch gravy is a gravy. A roux gravy is a gravy, but it just depends on what you're trying to accomplish, I think.
28:08Right, yeah, I mean, there's a place for.
28:13cornstarch gravy and there's a place for flour gravy. know? But yeah, and that's another thing. Actually, I somebody that asked me to teach him how to make gravy because so many people are so intimidated by making gravy and it's really such an easy process, you know? So always feel bad when people talk about or are scared about making gravy. It's like, you can do it, you know? I always tell
28:43I always tell people when they ask me about how to do a roux, I always tell them you're probably going to burn it the first time. Throw it away. Do it again. Exactly. Don't give up. And like if I'm making chicken gravy, like, you know, my mom, she used all the pan drippings and you know, made from that. But I, I changed from that because it's just, it's grease. There's really not that much flavor in the grease. know, there is a little crumpley.
29:13But I started removing the oil and  using  clarified butter to make the roux. And then I just throw in a chicken bouillon  cube, pint of heavy cream and pint of half and half and good to go.
29:33I just made myself a great friend.
29:38What? I said I was craving biscuits and gravy last week so I made a batch of biscuits and gravy. Yeah, I've talked more about biscuits and gravy for dinner in the last six months than I have in my entire life. I finally figured out how to make it so that we all three like it. And we found some ground pork from a store that we really like. So I finally figured out how to make sausage gravy and biscuits.
30:04and we have it probably once a month in the winter time because it's not the least, it's not the most fattening thing you'll ever eat, but it's also not the least fattening thing you'll ever eat either. Yeah, that's definitely an adult indulgence thing, you know, and here's a really cool idea I ran across making miniature biscuits. We're talking about biscuits that like, you know, of silver dollar, small and then
30:32put those in a bowl and then pour the gravy over them. Kind of like eating biscuit cereal, you know, little small biscuits. It's little fun that way. It looks really cool. Yeah. And honestly, I, I don't eat a lot at a sitting. So for me, that would be great. Cause like I have one biscuit about the size of, I don't know, silver dollar. And I'm good. That's good.
31:01My husband however would eat like six of them. So if I made the smaller ones Maybe I could talk him in all eating three instead of six. I used to be this I used to be the same way as eating through my Weight loss journey. I have learned to significantly reduce my intake and it's made a world difference. Oh, Yep Absolutely. Okay. So the last two episodes I've recorded I've started a new thing and I'm asking people to describe
31:30their thing they're doing with one word. So how would you describe what you're doing?
31:37you
31:40turn
31:43Living. Living? Living, surviving. But is it just surviving or are you thriving?  What do you think? Well,  I've had a lot of challenges since moving here and it doesn't help that I'm not really fond of Reno.  But I'm here not for me, I'm here for my daughter and so that supersedes any complaints I have. But it's been tough. It's been tough.
32:14And so I'm just trying to get acclimated, trying to get situated. that's kind of where the surviving came from, I think. Are you enjoying the time you're getting to spend with your daughter, though? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Okay, good. It was very few and far between that I got to come up and see her. Okay.
32:34All right, well, Kevin, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and keep doing the good work. And I love that you moved to be there so you could be with your daughter. That's fantastic. Yeah, I am. I'm glad I did, too.  Thank you for your time. All right. Have a great day. You too.