A Tiny Homestead

CT Farms Mobile Processing

Today I'm talking with Ty at CT Farms Mobile Processing. 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. 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.
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 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.
 
Muck Boots 
Calendars.Com
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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.
 

Sunset Creek Farm LLC

Today I'm talking with Katie at Sunset Creek Farm LLC.
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead is sponsored by the Homegrown Collective, the best option for organizing a responsible and regional food system for America.  You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Katie at Sunset Creek Farm LLC. Good,  well, I guess it's evening, Katie. How are you? I'm good. How are you?
00:27I am good. I usually record in the morning  and so I'm always saying good morning  and when I do them in the evening, I'm like, ah, it's not morning anymore.  Yes, it is a dreary afternoon here for sure. Yeah. And you're in Georgia, right? Yes, in Trine, Georgia. Yeah. It's not dreary here cause it's not raining, but it's been gray  all day. Yes. And I'm in Minnesota if you didn't know. So. Yes.  Okay.  So tell me all about yourself.
00:57and Sunset Creek Farm.  Okay,  so  like I said, we're located in Trine, Georgia.  We have been here about six years. So my family actually owns part of the land and then we took a little bit of it and then we had actually built a barn so that way we could get married in it. So it all started from there.
01:22And so then  last year, and we've always had, I rodeoed my whole life. And so I had, I've had horses and cows my whole life. But then whenever me and Caleb  got married, then of course we had planned to build here and everything.  And then last year we ended up getting Kiko goats. So that was really kind of how we got started.
01:47in having our own little farm.  It had always been a dream of ours to have our own farm.  And  luckily we had the acreage.  And so then from there,  of course, the goat supply just kept coming. So we ended up, we have about 13 nanny goats.  And so,  and we've got a couple of billies that we're keeping separate. That way we can keep the.
02:16the lines going and then  in December, I decided that I needed a milk cow.  So I  do a lot of research before I do anything. Me and my husband are both that way. And so I got to look in and you know, we didn't need a full size cow because we didn't need that much milk just for our family.
02:40And so I ended up doing a lot of research and discovered that the mini jersey was probably our best option. So we get anywhere from one to two gallons of milk a day,  just depending on how much I'm milker. So  I do have a full-time job. So this is our hobby on the side. And so  luckily we do have a bottle cap.
03:06that he helps me milk her during the week and then I milk on the weekends so that way we have enough milk to get us through the week and I like to you know make the different cheeses and I've made feta and mozzarella. I haven't tried hard cheeses yet.  I'm a little intimidated but I'm trying to build myself up to there but then we like to do butter and yogurt and you know different things that I can make with the milk.
03:34And so,  so that's one thing that, you know, the mini Jersey, we have loved having her. And so in the, the buttermilk or the, excuse me, the milk is very rich and has a lot of butterfat. And so that lets us that I don't have to have as much milk  or cream as I need to make the butter. So that makes it, it makes it easier for me to be able to produce butter when I want to.
04:04That's really enjoyed it. Yes, yes. you know, really, it's been nice to be able... So the main reason that we started... So I had breast cancer in 2023. So that made me start looking at what chemicals that are in our food, what chemicals are in the shampoo, the conditioner.
04:30the body washes, the even, you know, the different laundry detergents that you have, all the chemicals that are unnecessary to have and to put on your body. And so that was whenever we really started looking at what is the best way to be able to grow our own food  and to be able, you know, to have our own milk and, and take those chemicals that we can. Of course there's chemicals around us all the time, but to
05:00but to take what I could out of our lives for what I could.  Yeah, because your skin is your biggest organ. Not everyone knows that, but your skin is exposed to everything.  whatever you can  do to cut back on what you're putting on your skin that's going to get absorbed that's bad for you is a grand and glorious thing.  Yes. And that was one thing that got me started in the soap.
05:28making was because you know, I only have you know, five different ingredients in my soap. And if you look on the back of a body wash, I mean, there's all these ingredients, I can't pronounce. And so then that makes you think if I don't, if I can't pronounce it, I definitely don't know what it is. And so that's one  one thing that I started, you know, looking into making soap. And so I ended up taking a class.
05:53and she was actually doing goat milk soap. And I was like, oh, that is great because then I can incorporate our goats into making my soap. And of course  the goat milk soap has a lot of different  benefits to it. It's supposed to be good for your skin, good for people that have  different eczema and skin conditions.  And it's really soft. And one thing I love about the recipe that I
06:23do is it has a really good lather. I'm all about, you know, a good lather. If it just kind of like wipes on and wipes off, I don't feel like I'm clean. But if I get a good lather, then I love it. So that's one thing I've really enjoyed about being able to experiment with my own soap is what gives me the best feeling.  You know, and then I know it's just, you know, basic oils. So  I've really enjoyed it.  You are singing my song, lady.
06:51My husband makes  cold process soap and I've talked about this on the podcast a lot But  my question for you is do you use essential oils to make your soaps smell good?  Yes, so a lot of the soaps that I have  they don't have essential oils because I try to be very aware of people that  Can't handle smells and especially strong smells  because when I was going through chemo, I couldn't handle strong smells
07:20So I try to cater to that, but I do actually use essential oils. And I try to find the pure essential oils so then that way, I know that they are better for you than just the fragrance oils. If anybody had a request for a certain oil and I couldn't find it, then of course I would use what they wanted. But I try to use more of the pure oils so then that way,
07:47You know, you're not putting those harmful chemicals on you. Yeah, I really like using the pure essential oils because for that exact reason. And you're getting exactly what it is. Like my favorite one that we do is lemongrass. Yes, me too. And every time we put a new bar of soap in the shower, I want to eat the soap and obviously not going to eat the soap, but it smells just like a lemon bar. And
08:16I'm just so excited every time we put a new bar in the shower. like, oh my God, my bathroom is going to smell like lemon bars for a week.  Yes.  Yeah. And that's one thing I normally do before I put anything out there. Like we've used a bar of it to kind of see how it is, how it smells and make sure that, you know, it feels good. So I don't want to put anything out there that I wouldn't use for sure.  Yeah. And I'm telling you lemon.
08:43Lemon is the best thing in the morning to wake you up. I don't know what it is. I love lemon anything like lemon meringue pie. You put one in front of me. I want to eat the whole thing and I don't, but I really, really want to.  But there's something invigorating about that lemon scent first thing in the morning.  Yes. And actually,  I freeze dry things as well.  so  actually at Christmas we had an extra  lemon icebox pie.
09:13leftover. So I freeze dried it and  I actually had it at the meeting yesterday and people were tasting it and of course it tasted like I had just done it. So that's one way to get your  lemon, just a little bit of lemon hit and not have to eat a whole pie.  Well that's awesome and as an aside this whole thing about lemon.  I think everyone in my immediate family like my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother and I  all just love lemon.
09:43and come to find out both sets of my grandparents did too. So maybe there's a genetic coding thing in there. Maybe, maybe so because our family seems to like lemon as well. My grandmother, she actually would do a lemon icebox pie every Sunday when we would go eat dinner with her. And I always for  many, many years thought, oh my goodness, like she
10:09loves us so much. works around the clock and makes us these two lemon icebox pies. Years later, I was like, Mom, I would really like to make that recipe. She gave it to me and it took me five minutes to make it. And I thought,  Oh, now I see why she always made us two lemon icebox pies. They were simple and delicious.  I am so thrilled to be talking with you because you keep giving me all kinds of things to think about.  Cooking.
10:37You're saying that you thought that it took her all day to make those pies and it did not. It was simple. Very simple. funniest thing about cooking and people's perception of cooking is that it's hard and it takes a lot of time.  That may be true on some things, but I have an entire cookbook that I've put together like a binder.  I have printed out recipes that I love  and my husband works half an hour from home.
11:07And he'll call me and say I'm headed home and I will say  awesome drive safe I love you and then I start cooking right then  Usually dinner is ready within five minutes of him walking in the door. Yeah half an hour is  nothing it  You can spend half an hour staring at the TV and do nothing productive  Or you can spend half an hour whipping together dinner and having something wonderful. That's good for you.  Mm-hmm. Yes, so
11:37And I'm trying really hard not to be snarky about this because I don't expect everybody to be a fantastic  chef level cook. That's not necessarily what I'm saying.  But learning to cook some things that you really enjoy eating,  is satisfaction in cooking it, not just eating it. Right. Yes. And that's one thing going back to the freeze dryer  I have found is very
12:06beneficial is, you know, I have made a big batch of chicken enchiladas and it's just, you know, us three or four or five, ever how many is going to eat with us. And so I have a whole lot leftover. We're used to, we would eat on it a couple of days and then it would go bad where now I stick it in the freeze dryer. And then when that's done, I stick it in the Mylar bag and it's good for 25 years. So then whenever I'm ready to eat it again,
12:35Then we'll put out, put a little hot water in it, let it steam and it's back to what it was whenever you freeze dried it. So that's,  it has been a very well investment for us.  Awesome. I want one. I just can't afford one right now.  I did say, no, I don't work for harvest right at all, but I did say that they're having a big sale right now, starting in May. And that's actually how I ended up getting mine was they were having a big sale.
13:03And then tractor supply had a big sale. And so I managed to put everything together and  convince myself to get one. It took about a year  to decide. so  actually at the meeting yesterday, I was telling a lady that I was standing there, you I told my husband, let's go, let's look at one. I'm standing there just looking at it. I don't know what I expected to happen.
13:27But I was just staying in there and I had this lady walk up, I'd never seen her before and she said, are you looking at getting one? And I said, I am. And she said, oh, well we have one and we love it. And I said, well, can you tell me a little bit about it? So she was telling me about they mill prep and they do this and they do that.  And I said, do you love it? And she said, yes, I love it. The only thing I wished I would have done was gotten the bigger one.
13:52And I thought, okay, this lady was sent to me to tell me I need to do it. And so I took that as my sign.  And so that was, we made the investment that day just because I thought, okay, I can't just keep putting it  off  and keep saying, okay, well, maybe whenever I save up a little more, I save up a little more. And so there was the sale and there was the lady telling me to just do it.  Yep.  Awesome.
14:21Was a God thing. It was. It definitely was. Okay. I have one more question about that and then I want to get onto your meeting last night because I want to ask you questions about that too. Is the plug for the freeze dryer, is it just a normal plug into the wall plug? So the one that we ended up getting with the ladies advice, we ended up getting the large one instead of the medium. So the medium is the 110 plug and then the large one is the 220.
14:51So we did end up getting that one.  My husband actually works in construction. So  of course I get it and then realized that the plug was different. And so I was like, babe,  can you put me in a plug?  And of course he did his handiwork and got me a plug in within a  couple of days.  So,  but that is the only thing that the plug is different on the bigger one. What a great husband you have.
15:17Yes, he is very good. Anything I need, he makes happen. Well, that's fabulous. I have one of those too. For the most part, I keep saying, we get a mini cow? And he says, no, because we don't have any place to put it. And I'm like, okay, fine. Okay, so this meeting that you had last night, I saw on your Facebook page something about it, but tell me what that was about.
15:42Yeah, so we are actually members  of the Chattauka County Young Farmers  and we get together once a month or every two weeks and we have little programs.  A lot of times it'll be different people coming to sell, you know, different things like either software or we'll do classes. A lot of times they'll go to
16:06different places, know they have like a canon class and different things like that, that we  all get together and  it's a learning experience plus it's good fellowship and especially being able to connect with people that are in our community that do the same things we do.  And so usually everybody's running  in  different ways at all times, but it's nice to get together  every two weeks, once a month to be able to.
16:34you know, be together and we all have the same struggles and just to be able to see each other.  And so one of our really good friends is the vice president of it. And so he reached out to me in January and said, you know, you're doing all of these things and I would like for  you to host a meeting and be able to, you know, show what all you do.  And he said last night, it was nice to see that, you know,
17:02me and my husband were kind of doing things that the older generation had done, you know, with doing the canning and all of that and doing the garden. And he's helped me and gave me advice on the garden and, and really, really helped me. And so, so it was nice to be able to kind of show everybody what we've done and what we've been building the last few years and, and how we're trying to make the community, you know, make the community better with.
17:32you know, my soaps taking out the different chemicals and whatnot. So  it was, it was a really good meeting. was, it was funny because as it has rained today, it, was really nice yesterday. And then, um, as everybody was starting to get here at six o'clock, they, cooked hot dogs and hamburgers or they cook hot dogs and hamburgers out on the trailer.  And then as it started,  um, as everybody started to get here, it started to rain.
18:00So luckily we had somewhere to go. So we all got our food and went in  and  it stopped raining for a minute and then it would come and pour down. So  it did that off and on, you know, for a little bit. And then I was able, we started doing my presentation.  And so then by the end of it, it finally stopped raining and then everybody was able to get out and be able to visit with the goats and see them in New Jersey.
18:28and just be able to be around all the different animals and see the garden and the greenhouse and all that. And it was just nice to be able to  show them what we have been working  on and what we're working toward. So I did  talk about that  as well. So it was a lot of fun. It was.  And it's really nice because a lot since I grew up in Chattucket County.
18:55And so it's really nice to be able to, you know, see people I either grew up with or people's parents that I grew up with that we're all in the same community.  And,  you know, we're all,  it's really nice to see the support. felt so much support from  that community that just, you know, basically  helps lift me up that, you know, I'm, I'm doing, I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
19:25You're fitting in your skin and you're fitting in your world and that is the best feeling ever. Okay, so how many people showed up? Do you know? Oh goodness, it was probably, I would say probably 25 people. I didn't get an exact head count, but usually I would say probably 25 to 35 people maybe. Nice, very nice.
19:48Well, I think it's amazing that you did that because I have social anxiety. If 25 people showed up at our place, I would be like,  Yes. And by day, I'm an accountant. So I kind of sit in my office and I'm not very social. So it took me out of my element, but I think it's  a good thing because I'm trying to branch out and trying not to be such an introvert that I am.  Yeah.
20:17I love the podcast because I get to talk to people, but I don't have to be in the presence of people. Right. So I get my social needs met that way. And it's really fabulous because I learned so many new things from you guys. just, I love it so much.  okay. So tell me about the, uh, the mini Jersey cows because  I didn't realize until today that such a thing existed.  Yeah.
20:41Yeah, so that was one thing when we  got to research in about this mini Jersey, you know, of course my first instinct was,  how did the mini part of the Jersey come about?  And so I got to research in and had, you know, listened to a podcast and done some research and actually, so the Jersey was crossed with the Dexter cow  and the Dexter is a shorter black cow.  And so that is why our Clairebale,
21:10has more  black in her than she does the you know the typical brown with a little bit of black on her. She has more black  and so that's where  we believe the black came in was from the Dexter. So that's where they got the hot from and so it was really funny because our bull Darius,  we got him from Oklahoma
21:34And he actually, he has a little more black in him than a typical Jersey, but he does have the typical lighter brown and a little bit of black look. we're excited. So hopefully she is bred and hopefully we'll have a baby about August, September we're hoping. So I'm excited to see what the baby's going to look like, but they're, so sweet.  I've really, really enjoyed it. And she comes  up.
22:03I took out my hip. She's not very, she's not very tall. And when the lady that we had gotten her from, they didn't know if she had ever been milked before. She had had a calf on her and they had pulled the calf off and had sold it when it was time.  And so luckily she was still in milk when we got her.  And, um,  and so the first night we put her in the stall  and I chased her around for two hours cause she wouldn't stand still.
22:33So then, of course I've told you about my marvelous husband. So the next day I show up from work and he has me a cow stanchion built. And so then  I was like, okay, so we put her in there and it took me about an hour and a half to milk her. And I thought, oh goodness, I can't do an hour and a half every day just milking. So I got on and ordered an  automatic milker.
22:58And so that has really been a lifesaver. can, I can normally milk her in  30, 45 minutes, just from start to finish cleaning up and everything.  And it has been, it has been fabulous, but she is so  friendly and gentle. She follows me around. I get a bucket of feed and she'll come running.  Um, I think I've actually got a video on Facebook where I just barely shake the bucket and her and her bottlecafs come running.
23:29And they'll love all over you and they're just, really sweet. I've really enjoyed being able to, you know, have her join the farm and just the, like, and my daughter is out there with her and, you know, she doesn't, she doesn't bother us at all. And she just wants to be the love owner.  So she's like a dog.  She  is. She  is. And she's so sweet. Well,
23:55I think all that's fabulous, but God bless that man of yours.  You got a winner. Yes,  he is all about building something to make our lives a little easier. And so  he saw how bad I was struggling that first night, so he knew something had to happen.  Yeah.  Okay. So if the mini jersey came from across with a Dexter, does that mean that they're actually good  as meat as well?
24:23So I have heard that they are actually, the Jersey is a very tender meat. don't know of anybody personally that has processed Jersey cows, but I've heard that the meat is very good. Okay. I was just wondering, because a dual purpose animal is always good on the homestead. Yes. Yes. And that's also segue into our goats. That is actually one of the great things about our Kikos.
24:52is that they are actually mainly,  they're meat goats  and milk goats.  So they do really good on the production of  their milk. And so I'm able, of course, once the babies are big enough, I'm able to get some of their milk and be able to make my soap. But then also there is a big market for them as a meat goat as well. So yes, we try to do  things that are gonna be the most beneficial.
25:22Yeah, I mean, if you're going to be a farmer or a homesteader or a rancher, and those are all  different things, but they all kind of fall into the same umbrella, you want everything to work together for the greater good of the  place that you have. Yes.  And we kind of suck at that, actually. We're working on it. Oh, yeah.
25:48It's hard to try to make everything jive on people or things that you want to do and things you need to do. So  yeah, I mean, I, I  don't want to talk about my podcast a lot, but I started this podcast over 18 months ago and,  and I really needed to make some money from it. And I really didn't want to put ads on it. I loved it the first year because it was very clean. It was just the podcast. It was just,
26:18me introducing it and you guys talking to me and it was great.  I loved it.  And then I was like, I'm sinking some real time into this. I kind of need it to make money and I put  ads on it and I hated it for the first month. And then I was like, you know what? It's okay. It's okay because I'm doing something important here that I love to do that is helping other people.  It's okay to put ads on it. Yes. And my husband was like,
26:46How much time are you thinking of the podcast? And I said a lot. And I told him the hours and he said,  do not feel bad about trying to monetize it. He said, you are earning any penny that you make. Right. And I was like, okay, yes, I know. I still miss the first year, Katie, of no ads, no nothing. It was so  clean, you know?  Yes.  But I'm not giving up. want to promote.
27:13you guys who are doing the hard work and improving your communities and sharing and learning too. Yes. So I want to add a new thing at the end of the interviews. I'm going to start with you. If you had to describe your farm with one word, what would it be? Oh, goodness.
27:41would probably say a dream.  dream? Yes. I think that's a great word because it is a dream. Yes, because it is definitely  what we have dreamed  of and what we have, what we've been trying to work towards.  And then just to see it come together just feels like a dream. And especially since I guess too that it's on
28:11my family's land. And so just to know that, you know, there's way more history than just six years  right here.  So that's, that's one thing that is,  um,  that is, I guess what I'm trying to think of even how to put it, but a dream. That's really what it is to me.  I love that. I think that's wonderful.  And maybe your kids, you have kids, right?
28:40Yes, I have one. Yeah, maybe maybe 20 years from now this will what you're doing now will be part of her history and maybe she'll be running it. Yes,  I hope so. That's one thing we always try to  make sure that she's involved in in everything and she tries to help so so much on the farm and we've we really enjoyed it. Yeah, I'm gonna say this again. I've said it a bunch of times on the podcast in the last 18 months. I think that  people who are in a position
29:10to have land and have animals and grow things and they have kids is the best thing for those kids because there is real accomplishment that the kids feel even from the littlest age like a year and a half old when they go out and grab the egg out of the nesting box.  They didn't put that egg there but they just think it's the coolest thing. They got to pick out the egg from the nesting box and bring it to the house. Yes.  Oh yes.
29:40She is all about picking up those eggs too and inspecting them. There's actually a video on  our Facebook page of her  inspecting the eggs and it was so funny because I just handed them to her and said, hey Lila, just put them in there. And so  she started looking and she was inspecting and putting them back in the bucket if she didn't like them. I love it. How old is she?  She's four.  Oh, she's a little one. She is. She's tiny.
30:09She's a little, as I call any kid under five. Yes. And when people have more than one, they're littles. Yeah.  So  all right, Katie, we're at half an hour. That was fast. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Yes. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. Have a great night and a great weekend. Thank you. too. All right. Bye.
 

Guldan Family Farm

Today I'm talking with Tim at Guldan Family Farm. 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 Tim at I think it's Guldan Family Farm, but I could be pronouncing it wrong, and he's in Newall, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Tim. How are you?  Good afternoon. It's pretty close. We say golden like the golden color, but you know what? We don't know for sure. So as long as it's close to the term, hey you, I answer to it. And it's too and well.
01:23Yeah, you must be a dad. You must get hey you.  I've been a hey you for a long time.  Between there was a day at the farmers market a few years ago my wife was actually saying  Tim, Tim and then it went to Mr. Golden, Mr. Golden because I was a teacher at the time and then finally she said hey you and I noticed and turned around and I said what do you need? It was a it's a joke that doesn't die anymore.
01:45Oh, I know.  mean, I've had four kids and if they can't get my attention, they're like, hey, and if that doesn't work, say, hey, you. And I turn around and like, why are you being rude?  So yeah.  I always ask about the weather  at the beginning of the episodes, but I don't really need to ask because you're in New Ulm, which is not far from me. And Minnesota is having the first most glorious spring day we've had since last spring.
02:12It is looking finally like it's here. We had a couple of tease days earlier on, but yeah, today I'm sitting at a beautiful 77 and sunny on a nice calm,  maybe two mile an hour breeze day. So I have no complaints in my end.  My husband's been outside almost all day and he just put out the open  farm fresh eggs farm stand farm stand signs about half an hour ago. Oh, Yep.
02:38We're very excited. This is the earliest we've had the farm stand open and we've had the farm stand for this is the third year. So this is great. We have we have bedding plants for sale this year.  And  this is probably the first year since we moved here four and a half years ago that we're going to have asparagus for sale before the farmers market opens. Very nice.  Always a happy good day when you have asparagus.  Oh my God. This is
03:07This is the summer we have been waiting for. moved here in August of 2020. And with grand plans to have a farm to market garden and do all the things. And what we didn't take into account is that when you start from scratch, you have to build infrastructure. So that's what the last three years have been spent on. Yeah, there's that minor detail.  So this is the summer that we have been.
03:33working toward for three and a half years. We're so excited. Okay, so this podcast is not about me, but I just had to get that out or a joke on it. Tell me about yourself and what you guys do at your farm. Well, my name is Tim Golden and I'm, we, I am now the proud owner operator of Golden Family Farm. I'm actually the second generation running the vegetable version of this farm. Although the farm itself, excuse me, has been the family since the Homestead Act one way or another.
04:02And so we're pushing close to 170 years in the family.  And as it sits now, I'm operating 25 acres of fruits and vegetables.  Very nice.  Do you have the,  I don't know what it's called. It's a thing they give you when you buy a home that lists the original plot and who signed the paperwork for it. Do you have that for your place?  I have, I believe it's.
04:28I don't know if you'd say it's original, if it's reproduction, but it is a certificate, you know, that has the President of the time, President Buchanan's signature on it, dedicating this, you know, the portion to the owner at the time, which would have been a, I believe it was a Joseph Reinhart was his name. So it's kind of cool. We've got that hanging in the hallway. Nice. Yeah. Our thingy, whatever it's called, there's a specific name for it, but I can't think of it right now. President Lincoln was the one who signed ours.
04:59Oh, nice. Yeah, I was reading back through it I was like,  honey, did you see this? And it was the very first owner. And I showed it to my husband and he was like, as in President Abraham Lincoln, I said, Yep.  My parents found the certificate  actually buried in the wall of the original house that was here. They had hoped to salvage it, but it was beyond, beyond  repair.
05:26And so they were trying to find things out. found all sorts of weird knickknacks in the walls and whatnot. And  that was one of the specialty items. Yeah, it's I love history and knowing that President Lincoln was the one that signed that piece paper is really cool to me. So I'm always thrilled when people know the history of their property.  OK, so so what  I don't even have to ask the question correctly.
05:53Are you having the farm support the farm or do you have a job outside of the farm? The farm supports the farm. However, I do have another job in my off season that works out enough that I need something to do, of course,  actually.  I for quite a few years, I juggled.  I was also a full time teacher  and tried to do this at the same time. So the months of September, October, and obviously, you know, April and May were just the end of me. I could not continue doing that.
06:22And so finally had things squared away enough that I made the plunge, put it all on the farm end with just thoughts of, you know, getting my CDL and driving school bus in the off season like my dad did. Well, as it turned out, they ended up having some full-time seasonal work where they could use help in the shop. And so it works out really nicely right now. I have a sort of an open end agreement that when the farm season winds down, I just sort of pick up working full-time in the shop, working on maintenance on school buses.
06:48And when the farm ramps up, I just sort of casually start disappearing from the shop to go back and focus on the farm again.  Well, that's good work if you can get it. It  works well.  So what do you grow at the farm?  Oh, gosh, that is the money question.  As it sits, I'm at about 50 different crops with about 150 different varieties within that.  So as we see everything from asparagus to zucchini. Oh, from A to Z, yeah. Yep.
07:15Okay. Like fennel. mean, I'm not growing fennel. Sorry. No.  Well, we grow fennel. we'll get that covered.  Apparently people love it for the base of the plant for stir fries. Stir. I didn't know this because fennel tastes like licorice to me. So I don't really eat it. I'm the same way.
07:38Oh, in the background, my dog is losing her mind because we put the open sign for the farm stand out today and I think somebody just pulled in and she is a very good watchdog. So for anybody listening, that would be Maggie, the mascot of a tiny homestead. Well, that's a positive.  Our  quote unquote guard dog is the worst one on planet earth. If you show up in any random vehicle and he sees you, Boomer will just simply smile and say, hi, welcome, make yourself at home. And that's about the extent of it.
08:07Well, you don't have a watch dog. You have a welcome dog. Exactly. Yeah, we specifically wanted a watch dog for our place and we got her at a day shy of eight weeks old. She discovered her bark at about six months old and she has never lost it again.  Fair enough. So and that's okay. It's not too bad on the recording. So it's fine. She's doing her job. I appreciate her very much.
08:34Yeah, exactly. There's always weird noises when I talk to people on the podcast because everybody has a farm or a homestead. So they have dogs or they have donkeys or they have cows. You never know what you're going to hear. So who do you sell your produce to? Do you send it out to a broker or do you sell it at farmers markets or what do you do? We are still the main outlet for it. So we go to farmers markets in Mankato three days a week once it opens.
09:03and then also in New Ulm two days a week. And then we also have a CSA program with around 150 members, give or take, depending on the season.  And then every now and then I've got a few restaurants that I like to support where I can. So we have a couple of little deals where  I trade food for their cooked food. So that works out pretty well in the end too. That's amazing. We don't have a deal like that yet, although you just gave me an idea. I'm going to have to look into that. Just got to have a little credit on the  refrigerator somewhere and say, hey,
09:32I'm here for breakfast. What can you make for me?  Yeah, absolutely. That's brilliant. I'm going to lose my mind because she's not usually this loud and it's driving me crazy.  Okay. So do you guys have animals on the farm too or is it just plants? It was just plants for quite a while and then about,  I want to say about close to seven years ago now,  I had the harebrained idea to bring cattle back here like there had been for many, many years ago.
10:01And so I started a small scale beef cattle operation where I max out at about, you know, 11 or 12 animals and just try to keep that rotation going, selling direct to the consumers on that end by the quarter. And it's been a nice, you know, little sideline business. Any more and it would become an ordeal. I try to stay away from those. I like to keep it as just nice little, if I can keep that side job to 15 minutes a day or less on shores, that's fine with me. Awesome. You sound like you love what you're doing.
10:29I feel like you are just tickled at what you've chosen to do. definitely enjoy it. You know, I grew up doing this. Actually, my parents started the vegetable version of this operation back in, I believe, was 1987. And I was only a hair over two years old when we planted the first few strawberry plants. And there was a lot of learning the hard way of figuring out what can you do? What can't you do with various equipment pieces? What are the losing battles? What are the winning ones? And so I like to say
10:57When people say we must really know what we're doing, that's not the case. We've just gotten lucky many, many times and kept a record of when we've gotten lucky and find the patterns to what works and what doesn't. And so it's, it's been on my mind for a long time that I wanted to take this over. And so when I had the opportunity to do it, jumped at it and really haven't looked back since. And I think you told me when, but I forget you told me at the beginning. When did you take it over?  I officially took over the operation. Oh gosh, I would say close to now.
11:27About eight or nine years ago,  my oldest daughter Olivia had  been born the previous year when I took over and I was still living in town. And so the first year that I was officially running it on my own, I was still living in town, heading out to the farm back and forth several times to make everything work out. Then thankfully the next year my dad said, you know what, how about we just trade?  And so  thankfully I was able to be around the family a lot more by actually living on the farm as opposed to having to run back and forth.
11:56Yeah, that gets to be a real grind because you're on the road so much and then you're spending so much time at the farm that you get home and the kids are like, who are you? Where'd you come  from? And the perk is now I can just stop in the house for a quick bite or eat and see them playing around in the yard. They'll come out and visit me when I'm working in the nearby or they'll run up to the field with me. So it's nice to have them having those same opportunities to play around outside and see things happening and be around me as much as they want to that I had when I was a kid.
12:25Yeah, one of the things that I really appreciate about this lifestyle, whether it's homesteading or farming or ranching or whatever, is that dads are around so much more and you can be so much more hands on and in the presence of the kids because my dad worked as a person who repairs medical equipment at hospitals and he worked, he left the house at like 530 in the morning and he didn't get home till 530 at night and
12:54When we were little, we didn't really see him. And then when we were in school, we were doing homework and then hanging out with friends. So weekends were like prime time to hang out with dad, but he was always working on something. So I would have really liked to have spent more time with my dad when I was a kid. And I love him. He's fantastic. But it would have been really nice to know him better when I was growing up, if that makes sense. I'm  really.
13:22I'm very excited about the fact that men are now more in the child raising part than just moms. And I can't say I'm taking any credit here because my wife definitely does.  She's around the kids way more than I am on her schedule as things go. you know, it's nice that we're both able to work together to make things happen. She has supported me in making that transition from careers to doing this. She knew it was on something I had wanted to do.
13:51And when we were even dating, even for a warner said, here's what I'm already doing, you know, when my parents were still running it.  my plan is to take it over. So we  were able to work together and make this still  make this dream still happen. And she's still able to follow her career path. And I'm still keep mine going. And the farm's still standing to this day. So I call that a win. Well, one of the things in your story that's amazing to me is that you're doing.
14:17You're doing big scale farming, but you're doing it in a small scale way for selling it.  Cause most people who have as much acreage as you have are doing, you know,  field crops like corn or soybeans or whatever. Yep. And that's what it's not good for the, for the earth to do that as I've been told.  Well, we've
14:41There was a book actually, I'm trying to think of the name of it, that my dad had that he showed me when I was in high school. And it's called, How to Make $100,000 Off of 25 Acres. I believe it's what it's called. It came out, I want to say in the early eighties, like 1983 or something like that is the year on it. And I remember I bought, I found it online a couple, a few years back. I remembered that my dad had it and I bought a few copies, gave it to some of friends of mine who were also, you know, in sort of similar lines of work, if you will. And it really just outlines what
15:11Another person's vision was on how to use that amount and utilize it to the best of its potential with still catering to alternative style farming, if you will.  And as much as I'm not following a lot of what that book proposes,  because their  big focus there was actually not on farmers markets.  A big piece is being located near suburbs and getting people to come to the farm. And we're actually
15:35I'm almost 180 degrees off of that. I don't want people coming out here  except for custom orders.  Cause I mean, the big difference that the book mentions and it's absolutely accurate is the labor end on the way that we operate. And so I'm very grateful  that I'm able to hire, um, depending on the year, anywhere from 12 to about 20, um,  youth, whether they be middle or high school, or even sometimes young adults, that'll work for a few mornings a week.
16:02And there's a few more that stick around for a few more hours and help with cleaning and sorting  and helping at farmers markets. And so  the biggest reason that I can give that we're able to be successful doing this is because I am able to find the help and that without the help that I have, if any of them are ever listening, I could not do this without them. And so I always have to make sure that I am  constantly being very appreciative and grateful and taking care of my workers to  keep them happy, to keep them out here. You are a good man, Tim. Good job.
16:32Thanks. Okay. Your voice is getting rougher and rougher as we go. So I think we're just going to make this a short one so your voice doesn't give out completely, I do have one more question. started a new thing on the last episode that I recorded two days ago. At the end of every episode from now on, I'm going to ask the person I'm talking to, to tell me a word that describes your place. What word would you use to describe your farm?
17:00Oh,  one word.  Mm-hmm.
17:08I'm going to go with legacy. All right.  Big piece of that was that this whole idea was my mom's  background of how are we going to survive the 80s farm crisis? And she threw out the idea, let's try strawberries. And that turned into let's try kohlrabi.  And before we knew it, we were able to transition completely out of  your commercial grains and able to keep this farm going.
17:33and turn it into the success that has managed to stay up until today and hopefully will be into the near future. think legacy is a fantastic word and it is entirely appropriate here. And I love that you're carrying it on. That is wonderful. Tim, thank you so much for your time and I would love to have you back when you're not just coming off laryngitis and we can talk more. I'd love to be back. All right, cool. We'll set it up for fall when you're not as busy.
18:01Sounds wonderful. Well, thank you again for the invite and you take care. All right, you too. Thanks so much. Yep. Bye bye. Bye.
 

Higher Calling Homestead

Today I'm talking with Raquel at Higher Calling 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 Raquel  at Higher Calling Homestead. Good afternoon, Raquel. How are you? Hey, how are you today?  I'm good. It's  gray and cloudy and rainy here and I'm kind  of in that very mellow, I could take a nap, but I can't take a nap space.
01:24I gotcha. It's the opposite here. It's warm and sunny. We were supposed to have storms today, but it turned out to be a beautiful day so far. So  I love you. I'm looking forward to the first really  moderate, beautiful spring day. I can understand that. Yeah, we've just started getting there. Really, really nice winds here in Tennessee within the last couple of weeks. It's heating up quick. I'm like, okay, it's not summer yet. So what's going on?
01:51Mother nature is absolutely insane and has been for about two and a half years now. That's what's going on. I'd have to agree. Okay. So you have a homestead, but you also have a rabbit tree. And usually I say, tell me about yourself and what you do, but I'm just going to dive in with my questions about rabbits because we tried a couple of years ago to raise rabbits for meat and we failed miserably. So.
02:20If I tell you what we did, can you tell me maybe an idea of where we went wrong? Yeah, I can definitely pray to help. I do want to preface this by saying that I started our rabbitry with the intention of  doing the meat rabbits.  We started back in, you know, like COVID times. And  that was the intention and do like chickens and rabbits for me because the world was shutting down. was like, want to become more self-sufficient just in case this happens. And I quickly realized
02:49that I loved raising rabbits, but I was not one of the people that was going to be able to do it for me.  Yeah. I, number one, I couldn't be part of the butchering.  I flat out told my husband and my son, said, if we do this,  I am, I am more than happy to help take care of them. I am more than happy to cook the meat once  it's just meat.  But I, but when you bring that rabbit to me, when it's dead, has to be footless, tailless.
03:18headless, skinless, because I'm going to fall in love with these things and it's going to kill me. It's hard, you know? it's like if I was in a position to have to feed my family, I definitely, definitely would be able to do it, but I'm not there. And I find it fascinating for people that can do that. And I follow some pages, you know, and I've watched the process and everything, and it's not like I shy away from seeing it, but it's just not for me. And I use the rabbits, you know,
03:47I use their manure for our gardens and I love them. They have a great life and I raise them for pets, but just the meat rabbit thing ended up not being my thing.  Yeah. And like I am just terrible about killing animals.  I,  I will stomp on a bug faster than you can say my name, but if it's fuzzy, I can't do it. It doesn't matter what the reason is. I can't do it.
04:14I can see that.  what ended up happening with your rabbitry? Like where did you think you went wrong with it? Well, we thought we were being smart. We got, we got two does and a buck proven buck. One of the does was proven. One of them was a new doe  and we bought them from people who were raising rabbits had had good luck with their rabbits  and brought them home and put them in the right size touches and gave them rabbit food. I can't remember what it was now, but you know,
04:43whatever it was that they needed, they got. the lady that we got the rabbits from said to give them Timothy hay.  And  I think Timothy hay is amazing. I love how it smells. And I was like, yay, Timothy hay. Okay, yes, that's great. And we put the doe with the buck, because you don't put the buck with the doe in her hutch, because she'll get mad and hurt him.  And they did the job  and that one got pregnant  and had babies.
05:13And those, there were nine, three of them died due to heat, because it was of course the hottest day at the very beginning of June and we didn't know that it was too hot. So ended up bringing the mama and the babies in the house. had, I think we ended up with five, two of them died that were left out of the nine. So I think we had five, four. And got to have baby rabbits in a container with mom in our house for like a month.
05:39That was amazing. Baby rabbits are very, very cute. And got to hold them every morning and talk to them and pet them. They loved being held because we did it every day.  Blah, blah, blah. Raised them. They were healthy. They did great. The other rabbit  never got pregnant.  I have no idea why  I really wanted her to. She looked like a wild rabbit, but she was not. She was a domestic rabbit.  She was very
06:09You know how  the wild rabbits are that  weird brown where they have like white and gold in their brown hair? Right. She was that color. was gorgeous and I really wanted babies from her and no babies. so we kept some of the babies and we actually got a couple more  males from a lady down the street who was also raising rabbits.  And we tried breeding  the new males with the two females.
06:39never got pregnant.  The only thing I can chalk this up to is that maybe the females were too fat because of the timid the hay because they ate a lot of it.  So we gave up, we butchered the rabbits that we had and they were meat and that was the end of us raising rabbits. So  that's my rabbit story. I'm sticking to it.  And  can you give me any idea what we could have done differently? Cause I'm like rabbits are supposed to um like bunnies.
07:08Right. Yeah, exactly. Like that's where the saying like rabbits come from what's going on here. So there could have been, you know, a couple things. So like in the heat of summer and things like that, you mentioned it was hot, the bucks can actually go sterile, but I know you got one litter from the other dough. So that's, you know, unlikely that if you bred them around the same time period, you would have been, you know, suddenly sterile.
07:33The weight, like you mentioned on the females, that can be an issue, but I don't think it would be from Timothy Hay because honestly,  we do,  excuse me, we do Timothy Hay from the time they're babies all through their life.  I'm not  one that likes to do the alfalfa because around four months of age,  the alfalfa is fine for them as babies, but it actually becomes to where it has too much calcium  and things for their body once they become adults. And it can actually be really bad for their kidneys.
08:03But the alfalfa is so sweet that a lot of times they get spoiled. And then when you need to take them off of that, they don't want to change and they don't want Timothy. So I do Timothy from the time, like I put it in their nest boxes so that when they start munching on hay, that's what they get a taste for. And I've never had any issues with Timothy hay.  Now, if you don't have a really complete feed, you know, if there's any kind of vitamin deficiency or anything like that going on,
08:30It could affect things, but maybe that one female just wasn't fertile or had something going on in her reproductive system or  something like that. I don't think it was a Timothy Hay issue. I heard your other podcast with that and I was thinking on that. I don't think that it would have been a Timothy Hay because I've never had any issues with that.
08:53Okay, so it probably wasn't the Timothy Hayes fault, which means it probably wasn't my fault, and I'm okay with that. I definitely wouldn't think it was anything that you were doing, for sure. mean, weather and environment and everything, you know, can come into play. And that's why it can be frustrating, because you hear like, oh, like rabbits, it's going to be easy. It's not always easy, you know?
09:13Yeah, a lot of this homesteading stuff seems like it's going to be easy. And then you're like, well, this is not as easy as I have been led to believe.  No, it's such a learning curve. Everything. It's just, you know, something else to learn all the time. Yeah. I just chalk it up to dumb bunnies, dumb bunnies. And we moved on to other things because I was like, I'm not spending  money on feed for these bunnies if they're not going to earn their keep. Yeah. Did you try a couple of times like to breed that same doe that didn't get pregnant? Yeah.
09:43Yeah. I don't know. It makes me think that something was just, you know, with her, maybe. Yeah. To the point that the second and I mean, sorry, third and fourth time we tried,  actually kind of stepped back and watched to see if they were even doing the deed as it were.  the black bunny, the male that got the white bunny that got pregnant, he
10:07He did what he was supposed to do and did the fall off and the whole thing. I'm like, well, he's clearly doing his job. Maybe he's broken. Yeah, it  very well could be, you know, something just with her that just, you know, she wasn't able to produce. Yeah. I work with him and sometimes, you know, that happens.  I was so sad because I really wanted to have bunnies out of those two that were like unusual looking because I figured with her, with her coloring and him being a black
10:36rabbit they would have some really pretty babies but it did not happen. That's too bad. Maybe try it again sometime when you  fill up to give it a shot again because I mean it is fun and rewarding and  it's really great  raising rabbits but it can be frustrating.  Well I don't regret trying it because I'm not going to lie it was pretty special having these little baby bunnies on my kitchen table in their container.
11:05every morning. Like I would get up, get my coffee, sit down and just watch them.  And the mom, the mom was used to us picking them up. So she'd come over and say hi too. And she was like, you're to pick me up and I don't pick up adult rabbits. They kick and they hurt. Yeah. A lot of people think, you know, like, the babies, the mom's going to eat them if I touch them. But you know, mama gets used to your scent  and taking care of her every day. So then when babies come along, it's usually not an issue to handle the babies.
11:34gets them, you know, tame and used to you. So yeah, and it's a lot easier to deal with them when it comes time to find them new homes or to turn them into freezer food.  If you can handle them. And that sounds really callous, but it's not  because the less you stress out an animal, the better it is for the animal and you.
11:57Absolutely. That's what it's all about, you know, giving them the best home while they're with you, whether you're raising them for food or for pets or whatever your goal is.  Yeah. Did you hear the part of the story about the fact that my dog wanted to meet one of the babies and I didn't even think about it and  baby, baby rabbits damn well know that dogs are prey animals. Yeah. Yeah. They, uh, they have that built in them very early. think. yeah. Yep. My dog is the sweetest, most gentle.
12:26loves it when the barn kittens come out of the barn for the first time is a mama to them while they're growing up. She wanted to see this baby rabbit so bad. And I didn't even think about it. put my hand down with the bunny cupped in my hand  and Maggie went to sniff it and that baby rabbit, it was probably three weeks old.  eee! And  I went, oh I was like, I'm an idiot.
12:50That's really dumb. I should not have done that. It didn't die. It didn't have a heart attack. But I was like, we're never doing that again, Mary Evelyn. That was a bad idea.  So anyway, I was just wondering if you had any idea what we did wrong. But I don't think we did anything wrong. just think that the rabbit didn't have the right biological makeup to reproduce. think that's what we're going to go with.  Wow, that was a lot. That was a lot of words.
13:19Okay, so now that I got that answered, let's get back to the original question.  Tell me about yourself and what you do, because I know you do stuff other than rabbits. Yeah, we do a little bit of everything. So we are a small hobby farm. are in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. It's just right outside of Nashville.  And we moved from Orlando, Florida almost 10 years ago now.  And  we had that dream just to kind of have a simpler way of life.
13:47you know, live on some property. So we got five acres.  We're still actually in a neighborhood. So we have the best of both worlds. We have our neighbors and, but yet we have five acres so that we're able to do a little bit of our homestaying journey. So we raised several breeds of chickens. We have the rabbits, of course we do Welsh harlequin ducks  and we've started mealworms, you know, for the chickens. And then we also have a little farm standout front where we just sell different.
14:14things depending on what season it is. So that's been fun as well. Very nice.  I have to ask, are you originally from the South? Cause you have very little Southern accent. I lived in Florida most of my life. So  mom and dad were split up early, so he kind of moved around.  So I picked up little bits of accents, I think from everywhere. It's very, very clean. It's a very clean speaking voice.  then mom was always home base in Florida.
14:44So that was where I spent most of my time growing up. Okay. I am hyper aware of people's accents and tones of how they speak because of the podcast and because I always have been,  And so when somebody's like, when I see somebody from Mississippi, I'm like,  huh, they're either going to sound like  really Southern, you know, real Southern draw or they're not going to have anything at all.
15:09And I'm always amazed when the person starts talking. I'm like, I'll be damned. They don't sound anything like I thought they were going to sound. Yeah. And Tennessee is funny because different parts of Tennessee, you know, they talk so different. You know, over in East Tennessee, there's a lot of twang and my sister lives over there and she's grown up over there. And if I'm on the phone with her for 10 minutes, I do get a little bit of twang going on. Uh huh. Yup. Okay.
15:38So you said harlequin ducks. What  are they?  So,  well, harlequin ducks, they're a  pretty large sized duck  and, you know, people use them for, you know, multipurposes. You can have them as pets, you can use them for meat, and of course you can use them for eggs. So we sell their eggs at our farm stand and we hatch eggs, you know, for people to be able to have their own ducklings.
16:04Um, so they're pretty cool breed. just got started with them last year. A friend of mine, Jennifer Bryant with Brian's Roost was raising them. And so I, um, had got some from her and just absolutely fell in love with them. So they are, um, they're pretty cool. And I mean, some people, you know, need the duck eggs because they have a egg allergy for some reason, the duck eggs might not affect them like chicken eggs, I guess. So a lot of people, you know, want them for that reason. So it's pretty interesting.
16:34Yeah, I keep hearing all kinds of good things about duck eggs and  it's really great to have friends in your community who are raising different things than you are and you get the chance to maybe get some of that and bring it to your farm.  That's something that's been really, really cool.  It's just meeting other people that do different things and  getting tidbits from them and learning other things, whether you...
17:00end up taking that on yourself and try it, you what they're doing or just kind of soak it all in and think, oh, that's not for me. You know, it's just like always, you know, people in a homesteading type of stuff are always willing to share, you know, their knowledge. Yeah, I freaking love it. I think it's so amazing and such a great community to be part of. And I don't have a whole lot of homesteading friends right now. have  one.
17:27She lives about five miles away and they have O'Connor Family Acres. O'Connor is their last name.  And she texted me the other day and she said, she says, is there any chance that we could sell our duck eggs in your farm stand this summer? And I hadn't even thought of it. I don't know why I didn't think to ask her she wanted to.  I said, I think it's fine. Let me check with the husband. And I asked Kyle, my husband,  if it was okay.  And he was like,  yeah. He said, I don't.
17:55think there's any laws that say we can't. He said, you want to look into that? And I was like, yeah, but I don't think there's any law that says we can't sell her duck eggs in our farm stand five miles away.  So we're going to be doing that. And that gives me the chance to throw five bucks into the.
18:15the money thing and buy some of her duck eggs and actually use them in my cakes. I'm all good with It's supposed to be like a baker's secret, know, like the duck eggs. A lot of people swear that it makes their baked goods so much richer  and, you know, just taste so much better. So a lot of people buy the duck eggs just for that reason that are really, you know, into baking. Yeah, exactly. And I've never used duck eggs in my whole life. And so I'm very much looking forward to her ducks starting to lay.  They haven't yet.
18:44and getting some in the farm stand because it's also a way to get people more interested in coming to see what's in the farm stand.  So this is a win-win-win all the way around for everybody involved and that's one of things I love about this community of people.  So  there was something else I saw on your Facebook page. You're doing all kinds of stuff. What do you want to tell me about what you're doing?
19:12Yeah, so we're just always learning, know, trying to try little tidbits and to find out if, you know, they're for us or not. And so I try to have this like two seasons rule. And that's where like out of two seasons of the year, I'm going to either add something or I'm going to learn something or I'm going to share something with somebody else and teach them, you know, I'm going to do something to grow like my homestead, not to overwhelm myself to where I have so much going on that I can't handle it. Cause we have to keep that perspective of course, but
19:42You know, like this year I want to learn more about like beef tallow and we have a local farm here that we get beef and you know, the kidney fat from to be able to make the tallow. And I haven't really dived into that yet, but that's something I'm learning and kind of researching because there's all these like body products out of the beef tallow that are supposed to be really good.  um, you know, I'm interested in adding goats. So eventually I would like to do that. It has been things I've lost my mind, but  he would like to do that. So, you know, just.
20:10I'm trying to always add just a little something. Right now, you know, we just added the farm stand a few months ago. So, you we do like the fresh eggs and sourdough and beeswax wraps. I still am looking for a homemade dishwashing liquid and I've tried a couple different recipes and they always fail.
20:35And so I keep digging and I keep trying and I keep digging and I keep trying and I keep failing. And so I always come back to Dawn dish soap because it seems to be the  best  one I can find. And I did try, I tried making a dish soap  and it called for vinegar and it called for something else that was an oil. And I'm like, this is never going to work because vinegar and oil don't mix.
21:01You don't make salad dressing where it stays mixed all the time if you have vinegar and an oil in it. And I knew, I knew it wasn't gonna work. And I tried it anyway and I ended up tossing it because it was useless. So sometimes  you can Google the hell out of the thing you're looking for and you will never find the solution. Yeah, absolutely. I've never tried homemade dish liquid. That's definitely something I haven't tried but I can't see how, like you said,
21:29vinegar and oil would go together. So that's interesting. No. And I read it and I was like, I'm going to try it because maybe this is some magic formula I don't understand. And maybe it actually works. And no, it did not. And for the longest time, for like two years, I made my own laundry detergent with the Borax and the stuff. There's all kinds of recipes for it online. And it worked for a while.
21:58And  what happens is it tends to clog up your washing machine. Yeah, that's what I've wondered about. Because I thought about that too,  about trying that. But I was worried, know, with all the HE washers and everything and you have to have HE special soap, like is it going to end up clogging it up? Yeah. And what it does is it gets in there and it doesn't like, it doesn't make your washing machine fill up with water and pour all over the place, but it just gets gunked in there.
22:27And it starts to stink. So after a year and a half, my  washer smelled funny and my husband took it apart.  the part in the middle, it twists underneath that was all gook. And I  thought to myself, why can't any of this work sometimes?  Sometimes stuff works, sometimes it doesn't. Yeah. And the thing is the clothes were fine.
22:56The clothes were clean, they didn't smell like perfume, they didn't smell stinky, they were fine. But after that year and a half, forget it, we had to clean the whole thing out and put it back together.  So that was unfortunate. And I don't mean to be a bummer, it's just that I want to make clear that sometimes solutions are not actually solutions, they are problems. Oh, absolutely. So we've definitely tried things that we ended up.
23:23you know, being like, this isn't for us, kind of like you with the rabbits, you know, like we tried quails and my friend, Rebecca Lynch, she raises amazing quail and I so badly want to get some from her and I see all the things you can do, you know, with the quail and it's just as it means for me, you know, sometimes you try things and it just doesn't work out. Like one could have heard. Yeah. And sometimes you really, really want to do something and you do the research and you think you got it covered.
23:52And then you look at how much it's going to cost you to start the new thing  and you go,  hmm, maybe not right now.  Yeah. Or time, know, so many things it's like,  you have to have the time to dedicate to it, you know, and like I work full time along with, you know, trying to do the whole homestead thing. So some things I really want to do and I just have to keep it in check and be like, you're not going to be able to do this.  Or at least not right now.  Exactly.
24:22And I always get frustrated with the not right now. And I have to remind myself that not right now doesn't mean never. Very true. And that keeps me sane because for a while there, I really wanted to get two goats. I wanted to two goat kids. I really did. When we were talking about buying this place five years ago, well, almost five years ago.
24:49I was like, and we can't get baby goats and we can get this and we can get that. And my husband went,  your excitement is overruling your sense. It's definitely  easy to do to get all excited and gung-ho about something. And  sometimes our husbands have to tell us no.  Yes. And sometimes he gets a little bit out of control and I'm like, are you sure you want to put 5,000 tomato plants in the garden this year?
25:18So yeah,  it's a give and take and it's a check and balance system in the best relationships and thank God it is. But when I said we can get baby goats and we can get a mini cow and we can get, we can get, said,  no, what we can do  is we can give our 10 or five chickens  more room to move and we can get more chickens. Let's start there.  So chicken math hasn't gotten you yet, then you've kept.
25:47five chickens and been able to stay with five chickens because we were starting with five. You're funny. You're very, very amusing. No, no, we had 30 chickens  at this time last year. Oh, wow.  And some of them, we  got to replace other chickens and we just hadn't gotten rid of the old chickens yet. So that's part of the reason we had 30 chickens.  And then some of them got sick and not from bird flu, but just
26:16chickens get sick and keel over and die for no apparent reason. This happens. I've heard from lots of people.  And so we ended up culling the last 10 last fall because they weren't giving us any eggs because they were just not. And it wasn't because of the change in light. They just were not laying.  And we were like, I don't want to feed chickens that aren't giving us eggs through the winter time. That's crazy.
26:40And then we got 12 more back a month and a half ago. Brand new chickens got the first eggs from these chickens ever.  And so thankful for them because as I keep saying in the last, I don't know,  25 episodes,  chicken eggs from the store suck lemons.  Yeah, they do. Once you've had the fresh eggs,  it's hard to go back to store bought eggs for sure.
27:05Yeah, and when you're paying $8 a dozen, I would rather feed my chickens and have yummy eggs than pay $8 a dozen for eggs that taste like nothing. with the egg prices have just been crazy lately. Uh-huh. And I talk about this ad nauseum like I just should, I should ban talking about chickens for the next month. But yeah, it's when you go from and
27:34850 square foot house on a tenth of an acre  to  a little over 1500 square foot house on 3.1 acres.  Your brain and your heart don't necessarily communicate well. And that's what happened with us. So. I completely understand that. And we moved from Orlando. That was the big thing is I was like, I want to have chickens. I've always had a fascination with them. I always  had a fascination with.
28:00farming and homesteading and I just I wanted my own chickens. And so we would look at houses and that was the one rule I told my realtor is if you know they have a HOA or you know they're in the city limits where I can't chickens I don't want to see the house and my husband you know would see this amazing house and I'm like I don't want to go look at it I can't chickens there I'm not gonna sell down there you know and so he's like really we're gonna give up this house because you can't chickens on my absolutely so we ended up finding
28:31you know, the perfect spot and five acres. And I went out and got my first four chickens, you know, from Tractor Supply and,  um, and it just, you know, grew and grew and my love for them grew. And now I have, you know, you want to know how many chickens I have. And I raised five different breeds and  shipped them all over the U S and so it's just become a whole thing.  um, but I can understand like all of a sudden you get overexcited about something. I have the space, I have, you know, the means to do it. And it's easy to kind of.
29:01just dive in head first.  Yeah, luckily my husband grabbed me by my feet and said, Whoa, there baby.  The thing about chickens that just, I don't know, I'm going to say it grosses me out is they look so soft and so nice. And then you get to their legs and their legs look like snakeskin and it just freaks me the hell out.  It's funny. It's not my favorite thing.
29:30and I have been very honest about this on the podcast with people I know, with little kids who want to see the chickens when they come. They will ask about it. They notice it. They're like, why are their legs like snakes? And I'm like, because that's how God made them. And I don't actually know the answer, so I can't tell them.
29:54Little bullies want to actually touch their legs because they think they're going to feel like a snake. And I've been told that they do. I don't want to touch chicken legs. think it's gross.  So there's, there's really silly things on the homestead that you never really think about until you're up close and personal with the thing that you thought you wanted.  Cause we got chickens back when we lived in the old house, the small house with the 10th of an acre.
30:24And I never even thought about like  really what chickens are  made up of, how they're built. Cause I would just go out and open the coop and grab eggs and come back in. And my husband and my sons would do the chores and that was all cool.  And then we had to move them here, which meant we had to bring them here and put them in a temporary fenced in area, move the coop, get it set up, put chickens back in. And I got to help with that.
30:52And I ended up brushing my hand against their legs. And I was like, that is gross. And my husband's like, you're so weird. I said,  well, yes, what was your first clue?  And he said, he said, you have been cooking your whole life. He said, you touch carcasses  all the time. A chicken, you touch steak, you touch, touch ground burger.  He said, chicken legs, like literally alive chickens legs are the thing that grosses you out.
31:23Like, yeah.  That's stunning. Yeah. He was like, I do not understand. said, well, you're the one who has ADD. I don't understand half the stuff you do.  And we just had a giggle fest over the whole thing. And he said, you like  running your hand down their back. I said, well, yeah, because the feathers are really soft. That's fine. But their legs just skeeve me out. And he was like,
31:52can understand. Conversations you never thought you would have with anyone, you know? Right.  So  anyway, I'm trying, we try,  we try, uh-huh.  I try  to keep the podcast a half an hour. We're there.  Thank you so much for your time. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Have a great evening, Raquel. I appreciate it. You too. Thank you.  Bye.
 

Shades of Green Permaculture

Today I'm talking with Brandy at Shades of Green Permaculture.
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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 Brandy Hall at Shades of Green Permaculture. Good morning, Brandy. How are you? I'm good. Are you in Georgia? Yeah, I'm in the Atlanta area. Okay. And is Shades of Green Permaculture based there? Yes, ma'am. We are based in the side of Atlanta.
01:24in the metro area indicator, which is to reduce the sun. Okay, cool. Is it nice there this morning? Oh, it's gorgeous. We had a nice rain and now the sun is shining. It's about 70 degrees. Thank goodness. Cause we had a bout of like 95 degree weather in the beginning of April. So I was excited about summer coming early. Yeah, that's a little much for April. And we had a really warm day in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago and I was like, this is so wrong.
01:54Yeah, there's something, it's like a cognitive dissonance because on one hand you're like, this feels so nice, the sun, and then you're like, wait, but it's too early.  Exactly. And  for the second morning in a row, we've got rain showers happening here. yeah, I'm just hoping that this remains a pattern of just a day or two of a light rain showers and then three or four days of sunshine. Cause I can't face another spring like last year where we got six weeks of rain in a row.  Oh my goodness.
02:24Yeah. And there comes a point where it's like, if you have the rain and then you've got the intermittent sun, the plants just love it so much versus just getting sun. Yeah. I really wondered if I had teleported to Washington state or Oregon last May and June, because I swear to you, I thought everything was going to mold. It was terrible.  So tell me about yourself  and Shades of Green permaculture.  So my name's Brandy Hall and I'm the founder and CEO of Shades of Green.
02:54firmaculture. I started the company in 2008. So we just celebrated our 17 year anniversary and we are a regenerative design, installation, maintenance and education firm based here in the Atlanta area. offer processes for our clients going everything from consultation through design and implementation and ongoing maintenance services, both
03:23horticulture services like bed maintenance and perennial plantings and organic all-electric solar powered lawn care. Really encouraging people to move toward polyculture lawns. And then we also offer digital education. So we've got a few thousand students located around the country and some international students that participate in our online design program called the regenerative backyard blueprint.
03:53Okay, so I have a few questions for you.  Number one, how did you get into this? What prompted you to start this business? I think there were a few things, know, some like early childhood experiences definitely set the course for me on this. And then, you know, when I started the company, I was looking for  work in this  arena.
04:19And there wasn't anything available. So I sort of just started my own thing so that I could do what I loved to do. But as a child, I grew up part-time in South Florida and part-time in Western North Carolina. My parents divorced when I was really young. And my mom and my stepdad had a nursery in South Florida, an ornamental plant nursery and a seed farm. And over the course of
04:45maybe 10 years or so in the nursery business, they became really, really allergic to and chemically sensitive to the kind of quote unquote, innocuous pesticides and pesticides that were spraying on the farm to the point where my stepdad was in a wheelchair, you know, swollen joints  for  a good part of maybe two years and having nosebleeds that were inexplicable that would last for an hour to two hours.
05:14He put up walks, my mom took over the nursery business and she had sort of escalating allergic reactions to  the  pesticides and herbicides that were sprayed. We lived in an agricultural area of South Florida.  So even though they stopped spraying, you long before their reactions started getting terrible,  it was just ambient, you know, it was environmental. So  Palm Beach County is where we lived in South Florida. They would do aerial spraying of the mosquitoes.
05:44all of the neighbors, you know, spraying for termites, all the neighboring farms spraying, you know,  crop dusting basically with herbicides and pesticides. And so, one of the final straws, my mom was, she had done a delivery of a neighboring farm and they had recently, you know, sprayed  the houses and she got out of the car, smelled it immediately, got back in, took Benadryl, went home, they,
06:13came to get me from school on the way to the hospital. And by the time we got to the hospital, she was convulsing so hard that she shook the door panel off of the inside of the car. Her hands were drawing up like she's in a stroke. So  very quickly, we moved to North Florida. They went through long detents, all organic, everything, no nail polish in the house, kind of level of  detent.
06:41and chemicals and we're able to recover, it kind of set the course of just seeing how toxic our environment and our landscape practices, our environmental practices in the US and then kind of juxtapose with growing up part-time in the Western North Carolina and spending so much time in the woods and on wagon trains and eating from the garden and drinking from the springs right around and one of the most biodiverse terrarium forests in the planet.
07:11set this early inquiry in motion of there's got to be a. That'll that situation with your mom and your stepdad will definitely wake you up. Holy cow. In ways that I didn't even realize as like a seven year old, eight year old teenager, you know, it wasn't until later on as I, as I started to get into this work in my twenties. I realized, this is, this is kind of the early.
07:41exposure that I had to when it doesn't go well really set it all in motion for me.  Wow. Wow. Well,  I'm  blown away by that story. That is not what I expected to hear.  Okay, so I was looking at your website and it says that your company is a B corporation. What is a B corporation? Letter B.
08:05letter B. So it means beneficial corporation and it's a third party designation, which like an organic certification, that's super rigorous. It's a global designation and companies like Patagonia and, and Jerry's, are notable ones. think there's a few thousand B corps, maybe 10,000 B corps registered internationally. And the premise behind the B corp is that it's not just about outfits. It's about
08:35you know, impact on the community, impact on employees, impact on the environment and those positive pieces are baked into both corporate laws and practices of perpetuity. So it's really about people and planet over profit. really, you know, kind of building on that besides people and planet over profit, seeing how profit is really impacted positively.
09:05by valuing people and community.  Okay. Thank you.  I did not have time to dig for what a B Corp was. So that was a perfect explanation  for those of us who have no idea what any of that means.  Okay. So, so do you  work for  like  cities that need your services or do you work for just the average person who wants to
09:35clean up and beautify their yard? We have a wide range of projects. So the bulk of our work is residential, I would say, but we also work with a lot of developers for new construction type projects. work with schools and nonprofits. We definitely have municipal clients. We've worked with several municipalities in the metro area  implementing productive urban landscapes.
10:02Yeah, so I would say it  runs the gamut for sure. A lot of farm clients, homesteaders.
10:10Basically, we're always looking for ways that we can say yes, because our goal is to empower people with the tools that they need to steward their land in good way. So I can look a lot of different ways.  Great. Productive urban landscape. Define that for me, for your own definition. What does that mean? Yeah. So when you think about just  our standard green spaces that we see within the city, you know, a lot of times they have ornamental plants, have,  you know, sod.
10:39They require that kind of maintenance from public works departments,  know, just mowing and blowing basically in a productive urban landscape is really about rethinking public spaces to produce food and medicine and pollinator.  You know, so those can look like orchards. We've done a lot of public orchards. We've done a lot of human scale, stormwater projects where we're sinking the water into the soil and then using that water that is larger than the soils to grow.
11:09native communities. So it's really just thinking about our green spaces beyond just ornamental, you know, the aesthetic,  mow and blow kind of approach that we tend to take.  Okay, great.  The small town that we used to live in, they used to have these big planters that they would put out in the springtime full of annual flowers, know, pansies or whatever.
11:40And every time I would walk by one, I would think, man, I wish that they would load those things up with herbs because people could just grab a sprig if they wanted to, you know?  And I kept meaning to say something to our neighbor who was on the city council. And every time I saw her, something else came up and I never mentioned it. But all I could see in my head  were these big old planters full of thyme and basil and
12:06rosemary and stuff that people could just grab some, you know? Right. And then those are perennial too. So rather than spending the budget on, you know, materials and labor year after year to plant annuals, you know, do it one time and then oregano and the thyme and the chives and all of it just comes down. I was, I was going to say I'm in Minnesota. Yes, chives are perennial here. And thyme is a,
12:32You never know whether it's going to come back  or not. We've had good luck with it, but  it gets freaking cold in January in Minnesota. Not everything survives. And rosemary does not overwinter here at all. Yeah. Rosemary even, you know, it will overwinter here until we get a hard winter.  Like a couple of years ago, was  seven degrees, which for us is insanely cold.  All the rosemary everywhere. But you know, the decade before that, was sliding.
13:02Yeah, back this, I think it was in January, we had one night that actually hit minus 25 degrees real temperature. And I was like, I live in the wrong state.  mean, I mean, there's a big thing here in Minnesota about we suffer through the winters to enjoy spring, summer and fall because it's so gorgeous here.
13:24That night I was like, thank God for my cozy, well insulated home because we would be freezing right now if we didn't have that. Yeah, it came with the Southern American, even memory, I don't know what it feels like. Yeah, and I've never been further south than Arlington. I think it's maybe Virginia. Yeah. So I don't have any experience with any...
13:51I've never been below the Mason Dixon line, really. Yeah, it's really weird. My  parents live in Maine, so I grew up in Maine.  And my  grandparents from my mom  lived in Illinois,  and my grandparents from my dad lived in Maine. So, of course, family vacations were every other summer.
14:16we'd go to Illinois and the grandparents in Illinois would come to Maine. So there was never any reason to go south of the Mason-Dixon line.  yeah,  I hear the South is beautiful.  I don't know that I would fit in very well because having been raised in Maine, I was brought up to be very, very direct and look people in the eye and do the firm handshake thing. And I don't think I would ever be very good at being a Southern belle. I think that I would probably suck at it.
14:47That's good. Yes. So, okay. I don't want to get too far off track because I do that all the time. And I'm like, I talked way too much on that one. So when you go and help residential folks get their stuff together, do you, is it a thing where you can go and get them started and then they can take it from there? Or are there people who are just like, come and do this every week or whatever, and I don't have to do it.
15:17are both? It's both. It's definitely both. So, you know, we take our clients through a pretty comprehensive design and installation  process. And then  at that point, they become sometimes they become caretaking clients, not always. So caretaking is our version of maintenance and that  covers both of our horticulture services and the lawn care.  And then within caretaking, offer
15:47We have a wide variety. We have some clients that want us to come weekly. They have higher need landscapes. We have some clients that want us to monthly or seasonally. So we try to accommodate the whole range. And the end goal, we always celebrate when we've, quote unquote, graduated or clients. We've done work to train them in how to interact with their landscape. have an understanding of to read it, to move plants around, what to look
16:17for, you know, and the types of landscapes that we do, are higher maintenance on the front end, you know, as plants are getting established for sure, than your typical just like mow and blow. But then once things are established and you really have an understanding of what you're looking for in the landscape and how to kind of interact with it on a seasonal basis, the maintenance needs really drop pretty significantly. So in terms of, you know, need for
16:44fertilizing and irrigation  and  regular pruning and cutting things back and mowing and all of those things. So we have a lot of clients that choose to work with us during our caretaking visits. It's part of like a garden coaching, just  an addendum to the service that we offer. You know, because I would say most of the people that engage  in permaculture firm are excited about growing food and they want to  know about the plants that they've put into their yards.
17:14Yeah, education was really a huge component.  Good.  Have you ever had someone call you or email you or however they contacted you  and say, just need somebody to do something with my property? And they have at the beginning, they have no interest in learning. And then they get converted over the course of the project. would say most of the time when people call us, they have a sense of what it is that we do and they're drawn to that.
17:44A lot of times, you know, when you have like a married couple, one might be more interested in the other is sort of like, well, I don't know, they my spouse wants to do it. So  just kind of  going along with it. And we've definitely seen some like major conversions happen in space where, you know, the, maybe the husband starts out, I don't know, I just like, she wants to be a great wife.  You know, and then by the end they've taken up the lawn and they're growing corn everywhere.
18:12And how does, how does it make you feel when that happens? I mean, are you, are you at the point where it's like, yeah, I knew that was going to happen. Or do you still get that little bubble of happy in your chest? I mean, it's so exciting when people just  start understanding possibilities that our landscapes hold in terms of feeding ourselves and feeding, you know, the non-human stakeholders as well.  Um, yeah, it's super exciting. You know, I think that there's, there's something to be said about, you know, as you're
18:42as you're interacting with your landscape  from an  ecological stewardship  perspective and see, oh, wow, the first time somebody harvests a strawberry or eats a fresh blueberry, there's these little micro moments that happen where  I think it opens up a whole world of possibility of what your landscape can do.  It can be a good steward, people get really excited.
19:12It's meaning, I would say, especially for folks that, know, that name is a major metropolis, know, 7 million people in the metro area. So, you know, the  urban,  the challenge that we're having in like urban and suburban.
19:32Lifestyle, I would say, is a lot of people would site, you know, 40 plus hours a week away from the landscape or garden, bringing kids and getting stuck in traffic and commuting and all of the things that kind of pull us out of our gardens. But I think there's something that's really helpful for people to find a reason to be in the area, to eat this food and to, you know, see a certain type of bird for the first time or.
19:59you know, notice that your moment is covered with like 20 different kinds of pollinators and those little, those little moments of like, Oh, I don't have to just escape to the middle of nowhere in order to like, you know, be immersed in nature. know, nature can be in Yes, nature should be in our own backyards. you're the gateway drug person to food scaping is what you are.  Yeah, we, you we don't usually refer to it.
20:29but  it's always part of it.  Permaculture can look very different depending on the goals of the particular client, but there's really three pillars that we talk about in the system. It's managing water as a resource,  building soil fertility by closing loops, waste streams on our site, and building communities that feed humans and wildlife.
20:57work together to increase the soil fertility. So whether the planting palette that you craft is really about food production or it's pollinator habitat or sunbird habitat or we have herbalists that have  engaged us before where their entire yard is just  an account for their herbal business. So the plants can really,  they can emerge.
21:25pillars of the regenerative landscape and they can really be crafted  in a that almost every landscape is going to have  some combination of producing food, medicine, beauty.  I absolutely love your enthusiasm for what you do. I mean, there's a saying that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. And I know that you work.  I know.  But  it's, I'm guessing that sometimes it doesn't feel like work for you. Oh, I'm...
21:55Absolutely. Yeah. And it's really fun. You know, when I got into this, was really because I wanted to do it and it wasn't really an option. And it's, you know, to like go out and get a job. So we're just gonna start referring this to clients and  we're company of 27 people, think. So it's really, you know, it's  really, to  just say, the company has grown and how other people get to do this.
22:25Our staff is amazing. I'm really ashamed of the work that we do. There's just so many people out there, know, spreading the good word.  Getting people hooked on growing good things without using bad things to grow them.  Exactly.  Well, I could have used you like 25 years ago when we decided to take our little tiny tenth of an acre lot and turn it into food.
22:54You're in Georgia and we were still in Minnesota, so that never would have happened. But we had to learn it on our own. And you might get a kick out of this. I've told the story a few times already on the podcast, but I will tell it again because I love it.  My husband's mom was going to be moving out of her house that she lived in for a very long time.  And she had gotten irises, these little, they're short irises. I don't think that the leaves get any more than six inches tall. And they put out these, these dark,
23:22purple or lavendery blue purple blossoms. She was going to dig those out and she was going to dig out lilies for her to take where she was going and she wanted to know if we wanted any. And we hadn't really done anything with plants at our place. We had a crappy lawn and that was about it. And we had a, I don't know what they're called, a little pine tree that was
23:49I called it the scrappy tree because it wasn't doing very well. was in front of our bedroom windows  outside.  And so we got these hand-me-down plants from her and put them in and they did really, really well. And I said to my husband, said, how do you feel about digging up the backyard and we grow food instead of crab grass?  And he was totally fine with it. And he discovered his love for  growing food  to the point that now where we live, have a
24:16I still don't have the exact numbers, but I think it's a hundred foot by 150 foot market garden every summer.  And so  my son just went to his girlfriend's grandma's house yesterday to help her dig up some plants and move them around because she wanted them switched.  And he came home with yellow and orange daylily roots for me.  And so I keep thinking that I am, we are the hand me down  farm.
24:45Cause we keep getting stuff from people cause they're like, I got all this stuff. don't want to throw it in the trash. I'm like, we'll put it in. Totally. Yeah. It's like the what? We always talk about how we have like an orphanage for all the lost plants in our, in our green space here. We're always constantly taking in plants. So yeah. We should have named, we should have named our place sanctuary farm and it would have been for plants, not for animals. Totally.
25:15But at least half of my peony plants that I have are hand-me-down peonies that we got from the old house, from neighbors,  from friends, from complete strangers on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace.  And this is our fourth spring here. And we put in  the first of the plants from the old house. First, that was all we had. So we put those in that first fall we were here. And this is the fourth spring.
25:44So we're going to have more peonies than we've ever had here in our new place  this year. I  am so excited because we have not, I'm going to jinx it, we have not had cold weather  and they haven't actually come up yet because we didn't take the stuff off of them. waiting so that when they do come up through, we're past the last frost date so they don't get tipped. Because for anyone who doesn't know,  if those little tiny bulbs get,  but not bulbs, buds.
26:14get bitten by frost they don't continue to grow so you get no flowers on that plant.  So I'm just keeping everything I have crossed that every freaking bud on all the peony plants blooms this year because I want it to be a sea of blooms.  I have white and coral and yellow and pink and burgundy.
26:39I'm so  excited, like I can't stand it. I hadn't really thought about it until we started talking. I'm like, oh my God, it's going to be a sea of beautiful flowers out there in June.  I will have to get out there and take pictures because they don't last long. It'll be a month.  It'll be a rolling month of different colors.
26:59I'm so excited. I can't stand it.  So anyway, my point being back 10 minutes ago, well, maybe, maybe two days ago, who knows?  Um, I was very excited to see my son show up with this bucket of lily roots because I can always use more lilies. That's  Always anything, anything that will we put in the ground  once and we just have to water it and pray it gets sun and it just takes care of itself.
27:29love the quality of plants that want to live. don't need a lot of food. Uh-huh. Yeah. We have some red Stelladora, I think is the name of the lily that we got from somebody and we threw them in over by the ditch. And they're not ditch lilies, but they're by a ditch. And we don't do anything with them. We don't even water them. And they have survived three years just through what nature has given them. They're beautiful.
27:59That's wild. Yep. Love it.  Absolutely love low maintenance, high beauty production plants. makes me so happy. I'm sure, I'm sure you are tickled when somebody's like, I would really like perennials. And you're like, let me tell you about what perennials grow in Georgia.  She's amazing woman.
28:28But you know, just like fruit trees, everything from hazelnut and tapioca, raspberry, fig, and cranberry, and bananas.  Avocados?  Yeah.  Oh, okay. Give it 10 years. I would like,  low-pot grows here, persimmons, Asian persimmons, and they're just so different from fruit, say. Fruit and nut trees, and then...
28:57know, you start getting into perennials. It's, you know, just a variety of native plants and, you know, perennial medges, kinds of things.  Can you, can you grow black raspberries in Georgia? Yeah, okay.
29:19any rubes seems to do.  Okay,  my mom in Illinois grew up picking black raspberries, wild ones. And we have them growing in our tree line on our property. And she lives in Maine. Black raspberries don't do very well in the area of Maine that she lives in.  And I brought her  black raspberries from our property. They were frozen.  And she made a black raspberry  pie.
29:47like a couple of weeks after we'd come back to Minnesota. And she called and she was like, thank you so much for bringing me black raspberries. I forgot how much I love them.
30:08Yeah, well, she'd been,  I don't know when I moved to Minnesota in, I don't even know now when it was over 30 years ago. I mentioned that there were black raspberries here on the hiking trails. And she was like, Oh, black raspberries are great. Da da da da da. And I said, they're really tart. And she's like, yeah, but if you make them into jam, they're no longer really tart. And I said, okay, well, I don't can and I don't make jam. So that doesn't help me.  And
30:36When we realized we had black raspberries here, we were so excited because they make a killer pie. Just really yummy pie. So I had to bring her black raspberries. There was no way I wasn't taking a cooler with frozen black raspberries home to visit.
30:54Yeah, and we're trying to start a  food forest in our tree line.  We just discovered that we have emerald ash borers in our trees for the first time  to the point that they're not leafing out. These trees are probably damn close to dead.  We have over 20 trees that are going to have to come out and some of them have been there for years and it's going to be expensive.  So.
31:22My husband has decided that he's going to accept any  fruit tree or plant that he can get and we're going to make the tree line for trees and  shrubs. Great. They have a to make lemonade out of lemons, right?  Yeah.  He was walking the tree line two weeks ago  and he saw a bunch of little holes in the trunks of the trees and only the  ash trees,  aspen, whatever, that family.
31:53And he took a closer look and the next morning he said, we have an expensive problem coming at us. And I was like, oh no, we are broke. We can't handle an expensive problem. He said, we have emerald ash forest. And I said, how do you know? And he said, because all those little holes are where the woodpeckers are using the trees for a food source. I was like, oh, that's fabulous. And I used a bad word in front of fabulous.
32:22And he said, nope, this is an opportunity. He said, you know those peach trees we put in two falls ago? I said, yes. He said, you know how we got peaches off of them the first fall after we put them in the previous fall? I said, yes, the one that equaled or were equal to Georgia peaches. He said, yes.  He said, we're going to put in more peaches.  He said, we're going to put in plums that are cold hardy.  He said, we're going to put in more apple trees.
32:51He said, our tree line is going to be an orchard. I said,  Oh,  okay.  He said, so if you see anybody giving away seedlings anywhere, say yes. So pray for me that we can, we can fill in our tree line to the point where it does what it's supposed to do, because we are surrounded by corn fields and soybean fields and alfalfa fields. We need that tree line for the break.  Yeah. I'm just introducing some diversity.
33:21Yes, and food because I really do like eating. Eating is a good thing.  Yes, it is.  So hopefully that'll all work and we already are lucky enough to have some elderberry.  I  call them bushes, but I guess they're trees. We have elderberry, we have black raspberry, we have apple trees, we have peach trees, we have wild plum and now cultivated plum.
33:51And we have honey berry plants that someone sent me.  So we're on our way, but it's going to be five years before it's really established.  Yeah. I mean, I think that's the downside. It's not a downside, but that's definitely, think, sometimes why people go for annual product balance because it's unstable. You know, he set it up in a good way, waiting for years to come.
34:17Yes, and whichever child inherits this place will be eating like a king 25, 30 years from now.
34:26So just thought I'd share that because you are a  permaculture person and that's what we're trying to do too. So.  All right, Brandy, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're there. So thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Mary. This was a wonderful conversation. Good luck with your orchard. Trying to see the sea of phoenix.  Trying really, really, really trying every day.
34:54All right, Brandy, you have a fantastic day. Oh, you too. Thanks. Bye.
 

The Giving Garden Farm Stand

Today I'm talking with Tamber at The Giving Garden Farm Stand.
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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 Tamber at the Giving Garden Farm stand. Good morning, Tamber. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Colorado? You're going to be surprised. It's actually quite sunny today.  So we're very excited for this nice weather.
01:23Yeah, is Colorado rainy? I don't know anything about Colorado. Yesterday we woke up to a complete fog storm and it was misty and nasty out. So  you just never know what it's going to be. It's super bipolar.  Okay. All right. Well,  Minnesota's been a little bipolar lately too, as we were saying before I hit record.  It's not raining right now, but we had a thunderstorm roll through around 7, 7.30.
01:51and it's supposed to clear out and get hot and then we're supposed to have really nasty storms later today. So I'm like, okay.  Bracing yourself.  I'm just keeping everything crossed that it doesn't do anything bad because  our high tunnel is full of seedlings, our greenhouse is full of plants,  and my husband actually planted cabbage and lettuces and stuff this weekend in the garden.
02:17Keep everything you got crossed so we don't get hail because that will ruin what's in the garden. We got a little hail storm this last week as well. We got about, I would say, eight minutes of pea-sized hail.  it's unfortunate, you know, to watch it come through. It always makes your heart sink a little bit, especially growing up on the farm. But hopefully  our first cutting of hay will bounce back and we'll see what the good Lord does for us.
02:44Yeah, exactly. You just never know. And I said to my husband after he planted the stuff  on,  I think it was Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I said, did you happen to notice that we have rough weather coming in on Monday? And he was like, no.  Yeah, we do. And he said, well, they're all little tiny plants. Maybe they'll be able to be in between the hail. I'm like, okay, we'll go with that.
03:11Well, hope for the best. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do at the Giving Garden Farm Stand. Yeah. So my name is Tambor, as we already went over.  My family and I  run the Giving Garden Farm Stand, and we just recently opened.  So in our little 7 by 7, 10 shed that we bought off of Facebook and revamped,  you can find our Fresh Farm Eggs.
03:39You can find always a bread product, whether it be a flat bread, a sourdough loaf, a regular loaf of bread, bread crumbs, something like that. And then always something to satisfy the sweet tooth. So this morning I made fresh raspberry crumble bars and they are to die for. I hate to do my own harm, but they're really good. I do too, it's fine. Yeah. This weekend we did a lot of cookies and that went very well too. So.
04:09Just testing it out, seeing what people are liking, and that's been a lot of fun, meeting people, hearing what they like as well. And then alongside with all that, I always have my canning items. So I do some food preservation and have my pickled vegetables and pickles out there along with some fresh jams. We have actually quite a big variety of those.
04:35It seems to all be going well. There's a lot of interest and  it's been a lot of fun.  Okay. I want to know how you came to do this, but first I want to know about the, we call them cottage food laws here in Minnesota. Is that what they're called in Colorado? Yes, that is correct.  So what's,  what are your parameters for that? So the biggest one that causes a lot of heartache for me is we love our chickens.
05:05But I have to buy brand new egg cartons to be able to put them out on the stand and sell them. And they cost me about a dollar a piece. So it's a little frustrating because we only charge $5 a dozen. And so then I had to my prices because it cost me a lot of money to put them in a fresh egg carton as one of the cottage food laws. Yeah.
05:30I'm like, don't understand why, but you know, I'm going to follow it because we want it to be open. Yeah. And I'm trying to figure out why  egg cartons are so expensive because  all they are is paper. I  would love to know that as well. I have no idea. I've done a lot of research trying to find a better price and unfortunately that's just what it is. And so.
05:59I don't know. We're going to stick with it for now.  And I hate to be a smart ass, but I really hope that egg cartons are made in America. I really do. I would totally agree with you on that one.  Yeah. I think we're under the same requirement that we have to have clean egg cartons, like brand new egg cartons if we're going to sell them out of the farm standard at the farmer's market.
06:23And then another one  that I learned,  I do fresh cinnamon rolls and I can make a really good cream cheese frosting, but we cannot have  dairy products as such out on the farm stand, unfortunately.  But I can  go to our local food store and I can purchase it and I can resell it because it's made in a commercial kitchen, but I cannot make my own frosting and sell it.  So.
06:52That's been kind of a hurdle because if you're purchasing, a lot of people want the homemade aspect of food. So it's also been educating a lot of people on that as well as I'm doing the best I can, but I also have to abide by these cottage food acts.  Yeah, here it's anything that's not shelf stable. We're not allowed to sell under the cottage food. Yeah, we could do fruit pies. We cannot do dairy, like  cream pies at all.
07:22trying to think what else  comes to mind quickly. are the main.  no buttercream. No butter, no homemade butter.  My husband's family makes a really good cheese.  Unfortunately, although we enjoy it, we cannot  sell it. It's a little unfortunate as well. Because a lot of people want that. A lot of people want the  freshness, but I can only offer
07:50what I can offer by the state. Yup. We're under the same kind of rules here. But having said all that, you having said all that and me chiming in, I'm really thankful for the cottage food laws because otherwise we be able to sell anything. I would totally agree. And to be honest, sometimes they're okay. know, rules are rules for a reason because you would not want to eat out of everybody's kitchen. So I also am thankful for laws as well.
08:20Me too, and right now I wouldn't want to eat out of my kitchen. It needs a really good deep cleaning.  I love the honesty.  Well, it's been real busy here with the gardening season starting and  my kitchen table and the card table we put up in front of my kitchen table were covered with plants until yesterday.  Yes. So I have to get that straightened out today and  the card table put away and the table washed off and swept  over there.
08:50And then I might feel safe cooking in my kitchen again. And then we'll bring back the cooking. Yeah. I mean, I'll cook for us. We're fine. I wouldn't want anybody to walk into my kitchen right now and have cookies sitting out on the island across from the table that is covered in potting soil from the plants.
09:12It's only a sight for your eyes.  Yes, exactly. Let's just pretend it's gorgeous and pristine and shiny like it was the first time I saw it four and a five years ago.  Okay, so how  did you get to where you are? It's an interesting question.  It's a loaded question. Okay. I have been very active in the 4-H and FFA community since I could remember  my parents.
09:41ran our local 4-H club for many many years. And so of course I got to join at a young age and grow up in that. So we always raised our own pork. I got to show all of the swine and I even did lambs one year. I did goats one year. And I also did some of the home ec projects which included shotgun. I did
10:09food preservation and quilting to name a couple.  But I fell in love with food preservation.  There's many different levels if you don't know anything about 4-H. So as you do it year by year, it's a different challenge. So  I competed every year and you age out when you turn 18.  So  as I aged out when I turned 18, I won Wilde County, which is our local county fair.
10:38And then when you win your county fair, you get to compete at state. So I got to take my food preservation up there. got to compete up to state. I won the state of Colorado.  And then I  got asked to go to nationals.  You don't compete with your project up there. You just get to say hello to a lot of people. So that was fun.  But I didn't know that that was a skill that not a lot of people know.  So it sparked a lot of interest.
11:08Although I was only 16, 18 at the time, a lot of people wanted to learn from me, my skills that I had for food preservation. So I started to teach people what I had learned from the people that I loved the most on how to do that. And as I got older and had my own family, we have our own garden. And last year, we just had a garden that kept giving.
11:35Like it would not stop giving us stuff. could not, I couldn't can it fast enough. We couldn't consume it fast enough.  And so I have this huge basket  and I would send it with my mom that owns a local consignment store in town. And I'd fill it every single day.  And  I  would put  anything fresh in there or if we had leftover baked goods, I'd throw a couple in there too to give to our friends and we would just give it away. And people just loved it.
12:05But  I thought, hmm, I could do a little farm stand and I could do maybe something that I love. I could grow a bigger garden.  I could open a farm stand and my mom wouldn't have to haul my fresh vegetables to her store every day.  So  here came the giving garden.  We named it the giving garden because the garden that just kept giving last year.  So that was really fun.
12:34We have a two and a half year old little baby and he just is the coop manager. He runs the chickens. He makes sure everything's good. He collects the eggs and counts them every day. So that's his little project that  as we sell the eggs, it goes into his savings. So that's kind of the story on where it all begun.
13:00That is so sweet and congratulations on being a 4-H superstar. Well, thank you. It's  something that I'm very proud of and it truly made me who I am today.  Yeah, I hear wonderful, phenomenal, fantastic, I could go on  things about 4-H and what it does for kids and I didn't have the opportunity to be in it when I was a kid because it just wasn't offered where I lived.
13:26Yeah, and  it's just incredible. A lot of people see it as you have to show livestock because  that's what a lot of us kids out here do.  And it's a great opportunity to show livestock.  But there's a lot of things that you can do in the home ecside too. Here in Colorado, they even offer a program called the horseless horse.  So you can still learn about horses, you can still fill out a record book.
13:51You can still submit it to the state and compete even if you don't have a horse. You could do robotics. There's so many  opportunities in 4-H.  It's phenomenal. I cannot  applaud it more.  You know, I have been trying to find somebody from 4-H to talk to me on the podcast and since you did it, I'm just going to ask you the questions I would have asked them. Yeah. Does it cost money to be part of 4-H?  There is a small  like county fee that they do charge.
14:21I think it's under $100. I don't think it's too expensive. It's been a little while since I've done the registration side of things, unfortunately. But yes, it's a very small fee to be able to compete. I also think that they charge that fee to hold people accountable because a lot of it is ran off of volunteers. So to get a bunch of volunteers together, it also takes a little bit of accountability for the people that are signing up.
14:51Yeah, and with all the things that the kids get to do,  that must cost money too. And the building,  and the ribbons, and  there's truly a lot that goes on behind the scenes that not a lot of people see. And that's the point, right? It's supposed to be fun for the kids, and it's supposed to be learning, and  that's what I love about the program. Okay, and  is 4-H a nonprofit organization?
15:22Hmm. If you don't know, it's fine. I can always go dig. I am not 100 % sure what it would be classified as. I know that there is some profit made, but I know that it is nonprofit to an extent. I just don't know what it's technically classified. Well, I'm typing into Google right now because I brought it up, so I should probably find out.
15:49I'm like, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. I was just wondering how 4-H is funded. a lot of love, a lot of love and a lot of volunteers that put a lot of time and years and effort into growing such a strong community. Okay. Yep.
16:10What I'm seeing really quick is I see about National 4-H Council, 4-H is the youth development program of our nation's Cooperative Extension System and USDA.  So that doesn't tell me if it's nonprofit, but it does tell me that it's through the USDA.  that helps.  Yes. I'm like, I don't know, but I could ask my mom and Shirley get back to you.  She's a really good resource for that.  Okay, cool.  So  I
16:38I think I talked to somebody from Colorado a week or so ago and I think I asked them about their growing season, but I don't remember what I asked or what I got for an answer. So I asked you again, when can you guys get plants in the ground safely after the last frost date? I live by the farmer's almanac or Mother's Day. I never plant before Mother's Day just because one year we got really excited, planted
17:08And right  before Mother's Day, there was a huge frost. And so that's the rule of thumb that I go by.  And I truly just watch our bigger farmers in the community  see when they're starting to plant corn. I really try and watch and watch their example and try and follow to that extent as well. Okay.  Yeah. When my husband put stuff in this weekend.
17:35or he said Friday night, he told me he was going to start putting stuff in the garden this weekend. And I said, it's not May 15th.  And he said, I know. Yes. Got a little excited. And I said, what are you putting in? And he said the cold hardy stuff. And I said, OK, fine.  I said, please, please, please don't put the tomatoes in the basil end because you know sure as hell  if you do, it's going to frost. Every time.  He was like, he said, you always say I'm in the gardener. And I said, you are the gardener.
18:05I said, but you're also impulsive and excited and you want to get the garden going because last year sucked.  So  please trust me, don't put tomatoes and basil in. He said, I will not. That was a good one.  Yeah. The other reason that I, he's so  bent on getting things into the garden right now is because our both of our greenhouses, we have a hard sided greenhouse and we have a high tunnel.  They are to the point of bursting with plants and need to go out.
18:34I love that for you. It's so exciting. It just makes your heart happy when you see it.  Oh my god.  If you had seen the craziness we went through last year, you would know why he's so excited.  Our garden was terrible last year because we had six weeks of rain and so  it took forever for the garden to dry out.  And  in that, we had put up a hard-sided greenhouse that can be heated.
19:03So he had that going on to distract him from his misery of not being able to get stuff in the garden.  And that hard-sided greenhouse, what a freaking godsend.  Yes,  yes. My son brought in a handful of strawberries from the strawberry plants that wintered over in the greenhouse this year. Oh my gosh. Uh-huh.  Yep. And they weren't quite ripe enough yet, so they were kind of neutral, but they were strawberries in April.  Hey.
19:32I'll take it any day of the week. That's awesome.  Yep. I took pictures and posted them on Facebook to memorialize the moment.  Absolutely.  I would too.  Uh-huh.  And the  greenhouse is heated with IBC totes filled with water and the IBC totes are painted black so they absorb the sun.  I like it.  And it did pretty well. We had a week in January where it was
20:01super cold and it barely maintained but it maintained just enough so that the stuff that was cold hardy survived and We were so excited tamber. I I'm  You would have thought we were five years old being handed our first lollipop.  Yes I know the feeling though like it's so satisfying when you finally did it, you
20:27Yeah, and we didn't know if those IBC totes full of water would work. was just something we'd seen and we were like, well, it's the least expensive option right now. Let's try that first.  love it. I love those little, I don't know, like little nooks, know, that work that might be the cheaper option, but it worked. And I'm here for the cheaper option  anytime.
20:52Well, I was excited about the strawberries, but what I was more excited about is the fact that our rosemary plant that we put in there last fall overwintered.  my husband says it's huge.  I would totally love it. Rosemary is so in right now, whether you're decorating with it or cooking with it or drying it, it's huge, especially here in Colorado.  Rosemary, I love it.
21:19Yeah, and it will not overwinter outside here in Minnesota. No. Nope.  So that was that was the thing I was more excited about because every every spring we either plant rosemary seeds, which you can actually do. We did it a couple of years ago. You can plant rosemary from seed and it will become  a beautiful plant by fall.  Nice. Or we buy seedlings because I love how it smells. I don't necessarily love to cook with it. I have some on hand for like, you know, putting in a  roast or something. Yes.
21:49but I just love how the plant itself smells when you run your hands through it. Yes, I agree. it's like, sometimes I'll wrap my sourdough bread in it and then I'll put like a little sprig on it to kind of give it, I don't know, more like a natural look. Then when you buy the bread, you can smell it and you can see the rosemary and you can use it again. I love rosemary for so many reasons.
22:16I also love thyme and thyme is a cold hardy plant so it will grow underneath the snow. I did not know that. If you don't have six feet of snow, I mean if you have like a couple feet of snow, there's probably some little green sprigs trying to hang on underneath the snow. But we have a whole bunch of thyme in the heated greenhouse right now. And would you believe four days ago my husband said if I cut thyme and bring it in, will you dry it? And I was like absolutely.
22:44And he never cut it because he got sidetracked by everything else this weekend.  That's how it goes.  I love dill.  I absolutely love dill. If I could have one thing in my garden forever, it would be dill.  I love dill.  The dill weed, not the actual flowers of the seeds, but the leaves of the dill plant. And they're not really leaves, they're like little spikes.  But anyway, I love drying that.
23:14and putting it in sour cream with some onion powder and some garlic powder. Perfect. a little bit of buttermilk or buttermilk powder, dried buttermilk.  And  some salt. And a little bit black pepper. And that is the most fabulous dip I've ever made in my life. Oh yeah. Fresh dill and anything with cream cheese, count me in.  Yep.
23:38Yes.  Hey, I picked the right person to talk to you this morning because we're talking plants and I really needed to talk plants because it is so gray outside.  So you have chickens. Do you have other animals?  As of right now, we do have a couple of other animals.  We of course have two dogs. We have two cats. My husband has a horse named Bellagio. He is a team roper  and we just love him  and so does our little son.
24:08We just got some guenies.  We have 20 of those little birds out in the broiler right now.  They are little and so they're different than baby chicks because they require a higher protein and they're very fast.  So  we got those because actually the ticks are really bad this year.
24:36We've already been pulling them off of our dogs, unfortunately. And guineas,  they obviously keep away snakes, but they also love to eat ticks. So I ordered a bunch of them and I'm like, please take care of our tick problem. So we have that going  for us.  It's actual, we just got rid of our goats, but my parents have two alpacas that are pretty cool too. Okay. Yep.
25:06Awesome. Well,  I'm gonna do the thing I shouldn't do. What kind of dogs do you have?  Oh We have a miniature dachshund. Her name is Ro. She's a dapple She  is full of energy sass and whatever else you want to call her.  She rules the roost Then we have a little miniature schnauzer. His name is Dexter He's the quieter one, but he  They both just roam and love the farm
25:36Nice.  I was hoping you weren't going to say like a Pyrenees or an Australian Shepherd because  we have an Australian Shepherd and some of our friends who live nearby have two Pyrenees.  And I shouldn't say this. I talk about our dog all the time on the podcast and I always feel we're doing it again. But  Maggie is our Australian Shepherd and  she was not feeling great last week. She was kind of...
26:03loafing around, she wasn't eating her food, and I was like,  this is not good. And come to find out, my husband has been giving her extra food  at night after I go to bed because she's being a brat.  And  I had noticed she was getting chunky again. And I've had this conversation a bunch of times and I finally looked at him and I said,  do you want this dog to live a long happy life? Yes.
26:29And he said,  said, yeah, I love her. I said, then stop overfeeding her.  Yes, I know. I know. But treats are good. Treats are great. Let's give her some green beans. Yes, or carrots. are huge carrots. Ice cubes are a really good one too.  She is a fiend for ice in the wintertime.  The icicles fall off the side of the house and she,  she steps on them to break them and then she eats them.
26:59She's smart. She's very smart. She's scary.  anyway, I basically put my foot down and said, you've got to stop eating her because if she dies, I will be a disaster. Oh, yeah.  And he was like, OK.  And so he started putting her food bowl up where she can't see it as soon as she finishes her dinner.
27:22Uh-huh. And has not been giving her food. And amazingly, she's already starting to slim back down and her energy level is back up and she's been eating her breakfast right away in the morning. And she's rocking and rolling. I love it.  So yeah, it's hard when you have pets because you want to give your pets everything including freaking chocolate cake and don't do that with a dog. It will kill them. Right.  But you want to show them that you love them in the way that you would show your child that you love them.
27:52Oh, 100%. And I love that you use the dogs, but we have the chickens and we have we have 32 Lang hens right now and then we have probably 40 that are about 12 weeks. And so my little son takes mealworms, the dried mealworms, scatters them out so that he can walk to the car because now that they
28:20know that he has treats, they come up to him every single time like, come on, come on, we need more treats. So he, he's the king of treat giving.  I love that. That's adorable.  The worst part about having chickens is that chickens do not know how to self regulate when they eat.  A hundred percent.  We go through feed like it's water.  Uh huh. Yeah.
28:49Yeah, if we fill our chicken feeder, they will eat and eat and eat all day. Yes. It's ridiculous. And we let them free range in the spring and the fall before the garden goes in and once the garden is put to bed so that we're not going through so much chicken feed because otherwise we would be broke. Yes, we actually just bought a huge tote that is 2000 pounds of
29:17like a mixed feed with their layer and crumble and all that stuff because we were going to the feed store every week and like we've got to figure out how we can cut the cost a little bit.  So, God bless my husband, he went and got totes for us and it's cut down cost quite a bit luckily.  Good because  eggs from your own chickens should not cost $20 an egg. I totally agree with that. They'd be golden, which they are. They're very good.
29:47Yeah, especially right now.  Yes,  yes. You are not wrong. Supposedly egg prices are coming down, but I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, I have not seen it yet. I know that there was supposed to be a huge import  coming in on them, but  I don't want to eat eggs from another country that have been on a plane for...
30:13three days and you don't know what the temperature was. So we'll just stick to our own.  yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We had gotten rid of our chickens last fall because they were old and not giving us any more eggs.  And we were going to get eggs in May, like this coming three days from now May. And a couple of months ago, I said to my husband, said,  we have got to get chickens again. I said, cannot.
30:40I cannot believe how much they're selling eggs for at the store.  No.  And they're terrible. I want our own chickens again. And he was like, but we weren't going to do it till May.  I said, I said, I will charge it on my credit card if you will go pick them up.  Yes, please. Right now.  I'm starting to a hold of our chicken dealer, as I call her, chicken broker.
31:04And she had some and I was like, we need 12 and she's like, I will get you hooked up. And I said, why does this sound like a drug deal? And she said, well, right now it might be. I'm like, uh-huh. It is. Depends how you look at it.  Yep. So we were very happy to get 20, I think they were 18 or 20 week old chickens when we picked them up.  So we got the first eggs from those chickens ever laid. I love it. I absolutely love it. It's so satisfying.
31:30It's so fun  when you get that first little egg.  Yes. You're like, thank you. Thank you so much.  Oh, it was a lot bigger and louder. Thank you this time than it's ever been.  Yes. So they're  very loved chickens right now.  I could only imagine. That's how ours are every day. We just, love them so much  and they're great.  We actually have some Brahmas and that's our preferred ones.
32:00They're pretty big. I don't know if you know about Brahmas, but they're really  docile  and we had a couple and then that's what we actually grew or flock with  as I ordered  a bunch of them.  they are just the most docile, kind, loving. They follow you. They talk to you. I'm like, I never thought I would be a crazy chicken lady, but here I am and I'm fine with it. I'm totally fine with it.
32:29Yeah, somebody else referred to themselves as a crazy something late either day regarding livestock.  I made a big stink on the podcast talking to her saying, I really want to get rid of that crazy word in front of this because it's not crazy. It's smart.  Yeah. Well, I would totally agree with you, but  a lot of people don't.  Yes, exactly. people think that we are totally crazy and I'm fine with it. I'm totally fine with it.
32:57Yeah, I'm trying to change it to smart chicken lady, but I don't think it's going to work.  We'll do our best. Yes, exactly. I figure if I say it enough, people will do it just to make me happy. I doubt it. I  doubt it, but I'm going to try.  And I also have been trying to work into every single episode of the podcast for the last month and a half at least.  If you live in America today, get to know your local growers, your local producers. And as my son pointed out yesterday,  you're a local crafters and repair people.
33:27Because number one, you're supporting your community of people who do the work. And number two, you're getting less expensive, better services. I could not agree more. There's been a couple of instances just lately that we've realized that.  being the local egg dealer, it's been really cool because a lot of people, when egg prices spiked, they started to rely on us. And I was talking to my dad  the other day about it.
33:57I told them, you know what, I'm actually kind of thankful because if things ever took a turn, we could have neighbors that we could rely on for other things as well. You know, so people can rely on us for eggs and, you know, some garden stuff. But we also have friends that offer different services to us. And so maybe the whole egg price thing in the grand scheme of things happened for a reason so that we start to rely on our local capabilities  again.
34:24Yes, and the tariff situation too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it'd be really nice if we get back to a smaller, closer economy. Yeah, we'll have to see what happens. We will see. Yeah, and then the other thing I did. Oh, do you have something else to add? Oh, no, I was just thinking of other instances. Like yesterday, I put on a huge preservation food class.
34:51And  one of the gals that was in there is,  she works right next to my mom and we didn't even know that she owned an upholstery business.  And she was right next to my mom and upholstery is huge and finding a good upholstery person is very hard in the community. And so it's not what you know all the time, it's who you know. And so how funny that we put on this food preservation class, we meet our neighbors and we find out that
35:19I cannot wait for her to redo our tractor seats, you know?  Yeah. Yeah. So  it's just wild. Yeah. I say all the time, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Yep. It totally is. Yep. And  I meant to ask you about your classes, but we're going to run out of time. So  for anybody in Tambor's area, she does classes on food preservation and I'm guessing probably some other stuff too. So  the list goes on, huh?  Okay, good.
35:49And I wanted to add in because I need to start marketing myself too, besides marketing you guys.  Our farm stand and our high tunnel are going to be open on Mother's Day weekend for people to come buy bedding plants for their own gardens.  And we're going to have some of our homemade soaps and lip balms and candles out in the farm stand itself. So congratulations. That's so awesome. I hope it goes fantastic.
36:15Well, we'll see, but I know that we have way, way too many plants to plant in our garden. So I would love it if people would come and buy plants from us to put in their gardens, because that's the other thing.  If you have room in your yard for a raised bed, or if you have room  to dig a spot in  the actual ground to put in plants, you should probably be doing that right now too. Not right now,  but in this growing season. A couple of weeks. Yes.  I totally agree with that.
36:44Yep. And that's not just to sell my plants. mean, if you want to buy plants from somebody else,  go ahead. I just think that everybody should have some kind of a little kitchen garden going this year. I totally agree. And it gets a huge reward.  Oh,  absolutely. It does.  Nothing better than fresh herbs to use in your cooking or a sun warmed garden  ripe tomato.
37:11that you eat right off the vine. I'm telling you, if you don't like them, you don't like tomatoes. I  did not agree more with that statement.  All right, Tamber, I'm going to let you go because I try to keep this to half an hour. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Sounds great. Thank you.  Have a great day. You too.
 

Wild Ones Homestead

Today I'm talking with Michelle at Wild Ones Homestead. 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 Michelle at Wild Ones Homestead and Michelle is in Wisconsin. Good afternoon, Michelle. How are you? I'm good. How are you?  I'm good. Has the sun come out there yet? A little bit. We had thunderstorms earlier, but the sun peaked out and I was able to clean up some of my garden beds with the kiddos, which was nice. They don't have school today, so.  Uh-huh.
01:25Yeah, the sun just came out  maybe 45 minutes ago here in Minnesota where I live. And  I didn't think my husband had any time off because of Easter. And he texted when I was doing an interview at 10 o'clock this morning  and it said, I'll I'll be home. I'll be leaving at noon. And I was like, Oh no, did you get fired? And,  and I said, Oh, question mark. And went on to do other stuff. And he texted me back and he was like, it's good Friday.
01:54the company closes at noon.  was like,  Oh, okay. So of course I was busy with stuff, not thinking and didn't tell him I had an interview at one.  And he got home and he was like, so do you want to do lunch or you just want to wait till dinner? And I said, I have an interview at one. He was like,  Oh yeah, no, we're not doing food right now. said, no, I mean you can make food, but I can't, I can't eat right now.  So, so big surprises around here today after 10 30 in the morning. That was very weird.  Um,
02:23Okay. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Wild Wands Homestead.  Oh gosh. It might be more of a question of what don't we do.  But so we have,  it's about 63 acres here  and we raise beef cows. I actually just started  milking one of them. They're  Angus Holstein Cross. So they do have a little bit of that dairy genetics in them. And I really wanted to attempt to milk a cow. I'm actually not.
02:52a cow person. My background is in horses. But it's like, we have cows here. We have bred them to have babies. Why would I not milk the cow? Like this? Well, yes. So my husband thought I was crazy. He grew up with cows and he worked on dairy farms a lot when he was younger. But he was like, you're nuts. That cow's never going to let you milk her. And ha ha.
03:16I actually got almost a full gallon today and her calf has 24 seven access to her and I'm doing it loose in the pasture, which is really fun. But so on top of the cows, we also raise chickens, which I always joke that I have a chicken retirement farm because we have about 50 chickens, but  probably 20 of them are really old hens that are pushing 10 and don't even really lay anymore, but I get attached. they just kind of out.
03:44We do multiple gardens.  We do a really big garden where we plant like corn and hot peppers and  potatoes and melons and squashes and anything that we want on term. We actually did two years ago, we had so much corn. We had a bunch of friends come over and help us process it all. And we had enough corn for us and three other families to last two years. So  we do a lot of corn.
04:13And then I've got my smaller like potage style garden behind the house where I've got, you know, like my tomatoes  and  my garlic is my favorite thing to grow.  And, you know, asparagus and strawberries and zucchini and my herbs, the things I like closer. We planted an orchard a couple years ago, but those trees are not big enough to start producing yet. We collect maple syrup and I turn a lot of that into sugar. So I almost exclusively use maple sugar in my baking.
04:43Um, what else do we do? We forage and we love mushroom hunting and wild berries and any of that.  We do hunt and fish  and we both have our trapping license. I don't  use mine.  Mine is mostly so that I can legally check my husband's traps if he were to get injured or something,  but he does all like trapping of nuisance critters. And then I tan the hides, which is really fun. So  we just kind of stay busy year round jumping from.
05:12One thing to the next, you know, he grows and harvests most of the hay for he feeding the animals. And obviously we've got the horses here too.  That was my lifelong passion. Even when I was in  high school and riding and training horses, I said, you know, one day I want to move out West to like Montana and just have a little homestead where I have my horse and some chickens and a cow and raise as much food as I can.
05:39I kind of took a roundabout way to get here and obviously I'm in Wisconsin still, not Montana, but I did live out West in Washington for 10 years. So  I had my out West experience and I'm kind of doing what I always wanted to do, which is fun. And my husband definitely is more of the farmer side where he wants, you know, let's make a profit on it. And I'm like, I don't care about money. I just want to do it cause it's fun.
06:05I kind of wish that we could not care about money. Wouldn't that be wonderful to really not care about money? We,  you know, we barter a lot, which is handy. We've got the sawmill here too. So he's a logger by trade and then people know that. So they'll be like, oh, we have this tree or this, you know, giant log. Do you want it? And he's like, oh, of course. So he'll bring it here. And then if we're having a slow day of something else, we're spending it in the sawmill.
06:32milling all this lumber and we trade it for people or we use it in our various projects like with the house we're building right now.  And  it's great to trade off to people if they need lumber for projects and be like, Hey, you want to come help us fence  or you want to help us rake hay in the summer or harvest this giant  field of corn by hand. So that, that definitely works out knowing the right people. And he's lived here in this area his whole life. So he knows.
07:02Literally everyone and they're all the same kind of balloon collar tradesmen that all have different skills that are all really handy. So it's like, it takes a village to do it all and we all love helping each other and it's great.  We, just have a lot of fun. mean, it's not all fun all the time, but I'd say overall, I couldn't imagine doing anything else really. Yeah. There's a lot of truth to the saying about it's not what you know, it's who you know.  Yes, absolutely.
07:32I hang on that a lot because  I definitely don't know everything. I know just enough to be dangerous,  but I always say I know a lot about a little and a little about a lot. And that way if I can help, I do. And if I need help, I can reach out and ask. Right. Anytime I'm sharing like what I'm doing  online on all the platforms, I'm always like, this is how I'm doing it because it works for me. It might not be the correct way to do it, but you know what?
08:00This is how I'm doing it and it works. And I really like winging it and just seeing, and if it doesn't work, oh well, try something new next year. Uh-huh. Your mileage may vary is the other one that I say a lot.  Um, so I saw that you just had a new calf like six days ago.  Yes. So we've got three that were all born within the last two weeks. These are our first babies born here. We've done bottle calves for several years, but.
08:30I don't know if you've seen the price of bottle caps right now.  I hear they're really spendy. It is so high. And then by the time you get them off of the milk replacer, and we always also give ours  grain while they're little,  at least the bottle caps that we're buying just to help, you know, supplement, make sure they're growing strong and everything. By the time they're done with that, and then let alone feeding them and caring for them for two years, the profit is just,  it's not there.  So.
08:58It was like, we've got these heifers. We might as well try to breed them because we are going to end up getting priced out of buying bottle caps was what was going to happen. So  yeah, the first babies that were actually born here. So I'm not having to bottle feed them, which Dan's like, that must be nice. You don't have to bottle feed. I'm like, well, I actually really like bottle feeding the babies. Even when we had like 12 at once, I thought it was great because they're just so cute.  But.
09:24Now I have less to do in terms of taking care of them, but that also means they're not as friendly. So I'm trying to like butter them up and be like, look, this one like scratches and this one lets me milk her and she gets cookies. Don't you guys want that too? But there's still a little squirrely about everything at this point.  Well, keep trying. They'll probably love you eventually. I hope so. One, of course we have one cow that's just not friendly  and she's
09:52one that dropped a heifer this year, the other two are bull calves. So I'm like, I really need to try and make her baby friendly because I do not need two crazy fence jumping cows. Yeah, no, no, that would not be great.  So I have a question about this because  I have never owned  a cow and I certainly have never been part of the breeding process or the birthing process or anything else.  When
10:20When I was watching the video of the baby be born, vicariously through you, I'm watching this beautiful animal give birth to a beautiful baby. And in my brain, I'm like, it's all going to be good. Mama's going to what she's supposed to do. Baby's going to be healthy. It's all going to go fine. In my little nervous system and in my heart, I'm like, God, I hope everything goes okay. So when you're in the middle of that,
10:50Do you have like  opposite emotions warring in you because number one, it's exciting, but number two, it's scary? Absolutely. Especially when it was my favorite cow giving birth, because I'm like,  I don't want anything to go wrong. if it would go wrong, it's always the favorite that something goes wrong with. And it's her first time calving. So you really have no idea.  But  you know, they all did such a good job. I was really impressed. And we do have like the chain.
11:19the chains on hand that you wrap around their legs to help pull if something goes wrong. And again, we have all those friends that have cow experience as well and live close. So Dan was actually at work when my favorite cow was giving birth and he was like, you got it under control? And I was like, I think so, because she's so friendly. If something were to happen, I'm pretty sure I could. She'd let me pull it on my own. No problem. But we also have all of these wonderful, knowledgeable neighbors and friends that live close by that could have helped. But yeah, it's.
11:49It's nerve wracking. want, you know, healthy mama and healthy baby at the end of the day. as everybody that has livestock knows, if you have livestock, you have dead stock. it's,  it's gone good so far, but it's always, you're waiting for when your time to experience that is going to come. Yeah, exactly.  And the reason I even ask is because there's a lot of people who are starting to get into homesteading. They're starting to lean toward the idea of it.
12:18And I never want people to think that it's all sunshine and roses and candy. It's not, it's work.  And I don't want to discourage anybody, but I also don't want to be like,  oh, if you do it, your life is going to be perfect for the rest of the time you're on the earth, because it's not. There's things that you have to learn. There's  experiences you have to have.  Right. And I say, if anybody is really wanting to get into homesetting, start with plants.
12:47start with something that if you kill it accidentally, it's not a creature that's suffering for lack of knowledge or experience. A plant is easy to restart and you really don't have to feel bad about it. Is it a bummer still? Absolutely. But an animal is a lot bigger deal to lose whether it was just to lack of knowledge or just fate made it happen that way. That's, it's a big deal. And I've always been really anal about
13:16any animal that I want to bring in. I do so much research online and really make sure that we have the good facility set up for them. I know a lot of the home setting way is to kind of work with things where you're at, but in terms of animals, you really have to have the proper setup. Do you need 20 acres to have a cow?  No, but you also shouldn't be putting them in a 20 by 20 pen and thinking they're going to live in it under a tarp shelter for five years.
13:46There needs to be a little bit of preparedness when it comes into taking care of another living creature.  There sure does.  We have, we have 12 chickens here. They're like,  I don't know, they're like 30 weeks old now. So they're new laying hens.  And yesterday it poured. And of course the chickens were out in the run and some of them were actually out in the yard because they figured out how to fly out of the run. Cause that's what chickens do.
14:16And my son went out to put them back in the coop because it was really windy after it rained. And he said, I could only find 11 of the 12. And my son's an adult. It's not like he's a five-year-old going to camp, find a chicken.  And I said, well, she's probably sheltering in  the tree line because it was really raining. And he's like, well, okay. I said, look, I said, she's either sheltering in the tree line or something picked her off. We know this is how it goes.
14:45Last night when my husband went out  to try to find her,  she was over by the shed. And I asked him this morning, said, was she soaked? And he said, oh yeah. And so I'm waiting to see if she gets sick because chickens can actually get sick from being wet and cold. So we'll see if that one survives. They're pretty hardy. know, as fragile as chickens are, I've seen them survive some  absolutely.
15:14gnarly things. I've actually got one I'm nursing back to health right now.  She's I could probably turn her back out. I'm just babying her because she's old. were babysitting my in-laws dog who's been here all the time.  And for some reason she decided she wanted to attack some of my chickens. And I thought it was dead when I found it. But she like blinked at me and I was like, Oh, you're alive. Okay, now we get to do chicken emergency care. But
15:43It's been three weeks since that happened and she's doing good. just got her hanging out in what I call my baby coop. It's where I put any broody hens to hatch out the babies.  Mostly so that the roosters are not harassing her  while she heals. But  I really didn't think she was going to make it, but here we are. She's not laying eggs, but like I said, chicken retirement farm.  I love it.
16:09Okay, so do you do like baking or any of that stuff too?  Oh yeah, I mean I have a huge sweet tooth especially and the kids love  any type of homemade bread that I make. I don't do like a ton of sour bread. I know a lot of homestead people like sour bread, sour dough bread. We're just not, it's kind of hit or miss. Sometimes we like it and we'll eat a bunch of it and then we'll go for you know, six to eight months without eating sour dough. So my starter is currently in the freezer.
16:38for whenever I feel like it's a good sourdough time again. But yeah, we love to do as much homemade cooking as we can.  And  all the snacks and stuff are things that I make. I don't like buying junk food from the stores. One, because I'll eat it all. Like  there's no stopping me. If I get Oreos, I'm gonna eat all the Oreos. So it's better to just not buy them.  And then I think homemade stuff tastes better too. we really, we like.
17:07snacking on all the homemade things. I made some cheddar biscuits to go with our eggs for breakfast this morning and the kids devoured those.  how many kids? Two. Okay.
17:20All right, and how old are they? My daughter will be 10 this summer and my son will be eight. Oh, so they're the perfect age to be learning all this stuff and helping out. Yes, and the school that they go to is really fun because they do a lot of hands-on like gardening and they've got farm animals and stuff there and they've actually tapped trees and done syrup at the school and the teachers are always talking to me. They're like, your kids know so much of this stuff already. And I'm like, yes, because we do it at home. you're just
17:49Engraining it in them even more because it's stuff they already do which is fun  I bet that when they when when the school introduces a new thing to the kids your kids are like  hold my beer I got this  pretty much  there's not there's not too much that they haven't tried They're really excited to try and milk the cow with me this weekend They wanted to try it this morning, but I was like I need to run out there between thunderstorms So why don't we pick a different day  for you guys?
18:18because I just need to hustle today. Yeah. Isn't it amazing how the weather predicts what you can and can't do on a homestead? Oh, absolutely.  With the animals, you're doing it  no matter what the weather is. So that's again why plants are easier. Cause if it's now, Oh, I don't have to go out and take care of that plant today. You do with the cow.  Yeah. Cause they get really cranky when they don't get milked.
18:47and loud, they get really loud. Today  was day five and she already sees me coming with my bucket and I just have, I put little horse cookie treats in my pocket and that's how I'm getting her to stay still. I give her a cookie to start and then halfway through I give her another cookie and then when we're done she gets her third cookie and then she just wanders off. She wiggles a little bit because we're doing it loose so the other cows will distract her and she'll get up and walk a few feet and I'm following her on like, come on Tula.
19:15sit in one spot so I can finish, but she's actually just a really, really sweet cow, so it's gone well. That helps a lot.  The reason I was being kind of snarky about the weather, my husband is trying to get our high tunnel ready to go to move  seedlings from our greenhouse into the high tunnel, because  our greenhouse is an actual hard-sided greenhouse.  And he and my kid have been, our kid, I keep saying my kid, our kid, have been getting all the framing in and all the
19:46the cattle panel arches on it and all that. And the next step is to get the plastic on it. And every time he's like, I want to get the plastic on it at this point in time, it's raining or it's really windy. And so he was looking at the weather for this weekend. He's like, keep everything you have crossed that it's not windy Saturday.  Yeah, I've got all of my plants are actually up in the office where I'm sitting right now  because
20:16It's easier to keep this heated. It's inside of our shop than my greenhouse. So, but I'm looking at how the weather is going to be at night over the next week. And I'm like, Ooh, maybe it's going to be warm enough that I'm not spending a million dollars on electricity, keeping my greenhouse warm because my tomatoes really need to be up potted. I'm like, this is a ticking time bomb. don't have space  in the office for this stuff anymore.  Yep.  I'm right there with you. The greenhouse is packed.
20:45full. Like he sent me photos and I thought,  um, you are  out of room.  And he said, yeah, he said, that's why I need to get  the plastic on the high tunnel so I can move stuff over. And I said, is it going to be warm enough? And he said, I think so.  Okay, good.  But, uh, did you plant extra plants this year so that you can sell seedlings? Cause that's what we did.  I did  last year and I did.
21:14Pretty good, I ended up making like 600 bucks, which basically paid for what I put into the garden for the year.  But we're so busy with trying to get the new house,  I call it a cabin or a new house depending on the moment. It's going to be our new house, but we're making it look like a cabin, so either one. But we're just a busy with that right now. I'm like, I don't know that I want to take the extra time  to.
21:41do extra plants. I've got a bunch of like dahlias because those sold really well last year and you know, the tubers multiply every year. So I'll go off my extra tubers. And then I took some elderberry clippings because people love to buy elderberry and those are so easy to take a clipping and root them and sell them for five bucks at a pop. Yeah. Okay, I'll do dahlias and I'll do my elderberry and then everything else I'll just do for myself. So. Yep. That's a really good idea.
22:11And this is one of the things that I love about homesteaders and gardeners and farmers and people who raise animals and they all kind of fall under that homesteading umbrella.  We are, if nothing else,  ingenious because we will find stuff that's that's easier, not easy, but easier to make our lives easier. Yep.  And  he was planting.
22:38basil seeds like a month and a half ago in the kitchen in the little tiny cells that you start seeds in on my kitchen table. And I said, how many seeds are you planting? Cause it was a lot. And he said, Oh, there will probably be at least 150 basil plants. Nice.  And I said,  um,  what are we going to do if people don't buy them? He said, we're going to plant them.
23:04and we're going to sell cut basil at the farmer's market. He said, and we will be drying basil every day from the point that we can cut it until it's time to put it to bed.  So and stick it in the freezer. I do with mine. If I get hordes of it, I just make pesto and pop it in the freezer. And then I've got an easy pesto for  whatever when I need it. And I have some in there that's like three years old and it still takes. Yeah.
23:32Yep. I just didn't realize he was going to plant that many. mean, the tomato plants will sell, the squash plants will sell, the cucumber plants will sell. But most people think that basil is just for spaghetti sauce and it's not. I love basil. That's one of my favorite things to grow. And I end up with a lot of pesto because I grow a lot of garlic. I think that's probably my very favorite thing to grow. Last year I planted
24:03600 and some garlic cloves in the fall. So I will have a lot of garlic to play with here. I do all the hardneck varieties. So they should up the garlic scapes, which are edible. Yeah. Do you find the right market? You can sell those for like $16 a pound. Wow. Yeah. So I'm like, I think I might have to sell some garlic scapes this year. Usually I keep them all for myself because they're so delicious. But I'm like,
24:29You know, 600 plants, I can probably  sell some of them. I'm glad you brought up the scapes because I've never eaten them. Are they a milder flavor of garlic than the actual garlic bulb? Yes. So it's like a slightly garlicky, maybe a little bit oniony flavored,  kind of crunchy, like a raw green bean. I like to just saute them with like
24:55some butter and salt and pepper or put them on like an Alfredo pizza. But I've seen people make pesto with them. I've done garlic  scape butter. You can do salt. Like there's a million uses for it. it's  basically you're getting a bonus crop from the same plant. So why not? I may have to pick up some from the co-op because they sell it. They sell scapes when it's that time of year.
25:23I want to dice it up or slice it up and put it in Alfredo sauce. Yep.  Do it. I think that would be great.  I really love to cook, but I really love to cook things that are like half an hour from beginning  to eating  because my husband has a half an hour commute home and that way I just have to start cooking the minute he calls me and then food's ready when he gets here.  Right. That's what I try to make sure dinner's done about when my husband gets home from work.
25:49because that's nice we can eat and then we can go do whatever projects we're doing because he does not sit still ever.  So it's like, okay, we can eat quick and then go do whatever we need to do next. So it worked. Are you a fan of the one pot meal because then you're not busy trying to do dishes after dinner?  It depends because sometimes my husband can be a picky eater. He says he's not,  but he can be.
26:18I'd say the biggest thing we run into is, we've got a freezer full of beef and then we butcher hogs. We've got, he's got a buddy that raises pigs and we can buy them from him for, I think last year we got them for like $180 a hog and then butcher them here at home. So when you have a freezer full of beef and pork, you're mainly just eating beef and pork because why would you buy meat from the store? So.
26:41Things get a little old sometimes of eating the same thing over and over and over again. But yeah, if I can get away with one pot meals, definitely, especially  when the kids are here, it's like pot roast, casserole, perfect.  Yep. My husband  is like meat and potatoes dude.  And I am not meat and potatoes girl.  I really am kind of over the meat with every meal thing.
27:09Oh yeah, I take a for a week without eating meat and it wouldn't bother me at all. Uh huh. And I was going to make spaghetti sauce last week for having spaghetti. And he was like, do you want to pull out some burger to cook up and throw in there? And I was like, no, I do not. And he looked at me and I said, I need a meal without meat in it tonight. I said, can you just have marinara sauce?
27:35He was like, wow, you are really over it. said, I am really over it. said, I am so sick of meat and starch that I could just die.  I said, so can we just have marinara sauce and pasta? And he's like, yes, we can. And I said, oh, you caught the tone of voice. He's like, yes, I did. I said, I'm sorry. said, me too.  So  resolved. Right. Yeah. There was definitely nights where I'll just have like a bite of meat or whatever. And I'm like, eh.
28:02I love that about having the garden right behind the house in the summer. I'm out there snacking on fresh putties all day. like,  don't need to eat anything else. I'm just going to snack on whatever is growing right now.  I do not want to wish away May, June, and July, but I'm not kidding you. am so  looking forward to having a cucumber a day with my dinner because we don't let the cucumbers get huge if we're just going to eat them.
28:31I can't wait. That too. My husband gets so sick of it because we'll eat zucchini and like a garlic scapes every meal for so long that he's just like, I don't want to see another one. But it's so good. It is. And honest to God, I didn't even know that you could saute zucchini until maybe 15 years ago. And every summer, as soon as that first perfect zucchini comes in,
29:00And it's usually like when the husband is at work and he won't eat zucchini. He does not love green veggies, which is crazy because he loves to grow them. But every summer that first really nice zucchini comes in the house and my son and I chop it up in really thin slices and we put olive oil in the pan, a little bit of garlic powder or actual garlic diced up and just fry it up. And it does that caramelization thing. And that is our lunch. And it is the most lovely
29:30zucchini we will eat the whole summer, the first one. Yep, I like to do that. And I put a little bit of red pepper flakes on mine too to give them like a little bit of a spicy pop. So good. A little bit of a zing. Yep. I really want it to be gardening season and we still have a month and a half. Well, we have a month before we can get anything in the garden. Right. I normally like my tomatoes and peppers and I not until June.
29:57And sometimes it's a week or two into June, depending on how the forecast looks, because I've done it where I'm running out there trying to find buckets or pots to cover everything. Cause there's a frost warning and that's just not fun. So I'd rather wait a little bit longer.  Where are you in Wisconsin? Like mid state, like the driftless region, I guess.  Oh, okay. Cause we plant  basically we don't plant before May 15th because of the frost risk. Okay.
30:27And then we do, and if they die, we just replant them. We just put more in.  Yeah, know June has been pretty consistent for me forever,  and that's what my mom does as well. She's like,  she lives like an hour from me, but she's like, yeah, no, just wait.  Yeah, give it time.  And this year we probably could get away with waiting until June 1st because of the greenhouse, because the tomatoes are already growing and they're going to continue to grow, whether they go out.
30:55gardener this day in the greenhouse.  Right, yeah, we just got my greenhouse last year. That was the new addition. So that was really nice. And filled it up and was like, okay, now I need one twice as big.  Yeah, that's the problem with this stuff. You get the thing you want and then you're like, oh, I could have gone a size up or I could have gotten two, you know.  We  go through that every year. There's always something or like,
31:24Wonder how we could make this new idea happen. Right. It's all about figuring out what's going to make your time management better and everything run more efficiently. And what can you, how do you get more of this or the other thing? And like, we're in the middle of building this new house. And once that's done and we're moved out, we're like, okay, once that's done, we want to tear out the trailer house and build a summer kitchen there because  why not? We need another project immediately.
31:53One thing after another, projects never end, but it keeps us busy, I guess. I'd rather be all these random physical labor projects than watching TV all day. So. Yeah, I'm always saying on the podcast that it takes a special kind of person to be a homesteader.  And I don't mean that in a negative way, but it really does. It takes a very specific kind of personality to handle  this, this life.
32:22of,  so we got this project done and you take a breath and you're like, okay, what's the next thing? Yep. Always looking ahead.  How many more things can we accomplish this year before winter is back?  Yeah, I just got my renewal form in the mail for the cottage food registration here in Minnesota. And I have to sit down and get that started because this is the year.
32:48Michelle that I'm actually going to bake cookies and things for the farmers market and  I have to have that registration or I can't sell them. See, I would bake them and eat them all because  I love my sweets.  Yeah, I'm  I'm at the point in my life where I eat a cookie and I'm like, that's good because sugar really does kind of make me feel yucky. Try it with the maple sugar. Get your hands on some maple sugar. That's why I if I eat any sweets with like a
33:18white cane sugar, I almost instantly get a headache. I love maple sugar. I do not get that problem. And I seriously cut back the sugar amount from any traditional recipe. We are so ingrained to eat so much sugar. It's insane.  And if you just slowly cut back over time, you'll realize, oh, this is still really good without two cups of sugar. Like I can have a cup or half a cup, but it's still sweet.  Yeah.
33:45I don't know, like a year ago, I started just putting a tablespoon of sugar in my coffee to start my day because at that point in the day, I don't care. I don't care if it gives me the buzz. I need the buzz.  And then I don't put any more sugar as I keep adding coffee to my cup over the next two hours. And by the time I'm done with that first cup of coffee, quote unquote, cup of coffee,  it's just black coffee. So that's, that's my sugar.
34:12Basically for the day, I figure a tablespoon of sugar is probably not going to kill me. It's okay. And I mean, you're buying stuff from the grocery store, which I mean, we all have to they put sugar in everything. So  another tablespoon is not going to hurt you whatsoever. Yeah, I wish I could drink it black, but I just I don't love it enough to drink it black. It's got to be really expensive, really fancy coffee for me to drink it black. Yeah. When I was drinking coffee as maple sugar,
34:42and cream, but in like the last six months, my body has decided that it really does not like caffeine anymore. Oh no. I will get like nauseous and dizzy and be down feeling sick for half the day. So no more coffee for me.  Oh, sad. I'm sorry.  And I love the taste  to drink it in the morning and come and give me a kiss. And I'm like, my taste of coffee on you and I smell it and I want it and I can't have it.
35:13Yeah, you're probably going to laugh, but I don't drink alcohol because I don't love it. It's not because I can't. It's not like I have a problem with it. I just don't love it. But I love the smell of whiskey. I hate the taste of whiskey, but I love the smell of it. And my husband will have a snort on the weekend, you know, just a little bit. And he'll kiss me and I'm like, Oh my God, you smell like booze. And he's like, I'm sorry. I'm like, no, no, no, don't be sorry. It's That's same thing how I am with the coffee. So I get it.
35:44Yeah, it's weird. I don't want to drink it, but just the smell of it. like, oh, that's so,  I think there's something comforting about it, which is weird. I don't know.  I'm not a big  beer drinker  or really any alcohol drinker. just, if I can taste the alcohol in it, I don't like it. So if I drink anything with alcohol, it's gotta be sweet. Cause otherwise I'm like, Yeah.
36:12But one of the people that really likes to be like in control and aware at all times so like alcohol that's just not my jam. It was doing the exact opposite of what I want.  Yeah, I think what happened is the last time I had anything to drink that had alcohol in it.  I thought I was being smart and I was drinking some  bourbon,  real sweet bourbon, and I would have like a little bit and then I would drink a 12 ounce glass of water  and then I would drink a little bit more bourbon and drink a little
36:41to drink a glass of water because supposedly the dehydration is the thing that kicks your ass.  And I was trying to be so careful because I hadn't had any alcohol in a couple of years.  And I woke up the next morning with the most horrible headache and I was so angry about it because I was like, I was being smart. What happened here?  And I just haven't had any inclination to want to have any alcohol since. So I'm over it. I'm done.
37:11Also, when you live on a homestead, you probably don't want to be snuckered because, know, if an emergency happens, you got to be on it. Exactly. There's no time to be hungover. You know, you've got stuff to do. I lived in Washington. I used to joke to all my friends out there that I got kicked out of Wisconsin because I was like, well, I don't drink beer and I don't really like cheese. So they actually kicked me out.
37:37Yeah, I don't drink alcohol, but I definitely like cheese. So I guess I would be okay in Wisconsin. I got older, I think I appreciate cheese more, but I'm not one of those people who can just sit down and slice a piece of cheese and eat it and be like, this is delicious. I'm like, no, I'll pass on. So maybe charcuterie? Charcuterie? How ever you say that, boards are not your jam? No, I would go for like the sausage and crackers.
38:06Yeah, me too.  All right. So now we have we have  devolved into small talk and silliness because it's past 30 minutes and I try to keep you to half an hour.  Michelle, I really did enjoy this conversation. Thank you for your time.  And  I really wish you luck in getting your calves to love you because  that one who's a heifer is going to need to be milked.  Oh, I know.
38:33I will keep everything. I've got a lot cross for a lot of people right now. I'm amazed I can walk straight.  All right. So you have a wonderful day and a wonderful weekend.  right. You too. Thank you.  Bye. Bye. If you like this podcast, you would probably love Amy Fagan's grounded in Maine podcast.  You can find her on  all the platforms grounded in maine.com.