A Tiny Homestead

Small Scale Rebellion

Today I'm talking with Emily and Nathan at Small Scale Rebellion. You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:26A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Seals Spoon Farm. You'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. Today I'm talking with Nathan and Emily at Small Scale Rebellion in Canada, and  Emily told me, where in Canada?  Where in Canada are you, Emily?  We're in the West Kootenays of BC. Okay, thank you.  Welcome, you guys. Good afternoon. How are you?
00:56We're good. Thanks for having us. Thank you. I always start every podcast with how's the weather? How's the weather where you are? That's a little gloomy. Yeah, we're over winter. It's just dragging on. But the words are coming back and you can kind of tell that spring is just around the corner. So it's like the final stretch. Yeah, I stepped out on my porch about two hours ago, maybe three hours ago now.
01:25and I could hear birds singing and I was like,  oh, the blackbirds are back. have a, um there's a word. Can't think of it.  We're in a flight pattern for these blackbirds.  They come back every spring. Migration pattern. There we go.  And this is the earliest they've come through in the five years that we've been here. So I think we're looking at an early spring.  Yeah, for sure. It was like a really mild winter,  all things considered here.
01:55So we are looking forward to hopefully an early spring, but also a moderate fire season because normally if the snowpack isn't very good in the winter here, we have like horrible fires.  So fingers crossed that doesn't happen. I'll cross everything I have for you because wildfires are a terrible thing.  And that does not mean that burns are a terrible thing.
02:22Burns are important for agriculture and for growing things, but they need to be  not taking down structures that people live in or killing people. So that's my caveat there.  All right. So I was very excited to stumble across you guys on Instagram. Tell me about yourselves and what you do at Small Scale Rebellion. So  we're farmers first and foremost. um Our farm is called Confluence Farms.
02:49And we started Small Scale Rebellion as a way to teach other farmers how to have profitable farm hubs. a farm hub is composed of four components. It's online ordering, a, help me out here. Home delivery, a collaborative.
03:13a full diet offering. we do local food aggregation. So we've become like a one-stop shop for all things local.  And then we also do free choice  ordering exclusively.  And so people can order what they want, when they want. And then we even have like a credit-based CSA. So people buy credits to our store. And then that way we get money upfront, very similar to  a CSA, except you don't have to commit to like a weekly CSA box for 20 weeks. You can just pay us. uh
03:43for credits and then use them whenever you like. And what we discovered is that  when you make eating local easier, a lot more people will start doing it. Yes, because humans love convenience.  And instead of fighting that, I think it's important to,  you know, just embrace it  because if you don't, it's really hard to make it as a farmer. Oh.
04:11Absolutely. And what you're doing is amazing. So  what made you decide to do this?
04:19Um,  well, it kind of happened by accident.  We actually started, um, we had this  kind of goal of just growing all of our own food for a year.  And  when you start growing food, you always end up having too much food. And so you end up giving it away to friends and neighbors.  And we were doing that for a few years and then COVID happened  and  we didn't really have, uh,
04:48That kind of affected our income.  And we were getting ready to grow like a half acre worth of food, which  thinking back now for two people is like an insane amount of food. Like it shouldn't have been growing that much, but we, didn't know what we were doing. We're just like, Oh, let's just grow a little bit of everything. And then COVID happened. And then we were kind of locked inside and thinking of ways to make money and we were already growing food. So we're like, Oh, why don't we just start selling the food that we grow? And so we decided to grow even more food. And then.
05:18because of lockdowns, like, well, what if we do like online ordering and home delivery? And so we started doing that and then that started taking off.  And then we had an opportunity to move to the Kootenays where we are now and start a farm on  an elderly couple's  homestead who were looking for farmers to come in and kind of take over the farm and to help them with the property. So, and moving here was like our ultimate dream. Like our ultimate dream was to start a farm in the Kootenays.
05:45And then we just kind of stumbled our way into it. And then, yeah, it's just been kind of growing ever since. we've been refining the model and making it better. And now it's at the point where it can support the two of us full time, full year round with just a half acre and the two of us. no, employees or volunteers. Wow. That's, that's amazing. Okay. I have two questions. First one is what, what are the Kootenays? Is it mountains?
06:13Very mountainous. Yeah, it's like rural, very rural BC.  We're in the boreal forest. So it's like green mountains in every direction, lots of rivers, huge  freshwater lakes. It's a really, really beautiful and popular area. There's a lot of actually Americans that live here too. It's like an international kind of hub because there's lots of  snowboarding and things like that here too. So there's like Australians and New Zealanders and Americans.
06:42people from all over the place kind of in this one little unique area.  Okay, thank you. Cause I didn't know what they were and that helps.  Um, and then  if you are growing more than a half an acre of food, you must have equipment. You must at least have like a bobcat tractor or something.  No. we're doing a half acre like exactly.  And it's all by hand.
07:10That's one of the really like when we started our farm, we had no money like  negative amounts of money  and  we've just been very scrappy  at um Making it work  and  We don't have like a walk-behind tractor. We don't have anything with an engine except for our Delivery vehicle, so it's all no till um regenerative  ag
07:38And we have permanent beds  and  you know, we just make it work.  Um, and you know, we would have, if we had money in the pat, in like the first couple of years, we definitely would have bought a lot more tools,  but not having the money  made us half to get creative.  so we like borrowed tools, we got tool donations.  Um, we traded neighbors for different services, like tilling.
08:06And we just kept everything super duper lean  because we don't own our land  and we've had to move our farm three times,  four times  in the past five years.  we just, you know, having a bunch of equipment wasn't  an option.  And it actually turned out to be good because like, what we realized is that you don't actually need to spend a whole lot of money to  farm.
08:36You just need like really good systems. And then if you do like things like local food aggregation, you can get your sales up by collaborating rather than trying to grow everything yourself. oh So it was a very interesting experiment that actually turned out to be a blessing because, um you know, we've been able to stay small and manageable and profitable with just a very, very simple setup. And very little overhead. And that's also because, you know, you can't really invest.
09:05in leased land very much. So working within the constraints that we have has been kind of like the theme. Okay. So what do you guys grow? So we focus on growing all of our summer stuff, like everything that's perishable. So we grow kind of like most of the normal things you would see at a farmer's market, know, carrots, beets.
09:35all the salad greens, the lettuce, cherry tomatoes,  the hits, cucumbers. We also grow flowers,  which we just started a couple of years ago  and  is something that I really love doing. ah So what we don't grow  is all of the storage crops.  And we actually have a very long winter here. So we actually  buy in enough storage vegetables to last us like seven months of sales. So we buy in.
10:04potatoes, storage carrots, onions, garlic, rutavega. All the root vegetables. All the root vegetables  and those in general come from farms with tractors. So we're leveraging the equipment that other farms have instead of investing in our own.  That's  smart. That's a really great business plan. uh
10:34Okay. So the other thing I wanted to touch on, as you mentioned, COVID.  I can't believe how many times COVID comes up on this podcast. I swear it should be a drinking game.  If you hear a COVID, take a shot, you know,  and don't do that. I'm joking, but that's how it feels.  And I feel like COVID  really kickstarted what was already a movement into a runaway train.  Yeah.
11:04One concerning  thing that a pattern that we see and one of the reasons we started Small Scale Rebellion is that there was a lot of farms that started during COVID  and a lot of those farms end up failing, um which is not good for the local food movement  and  we don't want that to happen. So that's why we're sharing everything that we've learned with farmers so that
11:34you know, we can make local eating mainstream and we can make sure that farmers are thriving instead of just surviving or going out of business.  Yep,  absolutely. And I'm going to say it again,  if you, for the listener, if you don't know your local growers and your local producers,  you should start getting to know them because the supply chain issues that happened during COVID, that's not necessarily a one-time thing.
12:03It could happen again and again and again. Yeah. I mean, it's inevitable.  It has happened for us before too. It's not just COVID. It's like if there's a natural disaster, like a fire is like the trucks.  But there was another time where trucks, uh, the food trucks couldn't get to where we're at. And some of the shelves went bare again and people were freaking out and they were all,  you know, excited to eat local again and reaching out to local farms. then once,  once the food's back on the shelves, they just.
12:32people forget and they go back to their normal routine and it's just like this cycle of, you know, fear and then back to normal.  Yeah. And it's so frustrating because I feel like the stuff you get local tastes so much better than what you get at the grocery store.  100%. And I mean, in our area, the price, like, I'm not even, I need to go and do like a more thorough price comparison, but like the prices really aren't
13:01very different.  And that's probably because we're in a very isolated area  and  it costs a lot to get things to us. And so local things are, you know, naturally a little bit cheaper. But I don't think that the price difference is that big or as big as people think it is in their minds. And then when you add in the fact that
13:30you know, it's more nutritious  and it's strengthening the local economy, which has like a huge beneficial ripple effect. I think that  local food is the way to go.  Yeah. think it's, um, it's too inconvenient for most people's lives. And so people would eat  local more if it was more convenient. And then that's kind of what we discovered and that's  kind of what we feel. And that's kind of what we're trying to convince other farmers.
14:00to do because there's this mentality like, the customer needs to go out of their way to support local. Like, why don't they care enough to go out of their way? But what we're saying is like, they do care. They just need to be easier. And if it's easier, they'll do more of it. Mm-hmm.  Yeah. And what I would say the average American, but I think the average human  doesn't realize is that the longer the produce has to travel and has to sit and then is stocked at the grocery store.
14:29the nutrient denseness of it drops by grand percentages. Yeah. And then you're getting even less value for your money.  Right. Yep. So  again, for the listener, if you want nutrient dense,  really fresh,  good food, find out who your local growers and producers are because you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck. Yeah. And I will, I will.
14:58I will die on that hill, damn it. Go ahead, Emily, you were going to say. Support them all year round too. Not just during the peak season, like farmers need income year round. Like one of the big things that we have an issue with is like, we have lots of variety of winter crops, but people just lose interest like dramatically during the winter and then they come back in the summer. And like, that's just not a sustainable way to.
15:28you know, keep farms alive. No, yeah. And it's, it's like a cultural thing. I think, you know, people are used to eating cherry tomatoes and cucumbers all year and they just don't really know how to cook with winter vegetables or they don't care to,  you know, so it's definitely like, we've done a lot of education with our farm around eating seasonally, particularly in the winter. And it's pretty hard to move the needle. Um, but it's something that we're, you know, committed to doing.
15:59Yes, and I call winter soup season. Yeah. Would you believe that I have not made a single soup this winter because we've been eating a lot of hamburger based meals. I haven't made a single soup this winter and winter is almost over. That is like a sin in my house. I need to make some soup. Damn it. Yeah. Before it's too late. Yeah. And the other thing is I refuse.
16:28to eat tomatoes from the store in the wintertime because we grow tomatoes here in the summer.  our garden fresh tomatoes are amazing.  And ever since we started doing it, tomatoes from the grocery store tastes like cardboard to me.  The reason I say this is I am really craving bruschetta. I don't know if you guys know what that is. Yeah, really craving it. And I have been debating. uh
16:55picking up some vine-ripened tomatoes at the store.  Because really what I want it for is that kick you in the face balsamic vinegar and olive oil flavor.  And I suppose that I can spend $15 on crappy tomatoes to get the flavor hit that I want. But I was thinking that maybe I should just pick up some organic  zucchinis, know, the small ones. Cut.
17:22those up into small pieces and do that instead of tomatoes because the tomatoes here in Minnesota in the winter time  are not great.  No, I mean, it really like  when you can't have something all the time, it makes it way more special when you can have it.  Yep. Yeah.  Yep. That's why we all  love Thanksgiving and Christmas.
17:49Because there are things associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas that we eat that we don't eat any other time of the year. Mm-hmm. Yeah So I love summertime I We didn't have we didn't have any cucumbers last year because it was so wet and then it was so hot and then it was so wet and then it was so hot that they got blight  and they all died  So there was not  one single cucumber out of our garden last year
18:18Usually we have great success with cucumbers and I eat a cucumber and tomato every day the minute they start coming in. Yeah. That's Christmas for me.  Yeah.  So I love the name that you chose, Small Scale Rebellion,  because I'm always joking that if you can grow something on your property that feeds you,  you're a rebel.  Yeah.
18:47And it's true because I don't know what the government is like in Canada, but the government in the United States probably isn't thrilled that we're not spending our hard-earned money on stuff at the grocery store.  We're spending it on seeds so we can have food out of our garden. Yeah. It's,  you know, it's definitely an act of rebellion.  Yup. Be a rebel. Grow something you can eat.
19:17I need to get t-shirts made.  a rebel. Grow your own food.
19:23You guys should do that. Do you have t-shirts? Haven't got around to it yet. We haven't even made t-shirts for our personal farm business confluence and it's been like five years. Well, it costs money to get t-shirts printed. So, this food hub thing, is it, are you going to have a website and set it up so that people can find where they can get locally grown food or what's the plan?
19:51No, the plan is to teach farmers to become  farm hubs on their own. Okay.  And so it's kind of like a franchise model where we teach farmers the business model and then they use their own farm name and their own branding to promote it. Okay.  But it's like a full business model. we build them a website, we teach them how to work with other farms, we teach them marketing, which is lacking uh greatly in the farming community.
20:20And we just teach them how to manage their money and how to become profitable so that  they can become  this convenient hub for  customers and then also a reliable sales channel for the farmers that they work with in their community. Cause a lot of farmers, like wholesale accounts are kind of dwindling year by year as supermarkets get bigger.  so farmers need wholesale accounts  and  customers need more convenience. So we're trying to kind of promote that whole model.
20:50But it's all based off of our own  farm hub, which we do have a website for and you know, all of our sales come in through the website. So it's, it's all online ordering with free home delivery  and all of the systems that we teach we've perfected over the last five years  in our own business. What's your delivery radius?  It's like an  hour.
21:19And a half at most.  So we live in a weird area. It's a very rural  and everywhere is like  minimum 30 minute drive away to go anywhere or do anything. So it's, go to the two  towns that are near us. So one of them is a 40 minute drive and it's a town of like 10,000 people,  maybe a little more. And then the other one is a  20 minute drive and it's like 8,000 people. And then there's like,
21:49you know, some people in between there. So we basically drive to the town and then we stay within the city limits and then come back home.  OK, so it's not it's not like you're driving eight hours  on way. That would be. Yeah, we've actually been shrinking our delivery zone over the years because,  you know, there's enough people to support us. So at this point, we just need to be more efficient. um And it sucks to kind of like turn people away. But, um you know, your deliveries have to be quick.
22:17Otherwise you'll spend your whole day driving around. Yeah, so this is a no to lot of people who just like live in the country. You know what I mean? Like we drive straight to town. We stay inside town pretty much. If somebody wanted to get produce from you and they were willing to drive further than that, could they come to your place and pick up produce?
22:40No, we don't do any pickups. It's only home delivery. also don't have any meetup spots  or any pickups in town. And that's for two reasons.  One, to streamline our process because it just adds a lot of complexity, believe it or not. Communicating with people, arranging a time, making sure that they remember, et cetera, et cetera. Like  it's just not worth it.
23:07And then also they can't come to the farm because we lease land and our land holder doesn't want people showing up at his house.  That makes sense. I completely forgot that was leased. I know you told me, but I wasn't thinking about that.  Yeah. again, constraints.  Yeah. We stopped doing our CSA because  it  was fine, but we only had a few people who signed up every year.
23:35And sometimes they would forget and they would have to make a different time to come get stuff and My husband really enjoys going to the farmers market. Nice. Yeah farmers market is on Saturday morning from 8 until noon  That was when we used to have people come pick up the CSA stuff He can make more money on a weekly basis at the farmers market than we ever made through the CSA So we had to make a choice. Yep
24:03Yeah, it's kind of tough like cutting things out. mean, what do you guys, what are you guys doing now? um Just the farmer's market and we have a farm stand on our property. Okay, nice. Yeah. Yeah. And are you, so are you growing vegetables?  Yes. Yes, we are. And  my husband is the gardener. I always give him all the credit because I am not the one out there in the dirt.  I used to be.  I don't love it as much as he does. So that's his Zen.
24:29That's what he wants to do and I'm like go play in the dirt. Have fun.  But he grows tomatoes, grows cucumbers, he grows summer squash, he grows winter squash.  He has gotten into growing cabbages. He grew the most beautiful cabbages last spring. Nice. And people loved them. Like he did 50 I think  and when they were done people would be asking him if he had any cabbages.
24:57And he would say, no, I only planted 50. They're gone. And people, people would be crestfallen on their faces. There were no more cabbages. Yeah.  That's the power of food when it tastes really good. Yeah, it was really sweet. I don't know what variety it was, but it was  really good.  Um, I also found a short season, personal size watermelon variety. Nice.
25:26that we're gonna try this year.  It's a 60 day watermelon. What's it called? I don't know. I would have to look it up.  And I know exactly where the seed packet is downstairs. We haven't even opened the envelope that they came in yet. So when I open it, I will find out and I will message the variety to you. Cool. Sounds good. I'm sure you guys would love a 60 day watermelon. Oh yeah. I mean, we haven't grown watermelons um since we first started just because of space.
25:55We're at the point where a half an acre is not really enough space, but we don't have other, we don't have anywhere to expand into. our climate is our growing season so short. Like you can, you can barely even grow a buttermoth here cause it won't ripen in time. I'm so sorry. It pretty much shows like the worst place to start a farm. Well, Canada has a short growing season.
26:25over much of the country,  Yeah. And it's also very snowy here. Yeah. mean, I'm in Minnesota. I'm right over the border from you. I mean, I'm not. I'm like eight, 10 hours from the border. But  we have  a shorter growing season and we don't plant anything  usually until Mother's Day  because by Mother's Day, we're pretty sure the last frost has happened. Yeah.
26:56Yeah, we had one year where we had a frost on June 15th and it killed all of our tomatoes. They frosted back down to the ground, but then they bounced back and they were fine. And we actually had tomatoes only like one or two weeks later than normal. It  was quite the experience. Huh, I didn't know they'd bounce back. They had established enough where
27:23They did. They sprouted from the base of the plant. They were very, very, um,  branched that year, but they were fine.  Huh?  I did not know that. I will have to let my husband know we may have to do an experiment. Yeah, just give them a few weeks to see what happens. if they're, if they got roots, you know, they'll bounce back. So if you think about how many like runners they, they, they give out, right? Yeah. They'll just do that from the base. Okay.
27:53Well, we have a hard-sided greenhouse that we're going to be starting seeds in here. I think he said this weekend. I'm not sure. It might be next weekend. But we've never started seeds in there before. We've had it up for two seasons now. A lot of people are writing. I asked him the other day, said, are you going to bring in the seed trays and do them on the kitchen table? And he said, no, we're starting them in the greenhouse this year. Nice.
28:20And I said, are you sure you want to do that?  And he said, yes, I do. He said, because I've been keeping track of how much. OK, little tiny backstory. Most people who listen to the podcast have heard this before, but you guys probably have not. um We have IBC totes that we painted black filled with water  in the greenhouse.  as the sunlight comes in the greenhouse, heats up the water and it disperses the heat at night when it cools off outside.
28:49And so usually by mid-March, it's not gonna get below, it's not even gonna get near 32 degrees Fahrenheit in there overnight. It's gonna stay at like 50, 55. And for seedlings, that's perfect. So this is the first year we're starting the seeds in the greenhouse. And I am nervous. I am very nervous that this is not gonna work and he's gonna be really, really disappointed.
29:17As I keep saying to everybody, keep your fingers crossed that this works. For sure.  Well, know,  the ceilings are, they're very cold hardy when they're started cold. Like we don't have a nursery.  We've never used a nursery.  And I start my seeds and I put them outside way before you're supposed to with some cover, but they, you know, seem to do fine. As long as you're  very, um,
29:45careful about starting them cold and not like giving them a huge shock.  Plants  hate, hate shock from temperature changes. Yeah. They do not enjoy it and they may survive it, but I'm, I'm just praying and I'm not a praying girl, but I am praying that this, this goes well because if it does, it means that  two springs from now we can really do a whole lot more.
30:15Yes. Because the greenhouse is over 15 feet by 25 feet.  So it's a good size greenhouse. Yeah, nice. Yep. Very, very excited about all the things that it opens up for us. anyway, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're almost there. Where can people find you?  You can find us on Instagram.
30:42Small scale rebellion or also our farm account is called Confluence Farms Kootenays. Okay.  Awesome. I hope that people go and look at your stuff because I think what you're doing is amazing. Thanks, Mary. We appreciate that. All the best, you guys. Thank you. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Nathan and Emily, thank you so much for your time. I hope you have a good rest of your day. Thank you. Thanks. You too.
 

Homestead Education

Today I'm talking with Kody at Homestead Education. You can also follow on Facebook.
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Mary talks with Cody Hanner from The Homestead Education in Idaho about homeschooling through agriculture, raising heritage pigs, and building a life centered around food, family, and practical skills. Cody shares how a life changing health diagnosis in her family led them to move to Idaho, embrace homesteading, and rethink how children learn.
They discuss how agriculture can teach real world math, science, history, and problem solving while helping kids understand where their food comes from. Cody also explains how she turned her family’s farm learning experiences into a widely used homeschool agriculture curriculum now used in multiple countries.
The conversation explores the importance of applied learning, the lost knowledge around food production, and how rebuilding those skills can strengthen families and communities. They also dive into homestead topics like raising quail, food preservation traditions, and why character and rural etiquette matter when building strong communities.
Topics Covered
How a health crisis led Cody’s family to homesteading
Teaching math, science, and history through farm life
Creating an agriculture based homeschool curriculum
Why applied learning helps kids retain knowledge
The connection between food, history, and holidays
Raising heritage pigs and supporting local 4 H programs
Why more people are returning to homesteading skills
Raising quail for eggs, meat, and income
Teaching character, responsibility, and rural traditions
Resources Mentioned
The Homestead Education curriculum and resources
Homestead business and food safety coaching
Holiday based agriculture lessons for homeschoolers
Where to Find Cody
Website: TheHomesteadEducation.comPodcast: The Homestead Education PodcastSocial: The Homestead Education on Facebook and Instagram

Salt & Fern Bakehaus

Today I'm talking with Cally at Salt & Fern Bakehaus. You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:00If you're a homesteader who wants to get paid for your content without living on social media, check out SteelSpoonFarm.com. Founder Jen Kibler teaches you how to build a real blog or your email list and use Pinterest for sustainable marketing. Inside her coaching group, Content Seeds Collective, you'll get weekly live coaching, a private community, and access to her Root Seller Resource Library full of tutorials and templates. Join today for just $37 a month and start building a business that doesn't depend on the algorithm.
00:26A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Sealspoon Farm. You'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. Today I'm talking with Cally at Salt and Fern Bakehouse in North Mankato, Minnesota. Good morning, Cally. How are you? Good morning. I am really happy to be here.
00:50I'm glad to have you and I'm really glad that I didn't screw up the introduction because I have been stumbling over my words the last few episodes and I'm like,  get it together, Mary. You know how to do this. That's moving for a cup of coffee. Yeah, I'm telling you. It's crazy. um Normally, I would say, how's the weather? But since you're about half an hour for me, I'm guessing the sun has just broken through the rain clouds from this morning.
01:15It's still pretty cloudy here, unfortunately, but I'm sure the sun will be on its way. know we've got some 50 and 60 degree days coming up. I cannot wait. I am so excited. I am so ready for this winter to be over. Me too. Get me in the garden. Yep. Right there with you. My husband is itching. I said to him, I said, are you going to get seeds planted in the seed trays on the kitchen table this weekend? And he said, there will be no seedlings in the house this year. What?
01:44And I said, okay, he said, I am starting everything in the greenhouse. Oh my gosh. Do have an exterior greenhouse or like those rollable ones? We have like a, I think it's 25. I don't, I don't know the exact dimensions. It is probably 15 by 30 feet. It is a, it's not one of the hoop houses. It's a hard sided greenhouse. What a dream.
02:12Yes, I applied for a grant a couple of years ago and got the grant and the grant was to go for a greenhouse. So we are very... that through U of M Extension? It was through the market and entry fund. Okay. I'll have to take a peek at that someday. Yeah, I can send you the link to the website if you would like it. Please. That sounds fantastic. Yep. it's been up. The greenhouse has been up for two seasons now, but...
02:39He's been leery about starting seeds in there because we had to figure out a way to  use the sunlight without using the solar generator panels. And so we put water in IBC totes and we painted the IBC totes black.  so starting about now when the sun is out and it's pouring into the greenhouse, it heats up the water and then the water disperses the heat at night. That's brilliant.
03:09So this is the first year we're brave and we're going to try starting the seeds, you know, in the greenhouse. That's so exciting. What a new journey. We're very lit up about this around here and I'm just keeping everything I have crossed that it works because we sell at the farmer's market in the summer and if those babies die, we have to start again. So keep everything you have crossed for me that this works.
03:36Absolutely, I will. Are you selling at Mankato or like up in Liss- because you're in Lissour, right? Yeah. Yeah, we sell at the Lissour Farmers Market. I'll have to come give that a peek sometime. Is that usually Saturdays? Yeah, Saturday morning from 8 until noon.
03:52That sounds so fun. Yep. And it's a very  busy, very robust, very friendly group of people who've been there. Oh,  yeah. I'm definitely going to have to come give that a peek. Yeah. It's really fun.  it's,  I don't want to say it's really diverse, but there are definitely  some different things. People sell crafts there too.  Ooh.  Like everything from lotions to artwork? um
04:20I don't know about artwork, but there's a guy that takes traidel sewing machines and makes them into tractors, makes them look like tractors. There's a guy who does jewelry, like  pendants and stuff.  And there's a lady who is in her eighties who sells eggs every summer. And there's like three or four people selling baked goods. And that wasn't the case a couple summers ago,  but this past summer.
04:49there were like four or five people selling baked goods there.  I wonder if that's just a sign of the economic times that people are starting to get out there and  utilize their skills in a financially helpful way or if that's just like they just decided to pick it up at that time. I have no idea but  my husband ends up bringing home treats because everybody's sharing  and there's a lady who makes lemon cookies that are to die for. oh
05:17That sounds really delicious.  when he comes home with lemon cookies, he is he is like all stars in my book.  I bet they don't last too long on the counter, huh? No. And he usually brings back like they're small. They're maybe the size of a half dollar or so. Perfect. So if you bite that, if he brings home six, they're mine and they're gone in about 10 minutes.  What a blessing.  I love it. I love lemon.  All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do.
05:46Well,  I  obviously, you know that I have my little bakery, my salt and fern bakehouse um started out doing sourdough a couple years back. I think I believe I started during the pandemic um and then started selling about a year and a half ago now. um It was just something a little therapeutic and I like keeping things alive. this sourdough starter was uh the next logical step, I guess. um
06:16And then people liked it and I was like, well, maybe  I can be a neighborhood baker, even if I'm not gonna have an actual shop open. I can at least provide Mankato with a few extra loaves. uh And uh I like knowing where a lot of my food comes from. Local food is really important to me. My degree back in the day was with food systems, consumers and markets. So  I am under the impression that honestly,  buying local.
06:45does more for the environment than even  specifically buying organic  can help because of the gas mileage that it takes. um It seems like buying local saves a lot of energy costs as well as em you tend to hold people responsible more when you actually know  where you're getting your product from.  for sure.  And every dollar you spend locally stays local for the most part.
07:15Exactly, exactly. So back in the local economy and ah that can only help my neighbors further. Yep,  absolutely. uh We actually don't have any eggs in our farm stand this morning because somebody bought the last six dozen last night. Whoa. And I feel bad that there's no eggs in the farm stand today.  How many chickens you guys have? 18. Nice, a good number, a solid chicken math number. Yes, it's not crazy. It's not too few. It's not too many. That's so smart.
07:45But yes, I am. I swear I say get to know your local farmer and producer on every episode of this that I do because I am such a proponent for it because it is crazy to me that  we can buy eggs from California at our local grocery stores. Yeah, which is wild because Minnesota used to have some of the most  chicken farmers  to my understanding in the nation.  I don't know if that's true to this day, but it used to be.
08:15Yeah, I don't know. And again, I'm going to repeat myself as I do. It is coming up on bird flu season, season for this. And I want, I want my neighbors to be able to have eggs. So if eggs go up in price again at the stores because of egg, because of bird flu, I want my neighbors to know that they have another source where they can pay $5 a dozen, not 10 or $12 a dozen. So right. True.
08:43I'm lucky enough to have both my sister-in-law and my mom-in-law both raise chickens and then I have another friend in Mapleton who also raises chickens so they're usually pretty willing to trade bread for eggs when I'm in need which is, you know, even cheaper than a  cash payment in my life. Oh, absolutely.  Speaking of sourdough, I just got my new sourdough starter started on Tuesday. Do you have a name for them yet? I don't name them. Fair enough.
09:12I figure that they're probably gonna die so I don't name them. Once I get one that actually lives for longer than a month and a half, I'll start naming it. Did you start it yourself or is this do you receive them from other people and then keep them alive? I received the first one last year from a friend  and I was moving the jar over to my island to feed it and I dropped the jar and it shattered. No,  RIP.  Yeah, so that one went away real quick.
09:41And then I decided to start my own and they were doing, did two and they were doing really well. And then they got the dreaded pink mold. No, no. And you can't come back from that. Nope. Those went in the trash too. And I was very disappointed because they were at that point where you put the spoon in and you dragged the spoon through it and it crackles because of all the bubbles.  That's so satisfying.  I was so mad.  So I started this one last Tuesday  and yesterday I pulled half of it out and added the
10:09the flour in the water and stirred it up and I looked at it this morning and it's got bubbles all around the glass. I was like, okay, so another three, four, five days and maybe I can make a loaf. Maybe. I will be crossing my fingers and toes for you. That is the most exciting part. It is. And I've made two loaves so far. And I know this episode is not supposed to be about me, but I've made two loaves. The first one.
10:38came out okay. was slightly undercooked and it was almost like a bagel texture. And it was yummy. I didn't even care that it wasn't not all the way cooked because I love bagels. Like the flavor, you can't beat the flavor of sourdough. It just doesn't compare to anything that you can find on grocery store shelves that's made to last. I know sourdough will disappear usually before it can mold luckily, otherwise it molds within a week.
11:07And then my grocery store loaves will sit there for two months and still look like they did before we even, look like they did when we got them in the first place. Which is really scary. The second loaf I did, it was less undercooked, less baggily. Nice. like I was making progress and then I got the pink mold and had to stop. So did you know you can freeze some of your starter as well? I'm going to do that this time. Good choice.
11:36Good choice, because then you can always bring it back.  way if anything happens to the one that's going, I will have a backup because  I really like the fact that I'm trying to do this because I don't like store-bought sourdough because it's so sourdough. Sure. Well, do you know why that is? No. Okay, so grocery stores, don't have enough time to do the three-day process that it usually takes to make a true loaf of sourdough. So they often are a yeasted dough.
12:06that adds like essence of sourdough into it to make it sour, but it doesn't have the fermentation process that a true sourdough has. Oh, yeah, it's not my favorite thing. Yeah, so I learned that in the process of screwing up the first attempt, that it doesn't have to be super sour to still have the benefits of sourdough. Yeah, it's still, the yeast is still eating all of the sugars out of it.
12:33not out of it, out of it, but like making it way more digestible. Yes. And I don't love the sour sour dough. So when I learned that I could make bread that I actually like to taste of that I would get the benefits from, I was very excited. Life changing, truly. Your sandwiches will never be the same.  No. And there's something about the chew of a sour dough bread that I love. It's dense. It can actually hold up to like a BLT, a juicy garden tomato won't just fall right through it.
13:04So  I have all kinds of great things to say about sourdough. I love sourdough now that I know about it. And now I know it doesn't have to taste like vinegar.  Helpful. So made me very happy to discover this. And if my friend hadn't given me the starter a year ago or whatever it was,  I wouldn't be doing it now. Well, I'm glad you're here with us. Yeah, I've been assimilated.  It's always wonderful when your friends invite you into their adventure. Truly.
13:31That's how we get to be curious and grow together and then maybe have a little guidance where we need it when we're just starting out. So tell me about your cottage kitchen because I was looking at your Facebook page and it looks like you have some pretty hefty equipment. So  how are you doing this? um Well,  I  just got a new simply bread oven earlier this year and it just got hooked up as of basically yesterday.
13:58um So that's my heftiest piece of equipment because I've otherwise just been baking two loaves at a time in my Dutch ovens  and that was you know, if you're baking from 5 a.m. Until 10 11 p.m. Before a market it's a little  more exhausting So my capacity to be able to do 12 loaves at once now is going to be absolutely life-changing
14:21Oh, yes. Oh, I screamed.  was just completely overjoyed and then had my husband and four of his buddies come help carry it inside because that was not a one-man job. uh And then I also have uh a new mixer that allows me to do 10 loaves uh at a time that was a lot more helpful than trying to mix all of my dough by hand. I might even upgrade this year to have a second one  so my timing can be more. uh I can do more loaves in the same amount of time again.
14:52Do you have all of this in a small house or how is this working? Yeah, it's just uh a typical Midwestern  Rambler  kitchen. um I have a pretty big dining room table that most of the stuff gets set upon.  My sister is a carpenter and she built it for me. And yeah, I think it's like an eight foot table and it's real sturdy so it can handle all the shakes that come from the mixer. uh But yeah, most of it.
15:21Probably most of my work takes place within a like a 10 foot square of my house. Wow. And honestly, I say wow and I shouldn't because I used to make like major meals in a galley style kitchen at our old house. So I know. get it. I know what can be done. It's just it's just that I always think that things are much, much bigger than they are. It's why I've been like, oh, people are like, oh, when are you going to open a physical location? I'm like,  I'm not.
15:49I can get everything done here in this small space without paying for a lease. Yeah, that's a smart way to do it and it keeps your profits coming to you not going into rent. That's the hope. Because most of the businesses that I've seen that did take that step in my childhood, they never made it to the seven-year mark. Have you heard that thing of like, if you make it to seven years, you can be established there for 20, 30, 40. But if you don't make it to the seven-year mark, then you were kind of always doomed.
16:19Yeah, I have. And it's either three years or seven years for any business. Sure. Sure, sure, Yeah. So I'm nervous to like start that and start that timer. I'm like, I'll just keep baking out of my kitchen until capacity is such that I cannot handle what people are asking for anymore. Yes. And that leads me to my next question. uh You started this a year two ago. So how is business? it?
16:46Is it robust? Is it growing? Is it stagnant? How is it going? I would say in general, it's growing. I've been kind of on a two-ish month hiatus with the newborn. ah All of my brain cells have kind of gone into that small child at the moment, but I'm starting up again this weekend ah with the first experimental loaves out of the new oven.  And uh in general, I would say I probably have been selling, you know, when I was still going whole hog at this, I was probably selling
17:1610 to 15 loaves a week on my Monday pickup days.  But then every time I would do an actual market, like at the Mankato Makerspace, I would sell out within three hours, no matter how much product I made. um So I feel like if I can start doing farmers markets this year, that would really be an excellent opportunity on my end.  And then I would probably continue doing the weekly pickups, although I'm
17:41trying to decide if more people would be willing to do pickups if I made pick up day Saturday instead of Monday. But I just figured like, oh, you want to start your work week with fresh bread instead of start your weekend with it. But  there's a lot of experimentation and growth yet to still happen. I feel very  young in my process of this all, which is kind of crazy that people have been  appreciating what I've been doing to the extent they have because I feel so
18:10Not unprepared, just it's unexpected to be appreciated in the way it's been. Yes, yes. I know exactly what you're talking about because we all suffer from imposter syndrome. When we start something new, it's like, OK, I'm going to try this. Yeah. Then it goes well. The first whatever span of time. And the further you get into it, you're like, I got a handle on this.
18:39and then you take that next step. And then you go through it again. Do I know what I'm doing? Who am I to try this? Right. Who am I to explain it to other people? And I still feel like there's miles and miles of knowledge still yet to be gained before I could call myself any kind of a true  expert or baker in general. I still feel like such a novice. And then my friends are like, no, you're awesome. You can teach me these things. like, I don't feel like that's a huge responsibility.
19:08I'm still making so many mistakes. What do you mean? Yeah, but every journey starts with the first step. True. And I'm willing to make a million of those because I'm a curious,  nonsensical human. Yes, I'm like that too.  I started this podcast over two and a half years ago now. That's awesome. I had no idea  how to do it,  where to start. And I just Googled everything and made notes and drove myself crazy.
19:37for three months before I ever record an episode. That's awesome. And I mean, you know, the school of YouTube definitely helps for a lot of things like that as well, I imagine. I didn't even really look at YouTube. Really? Helpful. Nice though. Good.  Nope. I just went out and looked at what other people did on their podcasts.  And then I typed in, how do I start a podcast in Google? Word. And all kinds of help. So.
20:06If  for the listener, if you want to start something that you're interested in, try it. Yeah, just do it. Just take the first step. It does not have to be perfect. No. And if you find out you hate it, you don't have to keep doing it. True sunk cost fallacy.  It's it's real and you don't have to do it. Yeah.  And no one's going to punch you in the face for trying something new. No. And then you'll know more about yourself when you come out of it.  Uh huh. Yep.
20:35Absolutely. I am again a proponent of people following their dreams. Don't drown in them. If they're not going well, don't keep doing it. Right. But try it. You never know what's going to happen. Give it a shot, man. Yeah, absolutely.  And I'm old. I'm 56 years old and I started a podcast when I was 53 or 54. If I can do this, anybody can do something.
21:01I feel like is not even that old these days. I feel like you  have so much more of sense of yourself at 54 that you probably have more freedom. I think that's what actually saved me. Is that I was like, nobody cares. Nobody cares what I do. I am not out to impress anybody anymore. I'm just gonna try it.  And that's what frees you. Like then you can just do exactly what you want because it's like, well, who cares? Who's gonna tell me no? No one. No one is gonna...
21:31like yell at me for trying new things these days. Yes, and if you're 16 years old, the same thing holds true.  You don't have to be constrained by other people's opinions. You have to be true to yourself. I feel like that's a much harder lesson to learn at 16 than in my  30s.  Oh, I would never have done anything like this at 16, ever.
21:57Do think it's because of the communities we've built up that we know have our backs or is it just our sense of self?  I think that when we are in our teens, we're trying to  rebel and conform at the same time. um And when you're trying to rebel and conform at the same time, you find yourself very confused, very insecure and very not sure of what you should do. That feels accurate.
22:25And I think once you turn 40, especially as a woman, that's the time where you're like, okay, I have tried to conform. I have tried to rebel. I have found middle ground. I'm going to stay in the middle ground for a while and just be me. And then we're newsflash happy, crazy, happier. Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully fingers crossed. But I don't think the age is the thing that that should keep anyone from trying out.
22:55something that they're interested in. No, definitely not. It's  just about exposure. I'm really proud of you for doing what you're doing, especially with a brand new baby at home.  Thanks. I've just always wanted to have a family. think  my ADHD is kind of a superpower in the kind of life that I want to live between
23:18Okay, well want to know everything about raising a child. I want to know everything about raising a garden. I want to know everything about starting a business and starting to bake all these things. Like, being able to bounce between all the different interests has made my life kind of more manageable and my mental health happier. Well good, because you've got to take care of you first. uh So  I'm assuming that you saw the email that went out a while ago from the cottage food.
23:47law stuff in Minnesota about that we're going to be able to ship in Minnesota starting in I think 2027. Yes,  I'm excited to see it, but I'm nervous to see if people are going to be willing to pay whatever the shipping costs are. Yeah, and it's going to depend on on how heavy the thing is that you're sending them. Because I mean, one of my loaves is two pounds already. So I  mean, if people are going to ship canned goods, that can't be cheap either.
24:15You know, honestly, I would never ship canned goods. I just wouldn't do it. I  would be so worried about it coming shattered.  Yep, I wouldn't even try. My mom lives in Maine, and obviously I'm in Minnesota, and she makes the best canned green beans.  I love them. They're one of my favorite things on earth. She offered to ship me a couple jars, and I said, please don't.
24:41She said, why you love them? And I said, because if they show up broken, I will just cry for days. Don't ship me green beans. Just devastating.  Oh, it would be ridiculous. I would be crying over green beans and my husband would walk in the door and be like, what? Who died? And I'll be like, green beans died. OK, you know  the travesty. But um I am very excited about the fact that we're finally going to be able to ship in Minnesota because a couple of years ago.
25:09someone asked me if I could ship my granola to them in Northern Minnesota. And  I couldn't because you're not allowed to until whatever the date is in 2027 now. And I had to tell them no. I believe it's August.  Good. And I mean, that's only another year and a half away. But I was I was just so frustrated. And  I for the life of me do not understand.
25:37And I've ranted about this before and I'm going to shorten it up on this one.  I don't understand because if it's a  producer to consumer situation,  if someone in Northern Minnesota orders granola from me, I make it in my cottage food registered business in my kitchen.  I package it in my kitchen.  I take it to the post office. I get a tracking number for it.
26:07It goes to the home of the person that opened it or ordered it and they receive it and it has a tracking number.
26:16You can track where it was made. You can track who it went to. Yep.  It's  it's driving me crazy. I do not understand.  And why did they decide that we could ship in Minnesota, but we can't ship out of state? I wonder if that's due to other people's cottage laws. Like, have you looked at New York's cottage laws compared to ours? No.  So strict, ridiculously strict to the point where it probably wouldn't even be worth it to have a cottage license because you can't
26:45bake anything. Like maybe you could do a single loaf of bread with no inclusions. Because I don't think you can use chocolate in a bunch of things. can't use like it's  yeah,  I feel grateful for the freedom we do have in Minnesota, but also feeling like there's so much farther we have to go yet. Well, on my other podcast that I do with my co-host, my co-host was telling me that um for the first time in 250 years, which is how long we've been a country this year,
27:15that our government representatives are as far removed from agriculture as they've ever been. True. And so I feel like sometimes the people who are making the laws  don't have a working knowledge  about what they're making the laws about. That feels really accurate. They might know politics and they know nothing else and then it's they create unreasonable standards. Yes.
27:45They also are some of the people who are like, I don't need to buy sourdough from Cali in Mankato when I can go to Hy-Vee and buy a loaf of sourdough bread. Yeah, it's about convenience, suppose. Which additionally, I wish that one of the rules that had changed for 2027 had been that we would be able to occasionally sell our goods at a co-op or like I've been reached out to by
28:15Have you heard of Seal Foods  in lower North Mankato?  I may have.  They're fantastic and an incredible Asian grocery store. The only one that I'm aware of in southern Minnesota. uh they would have loved to work with me on making a milk bread to go with like a whipped cream and strawberry sandwich. But I'm not allowed to sell my bread to them to use in their deli stuff. Because of the commercial kitchen. Exactly. Exactly. And so I'm like, I know.
28:44I know that my stuff is safe, but I'm not willing to risk my business in doing that. So I'm wondering if that'll be another change that maybe  we'd see in five years, or if by that time I'll just have  access to a commercial kitchen space that would be able to follow the rule of that law.  You might. Stranger things have happened. True. ah So tell me, I'd like to keep these to half an hour and we got a couple of minutes left. Sorry.  No, you're good.
29:13Tell me about the Mankato Maker Space. my gosh. Okay, so they are this incredible, like if you are into skill learning and mutual aid, that is the place for you. um They can teach people how to do anything from  metalsmithing to pottery to woodsmithing or carpentry and uh jewelry making, 3D printing. Like if you want to learn a hands-on artistic crafting or building skill,  chances are they will have the
29:41tool and the teacher for you. um can either take classes there or you can, um if you have a project in mind, you can become a member there and then  as long as you take the safety courses, you can just use the tools yourself.  They also put on markets for crafters to come in a few times a year and sell their wares there. So I'm not, uh I'm friends with a lot of people that help run it, but I'm not technically a member myself, but I come to all of the craft fairs that I possibly can.
30:09uh And they also have these new things called Fix-It Clinics,  where  they're working with the community to  maybe they have a couple volunteers and you can help fix a lamp. So it's  helping the right to repair uh community as well. Like  they're just so involved in getting people  skills and opportunities to build that I think a lot of us have lost.  They've always been so impressive to me. When I went to one of their events for the very first time when I first moved here about five years ago, um
30:40I  grew up in the church. I'm no longer part of a church. But walking into their event, where it people of all ages, all backgrounds, just kind of curious and loving on each other, felt like what I imagine other people experience in a church. Very nice. I'm going to have to get hold of them and see if somebody will talk to me on the podcast. I bet they would. They're really, truly fantastic. Yeah, because I'd love to get the word out about them.  Do you know if they have set hours?
31:07I believe they do have set hours, but they're quite extensive. I want to say it's like 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Don't quote me. Well, you're obviously quoting me on a podcast, like it's fairly long hours availability wise. I'll look them up and put the links in the show notes so people get. All right, Callie, this went really fast. Holy cow. I love to gab. All right. Where can people find you?
31:32I am on Facebook under Salt and Fern Bakehouse,  Bakehouse is B-A-K-E-H-A-U-S. uh So Instagram, Facebook, and then I have a Bake-See, which is where they can put their orders in. And hopefully I will be back in ordering business by the end of the month. Well, I hope you are, but I'm going tell you having raised four kids,  make sure that you get rest and make sure that you enjoy that baby before he's too big.
32:00Oh, we are getting all of the cuddles. That boy does not want to sleep unless he is on top of me or my husband. So we are attached to the hip.  Do not sacrifice this time when you're first baby because it doesn't come back. That's very good advice. I will keep that close to my heart. Yeah. I hate to, I hate to sound like your mom, but I've been through it and you don't get it back.  All right. You can, as always, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com. Kelly, thank you for sharing your time with me. I appreciate it.
32:29Absolutely. Great talking with you. You too. Have a great day. You too.
 

Thieving Otter Farm

Today I'm talking with Rebecca at Thieving Otter Farm. You can also follow on Facebook.
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Episode Show Notes
Guest: Rebecca LynchFarm: Thieving Otter FarmLocation: TennesseeHost: Mary Lewis
In this episode of A Tiny Homestead, Mary chats with Rebecca Lynch of Thieving Otter Farm in Tennessee. What starts with a conversation about unpredictable winter weather quickly turns into a fascinating deep dive into otters, quail, chicken genetics, deer hunting, ADHD superpowers, and planning ahead in homestead life.
In This Episode
The Story Behind Thieving Otter FarmRebecca shares the heartwarming story behind her farm’s name. After setting up trail cameras on her wooded six acres, she discovered river otters visiting her creek and pond. Despite their habit of stealing fish, Rebecca could not be happier. From spotting baby otters to watching an entire family swim by, these “fish bandits” inspired the name Thieving Otter Farm.
Raising 4,000 Coturnix QuailRebecca is primarily known for raising Coturnix quail, and she estimates she has around 4,000 birds. She explains:
The difference between domestic Coturnix quail and wild bobwhite quail
Why Coturnix quail thrive in smaller spaces
How they can be ideal for homesteaders in areas with HOA or city restrictions
The importance of understanding wildlife conservation when it comes to releasing captive birds
Rebecca also shares her journey from casually accepting a dozen quail in 2020 to becoming deeply involved in quail genetics, writing standards, and judging international shows.
Developing New Chicken BreedsRebecca is currently developing two new chicken breeds, with the ambitious goal of becoming only the second woman to have a breed accepted by the American Poultry Association.
She discusses:
How her first line, affectionately called “Mop Tops,” began with mixed breed birds with crests
The selective breeding process for temperament, egg size, body type, and color
A second accidental breed that started from a mystery chick that did not match its hatchery label
The long, detailed process required to stabilize a breed before applying for APA recognition
Her birds are known for sweet temperaments and prolific laying, including large brown eggs.
ADHD as a Homesteading SuperpowerRebecca was recently diagnosed with ADHD at age 47, and she reflects on how it has shaped her homesteading journey. From raising thousands of quail to out hunting the guys during deer season, she embraces her tendency to dive deep and go all in on new interests.
Mary shares similar experiences from her own homestead, including experimenting with rabbits, planting fruit trees, and considering quail after her husband fell down a research rabbit hole.
Avian Flu and Planning AheadThe conversation turns to avian influenza and how outbreaks impact egg prices and poultry availability. They discuss:
The risks associated with migrating waterfowl
Biosecurity challenges with free range systems
Strategic planning for adding laying hens before potential outbreaks
The importance of thinking one season ahead in homestead life
As always, homesteading involves balancing opportunity with responsibility.
About Thieving Otter Farm
Rebecca raises Coturnix quail and is actively working to develop two new chicken breeds with strong genetics, excellent temperaments, and productive laying ability.
You can learn more at:thievingotterfarm.com
Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Steel Spoon Farm. Founder Jen Kibler teaches homesteaders how to build a sustainable blog or email list and use Pinterest for long term marketing without relying on social media algorithms. Inside the Content Seeds Collective, members receive weekly live coaching, a private community, and access to the Root Seller Resource Library. Join for $37 per month at SteelSpoonFarm.com.
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Quirky Quail Acres

Today I'm talking with Caitlyn at Quirky Quail Acres.
 
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00:00If you're a homesteader who wants to get paid for your content without living on social media, check out SteelSpoonFarm.com. Founder Jen Kibler teaches you how to build a real blog or your email list and use Pinterest for sustainable marketing. Inside her coaching group, Content Seeds Collective, you'll get weekly live coaching, a private community, and access to her Root Seller Resource Library full of tutorials and templates. Join today for just $37 a month and start building a business that doesn't depend on the algorithm.
00:26A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Seals Spoon Farm. You'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. Today I'm talking with Caitlin  at  Quirky Quail Acres in North Mankato, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Caitlin. How are you? Hi there. I'm well. How are you? I'm good, except I can't get through an introduction without stumbling all over myself today. I don't know what's going on.
00:57Um,  so I would normally ask about the weather because that's the question I ask on every single podcast episode, but you're only half an hour away from me.  So I'm guessing it's sunny outside. Yep. Sunny and feeling balmy compared to yesterday. No doubt. Yesterday was terrible. I mean, it was pretty, but it was cold. Yeah, it hurt. It hurt, especially after  tank top weather last weekend. Yeah.
01:24Yeah, that was really nice. And I knew it was fall, spring, but I was like, I will take it. It's a good reprieve. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. OK, so I again, I'm Caitlin and I am a mom and I work full time and we have our little farm here just outside of North Mankato, Minnesota. We
01:53He are kind of jack of all trades sort of farm. We raise quail and we raise chickens and we have an orchard and we have a very large garden. Hopefully this year we'll also have a greenhouse. We also tap all of our own maple trees and we make maple syrup. And we also have, we.
02:20We volunteer at a nearby shelter. So we have three rescue dogs.  Um, it's just chaos all the time.  It sounds amazing to me.  Well, we're right there with you on the big garden  and we have 20 apple trees. We have  one huge wild plum tree. have some Alden plum trees. We have peach trees. have rhubarb.
02:48We do have a greenhouse. have chickens, we have a dog and we have five barn cats. So  there's a lot of overlap there between you and I.
02:59I freaking love it. Yeah, no, I wouldn't choose anything different. um I'm so passionate about it. And it's I've never been one to like I don't want to go to the gym to exercise, but I want to be I want to be active all the time. I want to be I want to be moving and working. And I like I like the hard work and I like feeling accomplished at the end of the day.  Absolutely.
03:26So the reason that I asked you to be on the podcast, I have a little tiny ulterior motive and I don't usually.  My husband and I have been talking about maybe getting a few quail and seeing how they do.  And I'm guessing you know a lot about quail. So  can you tell me all about quail today? Yeah, absolutely. So we,  we raise Coturnix quail  because A, they are the largest variety that
03:56and that you can  own really. um You don't need a special permit like you do for other species of quail because they are considered a domesticated species. uh Whereas for like, bobwhite, you would need a game permit.  And also  they don't lay as many eggs. um They  are smaller birds, so they're not really good meat birds. Generally people raise
04:23Bob White for dog training and stuff. we're not,  again, our dogs are,  they're pound dogs there.  They'd be useless for that. um Anyway,  and  Coturnix quail lay about 300 eggs a year. um We  don't raise exclusively jumbo because we like to go for a good mix of colors in our birds too, just because it's, you know, it's nice to have a pretty bird that you're raising also. So we
04:53focus more  on um egg and feathering  color genetics, but they are highly productive.  are their eggs are so nutritious when you compare them  side by side with like an equal weight of a chicken egg.  The nutritional profile is just phenomenal because they are heavier in the yolk. So then they have all of that additional um
05:22nutrition to go with that. We find them very, very easy to raise. They were kind of our poultry introductory species. My husband had been wanting to raise birds for some time and I was kind, I knew, I knew that I would be doing the majority of the work and so I kind of said, whoa, hey, we're not going to dive in head first.
05:48until I feel really prepared for this, let's try quail first because they require less space, they mature faster, they're productive enough that it can  serve our family's needs off of that. We started with about 15 quail  and now  at any given time we're sitting at about 100 quail.  so quail math equals chicken math. Same thing.  very much so. And it's especially because it's so easy to hatch out your own.
06:17They're mature in eight weeks. uh Some mature faster, but generally they're all mature by eight weeks and laying. You know who's a boy, who's a girl. So within two weeks or within two months, you can vent sex them  and  separate the boys from the girls.  Unfortunately, they are not like chickens in you can't you cannot successfully have a bachelor flock. So  unfortunately, um
06:45The extra males do  end up in freezer camp because um they are very unkind to one another if you have too many roosters in the cubby. But yes, we  very quickly went from 15 in  a hutch to now we have an indoor aviary in our barn because they are very flighty birds. They are very prone to oh
07:11offing themselves if they get scared by anything. And so just with the number of predators we have around, we felt that it was best to keep them under stimulated a little bit in that sense.  And so they have an indoor aviary that we have a bunch of hidey holes and we have artificial sunlight and we keep them as entertained as possible and they get to run around but they you know, they just seem to live their happy little  lives they are.
07:42They're sweet, they're beautiful.  are  what I would refer to as a feathered potato. They do not have brain cells or personality  of some larger poultry, but that's okay. That's okay. Cause they are still lovable. Well, that was a very good introduction to quail. have a couple of questions.
08:04Is it a pain in the butt to crack quail eggs? Because I've heard that quail eggs, you need three quail eggs to equal one chicken egg if you're going to do scrambled eggs. So is it is it hard to crack the eggs or is it just like cracking a chicken egg? It's just smaller. So you actually are best off using an egg scissors for quail eggs because they are. It's not so much the size, it's that they have a much thinner shell, but a much thicker membrane than a chicken egg.
08:33So if you try to crack it, you kind of end up just crumbling it without actually breaking through the membrane. So um you can buy quail egg scissors and cut the top off and dump them out. So that actually makes it very slick and easy,  way less getting, you know, digging shell out of the bowl or the pan with your fingers um than sometimes I have with our chicken eggs. using the scissors is very simple.
08:59Okay, cool, I didn't know such a thing existed. So I have learned something new yet again on a podcast that I am doing. And then for the quail meat, my husband asked me to ask you this. said, can you ask her how she would describe how to cook quail meat and how it tastes? Does it taste like the dark meat on a chicken? What does it taste like? I can honestly, don't eat our quail.
09:28because I'm just not a big meat fan. My husband reports that it is like the dark meat. It's not a lot of meat per bird, but it is very rich. It cooks quickly. They're very easy to process. And typically the way that we cook them is in a crock pot, kind of with potatoes and spices and
09:58broth just sort of stewed. um But I know that a lot of people like to braise them and stuff. I will say generally it's just that my husband makes them more than I do because he eats them and he is a little bit lazier about the food preparation.  I understand. um My husband and I both love to cook, but  weeknights are kind of a pain in the butt because he doesn't always get home at the same time. um weekends are when we actually cook.
10:28And that's when we make things that we want to spend time making  together. um The reason he asked me to ask you is because I'm not a fan of the dark meat on chicken. And he was like, if we get quail, we can have quail meat like three times a week. And I was like, not if it tastes like the dark meat on chicken.  Maybe not. Yeah, I can say it definitely. um
10:53It has that game-ier smell to it when it's cooking. And so you can tell it is, you know, even though they are conventionally raised, is still definitely a game bird that you're eating.  Yeah, I had pheasant one time and it was really, really good. And I was like, why did I not know that pheasant is  yummy? I had no idea. um OK, so here's my here's my big question, because he and I have been going around about this a little bit.
11:22because we both have differing opinions about many things.  I don't know that there is a market in Minnesota for quail meat or quail eggs. And I also don't know how much it would cost, you know, a round number to get started with like a rooster and six hens just to try it out for ourselves. So  do you have answers on that? Yes. So I can say there is a market in Minnesota and in Southern Minnesota. We actually sell our quail eggs at the St. Peter food co-op.
11:52um And depending on the time of year, so like  around the holidays, we were selling a lot more. We were resupplying them pretty regularly. There are other times where it's, you know, we're only dropping off 10 dozen every few weeks.  So it's not, they're not necessarily flying off the shelves, um but there is a market for it.  And we are...
12:17going to be opening our own farm stand here in the next month once  we can  get all the ice cleared away and keep it cleared away for a little bit  to get that set up. there  is Soul Foods in Lower North Mankato, a Korean foods market. They sell quail eggs. ah I know that Rebel Rooster partners with some  wineries and they have
12:42quail egg pizzas and stuff that they get, they source their quail eggs from rebel roosters. So there, there is a market. I, we have not tried to sell our meat yet. Our meat, have mostly kept for ourselves or given away to friends and family. So I can't speak to that, but,  um,  the spaces I'm in online, does seem like there is definitely a market for that.  Okay. Cause
13:09I was just, he was all excited and he was like, we could get quail and we can  take the eggs and we can incubate the eggs and we can sell the meat and we can sell the eggs and that. And I was like,  um,  number one, cool idea. Number two, slow down for a minute. We need to some research. Yes,  absolutely. And that's where we started with so few.  Um, and where we started, I mean, we would have every, if my husband had his way, we would have every farm animal under the sun.  Um,
13:39that, as I mentioned before, I would end up taking care of because once it comes to that part, he's like, oh, well, I'm not that interested anymore. um But so we started small. We  ordered, I want to say from  Hoover Hatchery down in  Iowa.  We ordered some chicks to start with once they aged out. um
14:03We were able to figure out the hens from the roosters. Our kids had already named every single one of them. We tried to do the bachelor flock because  we did not have the kids permission to process the quail. That didn't work.  they did end up in freezer camp and we don't even bother with it anymore because we know it's not going to go well. But the  introductory cost, especially compared to  larger poultry, is  much lower.
14:31not only in the sense of the birds themselves being less expensive, or if you can find hatching eggs, even less expensive. And I will say, that sense, shipped quail eggs, so you might not be able to find a local supplier. Anybody who wants to look at hatching out eggs can feel very confident in ordering shipped quail eggs because
14:58they have a much higher success rate than shipped chicken eggs or goose eggs or whatever. They are safely going to  get an 80 % hatch rate on shipped quail eggs. They're very, very hardy.  So that's a good way to cut that introductory cost is just ordering the eggs because uh most of them will end up hatching.  And then just their space requirements. Each bird requires about a square foot. Some people will say
15:28three birds per square foot, but that  is too crowded and quail can be very, very vicious with one another. And we would never recommend anything less than one square foot per bird, um even in our aviary setting where they're running around all day long.  a  lot of people keep them in hutches are first because we just had so few.  We bought some two by fours at Home Depot and built our hutch, made a plywood floor. um
15:57And the, was a couple hundred bucks versus our chicken coops, which we all know you cannot build for a couple hundred bucks. Not unless you have your own trees and a sawmill. Exactly.
16:14Yeah, we bought some of the  already made garden sheds that they have at like Home Depot in Lowe's. our chickens have chicken mansions because they're bigger sheds.  so it's really funny when it snows because the front of the sheds look like little houses. so it's really pretty. And my husband will take pictures of the snow sticking to the doors.  And I'm like, oh my god, our chickens live in a castle.
16:43That's funny because we actually have the same setup for our coops. we just like that, A, they have more vertical space. They like getting up high to roost. ah It's functional. It's pre-made.  Handles the weather well. Yes. It's so easy to insulate. um So we actually do the same thing. They have like a little loft in there that they can go up and.
17:08hang out in. We have outdoor runs. We have such high predator pressure that we don't do free ranging. But we have massive runs that we were able to just attach to this pre-made shed that's very sturdy and build it out from there. ours too. And we've got the little like solar lights that are, it looks so fancy and it's just full of chickens.
17:35It's such a special building for such an average animal.  Okay.  Well,  I am so thrilled that you told me all those things about quail because now I have answers to give to my husband. Because I was trying to look everything up and I was like, why don't I just talk to somebody who knows what they're doing?  So much easier. um So when you  when you incubate the eggs, is there
18:03Is there a special incubator for quail or can you just get an incubator and it has trays that will fit the eggs?  No, you can put it into any  incubator. um You can get attachments, inserts for different incubators. So like a Matty Coop, you can buy  3D printed inserts that keep smaller eggs upright or  a Nurture Right 360 is another incubator lots of people have.
18:33you can buy an insert for that, or you can double up eggs in any incubator that has chicken slots. I find that they roll around a little goofy and sometimes they get crunched with that thin shell. So I prefer to get a quail specific insert when I can. But I've had 95 % hatch rate success in cheapo incubators I got off of Amazon. So you don't need anything special at all. They have a
19:02shorter incubation period than chickens as well. So they are an 18 day incubation period. Like a little over two weeks. Yeah. Yes. And I don't know that I've ever had them take the full 18 days. Usually we have them popping out like popcorn after about 16 days. um And they  do pop out like popcorn. They hatch so fast. You can hardly even catch them unzipping. just like, there's a quail. um
19:32They don't require different um humidity or temperatures or anything like that. So it's very much as set it and forget it as a chicken egg. You just got to put it in the lockdown a little earlier. Nice. And then do you have to put them in a brooder for a few days or a week after they're hatched?  Yes, we do keep them in a brooder  generally just because we um
19:59don't want to mix them in with the rest of the covey until we have been able to sex them. We keep them  in  a separate, we brood them in the basement for the first week or so when we want to keep a close eye on them. And then we move them out to the barn and they're  in a hutch situation where we can keep the heat lamps on them and keep them separate until they are grown out enough for us to tell who's a boy, who's a girl. And then  the girls and any boys we want to keep get.
20:28tossed in with the cubby.  And on the Hutch's, how tall do they have to be? Because you mentioned that they're very good at unliving themselves. how tall do they need to be? Yes, that's a really good question. this is, it's so specific. This is one of the very specific things when it comes to quail. You do not want any height that is between 18 inches floor to ceiling  or six feet floor to ceiling.
20:57So you can have them in a hutch that is no taller than 18 inches, Florida ceiling,  or  in our aviary, we have eight foot ceilings because um quail cannot control their flight. They get startled at their own shadows. They get startled at absolutely everything. um One time I had an extra nesting pad and I was like, oh, maybe they'll like this. I put that in their aviary. They did not lay for two weeks because that was such a disturbance to them.
21:25terrified them, they wouldn't do it. So they are very flighty  and they go straight up. So if they flush  and there is a ceiling  at say two, three, four feet above their head, they will hit the ceiling and break their necks. So  it's really important. That is the one most important thing with raising quail.  The other thing being their feed, which I'll touch on in a second, but
21:53that height is very specific. So I would say 15 to 18 inches floor to ceiling for a hutch. Okay. Cool. Go ahead. Yeah. Sorry. And then I would say the only, the one other really important thing I would say with quail is their feed requirements  are a little bit, well, they're quite a bit different than um other poultry. They require a higher.
22:19protein. So they do need be started on a 30 % game bird feed. We get ours, we source ours locally here in Minnesota  from a mill down in Mabel. And then  we  use Chick Starter for them in their adult life because that's at that 21 % and that keeps them a lot healthier. um We
22:47don't use a layer feed because of the roosters. So we provide calcium separately. We actually use uh a reptile  enclosure substrate that's calcium based  because they're so small.  can't handle the crushed oyster shells and we're not going to try to grind it up in a food processor.
23:10But so that  is another distinction to be aware of is that they do have different nutritional needs. So you can't start them  on a regular chick starter, a regular adult layer feed.  They do best when they have that higher level of protein.  Okay, good to know. Thank you. Hold on one second.
23:33I was gonna cough and I didn't want to cough in your ear. uh So we're looking at a little bit of  of fundage for the outlay to start this but once we get started it would be okay. Yes, yes and they're  they're so self-sufficient like you can just keep going you can just keep taking your own eggs especially because they lay so many.
23:59that it doesn't feel like you're cutting into anything to save a few to toss in the incubator. um And you  just keep going. There's never a point where  I feel like we have to invest anymore in new birds. We do like to. Every so often,  we will buy some hatching eggs from outside to just add genetics back into our covey to  keep things  fresh.
24:29But you can go several generations before that's even a concern. And certainly we have  more than the average person keeping some for their family would have. Yeah.  Cool. Oh, my God, Caitlin.  I was really hoping that you were going to be  a quail expert lady. And you are. I'm so thrilled that I got to talk to you because  this whole weekend, every other sentence was I was thinking about the quail question.
24:57I'm like, oh my God, we're obsessed. Okay.  And I just, needed somebody who does it because you  know things that Google doesn't know. Trial and error.  And I do,  I'm glad to info dump about  our uh quail anytime.  Yeah. And I was like, am I being  like, I don't know,  terrible? Am I a terrible person asking you when you're only half an hour away?  But
25:27But people aren't necessarily gonna drive from Jordan down to Mankato to get your quail eggs. No, absolutely not. And we don't expect them to at all. And again, you know, we know we're not even the only ones in the Mankato area. And I think that's great. And I think that's fine. And, yeah, definitely not a concern  on our front.  Good.  I just I always worry because usually people who are in
25:56agriculture because quails agriculture. They're pretty good about no, you should try it if you want to try it. Absolutely. But there's always one person somewhere that's like, oh, they're going to be competition. That's not cool.  Not not not my vibe at all.  Yes. And I didn't say anything to my husband about this and he's going to listen to this episode because it's full of information he wants. I'm going say it anyway.  He was talking about ducks and I was like,
26:24It wouldn't be fair to get ducks. And he's like, why? I said, because we have no running water on our property. There's no creek, there's no pond, there's nothing. And ducks like to swim.  Quail don't care. They don't want to swim. Nope, they don't at all. They just want to... We  have some... I bought some totes, some like decorative storage totes.
26:47Those are flipped upside down inside their aviary. You can cut some evergreen boughs down and create little hidey holes for them. They  don't even want to roost. They just want to run around on the ground and hang out and eat.  How do they handle the really cold weather in  Minnesota?  They do fairly well. Again, ours are indoors, but they are in an unheated barn. know,  they're...
27:17there have been times as you know this winter where it has been absolutely necessary to go out three times a day and give them some fresh water because freezing in 20 minutes. But aside from that, do well. I will say when we were having 40 below, we would lose one just from.
27:39shock to the system. were generally our older birds that  we would lose one after got super, super dangerously cold.  aside from that,  they do really well. just huddle up together, fluff up their feathers, especially because they're on the ground um and they can kind of  burrow down into the bedding. do great.  Good to know. Thank you. uh
28:04And then the other question I have, because I didn't think I'd look it up or ask my husband if he knew,  is are there wild quail in Minnesota? There are not wild quail in Minnesota. um We  used to have a small population  of Bob White quail in Minnesota, um but we do not have  an extant  population at this time of any species. OK. Hmm.
28:34Did people shoot them? Did they migrate? Do you know what happened to the quail? Yeah, they seem to be migrating to... Well, okay, so here's... I'll go on another tangent. I actually work for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever also. That's my full-time job. I have a lot of information on this specific topic too.
28:58Most of it is because of our habitat loss. So the degradation of our native tall grass prairies has been  what has diminished quail populations across the entire United States and has condensed them to very small pockets around the country. uh And it's generally where they can find the best cover. So because we don't have the proper
29:26ecosystems for them to thrive in.  They've just left.  Well, they got to go where they want to be, just like humans do.  Okay. And then the last thing I want to bring up, because I saw it on your Facebook page and I was very impressed, was your post about chickens  and what  the definitions are for free range and cage free and all that. Because I am going to share that on my page.  Perfect. Yes. That was...
29:56something,  I was looking for sturdier  egg flats um for storing our eggs  before we packaged them.  And I ended up on the site  of a company that makes  products for conventional farm setups. And I just was struck by this is best case scenario. The pictures they're sharing on their website are.
30:22best case scenario. This is them saying, look at how humane this is. And it was just like  shoulder to shoulder room full of chickens with no room to move. And that's cage free.  And so I just think that people are going to the grocery store and they're spending extra money for these labels that do,  that don't mean a whole lot. They do not mean that these birds are living in more humane conditions. If they were more humane conditions, they wouldn't be de-beaked so that they don't.
30:50tear each other apart out stress. Even with free range, they just have to technically have access to the outdoors and two square feet per bird indoors. They do not have any minimum space outdoors. So it could be, you know, a teeny tiny run that only five of them can fit in at a time. But that meets the legal definition of free range. And that's what people are paying several extra dollars at the store for, is to have this label that doesn't actually mean those chickens are treated well.
31:21And so I  just thought it was worth pointing out because I don't think a lot of people understand that. And I know that some people will hear that we don't free range ours and think that that's  awful and abusive, but we do have 15, 20 square feet per bird, as opposed to  one to two square feet per bird.  keep constant enrichment. is exclusively for their safety because we are positioned
31:50along the river, m surrounded by woods. We have eagles, hawks, um raccoons, opossum, coyotes, foxes. We have red foxes, gray foxes. We have other people's barn cats. We have just so many things around all of the time. uh Plus  I am  doing breeding. so just from a biosecurity standpoint, we also have lots of wild turkeys that can bring disease. And um so for us, it's just
32:19it just is a safer thing for them. But we do our best to make sure they have the maximum amount of space. They have the best nutrition they can. They have constant uh enrichment that's very, important to us, constant interaction. They're well loved. um And that's just
32:41I just think that people should be aware that if  they're already paying extra at the grocery store for these labels, then they maybe shouldn't be turning their nose up at the fact that farm fresh eggs might cost a dollar or two more  because they are far exceeding those minimum legal expectations for a label to be slapped on an egg carton at the store.  Absolutely. And we sell our eggs.
33:06at our farm stand and I am so thankful to our customers who just swing in the driveway, park, go in, buy their eggs, leave their money in the bin and go home with really yummy eggs at $5 a dozen. Yes, and it's, mean, we're not making a big profit margin out of the $5 a dozen. It's very little really, but it feels good.
33:30It feels good to know that we're taking really, really good care of our birds. They are not de-beaked. They are well-loved. They get to go out and sit in a lawn chair with them, and they'll all climb up on my lap and get scratches. um we, again, we source our feed locally. We feed our birds on a certified organic diet. So we get a locally grown, locally milled certified organic diet um that we go straight to the mill for. We actually just picked some up a couple of days ago.
34:00Um, and it's just, I can say they, taste better. They, the, the birds are not stressed. And I feel like you can tell that when you're, when you're eating the eggs. Um, and I think that it's, it's worth the, it's, it's the $5 farm fresh eggs from birds that are well-loved is worth more than the $7 free range.
34:30eggs at the store.  Yes.  And as we all learned during COVID supply chains go down.  if you want to be smart, get to know your local growers and producers and buy from them. Yes. And that's  very much part of my motivation for,  what we're doing here  is not, not just self-sufficiency, but having the skills  and the means.
34:56to provide support for my community because I think community care is so important. And I think that people need to be able to oh make community. They need to be able to help one another. And this is what I feel like I can do to be part of that no matter what else is happening in the greater  scope of things. The only thing that has been keeping me sane in 2026 is the fact that we have chickens.
35:24that lay really good eggs and we get to sell them to people who want them. Yes. It's amazing. It has been a very, very long 2026 in Minnesota for us folk who live here. Yes, it has been. I can't it's only been two months. I can't believe that February is almost over.
35:46What the heck, it all went by at the speed of really cold molasses, but also in the blink of an eye. And I don't know how that works. Time is just weird. All right, Caitlin, thank you so much. Like if I was standing in front of you, I would hug you. For all the information you just dumped, because I really needed to learn about quail so I can give my husband some answers. Absolutely, I'm so happy to share. Where can people find you? We are on...
36:16Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. We are just quirky quail acres on all of those.  Did I say quirky quail farms or did I say... No, I believe you said quirky quail acres. I talked to so many people. I never know if I say the right thing. Pretty sure you did. If you didn't, I missed it.  All right. It's quirky quail acres. If I said farm at the beginning, I might have, who knows. um I really appreciate your time.
36:43And as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Have a great day. It's so pretty. Get outside and have some fun if you can. You as well. Thank you so much. All right. Bye. Bye.
 

A Better Yard

Today I'm talking with Brad at A Better Yard. You can also follow on Facebook. If you use the code atinyhome, you'll get a discount on the price for the first month.
 
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00:00If you're a homesteader who wants to get paid for your content without living on social media, check out SteelSpoonFarm.com. Founder Jen Kibler teaches you how to build a real blog or your email list and use Pinterest for sustainable marketing. Inside her coaching group, Content Seeds Collective, you'll get weekly live coaching, a private community, and access to her Root Seller Resource Library  full of tutorials and templates.
00:21Join today for just $37 a month and start building a business that doesn't depend on the algorithm. A tiny homestead podcast is sponsored by Seals Spoon Farm. You'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. Today I'm talking with Brad Tabke,  the founder of A Better Yard in Shakopee, I think, Minnesota.  Good morning, Brad. How are you?
00:49Good morning. I am happy to be coming to you from Shakopee. OK. And I forgot to mention that he's also a Minnesota state representative for Shakopee.  So ah how is your day? I would ask you about the weather, but since you're only about half an hour, an hour away from me, I know that it's sunny and warm. Warm. Warm is good. It is.  It felt so nice. Like  I was out this morning already. I had bird feeders to fill and do all that kind of stuff. And so I was out this morning and it was
01:19gorgeous and I hear we're supposed to get some snow later this week. So  that would actually be kind of nice to give some more moisture.  That would help a lot. Yes. ah My husband actually cut down an ash tree  last weekend and he was out there cutting it up this weekend in a t-shirt and like khaki pants and sneakers. But  it's a goofy February. Goofy is the weather's goofy all the time right now. We'll see what happens with that. it  yeah it was a gorgeous gorgeous weekend.
01:50It really was and I was like, why am I warm? And I looked up at the thermostat in the house, it was 75 degrees and the furnace was not on. I was like, oh, duh, when it's warm outside, it's gonna get warmer in the house. Go fig. Exactly. It's a good ambient heating there. Yeah, we've got lots of windows and so the sun was just pouring in the living room and I was like, why am I hot? And I'm like, oh, duh, I know I'm hot. It's not.
02:17It's February, but it's not February according to the weather. Okay, so you had a group called Minnesota Gardening and you changed the name to a better yard in January. So tell me the history on this. Yeah, so during COVID, it feels like all the stories now start with during COVID XYZ happened.
02:44We during COVID, I had a bunch of friends who were asking me they wanted to start doing planting vegetables and flowers and those kinds of things and wanted something to do. And so they knew that I was I have a horticulture degree from Iowa State and have been in the landscape industry since I graduated from college. Actually, since I was in middle school working in a greenhouse. And so I have been
03:10started that out helping just friends. they're like, Brad, we want to pay you to do this. And how do we do that? And I was like, I don't know. I'm not sure oh how we can do all this and make it make sense. And so we were just helping folks. And uh then we set up what we called Minnesota Gardening to grow that and stretch that to be  helping  with landscapes and helping make sure people knew how to  reduce their chemical use and just fundamental things like that,  along with
03:38fruits and vegetables and making sure to grow  those kinds of things. And so  we started that and was very Minnesota centric. It was very much here in  our thing that we wanted to be doing.  But then it continued to grow from there. And so it was the focus shifted  through COVID and after COVID to  focusing on  environmental landscape and making sure that people knew  how to  eliminate chemicals, how to feed pollinators, how important it was.
04:05that we have a diversity of  native and helpful plants in our yards  and making sure that those kinds of things, saving water, storing carbon  that are important for our future, that those kinds of things are  happening. And so  we grew beyond just Minnesota  and just gardening into focusing  on making sure that we're helping to  do, you know, little things like helping to reduce the risk of cancer from chemical use and those kinds of things. And so
04:33We switched to a better yard this year and it's been going really, really well. I'm excited about it. Awesome. I'm really happy for you because when you you when you rebrand, it's it's a it's a gamble. So I'm glad that it's going well for you. I want to tell a little story when when I moved in with my husband back over 24 years ago, I think now. Yeah, at least over 24 years ago, he lived in Jordan.
05:01And he lived on a 10th of an acre lot with a house and a four car garage on it. you can imagine how little room  there was for growing anything.  And the backyard was basically crab grass and weeds.  And his mom was moving and she gave us some  iris roots or whatever they call rhizomes  and some lilies and some violets.  And she was like,
05:29take these and plant them wherever you want to plant them. And neither my husband nor I had really considered putting in gardens as it were until that moment. And there was a pine tree growing in front of our bedroom windows between our house bedroom windows and the sidewalk. It was a little tiny, maybe six foot deep by 14 foot long bed where that pine tree was.
05:58And it was just all weeds in the pine tree. And so  I said, would you cut the pine tree and can we get some stuff to amend the soil and we'll put the flowers out front? Cause that would be really pretty.  And he was like, sure.  And so we took that tree down without breaking a window, which was amazing  and ah got everything going. And it was really a sweet little garden,  really pretty.  And after the first summer, that winter, I was like, you know, we have a backyard. And he said, he sorta.
06:28And I said, I know it's small. I said, but I said, if we tilled that up and amended the soil,  we could be growing food, not crabgrass and weeds. And we had four kids at the time.
06:42He was like,  oh, almost free food. said, yeah, almost free food. mean, that first year is going to be expensive, but after that,  it'll even out. So we ended up working on that yard all that fall, think. No, was spring, I'm sorry. Got some little beds planted. We had a huge,  can't remember, rhubarb patch that had been there for years already. That stayed. You do not want to dig up rhubarb that's over a hundred years old, because that's good stuff.
07:11and ended up growing tomatoes  and  summer squash and cucumbers in herb garden that first year.  And it did so great. And we were the only ones on our block doing this. Our neighbors thought we were nuts.  The reason I tell this story is because it got our neighbor right next to us. Her little girl was very interested in the cucumbers growing through the fence. And that got her interested in gardening.
07:40and our neighbors, our former neighbors across the street.  She,  for the last two years has been doing cut flowers in her yard that's even smaller than our former yard was.  Wow. So, so you can  be an influence, you can make a difference on the, in the smallest ways and it becomes a movement. Exactly.
08:02And it's so, important for people just to get  started with something, right? It's just so important that people find a place and find just a little thing. And what  we find happens a lot with people. So we do a lot of teaching around this getting started  concept of things. And  we help people understand that  it doesn't need to be this big grandiose. You don't need to have huge plans. You don't need to have all these things.  You just need to get started with one thing. uh
08:31And just like with with Iris, um getting that out there and getting that going and learning,  learning the rhythms of how that plant grows and when you can expect to have  Iris, like beautiful Iris flowers for yourself and what you need to be doing. And then you can take and go to the next step and go to the next step. And it's a  it's a ladder to get to  really great things.  It really is.  And  there is something really special.
09:01about planting a seed, nurturing it, and watching it become something different. And I think that's true in anything. I mean, if you want to write a book. uh A book is not a book until the idea comes out of your head,  onto paper, onto the computer keyboard, and gets printed and people can read it. A garden is not a garden until you plant a seed. Right. Absolutely.  right.
09:28Now is like a lot of people don't realize it, right, especially for like native and local plants to be growing in your areas. Like right now is a really, really great time to be planting those seeds. So like coneflowers and things like that and planting those during the winter is is the time to be doing it. And so just grabbing a packet of seeds and tossing it in your backyard or tossing it into a milk jug for some winter sowing is a beautiful way to get started.
09:58Yes, and it's all simple. I think the reason that people drag their feet is because they think it's going to be  a lot of time and a lot of hassle and a lot of energy expended for very little return. And I'm going tell you right now,  it can be a lot of work. And it can be a lot of time, but it doesn't have to be.  And even if it is, it's so worth it when that cone flower blooms and you're the one that put it where it is. Right. It's so rewarding, especially if you have like
10:27kids and family around and that kind of thing or grandkids or wherever you're at in your stage of life, like involving them in these processes is always so like we have when we start things for the garden from seed inside like tomatoes and that kind of stuff, which I don't think I'm going to end up having enough time to get done this year, which is terrible. But I know it's it's been rough. And so we'll see what happens with it. But like my youngest, she's 14 now.
10:56And uh we  check on the babies. call the babies  the little plants coming up. We call those the babies. And we check on the babies every morning and just seeing  who sprouted overnight and where it's at and all that kind of stuff.  we'll see what we can get done there.  we're a little behind our schedule with life.  Yes. And actually, we can talk about that in the last five or 10 minutes.
11:22I usually do these for half an hour or so at about 20 minutes. I'll let you know we can  you can share what you would like about why things have been so crazy  for you. um I'm going to lose my kitchen table this weekend to seedling trays.  Oh, beautiful. What kinds of stuff do you grow?  We will be growing. I'm sure we will be growing thyme because I love it and I cook with it a lot. So we'll have thyme babies.  Beautiful. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash.
11:51um Probably chives. Chives are a really easy thing to start and grow for anybody listening. um Rosemary. Rosemary from seed is so fun because half the time it doesn't take and half the time it grows like crazy. So  when you plant rosemary seeds, there's a 50-50 shot whether you'll get the seedlings and when you do, it's like hallelujah, they came up.
12:15I'm always like, Hallelujah, they came up on all of them.  It's just amazing to me to think about like  how  seeds are just this little  packet and this little bundle of everything you need for a  tree to grow or a plant to grow or however that is.  And just that it's all contained, especially when you put like a little, you know, a poppy seed down or you put a little  tiny tomato seed and what that grows into is just uh a wonder the whole time. And it's it's amazing to watch.
12:46It's miraculous. is the epitome of the word miraculous. Exactly.  I love it. I  am not the gardener. My husband is. I always make sure I say that because I used to be  in it with him. And as I've gotten older, I'm not nearly as entertained with it as he is. He is an avid, ridiculously obsessed gardener. Like he just loves it.  And every spring he's like, I'm going to go get seed trays. And you can just see him bouncing on his heels because he's so excited.
13:16Well, it's such a  great thing for this time of year, like  when everything just feels,  I mean, we had a great weekend here, but it's going to get cold again and we're going to get snow again and  we're going to have whatever our uh suffer through our  third or fourth winter, whatever we end up doing and just having that little bit of hope and that little bit of excitement  that we know the warmer days and being able to be outside are coming  and make it through. March is my least favorite season of the year.
13:44And it is just the hardest. And so those are always great to help us get through. Yes, the having the little green babies in the kitchen just makes my heart happy. Every March and April while they're taking over my kitchen table, which I'm not happy about, but I am very happy to have the seedlings.  One of the things I would say is if you have a dog that is tall enough to reach wherever you have your seedlings growing,  you might want to figure out a way to put them out of a dog's reach because a dog will eat
14:14babies seedlings. They will. I've never heard that before.  Ours have always been out of reach of our dog, but  she's never shown much interest in them. Oh, well, our dog is short. She's only about, I think her back is just below my knee and I'm five foot nine.  She can't reach the table. But the first year that she was full grown and we had seedlings on the table, she was very interested in all the smells coming from the plants. Oh, funny.  I wonder if it's the fertilizer maybe.
14:44I don't know, but as soon as we had mint growing, she was always coming out the kitchen with me and sniffing the air by the table. And I'm like, you must like mint.  Funny. Yeah. So be careful. And cats will eat stablyngs like crazy. Oh, that definitely I've heard that for sure. And we're not cat people. So I don't have that issue. Yep. We don't have cats in the house anymore. We have barn cats. Barn cats are great because they're friendly,  but they're outside.
15:14Yep. Doing their job. It's a good thing. Oh, we have three six month old kittens right now. I was watching them play in sunshine yesterday and one of them popped out of a bunch of wood that we have stacked for our wood burning furnace and had a mouse in its mouth. And I was like, all right, six months old and catching mice. I'm impressed. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, it's they know what they're supposed to be doing.
15:40Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And they're gorgeous cats. Two of them are long-haired. One of them is short-haired.  And I'm so in love with these babies. And  I suspect we'll probably have kittens by fall. And we didn't have kittens last summer at all because we didn't have a female cat on the property. So I'm very excited to have some more barn kittens come fall. Fun. Yeah. And we always find homes for them. So it all works out great because  other farms need barn cats too. Right.
16:10We don't feel too bad about having more kittens because it's  once or twice a year and then we find homes for them at new farms. So it works out okay. Exactly. So  what  what do people get out of this a better yard  program because it costs money and I want people to know what they're getting for that money. Yeah. So we are um it's thirty seven dollars a month or people can get a huge discount if they do an annual
16:39membership. so what we do is we teach folks how to grow with a focus on the environment and focus on our local ecosystems. Because as we as we know, cancer rates are skyrocketing. And those have been proven now to be mostly, or I don't know, mostly is the right word to use. many of them have been proven to be
17:05chemically induced by other chemicals we use on our landscape and our properties and in the environment.  And  we need to make sure to protect ourselves and we need to make sure to protect those around us. I'm doing that. And so  this is  one way  we teach people how to reduce and eliminate chemical use in their landscape and in their lawns. then as well  from there, we work very hard on  on
17:29feeding pollinators songbirds because we insect populations that are collapsing, partially due to chemical use, partially due to habitat destruction,  as well as songbirds. And the it is just amazing how uh much those populations in United States have dropped over the  course of last three decades.  And it's up to us to help  figure that out and out to  provide the habitats to support these things.  And the fun thing is by
17:57doing this by eliminating chemicals and by  feeding pollinators and by doing that work.  What happens from there  is that  that also ends up saving our clean water, which we know that we also need to do because we have uh polluted water systems and we are uh having an epidemic of non clean water available for people.  And then also stores carbon to help eliminate and reduce climate change and everybody.
18:25does their part. So it's a really good thing to kind of go back to our roots and go back to where we started.  And so we teach people how to do those things. So we have a monthly theme  every month where we talk through like this month is all about ecology and understanding  what our uh local ecosystems need and how they work. And then we give tools every weekend for people  knowing how to  enact these things and do them. But the  biggest thing, is that
18:54It's a community of people who  care about similar things and who uh want to build a similar world together.  That is  safe for our kids to play in the grass and safe for  insects to come and  use our backyards or front yards as habitats and making sure that we're doing those things  to make the world a better place. I love oh it. And if I didn't already have a handle on all that, I would be joining your community.  However, I have a handle.
19:24And I don't have time, I don't have the resources right now to join another thing. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't, but I'm probably not going to just full disclosure.  the  focus is on people who are  in a transition and focus on people who are, ah you have just purchased a new house or just moved or that kind of thing, or you've come to some sort of like, there are so many people that are having these
19:51I mean, I'm sure that everyone listening to this knows of someone who's having a health scare right now or something going on or worse. uh And know that they want to start doing these things. It's always been in the back of their head that they want to start uh reducing the amount of  weed killer that they use on their lawn because it's bad for everything.  And so it's those kinds of folks who  need the help and need to know where to start and just how to get going on these things so that it's a
20:21It's a livable practical ecosystem. And it also ends up reducing the amount of work your yard takes for yourself. It also reduces the amount of uh time and energy and money that it takes to  to get things going.  Yes. And as I always say, you can't eat grass. Right. Exactly. And nothing can eat grass, not even like  we as humans can eat grass. But it
20:48Our lawns do nothing to support any sort of uh other living creature.  so it's really important that we provide that like  our...  So like if we talk about monarchs and monarchs are now on the endangered species list  because they are, there's too many chemicals being used and not enough  milkweed that is available for them to eat across their migratory patterns. And so it's really important that we...
21:14all work together to develop these kinds of things so that not just humans can eat, but also  that we have things that are, you know, aesthetically pleasing and happy and great to look at that provide ah that piece for us. Also, you can do that  and do more with your landscape in your  Absolutely. I love what you're doing, Brad. It's amazing.  Thank you. All right. So you were saying actually, before we get into this.
21:41The one thing I will tell people is that if you really get into gardening, don't be surprised if chickens show up on your property fairly soon because that's what happened to us. We started gardening and then we got chickens. that's funny. It's a natural follow through a lot of the time. Exactly. Yeah. mean, that whole thing of taking care of yourself and like and working and knowing where your food is coming from and knowing what is actually in your
22:11landscape that your dogs or your kids or your grandkids are, are rolling around in and playing because we should be able to do that with a clear conscience and clear mind. And that's, that's what we, that's what we help people get to. it's, like you said, it's called a better yard and people can find us at a better yard.org. And there is a $37 to get started and we have a $30 discount that I forget exactly. this up on you, Mary.
22:38I there's a discount that people can get and I don't know if you can send it  just to start for seven bucks for the first month.  I can put in the show notes if you can get me a code. I will do that for sure.  Okay, cool.  Um,  and  yes, I agree with everything you just said about being able to just be out and playing and be safe. That's a good plan.  Um, okay, so I don't know how much you want to say about why you've been so busy.
23:06and why it's been so hard,  if you want to take the floor and talk about what's been going on, it's up to you. So we just came back from  Washington, D.C. and was working there with our senators and with a coalition of just absolutely incredible humans who are working  to help make the world a better place, which is what we all,  at least I hope that we all want to accomplish on things our communities have been  under assault by ICE and uh Shakopee specifically has, along with the Metro. um
23:35and then other places outside the Metro, Lesour, uh Winona, other places have been just  rocked by ice and for no  apparent reason  all the time. so it's the people have been literally plucked off the streets, uh trapped on roofs uh and just lots of terrible, terrible things have been  happening in our communities. And we have to  work together to protect them and work together to make sure that we are uh
24:04doing the best for our people that we possibly can. And so I just couldn't be more proud of Minnesota and  the amazing things that people have been  coming together to do and building these communities. And so it's a lot like we do at A Better Yard, which uh is  building  systems and building people together to find a path forward. And so that's uh what we've been doing  with pushing back against ICE here. ICE has a job to do. there are uh
24:34without a doubt, uh people who have committed crimes and bad people that we don't  want to have in our communities. There are uh reasons for having laws and having public safety and those kinds of things,  but that is  well uh underserved by what uh ICE is doing in our communities. And so it has been  super proud of all of our people and it has just been  overwhelming and taking up a ton of time. So I appreciate everybody.
25:02sticking with us and  being part of that journey as well  at A Better Yard.  Yeah, I really hope that this drawdown as they're calling it  continues because watching this from the outside has been, it's been really frightening and I can't imagine living in Minneapolis right now. I just can't. Yeah, it has, it's just been so unnecessary and um
25:30The scariest part to me is just that there's absolutely zero accountability, zero recourse. And from a lawmaker perspective,  like there's no way for us to hold people accountable for their actions. Like they  are uh doing  many, many illegal things and  in the name of  safety, right? And so  it is really  difficult to watch and difficult to experience. And just the number of
26:00drones that are constantly flying over my house. then  one day where I had a Blackhawk helicopter hovering  over my house ah and uh just the fear and intimidation tactics seem  well beyond anything that we have ever,  ever experienced  here in Minnesota and  anywhere else. And so  ICE, yeah, is going after ah the other day, just a quick story is that
26:27They stopped the family for no reason whatsoever other than their skin was brown. And they took that family and intimidated them, pulled them out of the car. And they had citizens that are all citizens. And so they let them go. And then they went, and this happened on the road. They pulled them over. And a couple hours later, they went to their house and started yelling at them and screaming at them and said that they would only leave this
26:56family of US citizens alone  if they  help them find five people and then they'll leave them alone. So it's extortion. It's just  horrible, horrible tactics  that just should not be who we are. And so it's really important that we hold,  we do everything we can to hold these folks accountable and make sure that they do actually leave. haven't seen uh evidence of that in Shakopee yesterday. We had dozens and dozens of agents here in town.
27:26and it's still as bad or worse than it was because they're extremely aggressive right now and we want them gone. Yeah, it's like when you kick a hornet's nest. Yeah, yeah. They visit my house often, not to make it about me because we need to make sure that we are centering this on people who are immigrants in the United States, who are the ones that really have...
27:54significantly less resources and ways to combat this than I do. And so I'm  doing everything I can to pull every lever  possible. We'll have a ton of bills with the legislature this year  to work on this issue and to help  Minnesota stand up in the face of this onslaught if it ever were to happen again, which I obviously hope it doesn't.  But I just don't know how we trust the federal government and all the people involved for this  moving forward.
28:24Yes. And for the listener who doesn't quite understand, Minnesota is a sanctuary state as in, as in we're okay with people coming here no matter where you're coming from, right? uh Yes, we are a very, very welcoming state and we want to make sure  that we're welcoming to immigrants and people who want to be here. Shakopee is uh built on
28:50immigrants and we have  a very large native population. We have Asian population. have  Somali folks. We have East African. We have  Hispanics and uh it makes our community who it is and it beautiful and wonderful and really, really great.  And, but that being said, like the, the sanctuary, what the federal government is saying on the sanctuary state  side of things  is just  not  accurate. Like we work.
29:16together if there are uh bad people and if there are things like that that should happen, we work together. But we also want to make sure that nobody is left  behind and they are,  if they, someone needs healthcare, we want to make sure because it's better for all of our communities and better for all of our kids in schools.  If everyone is fed and if everyone is healthy and everyone is going that direction.  And some people just genuinely don't agree with that. And I.
29:46I get it, but I disagree vehemently.  And we  should just be able to  do our thing. we should just,  they should leave us alone. And if the federal government had done their job  in making sure that we had secure borders, and this is not just a  Republican or a Democratic thing, this is  a uh United States of America federal government thing,  that if they had done their job, then this wouldn't be  a problem. But this is not the way.
30:13to fix the problem that they created. This should be a uh civil kind of uh path forward and find a way to make sure that the people who are incredible, wonderful, loving people and families and supporting families here are able to continue that. And it's a federal government issue to fix.  It is. And  I guess I want to end this off by saying that unless you can for sure positively track
30:40your ancestors back to the indigenous people of the United States.  We all have immigrant blood running through our veins. Absolutely. And that's a  really important piece of this is that we should  all love and trust and uh do the best we can  together because it's really important to recognize where we all came from. And like this work that we're doing here in Minnesota is uh standing on
31:08that work from  that's been going on for  centuries in the United States and making sure that we're protecting our people and making sure that we're protecting our neighbors and making sure that our communities are  as safe as we can possibly make them. Yep.  And uh we learned all of our growing things from the indigenous peoples who live near us. So that ties it back into gardening and homesteading and a better yard. How's that?
31:37That was really well done.  Okay. I'm not great at segues or  conclusions, but I tried really hard, That was perfect one. I'm proud of you for that one.  Thank you so much for being honest and straightforward and telling me what you think, because that's hard to get out of someone who is in politics. So  I very much appreciate it.  And this isn't, I want to say this, I don't know how to say it right.
32:05This is not about politics. This is about being good humans to each other. Right.  Exactly. And, uh, and, and,  and  working together with our community, like that's, that's what this  all, all is. And we can all do better when we all do better. Yes, absolutely.  So go out there and be a good human today, folks, cause it might make things better.  Um, so you can find Brad at abetteryard.org.
32:33And I highly recommend going and checking it out because it sounds like there's some fantastic knowledge and resources there. Thank you, Brad, for doing that.  Yeah, there is. And you can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com.  And you can find, if you want to support the show, sorry,  you can do that at AtinyHolmstead.com slash support.  This was  really fun, Brad. You have the most wonderful radio voice. I told you that when we first talked. Thank you.
33:03I appreciate it. before we go, just want to make sure we can do the $30 off for the first for all of your listeners. If people want to go, it would just be $7 at and we can just use a tiny home and use that as the coupon code. we'll be go for those. So people use use the coupon code to get $30 off the first month and they can just check us out and see how wonderful our happy little community is. All right, I'm writing it down because I will forget a tiny home. Okay. Awesome.
33:32Thank you so much. appreciate your time and I hope you have a good day at your job. Thank you so much.
 

Steel Spoon Farm

Today I'm talking with Jen at Steel Spoon Farm. You can also follow on Facebook.
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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. Today I'm talking with Jen Kibler  at Steel Spoon Farm  in Ohio.  And good morning, Jen. How are you? Good morning. Good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Ohio this morning? Oh, it is beautiful. I think we're on fake spring round two already. It's going to go back to winter again this weekend, but I'll take it.
00:29Yeah, they were saying this weekend on the news that we would be getting snow this week, but I'm looking at the forecast and I'm like, I think LaSore, Minnesota is going to get rain. I don't think we're going to get snow. Yeah. We had 16 inches dump on us about three weeks ago now. So I'm glad to see the snow piles gone. We actually have grass again. So that's nice, but now it's mud season straight into mud season. So yeah, God love mud season. We have a, we have a dog and
00:59She freaking loves spring because she can go out and roll in the grass again. But she has these cute little feet and the cute little feet leave cute little dirty footprints all over my floor downstairs. And I'm just like, you know what? I'm not mopping the floor until the weekend. I'm going to it all at once. And then she's going to come in and walk on it again and I'll do it the following weekend because I am not mopping that floor every two hours. We have four.
01:25and two of them are great Pyrenees, then the other two are black labs. And the Pyrenees, of course, are like horse size.  And they just clobbed in so much mud into the kitchen this morning to eat breakfast. Oh my gosh. Yeah, Maggie's a 35 pound, well, maybe pushing 40 pound um Australian shepherd. So she's got these adorable little footprints, but they're not adorable when they're mud on my floor. tell me what tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at Steel Spoon Farm.
01:55So we have kind of everything here. I've had horses my whole life. So I've got my three big old horses that are all retired now. And then we have two little  feral mini mules. And I say feral because I've literally never touched the one in the two years she's been here.  We'll just take her time. She knickers at me now. She does her little mule money. So we're making progress, but mules and everything has to be on their time.  And then we have a little mini pony too named Apple for my daughter. So she's so sweet.
02:24So we've got them and we have Angora goats  and then a bunch of just miscellaneous Nigerian dwarf goats too that are just, you know, they're pets. to sell some of the mohair off the Angoras. Haven't had time to even process it lately because I've been so busy with all my other business things. ah But I do really love spinning when I have the time. I've spun my own yarn, did a bunch of crochet with it.  Actually made the shawl that I wore in like our maternity pictures with
02:54hand spun mohair from our own goats. So that was really neat. um That's a needle felting with it, all kinds of stuff. I've sold it to all kinds of different people online on Etsy and then on my own site too.  Everything from fly  lure creators, they use the mohair for their fly lures, which was really odd. um To of course the reborn dolls, which is amazing to see how realistic those are, but they've used mohair for those.
03:22mask makers for theater mass in New York City, all kinds of stuff. So it's amazing to see how far that can stretch just from my little farm to all across the world.  is one of the reasons I love this podcast so much because  I hadn't even considered the fact that  that mohair would be used on the dolls. Yeah, they use it.  It was a local lady actually, and she  literally plucks one single hair at a time into these silicone doll.
03:51It's the patience I do not have  for that, but she does.  And if they have really fine hair, like if she's doing a memorial doll, she actually paints the hair on and uses a paintbrush that's one hair width and paints these tiny little baby hairs on these dolls. It's incredible. And then the mask maker in New York City. This is a crazy crossover, but my husband is a lifetime wrestling fan and
04:19this guy actually made the masks for mankind, for Mick Foley, mankind, and Undertaker, which are two of his favorites. And here he is buying mohair from my goats to make these theater masks. I thought, what a crazy small world that is. That's not small, that's miniscule world. Yeah, that was very niche. that was super cool. Wow. Wow. I just, every time I talk to somebody new, I find out something either
04:49I either learn something new that actually can be used in my life, or I find out something that has  nothing to do with anything that I do, but it's a really neat trivia fact.  So thank you. I now have a new trivia fact. oh I've never actually pet a mohair goat and I've never touched mohair in my life.  What does it feel like? hear it's really, really soft. Oh, it's so soft. And everybody thinks they're sheep.
05:18which  just because they're so fuzzy. uh But so I have to correct people all the time that they are actually goats.  They're in full fleece right now. We still call it fleece. Like there, if you take it the whole thing off, still collectively, it's called their fleece.  But it is  mohair. It's not fur. It's not wool. It's its own material. uh It's extremely fine  and quite slippery. Now that's that's kind of like a spinner term for like the slip or the feel of
05:47the material that you're spinning, it's so super fine. So a lot of the times people will blend it with wool  or some other material to make it a little bit more grabby for when they're spinning. But the Kidmo hair especially, so on the babies that are usually under a year, um have the finest, finest hair. It is like a cloud in your hands. It's so thin. That's the stuff that you're gonna use for knitting like your close to skin wear.
06:15kind of a thing. It's so fine and so high quality. As they get older, the hair quality sometimes goes down a little bit, but I have one of my oldest does, Patsy,  for everybody out there who knows Patsy.  She has  like  no grease  to her hair and  they have grease called a yolk. It's kind of like lanolin in wool where it has like a little bit of a greasy texture. That's what protects their skin, protects their hair. So goats have the same thing.
06:43but hers is so clean and so fine. She has hardly any curl. She's just like this big white cloud.  And her hair is my favorite to spin because I can spin it literally straight off of her. It's so clean and so nice.  But then I've got some of my goats that have  really, really tight curls. ah I've made like Santa ornaments, especially with those ones,  with the needle felting I've done. I needle felt their.
07:09curly little white locks on for Santa beards on the ornaments and things. So that's really fun. um Personality wise, they're very calm and quiet. um So if you're somebody that's used to the dairy goats, like especially Nubians are really loud. ah Even my Nigerians are pretty loud and friendly. uh The angoras are so super calm and quiet. They're just peaceful. They're really, really nice animals to have. And I'm glad that we got them.  Are they
07:36probably a weird question, but are they more expensive than any other goat? They are, but the same with any other breed. ah Depends on where you buy them from, what their bloodline is. We have all colored angora goats, which is a different breed set. Then there's also like the American white angoras, which is  the ones that you typically find like running in the herds by the thousands down in Texas. Those are the ones that are bred like for  commercial mohair. I actually have two of those.
08:05ah Their hair is totally different too. Those are the ones that have like they're really really tight curls their whole face is covered in it their legs They've got the pom-pom tails whereas the colored angoras because back in the day the colored angora used to actually be uh a Defect because if you had a hundred white angora goats, then you had one black one come through You can't put that black mohair in the same bundles as the white hair. So
08:31they kind of bred the color out of them for a long time. And then a couple breeders started breeding the color back in and grabbing those colored ones. So now there's all kinds of different colors of colored Angoras.  So it just depends on the breeder, where you find them,  the quality of the mohair too, body size, everything. But same with any other breed of goat, any other breed of animal, it just depends on where you get them from. ah Mine, I'd say mine are all pretty pet quality. We got a couple from breeders.
09:00And, I'd say now there,  I didn't breed specifically for like this goat needs to pair with this goat because of this bloodline cross and all these things. We just did it for part of our hobby farm and just to have the babies. Cause there's nothing cuter than a baby goat other than a kitten. Yeah.  Yep. Just had this conversation with another person for the podcast a couple of days ago and
09:26I  literally said there's nothing cuter than a baby goat and I was like, eh, kittens are pretty cute too. Yeah, kittens and baby goats, we had those at the same time too. That was pretty ridiculous.  So are uh Angora goats any good for milk as well or not?  Technically, no.
09:45Because they put so much energy into growing that mohair. They grow an inch per month. So they're putting, yeah, they're a high production breed. They put a lot into just growing that mohair. Most of them typically only even have singles when they're bred. All of mine have had at least twins.  We got the four  in summer of 2020. I  bred three of the four that fall, cause the one was still too young.
10:15And all three of them had twins right out the gate. So we doubled our herd in like overnight. They all had their babies within 24 hours of each other. And then the one year I had triplets too. And she actually did raise all of them herself. She had enough milk and she's a great mom. So she actually did raise all of them herself. And then two of them.
10:37The first year they had boy-girl twins. So when I pulled the boys off to put them in, because they were too young to castrate yet. So I just pulled them off, weaned them early and put them in their own pen.  So I was milking those two Angora moms for a little bit just to keep their utter balance and everything with going to the single twin.  And they actually milked out pretty well. ah I was kind of impressed with it because I had a Nigerian that I was milking at the time too. And honestly, the quantity was about the same.
11:07Um, I did breed then  a couple of them back to a Nigerian dwarf buck and made some Niagara's, which is just a half and half cross of that.  Um, and the two girls that I had, they, actually sold them to a lady in Arkansas and they just had their first babies just this past week. So I'm excited to see how they milk out because their mom was one of my angoras that I was milking and she had pretty decent teat size and pretty decent capacity.
11:35So, and then plus with the Nigerian then coming in too,  the one had triplets. So, and she said that their udders look really nice. So I'm curious to see how well they milk out,  cause they have the fiber then in the milk.  Yeah. That's what I was wondering about because how great would it be to be able to have the fiber and the milk cause you can make, you have a double income off one animal. Yeah. That would definitely, that's what the Niagara's are more for. And I liked them too, because they had.
12:02Like everybody with the angoras, they want the big fluffy face and the fluffy bell bottom legs and then the fluffy poof tails. But all of that stuff is what you usually skirt off anyway, when you're cleaning the fleece to process the hair. So  I like them. The niagoras that I had, they had a totally clean face, clean legs, and even their belly was pretty naked. They looked like little Nigerians with puff.
12:26They were so cute. So all of those areas that you would normally skirt off the fleece anyway were already just normal Nigerian hair and then they kind of shed also So you didn't even really have to shear them if you got them early enough They would shed that hair instead of needing sheared. So that's a nice dual purpose. There's those nigoras  Yeah, and  I'm sitting here listening to you completely captivated
12:51And in the back of my head, I'm thinking never in my life did I think I would be having a conversation like this. And it's all because I started a podcast about homesteading. It's so funny. Yep. And never in my life did I think that I would be so entertained talking about genetics. We have, we had, she's gone now. We don't know what happened to her. We had a calico cat show up on our farm a couple of years ago.
13:19longest haired cat I've ever seen in my life.  Black, bright orange and white.  Gorgeous, gorgeous animal.  And she ended up getting bred by a stray  and apparently that stray had the dilute gene  and one of her kittens ended up being like silvery gray  and beige and a little bit of white, like hardly any white.
13:49And I could not figure out why this kitten came out looking like that. So I actually looked up genetics  on calico cats and why some of them are end up being gray and beige  and learned about the dilute gene. And I was like, Oh my God, genetics are so freaking cool. Yeah. It's like she ran out of printer ink. Yeah. And I was like, God, I think I missed my calling on another thing. Science is really fun too. Yeah. The pun of doing the pun at squares for  color codes. Yeah.
14:19Yeah, it's crazy. And so, so entertained and captivated with these conversations because I find out things that I did not have any concept of. just tickles me. So how did you get into raising goats and critters? Well, I've had horses my whole life. Ever since I was a little kid, we've had these horses. We moved down here to this farm.
14:47when I was just starting high school, we had them boarded somewhere else earlier when I was a kid, and then we moved down here to bring the horses home. So they've kind of always been here. um But that's like its own brand of having a farm, right? Like not everybody has those. We never even had chickens or goats or anything before that until me and my husband then moved back here. We bought, we had our own house with our first chickens and everything, like the perfect little backyard homestead, right? The half acre with my favorite coop ever.  It was such a gorgeous coop that he built me in.
15:16our little raised beds and we had my perennial landscaping I put in everywhere. It was a gorgeous little first house for us. And then we moved back here. We bought my farm, my family farm then back from my mom. And so brought the chickens with us then. And I had been a farrier to roll back way to the horses. I had been a farrier years ago, a barefoot trimmer specifically. So working with owners that want to keep their horses more holistically. And
15:45I had trimmed a couple goats hooves too. Some of them had them just as pets with their horses. And I always thought, I am never getting goats. Like, this is not my thing. I am never getting these goats, right? Well, fast forward to 2020 and this artist that I followed on Facebook for a long time, she makes these amazing dolls with their hair, like these just crazy, like Tim Burton looking kind of dolls and uses their hair to make their, the mohair to make this hand spun yarn for their, the doll hair.
16:14And she was posting it, she was liquidating some of her herd. And I thought, you know what? I had written in my phone notes a couple years prior that  I wanted to at some point get fiber animals, either Angora goats or Angora bunnies. And I looked back on that note and thought, well, I think now's the time then. So we drove up there  and I told my husband we were getting three and we ended up bringing home four because the one was a baby  of one of the moms.
16:43So we ended up with four goats because you never go and just get what you wanted. You're always going to find something else. So we got those  and honestly, we brought them home and then I just kind of looked at them like,  Oh boy, now what?  Like  we had kind of set up fence for them because we have a ton of round pen fence from the horses. And I tell everybody that when they're starting a new property, get yourself some round pen panels and use that as for any like large animal. And even the goats can't really get through it.
17:12And then we have added welded wire, just rolled welded wire to it for some of the go pens. But that is the most flexible fencing option that you can get when you're trying to figure out a new property because you can move it. You know, so we had set up a pen for them and a little shed, little run and shed in the field. But I just kind of looked at them because they weren't super friendly. The ones that we had picked, were so they were handled enough that you could like catch them and to shear them and trim their hobs and things, but they weren't like in your pocket friendly.
17:40And so we just kind of all looked at each other like, okay, now what?  Like  we kind of had planned ahead, but didn't really plan. And so that was kind of just, that's how I learned to is just kind of get thrown into it.  actually did the same thing, the exact same experience then. I didn't learn from it ah with a baby goat. Then the following year, I thought, okay, I've got these goats that I'm going to breed. Anyway, I had found some Nigerian dwarfs.
18:07And cause I thought, okay, I've already got the place set up for goats now a year later. Let's go ahead and get some dairy goats. Like what's the, what's another goat  added to this herd anyway. So then I found a little Nigerian dwarf buck, just a tiny buckling.  And so we went and drove him, got him. was like, Oh, I'll just put him out with the moms and all the other baby goats and they'll take care of them, right? Wrong.  The mom goats of course, wanted nothing to do with this little baby. This is Ozzy, Ozzy Ago. He was part of the Cheesier. So this is baby Ozzy.
18:37So I put him out with them and of course the other mom goats hated him because he wasn't their baby. So we had a house goat for about six weeks. He lived in the house. He literally was sleeping in my bed. This was prior to having a human kid. So I had my little goat kid in the bed because he would not stay in the bathroom. I had a little baby gate up for him to keep him in the bathroom in his own little pen and he was screaming all night about it.  you know, as a parent.
19:05sleep deprived does, you just grab the baby and put him in the bed. And then he slept all night. So that was kind of how that worked. But  he went out to potty with the dogs. He thought he was a dog. It was the cutest thing ever. So, and he's still one of the most friendly ones, but yeah, it's like you learn these lessons and then you don't learn.  So we did the same thing. Like didn't really plan ahead to what we're going to do with the baby goat, but we got it. So that was fun.  The thing is baby animals will train you before you train them.
19:35Oh, for sure.  Our dog that I mentioned, we got her when she was a day short of eight weeks old. And she had, she was born into a home with seven children  and I think six siblings, six, six litter mates. So she was never alone and it was never quiet.  Uh-huh.  And uh friends of ours had the mom and the dad. And when we went to pick her up,
20:03My friend said, do you have a crate for her? And I said, of course we do. Cause I've done all the research on getting a puppy. Cause I thought I was smart. And she said, okay. She said, she said, I, I, um, have a, was a piece of cloth that was with mom.  She said, and I'm sending this home, put it in the crate and that way Maggie will, will smell mom and hopefully she'll settle down for you.  Um, that dog, our dog.
20:33barked and whined  and screamed  all night every night for five nights in a row in the crate.  On day six, I was like, I cannot do this.  Cannot do this. And my husband was like, what are we going to do? And I said, we're going to bring that cute little six pound puppy to bed with us.  he said, she's going to be in our bed for the next however many years. And I said, she's only going to be about 30 pounds. It's fine.  Right.
21:02I said, because we're both going to die from sleep deprivation if we don't do something. And we even got her the heartbeat puppy.  Didn't do any good. I mean, she loved it. She loved to play with it, but it did not help.  Finally, she was old enough to have the run of the house. And finally she learned that she could sleep downstairs if we were sleeping upstairs.  Now, now she's five and a half  and she sleeps on the stair landing outside the bedroom doors.  And so.
21:32So if you can just get through that first year  with a puppy  or that first couple of weeks with a house goat, you're good. Yep. We just got a Black Lab puppy this past fall because I lost my heart dog. He was an Aussie doodle. He's Bloomer, Aussie doodle chief. I lost him.  He's 13, but still it was very unexpected ah back in June. And my husband had always grown up with Black Labs and he told me forever, like we had plenty of dogs. We didn't need another one.
22:01But he's like, you know, we should really get a black lab. And so finally it was, we had, you know, kind of an opening in the pack.  And so I found this guy and he has been the biggest I told you so ever  because  like from the second we brought this guy home, he's just so good. And I'm used to the Pyrenees, right? Who are bred for their entire lifeline to not listen to humans and to make their own decisions and to be stubborn.
22:30And you know, they're smarter than you. They know more than you do. And so then to get a dog that is just so purely a dog and just wants to do whatever you want him to do.  It is such a breath of fresh air.  But he was the same way. Like the first couple days, I put him straight in the bed. I was like, there is no way any of us are sleeping. And now he sleeps in his crate. He loves his crate. He goes in there and it's because it's a nice break for him, you know, to go and that's his spot. Get away from the other big dogs too. But those first couple days, man.
23:00But it's funny though,  when we got, I think it was the second Pyrenees is when my husband said this. It was like just a random Tuesday and we're driving three hours to go get a dog. And he said,  you know, for most people, this is like kind of a big life event to get a dog, like, you know, 15 year commitment. And for you, it's just a Tuesday. m it's, it is a big thing and we, we love them all the same, but we're, I'm so much calmer about it. uh
23:28So like even adding the puppy in this fall, like I'm plenty busy. Like I did not need the extra busy of a puppy and potty training and chasing my kid around, like all this stuff. But he just melted into the half the routines here so nicely. So just another Tuesday.  a new puppy.  Yeah. It was not just another Tuesday when we got Maggie, because we had been wanting a puppy forever and we did not have a yard to have a dog.  And so the first thing we did when we moved to our homestead.
23:57five years ago  was see this post from my friend that they had puppies coming.  I was like, do you want a Daisy and Diesel puppy? Cause that's her parents name.  And my husband was like, how much are they? And I said, I don't know. wanted to ask you if you would consider it before I even asked him anything.  And he was like, find out how much they are. So I messaged my friend and I said, how much? And she said, 500 bucks. And I was like, cool.
24:25didn't know puppies cost that much money in my head. And I said, we'd like one of Daisy and Diesel's pups. I said, we just moved to the new house and 3.1 acres. I think maybe we can have a puppy now.  And she was like, okay. And they weren't born yet. And it was the first litter from Daisy. Daisy is my friend's heart dog and Daisy's still around. Daisy's only like nine months older than Maggie. I guess she's my first litter.  And, uh
24:52Jean posted when the puppies were born and I was like, oh my God, they're little potatoes. Yeah. And from that minute I was just like, okay, I have to learn everything I can about how you handle a puppy. Cause I had no idea.  So it was not another Tuesday when I went, when we went to get Maggie  and it wasn't another Tuesday for Jean either. She had already given up like three or four of the seven to their new owners. And she's standing there just holding Maggie and petting her and
25:21not letting go. And I said, are you going to cry when you hand her to me? And she's like, probably. She said, I cried the first four. And I said, yeah, I'm probably going to cry when you put her in my hand. So we might as well just start crying now. literally laughed and then started tearing up. So it was not another Tuesday for me. But the thing that I have learned is that my husband and I are both in our mid fifties and
25:48When Maggie gives up the ghost, we probably won't get another puppy. We might get a dog,  but we probably won't go through the puppy stage again because it's just so much.  It's a lot. Yeah.  But it's the same with anything like same with kids, same with any kind of farming, like new farm animals that you bring on. It's so much in the front end  of training them and it's so intensive. But then once you get that groundwork laid,  oh,
26:16then you've got a buddy for life. And then you've got that foundation in place and then everything just runs so much smoother. Yeah, that's the sweet spot that you're hoping for when you're going through the terrible tantrums of a puppy, yes. Right.  Okay, so um I usually keep these to half an hour, but I really want to hear about the other part of your business. So do you have 15 more minutes? Oh yeah, I got time. Okay, so you have your farm, but you also have a business. So tell me about the business part.
26:45Yeah, so I've been in some version of online business in that realm for closer to 15 years now, but I say over 10. So I've always had my own website, my own blog, done all of that kind of backend thing. And the past two years now, especially, I really got into teaching other people how to do that. Because what I see a lot now, it's like my clients and my coaching group members,
27:14They have these audiences on Facebook or on Instagram or what are on Tik Tok or wherever, but they have no website. They have no email lists. They have no way to contact people if like Tik Tok shuts down every other day. I don't even do Tik Tok, but I know, you know, it's  gone every other day. Um, Facebook limits your reach so bad. So, and even if these people have already been monetized on these platforms, like they've got a heap, like huge audiences, some, some in the hundreds of thousands  and
27:42they'll still get shadow banned. Like they'll have one video do really well and go viral, you know, and then they get paid a bunch from Facebook for the ads on it. And then the whole next week, Facebook doesn't show their content to anybody.  And that's frustrating for a lot of people because they're spending a lot of time creating this content and then it's gone in 24 hours. It just disappears. So what I teach people, have, do this one-on-one for clients directly where I'm doing the work and setting up the foundation for you. And then I also have my coaching group is content seeds collective.
28:11where I teach you how to do all this.  And this month, especially in February, we're doing a business roots challenge where every week we're going through these setup phases. So the first week we already did business foundations. Like, do you need an LLC to be legit? Do you need an EIN? Do you need a PO box?  This is the funniest thing that stops so many people because when you go to send emails for anti-spam laws, you have to have an address posted at the bottom of your email footer.
28:41And a lot of people, they have a farm or farm stand, they want people to know their address, right? It's another just marketing piece. But a lot of people  are just running this from their home and they don't want people to know their home address. So you need to go have a PO box. When I tell you that these people have had to go back to the post office three or four times because they don't have the right amount of IDs or they need their name on something and everything's in their husband's name on the farm, like all of these things. So this is what we set up the first week of Business Foundation Week because
29:11People run into this and they didn't even know it was a thing. Well, I've been there, done that. So I can help steer you and get you past those roadblocks before they even stop you up. So that was week one. Week two, then we got into websites. You have to have a home on the internet. If you're writing these big, long captions for Instagram, that probably should be a blog post. So now you can drive traffic to your website. You can monetize the site with ads there that are more consistent.
29:40And then you have somewhere that you can actually drive Pinterest traffic to that you own and you can track that traffic. Then you can make a social post that ties back to the blog post, take a piece of that post out for your caption and drive them back there instead of everything living on ground that you don't own. You're just posting everything on rendered ground on socials. So then  this week now, third week, we're into email.
30:05And I use flow desk in particular, but I can set you up on, you know, whichever different email platform, but the concept is the same. need to get people off of wherever they're coming from, whether it's Google SEO, and they're landing on your website from a search, they're coming from Pinterest, or they're coming from your socials.  I want you to have their email. So you own that line of communication to them. So that's what we're setting up this week. And then next week, we bring it all together with Pinterest. So this is where.
30:34everything starts to really get to be automated. Especially coming into spring, everybody's gonna be outside being busy with the garden and know, baby goats if you've got them bred, all the things in spring. And you don't wanna be stuck to your computer. You don't wanna be with your face and your phone making another reel for Instagram.  You wanna be out enjoying that. So you can have content going out on Pinterest, schedule a month or two months out even if you're using a different scheduling app, because Pinterest only goes out 30 days on the
31:03native scheduler, you can schedule a month's worth of content so that you can go then be outside the whole rest of the month. You can take that two hours that you would have spent making one day's worth of content for socials and instead put that into an entire month and schedule it to go out automatically so that that whole system is working in the background for you around the clock without your input, setting up all of these kinds of things. But it all comes down to is your business set up correctly with that foundation?
31:32Do you have a website and a home for them to actually go and to drive this traffic to? Can you capture their email so that you can talk to them? And then do you have a way to market that doesn't rely on you constantly being on your phone? So that's what I do one-on-one for clients. And I work with all kinds of people. I've got a couple right now with literally hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook and they had no website, no email, anything. And so now we're getting them up to speed to have all of these things.
31:58to add those extra income streams. Cause now they'll have ads on their websites. Now they've just launched digital products too. So their own product that people are buying and it's just releasing that constant reliance on social media and being on your phone all the time. And then I teach people how to do it themselves in the Content Seeds Collective. We have a coaching call every Thursday at one o'clock Eastern time and everybody gets in there. We can screen share and I can walk everybody through it.
32:26The group's still really small right now. So a lot of the time it's like a one-on-one session. Like last week, one of my members got basically a one-on-one session for the whole call because she shows up every single week since she's joined the group. And so we were working through a couple of changes on her website, how to optimize the WordPress theme so that it's faster and the pictures load better and it lays out the information better for her people that land on her website to actually go do what she needs them to do on the site, which would be
32:55subscribe to the email list and buy her products. So she got like a one-on-one  with that coaching goal. And then all of my resources are in the Root Seller Resource Library where I've got my Canva templates for pins. I've got all of these checklists to go literally step-by-step. The exact same thing that I do myself for clients. This is how I set everything up and in what order. Random things too, like you need a Gravatar for your author bio on a WordPress website. What is a Gravatar?
33:25So stuff like that that I help  set up so that you're not wasting any time trying to learn how to do this stuff. I just tell you the exact steps to do it in the exact right order.  Wow. That is a lot of stuff. um So do you assume that somebody who comes to you  knows nothing and you talk them through it from scratch or do you assume that they know a little and then you just go from where they're at?
33:54It can be for both. So the way that I have Content Seeds  Collective set up  is if you are completely beginner, you can go through it step by step  and build out your business the right way  from the first time  and set everything up in the right order. Or if you're somebody that has a couple pieces in place, you've got a following on socials, you've maybe got even a website, maybe even have a Pinterest and email list, you're maybe just not even using it.
34:24you can go through these same steps and treat it like a checklist to find any gaps  and then, you know, fix those pieces so that we're building that foundation correctly. So it works both ways for if you're a complete beginner or if you've already got some stuff in place.  Okay, cool. Cause when I started the first podcast, this podcast, I'm sorry,  get confused between the two.  When I started at Honey Homestead podcast,  I had no idea what I was doing.
34:53at all, like huge learning curve. And I was talking to my mom about all the stuff I'm learning. And you need to understand my mom was 78 at the time.  And she's like, what's that? How does that work? I've never heard of that. And I said, well, no, of course you haven't heard of it because you don't do this.  And she was like, I can't believe you're learning this at 54. And I was like, I'm not dead.  You can learn something new anytime.
35:23I said, 54 is not as old as it used to be. Right. And she said, you're just so smart. And I love it when my mom tells me that I'm smart because my mom has spent her life thinking that she's not smart and she is, she's brilliant. She has no idea how smart she is, but she's really smart. And I said, I get it from you. And she's like, now you get it from your dad.
35:49I just, every time I try to talk to my mom about how much I appreciate how brilliant she is, she always deflects. And so as I've been talking with her and my dad about this project and friends,  when people are like, you're so smart, I'm like, thank you. I don't deflect because I saw my mom do it my whole life. Yeah, own it.  Yep. So it's really, really fun.
36:18learning all of the marketing. if you want to do a podcast listener, you should do it because you will gain a whole lot of knowledge and understanding about how people react to marketing, how they understand how they're being marketed to how they're being sold to. uh blogs are really good too, because people who don't want to have earbuds in blogs are great because you can sit down and read them.
36:48Yeah. And you can transcribe the podcast episode into a blog post  and then you can pin both of those on Pinterest. Yeah. And for people who don't know Pinterest is not a social network. It is a search engine. Yeah. It is a search engine. So you can comment and interact and stuff on post. There's a little bit of a social aspect to it, but it is a search engine.
37:14So you're going on Pinterest. It's almost always a completely cold audience of people who've never seen you before. They're not searching like for you in particular, they're searching for, like I have a lot of uh recipe bloggers that I work with. do canning recipes and  baking and all that. So they're going to Pinterest and typing in beef canning recipes or how to pressure can potatoes, you know, like that's what they're searching for. And then the goal there is for them to find your pin.
37:44and click over to your website. Pinterest is also the only platform that's designed to take people off of it.  All the other social platforms, they don't want you to get to leave that platform. They knock your views. If you post a link in stories,  if you post a link in the caption or the comments, they don't show that post to anybody because they want to keep you there and keep you scrolling. But Pinterest is literally designed to take people off of Pinterest and to land them to where you're trying to take them, which should be to your own website. Yep.
38:14Absolutely. All right, Jen, I would love to talk to you for like three hours about all this because I'm so entertained, but I try to give you half an hour and we're already at 38 minutes. So where can people find you? can find me on all socials and all Pinterest and my website, SteelSpoonFarm.com or at SteelSpoonFarm and then all of my business content is at Jen Kibler online. Okay. And what's the name of the
38:44the program that you mentioned? Content Seeds Collective, because we're planting our content seeds. Okay. That's on your website. Yeah. Everything's linked on my website. Okay, great. And can we say how much it costs for that? Yeah. Content Seeds Collective is $37 a month. You can cancel anytime. I do have an affiliate program for it also. So you can get in and get an affiliate link and then you get paid before I get paid actually.
39:14When you join that  so you can it gets paid on every month to that people join using your link Fantastic, that's great  All right.  Um, was really really fun Jen. Thank you so much for your time  Thanks for having me  as always you can find me at a tiny homestead podcast calm  Have a great day
 

Silo Springs Farm

Today I'm talking with Tricia at Silo Springs Farm.
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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.
00:11Today I'm talking with Trisha at Silo Springs Farm in Tennessee. Good morning Trisha, how are you? Good morning, I'm good. How are you?  I'm good. I'm just going to be honest. The first part, we tried recording this and it didn't work. So we're starting over from scratch. So I'm going to ask the same questions over again. um How is the weather in Tennessee? It is beautiful today.  Sun is shining and the ground is drying up. We had a really wet rainy day yesterday and today is looking really pretty.
00:41I'm actually really glad to hear that you guys got rain because I have a friend that I co-host another podcast with. She lives in Nebraska  and they've been under fire danger for oh most of the winter time so far. And she's always lamenting the fact that they really haven't gotten any snow or any rain. And I'm like, oh, if I could just send you some from Minnesota, I would do it.
01:05It is a gorgeous, sparkly, sunny, warm day in Minnesota today. And it was so cold three weeks ago that I have nothing to complain about. Exactly. It's so pretty. I'm like Mother Nature, stop teasing me because I know we have snow in the forecast later this week. Oh, really? Just a little bit, yeah. Whether we actually get snow or not remains to be seen. I suspect it might be rain because I don't think it's going to get cold enough to snow, but we'll see what happens.
01:34Yeah.  All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and how you ended up raising Highland cows and High Park cows. um Well, it kind of started, it's kind of funny how it got started. My husband  was offered a job in Nashville, Tennessee, and we're  from the city. We're actually from Alabama and have lived in subdivisions all our lives. And when he uh
02:03said that he had to move if he accepted this position. I was like, okay, well, we're going to get land and we're going to get us some mini cows.  And so that's what we did. We  moved to a little uh old farmhouse that had 12 acres and remodeled the farmhouse and got us some cows and  just kind of going from there. nice.  Your husband is a canine police officer. Is that what you're saying? Yes. uh Okay. have a quick
02:33offside's question. When you're a canine police officer, does the canine come home with the officer that it works with or how does that work? Yes. He's actually had two dogs  and uh one  got sick and had to be retired. And so we adopted him and still have him, but  his other one  comes home with him every day. it's em not really
03:00good for farm life. He's a  GSP and he  doesn't get along well with the chickens. He wants to point them and eat them. ah I imagine. So  the reason I'm asking is because I know with service dogs that you're not supposed to go up and pet a service dog at the mall.  And I'm assuming it's the same thing with a canine officer. You don't just walk up to a canine dog and, you know, an officer dog and pet it.
03:27Yeah. Well,  it's always better to ask, but like  his dogs are explosive dogs.  Um, and so like they're not on duty. They know when they're sniffing an area that that's when they're working.  Um, his old dog, anybody could just walk up and pet him, but this dog, he just gets too ramped up and gets kind of hard to hold onto when people start giving him attention.  But yeah, yeah. He lets people pet his.  Nice. Okay. I was just curious because I've never known anybody who had, who had that
03:57job and never never known a  canine that was working with police. So I thought I would ask while I had the opportunity.  Okay, so your cows you raise them so that you can have babies so you can sell the babies. Is that right? That is right. Yes. Okay. So when is when is calving season for you? Is it coming right up? Well, we usually um have in the spring and then some will have in the fall, we try our best to avoid
04:26summer calving  just because of the flies and the bacteria that's rampant in the summer.  So we just actually delivered um our last 2025 calve yesterday and  really hoping that we start having some babies in March or April this year. Okay. Wow. The last one for that you that you were expecting in 2025 was just born. Yeah. Well, no, it was we sold it yesterday. Oh, okay. It was born in October, but it went to its
04:56home in Alabama  yesterday. oh I misunderstood. Sorry.  All right. So when you,  like I said, I don't know anything about how this all works. When you sell the babies,  do you know what those babies are going to be used for? Whether they're going to be used for breeding stock or meat or milk or do you have any idea? Well, with the, um, with the Holland breed.
05:24They're really popular right now for just pets or yard ornaments,  people wanting to breed their own.  They're so expensive. I  really doubt anybody would be eating them. uh I don't know anything about them and I know they're not, they don't get as big as say, you know, an Angus. Right. I wasn't sure whether people actually use them for food or not. And I don't know about their milk. Is their milk worth?
05:53using or is it just for the babies?  I haven't ever actually milked these, but I have read that they're really good beef  and uh milk cows.  And I do know people that like have huge massive farms of highlands  and you know, lot of their bulls they'll steer and eat those, but  we're so small. don't, we can't do that. Yeah. Yep. We have a three and a half, sorry, 3.1 acre property here ourselves and
06:23Somebody asked me if we were going to get a mini cow and I just laughed. was like, number one, cows are herd animals. That one critter would be so lonely it would die. Yeah. Yeah. They need a friend. Yeah. And number two, we don't have enough room or any place for them to graze. That's an expensive, expensive hobby. Oh yeah. So the answer was no, but I just laughed before I said anything. I was like, no, we are not getting cows.
06:51Nope, chickens. Chickens in a big garden is about the extent that we're going to commit to farming here.  Yeah, I love our chickens. That was one of the first things we got was chickens. They're great. Do you have one specific breed or did you go crazy and get all kinds of different breeds? Well, I went crazy and got all  different breeds according to like the pretty ones and the colorful eggs.
07:15which was probably a mistake because they're not real good layers. So we go a good portion of the year without eggs, but they're getting started back now. But we do have a lot of pretty eggs when we get them. You have the different colored ones? We do, yeah. Rainbow eggs. That's what my daughter would call it when she was little. She'd see the blue and the, I don't know what they're called, the Marin eggs that are dark. Yes, yes.
07:42We'd be somewhere and somebody would have all different colored eggs and she'd be like, Oh mom, they have the rainbow eggs. And I'm like,  uh-huh. They sure do.  She was very disappointed when she found out that the blue ones didn't taste like blue raspberry. Yeah.  They all taste the same. That's cute. Yep. An egg is an egg is an egg. Just like a rose is a rose is a rose. That's correct.  Okay. Um, do you have lots of chickens? We have 18 so.
08:12I don't think that we have lots of chickens, but I tell people we have 18 and they're like, oh, that's a lot of birds. Yeah, that's probably about how many we have. um I have two coops, the ones that lay and then I have some silkies um and another coop. And so probably all together  20, 25, something like that.  I was just talking with somebody that raises silkies and she was like, they are so pretty, but they're the dumbest birds ever known to man.
08:40They really are. I have to go and collect some of them at night because they just can't seem to make it back to the coop. that's what she was saying too. She was like, I don't know what it is, but they just will not go in the coop on their own. like, they're dumb. She's like, they're dumber than dumb.
09:00They do struggle. Dumb as a stump as my dad would say.  Okay, so do you  incubate any of the eggs from your chickens and sell the babies or not? I did at one point. I  have,  well actually the last two years I sold  silkies,  but I'm probably not going to this year.
09:27But they're really good mamas. They're not real bright, but they're excellent mamas.  They're not so bright.  No one but a lady from the South can say they're not very bright in the nicest, lightest way ever.
09:43God bless their hearts. They're not very bright. That's right. Love it. Okay. Um, are you guys parents or you just have your animals? Um, we have children. Um, I have a daughter, uh, that she, uh, just will be 19 this year. And then my husband has two sons and, um, they're grown. Okay. So you're, you're pretty much empty nesters at this point.
10:11Very, very close. uh Yep. I understand. just, I'm going through it now and I raised four kids and I'm like, wow, the house got really, really quiet. I know.  So hard. Yup. um did,  did your daughter,  I don't know, was she younger when you guys moved to the farm?  No, she wasn't. And I wish she had been. When she was growing up, she was a little tomboy.
10:39But when we moved here, she was like middle school age. And so she was um more into  doing video games and  she just, she would have been more into it if we could have uh moved here when she was a lot younger. she didn't, she didn't embrace the farm life. What like you would have hoped that she would have. No, she didn't. She was at the point where she was like, Oh, that's so gross. Ooh, they smell.
11:09Oh, fine. Yeah. Huh. Did she love the babies though? Oh, yeah. She likes the babies.  Yeah. See, I'm a sucker for a baby. It doesn't matter what it is. I always say even baby alligators are cute.  She says that her, the goats are probably her favorite of all the animals. They're mine too. Other than a baby kitten. Baby kittens are my favorite, but baby goats are my next favorite.
11:36They're totally different things. A kitten is going to be a pet. A goat, probably not a pet. Love it like a pet, but probably not a pet.  Yes, baby goats are the most adorable farm animal ever, ever created. I've had a thing for them since I was young. I've talked about it a lot on the podcast because my friend's parents used to raise goats and every spring  she would call me and say,  can your mom bring you over those baby goats? were born last night.
12:04Every year she would call me and be like come now while they're brand new.  Oh, they're so funny. They're the funniest animal I loved them when they were anywhere from  18 hours to 36 hours old because they weren't quite Crazy bouncy yet and they would let you hold them. Yeah  Yeah
12:28Once they got past that 36 hour mark, she's like, nah, don't even bother because they're already running around and climbing on stuff. I'm like, okay. Yes, they are love wars. Yeah. But oh, when they're brand new, they're so sweet and they're so soft. Yes. I love them so much. I do. It's ridiculous. My husband thinks that I have some kind of affliction or illness when it comes to baby goats.
12:53Boring, they don't do anything. I'm like, that's the whole point They don't do anything they let you hold them and they'll get you like they love you whether they do or not  Ours are really um clingy like they'll just if you let them out of the gate They just follow you around the whole day Uh-huh. em I get the impression that sheep are kind of like that too We have friends and we went over to pick up we went to get chickens from them  and her son was
13:24walking up the path from the barn and behind him was a probably four or five day old lamb. And it was a good 20 feet behind him following him and just doing that meh noise at him. And I said, you got a puppy back there? And he's like, that's not a puppy, that's a sheep. And I was like, I know it's a sheep. I said, does it follow you around like a puppy?
13:54And  he said, yeah, said the only thing missing is it doesn't bark. And I was just like, kid, I can't figure out if you are being rude or if you're just playing my game. I don't know.  Have you ever seen the Valleys sheep?  I have. Yes, they're beautiful. They are. I'm begging my husband for some of those, but so far no luck.  Huh. Okay. Well,  um,  Christmas maybe? Asking for Christmas.
14:23Well, the lady that I have been talking to, actually, said, do you want me to message your husband about Valentine's day? And I was like, yes, please.  But it still didn't work. Why doesn't he want them? They're so expensive. um They're like more than the Holland cows. They're, they're really up there.  Well, I know just enough to be dangerous on some of this stuff, but um I think the reason they're so expensive is because they're not common in the United States. Right.
14:53Right. Yup. Anything that isn't common is going to cost much more than something you can get anywhere. Always.  Yep.  Which sucks because I would love for you to have a relationship because they're really, really cute. They are adorable. So I'm trying to figure out how to ask this without sounding rude because I don't want to be rude on my podcast.
15:19Why are you  raising the cows? Why do you have chickens? Is it because you love them? Is it an income? Is it both? Well, it's not an income yet.  That's our goal is to have it as an income, but um it's just different. um it's something that me and my husband are doing together that neither one of us has ever done. And so we're trying to build like this business. um
15:48together and it's just so much fun working together. Not that we always get along, but  there are days that we butt heads, but  at the end of the day, it's like, look what all we accomplished today. Look what we've done. Yeah. And you would butt heads no matter what you're doing, because that's what husbands and wives do.  Exactly.  Okay. um God, I don't know what is wrong with me today. No questions are coming to mind.
16:16Uh, are you,  are there people around you who are doing things like you're doing so that you have a community?  Um,  we have a lot  of, uh, old time farmers around us, uh, that,  and by that, just mean like they've been doing this generational,  um, they, know, they're on their daddy's land, um, still raising  cattle, mostly Angus.  but
16:44There's not really a whole lot of hollown.  I can think of maybe one or two that might be fairly close to us. um
16:54We have some people that are on the hill right behind us and they're raising their cows um just to eat, but not doing kind of what we're doing as far as just raising them to  sell. And although we do, I mean, we have goals that we would like to be able to be self-sufficient and  do our meat. And  I've bought a milker.  I have one Jersey that I plan on milking, but working a full-time job and then doing farm life is kind of...
17:22A little difficult at times. So the farm is like a very expensive side gig sometimes.  Yes, exactly it is.  But if you're like a lot of the people that I talk to, it pays for itself in joy and satisfaction. It is. It's really odd that you can get out there and work yourself to death  and you've enjoyed it, you know. Yes,  I do know.
17:48I'm going to say this again. say this all the time. I am not the grunt worker at our place. My husband is. He  loves being outside. He loves gardening. He loves all the manual hard work.  I am, I'm kind of over it. I really worked hard raising my kids like in the trenches, playing with them, shuttling them, feeding them the whole bit.  And in my mid fifties, I'm kind of like, you know, I really don't want to be Holland wood.
18:19And I'm not in the shape I used to be in. And he's like, that's okay. You don't have to, you do what you do best, which is cook and do the podcast. said, cause you love the podcast. You're good at it. I'm like, okay, cool. So yesterday he was outside cutting up a tree that he took down last weekend, cause it's a huge ash tree. And he came in after two hours, just his T-shirt was just wet with sweat. Cause it was so warm here yesterday.
18:47I said, were you out there with no jacket? He's like, honey. He said, I've been out there without a jacket for the last two hours. He said, I am dying.  I need water. I was like, oh, let me get you some water.  And he loves it. He loves being outside. That's my husband too. He jokingly says he's the hired hand. I'm the one that comes up with the ideas and he's the one that brings them to fruition. um But it's funny that you mentioned cutting wood because he, um
19:17installed  a Cast-orange stove and that's what he's been doing this winter is chopping wood to burn in the stove  Uh-huh best form of heat ever I grew up in a house where my parents had a wood stove in the house and we used it all the time in the wintertime loved how it smelled and Now we have a wood burning boiler system so the wood stove itself is outside and then there's a tube that brings water to the furnace and then
19:46the furnace somehow takes the heat from the hot water and blows it into the house. And I really miss having a wood stove in the house because of the way that it smelled. Yeah. It's so pretty at night too. Yeah. And we just don't have a good place to put one in because otherwise there'd probably be one by now. That's how much I love that. So is right now through, I don't know, June, your favorite time of year because you're going to be calving and
20:16The chickens are starting to lay and the light is changing and everything just feels full of promise. Yes.  Especially the day's getting longer. just, I hated the daylight savings time, but  yes, I love spring.  March 8th, we turned the clocks ahead just so you know.  I looked the other day. was like, Hey, it's staying later. Later, later. When do we change the clocks ahead?
20:42And my husband was like, I don't know, they keep changing it. And I was like, okay. So I went and looked and I said, March 8th, we get an extra hour in late in the evening. He's like, yes. Yes. Cause then he can be outside longer when he gets home from work. So that'll make him really, really happy. yeah. He's so excited right now anyway, cause it's getting to be the time when we plant seeds. So I figure this weekend he's going to bring in the seedling trays and be like, we're going to plant. And be like, okay, I'll lose my kitchen table for two months.
21:11but that's fine.  It'll pay for it later. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's really ugly the first week  and then as those little babies start popping out  three weeks from this weekend, I'll be like, Oh, look at all the green babies. It's so pretty.
21:28We have tried and tried to get an uh orchard going, but everything we plant dies.  We have to regroup every year and try something different. ah What's your soil like there? Well, the soil looks really good. It's a little bit rocky,  but aside from that,  the dirt's good. It's not red clay or anything like that. What have you tried to plant? We've done blueberry bushes. um
21:56My daughter loves pomegranates and so we tried to plant a pomegranate tree. em We've done lavender,  but  it may be just us.  We're having to learn all of this stuff. em Well, uh blueberries, is that what you said? Yes.  Blueberries really need sandy soil and they really need acidic soil.
22:24Well, that may be the problem because we definitely do not have sandy soil up here. We'll have to work on that. Yeah, I grew up in Maine and that's where wild blueberries grow and the best wild blueberries grow right by the edge of the driveway or where it's sandy.  Yeah, and they really like being near or underneath pine trees because of the acid in the pine needles.
22:47Well that's good to know. Yep, so that's probably why your blueberry plants aren't doing very well. And also you need to have two different varieties to pollinate each other.
22:58Well, that could be part of it we've only been planting like we'll plant one,  it'll die. Yeah. And we'll plant another and it'll die. Yeah. They don't have the right growing. They don't have the right soil conditions and you have to have two different varieties. That's part of what's going on there.  And the only reason I know this is we tried to grow them at the house that we lived at before this one in Minnesota and it wasn't sandy soil and they just didn't do well.  They had blueberries for a couple of years in a row.
23:26but there just wasn't enough acid in the soil and they didn't do well.
23:31So that might help you.  And if you can find pine trees, or if somebody has pine trees, you can literally go and get pine needles in the fall that have fallen off the tree  and work them into your soil and add some sand. And then you might be able to get them to go.  We'll try that. Yep.  And  like I said, I know just enough to be dangerous and your mileage may vary, but you could try that.  And if you have good black dirt, good soil,
24:01Try apple trees. Oh, we do actually have an apple tree. It was here when we moved and we've gotten some good apples off of it. Yeah, get some more apple trees if you want an orchard because we have 20 apple trees here that we've put in and this past fall was the first time we've gotten over a hundred apples from two trees. So it takes a while. We've been here five years. So were you baking lots of apple?
24:31desserts and  jellies. We made apple crisp, but these are the  honey gold apples. They're like a golden delicious apple.  And they weren't very good in apple crisp. And I was like, you can sell them at the farmer's market. I don't love these apples at all.  So they got sold and people ate them and loved them. I like the really nice Regents and Harrelsons and um Cortland apples. Those are my favorites.
25:01And those are really great for baking. So hopefully our Regent and our  Harrelson and our Honeycrisp trees will produce this year, hopefully. Oh, yeah.  And just so you know, if you have, I think it's eight apple trees, you have a small orchard. Oh, really? Yep. I had to look it up.  Yep. And um
25:28I don't know if plum trees would grow where you are, but we have plum trees. have peached. have a couple of peach trees.  We've got some wild  plum trees, but I think our goats have just about  eaten them down.  I bet they have because I bet goats really love plum trees because they tend to be a shorter bushier tree. So I bet they can reach it. Yup. uh
25:54Don't give up on trying to have an orchard because I'm sure there's stuff that will grow for you. You just got to figure out what it is. And in Tennessee, do you guys have, what are the little orange fruits? Not oranges. uh Persimmons? Oh yeah. Yeah?  There's some wild persimmons growing around here too. Yeah, we don't have those here. It doesn't stay warm enough, long enough for them to grow.
26:22they would never produce. They might grow, but they wouldn't produce any fruit.  Okay. Well, I don't know. I would suggest trying out amending your soil for blueberries and putting in some more apple trees if the apple tree does well. Yeah. I'm to have to tell my husband about that.  Yup.
26:43Again, the only reason I know about blueberries is because I grew up in the land of blueberries. I can't even look at a blueberry pie anymore without my stomach flipping over because I ate so many blueberries as a kid.  I can't eat blueberry anything anymore. My grandparents had  blueberry bushes on their land in Alabama and oh my goodness, those are the best blueberries ever. Yeah, it's really funny when I talk to people about the things that they grew up eating.
27:12My mom grew up eating black raspberries because she lived in Illinois when she was a kid. And black raspberries don't grow wild in Maine anywhere. And she really misses black raspberries. And she was like, it must be like that for you with blueberries. And I'm like, no, I can't stand blueberries. And she's like, why? I said, because we picked so many blueberries when I was growing up. And we had blueberry muffins and blueberry pie and blueberry cake.
27:41you know, during blueberry season.  I said, I can't even stand the thought of eating anything blueberry flavored at this point in my life.  She's like, you're weird. said, yep, I, what was your first clue? But yes, I am. can't do it.  She's like, what about blackberries? Cause we picked a lot of blackberries too. I said, I love blackberry jam. Other than that, I don't really do blackberries either. We did have some blackberry,  wild blackberry bushes,  but.
28:11Our goats ate those as well. Those darn goats.  I know it. How many goats do you have? I have, um, four, five does  and  a weather and then about four bucks. I need to get rid of some bucks, but you kind of get attached to them.  Yeah. Do you, um, do you have babies with the goats and then sell the baby goats too? Yes, we do.
28:38Do people just lose their minds when they get their baby goats? Are they like, yes, I finally have goats.  They do. um They're fairly easy to sell because they're so cute. uh How old are they when you actually sell them?  I believe they're  eight weeks old when I can either have to look this up.
29:02Every year. think it's either six or eight weeks old when I can wean them. And then, um, once they're eating really good, um, then they can go to their new homes. Yeah. Um, fun fact about goats, goats don't have top teeth. They just have bottom teeth. Right.  Do they have top molars though, in the back?  I've not seen any, but I,  uh, have not really looked either. So.
29:30I for the life of me cannot figure out how in the heck they chew hay without top front teeth.
29:38I don't know, but they chew on it forever. maybe  it's  a combination. There's. Yeah. I don't know. I read this a couple of months ago about goats and I was like, how do they eat? How do they crunch anything?
29:55You know, how do they masticate it, I guess is the word I'm looking for. But they definitely do enjoy eating. They eat everything.  Yes,  I've heard  two different sides of the fence on this.  One lady said that her goats were the best behaved goats ever. They weren't mischievous and they did not eat tin cans and paper. And then another lady was like, oh my God, my goats are terrible. They're everywhere that they're not supposed to be. They eat everything.
30:24Including me if they're not supposed to eat so it make them sick  and I was like hmm sounds like kids to me Yeah, mine has not ever uh
30:36Eating things like things that they're not supposed to, but like they'll get into the calf feed or some other animals feed and  go to town on it. But as far as like eating paper or things like that, I've never had that issue. And mine are the Nigerian dwarf.  Um, so they're not jumping fences or anything like that. As long as I have the wire at the bottom of the fence, they're, really no problem to keep in. Nice.  Yeah. My husband and I keep  sort of.
31:05revisiting the idea of getting a couple of goats, know, youngins. And every time we talk about it, I said, I think I'm more in love with the idea than I am the reality.  And he's like, yeah, me too. He said, every time this comes up, we're like, we should get goats. And then we both come to the conclusion that we're not ready for goats.  hardest part to me about goats is that they're wormy,  the worms  and
31:34Part of that's probably my fault because I don't have enough space to rotate their fields.  Yep. So  that does make it a little bit more challenging. Yeah. Well, we're lucky enough to have friends that have goats. So if I really, really, really need a baby goat fix in April, May, June, whenever they're due,  can hike my cute little hiney over there and visit a baby goat.  So I'm good.
32:00I really, I think the garden and the chickens and the barn cats and the dogs are probably more than enough for us at this point in our lives. I've never given up that dog. The only way that dog is going away is if she dies. I am so in love with Maggie. It's ridiculous. And I've been remiss. I haven't been talking about Maggie as much as I did when I started the podcast two and a half years ago. So what kind of dog is Maggie? She is a mini Australian shepherd. Oh,
32:29And she is the loviest, leasiest mini Australian shepherd you will ever meet. She,  you know how they talk about,  um, cattle dogs being very high energy and,  crazy.  She's like a lab. Oh, wow. She's very, very calm and  she's very athletic. If we take her outside and run her with the frisbee, she hauls  ass and she's jumping in the air to catch it. And she's just all go, go, go.
32:58But when she's in the house, she's just a loaf.
33:03We have a golden doodle  and talk about being wired up and crazy.  is, he actually, um, last week got bit on the head by a Brown recluse. Oh no.  Yeah. So,  um, he's  been getting a little TLC here, but he's all better now.  Good. Good. I hate it when dogs are sad or hurt.
33:30I was never a dog person, Trisha, until we got Maggie. And now I'm a sucker for all of them. I see stories about dogs and if they're sad, I cry. And if they're funny, I laugh myself stupid. It's so dumb. To the point that I will see dogs that are being walked when my husband and I are out running around doing errands and I'm like, oh, who's a good doggo? And my husband's like, you are a sick woman. He said, you never used to be like this.
33:59I said, but look at the pupper. And he's like, don't push it. Cause he thinks it's really weird that I am so a dog person now. Cause I used to be a cat person, way before I was a So she has, she has assimilated and ruined me for my love of cats. I'm now a dog person. Oh, cats are so funny too though. We made my husband was crack up at the little cat videos of them doing different things.
34:26Yeah, my husband really likes the YouTube videos where the cats or they knock things off on purpose of  the surface they're on  or they get startled and fall over.  thinks that's pretty funny too.  Yeah.  But anyway, we could talk about things that aren't necessarily  farming or homesteading related all day, but that's not what this podcast is about.  So oh you would like to get Valet sheep. Right.  And is there anything else that you would like to add to your farm?
34:57We have  a couple of donkeys. would like to get,  we have a mini Jack and I'd like to get a uh don't, uh, Jenny. Uh-huh.  Um, but other than that, just  the Valleys sheep and, and another donkey would be awesome. So then you could have baby donkeys too.  Yes. But they take like a year, I think. Yep.
35:24Yep. It's a very long gestation period for equines and donkeys fall under equines.  So yeah, it's a long wait  and, it's,  oh, I don't want to burst your bubble. do not want to this out loud because I want to discourage anybody, but  I will  never have a horse or a donkey, mostly because I would want to have that horse or donkey have a baby.  And  it's really nerve wracking.
35:52when they have their babies because you don't know whether that baby is going to come out good  or if it's going to come out not alive.  And I don't do so well with the second option there. m We had a calf this year that was stillborn. It was  very sad. oh Again, I don't want to discourage anybody from this lifestyle.  Farming, homesteading, ranching is  an amazing choice to make for your life.
36:22But you've got to get comfortable with things not being alive when you expect them to be. Oh no, it's so hard.
36:33I heard somebody say one time, if you've got livestock, you will eventually have dead stock.  Uh huh. Yeah. And you will. Whether it's a barn cat or a chicken or a foal,  it's going to happen  and it will break your heart.  yeah. So, you know,  I think that the joy that comes with farming, ranching and homesteading far outweighs the sad.
37:01But boy, that saddle kick you in the teeth when it happens.  Oh, it really will. There is more good, there's more exciting things  that does happen, but not nearly as often.  So,  all right, Trisha, I try to keep this to half an hour. Where can people find you? Oh, we are on Facebook and Instagram at Silo Springs  Farm. Okay. And you have a blog, right?
37:30Well, I do, but it has  not been updated in a couple of years. Life got kind of busy and I  quit  writing, but. Okay. Nevermind.  All right. I really appreciate your time so much. People can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. I hope you have a great day, Trisha. Thank you. You too. Thank you.
 

New Beginnings with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom.
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In this episode of A Tiny Homestead, Mary welcomes back returning guest Leah from Clear Creek Ranch Mom in Nebraska. Leah has previously appeared on the podcast four times since March 2024, and today’s conversation brings exciting updates.
They begin with a little seasonal appreciation, talking about frosty mornings, baby pink sunrises, and the beauty of unobstructed rural views. From there, the conversation turns to what is new.
Introducing a New Podcast
Mary and Leah recently launched a brand new podcast together:
Grit and Grace in the Heartland: Women in Agriculture
After thoughtful consideration, Leah said yes to co hosting, and the two have been recording weekly conversations that highlight the voices and stories of women in agriculture.
They talk about:
Why so many podcasts stop around episode seven and why they are determined to keep going
The joy of unscripted, authentic conversation
Creating space for women to be heard
The power of storytelling in building connection and courage
The importance of real human connection in a world increasingly shaped by technology
Leah shares how her background in communications and her love of asking questions have shaped her passion for elevating other people’s stories.
Why Women’s Voices Matter
Grit and Grace in the Heartland focuses on women in agriculture and the many roles they hold. The podcast explores:
Identity and authenticity
Wearing multiple hats in rural life
Leadership, business, ranching, and family
Financial literacy and independence for women
The deep and often unseen emotional labor of rural women
Mary and Leah discuss how meaningful it is to go beyond surface level conversations and create a space where women can share their real stories, including the hard parts.
They also reflect on the courage it takes to put yourself out there publicly and the importance of community support, especially in small towns.
The Power of Asking and Listening
Leah shares stories about the impact of simply noticing people and saying thank you. From fast food employees to store clerks, she talks about how powerful it can be to acknowledge hard work and offer genuine appreciation.
The takeaway is simple:
If you see something, say something.And not just when it is negative.
Kind words and curiosity can change someone’s day, and sometimes even more than that.
Stories That Shape Us
Mary and Leah also reflect on the women who shaped them, especially their grandmothers. They talk about unconventional women, loneliness, resilience, and the importance of preserving family stories.
Every woman has a story worth telling.Every family holds stories that matter.
That belief sits at the heart of both podcasts.
A Nebraska Favorite
The episode wraps up with a lighthearted discussion about Runza, the beloved Nebraska sandwich filled with beef, cabbage, and onions baked inside bread dough. They even share tips for making them at home.
Where to Find Leah and the New Podcast
You can find Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom on Facebook.
Listen to Grit and Grace in the Heartland: Women in Agriculture at:gritandgraceintheheartland.com
Find Mary and A Tiny Homestead at:atinyhomesteadpodcast.com
Thank you for listening to A Tiny Homestead. If you enjoy the show, please share it with a friend and leave a review. Your support helps more people discover these meaningful rural stories.
 
 

Grounded In Maine Podcast

Today I'm talking with Amy at Grounded In Maine Podcast.
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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. Today I'm talking with Amy Bolduc at Grounded in Maine in Virginia. I know that's weird, but that's how it falls.  Good morning, Amy. How are you?  I am doing fine. Thanks. I know it's such a funny thing. People are like, where are you? Like I'm in Virginia,  but why is your podcast Grounded in Maine? Well, because you'll always be.
00:29Your heart will always be grounded in Maine. That's why. mean, 49 years, not like that's nothing. That's not nothing. Yeah, exactly.  Well, what's the weather doing in Virginia this morning? Oh, geez.  It's so cold this morning. Like, I'm sure it's not Minnesota cold, but it's still cold. mean, it was 15 degrees when we were walking this morning. um And yesterday,  yesterday, it was so yesterday we had 45 mile per hour winds. um And  it was not much warmer.
00:59So but then two weeks ago, I mean, if you're asking about weather, the weather here is so weird. I mean, all of like November, December, it was beautiful, like 40s, probably. And I know I, you know, everyone was like, oh, my gosh, it's so cold. It's snowing, snowing, snowing. And I'm like, well, you know, don't want to say anything because I'm in the south, blah, blah, blah. But then two weeks ago, the weather forecast was looking like we were.
01:27My weather app was telling me we were going to get up to 21 inches of snow.  And I was like, what  is this about? ah And then when it actually came, it was like a dusting of snow, but then an inch and a half of freezing rain, ah which I would so I would prefer 21 inches of snow a million times over freezing rain and ice. ah Anyone who's dealt with freezing rain would agree a thousand percent freezing rain is so dangerous.
01:57Yeah. it's, you know, it just is like, but since then, so last weekend,  I, my, my trusty weather app that I've been using for years lied to me and said, you know, maybe, maybe one between one to three inches of snow. I'm like, okay, you know, that's no big deal. But then we got 10 ish inches of snow  and it was fluffy snow, which was cool. But then like, when I moved here, I did not get a snow shovel because I was
02:26You know, last winter we had four inches total, like  all winter long, two, two inch storms.  And I was like, that is no big deal. And then this year,  you know, and then the ice, I was like, I'm not I'm not even shoveling. I literally can't shovel that. But so I have a travel trunk shovel, which  it's in two pieces and it's rickety and plastic. I've had it for probably 20 years uh and.
02:54I ever used it, only when I was working and I got stuck in a snowstorm.  But so that's what I've been using. I actually went out yesterday to try to get a real shovel and they were out. Of course.  Of course.  Because we just got 10 inches of snow.  yeah, I mean, the weather is great. And then, know, Tuesday is supposed to be like 60. I  like,  there's no,  I don't think there's like Virginia weather. I think it's just whatever.
03:23happens, like what it just feels like.
03:28Yeah, Mother Nature has become extremely bipolar over the last two years. That's a great way to say it. Maybe she's going through menopause too. I don't want to make you jealous, but it's seven, it's, what is it right now? I'm looking at my weather app. It's 27 degrees here in Minnesota in Lesor right now. And it's supposed to be 38 for the high. Tomorrow 45 for the high, Tuesday 38, Wednesday 38.
03:57Thursday 40, Friday 40. Well, that's like making up for the last two weeks when it was below zero. That's exactly what I was going to say. We had, we had 14 or 15 days in a row where we never got close to freezing to 32 degrees.  And it was the longest stretch I've seen in years and it sucked. No question.  So anyway,  um, that's the weather update. I would do weather update.  Um, start with a weather update folks.
04:26Oh, always do. In case you need to know. Every podcast opens with how's the weather because we're all doing stuff that weather impacts and I figure it's a good way to do it.  We're all experiencing weather. We sure are. And when we're trying to grow stuff or, um you know,  if we have chickens. Raise animals. Yeah. Yeah.  It's  kind of important to know what we're walking out into.  So that leads me to my first question. I saw that your  chickens are starting to lay again, beautiful eggs.
04:55How are the chickens doing and how many do you have? The chickens are good. I have five. I've actually, so I've had one. Miss Lacey never stopped laying. Like every so often she'll skip a day, but then the next day she's like, before I even get there, she's already laid her egg.  She has not taken a break.  Jason, however, has not laid an egg for at least two months. uh Jason is a hen.  She came to me with that name. don't,  Jason Kelsey. I don't know.
05:24I think that's football. Yes. I don't know. It's football. That's the name that she came with. That's so funny. And she's very nice and she's very pretty, but she had a really, really rough molt and she was really funny looking. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jason. I know you can't hear this, but she was funny looking. But it's always the worst timing when they molt. Do you have chickens, Mary? I have 18. You have 18. Okay.
05:52How many kittens do you have now? um Well, technically we have three kittens, but they're about five months old now. Oh, well, they're still kittens. um Okay. So  I have, yeah, five still. I have not lost a single chicken in a year. Good job. They barely see the light of day, but  I feel like that's a good trade off. mean, they do. They get out. um
06:17like an hour at the end of the day, because that's when I am not working and I can actually be out there with them. And even if I'm not out there with them, like usually when I get out of work, so now because the time, because with the time change and the light, longer darkness, whatever. So I get out of work at 4.30, my dog and I walk at 4.30 and I let the chickens out at 4.30 because 5.30 it's going to be dark.
06:44So I let them out at 430 and I leave my phone while we're walking  with music playing so that the critters don't feel like the predators don't feel like they're alone.  I just looked at my farmer's almanac wall calendar and daylight savings time is March 8th.  So we only have a few more weeks until literally a month, literally a month from today.  Yep. So
07:10Yeah, I know me too. I was like, yay, more light in the evening. It's so sad that we have to wait until March. like really winter is just, I know winter is a season of rest, but some of us don't get to do that. And then it's just miserable. Absolutely. I just had a thought and it went bye bye. Cause that's what happens. Um, I'm very excited to know that, uh,
07:39daylight savings time switch is only a month away because that means that good,  spring weather is only two months away.  Yeah. It's just, you know, it's like  there are no holidays. So we're like March 8th, come on, come on, come on, March 8th.  You know, never push the  time to move as quickly as this last month for sure. Yes. And I figure
08:04In Minnesota, we have March Madness, which is the hockey tournaments, I think. oh is it? It's not  baseball? Baseball? I can't remember. It's hockey or basketball.  It might be both. Who knows? I'm not a girl. Don't take sports information from us, peeps. Yeah, I am not a sports fanatic at all.
08:25What I do know is that March, because of the tournaments that are going on, is always terrible for weather because of course it would be because people are traveling in for the tournament. Well, it's like that in between, right?  You're waiting for spring and you're so anxious for spring, but winter's like, eh, I'm just going to hang out a little bit longer. Just going to throw a little crap your way. Yeah, yeah. And it's always March. It's always the worst month. February's okay. I can deal with February, but March is the worst.
08:55Cause everybody's so excited about this tournament thing.  And I'm like, yeah, good luck driving in that three feet of snow we're probably going to get.
09:05Oh,  it's so  yeah, it's like going out with a bang. The last hurrah.  Yes, it is. then I'm like, okay, it's going to be peonies season soon. So I'm all for it.  let's get back to the whole grounded in Maine and you live in Virginia now.  When I first interviewed you two years ago, I think it was you were in Maine. I was in Maine. And then you got divorced and then you moved to Virginia.  Yeah.
09:36It's for the people who don't know it is kind of a pain in the butt  to change the name of a podcast. Yeah.  So  I don't blame you for not changing it. Plus I  know when we last talked, you had mentioned that you were trying to get back to New England. So how is that? Is that anywhere on the horizon?  Um,  well, I mean, I would love it to be on the horizon. I really don't want to do another summer here in Virginia. Yeah.  Um,
10:04So my goal is to get back there in some form by like May. I don't have any big things happening though. My house has been on the, on the real estate market since July and no one, no one has even like looked at it, which is sad. But, um, you know, my realtor says it's just really expensive, but at the, at the same time, like I put $25,000 in solar panels on this house. And so.
10:34the electric bill,  except for this month because we got 10 inches of snow, uh has been literally $10. Like 11 months of the year, it's $10. Okay, I forget the nearest big city to you in Virginia.  So I am about an hour from Greensboro, North Carolina. I'm about an hour from Danville, Virginia, and I'm about an hour from Roanoke, Virginia.
11:03Okay. What's the next biggest town from you though?  I mean,  like how far?  Uh, Martinsville is right next door. It's just like 10 minutes, but it's not, it's not like bustling by any means.  Everything is about an hour. Let's use the, the, American definition of how far away you are from stuff. How far is the nearest Walmart from you or Home Depot? Oh,  uh, Home Depot. don't, I think.
11:32is like an hour. Walmart is like 10 minutes. So if somebody wants to move to Virginia, Amy's house is on the market. You should go check it out. Cute little house. Very simple, but you $10 electric bill, man. And it's on an acre, a little bit over an acre.
11:52Well, maybe somebody will hear the podcast. you can have chickens.  Yeah. Maybe somebody will hear the podcast episode and be like, I would like to check out Amy's house. Maybe it's somewhere I would like to live. I would not be mad at that. Yeah, exactly. And then you can go find your house where you want to be.  I did though. mean, just yesterday I got, so Saturdays I get an email from the New England Farm Finder website,  which is really fun. I don't know if you subscribe to that, Mary, but it's really fun if you're dreaming.
12:21Well, I'm not dreaming and putting that in front of me would probably be a bad plan. So  I would get nothing done.  But so a new one came out yesterday and I actually sent a letter of interest to two different properties.  Good.  And they were not selling. They were like leasing  per se.  I actually I got an email back just like an hour ago from one of them.
12:49So that's like, that feels like progress, even though  it might not become anything, it's progress. uh I also,  have my actually next week's podcast  episode, the guest hooked me up with this guy who's also a podcaster and Mary, you might be interested in speaking with him.  His name is Ting, Tim Ang.  I have already talked to him. did? Okay. His wife actually. Okay. Sophia. Yes. Super, super nice. Fabulous. Yes.
13:19They both are very, very nice. And so I got hooked up with Tim and he's a homesteader realtor banker. And so I paid him to help market my house to homesteaders. And he's put it on a list of off market homes, properties, which I've never heard of, I'm like, I'll take whatever.
13:48Anything to get the word out at this point.  And so we took new pictures. We changed the wording and the listing. I changed the wording in the listing because it was too  sterile and it did not highlight the solar panels quite enough and the great things that are around here.  Well, fingers are still crossed. Love and light to get your house moved because I know how much you want to get back to New England. I totally understand.
14:17I don't want to go back to New England. I am really, really happy with where we ended up.  I feel like a traitor saying that, but I am assimilated. Minnesota is pretty similar to Maine. It is.  is. It's just But that's where your people are. Yeah. It's just missing the ocean half an hour away and mountains the other half an hour away, but I can live without those things. It's okay. Yeah. I mean, a funny little...
14:43I mean, it's not really a complication, just like literally yesterday,  my sister,  so my sister's been in Greensboro, North Carolina. She took a job transfer a month ago. She started in December. then uh just yesterday, she and her spouse  and their dogs drove from Cincinnati where they've been living for the last like eight years  to North Carolina. So now they're living an hour away from me.
15:12God, I can't imagine  moving  again.  I know. I can't either, but I also can't imagine staying. Yeah. If I didn't love where we are so much, it would be a different story. But my God, trying to move a 20 years worth of stuff out of a small house into a bigger house, you would have thought that we  would have had lots of room.  And  after five years,  we're starting to...
15:39starting to be like, okay, it's time to really deep clean the house and get stuff out of here again. Right. Well, I think you and I are similar in that we don't, we're thoughtful about what we let go of.  Um, my sister was like, I don't want to move this. I don't want to move this. And so they had a dumpster  and she was showing me,  she showed me the pictures of her new place, which has this beautiful deck. And  she was like, I'm not sure if I'm going to bring  the grill or not. And I'm like, but you have that deck. And she was like, well, but you know,
16:08It doesn't work that great. guess,  you know, they  also move a lot. mean, eight years is a long time for them to be in the same place.  I think they don't have... um
16:26What's the word that I need? um Like nostalgia for stuff. uh Stuff doesn't hold their emotions  like it does me.  doesn't hold their hearts, Travel does. So  here they are again.  Yeah, I hate travel. I hate it.  I have done so many road trips between New England and the Midwest in my life because my grandparents lived in Illinois when I was a kid.
16:56um That I'm just I'm kind of over it being stuck in a car or an airplane or train just does not do it for me anymore  Yeah, I would rather have people come visit me at this point then then go you know  For sure uh So I we're gonna totally jump tracks here  I saw that your your cats maybe one of them got sprayed by a skunk. Is that right? Yeah a couple months ago uh Maybe a month ago
17:26And you mentioned that you had a trick to get rid of the stinkiness. So what's the trick? Right. Well, I mean, I just Googled it because I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this actually happened. I never thought that it would actually happen. Google said,  what was it? A quart  of hydrogen peroxide. um I forget how much baking soda,  but I can get that to you. Yeah. So
17:55Hydro and peroxide, baking soda and dish soap. Was it specifically Dawn dish soap or is it any dish soap? Well, I don't have Dawn dish soap, em it might've said Dawn.  Okay. Well, Dawn's just really good at  really, really good. I mean, I'm not sponsored by Dawn dish soap,  don't take it that way, but Dawn dish soap is really good at cutting oils. But Dawn, if you're interested, uh Mary's looking for sponsors.
18:25Well, I always am, but I'm not sure Dawn would be the one, but we'll see what happens.  But it's really, really good at cutting oils.  It's fantastic. They  use it after oil spills.  Yeah, exactly. And so I'm assuming that  the skunk spray probably has natural oils from the skunk in it. And maybe, maybe that would help.  don't know. Well, I mean, what I did worked great. mean,  I, was, I was very, very happy and I was like,
18:55Oh my gosh, I can't let her inside. Because I don't want that in my house. But then it was cold enough that I was like, we're just going to take this into the entryway. I gave her the little bath in the entryway and then it was, you know, better. My parents dog when I was a teenager got sprayed by a skunk and he was a Samoyed. So much hair. Holy moly.
19:24My dad tried using tomato sauce. Well, that's what we grew up learning, right? Tomato juice cuts it. But then it stains a white dog. Well, that was fine, but he was still stinky for months.  And the worst part was that he took a full-on hit  of skunk. of course, my dad let him in the house to try to clean him up, and my clothes smelled like skunk for months.
19:54And I was in high school. Can you imagine how that went over?  mean, somebody told me that cats and skunks usually get along pretty well. And I was like, what? But then  as I was thinking about that, somebody said, really, is that true? And then it clicked with me that  Pepe Le Pew from Looney Tunes  was in love with a cat. uh
20:20So, mean, I think they don't necessarily not get along, but I think that my male cat was hissing and probably freaked it out. and skunks are finicky. There are times where you think they're going to spray and then it's like, no, I'm good. And then there's times where you think they're fine and nope, they're going to spray. But so this skunk came around. So it was like, it was 715 in the morning. I felt so bad because I was like, get away, you know, screaming.
20:47and slamming, like I have a galvanized uh bucket that I keep my bird food in and I was just slamming it on anything just to scare it away and it wasn't moving. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like,  I wonder if it's rabid. And someone eventually said that  it's mating season for skunks.  Oh gosh.  But it was like, it was around all day and I haven't seen it since.  But that day,  like it was, it was circling my house.
21:16And it creeped me out so much. Uh huh. Yeah. The joys of living in  an area where there's wildlife that can just come visit anytime they want. Yeah. But I've seen, this is probably the fifth time that I've encountered this skunk. I assume it's the same one because this is the, I'm guessing that this is the same one that I caught last year in a trap thinking that I was getting a possum. Oh no. So I put the trap, the have a heart trap in my
21:46chicken pen, which is where one of my chickens was killed.  And I saw the possum. So I'm like, I'm going to catch that bugger.  I caught a skunk. Yeah. And I got sprayed when I tried to move it, of course.  And  then I found out that it's illegal to um to move it  from where it was living. So it's not like you can just  move it seven miles away or something like that. They said it's illegal. So
22:16The options are kill it, which there's no reason to kill it. It's doing it's skunk thing. Yeah. Or release it.  Oh my God. I had a trapper come and he released it back into the woods and.  No, and it keeps coming back. I mean, I've seen it in my chicken coop a couple of times and I've just like, the chickens now are barricaded so that no one can get into their coop. They have a safe space and then usually  all the critters are gone.
22:44when the light turns on at 430  and the light starts to come in. uh You know, most of them are  nocturnal. So they, they bail and I just leave the chickens in until it's light.  Your chickens have a safe room. I know it's so, I can't believe that this is, it's taken me this long,  but I mean safe as in like they are barricaded by with  cinder blocks.  I've got them all around the outside of their.
23:12the inside and the outside of their coop and um their door, which was, it used to be just like a pillowcase,  a pretty pillowcase with a tree heart uh that they could just push in and out. Now it's blocked.  Not only do your chickens have a safe room, they have a fortress. That is true.  That is true. sure this is the love that you have for your chickens.
23:41for not wanting a skunk to get in there. Heck yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's, think that that's,  it's actually  part of homesteading ish, isn't it, Mary? Like  you, you learn as you go  how much,  know, if you're, if what you're doing is not safe enough, you need to  add to, right? Or like be innovative and  figure out how to make everyone safe and get everything done right.
24:10absolutely is part of being homesteadish. had I, did I tell you about the raccoons that showed up this past spring here?  Yeah, mama. have a raccoon story. Yeah. A raccoon showed up, a big raccoon showed up  and my husband tried to dispatch it and missed.  And then about a week and a half. No, I'm sorry.  Couldn't have been that shortly. Couldn't have been that short of amount of time. Like a month later.
24:39I got up in the morning and was going out on the porch, drink my coffee, and I opened the door to the porch  and I heard all these little scritchy noises and it was a mama raccoon.  had  like four or five babies and they had all come up on  the cement pad that's outside the porch. It was their little feet scritching to run away.  That would have been fine except that they proceeded to find the weak
25:08heart in the fence for the chicken run  and they killed like four or five of our chickens. my husband and my son went out and  and fortified uh the fence. And it was really weird because I never saw the raccoon or the babies again.
25:30And I know that my husband shot  the shotgun off a couple of times after they fixed the fence.  He didn't shoot it at anything. He just discharged the rifle or shotgun.  And I think maybe the gun  going off a couple of times scared them and left. Maybe. But uh raccoons will rip, literally rip chickens apart just for the fun of it.  Yeah. They don't even eat.
25:55And what a waste. I mean, I wasn't I wasn't crying upset, but I was just like, you know, those freaking chickens cost us twenty three dollars apiece. Oh. Five of them. Are they fancy chickens? No, it's just that laying hens that that are old enough to lay or just getting to be old enough to lay were expensive last year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you call them? Pullets. Thank you. Yeah. So we lost like.
26:23almost $125 in one go. And I was just like, this is not okay. And my husband said, this is homesteading. I went, mm-hmm, sure is honey. Speaking of homesteading, have you seen the Homestead Living magazine yet? I haven't. Oh my goodness. If you have an extra $30 burning a hole in your pocket for a subscription for the year.
26:51you might want to subscribe to it because it's really beautiful. started over two years ago  and it used to be monthly. Now it's bimonthly. So  one um issue, not episode, one issue every two months now.  And it's gorgeous. And I get it because I was one of the founding people that subscribed  and I am not willing to give up my subscription yet. But I...
27:18had an article that was supposed to be published in the, I don't know, December issue. And it might, my article got bumped because of the gift guide and I was very sad. my editor said, how about we put the article on the blog? And I was like, yes, please. em So it was published on the blog on like December 17th, I think. And  it was just really cool to see it. Cause I spent time writing that thing. It was nice to see it get out in the world.
27:48Absolutely, but it's it's a gorgeous magazine and their blog has all kinds of information for people who want to look into getting into homesteading or who are homesteaders and want new ideas.  I need I need outlets where people are supportive. That's good. That's good to know. Yeah, it's very very fun. um I really want to interview Melissa Canora. She's the lady that started the magazine.
28:17But she's  really busy. This woman has her hands in everything.  I just, can't, I can't get her attention. I'm like, Melissa, please come talk to me. That I just can't, I can't get her.  So, um, we have a few minutes left. wanna, I wanna tell you, I'm very impressed with your podcast. You have had some fantastic guests lately.  I feel the same way.
28:47Yeah. And your podcast is really about sustainability, right? Yes.  Although I take some poetic license with that. Everybody does with podcasts. There are no rules. That's right.
29:04sustainability and then some.  Yeah, I just, I love it. I see,  I see your little snippets or whatever they're called  on your Instagram account.  And I'm like, Ooh, that's going to be a good one.  Yeah.  I've got a really interesting one coming up in a few weeks. mean, I've got, I've, so I don't, I don't know if you're on pod match.  I am. Okay. You are.
29:34Why am I not seeing you? Maybe I'm not. I'll have to look. I'm on a whole bunch of pod things, but that may be not be one of them. don't remember.  So a lot of the guests recently have come from there, but also some of them  I've just found on Instagram and some of them are just chance. Like I think um if you  happen to listen to the one with Tia's prom  closet.  I did.  She just, and there are people that
30:03that just follow people because my podcast is grounded in Maine and she's in Maine. So I think that she was just following me because of that. And then I saw what she was about and I was like, oh, heck yeah. Getting prom dresses and formal dresses back into circulation is so, so cool instead of being wasted. But then the story behind it was just like...
30:30you make makes you cry to listen to but you know, in the most inspiring and  and happy way, right?  Yeah, it's always the stories behind it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love to be able to bring those out. And then I just think that, you know, she was totally chance like  I was looking at her profile and I was like, Oh, I want to hear more about that.  And then as I you know, when she filled out her guest form, she was talking about pain and to purpose and I'm like, Whoa,
31:00This is going to be so good because it's so much, you know, I don't know what happened, but I'm, I'm here for the, you know, the, the stories I'm here for the stories. And I, I love when they have a good story. It's a stories are a hook. and  I, I personally hate the word hook cause  it's like tricking somebody, but, but in this case, it's not a trick. It's a gift. Yeah.  Well, yeah. I mean, it definitely was for me.
31:30But then it also,  it just makes them, it makes it relatable because people,  know, everyone's lost a friend. Well, not everyone, but you can imagine what it would be like to lose a friend and  to be able to make, create something so powerful from that friend's  memory.  And to honor that friend. Yep.  Yeah. And I just thought, you know, she's got,
31:58the girl that I interviewed, think she said she has three kids, three young kids. her youngest is just months old  and she's also running this place. I was like, you know, that just says so much about their friendship. Yeah. And about her, about, about the girl that, you  interviewed. Yep. Yeah. I just, mean, there, there are some really cool people there, you know, and I just,  I find them, I find them everywhere. I mean, I,  I do a lot of, I scour
32:27Instagram, not, not like in a creepy way, but just, you know, there are so many cool people out there and I'm,  I'm out there to find them. It's a lot of work, but it is always worth it when I get a really good conversation. Yeah. It's a ton of work. mean, I used to do,  I used to release an episode every day, Monday through Friday in the morning. And now I'm down to  at least one a week because right now I'm having trouble finding people to talk with me because people are really busy.
32:57Yeah. So anybody listening who knows somebody  they want to, if they want to chat with me, you can get ahold of me through  the, through the podcast information in the show notes. ah Amy, did you know that I started another podcast? know the, the last time we talked to you were, oh well you had interviewed me for this potential podcast. Did you start a podcast about podcasting?  I did not. Oh, okay. Then what is the second podcast?  It is called.
33:26What is it called? oh I do this every time. Like I read it every day in front of my eyeballs. But every time I go to say it, I completely forget  grit and grease in the heartland women in agriculture.  And I have a cohost. Her name is Leah. She's clear Creek ranch mom on Facebook and on Instagram.  And I had interviewed her a whole bunch of times for a tiny homestead. She's a cattle rancher in Nebraska  and
33:56I just off the cuff was like, do you want to do a podcast together with me? And she's actually, is 2026 is Leah's year.  She, she just got invited to do her first paid speaking gig,  um, at the end of 2025. Like she was invited then and she just did it, did it yesterday, day before yesterday. don't remember this past week, Friday, it was Friday.  And, um, she said,
34:25She said, can I have a week to think about it? And I was like, absolutely. And so I,  I messaged her a week to the day and said, did you have time to think about it? And she came back with, I absolutely want to do a podcast with you. ah And so basically I didn't know,  but 2026 is the international year of the woman farmer. I didn't know that when I asked her and I found out about it afterwards. So.
34:53Our whole mission for this year is to find women  who are doing big things in agriculture or little things in agriculture or women who have had to leave agriculture and have turned that into promoting  or advocating for agriculture.  I think we have eight episodes out now since the very end of December. Tell me the name of it again, Grace.  In the Heartland. In the Heartland. Women in agriculture, colon, women in agriculture.
35:23But the podcast is actually called Great Grace in the Heartland.
35:28Okay. So yeah, you might want to. Gotcha.  I have some people that I can recommend.  Awesome. Fantastic. We,  we just interviewed Carol from the old farmers' Almanac.  we. Oh, Carol Conair.  Yes. And I had interviewed her for the tiny homestead for this one.  And I messaged her marketing person.
35:51I was like, a friend of mine started a new one, this is what it is. Could Carol come back and talk with us? And she was like, absolutely. And Carol has the most gorgeous laugh. And when she's talking and she's happy and she's animated, her voice completely changes into this other register of sound. And I love it when she's tickled. It just, makes me giggle.
36:18Right. Well, I think it's also part of something that excites you, if you're talking about homesteading as opposed to, not that the almanac is not exciting, but it's something that you're doing, something that you are very involved in, something that just makes you really happy. hear that a lot.
36:46I mean, I think I do that too sometimes, but it's, uh
36:53Yeah.  It was, it was just, it was so fun to have her on. of course,  with Leo being a cattle rancher, she is a D a devotee  of the old farmer's almanac. And  there was a rumor going around that the old farmer's almanac was going out of print. was not, was the farmer's almanac. The farmer's almanac was going out of print. So we had to talk about that. It was just really, really fun. Yeah. It's very confusing. I didn't, I never knew that they were two.  I did.
37:21And I always knew the difference was that it was the old  Farmer's Almanac that my dad used to buy. So I would just get that one.  But anyway, so where can people find you, Amy? Are you just on Instagram?  I am  just on Instagram. I've deleted everything else except for LinkedIn.  So Instagram is grounded in Maine podcast. Okay, cool.
37:47And you guys should go listen to Amy's podcast if you want to learn about new ways to be sustainable and all the amazing things that people are doing, like the woman she talked to who is recycling prom dresses, because that is amazing.  All right. As always, you can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com. If you want to support the show, can find that at AtinyHolmstead.com  slash support, because I'm original like that.
38:16And please go listen to the other podcast again. is written grace in the heartland Yes, exactly. Thank you because I was gonna call it again women in agriculture Yes,  yes It needed a tagline because grit and grace in the heartland apparently could mean anything and I was like, okay Well women in agriculture pretty much says it all.  Yeah So  Amy, thank you for coming back and chatting with me. I appreciate it. It's always fun Mary
38:43It's a joy. love you so much and I wish you all the luck in the world with your home search.  Thank you.  All right. We'll talk again soon. Okie dokie.  Bye. Bye.