A Tiny Homestead

Twin Creek Gardens, CSA

Today I'm talking with Beth at Twin Creek Gardens, CSA.
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Beth at Twin Creek Garden CSA. Good morning, Beth. How are you today? Good morning. In this beautiful snowy weather, I am wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, have you guys not had a lot of snow this winter? No, it was crazy. Everything was awake. My gardens were beginning to bud, and now we just got a pile, I think almost 17.
00:2918 inches in the last three days. So I'm a little worried about my lilacs and my other little bushes out there, my blueberries, but hopefully they'll be protected and they'll come through it anyway. This is the first... You're in Superior? Yeah, we're south of Superior, about 10 miles. This is the first big snow we've had all year. Yeah, it feels like Christmas.
00:56Yeah, we were supposed to get six inches to a foot in this same storm that you guys are getting in Wisconsin. And we ended up with only like a couple inches here. Oh. So I don't know what happened to our Christmas snowstorm. It didn't happen. I'm kind of glad because we were in the same boat as you. Our maple tree has started to flower out and we had onion sprouting and stuff. So I don't know.
01:24Anyway, tell me about yourself and Twin Creek Gardens, CSA. Well, this is kind of amazing because this is a long dream, long time dream come true in a short amount of time. I actually, for 34 years, was a classroom teacher and a reading specialist in particular. And in working with kids and with literacy and with writing and reading, I always had, you know,
01:54the desire to have them learn more about who they are as people through what they were reading and writing, not just the ability to read and write. And so my passion for gardening and my love for people and helping the world become a better place, my son calls me the biggest liberal hippie in the world, which I wear as a badge of honor, by the way. You know, and so I've always had this desire to.
02:24help others find their goal, or reach their goals and find their path to the healthiest life, the best life that they could have. And so I've been having kids listen to podcasts and watch videos in middle school and then write about how that affects them in their thinking and their process of who they wanna become and that kind of thing. And so CSAs have been...
02:51Um, not very prevalent up here, but I love the idea because my father has always had a garden when I was young, I grew up digging in the dirt. My favorite thing of, of gardening was always the, the digging of the potatoes in October because I knew we were putting the garden to bed then, you know? And so, um, you know, I grew up south of Superior here, just about five miles from where I live right now. And my sweet husband grew up about.
03:19mile and a half from this house, and we grew up together. We were 10 when we met, and we both loved gardens, we both loved horses, and nature, and just being, we're both country kids, let's put it that way. And we grew up and went our separate ways when you go to school in Superior. If you go to the Catholic school, you kind of lose touch with your friends from the country school.
03:44And at least that's how it was. And so he went one way, I went the other. And then we met back at high school. We hardly had any friends in common, so we kind of went our separate paths. But he and his first wife loved gardening as well and raised three children in various country homes doing gardening and raising horses. And they had cows for a while. And so very much a farm family.
04:14after college moved down to the Green Bay, Manitowoc area where I married and had my son. And then when my marriage fell apart, I came running home to the northern woods of Wisconsin. And my parents were still here in Paterson Park at that time. And so cable is where I landed because the school that I found that needed me was Drummond.
04:44which all these sweet little towns up here are just, it's like going back in time. It's such a beautiful, fresh air. I'll never forget when I came home to do the interview in Drummond and I got out of the car, the air smelled different. I left Green Bay and the big city area, I came home and the trees up here, the air up here, I knew I had to come home.
05:13We had a kind of randomly meandering here, but we had a school garden at Drummond that I helped organize and participate in. It was actually a high tunnel. And so I fell in love with that kind of gardening because it extended our season so nicely. And so that's kind of building blocks. My cable house had a third of an acre right in town.
05:42I had a ring of cedar trees around my yard and so gardening in ground was really not possible. The cedar trees had taken over the ground and so it was more of a forest floor. So I learned to garden in raised beds and also in a lot of pots and green stock planters and such on my deck.
06:10And so my little third of an acre there, I dreamed of a greenhouse. And so when it's a 1930s house, so the original garage was a little bit dated. And so as the roof started to collapse, I started to see a skeleton of a greenhouse instead of another garage. And so we had been working on that for several years, trying to make that come true. And then, um, through the course of.
06:39the last 10 years when Rob and I found each other on Facebook, God bless Facebook Messenger, we became adult friends and kind of walked each other through a lot of really hard loss. And he lost an adult child, I lost an adult child, both of whom left little babies behind. And so
07:07You know, we just kind of went through grief and friendship online for several years. And I dreamed of gardening in a bigger place, but had no, I mean, I actually looked at, at different plots of land out near cable to buy, to put up a big greenhouse, because I've always wanted to be able to continue that work with kids and the community to find a way to locally source healthy food. And
07:37The work I did with students made me realize just how important nutrition is in terms of not just our bodies, but our brains and our education and being able to learn and live together in a healthy community has always been a goal of mine. And I collect people as well as lots of plants. And so I had a friend and her mother living with me at the cable house for a while.
08:07after her father passed and we were trying to garden there and build community. We had a neighbor who had a big green lawn and so we talked her into putting in the beginnings of what I wanted to make a food forest. That wasn't big enough, didn't pan out, but I've had these dreams. I used to listen to, well I still do, Roots and Refuge Farm. I don't know if you're familiar with that.
08:36Yeah. Oh, you've got to get into what Jess is amazing. She and Maya are awesome. I feel like I know them and I've obviously never met them. But what you know, what she talked about that resonated with me the most was this quote, she said, make your waiting room into a classroom. So you say that to a teacher who has the dreams that I've always had about growing a community of people working together to
09:06grow local healthy food and build community. And I've always wanted chickens, but cable wouldn't let me have them. And just this whole thing snowballed into what became a huge dream of mine to have a CSA. And meantime, my husband Rob was here on 10 acres of this beautiful land doing his thing with his family. And
09:36Um, shortly, it's been almost three years now, his first wife passed away. And I reached out, uh, you know, to comfort, provide comfort as we had to each other when our, our children passed. And.
09:53One thing led to another and we decided, what are we waiting for? We've cared about each other forever. And so we started spending time together. And at our 20th class reunion, we decided to spend our lives together. Aw. And, yeah, it's really, everybody says we have like a storybook, fairy tale love story, but the irony is that we've gone through the battlefield to get here, you know?
10:23That's another one of Jess's quotes from another one of her Roots in Refuge vlogs. It was, we were created for a garden, but are living in a battlefield. And I want to make a community of a community place for people to come together to make whatever dreams they have come true. So if it's planting flowers, wonderful, let's plant flowers. If it's raising food together.
10:52And, you know, we're getting some chickens. Finally, I get chickens. I want goats, but Robbie keeps saying no goats. But I know I can change his mind eventually. I hope he doesn't hear that part of this. I think he already knows you're working on it. So it's okay. Probably. So anyway, last summer we got married and we're selling my house in cable with the
11:22greenhouse still in the backyard looking at the house. So I'm having an emotionally challenging time letting go when I'm there. But the moment I'm here, I know I'm home. And this is where it's supposed to be. This is supposed to be a community of plant lovers, friends, family, just living life on 10 acres in the Northern woods of Wisconsin.
11:50What a wonderful story. Oh, and congratulations on your wedding. That's fantastic. Thank you. We had a big farm, you know, front yard party with tents, and it was incredible. It was everything I dreamed of. We drove a mile and a half down to the country church where we became members and got married and everybody followed us back here.
12:17We even had pictures taken at the Little Falls where we used to hang out when we were kids. Aw, that's so cute. I'm so in love with your love story. That's fantastic. Thank you. Okay, well, that was a very, very big about you. And I love it. Thank you for sharing all that. So tell me about the CSA. Has it already started? Are you doing the CSA now?
12:44We bought the greenhouse, the first, the big greenhouse, I should say, two years ago and have been trying to figure out how to be greenhouse farmers and we're getting pretty good at it. And he built me a little greenhouse, which we call the nursery. And so things are moving there. When we, I've incorporated or not incorporated, I'm sorry, we're a nonprofit. So whatever it is that that is, I guess it is incorporation.
13:14Um, so we're waiting on our tax number and we're, we're, um, signing up memberships and things are rolling. We have nine people so far who are our members, which is way more than I thought I'd have in the beginning. And only half of them are family. So that's kind of cool. Nice. Yep. So yes, we are right in the beginning. It is just being born and, um, for our, it all ties to.
13:44the wedding things too. Our store slash classroom is actually a gazebo in my front yard where we're going to then be building the cottage garden around it. My potagee kitchen garden is going to be in my front yard, which is interesting. But through that process, when Rob made the dance floor for our wedding, we just made it the floor that became our gazebo.
14:14I'm a really big, sappy romantic, as you can probably tell. I think so. I think you've got it down to a science. And I have married the perfect man who can build or do anything, and he can just imagine these things, you know? And so he has made this beautiful gazebo, which has a little propane furnace in it, and will have an air conditioner in it when needed this summer so that I can be in there all year.
14:42Nice. And so that is where I'll have classes. We want to do everything from, you know, like fairy garden plantings with kids to growing garden, you know, having classes where kids come and learn about seeds and seed planting and how to understand how to care for a garden, how to harvest and what to prepare. We're going to be doing in the fall, of course, we'll be doing lots of canning and
15:11preparations for winter and storing the food. In the meantime in the winter then I'm also going to be doing, I'm working with, I forgot this part, I'm working with the Superior Crafts School which is just also being born. It's been in the works for about a year and a half, maybe two years now, and we are becoming a part of that as a satellite classroom. Fun.
15:37You are so excited. Like, your joy is just screaming at me through my headphone. It's amazing. I'm so, I am. I'm just, I can't believe that this gets to be the second act of my life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what an act. What a great act to follow the first act. So when you say non-profit for the CSA, does that mean that...
16:04that all the money you make goes back into the business or does that mean you're not charging? Okay. Yeah, no, all of the money that will come in from the membership shares and any sales of plants or whatever that we do, there's gonna be, through the craft school, we're having a farmers market and we're gonna be participating in that, which will allow us to disseminate information about the classes and the things that we do out here
16:34farm and allow people to get involved with the CSA to whatever level or degree they can and want to. And all of that profit will go back into classes and gardens and food for the community. Okay. So what's the benefit of it being a nonprofit only because I know nothing about it? Well...
17:00I sort of have a little bit of business experience in an LLC that we created when that friend of mine and her mother came to live with me in Cable. We created an in-care family home because her mother had dementia. And so we needed support from the community and from her family to provide her what she needed. And so we created an LLC, which had a whole bunch of...
17:29business stuff that I did not understand and did not care to learn about, quite frankly. I just wanted to be taking care of people. And so that experience, while it was wonderful, the business piece of it got overwhelming. And so a nonprofit, you have less regulation, not really, you have different regulations. And so
17:57Um, you know, we are, we do have a quote board of directors kind of thing, but it is the members right now it's the nine members plus Rob and I, and, um, you know, those kinds of, of elements are not as restrictive because everything goes back into the, to the CSA. So it's, it's more, I kind of liken it to a, um, like a PTA at school.
18:27or the women's club, the women's group at church that I'm involved in. You know, we have officers, we keep track of the money, we have fundraisers, but all of it is to go back to supporting the community and the church. So it's kind of the same idea here is how I'm approaching it. And so, yeah, it just makes more sense to me because we're not in this for the money. I'm retired, he's in what he calls his retirement job.
18:56which is a janitor at the school nearby here, which he loves and it's where our grandkids are, so that's so cool. So it's not about the money for us, it's about community and just growing gardens and being happy. Yeah, I was just curious because we did do a CSA last year and the year before, and the year before, I guess we're coming up on the fourth summer here. Wow. And...
19:25We decided last year to become an LLC because we had people coming onto the property and there are things that when you become an LLC, you want to have protections and we ended up getting insurance, farm insurance because if someone gets hurt, we wanted to make sure that people would be taken care of. And so when we did all that, we had to learn about what we were doing.
19:52And so I know about that side of it, but they didn't know about the nonprofit side of it, which is why I asked. Because if I don't know, I'm sure other people don't know either. I'm sure. And I'm still learning. I don't know hardly a lot about it that, you know, but I am doing, we are doing farm insurance, which is different from our, you know, homeowners insurance. It sure is. Yeah. So, um, that's just really, I wanted the nonprofit.
20:21status too because of the link to the craft school, because that is a nonprofit. And I think that it's good if we're affiliated to kind of be in the same category, the same mindset, I guess. So we're going to be doing farm to table for the chef and the cooking classes, which is exciting to me. So I'll get to it.
20:51plant some funky things. Rob says I have some weird taste in vegetables because I love things like kohlrabi. Me too. Me too. I love kohlrabi. And okra and eggplant. And he's like, these are weird. Where are the potatoes and tomatoes? I'm like, I'm growing them too. We're going to have them too. See, we kind of are like, I'm the, he's the hardscape and I'm the landscape.
21:20You know, I do the plantings and he does too. He waters them for me and takes care of everything and does the hard work of the digging of the big holes. But I do the choosing right now of what goes in them. That's the best place to be. That's what I do too in our marriage. I'm like, I would love to plant these things. And my husband says, okay, let's go get them or let's get them planted, you know, the seeds. So we're like in that way, Beth. Yeah.
21:47I kind of love that my husband does the dirty work of the gardening. I used to. I don't love it as much as I used to, but he still does. Well, I find that planting, like when I started my seed starts in here this year, instead of doing them in soil, I went completely soil-less with coccocore and perlite. And it's so much easier and lighter.
22:16to get them out and put them into the, you know, pot them up. And so, you know, I still love to get my hands dirty, but not as dirty. Yeah. I am, okay, I have said more weird things about myself in the last 50 interviews that I have put out than I'm comfortable with, but I'm gonna do it again. I really hate things on my hands because I'm always doing things with my hands. So I'm constantly having to wash my hands.
22:45to go to the next thing. And it makes me crazy. And I don't have OCD. It's not like I have to wash my hands six times. But when I'm cooking, if I'm cracking eggs, I have to wash my hands after I crack the eggs because I inevitably get the egg on my hands. If I'm using an oil, I end up spilling oils. I had to clean that up. It's just a thing. So when I say I don't like my hands dirty,
23:12I don't like my hands dirty because it gets in the way of moving on to the next task. Does that make sense? Yep. Oh, totally. Totally agree. Okay. Because sometimes people are like, do you have OCD? And I'm like, I don't think so. Because when I leave the house, I'm not wondering the entire time I'm gone, did I lock the doors? Did I turn off the coffee maker? I'm not. I'm not obsessing over the thing that I might have forgotten. So I don't think I have OCD.
23:38but I just don't like my hands to not be clean. I don't know why. It's a weird thing. I've discovered my hand washing, it's different now because I wear my rings. I never wore any rings and I never had nails. I just kept them short and whatever. And so now that I have this beautiful diamond ring on my hand, I don't wanna get anything on it. So I've started actually wearing gardening gloves.
24:07when I'm out in the greenhouse, like yesterday when I potted up a bunch of romaine lettuce and I put them in the green stock and that has soil. And so here I am with a glove on my hand and I'm thinking, who are you? Because that never was me, you know, but I did try to have like nice nails when I had my, you know, wedding and whatever. And it was hilarious because it didn't work. But I know what you mean. Yeah, I
24:36I thought about getting the press on nails for a while because my nails are always broken because I'm always cooking or typing or something. And I looked at the price of press on nails and I thought, you know, I'm going to spend the 10 bucks to get them.
24:53and they're going to look nice for about 10 minutes and then I'm going to be doing something and it's going to pop off anyway. So yeah, I just have pretty beat up nails all the time. And I think that's part of homesteading and CSA and growing absolutely, absolutely doing doing actual work with your hands. It is just inevitable. So I play the piano also. And so they have to be short for that. Because otherwise they click and click and sound like I believe it.
25:22So, yeah. Okay, so do you guys have like critters too? You have chickens? Well, we're getting chickens. We did have a chicken who survived through last winter, but is no longer around. We are free range, so they just kind of go and come and whatever. So we're actually going to put up a chicken coop with a chicken run over by the big barn.
25:52purchased one of those little sheds you can get that they just bring it and put it in your yard kind of thing. That's our farm stand. That's what we have for our farm stand, yeah. It's so awesome. I mean, it's taking me forever to pay it off, but it's this beautiful thing called, what I call the cottage, which everyone calls my she shed. And I wasn't about to leave it in cable. And so we took down a fence and dismantled my berry patch, which was a raised bed garden
26:22high posts and yeah, it was crazy. Because I put all that infrastructure in after the cottage got there, but I was taking it here. So it is over by the barn. And so eventually I'd like to have that be like a, a bunk house, I guess you'd call it. It's 28 by 12. So it's, there's room for a lot. I mean, right now, a lot of my craft stuff is stored there from cable house as I go through things.
26:52because we're working on selling my place. But we're gonna put a revive his chicken shed, or chicken coop, which was a snow ice fishing shack, I guess, at one point. So we're gonna give it another life again as a chicken, and then add a run to it over there. And that's where I think my goats need to be, is in that barn area with the chickens. And so,
27:23Right now, that's kind of where we're at. Over there, near that also, we have started a, what Rob calls the vineyard. We have six grapevines. And I hope that, yes, I hope that they're okay in this snowstorm. But the dream of Rob, since he bought this place, since they bought this place was,
27:50to have grapevines, because the house faces south. We have this gigantic two-acre yard in the front that was just grass. And then there was a cow shed, and he took that down. And so over in that area, on that side of the driveway, which kind of splits it in two, we have the cottage garden and the potage garden coming around the gazebo on the one side. And then over on the other side is going to be my sweetie's vineyard.
28:20Oh, I'm so excited for you guys. You're so happy. And it's so much fun planning these things. I mean, when we got ready to move here, it was a blank slate. The only flowers here were hostas and I'm not a fan. So we dug up a bunch of our peony plants from the old house and brought them down here. And down here is half an hour away from where we live. So we didn't live very far away.
28:48But we brought those and we brought some rhubarb and I think that was it for plants because I had a bunch of lilies at the old house, but I didn't think lilies would do great here. Plus we were going to get a dog and lilies are dangerous for dogs to eat and I figured why bother? Why bother? Yeah, for sure. And we did. We ended up getting lilies for free from someone and we put them away from where the dog is so she can't go over there and dig them up and eat them.
29:17And we put in lilac babies from a friend and we put in, oh my god, 150 tulip bulbs and 150 daffodil bulbs and crocuses, which I'd never grown before. The crocuses bloomed three weeks ago. Oh, yeah. They're now frozen, but they bloomed. They looked really pretty. But you know, sometimes if it's not too long, they will survive a snow. They'll go again maybe or continue.
29:47discontinue because it's almost like it's they're insulated. Yeah, they're so low to the ground that they don't really freeze as solid as other taller things do. Okay, good to know. They're so tiny. I had never seen a crocus in person until mine bloomed and my husband said, there's these little yellow flowers blooming where we put the crocuses and I said okay and I went out to look and I could not believe how dainty and how tiny they are. Yes, they are just delicate.
30:17And I love that they open like so early. They're like the first smell and whiff of spring coming, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I didn't know I had put in hibiscus at the old house. I think it's a little grapey looking. Yep. Plants and those smell amazing too. Who knew? Yeah. I love those, but I'm not spending any more money on bulb plants because out of that 150 tulip.
30:46bulbs and daffodil bulbs, I think we might get five tulips now because the voles eat them. Oh no. Mouse creatures. Yes. Oh, we had that in cable. We had a problem with them. I got those traps or not traps, but like you put the bulbs in a little box that almost is like mesh. And you have to bury that to keep them from eating the bulbs because they
31:16The bulbs can come up and the roots can go down, but the bulb itself is safe from those little monsters. Uh huh, yeah. So we're not buying any more bulb plants. If somebody has bulb roots that they want to give me, I will take them and I will put them in, but I'm just not investing any more money because it just costs too much to replace it. We also put in some irises, and the voles don't seem to like the iris bulbs. So I think they're the...
31:44rhizomes or whatever they're called. So maybe they'll be irises this spring. I don't know. Whole point of telling you all about my flowers is when we moved here I was very sad because there were no flowers that spring. Oh that's heartbreaking. And I cried like that spring when everything was starting to green up. I was crying. I was like we don't have any flowers honey. And he said we will next spring because we're gonna put in...
32:11bulbs this fall because I know this is killing you and I was like thank you. So the whole point of the story here is that when you are dreaming about your life and what you want to do down the road, when you finally get to that first step into the thing you want to do, it's amazing. It is. It's like watching a movie and having an actual happy ending.
32:40You know, but it's really a beginning. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. When we move here, I was like, we finally did it. We finally bought, you know, three acres has a house on it. That's nice. And it has a big old pole barn and has room to grow a big garden. We did it. We did the thing we said we're going to do. Yeah. And then I sat down a week later after we had moved in and I was like, Oh my God, we did it.
33:10now what? Now what are we doing? How do we make this go? You know, it's that that realization of, okay, so we took the first step. Now what comes next? Exactly. Yep. As we've been changing things here at the, you know, he we did a whole new kitchen plan. And we were really blessed with a whole new set of beautiful cabinets that, you know, Rob just reconfigured and
33:39you know, redid all of that this winter. I've been, you know, as he's doing that and he's putting things in and doing whatever, I've been planning all of the things he needs to do outside, you know, and all of the infrastructure that we need out there for garden beds and whatever. And he was doing the same thing, only he was looking out the back window, thinking about the backyard while I was dreaming and planning the front yard, you know? And then we'd share our thoughts and ideas at night and we'd be like, oh, I was...
34:07Yeah, that would work over there. And, you know, it's just so much fun to dream and plan with someone who thinks and feels, I mean, not exactly the same, but so similar. I've never experienced this in my life. Yeah. It's wonderful. It really is. It's incredible. It really is. I just, sometimes I wake up in the morning and he's next to me and I'm like, Oh my God, it wasn't a dream. This is my life. I get to play in the dirt with Rob Christman. Yeah.
34:37Exactly. So with the CSA, with the business that you're creating, it's basically going to be a nonprofit, interactive community of people doing the things. That would be my elevator speech and people would be like, what do you mean doing the things? And I'd be like, oh, that's why I say doing the things because it's everything. Yep. We're going to be planting. We're going to be making decisions.
35:05I sent out a document to everybody saying, you know, tell me what you want us to grow for you this year, the people who are members, and please feel free to share with others, you know, that you know, who are looking for, you know, healthy, locally grown produce. Let us know what they would be interested in, but here are the things that are so far in the greenhouse. And then I gave them a list. And I've gotten feedback from two people that,
35:35They love everything that's on the list, but could you also blah, blah, blah. And so that sends me on a seed hunt, which is fun. And so I'm right now the worker of the CSA. I'm with as far as the produce. But like, for example, I have a wonderful sister-in-law, shout out to Laura, who has a granddaughter who...
36:02was so helpful when we were planting things and doing stuff to get the yard ready for the wedding. And I'm thinking, man, I wonder if Peyton would like a job this summer. So she's gonna come out with Laura and they're gonna just work in the gardens, work in the greenhouse and putter and do stuff and then their pay will be their produce. And so that kind of an option is what we're also looking at doing.
36:31One of the things that I want people to know is, if they've never set foot on a garden or ever planted anything, or they think they have a black thumb, they don't have to worry because this place just, you can't hurt anything, nothing dies here. The plants that were here when I got here in the house, his first wife, Maria, was an incredibly gifted gardener. She had the most beautiful houseplants I've ever seen in my life.
36:59I walked in and I was intimidated, let me tell you. But they are so prolific still, and I have tons of those that I have learned how to, I never could handle houseplants because I had cats. And so I just have learned so much by growing and maintaining her houseplants. And so people can come and do whatever of the stuff they want to do, I guess is my point.
37:26If they want to be a part of helping Rob figure out and build some in-ground garden beds, great, let's do that. If you want to plant flowers, let's do that. Whatever people want to do, this can be their canvas. That's so fabulous. I'm so excited for you. I really am. I keep saying that, but I really am. My heart is swelling listening to you. It's great. So exciting. Okay.
37:55Beth, I appreciate your time today because we're running almost to an hour here. We're at 37 minutes. Oh my word. Yeah, because you're so excited. You have so many words that I'm like, I don't want to jump in, but we need to cut this off. So thank you for your time and I wish you so much luck in building this and I think it's a wonderful idea. Thank you so much and you'll have to come visit.
38:17I will. We'll have to get out there at some point and we are going to be doing all kinds of things this summer too. So it probably won't be this summer, but I'll be watching to see how it grows. Wonderful. We're on Facebook, Twin Creek Gardens, and we have a website coming that is twin creek gardens dot org. So look for that and you can email me my brand new email at Beth Chrisman at
38:45Twin I cannot believe I'm finally Beth Christman. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha. You are and you will be for a while. Yes, it's wonderful. All right. Thank you so much for this. You have a great day, Beth. You too, Mary. Bye bye. Bye.
 

Honeycutt Hill Farms

Today I'm talking with Brie at Honeycutt Hill Farms. You can also follow them on Facebook.
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Brie at Honeycutt Hill Farms. Good morning, Brie. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm great. Tell me about yourself and Honeycutt Hill Farms LLC. Yeah. Well, Honeycutt Hill Farms started in 2022 when we moved across country from Oregon to Tennessee.
00:30So we kind of moved up into the mountains and had a relative idea of what we wanted to do, what we wanted to provide the community. And we've just been kind of, I guess just moving forward ever since. We do registered kinder goats, poultry and soap. So we make the soap from the goat milk. So that's kind of what our niche has been lately. Nice, what made you go to Tennessee?
00:59My husband's from North Carolina, so it was a little bit closer to his family and where we were at the time, especially around the 2020, you know, stuff, it was just, it got really expensive, a little, a little crazy at times. And then we didn't really have a lot of family there. So nothing was really holding us there. And actually, my neighbor, we were in the army together and I've known him for about 12 or 13 years.
01:27He had told me that his neighbor was putting his property up for sale. And so we drove out here, we looked at it, we put in escrow and now we're here. So, um, it was definitely a bit cheaper for us to live and a little bit closer to more family. So it sounds like it was right place, right time. It was. So I think it was definitely, um, what you want to call it, whether it was divine intervention or, um,
01:53You know, if you manifested it, whatever you want to call it, it was definitely what we needed at the time we needed it. And it just kind of all fell into place. Yeah, we had that happen back in 2020 as well. That's why we now live where we live instead of where we used to live, because we were tired of being in town. So, yeah, like I said, it just kind of got crazy. Like I said, we had moved there. My husband and I met in the army.
02:21I had gotten out and I was waiting for him to finish his contract and he was trying to finish his bachelor's degree where we were. And that all was fine, but then like I said, once 2020 hit, things just shut down or skyrocketed and we were, you know, starting our family. You know, my son was born in 2016, my daughter in 18, and it just got wild and it just, it wasn't meshing with our way of life anymore.
02:49Yeah, it's really crazy how COVID changed so many people's lives in so many different ways. Yes, it definitely did. So, you know, whatever side of the fence people were on, I really had no problem with. But it definitely divided people. And, you know, it just really, it was an intense time. And it really, you know, took an emotional toll and a financial toll on a lot of families.
03:17But it really kind of opened our eyes to say, you know, we really need, you know, more family. We need more community involvement. We need, you know, to be around more like-minded people. And it just wasn't happening where we were. Yeah. And it opened a lot of eyes to the fact that we all needed to be just a little bit more self-sufficient than we were, I think. Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So the first part of the farm was mainly so that we could survive as a family if something happened.
03:46You know, so I think chickens are the gateway to goats and goats to cows and cows to horses. But first and foremost, it was just making sure that we were self-sufficient enough to survive and help our neighbors and that kind of thing. And so we noticed a need in the community for other things, different types of chickens or meat birds or goat milk soap or a different kind of goat that, we noticed a lot of people moving here as well.
04:15but they needed something more dual purpose so that they could be self-sufficient. Yeah, so tell, okay, I've talked a lot with a lot of people about goats, but I have not heard about kinder goats yet. So explain to me what kinder goats are. Yeah, so kinder goats happened from a pygmy buck and a Nubian doe. And so when you have a pygmy buck, a registered pygmy buck and a registered Nubian doe, together they make a kinder goat.
04:42And the kinder is just a dual purpose goat. It is a meat goat and a milk goat. They don't get really tall or really like, you know, overbearing like a boar goat, you know, so they're not really intimidating, but they're good for both. So, you know, if you have a lot of bucks and they're meaty, then you know, you at least you're gonna get something good out of them. But you also, you know, would want enough milk and dairy for at least your family or maybe you and your neighbors. And so they're just a dual purpose goat. They get about...
05:11I would say no more than maybe 130 140 on the big end and They're easy to manage especially when you're on the farm or you have kids, you know, and They can kind of handle them when they're little and so we found that they're their perfect kind of like homestead goat You know to help you You not go to the grocery store as much or you know know where your meat is coming from or maybe you just want to Eat the brush off your lawn
05:39So that's all they are. So they're just a dual purpose. So you're not really getting a whole dairy's worth, but you're not just going into, you know, the all goat meat, nothing else business. Okay. I, for some reason, I was thinking kinder implied small, but 130 to 140 pound goat is not small. Thank you. That's a bit, that's a, I would have to say that's, that's pretty big. That's on the big end. Yeah. We have one kinder doe and I swear she is 40 pounds and she's a year, you know, and she's healthy.
06:06And on our biggest, our biggest one, I would say she's about 110. Um, so depending on, yeah. So depending on, you know, how they grow or how they, you know, fill out, I think it's kind of a wide range, uh, they shouldn't be, you know, very tall. They're more stocky. And then, um, you know, they, they do produce a lot of milk and they have a good butterfat content in their milk. If you wanted to make cheeses or, or caramels or things like that, or just have milk. Um.
06:33Yeah, so they're just not as big like a we had Kiko's before and I swear that Kiko she was you know, 300 pounds She was way bigger She was a big girl. She was she was a small cow is what she was She was gorgeous and I actually still miss her We had to give them to a neighbor's farm when we moved out here But yeah, so those are really big and my children at the time would not have been able to handle her
06:58and I want my children to be able to be involved. And so we just kind of went with a smaller side. So that's where those pygmies come in. They have a lot of pygmy jeans. They're shorter. We have one full-blooded pygmy buck and he's four years old and 40 pounds. And I swear, I think he's like 18 inches tall, 20 inches maybe at the withers. And so they're much easier for our kids to handle. Yeah. Yep, that makes sense. Cause if you're gonna have them, you wanna make sure that the kids know how to be around them and how to handle them. So yeah. Yeah, so that's what they are.
07:28People will move on to a bigger goat as their kids get older. But yeah. Okay. I was looking at your Facebook page and the first post I saw was your shampoo bars and oh my god, they're so pretty. How did you get that design on the bar? Oh, they're just, you just put them in the mold and then I just swirled them around with a long skewer. So yeah, so we, my grandma used to make soap. She had a craft store in Nevada.
07:57And she would do that a lot. So a lot of that stuff kind of, you know, passed on from her and what she liked to do. And then my husband had eczema a lot, especially out of the army. And so we switched to goat milk soap early on to help with those kind of inflammations of the skin. And so we've been kind of dabbling with shampoo bars. People, it's a little harder for people because they're not sure how to use them. But...
08:24Yeah, it's just yeah. So our shampoo bars we put in a mold. We just put a swirl on them so I can tell them apart sometimes. Um Yeah, so it's been it's been fun. It's been fun making those and then trying to teach people You know, like there's an alternative way to use this, you know, you can uh, they'll last a long time You don't have to buy a bunch of you know, head and shoulders from the store, you know, so on so forth Yeah, um back when my second son was
08:52still living with us and he was dating a girl. She was the loveliest girl and so beautiful, but she was very, very uncomfortable because she had acne on her face and it made her really insecure. And we made cold process Lysol and I knew that our soap was pretty good at helping out with acne and I'm not supposed to say that because the FDA says you're not supposed to say things like that.
09:20in my experience using it and my kids experience using it, it really helped with acne. It does, I think. Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, she, um, she, I don't remember how it came up, but she said something about something. And it was about her face, but it wasn't directly about the acne. And I said, honey, I said, I said, are you insecure because of your acne? And she's like, yeah. She was like 16, 17 at the time.
09:50And I said, I have this unscented cold process Lysol that we make. I said, and the kids use it and it helps. I said, do you want a bar of it? Try it. And she was like, anything, anything at this point. I was like, okay. So I gave her a couple of bars. She took them home. She came back a week later and her face was half cleared up. Took a week. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's very important. People don't realize, you know, your skin is a big.
10:18part of your body, you know, and what you put on it soaks in immediately. It gets, you know, sucked in and the, any toxins or any chemicals or whatever, you know, it automatically gets seeped into your skin, especially, you know, your face and through your scalp. In those products from stores, even though they, you know, they say they're going to do those things, they're going to help you with this or clear this up. They're full of preservatives. They're full of chemicals.
10:45So there may be a temporary solution, but it's not fixing the root cause. Yeah, and when she came back, she was like, look at my face, and she was smiling so big. Her smile reached ear to ear. And I was like, that's amazing. I'm so glad. She said, can I get one more bar just in case I wanted to keep using it? I was like, yeah, here, take five. So it is...
11:12I don't want to say this because I'm afraid the FDA is going to come down on me and I don't want that. But the point is that homemade soaps and shampoos and lotions and things actually do the job you need them to do. Yeah, I think once you can, you know, it's just like when you go to the store, if you can read the ingredients in the label, you know, then you're ahead of the game.
11:37But if there's things in there that are hard to pronounce, then you're not sure what it is, and I probably wouldn't be using it, you know, if you can help it or putting it on your body. Because like I said, when you're younger, you know, you can kind of get away with things, but it all catches up to you in the end. Yeah, and one of the things that I was just thinking about while you were saying that is, you know how they have the oils and the little capsules that you can put in your hair to moisturize your hair?
12:07that you can buy. Coconut oil does exactly the same thing. If you take coconut oil, rub it on your hands, rub it through your hair, it does exactly the same thing as the stuff you buy at the store. And coconut oil is less expensive too, which helps. Yeah, it's definitely one of the easier oils to find. It's right there with olive oil. You know, and it has a very, you know, massive amount of benefits for you. So we use coconut oil, I would have to say...
12:36in 95% of the recipe here. And so, you know, we've done sals, we've done tinctures. And like I said, we'll do it in the soap and it's, it creates a nice hard bar, but then it has so many benefits. And it's not hard, it's not too hard to find for people, you know, it's not such a crazy oil, even oil pulling in your mouth, things like that. So we use it a lot. Yeah.
13:03I wanted to give my mom some of our soaps and she was like, I can't use lye soap because it dries out my skin. And also I think the reason that she thought that is because her mom made lye soap way back when. Yeah. Way back when lye soap was a much harsher soap than what we make now.
13:25Yes, back then they used ashes, like potash and ashes from the fire and it was not as easily calculated as it is today. Yeah, and she still hasn't tried it. She probably never will. Yeah, so actually lye, I get that a lot about people with lye because I know when they see lye they see it like, oh, it's a drain cleaner. But all soap has lye. So whether you're...
13:52wherever you're buying it from, it's gonna have lye. It may not say lye on it, but there's lye. So it'll say sodium hydroxide on there. All soap needs lye or it's not soap. And so when the soap cures, the lye dissipates. What happens with like, so back then when they made soap, they probably had one ingredient. So let's say you just had coconut oil, that's all you had. And you just had coconut oil and lye in water. That's an extremely hard bar and it will be extremely drying.
14:20And so some of those soaps have so much hard oils to keep them preserved so they're not soft, they're easy to ship, they're not, that's why they're drying on your skin, but they will all have lye. Yeah, and what we put in ours is coconut oil, olive oil, I'm trying to think, I think that's it. Yeah, so olive oil is a soft oil, so it softens the bar. It's a little more nourishing for people, yeah. Yeah, this is one of those things like,
14:49We like so we do a lot of markets in the community and we're in a couple stores And it's one of the most common questions is about lie and I'm glad people ask it because yeah If I saw lie and I didn't know what it was, but I've seen it to clean drains You know, why am I gonna put on my skin and it has a warning label on it, you know all that stuff You know, why would you put that on your skin? But once it becomes with the oil, you know, it becomes soap and then once all our soap is cold process So it takes you know
15:15four to six weeks to cure, that lye is no longer there. It is now a new molecule, it's a new formation. Right, exactly. So that's why I wanted to talk about it because a lot of people like, I don't want to use lye soap because it'll dry my skin out, but that's not true. Right, that's not what it's doing. Yeah, no, we first did, we did an all-tallow soap and we did an all-coconut oil soap and just three ingredients and they were both very hard, but they're drying.
15:45They don't wash away as fast, but you will end up using a moisturizer or a lotion because it's dry. It's only got one hard oil. And so you need a soft oil to have the nourishing bar or the smooth, silky feeling, those kind of things. And people, I don't know, like I said, maybe people are just new to the idea, but yeah, the lie thing. We get it all the time and I understand.
16:14But if not, it will just be a bowl of oil, trying to put it on your body. Which you could do. That's not gonna work. You're gonna slide all over the shower. It's bad. It is not gonna work. It is definitely a chemical reaction that has to occur. It has to form. But I'm glad, I'm glad people kind of, take the time to look at those things now. Whereas, growing up, we never looked at the label. We just looked at the front.
16:44And that's just what it was. And so, you know, part of me is glad. I'm glad people kind of wake up to it and try to research what ingredients are in things and what are they going to put on their body and to make that choice, whether they want to do it or not. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not saying everybody should use cold processed lye soap. They don't have to, if they don't want to. They want to buy a bar of dial soap at the store, have at it. You know, and the funny thing is, you know, my dad, he's still, you know,
17:13He uses like the soaps we make, but he uses them more for like hands. And then he'll still use, you know, Irish Spring in the tub, uh, until this day. And, you know, I don't know if that's just, you know, set in your ways or that's just what works for you. And that's, you know, that's fine. Um, he knows we've told them all about it. So he's made a decision and he's an adult and that's just what it is.
17:34Yep, exactly. It's a losing battle right there. Don't even bother. You can lead them to water, but I can't make them drink. So that's okay. And that's fine. People have different things and that works for them. So this farm thing is fairly new. Were you guys doing any of this before you moved to Tennessee? Some things, like I said, we had chickens. We've always had chickens. And my husband, he...
18:02He had a lot of pigs and a lot of turkeys and things like that. Back where we were, we had two goats and then we were mainly to eat some of the blackberry brush that was going on. And I now realize that two was not enough for the amount of field I had them in. But so we, you know, we weren't farming on the scale that we are now, but we've always kind of had our hand in either farming or gardening or creating something or making something.
18:31And so now I just feel very blessed to be able to kind of do it more full-time, even though my husband works off-farm, to be able to put more into it to get more out. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so you... Okay, I just got stuck on questions again. 20 minutes in and I'm stuck. How has it been?
18:56been? Has it been everything you expected or has it been harder or easier or what's it? How has it been? It's not for the faint of heart. It's definitely hard. And anybody who says farming is easy is lying or, you know, they're not farming. You know, you can look on Pinterest all day and it looks beautiful and it looks gorgeous and, you know, all that jazz. But when it comes down to it, it is hard.
19:23It is very rewarding, but there are hard times. So things that you couldn't imagine happening are just very heartbreaking. They're going to happen. And you have to be prepared for that and know whether you can stick with it and keep going or if it's just not for you. So there are things that have happened that I didn't realize that were very hard, but we got through them. And thank God we did. And we prayed. And we were able to push forward. And it makes you stronger.
19:53Lots of things have gone differently, but lots of things have gone differently in a good way that I wouldn't have expected either. Do you guys grow plants or veggies or anything too? Here we live on Clinch Mountain and it's very, just like it sounds, it's a mountain. A lot of the properties are hills or they're rocky or they're full of limestone.
20:21We don't have the, you know, set up to grow vegetables and plants on a mass scale, like to produce, you know, onions and tomatoes and corn for people. I would love to. So we do plant starts. So we'll start the plants here and then, you know, we can sell them to you and you can grow, you know, in your garden bed. So we do do that. But given our current area, like I said, it's just we wouldn't be able to compete on that level. It's just not the right property here.
20:50And knowing what your property can give you is very important because it will be tiresome and expensive if you try to make it, you know, something it just can't do. So we do. So we'll have plants, you know, in the beginning of spring. So we'll do our starts. And then anything extra that was just, you know, a really good crop or something that we tried differently, you know, we have no problems, you know, whether, you know, giving it away or selling it to people or things like that, but also being so new to the area. There's been a lot of trial and error.
21:19the growing part is much different than when we were before. And so we're still trying to figure out the best method to grow something on a bigger scale, like let's say pumpkins and zucchini. They're not a problem really on the West Coast, but here there's a lot of vine borers. And so that just ruins a whole crop. And that wasn't something we expected. And so now it's just a challenge that we have to kind of get through here. So yeah, so we, and long story short, we do, but it's just not the most.
21:48I guess either profitable or easy to do here, given our land up on a hill. Yeah, you got to work with the nature that you're provided, I guess. Yes. So we have a lot of foraging capabilities, a lot of... It's on the hillside, but kind of like grassy areas. So having goats, even if you want larger animals later on, they can kind of take care of those areas for us better.
22:18It's more geared toward our goats and more of our poultry. We have a lot of like black walnut trees and so we harvest those. So we're just kind of work with what we have and, you know, not rape the land so hard to force it to be something it's not. That's a great plan. I love that because you're letting the land do what the land's supposed to do. That's great. Right. So we moved here because we, you know, fell in love with it. So we're trying not to.
22:48changes so much that it's not what it's intended to be. So I find that if you kind of work with nature as much as you can, it's easier on you and it's easier on everything else around. You're not pouring so much time trying to take care of a problem that you created really. It wasn't a problem before because it wasn't happening, but you've made it one.
23:14I always joke that humans are the only species that will work their asses off to make something easier. It's true. I feel like sometimes we spend so much time reinventing the wheel and then realizing we never had to do it. So. Right. I think you come to the point where, you know, what is your time worth? What is your labor worth?
23:41you know, is it worth your time trying to do all this? Because you could have just done it the same way and we would have been done already. And it would have probably been cheaper, you know. It might have taken maybe a day or two longer, but we'd be there already instead of, yeah, like either having to go buy a new brand new thing or make a new thing. I'm all for invention. I'm all for, you know, the, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, but sometimes it is,
24:09quite frankly, just a pain in the ass. And you just do it the way that they've been doing. There's a reason it's been done 100 years this way because that's why it's just the way to do it. Yeah, exactly. And as I sit here and talk with you about this, I'm chuckling in my head because we had supplies delivered on Thursday to build a winter greenhouse, a heated greenhouse. And that's because we live in Minnesota. And...
24:37our growing season stops when we get the first heavy frost. And we wanted to be able to get our seed starts out into the greenhouse earlier so that we can start them in our house sooner. And we also want to extend the growing season out into November. And we can't do that here without some heated greenhouse. And of course it snowed on Thursday and it didn't snow on Friday, but it was cold. And then, no, it did snow on Friday. Sorry.
25:06Um, and then Saturday was clear and then yesterday it snowed all day and today it is raining cats and dogs That's the kind of winter we've had in Minnesota And I looked outside and I saw the plastic sheet covered Mason block thingies for the foundation sitting outside and I was like Yeah, we jinxed it. We had had like no snow for months and as soon as that stuff came now, it's all gross again It knew I'm like
25:33I'm like, yeah, we're crazy. Yeah. I think, like you said, I think nature and they know like when something's about to happen, we raised guineas. And so my husband, he was down on a beekeeper's meeting and this gal came up to him and they got to talking and she wanted a guinea. She had one guinea and her was lonely and she wanted another one. And so we had one that we wanted, you know, to...
25:59to sell, it was just kind of being pushed out of our pack. And so it would still do better with another farm. And so the day that we knew we could catch it, because it was always crazy, it was always running around, was the day that it just went right back in and came part of the flock. And you couldn't even tell it apart. So it knew any other day we could tell it apart because it was always off by its own. But the day we went to sell the guinea.
26:27You know, we couldn't tell it apart because it had become part of the flock again. So they know it's, I don't know, it's some law, some Murphy's law. I don't know. I think when you make plans, God laughs. That's what I think. Yeah, it does. Yes. And then he says, Hey, nature, get on them, make them do something they didn't think they were going to do. Yeah. Yep. And so like I said, I still don't know if it's the one that we wanted to sell. I know, like I said, she wanted male or female and that was fine, but
26:56He's probably still out there because he knew something was up. I'm like, hmm, all right. Maybe he thought he was going to the butcher, not a new home. Yeah. Like, oh, it was hard to say, you know, and I get, yeah, it was just, it's always the way it happens. We, you know, um, we bought, uh, one of our goats last year from a farm and we had, you know, we're going to pick it up this weekend, we're going to pick it up this weekend, and then the farmer calls me and said, oh, you know, I did their fecals.
27:22And she's kind of got some running poop, you know, so you're gonna have to wait till next weekend so we can clear it up. And so you can make plans all day. But in reality, you know, God's in control and you better simmer down and it'll happen when it happens. And so we've just learned to like, okay, that's what we have to roll with. And you know, I'm not gonna fight it. I'm gonna simmer down and when it happens, it happens. Yep. And I've got one more example. I had found one of the bakeries that is...
27:50another town over had bought a display case for their donuts and it was too big for their space. And I was like, oh, we're looking for a thermostat controlled display case. And they wanted like $100 for this thing. And I talked to my husband and I was like, it's five feet long, three and a half feet tall and power deep. And he was like, oh yeah, that should fit the farm standard. And then I looked at the measurements again and I was like, you might want to go make sure.
28:18I said, because that shed is only 10 by 14, and that's going to take up some real estate in there. So he went and looked and he said, it's too big. It's just too big, just slightly too big. And I said, okay, I will message them and let them know that it's too big. We can't use it. And I was kind of sad because it was perfect for keeping the leafy greens not wilting and the eggs in the shed.
28:48I was kind of mad about it. And then I woke up the next morning and I was like, you know what? It's okay. We will get the right display case when we find it. It'll be okay. I guess it is not meant to be. Yeah. It was the first thing since we've moved in here three and a half years ago, where I was, I was actually kind of bent about it and I couldn't figure out why I was so bent and I think it was because I thought I had solved a minor.
29:16dilemma that we've been having with having the leafy greens in the farm stand. But I didn't solve it, so we're still going to have to work on it. Yeah, I do that a lot. And I think, like I said, whoever you want to call it, but he has his own plan and asking you shall receive, you just might not get it in the way you thought you would. Or when. Or you might not. Yeah, or when. I remember...
29:46being out west and then, you know, we know we needed a change, but we weren't sure quite sure. And so it was like, well, you know, we could, you know, live in the camper and travel around with our kids because we homescore our kids. And so I'm like, yeah, that sounds so great. Like, yeah, we could travel the country, you know, in a year. And we had thought about that. And, you know, obviously that didn't quite happen the way we thought. But when we moved here,
30:12You know, we had to live in a camper for a year before we set up our home up here on the pad. And you know, I was like, you know what, we got exactly what we asked for. It was just not in the way we thought. We did travel across the country to get here and we did live in a camper for a full year. Just it wasn't traveling in the camper, you know. So we did get those things. We did ask for those things, just not in the way that we thought we were going to get them. Yeah, it was a roundabout.
30:41cross-country camper trip. So in the hindsight after living in the camper for a year, and I'm like, I don't think I could have done that. There's only so many times you want to enter or exit or get rid of the gray tank, you know, it's no longer fun. But yeah, so you kind of got what you asked for eventually in a way that, you know, was I guess more fitting for you and you just didn't realize it. Yeah, it's funny how life just kind of
31:09does what it does and you just go with it. Yeah, I don't like I said, I would love to do all the things here, like you see online and oh, a milk cow and a this and horses and that. And then, you're like, well, if it's meant to happen, it will happen when it does. But in the meantime, I'm not gonna force it to happen. I'm just gonna work with what I have and just try to slowly make those small steps better.
31:37And in the meantime, you know, if we can help the community make their small steps better, because I'm sure they have the same kind of similar plan, you know, then that, you know, that is fulfilling enough. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, so, uh, we got slightly off topic just as I always do, but that's what makes it fun. Um, so you, do you sell it like markets, your, your soaps and your, your stuff? We do. So we first started selling at a trading post, um, about.
32:06I would say 10 miles from here, were friends with the local meat processors. They're called Overhome Meat Processing and Treadway or Thornhill. And so they started doing a market, a trading post, and they wanted to bring community together. But not just buy things, but if you wanted to barter, if you wanted to learn something new. And so that kind of got us into markets.
32:31And we were selling more of our salves and more of our kind of farm goods at that time. And then we had some soap. But then as the time went on, you know, it just became what people wanted the most. And so we just tried to fill that need. And so we started there and then we actually are in an antique store down in Rogersville. So we have a booth down there. And then so we've kind of expanded into some brick and mortar stores. So we're in three stores where we have our booth.
33:00And then we're actually in a bakery called Clinch Mountain Bakery. And then our last one, we're actually in a wellness center called the Holistic Wellness Center. And so we've kind of branched out a bit. So we still do like the doing the markets, but currently, you know, the farm still has to run. And I don't know if anyone knows that markets take a lot of energy and a lot of time for setup, you know, to do them. And then you're very, you know.
33:26the weather could be bad or, you know, there could be 10 other events going on on the same day. You know, all of those are big factors. And so I guess we're kind of pushing more toward, you know, doing events, you know, that we can prepare for way well in advance, but then also kind of putting our products in stores where people can, you know, get them at any time instead of just waiting for a market that may or may not have good weather or, you know, maybe we're too far up the mountain for some people and they, you know, they can't travel that far.
33:56So yeah, but I'm very excited. Like I said, we've gotten into three stores and you know, that's such a blessing. I had put that on a business plan earlier in the year and then next thing you know, you know, it kind of happened, so. Yeah, diversity in your business model is really important. So, yes, having those, having all those options, all those fingers out into the different places is great.
34:23Yeah, I think for yeah for anybody, you know, like I said, we just have to work with where we're at. So someone else might have, you know, more traffic, you know, or a flatter area, you know, they get more road coverage. So, you know, having a smaller stand outside your house might be the best option. Or, you know, you know, you just might like to do markets and you do really well. And, you know, you have a product like, let's say, you know, the bakery item that's limited and you work off scarcity. So people come to you because they know there's not a lot of it.
34:53So I think, yeah, I think it's just depending on, you know, where are you? Where are you in life? You know, what do you have time for? And what's going to be the best model for you? And also so that you don't get burnt out, you know, that you're just becoming another kind of drone, that you're still, you know, passionate about what you're making and then delivering it to people. Yeah, because when you're the one making it, you're putting yourself into whatever you're making.
35:22And the minute that good energy isn't there anymore when you're making it, it changes what you made. And I don't know why it does that, but it does. It does, it probably does. And so if you're just trying to whip out a bunch of product, whatever it is, as fast as you can to make the most money, I guess you might as well be Walmart or some product on their shelf. And then two, not everybody is your customer. Why is the person told me that the last market?
35:52And I asked her for some business advice. And I said, you know, some of these places already have, you know, soap. And she's like, don't worry, still try, because not everybody is your customer. So just because, you know, these persons are here, these people, doesn't mean that every customer wants to go there. And you need to realize that you cannot market to every single person in the world. You know, you are not Walmart. And so we put a hundred percent effort into what we make because I want people to enjoy them and know that, you know, when you shop with us or you come to our farm
36:21you do whatever that we're 100% committed into everything we do. Um, that's what makes the, you know, the handmade product handmade. That's what makes the farm, you know, what it is. You know, I'm not some, we're definitely not some giant, you know, Hillshire farm. Um, you know, but we're your neighbors, we're your part of your community. So you can come to me for whatever, if you want help with anything. And I want people to, you know, realize that, uh, when they see our stuff. Yeah.
36:50And people are interesting because when my husband was selling at the farmers market last year, he had tomatoes, I think before anybody else did, we were really lucky with our crop last year. And then like a week or so later, somebody else came as a vendor and they had tomatoes. And he came home and he was like, it was so funny. He said, because I had tomatoes, they had tomatoes. He said, I sold more tomatoes and I don't know why.
37:21And I just said, honey, I don't know, it's subjective. People are going to look at two of the same thing and have to make a choice. And they may just flip a coin in their head or they may find something they really like about yours or something they really like about the other person's, who knows? But choice is always subjective. It is. If you're trying to gather every single person, I think you'll be shooting yourself from the foot. The right audience will find you.
37:50You just have to be available. Yeah, and you have to be open to them. You have to, if they want a question answered before they make a choice, you need to be approachable and friendly and answer them so that they know what they're getting. Yeah, it's definitely, like I said, if anyone should know the most about your product, it's you.
38:13And to constantly kind of be researching, I get a lot of questions of like, well, what are like kinder goats just like you? Like, what are kinder goats? And so if I don't know, if I just say, oh, they're just goats, I'm not going to get very far. They're not going to get their question answered and they're probably not going to come back. They're not going to, well, she doesn't know. I'm just going to go back to Google. And so you really need to be knowledgeable in what you're presenting. And so we definitely try to.
38:43To do that, I don't know the answer to everybody's problem or every question, but I'll be honest, I'll just say I don't know. But to have enough to present someone and then I've given you all the information I possibly can, now it's up to you to make a choice. Do you want farmer A's tomato or farmer B tomato? This is how we make our tomatoes, this is how they make their tomatoes. You need to make a choice.
39:07Yeah, I was going to say honesty is a big part of it too. If you don't know the answer to their question, be honest. I mean, I've had people ask me about stuff and I'm like, I am going to be honest. I don't know, but give me a day and let me research it and I will have an answer for you. And then I email them or call them or when I see them next, I go, that thing you asked about, this is why. Yes. So. There's a big stigma about like.
39:36you not knowing and I don't know why like people don't want to say I don't know because maybe they think it makes them seem, you know, illiterate or dumb. But I think it takes a lot of gusto to say, you know, I'm not sure. I don't know. And that's definitely a challenge for me because if someone says, you know, this and I say, I don't know, you can bet I will research this till the end of time so that I know and you know and the next person who asked me this, I will know.
40:02And so that's how you, that's how you find new things out. You know, you have to have that person come up to you and give you a question you don't know, and then you never have that problem again.
40:13Because you know it. Yeah, exactly. And you'll never forget it ever. No, you won't. Yes. And I'm sure there's a bunch of questions still out there that haven't been presented to me yet that I don't know. But for anyone, if you want to ask me them, then we'll know. Yeah, my husband will ask me something once in a while and I'm like, I do not know the answer. I do not have the time to find out right now. And he doesn't either. And I'm like, okay, I'll look into it when I have time.
40:43And inevitably that same night at 2 a.m., I wake up at 2 a.m. and I'm like, I need to know. I need to know what that is that he asked me about. And I will open up my phone, Google it, get a basic answer so I can tell him in the morning. And it's relieving. Yeah, about the fifth time I did it, he said, I was gonna ask you how you were figuring this out. He said, are you waking up and looking it up? I said, yep. He said, you are.
41:11He said, you're crazy. I said, yeah, I know. I am absolutely insane with this because you asked me something I didn't know and I needed to know. It's definitely great. I love Google. Yeah. It's definitely, uh, it's the age of information and, uh, there's a lot of information and it's, it's good and it's bad. A lot of it can be very overwhelming and some, just then too, you have to make a choice whether you're going to believe this or you're not going to believe it. Um, and so.
41:41Yeah. So we'll do the same thing. Like I'll go on there. I need to know. I got to know what this is. I'll try my best. And sometimes I walk away, you know, totally triumphant and like, all right, I totally know. And then other times I'm very defeated and overwhelmed because the answers are so left and right. Yep. And whenever I Google something, I try to find five reputable sources that say the same thing before I tell anyone what I found out.
42:08Because I hate it when I think I know and then I talk to somebody who's smarter than I am and they go I'm really sorry, but that's not correct. I'm like, oh You're so sure there's what? Yeah, there's a lot of hubris in that answer and the next thing you know, you're kind of shot down Yeah, so I don't know like I said that for people, you know starting out or whatever they plan to do In reality, you can really plan so much
42:37It only takes so many conflicting ideas and information. And sometimes you just got to get your feet wet. And then, you know, you can narrow your search on what you're looking for. Um, inevitably, like you were just going to, you're going to cost money one way or the other, but, um, like I said, like the information is definitely one side or the other, so you need to pick one and, and shoot, you know, and go. Yeah. Um.
43:04We thought we were going to be raising rabbits for me and for the manure. And we got rabbits like two summers ago. And all my life, people had been using the phrase, I can't say the word, like bunnies. You know, bunnies make babies. That's it. That's what they do. Yep. Um, our rabbits did not really make babies. They did not get the memo that they were supposed to not say that. I'm not going to say the word like bunnies.
43:34And we kept them for a year. We bred them, I think, four times in that year and no babies. And they were absolutely the correct sex to be making babies. There was a buck and a doe. They just did not take. And after a year of feeding these guys, I was like, I don't want to do this. I don't know. Maybe we're just bad at rabbits, but I don't want to do this anymore. And so we stopped and we spent.
44:03probably three or 400 bucks total on that project. And we learned that we're not good at raising rabbits and I'm okay with that. That's fine. So sometimes you try to do something that seems like a good idea and you give it your all and you try to do all the research and do the right things and it just doesn't work out and that's okay. Yeah, I definitely think that, you know, that's how you find out. So, you know, sometimes you have to fall on your face.
44:32um, to find out and that's perfectly acceptable and that's perfectly okay. Because if you did it, you'd just be sitting there still wanting to do it, but never doing it. You never get past it, you know, so you, it would still be in the back of your mind. You would never move on to the next thing because you're either too afraid to try it or, you know, and you don't do it or, or you want to research it more and more and more. So half the time, you know, you just need to go in there and do it. Um, and that's.
45:01is just part of life. So, you know, we have a lot of, you know, Americana chickens that we breed, and we're part of the Americana Alliance. And, you know, we try to breed to standard for this Americana. And, you know, our whole premise was, you know, show worthy birds, you know, all the standard birds, these colors, you know, these kind of breedings, these things happen. And
45:23But then as we moved on, we realized like, well, our area doesn't really care about show birds. They care about meat birds. They care about eggs. And so, and if you're not shipping your birds and you're not going to all these shows and why are you doing that? And so we kind of had to take a step back and reevaluate. You're like, okay, now we know. And we still have them. I still love the breed. It's a perfect breed for here.
45:52But now they just have, you know, a different purpose than what we originally intended. And I never would have known that unless we got them, we did it, we know we're trying, and then we, you know, see, you know, if people are interested or not. So yeah, I think the themes for this particular episode are homesteading is not for the faint of heart, it's rewarding, and you've got to be willing to try new things and no one to stop when it doesn't work. Those are the themes for today.
46:20Yes. You know, yeah. You got to know when to quit. Sometimes you got to know when to quit. And like I said, I'm like, all right, you know, we got to quit with, you know, trying to force these people, you know, the people around us to want to do the same thing we want to do and realize like it's not working. So let's try something new. And that's okay. You know, like that's fine. You know, my husband, he's been taking beekeeping classes to do bees and, you know,
46:50It's either gonna work out well or it's not. But I think it takes a lot and it takes a lot of courage and confidence to just go out there and try something new and know you may or may not fail. You know, like that is awesome for people to try to do and I think they should do it. The hard part is because it costs money. And you know it costs a lot of money and you don't wanna screw it up and you don't wanna get an F on your test. You know, you don't wanna fail. But you learn a lot with failure.
47:20Yes, absolutely. You really do. And sometimes it's painful. Well, usually it's painful, but, but I really feel like, I feel like mistakes aren't failure. I feel like if you don't try, you, you don't ever get anywhere. So mistakes are learning opportunities. Okay. So Brie, it's been like 47 minutes and I didn't mean to make this go so long. I'm sorry. I appreciate your time and you have, you have a fantastic day.
47:49You too. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Yep. Bye. Bye.
 

Thistle Dew Acres

Today I'm talking with Sam at Thistle Dew Acres. You can also follow her on Facebook.
00:00This is Mary Lewis at a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Sam. This'll do acres. Good morning, Sam. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. Yeah, I actually saw snowflakes. I know, I'm not ready for it. I think the fall spring came and went. Oh, go ahead. Yep, I was just gonna say that. Yep.
00:26It's you're only half an hour away from me. So you know what this winter has been like in Minnesota. So yes, yes. It's been wild. Yeah. It's been crazy. Um, our, our supplies are being delivered today for our reheated greenhouse that we're going to be building. Oh, that's exciting. So of course they picked the day it's going to snow to bring it. Yep. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do.
00:52Yeah. Um, so, um, I live, um, on seven and a half acres right now with my husband and our two kiddos. And, um, I live in Jordan, Minnesota. And right now I made the transition to be full time. Um, we call it 10 99 or self-employed. Um, I have a couple of businesses that one is called, um, doll creations. And that's more of like eco-friendly.
01:21nature-inspired items, things like fabric paper towels or on paper towels as some people call them, crocheting dishcloths, that type of thing. And then I started up Thistle Dew Acres and that's really focused on the homestead that we have. And that one is a food cottage license that I recently got, so I'm making breads and things like that, along with selling our eggs. We have chickens and ducks.
01:50Then I also have a podcast as well. And that one is called Minnesota Crunchy. So that one's kind of similar to yours. The big difference is I just kind of talk about whatever I feel like talking about as it relates to either holistic approaches to life or foraging, all that fun stuff. So anything that someone might deem crunchy, which is the new word, or we always call it crunchy granola.
02:21Um, so that's kind of where I go with that. I'm trying to figure out just a work life balance right now with it all. So that's where I'm at right now. But in terms of our homestead, um, for this'll do acres last night, we celebrated the spring equinox by planting our seeds so that we can get them started for our garden this summer. Yeah. My husband planted seeds this past weekend and my kitchen table is covered now with seed starters.
02:50Yep. Yep. Um, we don't have a lot of great lighting in our house. It was, it's a 1970s house and they just, this, this house just the floor plan and everything is very weird. So I went and got some shelving and we have grow lights now. So I feel really official, finally like doing something like that. So we'll see how this goes for me. Yeah. Um, we have a.
03:16big long grow light that we hang from our light fixture over our kitchen table. Oh, and the light itself is pink. I didn't know when I ordered it, but it would be pink. So when I get up at four or five in the morning and come downstairs and pop that on, there's windows right behind our kitchen table. And I'm like, you know,
03:36a sheriff or a police officer is going to drive by and be like, are they growing pot in that house? Right? Well, and now it's legal, so they won't even care anymore. Yeah, it's just funny. And the paint is so creepy. It makes my kitchen look like it has alien lights in it. That's what mine is. It's supposed to be changing, but of course, when I was unpacking everything, I misplaced the remote to change the colors. So it's also, we have a nice bright pink light in our room too. Yeah, it's very bizarre.
04:03But I'm getting used to it every spring. It's things light in my kitchen for eight weeks. Yep. So yeah. Yeah. So does thistle, thistle, is it thistle dew? Yes. Thistle dew, like a thistle in the forest, and then dew like a dew drop. So we're very much so a honey type people. So we were looking up names. And of course, I had a list of 15 different names.
04:33start throwing them at my husband and he looks at me and he says, how about this'll do? And I'm like, this will do? And he's like, no, this'll do. And I'm like, I kind of like it. So that's what we did. Yep. We thought about naming our place last resort acres. Oh, I like that too. But we didn't. We kept with the A tiny homestead name. I cannot talk this morning. I'm sorry. It's okay.
05:02dip thongs today. Okay, so does Thistle Do Acres have a Facebook page or anything yet? Yes, it does. It has a Facebook page. I will slowly end up becoming a person that has TikTok. I have a TikTok for Thistle Do. I have not posted anything yet. So it will have TikTok, Instagram, and it does have a Facebook page. It's Thistle Do Acres.
05:32and the picture is a thistle. And then I also have my food cottage up in ready for ordering for that as well. And that's through Cast Iron, but the link is also on my Facebook page. Okay, awesome. I will link all the things. You can message me all the things you want me to link to and I'll link to it in the description. Perfect. So.
05:55There's going to be a directory for cottage food producers in Minnesota. Did you know about this? No, I did not. It's coming. Um, the guy that's putting it together, I interviewed him weeks ago. His, his, uh, episode is up and out for the public to listen to. And he sent me the link to the website because I'm one of the beta testers, which is awesome. Yeah. And it looks great so far. So I think it's going to be good.
06:22Oh, that's gonna be so nice just for everybody to have that resource. Yeah, absolutely. When I found out about it, I was like, would you please come talk on my podcast about this? Cause I'm so excited. I can't stand it. And he was like, yes, I would be happy to talk about it. Good. Yes. And I, oh yeah, go ahead. So if you want to know about it, uh, I can't remember Sergeant shortbread is the episode title. Okay. I will definitely look at that. Yeah. I'm just excited that they're talking about allowing us to have, um, free samples on at markets.
06:52Oh, are they? I didn't know. Yes. So right now how it works is you either have to have a hand washing station, a bathroom does not count. You have to have a hand washing station or everything has to be prepackaged. So some people don't want that because that's all the extra waste. And expense. That too. Yep. Yep. So they're talking about figuring, passing it, I don't know what it would look like, but some type of different criteria.
07:20to have free samples available for people, especially for, you know, people that are selling food. It's hard to get your samples out there if, and if you do do, if you do do that, then, you know, you could be dinged or cited. And I know there's lots of people that do that. And I'm like, I'm going to be a rule follower because I don't want to, you know, have this this permanent red mark on my, my business. And you know, I want to follow all the sanitary stuff that we have to follow.
07:45Yeah, the thing I don't understand is why we can't just have a spray bottle of hand sanitizer at the table and just have people do that. Yep. And I'm hoping that if it does officially pass right now, it's not for sure yet. It's just looking pretty good. That's what the requirement is, is that you either have to have some place that has a bathroom on the grounds or you can have...
08:13have the spray bottle of hand sanitizer. Because honestly, a lot of people touch a lot of grosser stuff than probably how, you know, and everywhere else than this. And I don't know. It's mind boggling to me because you put so much care into your products to make sure that they're healthy and sanitary and everything else. But yet we have this, and there's so many other companies that are bigger that they don't follow a lot of the sanitary things that we have to follow.
08:41Because we're special. That's why. Yep. Yep. That's one word for it. I was trying to be nice. I'm gonna stop because it makes me angry. And I also don't understand why if someone wants to sample your food, you can't just put on a pair of gloves and hand them a piece. Yep. It makes no sense.
09:04I also don't want to get myself in trouble, so I'm going to just leave it right there. Hopefully they'll pass it and hopefully at some point they'll pass the shipping thing too. That would be great. Yep. They did that for dog treats last year. So I know I hope, you know, and I know there's lots of people. I understand each state has a different food cottage requirement, which is also interesting to me that if you live across the border, you can cook with a lot of things in terms of like the border, like let's say South Dakota.
09:34or Wisconsin, it's so, they're so vastly different each state. I wish there was just one standard. Me too. So, yeah. But on the flip side of that, thank goodness we can sell our stuff in our state. So that's the one awesome thing about it. I actually have to renew my cottage food registration sometime this week because I haven't done it yet and I need to do it before I have to redo the whole thing. Yes. Yup.
10:05You were talking about the Minnesota Crunchy podcast. I listened to a couple of your episodes. I think it's great But on the subject of Minnesota Crunchy I made homemade Moisturizer two days ago because my son has dry skin and I gave him my birth bees stuff that I love Mm-hmm and looked up how much it would be to buy him a bottle and it's up to like $15 for an ounce or two ounces
10:34And I thought there's got to be a way to make this for him that I can just make it and it's going to cost me a lot less money because I already had coconut oil and I already had vitamin E oil. I just didn't know how to make it into a lotion. So I looked up a recipe and cocoa butter is the thing that makes it a lotion. So I ordered a pound of cocoa butter for $14.99, which is the price of one of the bottles of the Burt's Bees stuff. And I don't want to slam Burt's Bees. I love Burt's Bees.
11:03products I do. But I can't justify that for him right now. I'd rather make it myself. So made it and oh my god it actually turned into a lotion. It's wonderful. And it smells like cocoa. I didn't know raw cocoa butter actually smelled like cocoa. I should have known but I didn't. So his face gets to smell like cocoa for about 10 minutes. I was like is that going to bug you? He said no I can live with it. I said okay.
11:31So yeah, a little crunchy over here too. Yes. Well, and a lot of it, whether it's for the benefits because you don't want those added ingredients that you don't necessarily need, the big companies need for preservatives and everything because of how they're marketing. But the smaller people don't need. So if you want it for that reason or just to save money in general because it's expensive out here. I cannot believe how much prices have jumped.
12:00When I bought this bottle or container of Berksy's moisturizer two years ago, I think it was like five bucks. And now it's $14.99. I was like, I can't, I just, I can't do it. It's not worth it to me when I know I can make it for him. And a pound of cocoa butter is going to make me, I don't even know, eight of the containers of Berksy's stuff.
12:30I was just like, I've got to do it because that's what I used to do when I had four kids and my husband and I were living on one income. So I thought I can do it again. And it was so fun. It was kind of like when I made mayonnaise for the first time. I was like, how is this going to work? This is not going to do what it said it's going to do. They're liars. And then I watched it emulsify and I was like, oh, that is so cool.
12:57Speaking of mayonnaise, we started making our own as well. And after the second time I made it, my emulsion blender decided to go. So now I just make it in my little ninja. I have a single serve smoothie maker thing for it. I just do it in that and it takes just as, you know, way less time and I can just pour it out and be done. Yeah. It's amazing how fast it comes together in the ninja. That's how I did it too. Yep.
13:23No, it's amazing how easy and things can be if you just kind of take that time. Yeah, and speaking of costs for things, I mean, I think you have chickens as well. We do. And we have chickens too. And just looking at how much the cost, like I understand you have to pay for like food for the chickens and things like that. But like we put our extra like food scraps, we give that to the chickens, the stuff that's appropriate, like old bread and things like that.
13:53but also like how much the price of eggs has just gone up and down so much. Um, like it's every week, it's a, you know, a different dollar price. Totally. And I'm like, you know what? I'll keep it on here. I'll keep with my chickens. Cause at least I know how much my feed costs and I can price it out that way. Um, that I'm just saving money and chickens give me joy. So we'll stick with that. Yeah. And I'm going to say this for the billion time.
14:21I swear our eggs from our chickens taste better than the ones we get from the store. And I don't know if that's actually true because it's subjective, but I'm going to go with it. Um, I haven't heard. So I sell my eggs as well. And I have heard from everyone that's ever bought them is it's better than store bought. Um, and whether or not they like it because of the pricing of it or because, you know, friends and family type thing. But I think it's just.
14:49It is different because of the quality that you probably give them for feed. The, the fact that they're not stuck in a little tiny pen for their whole lives. And then also just the fact that, that they just get so much like sunlight and freedom, I think that that makes a world of difference and they're fresh versus being already two to three weeks old by the time consumers get them. That's probably the thing right there. Yeah.
15:16Anybody who has chickens and has tried to hard boil eggs from your chicken the day you get the egg It doesn't work very well. You want your eggs to be two weeks old I think before you hard boil them Yep, I learned that the hard way to Yeah, I actually grabbed the wrong carton the other day I looked at the numbers wrong and it was like two days old eggs and hard boiled five and tried to peel two of them for an egg-siled sandwich and they just
15:44ripped right apart. I was like, what was the date on that card? And I went look, I was like, damn it. Yep. So I figured it out and you know, lost a quarter of each egg, but that's okay. So whatever. Yep. The other thing I was going to say, how old are your kids? One's gonna be almost six and one's almost four. And did they help with cooking and stuff? Yes, they do. Um, so we have a dog as well. So right now, I'm teaching them.
16:13daily chores. So they have to, one has to feed the dog in the morning, one has to feed the dog in the evening. And then depending on who is home when I do it, they both help with picking eggs and feeding the chickens. We have a scratch mix like crack corn and wheat and stuff. So one of them will always toss out some, one likes to drop little pieces here and there while my older one just dumps it all and says it's good enough.
16:43Um, do they help you with cooking and stuff or not? Yeah. It depends on what it is. Um, they will, if it's something for them, um, specifically like if it's like cookies for them, um, but when it comes to making bread, cause we make our own bread, it's mom, can we just be done with this already? Um, so that part they're not too enthused with, but, um, they help with the cleaning up part, which I will take cause I hate cleaning the kitchen.
17:11Yeah, me too. I love cooking. I hate cleaning up after, but I usually am the one to do it. The reason I ask is because I am sitting in my room where my desk is with the computer and it's right above the kitchen. And my son, who is 22, put together a beef stew this morning to cook all day in the oven at 170 degrees. And when he was little, he was the youngest of four, still is the youngest of four.
17:40He wanted to try our food when he started getting interested in solid food. And so he would reach out toward our plate if he was sitting in our lap. And if it was something that was okay for him to have, he'd try it. And if he didn't like it, I would wipe his mouth because he spit it out. And by the time he hit two, he was old enough to ask if he could try something. And I just stopped waiting for him to ask. I would just be like, do you want to try it? And he would say, yes.
18:09And I would say, okay, here's the rule. You have to taste it. You have to bite into it. If you don't like it, you can go to the trash can and spit it out at home. Or if we're out with family or at a restaurant, grab your napkin and very nicely split it in a napkin and hold it up and put it aside. I said, I never expect you to eat something you really hate. This kid is the most adventurous out of the four kids.
18:38on what he'll try to eat and he loves to cook and the other three kids love to cook too. So the reason I'm sharing this is because number one, really excited to have beef stew tonight that I didn't make. And number two, if anyone who has little kids, don't make food a battle if you can avoid it. I was a really picky child and it was always a battle and it just left hard feelings and
19:05I didn't really eat a whole lot until I learned to cook. I was very, very skinny until I learned to cook. So try not to make food a battle because it's really not worth winning the battle but losing the war later. Yep, nope. Same boat is that's what we have our kids do. Whatever the meal is, I portion out just a little bit of everything and they have to at least taste each of the items. My son
19:32You still have eggs. He strongly dislikes eggs at this time. And for a while I was still having him just try it to see if it was a phase or if he truly didn't like eggs anymore. I would just tell him, just eat one bite, see if you like it. If you don't like it anymore, that's okay. You don't have to finish it. Or we do the same thing where if I portion out their food and they're full, they're full. Like I'm not going to make them finish their plate, especially when I was the one portioning it out for them.
20:02Um, I'm, I don't believe in, um, forcing the kids to eat all their food. If, if you're, especially if you're the one that's portioned out for them. Um, and I'm like trying to teach them, cause that's where I was is you have to clean your plate before you can leave. And when they're older, I can understand that they can portion out a little bit better. But until then I'm, I'm not going to force them to eat cause I don't want them to think that they always have to have a clean plate to be excused from the table.
20:30Yeah, I wish I had figured this trick out with the other three. But I didn't figure it out until a fourth baby. Weird. I don't know how that happened. And you would have thought that I would have concerning how picky I was and how much of a battle it was in when I was growing up. But either way, I've been meaning to try to get that into a conversation for, for months now, because we're always talking about food somehow on this podcast. Cause I guess we're all hungry. Um, but either way, yeah.
20:59Food is not a thing to battle over if you can avoid it. No. So, and the other thing I'll mention about this kid and food is his sister, who is the oldest, went to visit her dad because all four kids have different sets of parents in my family. I have one by first marriage, one by second marriage. My husband has a son from his previous relationship and then we have the youngest together. And so, youngest.
21:29Oldest sibling who's the only girl had to go visit her dad and youngest would not eat He went on a hunger strike because he missed her so much. She was really little and he was four and So he literally would not eat he would drink milk He would drink water, but he would not eat food And so we even tried to get him to eat ice cream and he wouldn't even ice eat ice cream He lost like five pounds in the first two weeks. She was gone. Oh my god for the summer
21:59And so I was like, okay, he'll drink things. So we ended up getting the carnation instant drink mixes to put in his milk. Cause at least then he was getting vitamins and protein. And he lived on that for like two more weeks after the two he wasn't eating. And finally he started to eat again. I was, when she got back, I said, um, your brother loves you.
22:25more than life itself. She was like, why? And I explained to her what happened. And she was like, Oh, no, mom. And I'm like, no, it's okay. We figured it out. But, but don't ever think for a minute this child does not adore you because you left and he wanted a hunger strike. Yup. Oh, gosh. So yeah, that was fun. No, thank you. No, I was really afraid for him. Yeah, scary. So anyway, long story short, I
22:54just thought I'd share because I think it's funny that he did that. So you have chickens, you have seven acres you said? Seven and a half, yep. Okay, remind me to ask you after we're done where you are in Jordan because I used to live in Jordan so I'm really curious. Oh yeah. So you have chickens, do you have other animals? Are you looking into getting other animals? So we have chickens, we have ducks, and then we have two...
23:22barn cats and a dog. And then next year, we'll start doing bees. Okay. And then hopefully in three to five years, because we have to we have a lot of it's a lot of woods, there's not any pasture land, it's all woods and ravine. So we have to clear out some area. And then we're gonna hopefully build a barn and then have a cow and a pig rotating so that we can
23:52uh, butcher our own, uh, pigs and cows. And then I'm thinking maybe about getting some sheep more for the wool portion of it, um, than anything else. Fun. Um, are you going to get them as sheep or are you going to get them as, as lambs? Um, I'm not sure yet. My, so my dad, um, I grew up with sheep my whole life. Um, my dad right now, I think he has three to 400 sheep. Oh wow.
24:21So depending on where he's at and what sheep he has, because I told him to look out for some good wool sheep for me. So depending on where he's at will depend on if he can, you know, give me a family discount on some sheep or lambs. Nice. Is he in Jordan too or is he somewhere? No, no, he lives way over by South Dakota. Oh, okay. Alrighty. What else? So if you're all woods, do you have a garden yet or are you going to put one in?
24:50No, we have a garden. That was the first thing we moved here in the fall. So the first spring we came here, I'm like, gardens going in. So we have a raised bed garden right now. It's a 20 by 20. About that it's just a U shaped one with the middle piece being just flat ground level. And then this year.
25:15with me becoming self-employed fully and then stay at home mom, we're gonna double if not triple our garden. But this time we're just going to till it up and use it as ground until we get more wood to make raised bed garden and also all the dirt that you need to get the raised bed garden. So yeah, so that's the plan for this year. Last year I tried doing loofah and it...
25:43I planted it directly because I was treating it more like a zucchini and that did not work well. It started to actually produce in October right before the frost hit. So this year we started indoors now and hopefully that will work. But I did do tomatoes directly into the garden last year. I did cherry tomatoes because for some reason we didn't plant any. So I pre-plant them indoors. So
26:12I put them directly in the garden. They grew better than our tomatoes that we had pregrown and the ones we had bought. Yeah, cherry tomatoes are weird. They either do really, really well and you are flooded with them or they do nothing. Yeah. Yep. They're pretty moody. They're like a teen. Yeah, they're finicky. We've been growing cherry tomatoes for years and some years we have just buckets of them.
26:39And other years we get like eight and I'm like, oh, that was nice on a salad. Thank you. Yep. So I don't know. Last summer was really hard on growing tomatoes from what I hear. We did really well, but a lot of people had a hard time with tomatoes because it was so dry. Yep. We had a hard time even though we watered them appropriately. We just didn't get very many at all, which is weird because we've always had no issues. And I had to get...
27:08um, tomatoes from my, um, brother-in-law and sister-in-law because we had none. Yeah, we were swamped. We had, we sold, I don't even know how many pounds is in a bushel. I looked it up last year, but I forget now, but I'm sure we sold at least four bushels of tomatoes in August. So it was a lot and made the most lovely canned tomato sauce for us and still have some jars left. So.
27:37That's the most wonderful thing about the homesteading lifestyle is that when you have an abundance of something, you have the skill to preserve it so it doesn't just go away. Exactly. Exactly. We do potatoes and last year we just had so many little ones, which I'm looking up ways to have them produce better, but we decided to just let them grow in our
28:06know, sprout. Well, now they already have like six inch roots. So I'm like chomping at the bit to like plant them quick here. Yeah. Um, I was going to say if you want to get them in something before you can get them in the ground outside, get like the five gallon buckets from, from, um, I don't know, Menards or home. We have like 20 of them right now. Yeah. And poke holes, drill holes in
28:36Like a drill bit hole and then put the dirt in and put your potatoes in and just let them grow because otherwise they're going to be so leggy by the time you get them in the ground that they're not going to do great. Obviously put something underneath the bucket for when you water it or you're going to have water everywhere. Duh. I'm saying that more because it was kind of stupid that I said it that way, but either way you could bucket them up for now. Yes, which that helps.
29:05I was trying to figure out like what to do with it and yeah, might as well just bucket them for now because I don't want to lose them. Yeah. And with this weather coming in today and tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday, it's going to be a bit before you can get them in the ground. But either way, yay to be a potatoes and you're not the only one who had little tiny tomatoes or potatoes, potatoes last year because we grew I think 20 potato plants.
29:34We got hardly any potatoes. It was just so dry. Nothing really produced well last year. Well, I was also hearing, because we have apple trees as well, that a lot of it when we started off early in the year, or spring year, that because of the Canadian fires, those affected also, because all the trees here and everything want to start preserving.
30:04So they probably also had a, all the plants probably also got affected from that because of the smoke and all the chemicals, like whatever, you know, chemicals make up a tree was coming down here. And that's how it also affected the trees. I didn't realize that until I was talking to someone last year about it. Yeah, it's amazing how the environment impacts everything. Who knew? Yeah, it's last summer was bananas for weather.
30:33and environmental impacts on things. It was rough. And I've said it before, I'm gonna say it again, I'm very concerned about this coming growing season, considering what this winter has been, who knows what this spring and summer and fall are gonna be. Yes, yep. Isn't it this year too, the cicadas? I don't know. It's this year or something, it's this year, next year.
31:01Whereas that 217, every 217 years or whatever it is, they sync up with their cycles. So all the cicadas will be out. Oh, yeah, it's gonna be loud. Yeah, so just slowly getting a garden play coming. Oh, I hope not. I really, really, really hope not. Let's cross our fingers. That's not the case. Yes. All the good vibes needs to be sent out because something's going on. Well, yeah, and it has been for,
31:31But that's all right, we're humans, we'll adapt until we die. It'll be okay. All right. Well, on that terrible morbid note, it's been 31 minutes and 35 seconds. And I try to keep these to half an hour. Sam, thank you so much for taking the time chat with me. You're so welcome. Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Thanks. Bye.
 

Minnesota From Scratch

Today I'm talking with Stephanie at Minnesota From Scratch, author of Small-Scale Homesteading: A Sustainable Guide to Gardening, Keeping Chickens, Maple Sugaring, Preserving the Harvest, and More. You can follow her on Facebook as well.
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Stephanie at Minnesota From Scratch. Good morning, Stephanie. How are you today? I'm good. How are you? I'm great. I am so excited to talk with you because I have wanted to write a book like you've written for years and I do not have the patience for it. So I'm so happy you wrote a book. Tell me about yourself and Minnesota From Scratch.
00:30Alright, well I'm Stephanie Thurow. I have written four books. Three of them are food preservation cookbooks, mostly about water bath canning and fermentation. And then the fourth book that came out a year ago today, actually, I co-authored with a friend, Michelle Bruhn, and it's called Small Scale Homesteading. And I'm a master food preserver, master gardener with Hunnibin County. I teach food preservation classes and heirloom skill classes around the Twin Cities.
01:00And yeah, I live in the suburbs of Minneapolis and we grow a bunch of food in our front and backyards and I have a small flock of chickens. And we just do whatever we can do from our little piece of land here in the suburbs. Awesome. So your book-aversary is today, March 14th, Pi Day. And I don't always release the...
01:28podcast in chronological order. So I'm just saying March 14th is when we recorded this. So it is your book-a-versary. Happy book-a-versary. Thank you. Yeah, how exciting. I did not get a copy of the book, but I did go look at your listing on Amazon and looked at the look inside part so I could read some of it. And it's such a great idea to share how
01:58we can homestead on a small scale. Yeah, thank you. That's, that's how the book idea was born. Um, my coauthor, Michelle Bruhn, she lives in white Bear Lake and I'm in Richfield and we met on Instagram a long time ago, kind of bonding over the things we both do from our homes. And so I'm on an eighth of an acre, but that includes my house, my garage, my driveway.
02:21You know, people that don't know us in person think we have acres of land based on our photos and like our production and all we do. So yeah, that's what's in the book. We teach everybody to do what we do and how we do it. And we have, you know, varying methods for much of what we do. So it's kind of fun. The feedback has been good that people like these alternate perspectives and methods. You know, we have the same outcome, but we're doing it completely different ways. And you know, that's one big message is that there's no right way to do this.
02:50It's whatever works for you and whatever you actually enjoy doing. That's what you should focus on.
03:00Yeah, and I, okay, I don't want to alienate people who aren't doing any kind of homesteading because you don't have to do this. It's, it's not a requirement as a human to grow your own food or cook your own food or raise animals in 2024. It used to be, it used to be a requirement that we
03:25We're nomads and we would travel the earth and we would eat what we could find to survive. But that's not the world we live in now. Having said that, I'm a huge proponent of growing your own food and cooking your own food and raising animals and trying to be part of nature in some way. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it was never a decision to like do this. It's something that happened naturally over 20 years.
03:55started with canning. And, you know, it was like, well, now we do this, let's try this. Oh, let's add this on. And it's literally been 20 years of growing. And yeah, absolutely, people don't have to feel like they need to do it. And we're so lucky in Minnesota, we have farmers markets year round and that provide us with, you know, everything we need. So we're so lucky in that way.
04:23Yeah, and I'm real thankful for the people that go to farmers markets to get local food because we sell at the farmers market in Lesor in the summer. So that helps our bottom line, but we also feel like we're helping our community. So it should be a symbiotic relationship between the grower and the buyer.
04:45sure. And, you know, people oftentimes can't grow enough at, you know, in their residential home like we have. Like there's no way I could grow enough pickling cucumbers or sometimes I have grown enough tomatoes, but that only happened one year, you know, so we need our farmers. Yeah, absolutely. We did the same thing that you are doing for a long time, for 20 years. We had a tenth of an acre lot.
05:13with a house and a four car garage on it. And we learned to grow our produce up instead of out, and that gave us more room. Yeah. And we had backyard chickens. We had four chickens for a while. Now we have 18, because we live on a 3.1 acre property now. And the reason we started doing it is we had four kids on one income, and growing our own food helped with our grocery bill. And that's where that started.
05:43I was listening to an interview you gave on some TV show, I can't remember, and you were saying that when you had your babies, that's when this really kicked for you. Yeah. I mean, let's see, it started with the canning and then we bought a house a few years later and the house had some garden. So I was just, you know, trying to keep stuff alive. I had not really, I don't think I'd ever garden up to that point actually.
06:10I grew up with my grandparents and my grandma always grew a lot of flowers and made everything look really beautiful, but I never helped her and I also didn't understand it. I remember being a kid wondering why she would spend all this time, money, and effort to make the yard look so beautiful just to have it die again. So I've come a long way because I totally get it now. But then once I became pregnant, I was like hyper aware of, you know.
06:36What are these extra chemicals and all this cleaning products and all these lotions and stuff that we are using? And so at that point, I really started cooking from scratch. And then when my daughter was born and like around close to two, she started coming out and helping me water, picking the tomatoes. And she just every year got more and more into helping me. And so we would expand the gardens. And now we have...
07:04We've expanded out into the front yard too. And it was really inspired by her for sure. Because I obviously want to just give her the best. But ultimately, it's good for the whole family. And then we all participate in it and just love it. But people change. Because I definitely did not have that mindset 21 years ago.
07:32Yeah, it's astounding to me how your perspective and paradigm changes when you find out you're going to be a mother. I was 19 when I got pregnant with my eldest, who is a girl. And that's a young, young, young mom. And I had been working and I finished high school and I was always on the go.
08:00Like, I would not go to bed till after midnight and be up at 5 o'clock in the morning at 17, 18 years old. I was a really good student. I had a job. I babysat. I just had a lot of things. And the minute I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter was the minute I went, okay, it's now time to take care of you so that you can grow this human. And
08:27I started eating better, I started sleeping more because I couldn't sustain the pace that I was at at 19. And I don't know, my whole, I've had, I've had, I've birthed three babies. I have a stepson. So I've raised four kids. And my goal in life until my youngest hit 18 and he's 22 now, was to live long enough so that they would be self-sufficient and on their own.
08:57That was my whole goal, stay alive and protect them. You know, make sure that they stayed alive too. And I've been accused of being paranoid and hypervigilant and all those words that have nasty connotations when it comes to parenting. But I kind of just ignored it and went, okay, I love my kids. I want them to eat good food. I don't want them to get hurt. I don't want them to get broken. I don't want them to die.
09:27And that was my whole focus for so long. And now that my kids are grown and healthy and still alive and good people, some of that pressure is gone. And it is the best feeling in the world to work yourself out of that job.
09:48I'm a few years away from that. Yeah, I was going to say. My daughter's 14 now. Sorry, we had a connection issue for a second there. That's okay. Yeah, she's going to be 14 and I totally agree. It is weird transitioning right now because she's going to be going into high school. Up until this point, she's been so helpful with everything. For the past several years, she's schooled from home even.
10:14You know, she helps with the chickens and she helps make syrup and we can together and all this and it's all going to change. So I've been going through this little like midlife crisis over the last couple months. Like, oh my gosh, I kind of feel the same feelings I felt when she went into kindergarten in person, you know, so many years ago. But you know, that's the whole goal, like raise good people that make good choices hopefully. But yeah, it's like onto this next step. I'm like.
10:42how did it go by so quickly and how is this going to change our life here? Because I like to do so many of these things because we're doing it together. So yeah, it'll be interesting. It always is. Honestly, it doesn't matter what life stage your children are at. My daughter got married, I think, six years ago now, I think. And they just had like a...
11:11Justice of the Peace wedding because she lived far away from everybody and she didn't want people to have to travel. It wasn't a big deal for her. The day she got married, I was like, oh my God. Wow. My daughter's married. And then my stepson just got married this past September. And I'm like, two of my kids are married. How did this happen? Right? So yeah, it's crazy.
11:39I think that you have given your daughter a really good foundation in how to live.
11:48with the homesteading and the gardening and the chickens and the taking care of things. Right. I mean, she knows so much more. I mean, and she has since she was like five, she was making bone broth. You know, she'd cut up all the things. I'm like, okay, what do we need next? And why do we add this? And, you know, I didn't do that stuff until I was out of high school. And so yeah. And when you invite the kids...
12:14to help you preserve the food or to help in the garden or help with the chickens. I mean, they're soaking it in. These are life skills. And so I always try and encourage that. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so I want to ask you questions about the process for the book, the Home Age from Scratch. Is that what it's called? Or Homesteading from Scratch? Oh, the small scale homesteading. Yeah.
12:40Small, yeah, the small scale, whatever the name of your book is, that one. Ah, yeah.
12:47the process. Yeah, I don't want to get too in-depth because most people aren't book nerds, but I am. I love books and I still have hopes of writing one someday, maybe. So how did that work? Your publisher is Skyhorse. Is that a local publisher or not? No, they're in New York City, New York, New York. Smaller publisher though. Yeah.
13:13Yep, but they have lots of big titles. They're fast growing, independent publisher. And the way that I got hooked up with them is that I, are we connected? Yep. Okay. I thought you said hello. All right. The way that we got connected is when I had my first book idea of Can It Inferment It, that's my first one, I had reached out to different publishers that I thought would be a good fit.
13:43I got shot down a couple times, but then one editor really liked the idea and pitched it and offered me a book deal. And so I've written all four books through Skyhorse because I've just been really happy with them. And so I guess if you're looking to write a book or anybody that's looking to write a book with cookbooks, I don't have to have it all written. I just need to have like an outline. And then...
14:09You know, just reach out to publishing companies that seem to match what kind of book you'd like to write. And that's really where you got to start. I mean, some people have literary agents. I didn't go that route. You could also do that where they try and get you the deals and negotiate the contracts. Yeah. So how long did it take you to write the book? Let's see. From when the idea was born. So I pitched it before I brought Michelle on because I had this idea.
14:39and they approved it and they were ready to write a contract, but I didn't want to write the gardening section. I love to garden, but I wing it so much and it just works or it doesn't work. Michelle loves to teach about it and I just thought she would be a great partner. I just kind of randomly threw it out there one day while we were on the phone and she was like, yeah, I think I want to do this with you.
15:09the idea approved. So I went back to my publisher and said, I'm thinking about bringing on a friend. So then yeah, then we started negotiating and it took us two years from when we signed to when we turned in our manuscript, I guess, for about two years. So. That's a long time. This is one of the things that puts me off actually floating or querying a publisher about a book idea because it's such a long process.
15:39Yeah, well, I mean, I wrote one of my cookbooks in nine months. It's just, it's a lot of work. What I would say is, you know, start writing now. Like if you're, if you're writing a, say you're writing a cookbook, you know, as you are making your recipes, just put it in a document or if you're, if you're trying to write about a method or a how-to or whatever, just start. And as you're actually doing it, they add up.
16:07And then you can revise, revise, revise. And before you know it, you have a good basis to jump from instead of starting from scratch after you get that deal. Yeah. Um, honestly, one of the reasons I started the podcast is because I have done freelance writing in the past. And it's such, again, it's such a long process from, I have an idea. I need to find the right publication to float it to. I need to wait for them to say yes. If they say yes.
16:36And then I have to write it and then I have to send it to them. And then they have to decide which, which, um, uh, month they're going to put the piece in for their magazine. And then I finally get paid and I was just like, I need something more immediate. I'm going to start a podcast because then it's all on me. Sure. And it is, it's totally on me. And it's so much more fun. I, I keep saying this, but I absolutely love talking to you guys because.
17:05you know so much more about everything than I do and Every time I talk to somebody I learn something new which means that the listeners are learning something new as well. It's just it's fabulous So, um, okay. Oh what else can I do here? Um Yeah, I'm stuck I hate this part I get in the middle I'm like what else do I ask Because I don't want to script it because then it gets really strange
17:35Uh...
17:38So I was reading on your blog, I think, description that you've been able to put away almost enough or just enough from what you grow for the winters. Is that still holding true? No. It totally, so last, let's see, last year we had so much book promotion to do. My husband's been sick for like a year and a half, kind of like six years really.
18:06nonstop. And so, you know, life, life happens. So I think last year, we do some things like we make sure to get our pickles done. We love our pickles. I'll do enough jalapenos, but I don't do everything. And I'm into water bath canning the most. So it's like jams and chellies or chutneys and relishes and stuff like that. So I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to.
18:35can every single thing I need all winter. But we sure do enjoy having some strawberry brew-ripe jam in January and remembering that flavor of summer. They make really great gifts for the holidays too. People really look forward to that. We tap our maple trees and make maple syrup. So we give that away too and make homemade candles and stuff like that, which is all in the book. So, I don't know. It's kind of fun.
19:05And I did not do it this winter again just because of life. But the past like four or five years before this, I do all my canning all summer and fall. And then in November, I kind of take a look at my pantry and I'm like, okay, I can take 16 jars of the candied jalapenos and 10 jars of the pickled jalapenos. And, you know, I just pull from my pantry and then I make the labels and I do sell them.
19:35And so then I have been able to make more than enough money to cover all my supplies for that season and any produce that I bought from the farmers markets, I didn't grow. So that was kind of my goal for many years. And I thought that was kind of fun because then I'm not spending any money to get a whole full pantry. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Yes, I do. We didn't can until a couple of years ago because my mom can. We were growing up.
20:05And she canned in July and August and September in Maine in a house that didn't have air conditioning. And I assume you don't know a lot about the state of Maine, but the state of Maine gets pretty hot and muggy in July, August, and September. So it would seem like the walls were sweating when she canned. I just don't have really good memories of canning. So I didn't want to do it.
20:29My husband was like, can we can now that we live in a place with air conditioning? I was like, we can try it. So we canned pickles, we canned tomato sauce, we canned diced tomatoes. I don't even know what all we did. And it wasn't the miserable experience that I remembered as a kid. And actually today I'm going to be pulling some of the not spicy.
20:57salsa that we canned two summers ago out of the pantry and trying to make a not spicy chili. And by spicy I mean no capsaicin, no hot peppers because I have an allergy to them. So that'll be interesting to see if it still tastes good without the chili powder. But yeah, when we when we put our canned goods away in our cabinets that are original to our house,
21:24We have one thing original to our house. It's the cabinets. The whole house was remodeled before we bought it, except for those cabinets. They still have the hooks for coffee mugs and teacups in them. When we put all the canned goods away from two summers ago, we had three shelves full of canned goods for the first time ever from our garden. And I took pictures. I was so excited.
21:50I totally get it. It's really satisfying to stand back and look at it all like, wow. And I always tell people because they're like, oh, canning is such an undertaking, but it doesn't have to be. My cookbooks are all small batch and small batches add up. And it's a great way, even if you're not canning, I ferment a lot and you can really do small batch ferments. And so just having those skills in your back pocket just helps you.
22:19you know, waste less of your food really, if you're growing it. And that's a huge issue and like friends like to grow stuff but then they don't know what to do with it. And so sometimes they waste it which I'm like, ah. So you know, don't waste it. You can give it away. You can give it to food shelves or you can learn how to preserve it. Don't throw it away. Yeah. Since you were talking about pickles, I have a question. How do you get?
22:48your pickles to not be soft because we can pickles and the first jar we opened they were still crunchy but then the eighth jar we opened a year later they were soft. So is it alum that you put in them to make them stay crispy? I don't use that. So I learned to can... Sorry.
23:14I learned to can close to 20 years ago and the person that taught me did use alum and she always had crunchy pickles, but I don't use it. The key, I think, and I don't know because I take her method and I still do it. I just don't do the alum part. So I think the key is harvesting and canning within 48 hours. The quickest you can get them preserved, the better chance you have of keeping them crunchy.
23:42And then I ice bath them as well. And I think those two things are key. And then size, that's the third thing. I don't like them too big, like three inches, three and a half, that's like ideal. So I can fit two layers in a quart jar, in a wide mouth quart jar. I can stand them, you know, two layers of pickles. That's like the size I like. And it fits like 28 to 30 pickles in it. And I...
24:11I've only had a couple soft jars in all this time. When you say ice bath, what do you mean? I submerge all the pickling cucumbers in cold water and ice for at least an hour. And then? Then I rinse them off.
24:41So I pick them up from the market, I rinse them off really well until the water is running pretty clear. Then I've ice bath them at that point and then scrub them and trim them and can them. And I've also done it that I rinse them off outside until the water runs clear, bring them in, scrub them and then ice bath them. Okay. And then...
25:05You put them in the jars and then whatever brine you've made, you put over the top and then can them? Is that what you're saying? Yup. Okay. All right. I just, I wanted to make sure because my husband's going to want to know and I have to make sure that I pay attention and tell him because he doesn't love pickles, but he was very unimpressed with the fact that I didn't appreciate the pickles we can. So he was like, you need to find out how to make them so that they stay the way you like them. I said, the first person I talked to, who knows?
25:35memorize it, I promise. Size, freshness, and I think that ice bath really matters. Yeah, I've never done it without it and it always works. And people always say pickles are their challenge. So I think that's, you know, these are the things I do and those are the things that work. So it must make the difference. Yeah. And when I made refrigerator pickles, they stayed crunchy no problem because there was no heat involved. And those are lovely. But the flavor varies.
26:02I feel like, I mean, they're good, they're fine, but I like the flavor better. And then I let them pickle. So we make them in like July or August and I don't open any until after Thanksgiving. That's like our earliest. So I let them pickle for a really long time. And then if you put them in the refrigerator before you open them, that helps too with the crunch. Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. I'm going to...
26:27I'm going to do a little bit of an aside because this is all reminding me of my dad. My dad makes mustard pickles. And we were visiting back in, I think, 2014 and he sent home a jar of his mustard pickles with us. And I don't remember him making these when we were a kid, so I think it must be a new thing. And I opened a jar and I couldn't breathe because of the mustard scent. I was like, whoa.
26:55That is some mustardy pickles happening there. And I carefully took a bite and I was like, yeah, I can't do mustard pickles. That's way, way too much mustard. And of course he asked me when I talked to him on the phone if I'd tried them and I was like, yes. And he said he didn't like them, did you? And I said, dad, I'm not a big fan of mustard and you already know this. And he's like, you're not? And I said, no.
27:25He said, did Cameron like them? My son, my youngest, he was like, I was like, yeah. He said, okay, well, Cameron can eat the whole jar. I was like, okay, cool. So yeah, if you don't like mustard, you probably won't like mustard pickles. Most likely not. But I had to try them. My dad was so excited about sending home a jar with us, I couldn't not try them. Oh, of course, of course. So your parents are still canning. Oh yeah. Oh, that's great.
27:53Oh yeah, my mom is 77, my dad is 80. My mom does most of the canning, but dad helps like he lifts the rack with the jars in and out of the canner and stuff. Yeah. Oh, I love that. But I guess he had a big hand in the mustard pickles because he was very excited about it. They're fun. They're fun people and a lot of my homesteading stuff that I do, I learn from them. Yeah, exactly. See? It's amazing.
28:23I miss them. It's really hard sometimes. But that's okay. I try not to talk about them too much because that's what happens. But either way, my dad had a big garden. My mom canned and they still have a garden and they still can. And my biggest thing that I've emulated from them is my dad has pretty much always had a dog. I think there was a...
28:51eight to ten year span where they didn't have a dog. And I really wanted a dog, but before we moved to our 3.1 acre property, we didn't have room for a dog. We didn't really have a yard for the dog to go in. And so when we moved here, we got a puppy. And I'm not going to talk too much about her because I have talked ad nauseam about Maggie on this podcast because I love her so much. But my parents got a border collie when they moved to their 14 acre place.
29:2112 years ago. And she was a puppy at the time, you know, little oracully. And when we moved here, I found out that friends had puppies due about a, I don't know, a week before we were supposed to move in here. And so when I saw the pictures, I messaged her and I was like, how much you selling those many Australian Shepherd puppies for? And she said,
29:49$500 and I said, okay sold I want one and she didn't think I was serious. She thought I was joking. So it ended up that there were two left out of a seven puppy litter and she had posted on Facebook and said, I've got these two left, let me know if you want one. And it was just an in general post. And I messaged her right away. I said, I'm not joking. I want one. And she's, oh, I thought this was just, oh, it'd be nice to have one. I said, no, I want one.
30:19And she said, okay, which one? And she sent me a picture of the two puppies side by side and they looked exactly alike. I said, I don't know, they look the same. She said, pick one. I said, the one on the right in the picture. My, you know, looking at it, the one on the right. She's like, okay, do you have a name picked out? I said, female, right? And she said, yeah, I said, Maggie. She said, okay, we will start calling her Maggie from now on. The dog knew her name before we even got her. Oh, wow. So.
30:47My reason in saying this is that our parents or our family of origin influences us in ways we don't even realize they do. And some of us are lucky enough to be influenced in a positive way. Absolutely. Yep. You're doing it for your daughter. My parents did it for me. I'm doing it for my kids. It's so important.
31:15It is. And I recovered from my teariness. Yay, we're good. Sorry about that. Not going to sob the rest of my day. No, that's fine. You didn't do it. I did it. So speaking of Minnesota from scratch and homesteading and all this stuff that we're talking about, later this afternoon, I am making white chocolate brownies for my kid. He is not doing caffeine right now for some reasons. And he came the other day and he said...
31:43He said, could we get some white chocolate? Can you make white chocolate brownies? And I said, I don't know. Let me Google it because Google knows everything. And I found a white chocolate brownie recipe. So I think I'm gonna enlist him to help and we're gonna make white chocolate brownies. I have no idea how this is gonna turn out because I've only made chocolate brownies. I haven't made white chocolate brownies. I assume they'll be like blondies.
32:13Yeah. Maybe. But I am doing something from scratch this afternoon involving cookies or brownies, so it'll be interesting to see how they turn out. Well, good luck. I actually don't like baking. Yeah. Oh! But fortunately, my husband and my daughter do, so that works out.
32:35Yeah, and it's like, I don't love canning. My husband does. He doesn't love making cookies and brownies and cakes, but I do. I think there's a really nice give and take in most couples where opposites do attract. And as long as your core values are the same, it's all good. But anyway, I don't know. I feel like I'm very distracted this morning. It must be the plan.
33:05plans to make white chocolate brownies later. I don't know. Could be anything. But anyway, Stephanie, it's been 33 minutes and seven seconds. So I'm going to wrap this up because I try to keep it to half an hour. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. Yeah. Thanks for inviting me on. Yeah. Have a great day. You too. Thanks. Bye.
 

The Green Shack

Today I'm talking with Brittany at The Green Shack. You can also follow them on Facebook. 
00:00This is Mary Lewis at a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Brittany at the Green Shack. Good morning, Brittany. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm great. Um, tell me about yourself and the Green Shack. So I am, um, a horticulturist and we started the Green Shack to do, um, landscaping and things.
00:29Um, and then I found out that I had rheumatoid arthritis and decided that landscaping was probably not a good idea. Yep. We pivoted and are doing more of a hobby arts farm. Um, but we do lots of crafts and birthday parties and, uh, we've got some animals. We've got goats and chickens and ducks and the rabbit.
00:58and bees and I host Girl Scouts and 4-H and more of a community event kind of thing than landscaping, yes. So you're doing everything. Yeah, a little bit of all of it. Very nice. So I have a question about you being a horticulturalist. Yeah. My former neighbor was too credit shy of being a horticulturalist, like she went to school for it.
01:27She's my age, she's 54, I think she might be 55 now. And she was saying that she got a lot of pushback from the males in the industry telling her that women didn't do well as horticulturalists. And granted my neighbor was a little tiny lady, she's like 5'5 and maybe 100 pounds spoken with. Did you get any pushback? Because I'm assuming you're not 55.
01:58So it was a different time. Not 55. I went to school when I was about 30. I did not have any pushback because my teacher was a woman. Nice. And she had been in the industry for 25, 30 years.
02:17but I didn't feel any kickback from her, I guess. There are...
02:26There's always men out there that feel that women can't do the things men can or surprised when a woman can do the things men can do. Um, so there have been a couple of boomers that have stated like, wow, you can drive a Bobcat and, oh, you hooked that trailer on yourself. Or like careful that's heavy and it's a 50 pound bag of feed and I throw it over my shoulder and walk away. Um, yeah. Yeah.
02:55So there's just, there's comments like that, that I think as a woman, we're always going to get. As far as like the science wise, I haven't had any, I haven't had any pushback or weird comments about that. I think, I'm not sure when your friend went to school. I'm assuming it was like right after high school and to college. And I mean, 30, 40 years between that and now.
03:25there's been a lot more acceptance of women in the science fields. Yeah, I think it was probably a generational thing. Absolutely.
03:37And I hate to put boomers down, but that's kind of their mentality is more of women are supposed to be in the home and doing cooking and cleaning and stuff. Right. That's just how they grew up and I get it, but we're not there anymore. So no, thank goodness. We're not there anymore. In defense of boomers, my, my parents are boomers and my, my dad, because obviously he's male, um, was very, very pro.
04:06Go do the thing you want to do with me. Yeah. So, so it's not all of them, but just like the generation before my parents generation, the men tended to be very quiet. They didn't, they weren't very social and they weren't real good about expressing feelings. So we've come a long way, baby. We have. Yes. Okay. So I was reading your story on your website and
04:34I love how this came about. Can you share about the beginning to now? I guess which part of the beginning do you want me to talk about? Whatever the beginning was on the website. I could look, but I don't remember. Let me look and I'll double check here. Just so I don't move forward or I don't hear them. Yeah, that's fine. While you're looking it up, the way I found you is my mother-in-law actually texted me and she had been doing some...
05:03some researching for classes and found you guys' website. Well, that's awesome. She said, can you, do you want to see if they want to talk with you? I was like, yes, yes, I do. Thank you. Yeah, I was surprised that you had reached out. It's really, we still haven't gotten a lot of.
05:22I guess I can't think of the words right now, but for us publicity, publicity marketing. Um, I've gotten some like outstanding things, like things, weird things that are like, I never would have thought that it would be something that we would be a part of. Um, and then other weird things like, or just like local small publication kind of stuff. So, yeah. Let's see here.
05:53I'm looking to while you're looking, so we're both typing. Just as far as like opening a business, we've always, my husband and I have always kind of wanted to do our own thing. Um, he's a military vet served in Iraq for a little while. And I just, I, we got married pretty much right out of high school and he joined the military and I went to.
06:22Cosmetology school and I wasn't, I wasn't super happy with doing people's hair all the time. It was more of a, this is where I'm going to start and I'll figure things out later.
06:41He, he has struggled with some PTSD in the past and was getting better. And I was like, well, I don't have to focus a lot of my time, like making sure he's okay. Um, so then I went to horticulture school and got my horticulture degree. And while we, while I was in, while I was in school, sorry, the birds are being loud. Um, we, we were looking around at areas that we could.
07:11maybe open a business in this beautiful 7.25 acre piece of land with some large buildings came up for sale. And we.
07:28We decided to go for it. It's, it wasn't the prettiest inside of the buildings when we bought it. Um, it was kind of a hoarders, mechanical hoarders paradise. It was, yeah, it was very clustered, claustrophobic-y kind of, there's just stuff everywhere. Um, it took about a year to clean it. At least we could get into one part of the building.
07:57And then I was going to start doing classes for like, like, you succulents and learning how to propagate and kind of, depending on how they wanted to do it more of like pollinator gardens and edible perennial kind of things and how to incorporate them into your gardens. And those kinds of things.
08:28And then COVID hit, so then it was another year, at least of cleaning and organizing and prepping and a lot of taking care of animals and figuring out what we were going to do with all that. And that it was 2021 and I was finally able to start kind of. Opening up and letting people in and we started doing.
08:54We did.
08:58In 2022, we decided to start doing some more community events. So we did. And community Easter egg hunt. So the Easter egg hunt was free and we had. I don't know, like 200 kids in here hunting for eggs and we went through 1000 eggs in like 10 minutes and. We had to we had the reassess our plan for that and.
09:26And then we did a Halloween event that year and started doing more classes and more. Marketing and I've just kind of expanded from there. I do a lot of classes through community and I've hosted multiple birthday parties and.
09:49business events. It's just kind of a fun place to hang out. There's lots of little kid events, little kid things to do, but everybody loves to snuggle bunnies and baby goats. Yes. Animals here are button quail, so everybody's fascinated with them. I thought it was kittens in the background at first when I first heard it. I was like, does she have a kitten? And then I was like, no, I think it's a bird. It sounds like a really fun business. Like
10:17Like you must wake up in the morning and be like, what do I get to do today? Yep. Pretty much. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not the greatest at being able to market myself. Um, I'm not good at with words, but I'm getting there and we're getting more and more like every, I feel like every day people are like, Oh, I haven't heard of the green shack or I've heard of you, but I don't know what's going on out there. And then I try to explain it and I feel like I just stumble over my words.
10:46And I really am just pushing people to come out here and see what it is and what we do and they get kind of a better feel of the space and what we can offer. Yeah. So is Oetana right near you? It's about 30 minutes west of us. Okay. So what's the biggest town near you? Is that it or city? It's 30 minutes the other way to the east. So you're right in between. Okay.
11:15All right, well, I am I have a marketing background and I'm pretty good at publicity. So maybe I can think of some things to help you with your with telling people about what you do in an elevator speech. I would be happy to do that. Well, we have to make elevator speeches, but we just do so much that it's hard to come up with. And that short way of explaining, you could call it the fun zone, but that's already taken.
11:43I had a question from what you were saying five minutes ago. I'm trying to catch it get it back. Um, um, um, um Mmm now I can't remember That is I have got I've got to get a notebook and put it beside me when I'm talking with people because I think Things and I get listening and I forget what I was gonna ask you. Uh so
12:09Yeah, stuck. Can't remember what it was. Um, um um um, I shouldn't say um, I'm gonna have to edit it out.
12:16Oh, I know what it was. In this day and age of people being able to go out to YouTube and learn how to do something just by watching someone else do it. It's amazing to me that people still sign up for actual in-person classes and I'm glad that they do because I think there's a real community that gets built when people go to a class instead of just sitting in their living room watching a video of how something is done. Absolutely.
12:44So do you have a lot of people take your classes? Not a lot yet. Like I said, I'm not great at marketing. Community Ed has been helping a lot, just getting the name out there, offering specific classes for people and times and dates and stuff that seems to help. I have found that a lot of people that come in are like, oh yeah, I've seen this on YouTube and I've always wanted to do it, but I've never made the time.
13:13Or I've never like, cause you have to make the time to go shopping for all the supplies, right? And then you have to get them all out and then you have to make the thing. And then you have to clean up afterwards where I have a two hour, let's say a schedule where you come, I have everything set out for you. You start making your thing, have a lot of fun. You can bring your own beverages and food and whatever, and have a good time. And then.
13:39You don't even have to clean up. You can just bring your fun project home and I'll clean up afterwards. So. So it's like going to a birthday party and walking away with the hostess gift. Yeah. Fun. That's awesome. So you said you have goats. Everyone knows who listens to my podcast. They know that I love goats. I love baby goats. We do not have any because I'm not keeping goats. Do you do anything with the milk from the goats? We do.
14:08As far as right now, we do a lot of goat milk soap. Um, and I even do like a class, so it's $50 and you come in and you get. The one it's like ends up being like 10, 10 or 11 squares of soap that you get at the end of it, but you get to put in your own sense and your own colors. And, um, it only ends up being about a half an hour of work and then you come pick it up the next day after I cut it.
14:37Oh, that's really fun. Yeah, that's brilliant. I love that. We, we make, we make cold process, processed lye soap here. And I say we, but actually my husband makes it cause I do not like playing with lime water. It makes me nervous. We use the lye in, with the goat milk instead of water. And then we actually use it with goat milk, ice cubes, frozen goat milk. And it.
15:06keeps the temperature down and the fumes down and it's not quite as a toxic substance as it would be if you just put it in regular water. Not quite as scary. Yeah. We have friends who have goats and her goats are due anytime now. I'm hoping to get some goat's milk from her and I'm going to tell my husband about what she said and be like, you want to try making goat's milk instead of water? Because I hear it's safer.
15:35Yeah, so I put it in the freezer in ice cube form and it makes it a little easier to measure it out properly. I mean, you could do it by weight and then put it in the freezer. Yeah, but then you don't have to wait for it quite as long melt with the lie. And then.
15:55Oh, and then it doesn't burn the milk. So because the lye, you know, the reaction of the lye and the water, the chemical reaction between the two actually heats up. Really hot, yeah. Really, really hot. Yep. So, and it can burn that milk pretty quickly. So we use ice milk instead of milk. Okay. Do you dry your soaps in your house or do you have a place on your property where you dry them?
16:23Um, I have, I have created a couple of small cupboards that I drew it in. Um, I've got one, I just let it, I do let it do the original setting for just on our shelves, we've got some shelving in here, but just let it sit on the shelf and the opening or to draw and then we cut it and then it will either stick it in tote that's got some.
16:53racks that I've made to put in it and then a dehumidifier, one of those containers that dehumidify. I told that does that and then I've got a little cabinet that I can put it in. So that's great. When we dry ours, we have we have racks in our bedroom actually that we set our soaps on. And our whole house smells so good every time we make a new batch that's sent in.
17:22And it lasts for about a week. Like it's really permeating the house. Yeah. My favorite is lemon. And I also, we also do an orange clove cinnamon. And the whole house smells like autumn for that week that they're, that they're fresh, they're brand new. So I had been using just, um, bottles of essential oils that I had.
17:51accumulated over the years. Um, and I haven't really found. Well, they don't, the sense from them don't last very long. So people are like, what does it smell like? And I'm like, it smells like soap. It's the sense that I put in there just don't last. That's one of the things that I've had to, it's on my long list of things to do is to find sense that actually works. Well, the only ones that really, really, really last are the fragrance oils. And.
18:21They're not all natural, which is a bummer. The strongest scent that we've used is lemongrass for essential oil. And it lasts for a month, maybe, if you don't actually use the soap. But once the thing that people don't realize is that once you use the soap in the shower or the bathtub, within a day or two, that kick you in the face scent, it's real quick. And it's really sad.
18:51I don't know if you know about Blue Heron Soap Company and I think they're Blue Heron Home now, they changed their name. They're in Minnesota. And the lady that owns it now, she does an oatmeal almond that I fell in love with back years ago at the Renaissance Festival. That's where I got the first bar of soap. And the company was owned by a different lady at the time. And that is the only soap that has kept its scent.
19:19And it's a cold press process. Lysol, I can't say process for some reason this morning. And it, it's beautiful. I love it. And I have been trying to replicate this for, well, my husband and I have been trying to replicate this scent for the last two years, and I very politely asked the, the one that owns the company now. I said, is there any chance you would tell me what you use for scents? And she's like, I want to, but I can't.
19:46Cause like I understand, I just thought it was worth a shot because you don't want to give away your trade secrets. It's always worth a shot to ask and the worst they say is no. Right? Yeah. So we got close, but the scent doesn't stay past like three showers, which is a big bummer because hers do. Hers smells like that pretty much until the bar is gone. And I really want to know what it is. I'm never going to know. It's never going to happen. But
20:13Um, for anyone who's never made soap, it's really easy. It's just that you really have to learn how to do it and you have to be really careful using lye and even if you use goat milk, goat's milk for in place of the water, you still need to be careful with the lye. Yeah. I found well from going from here to doing all of this, I mean, we deal with chemicals doing here all the time and the bleach peroxide mix is about the same.
20:43I don't want to say toxicity because that's not the right word but if I... Is that what you mean, maybe? Maybe. So if I get the bleach peroxide mix on my fingers, it kind of turns white and like it kind of burns but it doesn't really burn and that's the same kind of reaction that will happen with the lye. Except for the lye also has lots of fumes and stuff that go with it if you're using just regular water. So you want to make that word?
21:12wearing gloves and a mask if you need it and safety glasses. So yeah and if you're going to do it in an enclosed space you need to have ventilation because it will make you pass out or it will kill you if you're not careful. Okay so you were talking about your quail. Are your quail suicide addicts? Because I keep reading about the fact that quail will find any way to unalive themselves.
21:39So these are button quail. So I'm not sure if you're talking about like, white quail, um, button quail are smaller. They're about the size of a newborn chick at their adult size. And they get to that about eight to 10 weeks, they start laying eggs. So from hatch to eight to 10 weeks. Um, and their eggs are about the size of a
22:04Bumblebee, so they're pretty small. Yeah. I haven't had any that just like up and unalive themselves. I've had a few that like, they're fine one day and then I'll come in the next day and they're just dead. And I don't know why they had food and water and clean bedding and they're just gone.
22:31But out of the like 200 I've had in the last year, I think it only happened maybe five or six times. So it's not like it's a super common occurrence. It's just because of the amount of birds that I've had go through here. Yeah. Okay. So if you have that many quail, are you selling the eggs? Because I can't imagine you using that many eggs for your... No. The eggs, because I said they're like the size of a bumblebee, right? They're pretty small.
23:00We do a lot of hard boiling and pickling them. They're just like a nice easy snack or you can throw a couple on a salad.
23:12They last a little longer that way. Okay. And, and do you sell quail meat or you just don't sell anything from the quail? So I don't, I don't sell anything from the quail. I, and this may sound, um, worthless, but I have a snake at home that only, I got it as a secondhand snake and she's 14 or 15 years old now and she will only eat live. Yeah.
23:42And I do all of my incubating and hatching and grow them up to the eight weeks. If I've got a lot more males than females, then a lot of the males will go home. Oh, that's fine. That makes sense. Any, I kind of a realist on things. So like I do the hatching, any eggs that don't hatch or any chicks that like don't survive, they just go out to the big birds, the chickens will eat them.
24:12I try not to waste things. We have enough waste in life, in the state. Especially food waste. All my food waste goes out to the chickens and ducks and goats and they eat pretty much everything they can. So you were saying that you do birthday parties and things. When you do birthday parties, do you let the kids hang out with the goats?
24:40Yep. So we do, um, well, I guess I shouldn't just say, yep, it depends on what the parents want to do. So I have children, they are now 14 and almost 11. And I had found that birthday parties, you'd go to a place or they'd want to do, let's say bounce housing, right? So you go to the bounce house place and it's like $200 and the minimum amount of kids.
25:10or the minimum amount is like $200 and you have 10 kids there and you have to order food through them and you have to do this and you have to do that. And then your bill at the end of the day ends up being like five, $600. Um, I didn't like that. I like things to be cheaper if the family needs it cheaper or easier and more expensive depending, you know, depending on what the family can do and what they need. So I offer multiple different things.
25:38So it's only $25 an hour and birthdays parties that we typically do two hours. So it's $50 rental fee for the space. And then we do like the petting zoo. If it's, depending on if it's summer or winter, we can go outside and they each get like a cup of feed and then they can kind of spread the feed out or like hand feed, whatever animals come up to them. Or we can do
26:08indoor stuff and we just set up this little pen area with, and bring in a goat or two. And then we've got bunnies that they can snuggle and it all kind of depends on the time of year and what the families want. Um, we have a mining sluice. So that's one of the water things that you put the sand and gems into like a strainer. Kind of like running for gold, right? So we've got a big one of those that they can choose to do if they want to. We've got.
26:38All the different crafts that we offer, a big one has been fairy gardens. The kiddos love fairy gardens. So they get a little dish with some soil and then they get to pick out their plants. And then they get to just go crazy on decorating it. And some of them go crazy on decorating it. And some of them just pick out a couple of decorations and throw them in there and call it good. Yeah. I love fairy gardens. I think there's one. It's been a big hit for all the kiddos. They really like it.
27:08But yeah, so it's a pick and choose and you can decide, you can bring your own food, have it catered or just bring in food that you made. It doesn't matter to me. I'm sure there are health laws somewhere that you're not supposed to do that. But if you're having it at your house, you can do whatever you want. And I'm sure like a birthday party. Not all of us to have the kind of money that can support a...
27:35$200 bill from Casey's for just pizza. So yes, it's all kind of I just I try to be more flexible that way about things Okay, I have two other questions one is about Photoshoots and one is about weddings. Have you guys ever hosted a wedding? I've not hosted weddings. I'm not super interested in it Having done hair before I know how
28:02crazy people get with weddings and how specific and I get it. It's a big day. I don't want to be a part of it. Okay. That's reasonable. I love that. You know what you want to do. Um, and then photo shoots, photo shoots. Do you let people come out and do photo shoots on your property? You want to say? Absolutely. What I haven't had. I had one friend, a friend that's, um, kind of like an aspiring photographer. She came out and a bunch of girlfriends came out and got dressed up and she did a photo shoot out here.
28:32Um, so that was a couple of years ago now and I haven't had anybody come out and do anything since. Okay. I'm absolutely open to it. We've got some great areas. I've got a little, um, prairie area that I throw a bunch of wild flower seeds into every spring and it turns into a really pretty flowery field. Yeah. Um, and then there's the goats and stuff that we can always bring out and do pictures. And we have.
29:00I've had some really bad wind storms the last couple of years and I've taken down a couple of trees. So we've got some fun trees that are just laying down that you can stand on or sit near or whatever is a fun. Yeah, I was just thinking your place would be a great place for high school graduation photos or like Easter pictures even because you have bunnies and you have a goat. Yeah, you have ducks too. Yep, we've got ducks and we got all that stuff. We do.
29:30We do a big Easter egg hunt, like I said. We do, last year we had, I want to say over 100 kids because they had over a thousand eggs and we only had like 21 at the end of the day.
29:50And I do like the big wooden cutouts where it's like got the big picture and then it's got the face cut out. I've painted a few of those for Easter so you can be the Easter bunny or Easter egg or just some flowers. Cute. Yeah. So I do, I try to, I try to create a space where families can come together and be a part of the community and like want to get out of the house and away from screens and.
30:20I love what you're doing. It sounds so much fun. If you had been around when my kids were young I definitely would have brought the kids out. My kids are not young anymore. They're grown. And then I have one more question because I was thinking about it and I'm going to ask. When you are getting ready for an event like a birthday party or the Easter egg hunt or any of it.
30:45Do you get anxiety about it? Do you get butterflies in your stomach? Are you like, oh, I hope it goes well? Um.
30:55I feel like that's a multi-part question, but only because like, I don't, and that might seem strange to people. But I have had, my husband and I have been together for 18 years and 17 years of that. He's had PTSD for being overseas. So I have had to learn.
31:19to not necessarily control my emotions, but to not be so anxious about everything because he is so anxious about everything. So one of us has to keep a level head. Yeah. So I've had to do a lot of like meditating and breathing and making sure I center myself before things get out of hand. And I just, I don't feel the panic anymore.
31:48I just, I know I need to get things done and I get them done and I make sure things are ready before people get here. If things aren't perfect, they're not perfect in my eyes, no one's going to know the difference. Yeah. That's just kind of how I, how I take things anymore. Okay. The reason I ask is I was, I was getting myself ready to chat with you this morning because about an hour before I do the interviews, I start thinking about what I want to ask and how it's going to go and that stuff.
32:17And it it will not stop an hour before I'm supposed to interview somebody. It doesn't matter who it is My my stomach gets kind of fluttery and I get kind of kind of anxious about it And I have to take a big deep breath and go I'm just having a conversation with someone And if it sucks, I don't put it out and if it's great It's gonna be great and I have to remind myself every time I've been doing this since August you would think I would be past this But I'm not
32:47Sometimes it takes longer. Like I said, I've been doing it for years. So like, I just
32:54I try to stay at a constant, it is what it is, and it's gonna be what it's gonna be, and there's not a whole lot of.
33:08You can only prep so much for things, right? So like there's only, the only so much you can do. And if you've gotten to that point before it starts, then there'll be it. And that's, it's just, it's just going to be, it's going to be, and there's really no reason to stress so much about it. Yes. And the minute I sit down and the people come in, whoever it is I'm talking to, who shows up in the room to be recorded. I'm like, Hey, how are you? And everything's fine. But.
33:34that hour before I'm like, I'm doing this again. This is great. But at least it's only the hour before and not like, you know, you message me, what was it just yesterday or the day before yesterday? Yeah. Like, at least it wasn't like, Oh, I found this person. I'm going to message them about it. And then you're like, that's when it starts and you start panicking from. No, that's how it was with the first couple though. Like I've, I've never done something like this before. And.
34:04When I had two people say yes, the first two people I asked, they said yes. And I was like, Oh, Oh, Oh, I'm going to actually do this. Okay. This is new and it's fine. I love it. I love talking to you guys about what you're doing because I always learn something and I feel like I'm promoting you and I'm promoting your ideas and I'm promoting things that are good for the planet. Like everything that I'm doing is, is good. And I want to do good. Yeah.
34:33And you're better at this part of it than I am. I'm terrible at, like I've always wanted to do a YouTube channel or just a podcast and talk to random people about all the crazy things. And like, I just, I can't get to that point, but. You're also super busy. My goodness. So many things going on all the time. It takes time to put on a, on a podcast to produce a podcast. It does. Yep. I, yep. I spent.
35:03And I'm glad that there are people like you that do it. It was the information needs to get out there, but I can't do it myself. Yeah. I spend like, at this point, probably 25 to 35 hours a week producing this little tiny, nobody really knows about it show. And I mentioned that to my husband the other day and he said, what are you going to do if it actually becomes popular? And I said, work 45 hours a week. Probably.
35:32But it'll be the same and putting it out and people are loving what you're doing already. So yeah, it's so much. And it doesn't feel like work, which helps. Yes. So, but anyway, I told you last night was about 30 minutes, give or take for this. And, uh, it's at 35 minutes and 45 seconds right now. So I'm going to let you go. Thank you, Brittany, for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it. It's been a good conversation. If you ever want to talk again, let me know.
36:02Absolutely and good luck with everything you're doing. Keep doing the good things. Thank you so much. All right have a great day. Yep you too. Bye.
 

Faithful Friends Farm

Today I'm talking with Connie at Faithful Friends Farm. You can also follow them on Facebook.
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Connie at Faithful Friends Farm. Good morning, Connie. Good morning, Mary. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It's a beautiful day. Yeah, it is here, too. You're in Maryland? Yes, we're in Maryland. OK. All right, well, tell me about yourself and Faithful Friends Farm.
00:28Okay, so back in 2010, my husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. We had just given birth to our second child, my daughter, when he started having all these fluke symptoms and, you know, he finally got a diagnosis of running to doctors, you know, for six to 12 months. They finally diagnosed him with MS. So, um,
00:56In 2012, we worked our way from having a little garden, and then I wanted chickens. I talked the rest of my family into getting chickens, and it just took off from there. We started selling to customers, and then in 2014, we started offering meat to people, so we started processing chickens. So that's pretty much where...
01:24It started from, it was from my husband's diagnosis. We wanted to eat healthier and that was just an easy way to do it. You know, the garden and the chickens. Yeah. And again, you are cementing my belief that people do things because they need to make something work for themselves and then it works for them and they want to share it with other people. Yes, exactly. I was, you know, my hands were laying so well. I had all these extra eggs, you know, and I'm like,
01:54You know what, let me look into getting certified to sell these. You know, so that's what we did. And, you know, I, you know, I just fell in love with my customers and vice versa. And I mean, I've had customers from the beginning that have stuck with me, even with the move, because in 2020 we purchased a larger farm because we had started off on an acre and a half and it just, we outgrew that very quickly. We ended up leasing.
02:22Uh, about five acres from the farmer who was next door to us, he, he let us lease his woods because he didn't have a use for his woods. And um, you know, it just, it's been step by step. It's been baby steps, but we've gotten to where we are through baby steps. Yeah. And those are the best steps to take because I'm telling you, a humongous leap is the scariest thing you will ever take.
02:50Yup, yup. And you know, when you have little lives depending on you, you really want to make sure you, you know, you take your time. I know people who jump in to dairy animals right away and I'm like, why don't you just give it a little time? Start off with something smaller because you won't believe how much of a commitment it is just to have lives, you know, even a chicken on your farm. You got to make sure you're home at a certain time, you know, before it gets dark.
03:19because the predators catch on pretty quickly, you know, you're losing your chickens one by one, you know, so yeah, baby steps are the way to go for sure, at least in my experience. Yeah, we have chickens and we also have coyotes that we hear in the field that around us, like it's a big acreage around us. And every night, as soon as the pole light by our pole barn goes on,
03:48That's when the chickens get put in because otherwise we won't have any chickens because coyotes would be like, Hey, it's dinner time. Let's eat them. Yup. Exactly. And so it's such a commitment just to have, you know, chickens, you know, I've missed weddings and everything else before we had our guardian dogs. I'm, you know, I, that would be my first recommendation for anyone, you know, starting off with homesteading if they have birds is to get themselves a livestock guardian dog. If.
04:17you're not sure you can be home at dusk, you know, cause this, yeah, they, like I said, they catch on quickly and then you won't have a flock, you know. Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't even have to be a big dog. We have a small dog and the coyotes have never come on our property because she has her scent all over the property. Yeah. And they don't want to get into scuffle. They want the easy meal. They don't want to have to fight for it, you know.
04:45Yeah, so it's not like you have to have a great Pyrenees. She's a mini Australian shepherd and she is very good at making sure nothing comes on the property. So, yep, yep. Okay. Did I see that you guys sell? I looked at your Facebook page earlier and I saw some animal that had been butchered and I can't remember what it was. Okay, so we mostly specialize in poultry. Yeah.
05:14We've started with processing pork and eventually we'll try beef. You know, maybe it was a pig. I can't remember. Okay. It might've been goat too. Um, you know, a lot of people are like, when you tell them you butcher goat, but goats actually very sustainable. You don't need a whole lot of property. They can survive. If you have good pasture solely on pasture, you know,
05:41They're great to have around. So we breed for milk, but if we have a male is born, we will calf straight and we'll grow them out for meat. And we do new beans. So it's a good dual purpose breed. Yeah, I still have not had goat meat. I need to find somebody who I can just buy a little bit from so I can try it. Yeah, just to try it. Yeah, the last thing I wanna do is buy a whole goat and butcher it and try it and not like it and have it.
06:09sit in my freezer for four years and get tossed. That would not be okay. Exactly. Exactly. Yup. So, yeah, we... Oh, go ahead. I just need to find somebody who has goats and be like, do you ever butcher any? If you do, could I get a steak or two so I can try it? Yeah. Give it a try. It's actually, you know, a lot milder of a meat than people think. They're thinking it's going to be more similar to lamb. But in my, I mean, I don't think in my opinion, it's very similar at all.
06:37I think it's a much milder meat and it's the number one most consumed red meat in the world. But Americans just haven't caught on to that yet. You know? Yeah. Yep. I know. I, I always think of it like deer meat, but I'm sure it's not nearly as dark or as gamey as deer. No, it's, it's, uh, as far as like fat content, I would say it's comparable, but you know,
07:05You know, people don't like the gamey taste of animals, but that's actually what, you know, we're so we've been so Americanized, you know, chicken should taste like chicken and goat should taste like goat and beef should taste like beef. But we've gotten so used to very mild meat, you know, can be off putting some, you know, but I guess we've we've we've had squirrel. I mean, we've tried everything.
07:34So we're really open to the idea of different meats. You know, we even raise a guinea fowl here and we process guinea fowl and that's one of my favorite meats. Huh, you know. Yeah, we do a large variety of poultry. That really is our specialty. And we purchased equipment back in 2014 when we decided to start producing chicken for our customers.
08:02We dumped head first, jumped head first into it and we started processing on farm. And then we went to quail, you know, we do Guinea, we do turkeys, we do Muscovy duck. But you know, poultry really is our specialty because everything's done in house. We don't have to ship it to a processing facility. So it works really well for us. Yeah. And it's better for the animal too.
08:30because they don't get stressed by the trip to the butcher. Yes. Yep, yep. I think that plays a large part in unhealthy meats, is if that animal was stressed before it was processed. I really do think that makes a difference. Yeah, absolutely. They have a fear thing that happens when they're moved. Yep.
08:55I don't know if it taints the taste of the meat, but it just puts them under stress and their hormones go crazy. Yup. And it just, it's not good for them. No it's not. So you know, this was, this whole thing to begin with was a healthier lifestyle for us. And with my husband's MS, we can really, the farms worked really well for him because he can't work outside of home. He just has too many bad days. You know, he'll...
09:23You just never know, it's so unpredictable. So this has been a really good lifestyle choice for us because we can work around his disease. You know? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do understand on a low level because migraine headaches run in my family on the female side.
09:46For me, it's a stress thing or a storm front thing or it used to be a PMS thing before I didn't have to worry about that anymore. I'm 24. I don't have to deal with that anymore. And I could not hold a job because I never knew if I was going to be able to function to get in the car to drive to work.
10:07Exactly. We're have days where, you know, we're running up to Lancaster PA to pick up our chickens. We don't have our chickens shipped to us anymore. You know, we get to day old peeps. My husband will be driving and all of a sudden he'll be like, I can't keep my eyes open. I'm feeling really fatigued. Like he feels like just the way of the world's on him. You know, he feels like an elephant's sitting on him and he's like, I gotta pull over, you know. So.
10:36Like I can't imagine if I wasn't with him, like what he would do. Yeah. You guys are a team and when he can, when he can give his all, I'm sure that he does. And when he needs you to step in, I'm sure you do. Yup. So it's been really good for us. We even share a phone, you know, cause we're together all the time. You know, we don't have a use for two cell phones, so we just share ours. You know, great. Yeah.
11:06Okay. So do you do garden as well as raise poultry and pigs and goats? Yeah. So we do have a small garden. It's not much to talk about. We, you know, we do, I don't even know like as far as acres, what it would be. But we do have a small garden. And if I produce extra, I will sell it to customers, but most of the time, you know, I'll can the extra, you know, or we're consume it. But.
11:35You know, that is something I'd like to get more into as well, you know, by finding myself not being able to find the time for everything I want to do. You know, but yes, yes. The bane of homesteaders everywhere. There are not enough hours in any given day. No, there's not. There's really not. I'm thankful now that the days are getting longer because I can accomplish so much more, you know, than winter time because, you know, most our work's done outside. So.
12:03These short days aren't any good for me. So I'm thankful the days are getting longer. Yes. And with more, with longer days comes warmer temperatures. Thank you, God. I'm so ready. I'm so ready for it to be nice out again. I mean, and I should not say that because this winter in Minnesota has been unseasonably warm. So this winter has been.
12:26a blessing in some ways because last winter it was terribly cold and we had tons of snow. This year it's been unseasonably warm and we've gotten maybe a foot of snow here. Yeah, yeah. It was an unusual season for us as well. It didn't get brutally cold. We had some cold snaps last winter though, pretty bad. My first calf was born on the farm and
12:53It was right around Christmas and the temperatures just dropped into the single digits and the wind, it was the wind that made it so unbearable. And I'm like, how am I going to keep this calf alive? I can't bring it in the house like my goats, it's too big. So I called my dairy friends, they're like, just lay her the hay, or the straw rather, real deep and she'll be fine. So that's what I did. But yeah, so we had like a cold snap last year. I can't say we had much.
13:21this winter either. It was an unusual year for us as well. You know? Yeah. This, this winter has been crazy. I'm really concerned about the weather patterns for the rest of the year. Because yeah, it's been really odd. We've gotten tons and tons of rain. We had a drought last year and now I think, you know, the weather is making up for that now because boy, like we've had so much rain in the last month, you know,
13:50Yeah, and we're just the opposite of you. I heard on the news yesterday morning that we are likely looking at drought in the next week and a half, starting again. And that doesn't do a lot of good for us because we grow a huge garden and sell at the farmer's market and our farm stand. So this weather is making me nervous for this choice we've made in having a homestead and growing a huge garden and having chickens.
14:19so much. I mean, we're at the mercy of nature, you know? So, yeah, last year we had that drought and my pasture's dried up and, you know, we heavily depend on our pastures because not just for the goats and the cows, but for our poultry as well because we grow them in movable chicken tractors. So we move them onto fresh pasture every day. And it was like just
14:45getting drier and drier and drier every day we would move them and I'm like, oh my gosh, like, there's not any grass left. It's just dirt we're moving them on. So it's refreshing for me that we're getting all this rain, but it's made everything really, really muddy. You know how that is with farming, you know? Yep, absolutely. And anyone who has chickens knows how much the feed has gone up in cost in the last year.
15:13It's crazy. It's ridiculous. You know, we charge five fifty a pound for chickens and the only reason we're able to do it at that cost at that price is because we process our own. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to raise it up six this season because it's just so expensive. But my brother also works for the Maryland Department of Agriculture and they just had a meeting and apparently China's not buying up our grains as much and I'm hearing the prices are going.
15:42come back down and I pray they do. Yeah, me too. Because I really don't want to have to raise the prices because people are looking at my prices and they gasped and it's like, we spent $40,000 in just feed last year, which is an insane number, if you ask me. I mean, but most of our, you know, a large majority of our money just, most of it goes back in the farm and most of that's feed, the cost of feed. Yeah.
16:11It's not, it's not cheap to raise animals and it never will be. Nope. Whenever I talk to people and they want to get into raising their own chickens for eggs, I'm like, just so you know, I'm just letting you know. I think it's, you should raise, I believe everyone should have a flock of chickens, but it's not going to save you money. It doesn't. Unfortunately, the eggs are like a thousand times better, but it doesn't save money.
16:41Yeah, not unless they are eating, not unless they are literally free ranging as often as they can, like you're doing with your chicken tractors. That will save you money and feed. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. Yeah. But it's not... Okay, I don't think people raise chickens to make money, really. I think people have chickens because they want the good eggs. That's what I think. Yeah, and they want the good meat, you know.
17:10Yeah, we do a slow growing either a red ranger breed. We get them from freedom ranger up in Lancaster and they take conventionally, conventionally they can grow a chicken out in six to eight weeks. It takes us about 10 to 12 weeks to get them butcher size. Yeah. You know, so that's, that's a little more expensive as well. Cause you're feeding them for the extra month, but.
17:35man, the difference in quality of that meat, it's got so much more flavor. You know, it's not like mush, you know, it's got a little bit of a consistency, like a nice, you know, it's like chicken should be, you know, it's got a good chew. Yes. I always go back to my childhood and I'm like, you know, chicken's not the way it was when I was a child. You know, it was so much different just in the 1980s than it is now. You know.
18:05But yeah, so we're trying to educate people on how meat should taste, you know, and the texture that chicken should be, you know, you shouldn't open up a pack of chicken and it shouldn't, you know, shouldn't be slimy. It shouldn't even have a smell, you know? No, no, no. If it stinks, don't eat it. Exactly. You, you know, I don't even notice a mild smell with our chicken.
18:31Maybe I'm accustomed to it, but I really don't notice the smell. You know, who knows how long that chicken's been on your grocery store shelves. You know, but, you know, I think the majority of our customers are well educated in, you know, the way food should be, not just like the flavor, but, you know, the nutritional values as well.
18:57Yeah. And the other thing about having animals, whether it's chickens or goats or cows or whatever, is that they have other things to offer too. The manure. Chicken manure is the best thing for a garden once it has cooled down. Never use fresh chicken manure on a garden because it will burn your plants. But it's great. We did it one year when we lived at the old house. I don't know what
19:27in townhouse to an acreage, a 3.1 acre place. And we put chicken manure that had cooled on our gardens at the old house. And we had the most beautiful produce that year. It was astounding. Yep, you know, that's the thing about regenerative agriculture. You know, you have a lot of hate about cows right now, but if people educate themselves, they'd realize that
19:57That's the only way we're going to put nutrients back in the soil is with animal manure. That's the only way to really do it. You know, but people are thinking of the feedlot cows and how that's, you know, that is bad for the environment. But if you're doing regenerative agriculture, that's like the best thing for this world. You know? Yeah. It's a circle. It's a circle of production. Yup.
20:26So I think it's important and we put our chicken manure and straw, that's what they have in there, that's what their bedding is, is straw. We put that in a compost pile and we let it sit and then we put it in our garden in the spring. And your plants grow twice as big. And the plants have more flavor too. It's not just the size of the plants or the nutritional value.
20:56Whatever you're growing is going to have a better flavor. Yeah. Um, we just got some goat manure from friends that had a huge pile of manure that had been sitting. So it wasn't hot either. And we put that on the garden back, um, Oh, in October, I think. So that it could sit for the year, for the winter. And so I figured between the chicken manure and the goat manure, we should have the most fabulous garden we've ever seen.
21:24Yeah, as long as the rain doesn't rain. That was my problem last year. My garden suffered because I wasn't out there watering it like I should. Now that's what you do. I guess that's a big part of your business. So you're probably a lot more diligent with that than I am. Oh, yes. And we have a well, thank goodness. Oh, yes. That's a game changer right there. Yeah. That way if it doesn't rain, at least we can make it rain.
21:54Yep, exactly. But the other thing that's really nice about having critters, which is what I call animals critters, is I'm sure that when your cows have babies, when they're a little bit bigger, like at a week old, you're probably out there talking to those babies and if mama will let you, you're petting them and they bring you joy, yes? Oh, yes. So much joy. Yeah. And the goats and...
22:22I don't know, baby chickens are baby chickens, but goats and cows, baby ones, oh my goodness. Yeah, so we're doing a big event at the end of March, which what we just started off as a goat petting session for people has turned into like a whole farmers market. So we'll have like a dozen vendors, you know, as of right now we have about a dozen and
22:49But it's revolving around goat cuddles. That's a big thing right now. Oh, I'm going to hop a plane. I'm going to cuddle Joe. You should. I should. I can't. I'd love to. Yeah. You got, you got homestead to run. Yeah. It makes it a little difficult. Yeah, I do. And, um, plane tickets are not that inexpensive right now. So I think I'll just, I'll just stay here and you can post pictures and I will grin at the pictures. I will.
23:16So that's a big thing I try to do is just bring joy to other people's lives. My Facebook page has brought me the most business out of every type of social media or advertisement you can have, but my main goal since the beginning is just to bring a little light into people's lives by posting pictures and telling stories. Because like you said, these animals
23:45these critters bring you joy. And I want to share that with everyone I meet, you know. Yeah, absolutely. We have friends that do a baby animal day every, I think it's April. And last year they had lambs, they had puppies, they had kittens, they had everything. And we went and visited because our dog is one of their dog's babies.
24:11She's my dog. My dog is three and a half now, so she's not a puppy anymore. But they had puppies and they had great Pyrenees puppies as well. They're so cute. And the the other puppies that are related to my dog are many Australian shepherd puppies. So there were these little tiny two and a half pound, four pound many Australian puppies. And then there were these 15 pound great Pyrenees puppy. I know they grow so fast. It's crazy.
24:41And oh my goodness, I got to hold both kinds and I got to smell them. And you know that any baby smells good. It doesn't matter where it's a human baby. Well, puppy breath. I'm like obsessed with puppy breath. Some people are like, ew, it's so gross. Like it just takes me right back to happy memories when I smell puppy breath. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It was funny because I was holding one of the baby mini
25:11My dog still smells just like that. And Maggie's not a dirty dog. You know, she's not out rolling in the chicken hay and she's not rolling in the dirt in the garden. So she's not yucky. And I smelled that puppy and I was like, Oh, Maggie hasn't lost her puppy smell. And she's three. This is great. Well, I'll be posting pictures in about two weeks. One of my great Pyrenees is having her first litter of pups.
25:38So I'll be sure to post pictures, you know, and I've already decided, we lost my great Pyrenees back on the second of March from Lyme's disease. And she was, of course, she was my favorite. We've had her since before we moved to the new farm in 2020. She's been with me through it all. And she, I think she got Lyme's when we moved, we moved the dogs and the goats.
26:04to the farm before we moved our birds to the farm. Cause we were commuting back and forth for a year between the two places, you know. And there was so many ticks here when we purchased a property. We were driving in T-posts, put fencing up on, every single post had at least two ticks on it. And I know that's when she, yeah, I know, like really bad. And I know that's when she caught limes. And I think she's, excuse me, been sick for some time. But she, so we lost her.
26:34from a battle of limes, you know, she had kidney failure. And I'm already saying to myself, I've already planned, I'm going to keep one of these pups, you know. Good. Yeah. There is nothing that heals the heartache of losing your favorite dog, like having a new baby dog. Yup. Exactly. And they're going to have the badger markings. My Bailey had badger markings. It's in the great Pyrenees. I had the masks, you know, and she was my only girl who had that. But the male.
27:04who bred with my other girl has the badger marking. So I'm like, some of them, at least some of them are going to have that. So I'm going to keep a little girl with badger marks. Good. I've already made up my mind. Awesome. That's great. I'm so glad because it's really hard losing a pet. It's so hard. I mean, I can't even imagine what's going to be my life when Maggie goes. I don't even want to talk about it.
27:32My parents had a Samoyed dog for years and they got him when he was like eight, ten weeks old years ago. I think I was 15. My dad brought him home and we didn't know they were getting one. All three of us kids were sitting on the braided rug in the living room. My dad walked in and I looked up and he had this white fluff ball in his arms and he came over and put it in my lap and he said, there's your new dog.
28:01His name is Pearl. And of course, all three of us kids lost our minds because we didn't know we were getting a puppy. That boy lived to be, I think, 14 or 15 years old. And he died of cancer of all things. And my dad was so sad because that was his dog. You know, I mean, he was our kid's puppy, but he was my dad's dog. My dad was so sad. He was just destroyed.
28:31So yeah, I'm really excited that you're going to keep a puppy. I think that's good. Yeah, me too. But I'll be posting pictures of those. Give her kisses from me when she's big enough. I will. I love babies. Babies are great. Every time I see a puppy or a kitten, I'm just like, oh, I need to pet it. I need to love it. And the baby goats. Oh my goodness. Oh, yes. Baby goats.
28:59Yep, I've talked a lot about my love for baby goats in the episodes that I've done. So I'm not gonna go too deep into that again. Baby goats are the sweetest, cutest, softest things ever. Yes, and they're the most lovable. You know, they just want your affection. Yeah. Yeah, they are aggressively needy on love. They are. And the mamas are looking at you like, what are you doing with my baby?
29:28Yeah. I got some bottle babies living in my living room right now. So that were rejected. You know, sometimes you have lambs and kids that are born and their moms reject them for some unknown reason most of the time. So yeah, we have two living in our living room right now in a plate pen. Nice. I bet that's real hard to get up to in the morning. Oh my, yeah. Terrible. So difficult.
29:56Oh no, I have to go feed the baby goats now. This is terrible. My five-year-old will sleep downstairs because he wants to stay with his babies because those are his babies. He gets very protective over them. We have customers and friends come by the farm and they want to see the baby goats and he's like, they're my baby goats. He makes sure they know that they can't take them home with them. Yeah, I could see that.
30:25I'm going to say this and we'll chat about this for a minute and then I'm going to let you go. Sure. Animals are the best thing for kids because kids learn about being responsible and having compassion for something out of themselves. You're right. I've seen that development in my five-year-old and where he has, excuse me, it's not just about him. You know, he's got these baby goats to care for as well.
30:55So you're absolutely right. It's a great learning tool for a child. Yeah, and even if they don't, even if the kid doesn't realize that they're learning that, it's so natural to them to want to take care of it. Yup. My son, who still lives with us, he's 22. Long story about why he still lives with us, but COVID, he graduated high school, COVID hit, and it's been real hard to find a job here, so.
31:23So he's the farmhand, he helps out a lot. But when we got Maggie the puppy, he didn't want a dog. He really didn't want us to get a dog. And I was like, I'm pulling a rank, we own the house, we're the parents, we're getting the puppy, this is what we've wanted to do forever. And he was like, okay, fine. And I said, you don't have to take care of her, it's fine. He's like, okay, fine. And he fell in love with her within a month. So, and she...
31:52adores him and he plays frisbee with her outside and she just loves it. So even when you think that you don't want something, sometimes they grow on you anyway. Yep, yep, you're right. All right, Connie, number one, thank you so much for talking with me. Number two, I know how busy everyone that is kind enough to talk with me is our whatever. And so
32:22To you and to everyone else who's talked with me so far, I really appreciate the fact that you guys share your time and your thoughts and your words and your joy with me. I'm glad you chose me. I'm happy to be a part of your podcast. So I thank you for that. Well, you're welcome and I love doing it. So I'm just so happy people wanna talk with me. It's so much fun. Oh, yeah, you know, like I said earlier,
32:50People come first for me. So, you know, if I can help educate, you know, education's a big part of what we do too. I do a lot of workshops and whatnot. And if I can educate and bring some joy and insight to people who might not have the privilege of farming, I'm happy to do it. Awesome. All right, Connie, you have a great day. You too, Mary. Good talking to you. You too. Bye. Bye bye.
 

Tanya Denckla Cobb - Author of The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food: A Crop-by-Crop Reference for 62 Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, and Herbs

Today I'm talking with Tanya about her accidental journey from fledgling homesteader to author of The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food: A Crop-by-Crop Reference for 62 Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, and Herbs.
Also, trap crops, patience, and integrity.
Full disclosure, if you buy a copy through the above link, I receive  a small commission.
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Tanya, the author of The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food. Good afternoon, Tanya. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Yeah, tell me about yourself because I've done some homework and you have accomplished many and great things in your life. I'm sorry, I have to laugh.
00:29I have had many lives in this life and so I've gone in many different directions. Yeah, so I've wandered all over the place and found a place that I love to be, you know, spiritually and mentally and all of the rest. And so, yeah, I mean, I started.
00:56After college, I started in international labor rights and then relevant for this podcast and listeners is then I retired at an early age to go and the idea was we were setting up a self-sustaining homestead out in West Virginia. I was supposed to be in charge of managing a large organic farm.
01:25I knew nothing at all about any of it. And in fact had killed my two peach trees in the backyard in DC and had, you know, had many, many disasters in the garden. And so I thought I really need to get my act together around this. And then, you know, that never really actually happened, but the story around this book is really quite.
01:56quite unusual in that I didn't set out to write a book at all. I mean, that was not my goal. My goal was just simply to do a good job in managing this organic farm that we envision. And so I just started doing a lot of research, and this is in the days before Google, actually before much internet at all.
02:22This is way back in the late 80s and when I started down this path. And so the book that's out today is really in some ways, you might even say it's like a classic because it's on its fourth life and it's been updated each time and some things changed and so this and retitled and so this is
02:52book that is really one of my first babies. I mean, it was born in the late 80s for this homestead that never quite materialized, but basically threw me into sustainable agriculture. And I just...
03:13You know, was surrounded by magazines and books and was so frustrated that I finally said, I've got to start organizing this material in a way that makes sense to me for what I can do. And I, you know, just felt like, oh my gosh, here's a great thing on pests, but there's nothing on how deep to put the seeds and here's something that's great on allies and companions, but there's nothing on how to harvest. And so it's like, I needed everything in the same place.
03:43And I didn't know at the time what I was doing. I, today we might call it a kind of a database. You know, I mean, this is really, it feels like, you know, dinosaur time looking back. And so I went out to this, as part of my research, I was going to different farms and I went to this one Yupik organic farm outside of D.C. near Harper's Ferry.
04:12And they had said, I had asked if I could come and pick their brains. And they said, yes, if you weed. And so I went with a girlfriend and we brought our gloves and we spent a beautiful morning, the entire morning weeding. And so finally midday, you know, we sort of like, you know, sort of slink up to them and like.
04:37could we possibly get a minute of your time? And they looked at us and said, do you know in all these years of asking people to do that, nobody ever has, you're the first. And they said, nobody's ever actually weeded. And so you get as much time as you'd like, which was a riot. That's awesome. I know, I know it really wasn't, it changed my life because in...
05:03talking with them and getting to know them, I ended up and they were asking, obviously, well, why do you care? What are you doing? And so I very scared, sort of tentatively shared what we might be aspiring to. And they said, oh my gosh, would you be willing to share what you have put together? And I said, well, yes, but it's...
05:32It's like a lot. And they said, well, yeah, can you print it out? So this is again, the days of dot matrix printer, you can imagine it was like a box, you know, folded up. And so I did, I took the box out and left it with them. And about a week later, I got a call and they said, oh my gosh, Tanya, we wish we had had this 10 years ago. You would have saved us years of.
06:01agony and I was like, what? And they said, would you, you need to publish. And I'm like, what?
06:12And they were quite serious. They said, this is really important and helpful for other people. And I just, my mind kind of exploded. And I talked with my husband at that time and friends, and we sat around and talked about what the heck.
06:38And then I started thinking, well, my grandparents, you know, ran a newspaper. My mom and dad had started a, started a small, um, uh, academic medieval and Renaissance press, uh, you know, at a university. And I thought, well, maybe it's in my blood. Uh, maybe I'm supposed to be a publisher. And so, um, I had just enough.
07:06I guess lack of humility in that regard to give it a shot and got this thing called Dan Pointer's Bible to self-publishing before self-publishing was cool. And basically went through the checklist and self-published in 91 and sold out the first run of 5,000 in six months and then did another run. And after a year and a half or so decided, you know, I'm going to do this.
07:35This is not in my plot. This is not what I meant to do. I love to write and I love to do other things, but this is not gonna be my career. And so I sold it to Story Publishing where who has had it ever since. And they have updated and renamed and we've worked on it.
07:58three different times this last once they republished in 94 and then again in 2004 and now 20 years later they said let's update it. It is still going. It is needed out there. Let's do it. And so here it is. I'm very excited by this book. I'm so glad that you did it because
08:23I finally had a chance after having this book in my house for three weeks, I finally had a chance to look at it this morning. That's how long it took me to get to the book I'm holding in my hands right now. And did it come out in hardcover or is it all paperbacks? It's all paperbacks. Okay. It's beautiful, number one. And I love that it has an index so you can cross reference. Yeah.
08:51And I love that you basically preface it with anybody can grow a garden, really. And then there's all these things like how long germination is for basil or whatever it is you're putting in and what to do with it and pest control and stuff. I'm like, oh my God, I love this book. This is great. Yeah. I mean, that is, that was the goal. It's, is really.
09:19Um, you know, in cell in, in basically story publishing, taking this over is we reached an agreement that the vision of everything being in one place would be retained and so that if you want to find it, you know, about Basil, everything's there from the allies and the companions and the pests, and then later in the book, you, you know, you can come through and find the pest and see.
09:48you know, how do I know if this is the pest that's affecting the basil or the tomatoes? And you know, what can I grow basil for other than an herb? Well, it turns out it might be really good for stimulating growth and flavor as an ally. So yeah, all of, to me, it was just fascinating to learn about this stuff. And I'm so excited that you like what you see.
10:18Oh, it's lovely. I'm very impressed because my husband and I have been growing a garden for over 20 years. And when we started, we had no idea what we were doing. We dug up our little tiny backyard and did not dig out the over 100-year-old rhubarb patch because my neighbor said, don't touch it. It's been here for that long. It'll be here for another hundred years. And I said, okay.
10:42But we put in herbs and we put in tomatoes and we put in cucumbers and all the usual suspects for our backyard garden. And we did okay until the squash bug showed up. Then the nemesis of every backyard gardener everywhere is some kind of bug that shows up out of the blue and destroys your plants and you just want to give up.
11:05Yeah, well, not only that, I mean, the reason why I killed my peach trees in DC is because my reaction was to panic and go out and get some, you know, big guns, right? And before I learned about organic and so really, this book is a result of my own journey and learning and understanding that we really, you know, that we need to begin with this question of what is our relationship?
11:36with the other elements in our world? You know, are we, do we think of ourselves as interconnected or do we think of ourselves as, you know, the dominant power here and you must do as I say. And so for me, it really was coming to understand and this is the philosophy behind Organic is that we are in relationship with the earth and all of its elements.
12:05and that our role is as a steward. And that one of the beauties of a garden that I learned along the way is that even though there are, I don't even know how many pests, but it's a hundred and some pests, I believe, 200 pests that we've got documented in this book is really only, every garden only has, only really ever gets three to five.
12:35Right. And so if you come to understand, you know, what, what your, your particular microclimate and the plants that you're growing are susceptible to, and you can learn the organic methods, then you're going to continue to create a healthy environment for your future plants. And, and it's really all about feeding the soil. And, and that's one of the biggest lessons I had.
13:04in going organic. I want to say the other thing, I've experimented with so much through the years, and I love that you picked up in this book that I'm trying to get across that really it's for anybody and anybody can do it. It's really actually not hard. It's actually in many ways easier
13:34The message is you're really only gonna have three to five pests and that you can lose up to 20% of your foliage and not seriously, significantly impact the yields. Now, flower gardens, that might devastate you, but if really what you're caring about is tomatoes, because you're gonna put them up and make tomato sauce or whatever.
14:00You know, you can afford to lose up to 20% of your, when I read that, oh my gosh, my, my mind exploded again going, then I don't have to panic. Right. I do not have to panic. And, and the other thing I want to say that I learned that is so interesting in organic is there are all kinds of what I would call mechanical remedies, organic, um, pest control has like three different, um,
14:30approaches. One is the more mechanical, the other is the botanical, where there are sprays and substances derived from plants and trees like neem oil is well known by a lot of people. And then there's the third category of the biological where you might want to import
14:57large scale organics a lot in something called integrated pest management. But for us home gardeners like you and me, just trying to get a good crop so we can make some tomato sauce or salsa or pickles or pickles. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm now making pickles by the way, you know, the pickles with a kick.
15:27We don't, we're ideally using the botanical and the biological as little as possible. Like I really just don't ever use the biological and I only, I think the last time I used a botanical spray was maybe five years ago. But the mechanicals are really fabulous. For example, what that means is for like the squash bugs, you know,
15:56There are a couple things. I have a little Dustbuster handheld vacuum and you can vacuum them up and dump them into a bucket with some soap in it and some oil and on top to create a layer that smothers them basically. You know, you can, I will typically go out
16:25with gloves on and early morning, it's sort of like a zen in the garden where you're turning over every leaf and you're just smushing the eggs and trying to stay ahead of it. You know, doing that three times a week, I can generally stay ahead of them. So if I need to travel, that creates a problem, then the dust buster might be used. Yeah. And another thing might be...
16:51you know, something like diatomaceous earth, which I consider to be a mechanical remedy in the sense that it's just, it's this powder that gets, that gets dusted over the crop. And, and it's basically doing some pretty intense stuff to the bugs because it's got these microscopic little sharp edges from, from river beds.
17:18It basically cuts into the soft body skin. And then also because it's hydrophilic, it sort of causes them to blow up with water. And so it's such a... And it is totally non-toxic to your garden. So those are just like examples of...
17:44the wonders of doing organic gardening that can be fun and easy and low cost and, you know, not a big deal. Yeah. I agree with everything you just said, and that's all stuff we had to learn. And thank God for the internet because we had it at our fingertips, which was really helpful. Yes.
18:14He's known as the Barefoot Armor and talked with him about his take on organic. And he calls himself a worthless hippie, literally in the beginning of the interview. And I'm like, I don't think you're worthless. You've done an awful lot of good. And so he finally calmed down, settled into the interview. And I pushed him on organic, whether anything is truly organic anymore, because you can do everything you can do.
18:44to practice organic things, but there's always going to be drift from other people's properties. And he talked for, I don't know, probably five minutes straight about his take. And he said, basically, we need to work with the plants, work with the earth and work with the bugs so that they all do what they're supposed to do. And I loved that.
19:14We grow a huge garden. My husband grows a huge garden. I stare at it and think it's pretty. And then you get the word out. Yeah, I get the word out. He sells at the farmer's market. And people were asking him if we were an organic grower. And he would say no, but we do the best we can to use organic practices. We're not organic certified because it costs so much money to do it.
19:43Everybody was satisfied with that answer. And so for anyone out there who's thinking about becoming a certified organic farm, and you can afford it, do it. Please. That's awesome. But for those of us who don't have deep pockets, the answer is no, but we're doing everything we can to do the organic practices in our growing.
20:09Yeah, no question. And Mary, I love that you're saying this because one of the things that I tell people is that, you know, the word, some people think that the word was co-opted in 2002 when the National Organic Program went into play. And that, you know, it constrained that these national regulations that went into place that
20:39anybody who is selling their stuff as organic to be certified, right? And that costs, as you just said. So, you know, that can, and they created a set of regulations that in some ways constrain the incredibly large vision of organic that is at the roots of organic gardening. And so there were lots of big fights over.
21:07those regulations and there continue to be a big fight. But I love, I mean, what I tell people is exactly what you and your husband do is I say, talk to the farmer, they may not be able to afford the certification. And there are all kinds of other terms they can use, they can say sustainable, they can say natural, they can say no spray, they can say all kinds of things.
21:34You know, beyond organic is a phrase, you know, that I think Joel Salatin started here in Virginia, because he was so fed up with what he said, you know, the regulations were calling organic. So he's like, I'm way beyond organic. So yeah, you are so, what you're saying is so important that people understand that they may be getting organic.
22:03fabulous organic produce that is not certified and it's still just as great. Yeah, exactly. I have one little tiny story about basil that I'm going to share because most people don't know this about basil. You probably do. Well, maybe not. I love to learn. I am a basil fanatic. I love basil. I love to grow it. I love to smell it. I love to pick it. I love to cook with it. And we had been buying basil seedlings from
22:34nurseries for years and like eight to ten years ago, three years in a row we bought basil and halfway through the season it got this powdery stuff on it and I didn't know what it was and it killed the plants. So I did some googling as we do now and it's called powdery mildew. Right. And it will kill the plants and it will ruin the dirt you grow the plants in for that for you to grow basil there again.
23:03So we no longer buy basil seedlings from anywhere. We buy seed and that has pretty much eradicated any issues with powdery mildew. So if anybody out there is gonna grow basil, you might wanna get the seeds and just start them. They don't take long to germinate and they grow into beautiful plants that last the entire season. Yeah, I love what you're saying because...
23:30A similar thing happened to me with powdery mildew with flocks is I grew tall, beautiful, gorgeous flocks here for like the first five years we were here at this property. And then I could no longer grow it. And it took someone else, you know, sharing with me, well, it was probably something like powdery mildew because it will live in the soil. You won't be able to do it again. Yeah.
23:58But basil is like my, I want to say, yes, you can buy it commercially seedlings, as you say, but why would you want to when you can grow all kinds of basil that you can't get commercially, you know, like purple basil or Thai basil or lemon or cinnamon or.
24:26And, you know, broadly basil and just some of the, you know, the Genovese, I think, is often available commercially. But just, I think, starting it from seed, as you say, so easy and so rewarding. Yeah. We were very happy to figure out what we were doing wrong. We weren't doing anything wrong. We were just not growing it from seed. So yeah. And then I got...
24:55We had here, and I don't know if this was national or more here, but we had, I think it was a national issue where one of the big chains was selling tomatoes that was bringing disease into a garden, much like it wasn't, I think it was verticillium wilt, not the powdery mildew. And so...
25:22It just was devastating for so many farmers who had gotten their tomatoes from this chain store. And yeah, but I remember that year because I'd started buying from seed and didn't have that problem. So another, you know, just to emphasize what you're saying. Yeah. And then I have a story about squash bugs that is very funny. Oh, good. I want to hear it.
25:50Squash bugs are very stinky. They're a soldier bug. So if you smash them, they stink. And we had a cat named Honey. And she was the loveliest cat. And she loved to be on our front porch, especially who were sitting out on our front porch. And it was a three season porch. So, you know, it wasn't usable in the wintertime. And we're sitting out there one day and there was a squash bug on the screen of the window.
26:19And of course, cats love bugs. They love to chase them. They love to catch them. They love to eat them. She caught this bug. It was a great big squash bug and she bit it. And she, I can't even tell you how ridiculous her reaction was. She dropped it after she chewed it like twice. And then she was taking her paws and trying to scrape her nose off her face. And then she started frothing at the mouth.
26:49No! And I knew, I knew that she was probably not gonna die. It was just that they're stinky and they probably taste terrible. Yeah. And it was the funniest freaking thing I've ever seen in my life with a cat. And I didn't have a phone that had a video function on it back then. Wish I had. It would have gotten a million views on YouTube. It was so funny.
27:14And I felt so bad for her. She was such a sweet kitty, but oh, she was miserable for another hour with this. Yeah, did she ever try to get another squash bug? She gave bugs a pretty wide berth for the rest of her life, any bug. Yeah, well, see, she learned. Oh my gosh. Yeah, they are pretty stinky things. And that's why I try to.
27:42out in the garden, try to get them when there's just that symmetrical pattern of eggs on the backside of the leaf and smush them or get them when they're still in their soft body stage before they get hard and stinky. Uh huh. Yeah. They're just gross. They're gross. I do not appreciate them at all.
28:10And then the other thing that I was going to say regarding working with nature instead of against it is when we lived at our old house, we had climbing roses that went up trellises in front of our garage. And then in front of those trellises was where our garden was. And the Japanese beetles showed up. Oh boy. And Japanese beetles love broadleaf.
28:38plants. That's what they want to eat, but they will eat stuff in the garden. And so I saw something black on the rose leaves and I was like, what is that? And I went out and looked and I was like, oh no, they're going to eat our garden. And so we just kind of kept an eye on them. And we had a huge hedge of these climbing roses on both sides of the steps up to the garage. The Japanese beetles just kept eating the roses and they did not
29:09So for the next five years after they showed up, the roses... You kept the roses. And you know, Mary, this is what in the book, you can find information on this as trap crops. So basically, your roses were what we would consider a trap crop. And I remember seeing...
29:33the same kind of thing with one year I was experimenting. I'm always putting something new or trying something new. And so I was trying borage and oh my gosh, I finally understood why somebody had once told me trap crops are marvelous, but you've got to have a strong stomach because the entire, the plants were literally almost bending with the weight.
30:03of the beetles because they just and but they were staying off of the blackberries. And so, so I finally understood a trap crop really is incredibly effective, but you've got to have a strong stomach, because it really works. Yeah, and you've got to be willing to lose that crop.
30:33If you're going to do a trap crop, you need to psychologically put it in with that in mind and knowing that this is the proverbial sacrificial lamb in the interest of the broader health of the garden. Yeah. And the roses had been there for quite a while. They were really well established, so they kept coming back every spring. So they would bloom before.
31:02the Japanese beetles actually found them again. So I got to enjoy that first flush of roses all over that trellis. And then Japanese beetles would come in and eat everything, but they would not eat the stuff that we could eat. So I was like, I think this is a great plan. This is working fantastically. Do you still have them? No, cause we moved.
31:26So, and there has been one Japanese beetle in our garden in three and a half years. Ah! And my husband killed it and we have not seen one since. So we don't have any roses here. We don't have, well, we have apple trees, we have cherry trees, we have two peach trees that we're hoping will actually do something. Yeah. And they're not near the garden. So hopefully, even if the Japanese beetles do find our new place, they'll go to the...
31:54the leaves on the apple trees and the peach trees and the cherry trees before they go to the actual garden. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, it's so interesting because I had never, honestly, even despite all of this is where I love to continue to learn, despite all of this work on allies and companions, and I know that Japanese beetles love roses, but I never thought, never had thought of roses.
32:23as a trap crop and I just was given like eight, well it was nine rose bushes by somebody who was taking them out of these raised beds and it never occurred to me that I could use them as a trap crop in my vegetable garden. Well now you know. I know. And it took somebody who doesn't even like the garden to tell you about it. I know. It's a fabulous story. And this really goes back to what you were saying.
32:53you know, about, about working with the garden and working with nature and saying, okay, let's give you something to eat. Right? So let's give you if you, if you are prevalent in this particular microclimate, which they are where I grow, you know, what can I do to make you happy so that you don't eat the things that I really want to keep? And that's the whole idea behind a trap crop.
33:21Yeah, I didn't even know it was called a trap crop. So we both learned something great today. Yeah, awesome. I love it. I love talking to you and to everyone else I've talked to so far because I learned something new every single time. Well, I'll tell you one other thing about Japanese beetles that was shared with me by a viddieculture.
33:49farmer, I guess, a winery, basically somebody who's growing a vineyard. I was just saying, how the heck do you deal with Japanese beetles in a no-spray vineyard? What the heck? The answer was, we are up and out very early. For those who do have Japanese beetles, you know that they are really...
34:18like asleep in the morning hours when it's cool. They are not moving. They're sedentary. They're not flying off. And so what this farmer told me is, he said, we lay down these long tarps, we lay them down and we have a broom handle and we basically are tapping all of the grapevines
34:47And guess what? They nicely fall off onto the tarp. And that's when that bucket of with water and a layer of oil on top, you don't need kerosene. In the olden days, it said you needed some kerosene in there with some oil. And I have found they suffocate just nicely with everyday olive or whatever kind of oil you're using. And you dump those beetles.
35:14into a bucket and they suffocate and it is a completely, you know, harmless to the rest of the garden. Yeah, so that's a really, you know, low-key, easy thing to do. You can put a sheet down, put an old sheet down, put newspaper down and just knock the babies off when they're, you know, when they're cold in the morning. When they're when they're napping, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
35:42Well, that'll help some people, I'm sure. I'm hoping it helped me. Yeah. I.
35:52Gardening is is Okay, I don't love it. My husband is obsessed with gardening. I've talked about this Ridiculously long on a lot of these episodes. He loves it. He adores it. I used to like it now I'm not as into it, but it's how he de-stresses he goes out. He gets his hands in the dirt He he prunes the tomato plants when they're ready to be pruned. He harvests he sells he loves it and
36:20He'll come in and say, there's a bug that I've never seen in the garden. And I'm like, what's it look like? And he brings out his phone and shows me the picture he took, of course. And we had potato bugs show up like two summers ago and tomato bug. I'm sorry, not tomato. Potato bugs are a real problem and a really hassle. And he tried for like a week to just pick them off.
36:49And he said, I can't keep up with it. He said, they're going to destroy all the rest of the potato plants. I said, honey, I said, the only thing I can tell you is what my dad did. And you're not going to like it. And he said, what? And I said, he used seven's dust, one, one coat of it and they were gone. He said, but I don't want to do that because that's bad. And I said, um, I'm still alive and I ate the potatoes from the potato plants that he seven dusted.
37:19I said, it's not great, but it's a choice between losing the 20 potato plants. Oh my Lord. Or using seven dust. I said, it's up to you, but that's what he did and it worked. Wow. So he went and got some seven dust and he did one shake of that on those spots where those bugs were and they were dead and gone the next day. Well, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Finish.
37:47and then it rained and washed all the powder away. So I don't know if it was a bad thing or a good thing, but we ended up with good potatoes. So. Well, I think what you're talking about is a really important choice that we have to make. And one of the things that organic growers talk about is that the focus is not on the plants per se, but the focus is really on healthy soils.
38:17and making sure that... So soils are, some people call themselves, you know, like they call it dirt. It's not dirt. Dirt is something that's grimy and stuck on your clothes, right, but a soil is alive and it's a thriving, you know, micro ecological system. And...
38:46and it is full of microscopic and macroscopic types of animals. And, you know, from the mycorrhizal fungi to earthworms and more, everything in between. And so, so one of the things when you're thinking about, well, what the heck am I going to do about these, these potato beetles? You know, you have to think, well, what, what is
39:17What are my principles? What are my basic principles? And if the basic principle is that I wanna make sure that I'm protecting the soil, then what do I do? And so that's what, because something like seven and others actually might be persisting in the soil. That's the difference between an organic remedy and one that is not. An organic remedy does not persist in the soil over time, whereas an organic remedy will not persist.
39:47It's biodegradable, et cetera. And organic sort of comes, the word relates to living organisms. It relates like organic chemistry, relates to carbon compounds and living beings. And so if we think about that, well, is the seven or whatever I'm gonna put on it gonna harm the soil? Then we might wanna say, well,
40:15what else could I do? I mean, for potato beetles, I'll just say that, you know, they are, they are pernicious. They're awful. And, um, you know, there are supposed to be organic remedies. Um, there's a new thing that's, that's a fairly new thing that's out that I have not tried. Um, but is supposed to be really good. And that's a thing called spin of sad.
40:44I may not be pronouncing it right, spinosad. But it is a naturally occurring substance that's made by soil bacterium and it is toxic to the Colorado potato beetle or the potato beetle as we call it and a host of other insects. And then there's a thing, you know, what I was talking about is the diatomaceous earth. If you can catch them before they get big.
41:13Like when they're still just crawling around in these soft bodies and cover them with the diatomaceous earth, that is something that can be done for the potato beetle. But I'll tell you one thing, that I actually stopped growing potatoes because I just couldn't take it. And I made that decision. But I did find out just...
41:41Two years ago, that timing is, and I had read about this, but I had never tried to do it. But some things were happening in my life that meant I was putting in a crazy late garden. Like for me, typically, you know, everything will be last frost is mid May. So imagine putting in a garden late June.
42:10crazy late and I thought half of this stuff will never mature and what I learned was I had no squash bugs because it was after the timing was so much later and I had read about this and I thought this is fascinating so then I did it again last year and guess what I had no squash bugs. And so I'm wondering it's just a question I haven't experimented but I'm wondering.
42:38Like if you could time the planting of the potatoes to be later and maybe grow a shorter season potato, could you avoid the potato bugs? I don't know. I don't know either. And I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna convince him to do it this year because he's chomping at the bit right now to start planting. And in Minnesota, we're not gonna be planting for another month and a half. Yeah. But.
43:07What he did last year is once the potatoes actually sprouted and got to be about three inches tall, the stems, he just sprayed them with it like Codoneme oil from the very beginning. And he did that like every other day and he didn't have any potato bugs. Right, exactly. And neem is called a botanical control and it will biodegrade.
43:36And it comes from the name tree. Yeah, that sounds right. That sounds like a beautiful, a beautiful way to go. It takes vigilance. You know, he's got to get it on a calendar. Yeah. Yeah, well, it broke his heart to use that sevens dust two summers ago. He was just so bummed out. He's like, I ruined my garden. I said, didn't ruin your garden. It's going to be okay.
44:04He's like, I went against my principles. And I'm like, yes, yes, you did. And sometimes we have to do that to get to the thing that you want, which was potatoes. I said, we'll figure it out. We'll find a better way. I promise. And we did. So it's all good now. I think, you know, what I love about what you're saying is that it sort of follows this thing as of everything in moderation. And so...
44:31I'm not, I am sure there are some organic growers that would not agree with what I'm about to say. That's okay. But you know, like I feel if you're doing something, like if he sprayed heavily, you know, like this entire field full of seven, you know, like that might be one thing, but you know, it's targeted towards a particular crop.
45:00It was a one-time deal. There is, if your soil is healthy, my philosophy, which could be proven wrong, but my philosophy is just like humans, I mean, humans, we get sick and we might need penicillin. We know that by taking penicillin, we are
45:25slowly creating many penicillin resistant varieties of bacteria, right? So, but we may need it. And, and, and the damage in doing that is that we're contributing towards these penicillin resistant bugs. But there are times when you need it and then you recover and you're building your immunity. So ideally what we learned from that is we need more sleep.
45:54We need to eat better. We need to maybe mask in these days. And we learn more about hand washing, about how do we protect ourselves? Well, the same kind of principle, I think, applies in the garden is there might be times when you need to do something. And ideally, you know, like you don't want to be taking penicillin every day. No. And every year, you know, like for weeks on end.
46:21Same thing in a garden, like if in our, I'm going to say it, in our industrial farms, one of the harms that we have done to massive tracks of land is we have found that repetitive, it's the repeated use of pesticides, herbicides over many, many years that has basically contributed to what I would call
46:50open field hydroponics, meaning there's nothing alive left in the soil and that you have to then feed your, you're like, you've got your soil on this ivy drip, you know, as you've got to give the soil everything it needs because there's nothing living in it anymore that is contributing to its health and wellbeing. And that is the practice that is
47:20really harmful long term, but a one-time use I have to say I'm, you know, I, I, I, as I said, some might disagree with me, but I think as long as it's not like this repetitive long time practice, you should be okay. Yeah. I felt so bad for him. He was so sad about it. And I was so proud of him for being so sad about it. Yeah.
47:50Well, I think it sounds like your husband really is connected to what he's doing, that he really cares about the ecosystem of his garden and the life that he is supporting in that soil and in the plants. And so I very much resonate with him. I understand that. Yeah, no, he's a lovely man.
48:13His garden is terribly important to him. He will do it until he is not physically capable of doing it anymore. Yeah, I would probably be like that myself. Uh-huh, yep. Okay, well, Tanya, I don't wanna take up too much more of your time, because we're at 48 minutes, and I try to keep these to half an hour, but I knew we'd run long, because I knew we would be sharing stories about growing things. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, and I will put your book.
48:43title in the description for the episode when it comes out and I don't know the link to the Amazon page and if you have anything else you want me to link just let me know. Okay, I'll do that and Mary thank you so much. It's been a real honor to be with you and I've enjoyed it immensely. I'm so glad. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Have a great day. Thank you.
 

A Tiny Homestead - All About Our Place

Today Susanne from North County Marketplace is interviewing me about our place, A Tiny Homestead. You can follow us on Facebook, as well.

Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm

Today I'm talking with Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm! Listen to what he has to say about family, farming, and unexpected fame. You can also follow the farm on Facebook.
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I feel like today's guest needs no introduction. Hi, Joel Salatin, how are you today? I'm doing great, I hope you are, thank you. I am, so tell me about yourself. I did some research, but my guests don't know what I read. So tell me about yourself and Polyface Farm.
00:29Yeah, so yeah, so our family owns, co-owns Polyface Farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. My parents came here in 1961, bought a property, and Dad was an accountant. Mom was a school teacher. The farm jobs paid for the land. Dad was quite a visionary and an experimenter and did a lot of experimenting with electric fencing, controlled grazing, composting, mobility, portable shade, direct marketing.
00:58It was basically a glorified homestead, so that when I wanted to come back to the farm full time, September 24, 1982, we had all this wonderful legacy of experiments and land healing things that we knew would work. We just never done it at scale or to really make a salary. And so that's what we started then. And
01:26It has been fantastic. What a run. We now have about 20, what, 2022 salaries generated from the farm. And we supply some, whatever, seven to 10,000 families here at the farm to market. We deliver, we supply some restaurants, some boutique grocery stores, and we ship nationwide.
01:56and just have a wonderful team. We're in pastured livestock. So beef, pork, chicken, both meat and eggs, turkeys, rabbits, lamb, duck eggs, and forestry products. We have a sawmill, and so we sell lumber as well. And yeah, it's a great run. It's a beautiful life, it sounds like.
02:19It also sounds like innovation ran in your genes because your dad created things and you've gone on to create things as well. Yes, when people ask me what's one of your greatest blessings, certainly if not number one within the top two, is the blessing of growing up in a family that embraced being mavericks. I just simply never had a need or a desire to
02:48to be affirmed and confirmed by other people. The Frank Sinatra song, you know, I did it my way. That was truly mom and dad's, mom was a maverick growing up, dad was a maverick. And so we just, as an entire, the whole family persona was, you know, we don't need the endorsement of others. We don't need their approval. We're going this direction because we believe it's right.
03:16And boy, is that a liberating, freeing way to live. Yeah, I'm kind of like that. I have very few close friends, and that's partly because I do things the way I do them. And if you want to come along for the ride, please come along, be ready to help, be ready to enjoy it. If you don't, that's fine, too. Yeah, it is. And, you know, I think farming, of course, everybody has a certain amount of peer dependency
03:46at some level, but I think of all the vocations out there, the different vocations, farming probably is the most, the peer dependency is the most common because farming is a fairly lonely vocation. You spend a lot of time by yourself. And so the desire to be accepted and affirmed by your...
04:15counterparts by the next door farmer and that next door farmer and the farming community is extremely intense more than other vocations that inherently tend to be more social. And so I think farming has a bit of a disadvantage in this and certainly
04:42we see that in the conservatism and the reluctance of farmers to try new and different things. Yeah. So I was watching a video this morning that you were talking on, and I don't know if it was a class you were giving or what it was, but you said something about if you are in your mid-50s and considering starting farming or homesteading or anything that...
05:10Maybe you should think twice or maybe you should have a young person who can help or something. I'm paraphrasing it badly. So tell me what you think about people who are over 50 trying to get into homesteading. Yeah, well, I would I would qualify that a little bit between homesteading and actual farming. You know, one I realize I'm I'm a whatever I'm a friend of homesteading.
05:40And certainly for our first 20 years here, this was basically a glorified homestead. There was no, this was not a business. It was not a commercial enterprise. It was not generating a salary by any means. And so, you know, a homestead where you're just, you know, a couple three acres, maybe 10 acres, and you're just basically trying to grow as much of your food as you can, you know, then 50s is fine. Probably not ideal, but it's tolerable.
06:09But if you think that you're going to, in your mid-50s, get a property and become a commercial farmer and make a living at it without a young partner, you're probably kidding yourself. There's just, it just takes too much physical energy to build fences and cut trees and do the things that it takes to
06:39have a commercial farm. Now, there are plenty of commercial farmers that are over mid-50s, 60 years old, even 70, but they have a tremendous amount of infrastructure that they developed and created in their younger years. And so if you have a going concern, you can have a pretty long tail off of that. You can enjoy a bit of a halo off of that.
07:09off of that infrastructure and experiential equity into your aging time. So just because you know a 75-year-old farmer that's doing it doesn't mean that you can at 55 duplicate what he or she was doing in their 20s and catch up to them at 75. There are just cycles of life.
07:34and realities of life that are critical. So when a person's somewhat over 60 and wants to do this, I always tell them, hey, leverage your life experience, leverage your connections, leverage your capital, and get a young partner, whether they're related or not, and enjoy that kind of collaboration. Yeah, absolutely. My husband and I are in our mid-50s. I'm 54, he'll be 55 in June. And we just bought our 3.1 acre.
08:04property back in 2020. And luckily, our 22 year old son still lives here. So he helps dad out a lot because it was a blank slate when we moved here and we had to build things and bring things in and get it started. If we hadn't had the kid at home, I'm not sure that we would have done this. Yeah, that was even and that was not even a commercial farm. That was a that was a smaller acreage, you know, homestead type situation. Yeah. So
08:33I appreciate where you went with that when you started. I was afraid you were going to say, well, we did it. We did it. We didn't have any problem. So, you're actually confirming my, you know, my whatever experience on that. Yeah. So that leads me to my next question. You are older than your mid fifties. So how much hands on work are you still doing at your place? What a great question.
09:03So I'm still the chief chainsaw guy. So whenever they need a big tree cut and they need chainsaw work done, I'm the one that does it. I move the egg mobile every morning. I handle our herd of cows here, but I don't move broiler shelters much anymore. A lot of the day-to-day, of course, our son Daniel,
09:32is absolutely in charge of day-to-day operations. So essentially, you know, I pick up pieces. I'm kind of the chief negotiator. So I do a lot of desk work, you know. Well, in fact, this morning, before we jumped on this podcast, I spent an hour and a half over with one of our landlords. We lease numerous properties in the area. And so I'm the one that goes and does the kind of periodic, you know,
09:59how are things and how are we doing and how are you doing? Are you happy with us? Are we happy with you? Those kinds of, you know, diplomat, I'm, I guess, the chief diplomat. And so, you know, I get to go out and do these kinds of things. I do a lot of the initial, initial discussion if we're going to develop a business relationship with somebody.
10:25even a customer or a business relationship with an outfit. I'm usually the first, I'm the first contact. I kind of start things, you know, rolling, get the basic pitch and then Daniel and others will sit down and actually flesh it out. Okay, you know, here's what we're actually gonna do. We're gonna come on this date, that date. That's not what I do. I do the overall, you know, kind of visioning stuff. So yeah, I'm out.
10:53I love, you know, I don't ever want to lose my calluses and my splinters. They're really good for me. Yesterday, I was out, spent a couple of hours with the chainsaw, cleaning the brambles and multi-floor rows and all about an electric fence line that hadn't been done for several years and all grown up. And so I got good and sweaty. That that's my workout. Daniel, now he he is wonderful to watch this, you know, the adult son, you know, kind of take over all this.
11:23He now appreciates, he's gotten kind of protective of me. You know, I'm pushing 70 and he gets concerned about me overdoing it, but he realizes now these workouts are what keep me young and I don't have to go to the gym and don't have to go to workout sessions, but I enjoy working here. And so he says, dad, if you want another therapy session, that's what he calls the chainsaw, you want another therapy session, we got this little project over here to do.
11:51And so he calls them my therapy sessions. They're basically, you know, uh, farm physical exercise, but I'm, you know, I'm now very much to have a part-time as far as actually out there sweating and doing the work. Uh, I probably don't do more than. You know, three or four hours a day because I'm doing a lot of desk work and phone work, and of course I'm writing a lot of articles and, and I'm traveling a lot. I'm gone. I'm gone about 140 days a year.
12:20you know, speaking at conferences. Next week I'm going to Europe for a week to speak in Austria and Hungary. And so, you know, I do a lot of traveling as well. Okay, so I know that you're terribly popular in the US. How are you received overseas? Is it the same amount of people being like, you are the smartest farmer ever, talk to us, teach us, whatever? You know, it's different in different places. And so...
12:49For example, in the last two years, I've done my first stuff in South America, Colombia, I was in Uruguay, and there the reception has been unbelievable. I mean, just like a rock star, okay, just swamped. But when I go to the most technologically advanced areas
13:19the Netherlands, it's much more muted. And what's interesting about, especially Austria and Germany, of course, they're all into precision, all about, I mean, that's where BMW is, right? Bavarian Motorworks. There's almost no outdoor grazing in those countries because they do not, they're all about precision. And they say, well, if we let cows go out and actually
13:49graze their own grass, then we can't mow it as precisely as we can with a mechanical mower. And so in those countries, virtually all the, especially the cattle, are confined in houses, in barns, and they green chop. Definitely all the dairies, I mean, even sheep dairies, goat dairies, all this stuff, I've been on all these.
14:17and nothing grazes outside. They harvest mechanically, then they bring it into the barns and feed. And they say that way they get more precise mowing of the fields and they get the manure in a place where they can more strategically apply the manure exactly where they want it instead of where the cow wants it. I mean, it's a whole mindset thing. So it's different. I was in...
14:46I was in South Africa two years ago for the first time. And there again, it was just mobbed. I think the poorer countries, if I may use that, I'm not using that condescendingly at all. I'm just trying to separate the developed, the poorer countries from the rich countries. I think there...
15:10I'm really, you know, I've been in Bulgaria, same sit, just swamp, mob like a rock star or what? Well, because what we do is so applicable in those countries, whereas the sophisticated techno glitzy countries are so enamored. And of course, the EU, the European Union, subsidizes farms so much, you know, over 70%, almost 80% of the entire EU budget is farm subsidies.
15:40And that's why the farmers are so upset there that they're starting to cut some of these subsidies. But farmers have had it so easy over there for so long with all these huge, huge subsidies so that they buy extra equipment. They overbuild their buildings. They overbuild all their infrastructure and they've just become accustomed to this subsidized fuel, subsidized machinery, subsidized buildings, subsidized income.
16:09And so the idea of I'm going to go out and move the animals, they just see it as not as precise and more work. It's easier to just go out and start the tractor, mow an acre, blow it in a wagon, bring it in to the cows, then go and watch the soccer game. Yeah. And I
16:34Hmm. I don't know if that's a better way or just a different way because I feel like it's not necessarily a better way No, no, it absolutely is not a better way and and the fact and and so the one of the reasons that I'm going to Austria this time, you know, that was one of the countries I said it's not as well received is because these as as the as the farm subsidies wane
17:02due to the EU trying to move their military budgets up to supply Ukraine with weapons in the Putin thing, the cracks are widening and deepening in that system. When you have a high capital, high energy, high depreciation, depreciable system, that works fine when everything is
17:31hunky-dory, but you start dropping capital, making energy more expensive, increasing some of those, the cost of fertilizer, all those things start putting pressure on that system and it starts to crumple, which is exactly why we're seeing so much farmer unrest in the EU right now is the crumpling of that prompt up. Well, I call it a farm welfare state. Yeah.
17:59So you're going over to talk to people about the way that you do it so that they have something to fall back on? Yes, absolutely. I can show I can show them how they can get uh, the same production at a third the cost and Yeah, we'll have a we'll have a great time Okay, good. Um So my my next question is probably a weird one. Um
18:26How do you feel about the fact that you are so well received and people mob you like a rock star? Because I'm sure when you were a kid and then when you went back to the farm to help your dad, you didn't expect this to be where you'd be at 67 years old. No, not at all. You know, when Theresa and I got married, we were living, you know, we kind of spruced up an old...
18:54Mud dauber beehive, mud dauber attic upstairs and drove a $50 car. And if we didn't grow it, we didn't need it. Our dream was just, we just wanted to farm full time. We loved the farm. We both did. We both do, still do. And we just wanted to be here. And what happened was as it became successful,
19:22we realized we were living a dream that many people have that they've been scared to vocalize because if you have any brains at all, no credible high school guidance counselor would ever recommend to an honors student, well, you should be a farmer. I still have a nervous twitch from my last visit to the high school guidance counselor, when she found out I wanted to be a farmer, you know, and I thought I was gonna have to do CPR on the floor.
19:50know, to get her back up. And she said, you know, smart people just don't do that. And so I think that there is this kind of, well, there's a stigma culturally, but there's a sequestered desire in a lot of people to do this, but they won't even let themselves dream about it because
20:20It's unaffirmed by society. And so when Teresa and I, you know, our family didn't have money, we weren't wealthy. We were just, but people saw the happiness of our animals, the productivity of our pastures, the happiness of our customers that were being able to get, you know, really exceptionally good food, you know, that whole thing. And we were not getting rich, but we were living fine, very happy.
20:47that just resonated. And so I think it's that, it's that dream. And I have, I mean, I have a stack, it's inches deep of letters from people around the world that we didn't think this was possible. And we found your stuff and we started doing it and it works. And we've left our town jobs, we're farming full time. It's just, you know, thank you for making this.
21:14possible, we never would have thought it possible otherwise. And so that that's where we are. And I'm just so blessed to have been able to, um, to encourage and inspire people who had given up on that kind of life to have hope again. Hope is a, hope is a powerful thing. It sure is. Um,
21:43I think it's just sad that farmers and mothers and people who work in the trades are considered to not be smart. It bothers me every minute of every day.
21:59Yes, yes, it does me too. It breaks my heart actually. And so society has marginalized over the last few decades. It has marginalized, yes, these trades. And so nobody wants to be a plumber, an electrician, and a welder, and a small engine mechanic, and all these things.
22:28And the trades are desperate for young people to go into them. And so one of the things that I promote is good, not bad farmers, but good farmers. And I do make the distinction there are good farmers and bad farmers, but good farmers are the first line. You know, we have the new thing in our country, you know, first responders, first responders kind of developed after 9-1-1, you know, with the fire.
22:56fighters that went into the towers, first responders, we revere first responders. Well, let me tell you something. The first responders to our nation's resource base are water, air, soil, the resource equity upon which every one of us depends for every waking moment. The first responders in that realm are farmers, especially good farmers.
23:25If we want our resources well taken care of, perhaps we need to revere again, honor again, appreciating again that vocation that's been so marginalized for a while. Absolutely. I would put another word in the middle of abso and lootly, but I'm not going to do it. You're right.
23:50I try really hard not to use the big swear words on my podcast because I don't want to alienate anybody. So I'm trying to think what else to ask you because I'm just so happy that you were willing to chat with me. I guess my last question because I'm going to try to keep this to half an hour and I figure you probably have a big answer is if you want to.
24:17farm or have a homestead or just do something that requires you to use your hands in the dirt or raise animals. How do you get started? Do you just go to YouTube and watch videos and go, okay, I get it. I can go do that. Or is there like an ABCD to follow? Great, great, great question. Yeah. So obviously today we have more information than we've ever
24:47but nothing beats experience. And so you need to fill up where you, our term here is fill it up, wherever you are, whatever you are, whatever you have, fill it up. If all you have is a condominium, fill it up. You can sprout mung beans in a quart jar on the windowsill. You can have a little 12 inch by 12 inch vermicomposting kit under your kitchen sink for
25:15you know, for your kitchen scraps. Or goodness, if you want to go a little bit higher, in my book, Polyface Micro, I have a chapter in there on how to have chickens and rabbits in a Manhattan apartment. The point is that very seldom do we go from zero to, you know, to a, if we use the mile per hour, we don't go from zero to a hundred in...
25:43in no time. It takes time. And the same thing it is with this. Seldom does your greatest dream or fantasy drop in your lap as one whole, as one complete thing. It comes over time incrementally as you show faithfulness developing your experience equity, your wisdom equity.
26:13and even your mentor equity, whether it's personal or YouTube or books or whatever, but you develop these over time. And so the critical thing is start. The last part of your question was, do you just, yes, yes. The answer is yes. You just start. You start with something.
26:44Fill up where you are and that next, whatever that next iteration is, once you've filled up where you are, that next iteration will become more apparent. You are just reaffirming the thing that I say to myself and my friends all the time. Do what you can with what you have where you are. That's exactly right. Awesome, so I'm not crazy. It is correct. Okay, good to know. No.
27:10All right, Joel, I you have no idea how much I appreciate you taking your time and sharing it with me and my listeners. I'm sure that they're going to be thrilled to hear what you have to say. Thank you, Mary. It's been an honor and a delight. Come see us sometime. All right. Thank you so much. Have a great day. You too. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
 

Streblow Family Farm

Today I'm talking with Josh at Streblow Family Farm. You can also follow him on Facebook.