A Tiny Homestead

Windy River Eco Farm

Today I'm talking with Tamara at Windy River Eco Farm.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Tamara at the Windy River Eco Farm in Big Lake, Minnesota. Good morning, Tamara, how are you? Good morning. Big Lake, Minnesota, right? That is right.
00:29Okay, you're about two hours northwest of me, I think. More north than west. Yeah, we're an hour from Minneapolis, half hour from St. Cloud. Yeah. Yeah, you're a little bit of a distant, but we're in the same state. Yeah. That's awesome. So tell me about what you do, Tamara. Well, at this point, I just do CSA shares, and they are all member choice. So I don't do boxes. I let them pick out their items by
00:59I call it buffet style. And the only other thing I'm selling off of, outside of that is garlic. I started selling garlic off my website last year mostly for planting. And I've stopped selling at markets and I've stopped selling to the store and things like that. I don't sell anything off the farm. I just streamlined and just do CSA. But I also do, I'm a registered cottage food producer. And so I do.
01:29Make various cottage foods that I offer with the CSA as well, and I do sometimes sell those locally if I can So that is what I'm doing. I do work, you know minor part-time job And then the CSA I have I have enough I grow one acre and in that I could do 45 to 50 families a week at the best Yeah, you know in my best shape and the garden's best shape with the most members I can get
01:58Um, but right now I just have, I think only about 25 this year per week. It's a little bit down. So, Well, I'm very impressed that you managed to have produce for that many people this year after the freaking spring we just had. It actually didn't affect me very much because, um, we are in the sand and I like that and so I had no problems at all this spring with the, um,
02:25with the extra amount of rain that we've had. It's been really nice actually. Well, you are lucky because we are not doing so great here. We decided last winter that we weren't going to offer a CSA this year, we have for the last three years. And I'm really glad we didn't offer it because we would have had nothing to give anyone until probably two weeks from now. That's a real, real bad way to run a CSA. Yeah, that would be. Yeah.
02:54I know I have heard a lot of that. I grew up with my grandma's farm and where my dad farmed. It was in the clay out in Eastern Minnesota and there was always a tractor getting stuck or you can't get into this field or whatever. And I ended up settling in the Monticello area between Monticello and Big Lake for the last 30, 40 years. And it's sandy here
03:24you know, there's some problems with that, but I like it. And so when we were moving to our own land, I decided definitely to stick with the sand and it definitely has problems, but I don't have to worry about a wet year or a wet spring. And I can get in as soon as the snow melts, I can start planting. The perennials are very, very slow, but it does have its advantages on a wet season. Yeah, yep, absolutely.
03:53Your produce looks amazing. I was looking through the pictures on your Facebook page and I was like, I'm so jealous. I want to go visit her just to see some really nice produce. Thank you. But I'm sure that if you visited for real, you'd see a lot of bad things because, yeah, you always take pictures of the good things. And I always say to, I have really small hands. I'm not a very big person. And so when you have small hands, your produce always photographs really well and it looks huge. So that's like a little trick. But yeah, I.
04:22I mean, some things do well and I have a lot of experience now, but there's always good and bad things. I think people need to recognize that there's good and bad out there. And any day you're going to see something good and you're going to see something that makes you happy and then something that on the next bed over even that makes you sad and depressed because it doesn't look very good and you wonder why. And then you'll feel like you really know what you're doing and then five minutes later you'll feel like you really don't know what you're doing.
04:52That is farming. It sure is. Preach into the choir here, ma'am. That's how it works. So what's the origin story for your place? How did you end up doing this? Well, like I said, I grew up farming with my grandma. And even though I was pretty young by the time she was very old and started to retire, it was just in my DNA. And so I started vegetable gardening pretty seriously in my 20s.
05:19but lived in town, you know, in the small town we're in. And just, I would see like fields freshly disc and I would like just get this urge, like I just have to plant. But it wasn't just like, most people just want to plant, but not necessarily market. But I had this, you know, thing I had grown up, you know, growing and selling, and it just became this need. And I started looking for land to rent about, you know, 2006,
05:49because I still lived in town and my husband didn't really want to move. And it was difficult to find anything, but I just wanted more land. I wanted to go to market. And so in 2008, I just ended up connecting with the right person because it was really hard to connect with anyone who had land. And I started renting then in 2008, 50 by a hundred feet, which was way bigger than what I had been growing in my little yard, you know, but.
06:16And I still kind of knew what I was doing. And then from there, I started at Market the next year. And then I started at CSA with CSA shares in 2010. I started with six people. So this is my 15th year of CSA. And I did Market for about nine years with the goal of just doing CSA because I felt that was a better fit for me. And then we moved to our present land in 2015. My husband finally decided to go ahead and move. And we ended up with a little bit different
06:46had dreamed about a little bit more of a traditional farm, but that really isn't available in my area. To get that, you have to go north half an hour or so. And I wanted to continue to have CSA pick up on the farm. And even moving, I moved, it was about eight or nine miles from the land I had been renting, and I even lost members in that, that they didn't wanna go that little bit further, so.
07:14I was glad I didn't go a half an hour further to where there's agricultural land. But so I say that we are on an urban farm in the country, which is kind of silly, but that kind of describes what I have set up. We're on a county road, but it's like a little bit of like a loop development with maybe 30 homes. And we have just under three acres total, and I have one acre fenced in with a quite proper deer fence.
07:43And then outside of that, I have additional flowers and different things like that. But mainly that one acre I farm very intensively most years. This year I actually have a third of an acre in cover crop, which is the first time I've ever really taken any part out because I always try to have just any more footage I can do. I always try to grow in. And this year I decided to just cut back, for my own like body's sake, I think.
08:10a little bit and put some in cover crop. The weeds just took over last year really bad. And so in that I have flowers and all the veggies that you pretty much can grow and then fruit trees and blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes and things like that. So I have all the different crops just in a small amount. I like growing all the different things, but I think someday I might need to start specializing in whatever, I don't know what it's gonna be yet.
08:39but bringing that down, because a lot of people don't grow like everything and do everything like I do. And I've done that when I went to market, I would bring everything and nobody else did that by themselves. And it was just crazy. I was just always over done, overstressed, couldn't set up on time. And I always had baked goods, canned goods. I would sell seeds, I would sell dried seasoning mixes. And then all the veggies, flour arrangements,
09:09everything. So I'm still kind of doing all that because I like it, but just in a smaller, easier way and in my own backyard instead of rented land. So I'm happy with that. Wow. Okay. That is a, that's a hell of an origin story. I love that. Okay. So what are you using for a cover crop on the third of the acre? Right now I have two parts of it are in,
09:36clover and winter red clover and winter rye, because I already have that seed available. And then I do have one little section tarped with occultation tarps. I think it's how you say that. And then I have one section that I've had to till a couple of times and I'm gonna be sowing buckwheat next week and then I'm gonna let that go for a little while and then do red clover and winter rye. I think red clover can be good.
10:05It's cheaper than some of the other clovers. So I tend to use that if it's not gonna be something forever. But if you do wanna put something in a longer amount of time, that's like a lower growing thing, then I would get white clover, which I have in some places as well. I have white clover. I have a lot of bunnies and I have a lot of bunnies eating a lot of white clover on my property. And so that's everywhere too. Okay.
10:32Since you said bunnies, I was sitting out on the porch a little bit ago and looked out the window and there was a chipmunk on our cement pad in front of our door. First chipmunk I've seen here since we moved in four years ago. Are your trees getting bigger? No. Yeah, we don't have trees like anywhere really on our property. That was hard to find. That was what we were looking for when we...
10:58purchased in 2015 was like something open and flat and we finally found one. But everything else has trees around us. So we very rarely see like a squirrel or chipmunk venture into our area, but they will every so often like a little ways and then run back. So we don't have trees, but definitely the bunnies are not afraid at all and they are all over the place. I got the deer out of the garden, but now I have a bunny problem.
11:23Yeah, we have bunnies too. And this year they're not a problem because there's not a whole lot for them to get into because our garden is not not packed full because of the rain. But the chipmunk probably won't last long because we have three barn cats. I'm sure they will they will dispatch him or her pretty quickly. Yep. Um, okay. So I have two things I want to ask you about. First one is garlic. Are you growing the hard neck variety garlic?
11:50I have actually 48 varieties of garlic this year. Wow. And I would say most are hard neck and then I have a few soft necks. So I was growing garlic pretty heavily back in 2010 and I was really getting somewhere with it. And then I think it was 2011 but it might have been 2012 that Astor's Yellow's disease came through the Midwest and hit every garlic grower.
12:19and it brought everybody back to the beginning. And so before that, I had some really nice softnecks that I would braid and sell at market and different things. And there's one variety of softneck garlic that I grew back then that I cannot locate anywhere in the world anymore. I've been asking other growers for it and stuff because it did well before that, Aster's Yellows. But since then anyway, I've started up again and a couple times.
12:48And now I finally, I did put in, I think, 2400 garlic cloves last year and 48 varieties. So mostly hardneck. Some of the softnecks that I grow, I might take out of circulation because they didn't get very big, but some did really well. You know, in Minnesota, I think you have to go with, you know, what grows well. Some of them just, you just got to take out if they don't do well. So I will be putting.
13:17probably at least half of those varieties on my website for sale once I get everything cleaned up and organized and, you know, towards the fall. Okay. The reason I asked is I just talked to a lady who lives in New York, I think, the other day for an interview, and her predominant cash crop is garlic. And I was like, I need to pick your brain because I've been trying to grow garlic for three years and it's been a fail every year. And she said,
13:44you're in a cold environment like I am. And I said, yes, Minnesota is definitely cold. And she said, hardnecks. She said, you can try doing the softnecks, but hardnecks are the ones that will do better. And then she told me all about garlic, and it was really fun. So I don't really want to get too deep into garlic because I just did this the other day. But I was just curious since you're actually in my state and not far away, which kind you were doing. Garlic grows really well in Minnesota if you get the right kinds, but it doesn't like too heavy of soil.
14:14I know the farmer friends that I have that are another CSA farm around here that are north of me, they cannot grow it at all. It rots in their heavy soil. But next week is the Minnesota Garlic Festival and I recommend you go there and you can buy garlic to plant and really there's so much information there. It's wonderful. I applied to sell there for the first time this year and I am like sixth.
14:42in the waiting list to sell. So maybe next year, but we will be going next year, next week to shop. And it's wonderful. So definitely check it out. John, where is it? It's in Hutchinson. Okay. All right. Probably won't be going because we have some stuff going on here. But if it doesn't like heavy soil, then if we were to add like sand or peat moss or something to our soil, would it maybe help?
15:11Yeah, I would say a lot of people do a raised bed then. It does well in raised beds, where you could get some lighter soils in. I know if you have clay soil and you add sand, I've heard that you just get pottery, so I can't recommend sand, but chopped up composty things, adding that organic matter. But definitely put in a raised bed and try it out. Once you start growing it.
15:39you know, it multiplies to the point that, you know, you can, you don't have to start with a lot. You can keep growing, keep multiplying it every year. So I would say, you know, try one raised bed and see what happens. Yeah, we have some, we have some boxes that we use for raised beds for potatoes, and the potatoes did really well in the raised bed. So I'm assuming garlic would probably do really well too. So yeah, thank you. That would help.
16:06Okay, and then my next question, once I deal with the Windows security thing, it just popped up on my screen. Um, uh, the, the, the way, the model that you use for your CS they were people choose what they want, how difficult was that to set up and does it, does it work really well? I mean, I'm assuming it works really well for you, but how does that work? It has, it's good points and bad points for sure. And I could talk.
16:33for a while on that if anybody ever wants details. But for me, I never wanted to have a box, normal box CSA. I wouldn't want that as a customer. And so I knew starting back in 2010 that I didn't want to do it that way. I did pack up people's boxes. Well, I did a cooler for them right away from the beginning. But I would have them fill out a taste questionnaire.
17:02decide what they were gonna get and I'd pack up each person's cooler individually. And so that took a lot of time. So then I transferred over at some point to doing 50% bagged and it would be just kind of your normal things. And then they'd get to choose 50% off, you know, like table set up. And that, everybody liked that. They loved when they contacted me and I said they got to choose 50%.
17:29that definitely made them more interested than a farm where you just get the box. But for me, I've just always been kind of too obsessed with the dollar value of everything and trying to keep their choices even. And so I think for some extent, I was probably had some ways I could have done it that I do now that I was like, oh no, I gotta keep track of the value and make sure everybody has the same value.
17:57And I do think that the dollar value of your share is really important. I don't go just by size like some people do. But so what I do gradually then I went to 100% member choice and I was setting up like half of the booth I would set up in like the more expensive, like $5 items. And then the other half would be like the $3 items. And sometimes to get to that dollar amount, I would put two things together, or I would put like.
18:27like kits, like I would have like a salad kit or whatever, but then I would tell them how many to choose from the one side and the other side. And I started to realize that, you know, value is so relative. I think if you want something, the value, you know, it goes up. For instance, like my husband doesn't buy groceries, but if he buys something, if he really wants it, if he wants like, if he saw a big, giant onion.
18:55he would spend five bucks on it easy. To him, that would be the value, it would be no problem. So value is so relative. So I decided a couple years ago to just put everything out and kind of average it out to, in my head, maybe like $4-ish value and just let people choose what they want so they just choose. I just set it up now by heaviest to lightest or most fragile, basically.
19:21And they can choose a share that's either six item size or nine item size. And they can choose every week or every other week. So that's four different sizes. So it's very customizable. And then from there, they get to choose anything they want off of all the veggies. And then I do put the cottage foods there, at least most of the year, once we get to the heavy veggie time of year, there's no room for that. But so they get to choose. So because I'm picking everything,
19:49It's not to order, you know, so I don't get like a spreadsheet and say I need to pick five of this and 20 of this and whatever. I have to kind of guess what they're going to want. And because of that, there's more waste. I do have three CSA days, Tuesdays and Thursdays are more your normal, you know, sign up for the season CSA. And then on Fridays, I have a program where people can sign up $100 and they can pick three weeks to come.
20:18And then they don't have to pay another $100 for another three weeks, but they can choose whatever weeks they want to come and then they come and choose the main items. So I have that Friday that, you know, anything that's really extra that I've picked through the week, I can try to, you know, not have too much surplus then at the end of the week. But I do have a member with pigs and I give her the surplus of, you know, anything from last week that.
20:47was left over because I picked too much and the members didn't want it. But I never know what they're going to want really. But over the years you start to get a much, you know, you get much wiser and you start to see what they want. And I think each group, to some extent, I start to say, oh, this group really likes this, I'll put up more of this. And there's always things that surprise me a little bit that people will take, you know, something more or less than I thought. But like I said, this is my 15th season.
21:17So I'm pretty used to how much they want of things. And I try to reduce or increase every season according to what I saw. It's like, for instance, you know, I'll only put out like three bunches of kohlrabi. And even that last year, they weren't taking like at all. So this year I didn't put in any kohlrabi until a fall crop because they're so beautiful in the fall. And so I've cut that back.
21:45you know, and other things I've increased. I put in a lot of, like, berries, a lot of fruit, a lot of potatoes. And just kind of monkey with that a little bit and, you know, hope everybody's happy. And I think that they definitely, they definitely appreciate the member choice. I think there's still the inherent problems of CSA, of logistics, of them picking up and, you know, making sure that their life is scheduled enough to.
22:16pick up on the day they're supposed to pick up. And still just eating. I think people have gone back to eating out at restaurants a lot and maybe eating less at home again. And so I think there's some of that word that even though they're choosing what they want, there might be some waste. But I definitely recommend the member choice CSA to farmers because I just think that, like I said, I would want that. And so I want to sell.
22:45you know, what I would choose and what I can be really happy and proud of. And so I try to run my CSA so that I can be really, every week, be really proud of what I've put out for them. And I think they like that. Okay. So are you there when they pick out what they want? I'm around. I can't just like stand there, but at the Thursday, so Tuesdays they pick up three to nine.
23:12It's my, you know, in my backyard, we have a gazebo set up and I put it under there. Um, and I usually like set it up. It's three o'clock. It starts. I have to go and take a break finally, you know, um, and then I might go out, you know, see some people, but I'm not there for, you know, seeing all of them. I don't have to like watch what they take. I've never had problems, um, where, you know, there was any dishonesty or anything like that. And then in the Thursday. Share.
23:41That one's actually in the closest suburb to Minneapolis at a clinic. And I am there because, you know, I don't have anywhere else to go. So I'm either sitting in my truck or sitting, you know, by the, by the tables or whatever. But I don't have to, you know, supervise them in any way, just, you know, just talk. And I tell them what to do in the spring and some people still, you know, have a hard time with it and some people take to it right away.
24:09And then on Friday, I set the shares out again. I don't I don't stand there or anything. So it is for me It's the most streamlined because my issues over this last, you know, the 17 years have it's always been time I never have enough time I don't have any employees or anything. So I do this because it is the most streamlined and time efficient way to go Sure. I was just curious if you mean it if you
24:38caught any commentary when people show up and see the gorgeous produce and you know are they like oh this is great or oh look at this beautiful pepper or you know. Oh yeah I hear a lot of that. Yeah I hear plenty of that. Yeah and I need that I'm not somebody who's overconfident. I have I have some members who are extremely into it and you know they they have a lot of compliments to make.
25:07especially, yeah, there's a couple that really like to do that. And I used to always put out a survey, you know, like an anonymous survey monkey survey, like many CSA farmers do that. And, you know, did it for many years. I kind of quit at one point because the comments were kind of the same every year and I wasn't really getting any intel, but...
25:31But this last year, I actually had quite a number of members not return. And I think it's just the way things are right now. I really don't think there was anything that scared them off as a group. But I had probably just 50% return this year. And it was a little bit hard to take. And so I might start doing a survey again just to see if there is something I'm missing and if there is any kind of new intel, new needs people have.
26:01I mean, times change and people change. And I've noticed a big difference in the age of people and how they kind of react to the CSA. The youngest groups, the 20 somethings just really don't get the idea of that they are trying to support a farm. They don't get that idea of sustaining a farm and that we need your support to keep going. And that...
26:29of subscribing to something, they just really don't get that idea. So I've had, I try to kind of, you know, I get somebody interested and then they just peter out, they just don't get it. So I think I might start doing surveys again and try to kind of get the intel on everybody and what I can do to make sure I keep them happy and keep them signing up.
26:55Absolutely. Any information you can get to make your business better is a good thing. So a couple things. We didn't have as many people sign up two springs ago. And I chalked it up to the fact that inflation had been growing and that people just didn't have the outlay money for the investment for the summer for RCSA. And I...
27:22We just decided this year that we would just sell whatever we managed to eke out of the garden at the farmers market because the farmers market is like three and a half miles from us. We load up the truck, we drive down, set up the tent, set up the tables and people buy stuff. And my husband is the one that does it and he's so social. He really does enjoy it. His return is not only the money he makes, but the social interaction that he gets with just everyday people from our community. He loves it.
27:51And then the other thing I was going to mention is he decided last fall that he was going to only grow the things that really sell because for the last three summers, he has grown as much as he possibly can. He was growing broccoli and cauliflower and green beans and peas and all the things. And broccoli and cauliflower don't sell that well. And I love broccoli and cauliflower. I'm sad that they don't sell well.
28:21Tomatoes sell like hotcakes if you have them and if you have lots of them because people want to can and Okay, you can sell cucumbers sell it crazy green beans sell it crazy So he said to me last I don't know probably October November He was like I think I'm just gonna cut back to like four or five different things and just grow more of that Mm-hmm, and it's his baby. He loves it. It's his job. He loves gardening and I was like honey
28:49do whatever you want to do. It's your baby, it's your garden, and you're the one who has your finger on the pulse of what's selling because you're the one selling it at the farmers' market. So that was the grand plan for this year. And then it rained and we have really, really loamy black soil and everything flooded and everything stalled out. And my husband and my son actually just picked like 12 cucumbers last night all at the same time.
29:18We've gotten like two, three weeks ago and two, two weeks ago. So having 10 or 12 cucumbers all at once is like a major win for right now.
29:30Yeah, a couple of things that I think, I think I really recommend people to do farmers market before they would do a CSA for sure, to know what people want and how much they want of it and to really get that interaction. I think that they very much complement each other. And I did both from 2010 to 2017. I did both. And what's nice about that is
29:56then you don't have to oversell your CSA shares to try to make a certain amount of money, which is a big problem with farming. And so because you have that market to back it up, but if you don't have quite enough, you don't have to bring it to market and you do get that instant feedback on people. But every market is very different and more of the rural markets like my area, it's, you know, it's a commuter area, but it's kind of more of the rural mindset.
30:24didn't sell tomatoes very well. And that was because everybody has them in their yard or their neighbor has them. And people's, the biggest competition in my area is everybody's home gardens. And that's where I actually lose members to, I'm gonna have a garden this year. And I don't know why they're quitting, but then they contact me to buy plants and then I'm like, oh, okay. And they do a lot of that. So it really depends.
30:51you know, in your area, I think in the more in metro areas, it seems like tomatoes sell. Of course, I didn't grow canners. So I grew like, grow heirlooms and people were not really looking, and they didn't want to change. But everything, you know, it depends. And that's why you do have to tweak. But on that idea of specializing, you know, I really would like to do that at some point when I can. I know I listened to a podcast several years ago, and there was a farmer that did.
31:21garlic, carrots, and peppers. And I thought that was a great combination. They're all different family groups and they're different seasons. And I thought, oh, that sounds great. That works really well for him. And I wish I could look into the future somehow and see what things I should specialize in. And you can't, but I have.
31:46cut out, you know, like I used to grow pickling cukes and it was such a pain in the butt to deal with people wanting a bushel as cheap as they could get. The plants were dying and you have to pick these itsy bitsy things like, you know, every other day. And then everybody wants their bushel on the same week. And then this other week that you've got it, nobody wants something else. So I cut out a lot of that kind of thing. Like I don't do canning tomatoes. I don't do pickling cubes. You know, I don't.
32:14grow beans in excess because it just did not make sense to do those things. I was still selling heirloom tomatoes to the grocery store, which was a good extra money. But I cut that out too. I think it's nice to at least say to the CSA members, I'm just growing for you, so you are my priority and everything. But it took years of monkeying around with everything, with growing and selling at market.
32:44and all of that to kind of get to this point. But you do really have to, you know, let the intel, let the data, let the sales decide what you're gonna do and not be too sentimental about growing certain things. And I think I'm pretty good with that, but I do like, I kind of like the idea of growing, you know, a lot of different, I enjoy, you know, eating, the things I enjoy eating, you know, I wanna keep growing.
33:12But I do cut way back on some of that stuff though, especially if it doesn't grow well. If it's like something that is hard to grow and isn't very popular, then of course why would you continue to grow it? Yes, I had to make my husband stop trying to grow Brussels sprouts because we tried and tried and tried and they just didn't do well. It didn't matter what conditions we grew them in. They just did not wanna grow for us.
33:39He said to me last fall, he said, do you want me to plant Brussels sprouts for you? And I'm like, no, no, I don't. And he said, why? And I said, because they don't produce sprouts. They grow beautiful, big plants, but they just don't grow the edible part that I want. And he was like, we can try again. And it's only, you know, this much for the seeds. And I was like, no, because I get so excited when I see those little tiny sprouts start and then they never turn in the sprouts.
34:07So no, don't, don't, please just don't anymore grow Brussels sprouts or try to. And he was like, okay. And the dumbest thing is back many years ago, we planted some in the winter sowing milk jug thing. And we had like four plants come up that looked really good in the jug. And so when it was time to get them in the ground, we got them in the ground.
34:34And basically they were like a weed. We just put them over by the rose bushes and they grew. And we had the most beautiful Brussels sprouts that one year. And I was like, Oh, that was really easy. You just treat them like a weed. No, it doesn't matter what we do. We can, we can be the kindest growers ever to our Brussels sprouts. We can be the most negligent growers to Brussels sprouts and they will never produce me a sprout that I can eat. So we have given up on sprouts right now. There are some things that.
35:04They don't like to grow in a group. Like as a thing you're trying, like an actual crop. Like for me, I've struggled with Napa cabbage to some extent because it doesn't really like to grow with other Napa cabbages. It just likes to, if you have like an accidental one with your other stuff, then it will grow into this thing that's like picture perfect. But if you try to grow a whole bed of them, they don't do well. I actually have one.
35:33one Brussels sprout that survived winter that is growing in my cover crop and I just mow around it because I want to see what happens. Because I usually don't get, I usually get like small sprouts and then the disease starts to kind of hit them and they start to rot a little bit. So I definitely buy in sprouts most of the time. But it's a tough one because it's got so much plant, it's like corn where it's got so much plant but you don't get a whole lot out of it.
36:00It's just like a lot of compost that you get. You're just growing compost because there's so much plant matter that comes out of your soil. For me with sandy soil, I have to kind of think about, you know, how many nutrients am I taking out growing this thing? And that's why I like don't grow celery. That takes so much nutrients out and then nobody wants it anyway, you know? But some of those things are really tough to grow in soil that's not absolutely perfect.
36:30Yes. And I was going to, I was going to say like three minutes ago, we got talking about sprouts and celery and sandy soil. Um, when you are growing produce, I feel like there's a lot of dancing and pivoting that happens because you, you may start out thinking, okay, I'm going to grow this 50 by 50 plot.
36:53and your recording stopped it says. Um, I just got a call from my husband. Yeah, that's okay. Don't worry about it. I think, I think we're okay. Good. I was seeing the time change here on the phone. So, yeah, I think you're good. Okay. So anyway, you can have a plan to grow a 50 foot by 50 foot garden, and you're going to plant these specific things and you're going to take good care of it. And it's going to produce what you want it to produce.
37:23And then you discover that maybe some of those things you're trying to grow aren't really suitable for your soil isn't good for it or whatever. And then you find out that, I don't know, everybody loves cherry tomatoes. So you're like, great, I'm going to grow half the garden in cherry tomatoes because people want them. And then the following year, nobody's really interested in cherry tomatoes. So it's a lot of guessing, planning.
37:53and trying to take into account what you do know versus what you can't know. And so it's, if you love DeGarden, it is totally worth doing. If you love trying to help your community, it is totally worth doing. But if you're not really into it, you will get down about it real quick. I also want to throw in there, if you really need to make money and you're really, you're doing this to actually pay your bills.
38:21you're going to be in a lot of trouble with that kind of situation. Yes. Yes. I think, you know, it ends up being people who have a spouse that pays the bills that end up sticking with farming. The people that have had the toughest situation is like, I knew a guy at market that was single and so he had to pay the mortgage and then he had bought all the equipment and he was running a big hundreds of members of CSA.
38:47And then he was trying to, you know, for money, then he was, you know, mooring, Tommy was trying to go to like all the markets every day. And he would have, you know, maybe a hard, like hard spring like this year. And, um, and the members would get mad because they'd have small baskets, but then they'd see stuff at market that he didn't have enough of to put in the baskets or CSA, and he had a certain amount of money he needed to make to pay all those bills himself, and he couldn't keep going.
39:17where, you know, me and then the guy next to me at Market, we had spouses that were really subsidizing us basically, and paying the bills. And so we could keep going. But, you know, we didn't really have any different situation from this guy. He was he was good at it and everything. He just he had to pay everything off. And that is what I've seen across the country with CSA is especially because people are paying ahead. And they say, okay, to
39:44pay all my bills, I need to sell this many CSA shares, but then they can't fill that many CSA shares. And they have so much equipment that they maybe could do without the refrigerated van and things like that, you know, and, you know, the barrel washer and the green spinners and just all that kind of stuff. And so, but all of that is, is, you know, being paid for. And so then they oversell their CSA shares and they can't fill them. And so you really
40:14to think about, you know, if you're gonna get started in it, do you have to make money? And how much can you really produce? And I just never, ever recommend it unless somebody's like me where they just couldn't not do it. They just have to do it, or they already have the land, or they already have, you know, a spouse that's, you know, paying the bills. Cause otherwise it just, it's not really, you know, it's like, there is an old joke that if you wanna make a million dollars farming, you start with $2 million.
40:44lame joke, but it is really, it's really kind of sadly true unless you have, you know, if the commercial, in my area, the only farmers there are around anymore, there are no cattle or dairy farmers really in this area. It's all big potato farms and they do potatoes, corn and soy. And of course corn and soy subsidized and they have thousands of acres and it's just a whole different kind of agriculture. You know, they're not.
41:11it's not even the same as somebody who's growing a vegetable farm. And that kind of thing, I believe, is making money. I guess I don't know because I don't do it. But otherwise, it gets tough. So I just, you know, if somebody says to me, you know, what do you recommend for the new farmer? I'd be like, well, don't do it unless you have these situations. And I think that the what they call the rock star farmers out there that are teaching
41:41And there's a few names I could drop, but I don't want to pinpoint anybody. But those farmers that teach and they make a lot of money, you know, teaching, writing books, and they're telling everybody to do it because you can make tens of thousands of dollars, you know, selling kale and stuff. They're all in an urban market where they have a very good clientele base. But just.
42:05they're telling people to start doing that all across North America. And it's just not a responsible thing to do, because if that was you, you know, if I was paying the bills with farming, I would be homeless and I'd only have my vegetables to eat. I think I wouldn't really be, you know, I hate to bring up like the money side of it, but I wouldn't really be making enough to survive. And so I think it's really irresponsible for people to be teaching how to farm
42:34putting these dollar signs in, especially like guys' brains and thinking they can do this just like this certain farmer that farms, you know, that's real famous and farms in the city somewhere. Yes. And I don't want to end this on a downer. I hate ending the podcast on a downer. So I'm going to flip it and say, number one, you're right. Farming is a hard way to make money. It takes a lot of patience, a lot of faith.
43:02and a lot of hard work and it makes your body hurt. If you're doing hard work, your body's gonna ache. But if you really enjoy gardening, there's absolutely nothing wrong with starting a garden and learning how to do it and growing things. And if you're successful at it, you can supplement your income with it. How's that for Flip It Up? Yeah, yeah. No, I think, I mean, I love it and I don't wanna give up doing it, but I don't want people to think.
43:31you know, have expectations that aren't going to be met. But I especially like the flower side of my, I haven't really mentioned that I do grow flowers too. That gives me so much pleasure to see them every day. And then when I arrange them, it's this artistic outlet that I just love. And I don't do a lot of that. You know, I just have a small, you know, area of flowers and I have just a few extra, I have add on CSA flower shares, but I really love that part of it. And
44:01It's something that I wouldn't, if I go a different direction and I specialize in something and say didn't do CSA, I'd be like, what would I do about, what would I do about the flowers? I still have to do that. It's a very pleasurable thing. I understand. I love flowers. I don't necessarily want to get into selling them at all really, but I love flowers. We have lots of peonies here now. We moved here four years ago.
44:31And we also have just two wildflower gardens that we just bought wildflower seeds and tilled up a four by four patch of dirt and threw wildflower seeds in and said grow. And the two patches come up now every spring and they're just so perky and pretty and there's poppies, there's little mini sunflower looking flowers in there, there's forget me nots.
44:57There's just all kinds of these really pretty different wildflowers. And I love it because I look out the window and I can just see them from my living room. And when they start to bloom, I'm like, okay, we're into real summer now. Yeah, it's yes. I have where I'm sitting right now in my house. I have a wildflower patch that I see out of this window and it's near where the CSAs pick up and my husband didn't like it when I first tilled this big patch of our backyard. But.
45:27now it is it is so nice. So we're really happy even though we have less than three acres, you know, we just like to sit and look at all those things and we really appreciate just every little part of that, you know, the birds and you know the frogs and toads and just all of it, you know, it is really nice just to have that little bit and see your trees grow and I think that, you know, that's human nature and that I mean that should be should be human nature for everybody. It's
45:56relaxing, healthful thing to do. Yes, and flowers are prettier than grass. So why not put in flowers? I mean, I like the look of a good lawn, but I feel like a good lawn is useless. It sure is. But flowers are pretty, so they feed your soul. And if you can grow food instead of grass, you feed yourself. So don't grow grass, people. Grow flowers, grow produce, grow something that actually feeds you.
46:25because grass does not feed you. Yeah, I don't want too many people in my area to grow vegetables though, because then I won't be selling any vegetables, but I'm just kidding. Yeah, I know, I know, double-edged sword. I definitely give out a lot. When I was at market, I gave out a ton of help all the time. I love helping people grow things. I love when they want to try, and they get inspired and they're like, oh, look at this, I'm gonna try to do this.
46:54I had a lot of that was, I mean, I do miss that somewhat at market that, you know, talking to people that were really excited about the different things that they saw and kind of getting back to nature to some extent. I do miss that. Yeah. All right. Well, we've been talking for over 45 minutes, Tamara, and I really enjoyed it. And you know how I know I enjoyed it? Because I was like, oh, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're at 45 minutes. I didn't know that.
47:22Well, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Thank you very much. All right. Bye.
 
 

The Canny Couple

Today I'm talking with Aaron and Julia at The Canny Couple.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Aaron and Julia at The Candy Couple. Good afternoon, guys. Hello. Thanks for having us. Yeah.
00:26So tell me about what you do because from your Facebook page and your website, it looks like you're very much content creators. So tell me what about what you do. Yeah, we, we do content creation. We do podcasting. Um, it's really all comes to how we live a homesteading, frugal lifestyle. Yeah. And it all we've considered all underneath the candy couple. Like we have different.
00:55side hustles things we do on the side, but in our mind, everything falls underneath the candy. It does. So the candy couple is the umbrella that covers everything you do. Okay, cool. We do a little bit of everything. Okay, so do you have a homestead or how does it work? Yes. Yeah, so we do. We have a small, we're a small homestead family. We have 25 acres.
01:23Most of it is wood and mountainous areas. So we, we, we, we considered a small homestead because we don't have much real usable land unless we were to clear some of the forest out, which we don't have any plans of doing. Right. So, but we do have a small homestead. We do a lot of gardening, animals, poultry, mostly is what we focus on, on our homestead. And
01:52Where it's really working every single day to be more self-reliant, self-sufficient. We do have a pretty extensive orchard. I guess you would call it. Most people call it an orchard that we are cultivating and working through. Okay. Tell me again where you guys are. So we are in rural Southwest Virginia. We're closer to the Tennessee line than anywhere else. So, um, like most of our trips.
02:20involves going into Tennessee. And I know there's a lot of homesteaders in Tennessee areas. So we're always at least there usually at least every other week. Yeah, I was going to say you sounded more Tennessee than West Virginia. So it's mountain. It's a mountain accent. It's what somebody told me once and it made sense. It's just one of those, but it's not West Virginia where we live in Virginia, not West Virginia. We're just like in the south.
02:49western part of Virginia. Oh, okay. Sorry, I misheard you. That's okay. Yeah, your accent is beautiful. There are some southern accents and I'm like, I can't understand it. And you guys is just gorgeous. Oh, thank you. I'm big on accents. Part of the reason I love doing the podcast is I get to hear a different accent almost every day. It makes me so happy. That is true. It is. Yeah. So do you guys...
03:18I asked this of everybody homesteads don't be offended. Do you guys try to make what you do on the homestead support the homestead financially? Are you just more about being self-sufficient? So our goal is to have the homestead help support us financially. Um, with our tree crops, because that's kind of where our big focus was at the beginning of our journey was to work on our perennial systems. We look at everything through the lens of we are going to get older.
03:48And everything takes a lot of really good systems take a long time to put into place. And we have experience on our property of these six apple trees and they produce a great crop for us. We eat them, we use them, we can them. And we wanted to have a lot more of that, but we're also hoping to eventually sell a lot of that produce and things like that. But that's a ways down the road. If I had it to do over again, I would probably put in more.
04:18um, berry crops because it has a faster turnaround. Mm-hmm. Yep. And that could also still happen. We do have some property we could cultivate. Um, but it's just, that is like a five year plan, not a right now plan. Okay. You said apple trees. How, how did the apples do in the South? Because I'm up North in Minnesota. I'm a Yankee and, uh, our apple trees go dormant about October.
04:46And they're asleep until at least April. So how does that work in Virginia? I'm sorry. That's the same one. So ours, usually we have, so we got, it's an old red delicious, old yellow delicious that we had. Um, these trees have been here almost, I guess, 40 years now. So they're older trees, that's for sure. And, um, they usually bloom in late April, first of May. And then we get our.
05:15apples from them at the usually first of August, middle of August. And through September. Yeah. I'll have Erin go and get me boxes and I'll can them up in the in the evenings. Okay, that's what we would call an early apple here in Minnesota. And we don't have very many early apples in Minnesota. Most of our apples are harvested.
05:41toward the end of September through first of November. Well, I guess you would have to worry about your blooms getting, getting a bit. Crossed. Yeah. Yep, or in our case, we have high winds and so we lost almost every single blossom this spring. I think we have a total of 12 apples on 20 trees out there. Oh, God. Oh, wow. Oh, that's awful.
06:10Yeah, luckily we don't rely on the apples to support the homestead. So it's okay. But it was very sad when we thought we were in the clear and then we had a really nasty thunderstorm come through and really high winds. And I was like, there goes the blooms. We're done with apples for the year. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's growing produce is such a crap shoot. It's so hard. It is. That's the struggle we've had this year with our garden, the heat. We.
06:40Haven't like we've had 90 degree days and we have we we do get hot here. We can get really, really warm, but never in June. Like net we're never in, you know, a hundred degrees almost in June. Um, it's very, very rare for us. So it's, it's killed our garden. I mean, yeah, it's, we can tell it's going to hurt for this year's, what we put up, um, what we have from winter squash perspective, especially.
07:10Cause that's one of our big, that's something I rely on very heavily. Um, because we eat a lot of winter squash. We, uh, I thought put away a lot of winter squash, um, for pumpkin bread, pumpkin pies, things like that. Cause it's one of our favorite things. See it. It's, uh, we can definitely see that we don't have near as many as we have last year from this heat. Yep. We love winter squash here too. And, uh, we had exactly the opposite of what you had.
07:39We had tons and tons and tons of rain this spring. And so a lot of our stuff that we got planted, stalled out, it didn't die, but stalled out. And it's just now starting to really grow. So I don't know how we're gonna do on winter squashes this year either. And we're like you, we really like winter squash here. And I really like pumpkin pie, partly because I feel like it's probably one of the healthiest pies you can eat. Yes. And so,
08:10In the summertime, one of our local grocery stores will occasionally have pumpkin pies in July. And if my husband sees one, he's like, do you want a pumpkin pie in July that you don't have to make? And I'm like, yes, please, please, pumpkin pie sounds wonderful. So I feel your pain, believe me. It's been, it has not been a great growing season for anybody in the United States this year because it's either been so hot, so dry, or so wet, depending on where everybody is.
08:40It's been really hard to navigate it. It's been really hard to kind of manage, but with, I mean, it just seems like it's a cost to change every year, the year before we had a steady rain, the weather was perfect, we had a very mild start to our summer and we had God, I don't know how many hundreds of pounds of squash we ended up putting up, um, you know, and that was zucchini and everything, but this year it's been completely different.
09:10And so for us, we really don't want to rely on the garden for income. That's not our income producer. I don't want to rely on the garden for income. Aaron would try it. That's not me. He's the, uh, he's the brains behind our enterprise. I'm sure that some of your brain gets used to, but I understand what you're saying. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't ever want to rely on our farm to market garden.
09:38to be the income for the household because that's a really scary bet to make here. So we don't do that. My husband has what we call the jobby job, the job that he goes to to make money so that we eat. And if the garden produces really, really well, then we make a little bit of a supplemental income. If the garden does not do well, we don't starve to death. So that's our hedging, our bet plan.
10:07We don't take anything to market, but, um, Aaron, he does work outside of the home and I focus on the house and raising the little one in the homestead. Do you guys have chickens? Do you say chickens? Yes, we do. Do you have lots of chickens or just a couple? So we, we, we hope so. We do it a little bit differently compared to what, like you see a lot of on social media, we're.
10:36proponents on focusing on your family needs and you know, looking at it that way, but also with frugality of mind. For our family needs, we don't need a hundred chickens. We don't, but we wouldn't need all those eggs. We could sell them, but there's a lot of people in our area who sell eggs. A lot of people. I mean, this is just what you do out here. If you, it's nothing to see people selling eggs.
11:03So it would be a very hard competitive market to get into in our area. So for us, our laying flock is just really enough to get us, you know, get our egg needs taken care of. Now we do plan on doing meat birds and we will be focusing on our yearly needs on meat birds. So we really do focus on looking at it with, you know, a cost analysis sort of frugal mindset
11:33you know, come into our home set to make sure we're making the most efficient use of our time, our resources and everything else. But we do have like a smaller laying block. We wouldn't have more than 10 chickens at a laying block at a time. That's good for our family size. Yep, that's we've got nine or ten chickens and we did have like 25 last year and 25 chickens was way too many chickens because we're in the same boat that you're in.
12:00A lot of people either have backyard blocks, so they have their own chickens, their own eggs, or there's a lady at the farmer's market that we sell at. She has many, many chickens and she's been selling eggs at the farmer's market for years. So there's no market for us to sell our eggs. So now that we're down to nine or 10, it's perfect for what we need. We're going to stick with nine or 10. Nine or 10 is a good number.
12:25That's what we thought too. We, we looked at that cause you know, I told Erin, I said the most all over one is 20 like at any given time, but I think 20 would still be too much for us because there's just three of us. Um, with, um, Erin, myself and the little one, we don't, we don't need that many eggs, Erin could do without the eggs. It's me, the little one who eat more of them and more me than anybody else. So, so when did you guys get into doing this, this homesteading thing?
12:55Eight years ago. Yeah. I guess it was eight years ago. So we originally didn't have any intention of doing homesteading. Had no, I did not want to garden. I didn't want to do any of this. And I was like, okay, we have these old established, uh, apple trees. I was like, we're going to get to a point where these are not producing anymore. Let's talk about some more trees, some more berries, cause we had some.
13:25established blueberries as well that had done good for many years. And we had some fresher ones that I had just planted on the side. And we were like, okay, let's buy some trees. Let's buy some berries. And it turned into... Era went a little crazy. I put in hundreds of trees and berries and that at the time...
13:52We weren't familiar with the permaculture aspect and we sort of ruined a few of our zones, but thankfully we had a couple areas that didn't actually turn out or didn't take off in those areas, thankfully. And so now we can transition those over to other infrastructure needs. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of trial and error when you get into this because you're like, hey, there's dirt. Let's put a dirt. Let's put a plant in the dirt and see what happens. But.
14:19There's a little more to it. And sometimes that, that chaos thing that people end up doing works, but sometimes it's better to maybe, maybe make a couple of mistakes and be like, Oh, research is good. We should probably look things up. We've had that happen here. We like the slow build. Um, the slow build has actually led us to really look at our property.
14:44I'm going to use our front yard and example. It's a great example to use here. It's really allowed us to look at our property and determine future needs. So right now we have a really big, big front yard, a good size one, and it's on a hill and it doesn't serve a purpose for us. And we really need to make this more usable. So we're actually planning on terracing this out and making it into a food for us.
15:08that will produce for us, but also something that we don't have to manage when we get older. So we're not going to have to mow this area or what little bit of maintenance going to be much, much less compared to what it actually is right now. So we've really learned the slow build and actually looking through thinking, really, really thinking about what we want to do with the spot. Yep. We, we put in apple trees.
15:37when we first moved in and then the following year we put in more because when my husband and I were younger when we talked about our eventual place that we would live, which we didn't think we had a hope in hell getting, we wanted apple trees just because we love apple trees. And we've gotten maybe 30, 40 apples since we moved in four years ago. And it's because of the winds and the rain and the thunderstorms every spring. So...
16:03We have to talk about putting in more apple trees so that they are actually protecting each other because we have two, we have one row that goes north south and one row that goes east west on different sides of the property. And neither one of them are doing great because they're not protected from the wind. So we have to research this and figure out how to make this work better because we don't want to have to take the trees out. We also have, we planted peach trees and cherry trees, I think last year.
16:33And we actually have peaches growing that are about the size of a baseball right now. Oh, that's awesome. In Minnesota, we have peaches growing and they're obviously a winter hardy tree that we purposely decided to get so that we would have peaches. But I wasn't sure that that would work. And we have peaches and they're not all bug eaten. So I guess the peaches are probably going to do okay. And we also got some honey berry plants. I don't know if you guys know what honey berries are.
17:02We've got honey berries as well. Yeah. We have two plants. We just, we just received those in the mail a month ago and they got put in right away and they're doing great. So I don't know if it takes a year or two for those to start producing. It will. And they are spreaders. So they're going to bush out like really kind of a low bush. It's not quite as tall as a blueberry. They're more low kind of almost shrubby looking.
17:28Um, and when you start to get berries, they are hard to see. Cause they come up underneath the leaves. And they're like velvety feeling. Um, but we do have several, they like honeysuckles. If you have a place where honeysuckle grows, um, I don't know if you all have anything like that in Michigan, but honey, Minnesota, sorry. Um, but we do, we honeysuckles like should be the state flair.
17:55in this area, almost the state, the state mines, the state weed. And it's one of those things that it will, it will compete with the honeysuckle and it loves that kind of an area. Okay. Well, yeah, honeysuckle grows wild in Minnesota, but where we put the, the honey berry plants, there isn't any. So we, we purposely put it there to try to out compete with the honeysuckle. It has helped. It has helped a lot. Not completely.
18:24Um, we still have to maintain the honey cycle, but it is not nearly as rampant as it was before. And I will say these plants, since we put them in, I mean, we have one, it's probably six feet wide, at least. I would say so. And we've had them four years now, I guess. I'd say five. Five. Okay. He knows better about it than I do. Um, he's the one who manages what we put, where we put it and, and why we set it up that way. Well, I think that's great.
18:53I think that's just fine. So the honey berry plants, will they fruit? The ones we put in this year, will they fruit next year? They just won't fruit a lot or do we have to wait a couple years? I would treat it like a blueberry bush where you give it like the three years. They're not like an instant. They're not quite like a blueberry, but treat them like a blueberry. They work very similarly. Yeah. They're not as...
19:21They don't have this sweetness as a, as I guess you could say a blueberry does. It's got a little bit more bitterness to them. Okay. And they don't need the, as the acidic dirt that we were, isn't it right? Right. Okay, good. Cause I was going to say if they do, we're screwed. Cause we don't have any acidic soil here. No, they don't. They do pretty decent. I mean, because
19:47Where we put them, they just sort of took over the area. I mean, we actually probably need to prune ours back some because it's getting... Or start off new... Or propagate. ..applications off of it. Okay. So you can, can you do that? Can you propagate them? Do you do it from cuttings or from the roots or how do you do it? Well, we'll try it. I mean, honeyberries are kind of a newer species. But we, for us, but for me, I have found propagation. I could watch videos on it and...
20:17You know, read books, but it kind of in learned the basics, but for me, it's all trial and error. So we can get through everything. It's, it's just sort of learning what works best for us. Yeah. And I ask people who start talking to me about stuff, what they know, and then I take it and steal it and use it. It's easier and less time consuming and way more fun, way more fun to talk to you guys and learn, I swear. I have such a ball talking with you and everybody else. Um,
20:45Okay, so my whole point about this, and I said honey berries and you have experience and we got onto honey berries. We put in a whole bunch of different fruit plants because fruit plants tend to be perennial. We don't have to do a whole lot of crazy maintenance with them and we don't have to put them in every spring like we do with say green beans or basil plants or tomatoes. And like you said, you're planning for the fact that you're going to eventually get older.
21:12We are eventually getting older faster than you. My husband is 55, I'm 54. And he is the one who gardens, he loves it. And he beats himself up gardening. He works really hard and he comes in, he's like, my back's sore, or I twisted my arm funny, or whatever it is. Because once you hit 40, you can turn over wrong in your sleep and hurt yourself. So we're there, we're at that point where it's like, okay, what's the best use of our time?
21:41that doesn't beat us up so bad doing it. And perennial plants are amazing because you expend the energy to put them in the first time. And then you just kind of take care of them, but you don't have to do as much hard work as the annual plants. Absolutely. That's why what was our big focus when we first started moving towards this. We wanted to get as many perennials, especially things like apricots and plum cocks and things like that into the ground as possible.
22:11Um, now we didn't completely do it the right way. Like we should have, we tried a lot of different exotic things that we might not have liked, um, and we really should have focused on things that we know grow well for us, and that was probably one of the big, big things I wish we would have changed, like focusing on gooseberries and they grow really well for us. We can get a lot of gooseberries. We would have focused on those as our perennials on their front end. I feel like we would have had.
22:40more success and we would be a lot further along now. Um, but we, even our garden, we're looking at it like, okay, in a couple of years, we might have to change our main garden area to be more friendly from when we get older so we can do it slowly instead of having a large upfront costs because we are going to get, we are going to get older, it's going to be hard to bend over and you know, get things off of the ground and it's just things we have to think about. Yep.
23:08Everybody does because you're not 20 years old forever and and I'm gonna say this even at 20 I can remember helping my mom weed her garden when I was 12 and We would sit out there from 7 in the morning until noon weeding rows of plants in the garden And I would feel it the next day and I was a teenager, you know, it's hard
23:32work and it stretches your muscles in ways that they're not always stretched and your body will tell you to cut that out, stop doing that. So it's not just age, it's just work. Work makes you hurt and it also makes you tired and it makes you sleep really well.
23:51So I agree with that. Yeah. So, um, so tell me about the whole social media content thing, because you guys have a lot going on with videos. How'd you get into that?
24:08So I don't, I don't know if I actually remember how we got into that. So it was just one of those fervent moment things. I was like, Hey, let's do this. She's like, okay. But it's, it's what it was really done is we've, we started out mostly with the podcast first. And then from that we were like, okay, we can throw in videos.
24:37short YouTube, stuff like that at the same time. So it's something that is, I mean, it's almost a full time job itself, just coming up with content and producing it on a weekly basis, as you know. Um, it, it can be where you, we plan ahead a lot for stuff, you know, we're like, okay, we constantly come up with ideas and like, okay, we're going to do this in a few months or we're going to do this this week.
25:05We always have like a content creation calendar sort of going to think, okay, how about this this week? How about this another week, you know, or if something comes up in the news or something comes up, you know, about, oh, we need to get more tomato production because everybody else is having a bad year of tomato production. We'll come up with ideas around that, for example. So do you guys just use your cell phones to do video or do you have a video camera or how do you do it? Oh.
25:36We have all. OK. So I will say most of our content is produced through a phone for video-wise. We actually bought a specific phone just for video content creation. We do have GoPros. And I did photography on the side before, so I have cameras that.
26:03we can set up and do different things with as well. So this is sort of my creativity from photography moving over to content creation. Yeah, the reason I ask is because it's a lot of work to produce videos. We tried last year or the year before, I can't remember, to do some stuff with our canning, you know, to video some of our canning and our soap making.
26:32processes and we bought the ring light and we bought the things to hold the cell phones they could be angled correctly and all that stuff. And after the first couple of times we tried doing videos I was like this is such a pain in the ass. I hate it. And my husband looked at me and you could just see the relief on him. He was like I don't want to do videos. I was like I don't either. I said this is ridiculous. We are, we're working.
27:01with lye and water to make soap while we're trying to video stuff. This seems like a really dangerous plan here. And so we decided almost at the same moment that we really didn't wanna do videos of our homesteading endeavors because it's a time suck and it's a lot of work and half the time you have to redo it because it didn't work the right way the first time because we were new at it. So I'm really impressed that you guys do this because we...
27:29Within a month we were like, nope. And now we have a ring light that we never use and we have the little holder thingies for the phones that we never use. But I guess it was worth finding out that that wasn't what we wanted to do, I guess.
27:45It's a lot of work. Um, I have more issues with trial and error with it. It's not my favorite thing, but I'm probably in front of the camera more than Erin is just because of the nature of like what we're talking about or what we're doing, um, what we're trying to share with others, uh, whatever value we think we could bring, but.
28:07Um, it is a lot of work. It is just learning the process for it. And I will say like the biggest issue I had when we first started doing, especially like if I was cooking, um, it was the prep work because I don't want to bore people to death. Yeah. That's like my thing. Like I don't want to bore you with you watching me cut all this stuff up. And it's a lot of work for Aaron to fast forward and find something to put.
28:35Inside of those minutes that he's fast forwarding through and we have to add voiceovers and all this other stuff, that's a lot of extra work. So doing the prep work, um, off camera was probably one of the easiest things I did and it will cut out a lot of extra, just extra stuff because then you have to fill the space with talking and all of this other stuff, it was, it, you just kind of had to find the rhythm that works. Yeah. For us, it was just painful.
29:05And the worst part of it is, is that the three of us who live here, my husband, myself, and our 22 year old son, we all tend to swear like pirates when there's no one around. And so invariably one of us would swear in chatting with each other about what we're doing while we're videoing. And I'm like, ah, we got to edit that. Oh no. It just, it was such a cluster clock, C L U C K that we just decided it. It was not our forte.
29:35And it actually put me off doing anything with content creation for a good year and a half because I was like I suck at this. This is terrible. And then I realized that podcasting didn't require a video and it's fairly easy to edit. And I was like I can do podcasting instead of video and it'll all be good and has been wonderful.
29:58I was the one who pushed for podcasting to get us started. I thought it would be easier because he, he was wanting to jump straight into videos and all of this other stuff. And I think this was right when we were starting our house remodels, we were doing all this other stuff and it was like, this is not the best time to jump into videos, we are packing, we're packing up the entire upstairs, we're doing all this other work, we have a newborn. We've got a different option right now, just for me to function. Yeah.
30:28Yeah, exactly. And I needed some kind of creative outlet to feel like I was doing something good. And so I was like, podcasting is a great idea. I'm gonna try that. If I suck at it, it's not gonna cost me any money. It's gonna cost me very little time to discover that it sucks and I don't wanna do it. And surprise, surprise, I found it doesn't suck and I really do like it and I really do enjoy it. So I think that we all have things that we're good at.
30:56and that we're talented in. And if you can figure out how to make that work for you, then you're off and running. And you guys clearly are good at doing the videos. I've watched a couple and they're very entertaining. I think it's great. Oh, well, thank you. You're welcome. And I don't wanna get too into all the techie stuff with this because really you are using that medium to promote and talk about what you do being frugal and living a homesteading lifestyle. So.
31:26You fit my topic from my podcast, but I don't want to bore people with the detail-y stuff that I know about and you know about, but probably nobody else wants to know about. Yeah. So, um, so what's the plan? Is there a long-term plan? Is there a five-year plan for where you guys go from here? Yeah. So we had that sudden change last year. Um, so we weren't debt free last year. We.
31:55changed last year. We decided to do a really hard push and we paid off almost six figures worth the debt in like six months. And this was when Erin and I were both working. And now that we are debt-free, I'm home. And the goal is for us to set up our side businesses to really start to function and work and help bring in some extra income and to just really focus on building up the homestead.
32:25debt free the way we want it. Yeah. Not going back into it again. Not going back to again, build up the side hustles, um, to where they function and work for us every day. Um, and bring in some supplemental income and hopefully we can, you know, get Aaron to where he doesn't have to work as hard as he works now. That's a fantastic plan. And I wish you all the luck in the world with it because it is really hard.
32:55It is really hard to run a homestead, try to raise kids, and have an outside the home job. My husband has been doing an outside the home job since we got together many, many years ago. And, like, he has always had a job. If he didn't have a job, I don't think he'd know what to do with himself. But if he could have the homestead be the job, I think that he would really, really love that. There's only so many hours in the day.
33:23and there's only so much energy in one body, and it gets to be exhausting with trying to do everything all the time. And thank God for good husbands, because he works so hard, and when he gets home, I try to have dinner ready, and something that he is gonna enjoy eating, I don't always succeed, but I try. And I try really hard to make sure that he has the things that he needs that makes his life easier.
33:51so that he doesn't hate his life with getting up in the morning and going to work. And men have gotten a bad rap. And there's a lot of men out there who might deserve that, but there's a lot of good men in the world who are fantastic providers, fantastic husbands, fantastic fathers. And I don't feel like you guys get the accolades you should get, if that makes any sense with what I just said. Yes, definitely. And I will say though.
34:21Like getting Julia home here, for example, was one of our things that we knew we had to do to function day to day. It was either the homestead had to go or my job had to go. We couldn't, I couldn't do both. I couldn't do both. I couldn't manage both, but I will say what you were just saying that resonates with me and Aaron and I have been talking about this in the last few weeks because he struggles right now with feeling like he's not doing enough on the homestead.
34:51It's been something he's been struggling with because I've been trying to help pull off as much as I can so he doesn't have to deal with it because he does work hard. He works extremely hard for us and it gives me the privilege to take care of our little one every day. Yep. I raised four and I was a stay-at-home mom and I know exactly how hard you work too, Julia. I know. I asked my dad a long time ago how he and my mom managed to stay together for so long.
35:20And he said that the answer was pretty simple, but it wasn't necessarily how other people do it. And I said, okay. He said, every day we try to give 100% each. He said, in some days I can only give 50%, so your mom gives 150%. And some days she can only give 50%, so I give 150% that day. He said, we try to balance it so that everybody hits, the total is 100%. And I thought that was beautiful.
35:48I thought it was a great way to work through your life with your spouse. And it's hard work. They've been married for over 50 years. Only to each other, no other spouses ever, no other children with anybody ever. Like they are goals when it comes to a long lasting marriage. So I guess what I'm trying to get at is if you're gonna be partnered with somebody, I
36:18think, me, I think that you need to be on top of yourself and be okay in yourself and you have to want to make the partner's life better and hopefully the partner wants to make your life better as well. Absolutely. I don't want to talk, I don't want to give marriage advice or anything but I just, I keep hearing from people about how hard this homesteading thing is when it comes to relationships.
36:48And I'm listening and it is hard. It's hard because some days one of you has a horrible day. And all you wanna do is kick a door or slam a cabinet. And you might do that. It wouldn't surprise me. I've slammed a couple of cabinet doors in my life. And it's not the other person's fault that you had a bad day. So as the person having the bad day,
37:17If I'm having a bad day, I have to realize that it's not my husband's fault and try not to take it out on him. And what I expect out of him is some compassion for the fact that I had a bad day and I try to do the same for him. And so it's all a balance. Everything is a balance with this whole thing and you got to find it because if you don't find it, you're going to fall over. I agree completely. For us, it's more we know we have learned our strengths on our homestead.
37:46We have learned who does what the best and if Aaron needs me to pick up for him and focus on something I will if I need Aaron to pick up for me. You know he might not do it the way I do it that's fine but he'll get the job done the way he you know what he'll get it done. And but for the most part we've sort of learned and that's helped we've we've got so we're very weird really don't argue.
38:14We don't argue, we don't fight, we might get a little sleepy at each other, but we really try to manage that to the best of our ability. And it's more of a just kind of, you know, like you said, balance and just understanding that the other person is human and working through the difficulties together, talking through the difficulties together. Yep. My husband and I don't really argue. We may have words now and then.
38:42And the one rule I learned in the first six months of living with him is that he does not appreciate being called names. And I understand that. That's not a good way to run a marriage or a relationship by calling people names. But he had said or done something and I was livid and I said something that I shouldn't have said and it involved calling him a name. He didn't talk to me for three days straight.
39:09So the rule in our marriage is that no one calls the other one a name. We can say you are acting like you are angry about, but we can't say you're acting like a jackass. We just, we can't call names. We can't do that. It's not acceptable. So that's the one rule in our marriage that has probably made our marriage last. It's a good rule to have. It's a good, I mean, everybody kind of has to find what works for them. It's kind of like homesteading.
39:38There's no like blueprint that works for every family, everyone. And I feel like that's part of the problem today, especially with social media, is something that we are constantly feeling like we're having to push up against and it's, you know, we don't look like the homesitters you're going to see on Instagram because that doesn't work for our family and it's.
40:02probably not gonna work for your family either. So you need to find what is actually best for you and your family, not what Instagram is telling you is best for you and your family. Well, I think the best thing about Instagram and Facebook and everything is that if you're, if you're, what's the word I want? Of course I can't find it. It was right there, now it's gone. If you are a reasonable human being that doesn't buy everything you're sold,
40:32you're probably going to figure out that a lot of it is smoke and mirrors and that it's very pretty. It's a very pretty life. The thing is life is not pretty. Life is beautiful and life is dirty. Beautiful and dirty and they can be, it can be the same in the same moment. And so if you are a reasonable human being who realizes that you can't judge a book by its cover and not everything is true,
41:01Then glean what you need to glean from what you're taking in, and then use it to your advantage. And don't worry about the fact that this gorgeous woman is dressed in this beautiful dress and supposedly gardening in mud and still looks like an angel. Don't apply that, that's staged. And if it isn't, good on her, because I don't know how she does it. That's what I said, the woman wearing all white mucking stables from her goat.
41:28This was one that I saw. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. But no, it's like, it's great for gathering ideas. And that's what I use social media for. I look for things that are going to help make us more functional ideas to better our home set. But for the most, I mean, it's just, it's just, we live in a very different world. Yes. Yes, we do. And you do. And everybody does. Everybody's experience is completely different from everybody else's.
41:58And the term I was thinking of was critical thinker. If you're a critical thinker. I, okay, I made some gift baskets a couple of years ago for our realtor lady, because she wanted to buy some of our stuff that we make to give to her clients as closing gifts. And the baskets were beautiful. Like I put these together. I did the weird crinkly paper in the bottom, put our stuff in them,
42:27the cellophane around them, put ribbons on them. They were gorgeous when they were done. I took photos on my island and it looked really professional. If you could have seen my kitchen an hour before they were done, you would have been like, she has no idea what she's doing. Because everything was everywhere. So I say that because an hour before I took the photos, it looked like a bomb went off on that island.
42:52And then I got the baskets together, cleaned the island off, wiped it down so it was pretty, put the basket on the thing with the vase of flowers behind it, and it looked like sheer perfection. So it is all manufacturing to make the thing that you're doing look attractive. Not everything is attractive. The getting to the attractive part is not attractive all the time. Absolutely. You guys know this, you do videos. It's not easy.
43:21tried to for for me, as long as my kitchen is clean, that's like my biggest rule when I do videos inside. Um, and just to focus on, you know, just being as real as possible. Um, it might not get us a lot of views sometimes, but we really just try to focus on that cause I'll tell you, I'm like the least aesthetic person.
43:45I'm the one who has nothing on the walls, who has nothing out because it's more for me to clean later. So it's just one of those things that I tend to focus on personally. But I completely understand you're looking for that perfect picture. To get that perfect picture, you're going to pull out a thousand different things and have a thousand different dishes to have to wash afterwards. Yeah, it's a lot. It is a lot of work.
44:13I think that people who have never done it think that it's like, oh, they just had this really pretty dish and they put this really pretty piece of cake on it, took this really pretty picture. No, that is not how that went down, folks. A lot of time and thought went into that pretty picture, that pretty piece of cake. Plus what you're doing, you're sharing things that people can learn from. So it's not really necessarily, I mean, clearly you want to look presentable and you want things around you to look presentable.
44:43The meat and potatoes of your videos is sharing information, yes? Yes, yeah. Yeah. We like to share like how, you know, we keep our grocery bill cost down, how we, you know, keep our frugality lifestyle as it is and how we, you know, look at our homes with a frugal mindset now compared to what we did eight years ago or even three years ago. So that's kind of what we share. We really...
45:10have tried to merge our homesteading and frugality. Wouldn't you say, Eric? Yeah, and it's actually helped us more overall because we think about it more. We do. We are much more mindful and very thoughtful on how we spend money and how we approach our homestead. I mean, really, that frugality mindset has really taken over for us in all aspects.
45:39Yep, that's what we, well, we still do it. We don't do it to the same extent that we did before when we had four kids at home on one income. But when my kids were little, there was a lot of hacks that we did that were frugal. And it's part of the reason we ended up where we are, because I used to make things from scratch all the time for the kids because it was too expensive to buy things new for them. And you have one little one. I had four little ones.
46:10And kids cost money. It, there's no way around it. They cost money. It's all part of the game. So I understand the whole frugal thing. We, we still are frugal. I mean, we still can tomato sauce because we love doing it and it saves us money from the store in the wintertime. And it tastes better. Oh my God. Does it taste better? Yes. And we, we buy fruit from.
46:37the fruit truck dot com place, because we don't have any fruit we can harvest yet, because we've only been here four years in August. And we can jam and jelly, because I'm not gonna buy jelly at the store. Why would I buy jelly at the store? That's craziness. So we do some of the same kinds of things. And we wear our clothes until they are so holy, you can't wear them in public anymore, because why would you throw out jeans that are not destroyed yet?
47:06Absolutely. Or tournament rags. Yeah. I mean, there are so many things that I think about that I see people do. And I'm like, why? I don't want to rag on people. I'm not going to pick anybody in specific, but I know there are people out there who have walk-in closets full of clothing, shoes, and accessories that they bought five years ago that they haven't even worn yet. Yeah. I'm like, why?
47:35Why would you do that? If you're going to buy something, wear it. Absolutely. Or don't, don't buy it and don't wear it. I mean, those are the two options in my house. If I'm going to buy it and not wear it, it's going to get sold or given to somebody. We agree. We've, uh, well, when I was working, I probably bought more because I would go into the office in a professional setting, but in the past,
48:01seven months my my world has changed i've been doing massive purges yep i i buy a coat probably once every five years and when the zipper breaks because i am not a seamstress i end up buying i end up buying a new coat and that's terrible i should learn how to replace the zipper but i haven't figured it out yet but i figure five years out of a 20 dollar jacket is probably okay i think that works
48:29I mean you you've got your money out of it at that point. Yeah, and someday Maybe I'll learn how to put a zipper in a coat and it'll last me till I die. Who knows? We'll see what happens. All right guys. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today and it's been really fun Yes, definitely. Absolutely. All right. You guys have a great afternoon You too. All right
 
 

Tandi Family Farms

Today I'm talking with Andrea and Renata at Tandi Family Farms.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Andrea and Renata at Tandy Family Farms. How are you girls? We're good. What's going on? How are you? Good. I'm great. You're in California? Yes, California.
00:29Like where? California is a big state. Yeah, the San Francisco Bay area, specifically San Leandro. Okay, cool. Yeah, and I'm in Minnesota, so I'm a long ways away from you guys. So tell me about yourselves and what you do. So we're brand new. We launched everything that we're doing in May.
00:54Kind of in honor, not kind of, but in honor of my grandfather who was a farm to table chef. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so what are you doing? Well we are forming a nonprofit organization. We're almost have that set. And we are currently spending our time helping people set up gardens in their spaces, whether that be a backyard or...
01:22In one case, an apartment complex, community garden, but we are in the process of fundraising and looking to get a piece of land, hopefully in the near-ish future. But of course, that depends on funding. To have a teaching farm, which will be a regenerative farm, as well as a place to teach from, so a farm and farm school. So we're in the early stages.
01:53That's where we are now. Okay. So a teaching farm. So like anybody, any age or kids or grownups or what? Everyone. Anyone willing to learn and wanting to learn about how to sustainably grow your own food and how to cook the food that you grow. I love that because usually farm school is about growing food. It's not necessarily about what you do with the food that you grow. Yeah.
02:20And it's really important to use that food you grow because there's a lot of work that goes into it. There is a lot of work and patience. Mm-hmm. And it's so good for you. We have a farm-to-market garden that we grow. And it's looking real sad this year because we've had a lot of rain. But I did manage to eke out four cucumbers so far. And oh, my god, they're so good because of the rain. Go fig.
02:49It's terrible growing conditions, but cucumbers love water. Yeah. Yup. It's a hard job growing food and I don't grow the garden my husband does, but I have helped him in years past and it's hard work. It's dirty work and it's such good work. Yeah. We love getting dirty and we love hard work.
03:16So it's a great combination. Yeah. So why did you guys exactly start to do this? You mentioned your father? My grandfather. Grandfather, yes. Tell the story. So my Nono, so we are Italian. My Nono John or Giovanni Tandi, he's a first generation Italian American. And his family.
03:45They come from a little province in Italy called Genoa, and more specifically, Appicella. And their vocation, they were farmers. So something that's kind of cool is that my great grandfather, Angelo Tandi, he brought with him these green beans. And they're an Italian broad green bean. And they've been in our family.
04:12for over 100 years and they're currently growing in three of the Victory Gardens or community gardens that we've started. So they're literally heirloom vegetables. Yes, literally, yeah, literally heirloom vegetables. I love that, oh, you make me so happy. Yeah. Stories like this just make my heart too big for my chest. That's great. One thing, oh, sorry. Go ahead.
04:40Oh, one thing that Andrea maybe didn't mention is that he, he passed this year. And so we've had this dream of launching this farm for a while now. And it was just kind of like the, the motivation or just the, the oomph we, we had to, this is the time, um, you know, to do it in his honor. Um, so, but it is a dream we've had for a long time. It just, it just kind of felt like it's the time is now. Right. Yep.
05:10And I made the decision to leave public education after 22 years, the last 10 being an elementary school administrator. And yeah, this has been a healing process and it's like a passion too.
05:31Fantastic. So it's non-profit. So does that mean that you won't be charging for the classes or does that just mean the money goes right back into the business? Goes right back into the business. Okay. Yeah. And currently how our, what we call little farmsteads or victory gardens is that we design them and we provide the plants at no cost to the folks that we're designing for.
06:00They provide the soil, they provide containers, whatever they're going to be growing in. So essentially our services currently are free. They just pay us the starting cost for themselves to get going. Okay. And how is it going? I mean, it's almost August. So how has it been this year? Amazing. We have...
06:28So we have four working farmsteads as we call them, two of which are in Castro Valley, which are over the hill from where we are. And then we have our family plot, which is on 98th Avenue in Oakland, which is massive. Everything is growing really, really well. The only thing we've had some issues with are carrots. We you know, our little micro climate here, we have like heat waves.
06:58were like 100 degrees and then we drop into like the 60s or below and the carrots didn't like that. So they all died. Every single patch of carrots that we planted died. Yeah. So and we're growing pumpkins, we're growing squash, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers. What else are we growing?
07:25Oh, goodness. Lots of different things. We're trying to go for as much biodiversity as possible. We envision our eventual farm as extremely biodiverse, very much taking inspiration from people like Apricot Lane or also known as the biggest little farm. So we're trying to start that biodiversity now in our smaller gardens.
07:56Okay. So I have to know, has this project been consuming you since you started it? Because when I start a project, all I can think about, all I can talk about is the thing I'm doing. I would say yes and no. We try to find a good balance. But it's like, it's a good, if it is becomes consuming, it's a good consuming, meaning that it's just really good for, especially for
08:25for me right now. I'm not working, it's summer break and I'm not, I'm indefinitely on a summer break. So I have a bit of a routine. I can go to any of our plots, start working, you know, doing whatever. And yeah, I don't know if that answers your question fully, but... So do people, do people show up at the garden plots and you get to visit while you're weeding or working? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Mm hmm.
08:55Okay. Yeah, since these are mostly at people's homes. When we come there, it's because we've arranged with them to work in our garden. And so there's a lot of interaction. Yeah. So you get a lot of social benefit out of it too. Yes. And our own family garden, which is the 98th Avenue Garden, the whole family comes out pretty much.
09:21my 90 year 93 year old Noni or grandmother and my youngest nephew who is about to be three and we all work in the garden together pulling weeds, finding worms, you know, harvesting. And then you know, everyone has to take a chance or take a turn on the backyard swing after they've worked real hard in the garden. Oh, yes. Including the adults.
09:50So it's providing really nice family bonding time too. Oh yeah, yeah. And it's just like, so my youngest nephew who is two, we started working in the garden with my Nonu at about that age. And so it's just, you know, it's repeating, it's repeating that process.
10:13Yes, my favorite memory of the garden at the house that I grew up in with my dad and my mom and my sister and my brother is my least favorite was weeding because I really don't love weeding. I still to this day don't love weeding. My dad was really the one that started the garden and my mom would tend it in the summer and they would go out and pick beans and stuff when it was ready.
10:41My favorite memory is at the end of summer when the garden was done and my dad would pull everything out, put it in the middle of the garden and let it sit for about a week. And then that following weekend, he would have a bonfire and burn everything that had dried out. And he would have one beer in the fridge that waited for him until the bonfire was done. Because it was hot work, you know, in Maine, hot muggy.
11:11And he would go in and get that beer and sit down in the grass and look at the pile of embers and go, that's a wrap. I would just laugh. And my dad, my dad and mom didn't really drink. So, so it was a very celebratory drink for him that they got through another summer, had a good yield and put it to bed. That's great. Yeah, at the end of the end of each growing season, particularly
11:41There's this, it's the end of a harvest. So back in Italy, what the farmers would do was they would have a barn dance and they would enjoy something called Boniocolda, which in translation is hot bath. So they would bring their, whatever they were growing to the table and they did, it was like, it's how we call it Italian fondue. So they'd stick.
12:09whatever they were going to be cooking in the hot bath of the Banyukalda, they'd go dance and then come back and then eat what was on their skewer. And that's a tradition that we do to this day. So that was their harvest festival, basically? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of vino too. I bet. I bet. Okay. So you were talking about teaching people how to cook with the food that they grow.
12:38So what kinds of things would you teach them? Because I have a couple of things that I would teach them, but I'd rather hear what you would teach them. Yeah. So the idea to teach people to cook also comes from two places. Like I said, my grandfather, he was a farm to table chef. Up until this past October, he was cooking for 500 men at the Colombo Club of...
13:07an Oakland, which is an Italian American club. And before we could walk, we had ladles and spoons in our hands. And one of my fondest memories growing up was learning how to make my No No's pasta sauce with him. And I was about eight years old, and in these big industrial kitchens, and like the instruments were bigger than I was. So like the pot was bigger than me.
13:37how to properly cut and dice vegetables. As part of my job as an MTSS, which stands for Multi-Tiered System of Support, a big part of what I did was social and emotional learning. And after we came back from COVID, we were seeing students eating things like Takis and ramen and things like that or sports drinks, and they'd literally crash after lunch.
14:06So what I would do is I would do something called lunch bunches. And I started with my third graders because they were the age that I was when I started to cook with my Nonu. And we also at our school had this massive organic garden. So together we would recreate their favorite foods using as much as we could the vegetables from our garden. So some of their favorites were ramen.
14:35where we picked bok choy and carrots and all the things that we were growing and created a lunch together. We did poke bowls, pizzas, all kinds of stuff. So those are the things that we would definitely be teaching. Also, really, people have asked for ravioli making classes. So that's something that we will be doing. Again, the recipe is really old.
15:02handed down from generation to generation. And the rolling pin that we use to make our raviolis is our great-grandmother's. So who knows how old it is? But yeah, so those are the things. Not just Italian food. We also have a background in the Hawaiian islands. So we cook all kinds of different things. So.
15:27I'm going to share what I would teach people because I don't have any Italian or Hawaiian background. But one of the things that I would actually teach people how to do is bruschetta. Oh yeah, easy. Because I love it. I had it at a restaurant years ago as an appetizer. I was just smitten with this very simple bread with garlic and basil and tomato.
15:56and mozzarella cheese and balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It was the simplest thing to make ever. And I loved it. And the next week I was like, I need to figure out how to make this. I got to find the recipe. Found the recipe and went, oh, I can make this every day if I want to. And clearly I don't want to eat half a loaf of bread every day because that's probably not great for me. But once every couple of weeks, it's a really yummy, bright, fresh thing to have.
16:25eat as dinner. We will have it for dinner. That's it. Easy, right? It's easy to do. Yeah. So as soon as the tomatoes and the basil are kicking in the garden, we have it like once every two weeks because it's quick, it's easy and it's yummy. So I would teach people how to make that. I would teach people how to make, which is going to sound really funny because I have no Italian heritage, but the things I'm saying are very Italian. I would teach them how to make a basic spaghetti sauce because I...
16:53fed my kids spaghetti once a week for years because we were broke and spaghetti was cheap. And a homemade spaghetti sauce is fantastic. It is so easy to make really. Yeah, it is. And those are the things that I think of from the garden because we grow tons of tomatoes every year. So anything with tomatoes is going to be on the menu. Yeah.
17:18Unfortunately, our tomato, that's the one thing that they're not doing great this year, like kind of across our area is they're just not turning green or they're not turning red. They're just not turning over or the yields are kind of small. But typically that's yeah, we have us a pasta sauce called pasta Lana that my my Noni it's her signature dish that everyone loves. That's very simple with, you know, onions, basil, no garlic, she says.
17:49and tomatoes. Yeah, yeah, just unusual to have no garlic, but different variations of our family who make that sauce, they put a little garlic in there. Yeah, yeah. Can you guys grow winter squash where you are? Yes. Okay, so the other thing I would teach people to make is just a basic roasted squash because people think that you got to get fancy with winter squash.
18:16If the squash has grown the way it's supposed to, all you have to do is cut that thing in half, scoop the seeds out, put the seeds in a bowl to roast later because any winter squash seed is edible as far as I know. And you put that flesh down on a cookie sheet with sides so it doesn't spill because it will leak out water or fluid. And you roast it until it's got like a nice caramelization on the flesh on the on the bottom side. And you put a fork through it easy.
18:45And that is the yummiest, yummiest snack. Easy peasy. So yeah, we have been doing like on our Instagram page, what is in season. And so we'll do quick fast recipes with in season vegetables. And I think a family and fan favorite is our cauliflower recipe, which is very simple. It's literally,
19:16garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, butter. And you just pour it on the top, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put it in a Dutch oven, put it in the oven for 40 minutes and it's the most tastiest cauliflower ever. It's a little Parmesan cheese on top. Melts in your mouth. Yeah, it's really good. Could you do it with broccoli that way too? We haven't, but I bet you you could.
19:45Yeah, I always see broccoli and cauliflower as interchangeable. Whatever I have, I'm going to use. Okay, that's awesome. I had thought of something while you were talking and as usual, I got focused on what you were saying and completely forgot what it was and it was about food. Oh, and I don't know. My daughter lived in California for a few years. She just moved to Florida last year and she was vegan. She is not vegan now.
20:13I don't know if people do soups in California in the wintertime like people do in the Midwest. Oh, we do soups. We're very much a soup family. Yeah. Okay. Because I've made cream of broccoli soup with broccoli from our garden. Oh, that was fabulous. I've made squash, winter squash soup with our squashes. And that's amazing. Yeah.
20:42You know, sprinkled on top. Yeah. It just it's so good when it's cold, though. And I know California doesn't get as cold as Minnesota, clearly. But my daughter told me two winters ago that it got down to like 30 degrees. Yeah, it can get cold where we are. Yeah. Well, it also depends on which. Yeah. Where? Which climate? Because there's multiple climates in California.
21:08You guys have everything, right? Yeah, we have mountains and snow to the ocean. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's all relative. Even if it's not that cold here, we feel cold because we're wimps. And so it feels like soup weather to us, even if it's not as cold as Minnesota. Yeah. And this year, since we are growing leeks, one of our favorite soups is tomato potato leek soup. Oh, yes. Yeah. So we're also growing potatoes.
21:37And it'll be fun to cook one of our favorite soups with everything that we've grown in our garden. Not just the herbs or not just the leeks, but also the potatoes. Yeah. Big potato crop coming. Awesome. We do not. We didn't put any in this year. I'm sad. We did make bacon potato soup last winter with our potatoes.
22:07bacon that we had bought from a local butcher, like we got a half of a pig and stuck it in our freezer. So I felt like we had really made things almost from everything that we had in that soup. And I counted the bacon because we bought it from a local butcher. We didn't raise that pig, but we contributed to the money that paid for that pig's raising. Right. Yeah. Thanks. So we were very proud of ourselves on that one. Nice. Yeah.
22:37We always, we hear my husband, myself and my son, summer's hard because stuff doesn't really start coming in from the garden until mid July, 1st of August for us. And, and it's hot. Nobody wants to eat a roasted chicken and mashed potatoes in the summer. Nobody wants to eat hot food. And so we find ourselves doing stuff that might take 10 minutes in the oven, like the bread for the bruschetta.
23:06Or we'll do salads from the store which sucks because you know, yeah, you know Yeah, you better have a lettuce from our gardens. But by the time it's hot the lettuces aren't good anymore. They're very bitter Right. And so we end up buying drinking water That's okay. We end up buying salad from the store We end up buying cold cut stuff sandwiches because it's so muggy and hot out. Nobody wants to cook
23:33I looked at my husband the other day because we literally had a cold meal we planned a week or so ago. And I said, I can't wait. I can't wait for a soup season. He said, why? I said, I don't care. I want food. I want real hearty hot food, but I don't want to eat it right now. Yeah. Today is kind of a soup day for us. It's kind of rainy and a little bit cold.
24:02But then it'll be 85 degrees tomorrow. So we'll see. Yeah. And I feel like I spend half my life talking about food, whether with my husband and my son, because I'm the one that kind of directs the meal plans for the weeks or on the podcast, because cooking is a big part of homesteading and obviously cottage food producing. So I talk about food a lot and I'm actually, I don't weigh 300 pounds. I'm not, I'm a tall kind of thin girl, but.
24:31Food is life and you can grow your own food for yourself, number one. And if you can grow food for other people, number two, you are doing a fabulous thing for the world. Yeah, we think so. So that was your dog. I saw that you have three dogs. Well, we don't exactly have three dogs. Oh, okay.
24:54one of our board members, Gary has a dog, her name is Willie. And then my parents, their dog is Scotty. And we all work on the farm together one way or another. And they're all besties. And so we're typically wherever we are all at, the dogs are out with us. And it started out kind of like as a little joke, but everyone knows Willie, Bristol and Scotty.
25:23Okay, is Bristol yours? Bristol is ours, yeah. Okay, all right. What is Bristol? What kind of dog? She is a Belgian Mellon Waff. I love them. They're beautiful. And thankfully she's a chill one. She's not a raptor. She's very chill. We lucked out in that way. Is she big? She's a little bit smaller than a German Shepherd. She weighs about, right now she's like 56 pounds, so under 60 pounds.
25:53Oh, so she's not big big. No, she's not big big. And they're medium sized. And they're slender. Their breed is pretty slender. Uh huh, okay. Well, since you guys have a dog and you have two friend dogs that hang out, I get to talk about my dog. I've been trying not to talk about Maggie because I talk about her too much. Oh no, we love dogs. Me too, but I'm sure my podcast listeners are like, oh no, she's gonna talk about Maggie again. No, it's fine. We love you. We don't care about Maggie.
26:20Yeah, I have, we have, I don't have, we, all three of us have a mini Australian shepherd named Maggie. And she weighs about 35 pounds and she actually probably weighed 40 pounds two days ago, but my son brushed her. She finally let him brush her. He pulled off like handfuls of little Maggie's all over the place. It was great. Yeah. So she looks much sleeker now. And she's, it's funny because we got her to be a watchdog.
26:50for the property because we used to live in town and our neighbors are really close and we always knew if somebody was around. We all watched each other's houses. So we moved to three acres and our nearest neighbors are a quarter mile away. And I was like, I really wanna know if somebody's pulling in the driveway who isn't supposed to be here. So we got a dog and she is the most fabulous on it watchdog I've ever met. She's great and that's her only job.
27:19other than to be our friend and let us pet her, that's her job. So we adore her and that's why I talk about her a lot. But that's why I didn't mind that your dog was making slopping noises in the background because Maggie barks all the time. Yeah. Bristol is not the best watchdog. Okay. She hardly barks ever.
27:44There is, she does alert us though. Uh, Renata actually had an accident two years ago where she fainted in the middle of the night and first of all was very responsive and got me up. So she does bark in those terms, but other, or, or, you know, alert you to something. Um, but other than that, she's like, Oh, the dogs are barking. I'll go look out the window and see what's happening. So she's not a bork and barker like we call Maggie.
28:13Okay, we have all kinds of things we say about Maggie. Her tail is docked. So she has like a maybe inch and a half nubbin and she's a wiggle butt. She wiggles her butt all the time when she's happy. And so we call her a nubbin wagger. Oh my gosh. And a bork and borker. That's funny. And a hecking good dog. And just silliness because you know, you can't get a puppy at
28:42day shy of eight weeks old and not be silly and that's how old she was when we got her. She's almost four. Her birthday is coming up on August 4th. So, got to talk about the dog without feeling bad about it today. That's good. Yeah, no worry. Yep, I think that dogs are wonderful. I think that cats are wonderful too. We have barn cats. Three barn cats. And one of them is almost four months old now. He's a kitten.
29:10He had a head tilt when he was like, I think he was three or four weeks old and he was walking on a pole barn and his head was tilted and I thought he had ear mites and it wasn't ear mites. We think he just had some kind of thing with the muscle in his neck. And so now he's still tilt, but it's very little tilt anymore. So his name is Tilt. Oh, that's cute. Yeah, he is the loviest baby kitten I've ever met in my whole life.
29:40You touch him and he starts to purr. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah. So we have cats, we have a dog, we have chickens, and that's it. That's all we have for animals on our three acres. Yeah. Well, we don't have cats. We don't have a cat yet because we can't have a cat where we are. But the hope would be to have cats, chickens, all that kind of stuff. We do have a cat.
30:03A new addition to the family, my nieces got it. They found a kitten in a storm drain. Oh no. He has five toes and his name is Skeeter. He's probably about four months old too. Oh, so he's a polydactyl kitty? Yes. And his front paw, we call them thumbs because they're huge. They're huge and he thinks he's a dog, which is amazing.
30:31Scotty likes to play really rough with him and Bristol will tend to rescue him. Oh, sweet. Yeah. That's very cute. Yeah. All right. Well, ladies, it's been half an hour already. I swear I get talking with you and it feels like the time just goes whoosh, you know? Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for taking the time to talk with me and I wish you all the luck with your project. Thank you. Thanks for being flexible with all the times. Oh, yeah. That's fine.
31:01Great. All right. Have a great afternoon. You too. You too. Bye. Bye.
 

New Generation Homesteader - Homestead Business with Kate

Today I'm talking with Kate Herford at New Generation Homesteader - Homestead Business with Kate.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Chelsea Green Publishing. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Kate again from New Generation Homestead. Good evening, or good morning, Kate, how are you? I'm very well, thank you, Mary.
00:26The reason I said again is because Kate and I recorded a podcast episode months ago and my platform ate it. It's gone. I can't find it. So Kate was kind enough to come back and chat with me again. So Kate, you have been on vacation, right? Oh yes. Yes. I took three weeks. My partner was part of a support crew for an off-road.
00:54racing event up in central Australia, if anyone knows where Australia at all is rock, or they call it Uluru. And up near there, there was an off-road race that's held once a year. And I thought, well, if you're going, I'm going too, not going to miss out. And so we spent three weeks touring up to central Australia and then around Uluru and the gorges and that sort of
01:24which is a very off-road track in central Australia as well. It was a lot of fun. Good, I'm glad you had a chance to maybe let down a little bit, because I know you're really busy with your business. So, tell me about yourself and what you do at New Generation Homesteader. Okay, so I am a mom of two boys, and then I'm stepmom to three. So we've had five kids in the house at various times.
01:52And I started New Generation Homesteader during the COVID lockdowns because I realized that we need to be more in control of our own food supply. So I started gardening and wanting to connect with people who had the same values as me. And it took me ages to find the word homesteader. And then when I did, I went, oh my gosh, this is where I want to be. I've been a business coach for a number of
02:22Just my niche had changed a little bit, but nothing really set my soul on fire. And when I came to the homesteading area and I started looking up all the different homesteading pages and YouTubers and that sort of stuff, I went, oh, these people have the same values as me. But what I did find was a lot of people were really exhausted and burnt out and they're really struggling to make ends meet. And I thought, well, as a business coach, how can I help?
02:52And the new generation homesteader was born because it's about getting back to the old ways of doing things and that's your homesteading and being more self-sufficient. But looking at earning an income in the new space, which is in that digital space, creating a course or a membership. At the moment I've got a resale rights program which actually teaches women how to create their own digital business and you know it's very quick and easy to set up.
03:21So I just wanted to go down that path because the whole idea is to relax and have that time in the homestead. And if you've got little kids to be able to do that without really stressing about the bills and all the costs associated with homesteading, it was like, well, how can I help people to start their own digital business and bring in money even when they're sleeping? And so the new generation homesteader, doing things the old way.
03:51but earning money the new way as well. Yeah, I didn't ask you this last time. How did you get into being a coach? Look, many years ago, I started up doing Tupperware when I was traveling Australia with my ex-husband and when my boys were one and three. And it was 2008, the global financial crisis hit and I'd taken two years leave from my job
04:21my ex-husband had just got a redundancy. And so the financial crisis hit and we lost quite a bit of money and I had to, you know, work as we were traveling. There's a whole story wrapped in around that that's quite trauma based in that I wanted to have that experience with my kids, but I didn't. I ended up working government jobs and doing Tupperware on the side. And I love the Tupperware.
04:50It was with women and it gave me a sense of purpose and they lifted me up. But when we got home, I got back into other government jobs and then the marriage broke down and I just realized I wanted more and you know, someone offered me, uh, uh, it was a opportunity for a health product and I took that and had great results and from there I just went, okay, I want to help other people with their health and wellness.
05:20And that led into, you know, coaching and it just sort of morphed from there. But it was, I struggled to find what my niche, what made me happy. And I think it took me a few years and COVID and lockdowns and stuff to actually go homesteading. I actually want to be in this space and help people to get their land and to have that money coming in without stressing about it, because as a single mom, I was, you know,
05:49working really hard to buy a new house and set things up. And then my new partner, my current partner, Bernsy, he's been brilliant. He's just supported me the whole way. And he told me to quit my government job and just go for it with the business coaching. And so that's how it came to be. Just wanting to show my kids to do something different. And one of my boys currently has an online business as well.
06:18which is fantastic. I love that. That's great. I saw a picture of your current partner. He is very handsome. Yes, he is. He's got his beard. Really funny story. When we met, like he, over here we have a Bush range, Ned Kelly, and you know, back in the day, he had the big, big beard. And you know, so I met him when he had this big.
06:45He'd let it go for a year and hadn't trimmed it at all. And I normally don't go for people with beards. It's never been one of the things that has attracted me to a man. But we were in the same hockey club and he was running out the back at the pre-season training and he kept saying to me, come on, keep going. And he was really supportive. And he ended up, he was the coach of my two boys and his two boys.
07:14And so one thing led to another, and I had to organize an event for the hockey club, and I found out it was his 40th birthday. And being a single dad, and he had five kids at home himself at that time, as a single dad. And so I changed the evening to his 40th birthday party, and one thing led to another, and we're together still eight years later.
07:44Nice. That is a great story. I love that. I love it when people meet and it just works out, you know? It's so fun to hear origin stories of relationships that last. Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, I actually moved in with him three months after going out because he got injured on the hockey pitch. I saw that he was taking a shot and he could run down the, we're talking field hockey here.
08:14down the pitch and he got tripped up and tore all the ligaments from his shoulder and had to have surgery. And the funny thing about the beard is the surgeon said the beard has to come off and he said well I'm not doing the surgery. And I said but your son Finn has an operation in three weeks time. How are you ever going to be able to lift him if you don't have a shoulder that's you know really sturdy?
08:41And so the beard came off and I had to move in because he couldn't do anything. And I never moved out. So three months going out. It's like, that's a big, that's a big thing. Yeah, that's, that's a little fast, but it was for a good reason. So, so good. Okay. So, um, I'm going to go back to the homesteading thing. I have a question about Australia. Are there a lot of people doing homesteading in Australia?
09:10A lot of people probably don't call it homesteading. There are now groups that are really growing and they are the homesteading groups here in Australia. We sort of call it farming more than anything or people haven't identified that that's what homesteading is, having your little backyard garden and some chickens and if they've got a little bit more land they might have animals. So it's a growing term and in a lot of areas the small farmlets
09:40um you know the one two five ten you know 20 acre properties they're big money now like we're talking a friend just moved into her property and i think it was four or five acres and i think it was up around the nine hundred thousand dollars um and that was in in u.s terms that's probably around six hundred thousand dollars for a four acre four four or five acre property
10:09So we have big prices on properties for people to homestead, just on Little Acre Ridge. But they're in high demand and that's why the prices are so high. Yeah, the housing boom that happened here after 2020 during COVID really spiked prices here on land as well. And we were lucky enough to buy ours in 2020 before that happened.
10:39because if we had waited even six months, we would not be living where we're living now. Yeah, yeah, it's just crazy. It's sort of an off-grid property group that I'm part of, and I'm watching some of the people advertise the land that they have to sell through that group. And there's a couple of properties that are around the three to 400,000 Australian, which is two and a half.
11:09250,000-ish for the US, but they're in areas that insurance would be very hard to get, very expensive because they're in that bush area, a high fire danger, that sort of thing. We've got the problem here with insurance that they are now charging way, way more for small lots, especially if they've got any woodlands on it.
11:39And, you know, it can be several thousand dollars a year for insurance. And I have not, I think I know what's at play here. It's to try and stop people from being self-sufficient, but that's stopping a lot of people. It's not just the price. It's also what it's going to cost them insurance wise. Yeah. All right. It's really interesting because.
12:03As I talk to people I find out that this is like a worldwide thing not just a US thing. Insurance prices have jumped here too on everything. Land prices have jumped. Grocery prices are ridiculously expensive. Like if you are a young person with a part-time job trying to live in an apartment with three or four of your friends,
12:28You're probably not eating much right now because food prices are astronomical right now here. Same here. And I think, or if they are eating stuff, it's the two minute noodles and all the processed food that is cheap, but really not good for them. Yeah. Or they're going home to their parents and having dinner at their parents' house. Yeah. We do that for our kids on a Tuesday night. They come around and have a feast, whatever that is.
12:58Yeah, I just, it's really hard. I don't know how people are actually managing. I mean, you can move out into the country and find reasonable rent, but then there's generally not jobs as well. So you've got to have something to be able to offer. And that's where the online space comes in because you can actually, you know, work from anywhere. We know that because we all had to do it during COVID. It's just...
13:26how can you create something that will light you up and put food on the table, money in the bank so that you can survive? Uh-huh, exactly. So you just brought it right back around to my next question. How are you helping people? How does your business work? Okay, so I help women, homesteading women to actually start their digital business. So I've got different platforms that I use
13:55The first thing I do is look at what is it that lights you up? What is it, what are the skills that you have that other people want? Because I think if you look at a lot of the bigger homesteaders like Polyface Farm, they're doing a huge promotion at the moment because they've got courses and an academy or something happening where they are, they've done all these courses that are teaching homesteaders how to do things.
14:24and you've got Melissa Norris. Yes. You know, all of the big names, they have books, they have courses that you can do, and people seem to get pulled off. They go, yeah, but they've already got courses. But the thing is, have you bought them? Do you relate to that person? And often people who want to get into digital business don't realize that...
14:54Not everyone is going to buy from the big guys because those people are so far ahead of them that it's a little bit daunting to get into that network. And often they want to, you know, connect with someone who's just a couple of steps ahead of them because they can feel there's, they're more like them. There's some sort of rapport because they're just a couple of steps ahead. So for me, it's really about
15:24helping them get into the mindset that the skills and experience they have is really valuable. And yes, there are people who want to work with them and will... I think it's about helping women to understand that the value they have, the knowledge they have in their skills and experience, and it doesn't have to actually be homesteading. People want to know
15:54how they do things. And by putting together a course or it could be a checklist, you know, you might be a homeschooling mom. How many more women are wanting to homeschool their kids? What can you provide in an ebook or documents or a curriculum that's a particular subject? What can you provide that people might wanna buy? And it's simply around then creating that product
16:23and putting it out to the marketplace on social media and through digital means. But a lot of women are really, well, I don't have anything of value, I'm not worth anything. So a lot of starting a business is mindset. And if you've been following along on my personal page and a little bit on my business page, I've really had some breakthroughs of my own. You're always learning and developing and that's what business is. You start where you are and just,
16:52continue to grow and when you find your audience, that's when miracles happen because you're able to connect with people who are like you and you can help them. And we just sort of work through what is the best way for you to be able to help others? What is it that you will find easy to do to start with? And also understanding that when you start out,
17:21You don't have to be successful right at the start. Like if you've only got five hours a week to put into a digital business, then you're gonna be slow when you're getting the income coming in. If you can put in 20 hours a week, yes, hopefully you can go quicker. But it's all around finding what is it that you wanna do and let's find the process that works for you and...
17:49give yourself permission to learn and grow and not expect results right at the start because if you do go, oh, I need to get to $10,000 a month, then often you put too much pressure on yourself and it won't happen. You've got to build up, you've got to earn your first $100 and then your first $500 and then $1,000 and step into the person that's going to be
18:18the business owner or the CEO of the business that you want to create. And I think that's where I went wrong. And it took me a while to discover. I thought I could go zero to 10 K months right at the start. And I wasn't the person that knew how to earn 10,000 K a month. I'm I've had to learn that. So I think, um, that's where you've got to give yourself permission to.
18:47learn and grow into the business that you want to create. Sure. The other thing that I always thought was that business was beyond me. Having a business was beyond me because of all the background stuff, the financing and the paperwork and the understanding everything. And you don't have to understand everything at the beginning.
19:16You just have to know what you want to do and you have to find people who can answer your questions. That's what I learned. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I mean, you know, we were discussing beforehand that, you know, what you've achieved in 12 months with your podcast, which is fantastic. There's always more to learn. And that's what you've got to understand. It's start with what
19:45add the next thing to it. What is it you need to learn? Now the digital space, you can get into that very, at minimal cost because, you know, if you go and open up a business where you're selling a product and you have a storefront, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars involved in rent and insurance and staffing and setting it up so that you can actually sell. And then there's getting the products. It's a huge investment. Whereas,
20:15With a digital business, you can start up with $1,000 to $2,000. And I say that because you could start cheaper. But what I'm talking about is having a coach and a mentor who's done what you want to do and being able to tap into their skills. And that's where my coaching program, once you get into the program, you're in it for life and can come to the coaching sessions each time they help.
20:43And I think that's really important. They're the programs that I'm in myself because there's always something more to learn. And if you don't know what you don't know, how are you gonna find out? And you can do it all for free. As people who, especially in the homesteading space, it's funny, I've seen arguments on some Instagram posts, I'm not paying to do this. Homesteading should be free.
21:10and you should be sharing all your knowledge. And it's like, but I don't have time to check out all these YouTube videos and try and learn what I wanna do. I want someone to show me and teach me and give me feedback. And so that's where if you wanna do it quickly, then get a mentor and a coach, because that way you find out all the little idiosyncrasies that you wouldn't know if you...
21:40just went and looked at YouTube. So, and you know, you know that I gave you a couple of tips with your podcast and that's really helped, you know, some of the things with your podcast. If you don't have a mentor, you don't get their wisdom from, you know, the investment they've made in their own training. And I've done, I've probably invested about a thousand, a hundred thousand dollars into my training. So you're getting lots of
22:09different perspectives from different coaches. That's what you want when you start your business. Pick my brain. What do you know that I need to know? Yep, and people, Kate is brilliant. She gave me some tips after we stopped recording the episode that went bye bye, we don't know what happened to it, on what I should do for the podcast. And it really, really helped and they were like little tiny tweaks. So.
22:37Kate is a brilliant woman and if you want to learn about the eSpace, go check out her website. It's pretty cool. I was going to say, I am definitely doing the in the digital space thing regarding homesteading because I'm doing a podcast. My husband is doing the actual hard work of gardening and we just put up a greenhouse and he's been getting that ready for the winter.
23:06So I'm doing all the techie stuff and he's doing all the not techie stuff outside. But because I'm doing the podcast, people keep coming up to him at the farmer's market and saying, I love the podcast. It is so bizarre to me because I know I'm doing the podcast so that people will listen and learn. But to have people come up to him at the farmer's market and tell him without any preamble, I love the podcast and they are just,
23:36effusive in their excitement. It's so funny to me. I have this disconnect with the fact that I'm doing this podcast, but that people are listening to the podcast. Does that make any sense? It does. It does. And I think, you know, when you get into business, you've got to understand that you will have some raving fans, which is what you want. You want these people who go,
24:03They, you want them to consume everything that you do and like your posts and show up and chat. And, and when you've got those fans, they will go into bat for you. If someone on social media, um, says something that they don't agree with about you. So having those raving fans is amazing. And you just never know where they're going to show up. I, um, I've got two funny stories. I was sitting at a, uh, a local.
24:33um business event and this girl was sitting next to me and she goes I know you like I don't think so anyway turned out that I've done um so a series of videos I started out uh coaching stepmums and in that space because I blended our families and I thought well you know you need a bit of help there she was a single woman who had watched one of my videos
25:00on stepmumming and she'd saved it because she liked what I was doing and like that was bizarre, not even in the stepmum space and we happened to sit together at a local function, like that was a bit weird. But then I had, I attended the Off Grid Festival here in Australia a couple of months ago and this lady who had found me on social media actually turned up and said, oh hi, and she lives
25:29minutes from me and she just she had been watching what I was doing and the current business offer I've got she has opted in, ordered, done and she's working her way through it. So it's really weird that you don't know who you are going to impact, you don't know how they're going to react what you're doing, you've just got to know that your people will find you.
25:57and they're going to be so excited and they're going to see you as their best friend. You don't even know them. Yep. But that's the power of being in business. And that's what you wanna be able to do. You want to be able to connect with people so they see you as the person that's helped them transform, learned something new, whatever it is, it's that personal connection.
26:27And I think that's amazing that you've got people coming up to your husband because they obviously know that you're connected and they'd probably love to meet you in person too. Yeah, I need to get my little hiney down to one of the farmer's markets before summer's over. So the other thing that I wanted to get into is the green house thing. We built a green house this past May, it's now August, and it's going to be a heated green house.
26:56this winter. We're working on getting it insulated and how we're going to heat it. We think we're going to use a wood stove and water actually. We're going to use the heat from the wood stove in copper piping wrapped around the wood stove that will then heat water in the big old white square container things that hold like 275 gallons of water. There's a name for them, but I can't think of it right now. IBCs? So it will radiate heat. Yeah, I think so. IBCs, yes.
27:25and it will radiate heat overnight. And so we have been talking constantly here this summer about how we're going to make this greenhouse that's a hard side of greenhouse. It's beautiful, it's 40 feet by 20 feet, I think. Heated for the winter so we can grow things that don't need to be pollinated. Like lettuces and chard and spinach, spinach, spinach, I don't know what I'm saying. Spinach, you know, that stuff.
27:55so that we can sell it to people who want homegrown food in the wintertime. And also we're going to grow bedding plants so that people can buy our baby plants for their own gardens next year. And we're going to grow hanging baskets that have flowers in them for Mother's Day. Wow. So, so there's lots of really exciting new things happening.
28:25talk on the podcast with people, they tell me what they're doing and I get new ideas. And that's really important to me because we're still fairly new at this actual 3.1 acre homesteading what are we doing thing. But the people that I interview also tell me they've gone back and listened to previous podcast episodes and they've learned so much too.
28:50I love this, the symbiotic relationship I have with my listeners makes me so happy. Yeah. And I think that's the thing you actually never stopped learning. And I think if you, if you think you've learned all you need to learn, then you're not going to grow as a person. And.
29:16We can always learn from all sorts of different people, even if it's you learn what you don't want to do. Um, and you know, it's like that in business. I've tried various things. I know what I don't want to do. Same with homesteading. Now for me, I actually dismantled a, uh, trellis area in my garden bed yesterday. Why? Because it.
29:44grew beautifully the first year I had it. It was fantastic. But all the trees in the neighbor's property have just grown up and they're three or four meters over the fence. And that particular garden bed no longer gets any sun whatsoever. So disappointed because it's three feet by probably 15 feet. And it's, you know, it was one of my biggest garden beds but there's nothing that will grow now. So I've just...
30:13converted it to a compost area and I have put a couple of fruit trees that should get summer sun because the sun will be higher in the sky. But I've had to undo stuff because it just wasn't working. And now I've got to work out how can the rest of my garden be productive given that the neighbours trees are sort of blocking that as well. What can I do? So you're always looking for different ideas because as your plants grow, you're
30:43So do you. Yeah, exactly. And I said to someone the other day on one of the recordings, I said, I said, if you stop learning, you might as well start digging the six foot grave. You're going to be laid in because you're dead. If you're not learning, you're not growing. That means you're dead. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. And you know, the last four weeks, I think I have learned more about me. Just.
31:13keeping, I set myself a challenge to do 30 K in 90 days with a new program. I'm, I'm testing it because you know, the lady who's running it said, um, you know, you can do it in two hours a day. And I went, Oh yeah, you know, it sounds really great. That's what I want to be doing. I'll test it out for my audience. And I've been reporting every day on my Facebook page. Now within the first week, I, I got my first sale and it was.
31:42My investment was recouped, so that was brilliant. But in, in posting every day, it's really highlighted to me things about my energy and how some days I'm energetic and some days I'm not. And the revelation has been that I have been in my masculine energy, my entire life. That the feminine energy, um, I have
32:11I've put down. And that has explained so much about how I operate as a person and in business. And had I not challenged myself to do a post every day, I never would have learnt this. And I think we have to get uncomfortable. I've done some very, very vulnerable posts on my socials.
32:40and people have really resonated with it because it's stuff that most people don't talk about, but I've just gone there and well, you know, this is what's happening. And so I know that that growing and learning process is going to hold me in good stead with the growth in my business moving forward because now I can adjust what I'm doing so that it's more about, it's more feminine.
33:08and it connects better with the females I want to work with. But we've got to be uncomfortable with new growth. I mean, growing and learning, there's no comfort in that. It's confronting, we always get stuck in perfectionism and thinking we have to get everything right before we put it out. And it's just not the truth. We have to learn and grow at the same time. If we wait till we're ready to do things, you will...
33:37never ever do things. Absolutely. Amen, sister. I was going to say back at the beginning you were talking about just starting. And yes, if you want to do something, you have to take that first step. If you don't take the first step, you will never move into the thing you want to do.
34:06how they got into the YouTube channel that they do, basically talking about their frugal, self sustainable lifestyle as homesteaders. And I said, how did you get into doing YouTube about it? And the husband laughed and said, I don't even remember how I got into it. It just happened, I just did it. And after I got to talking with them, I was like, see, that's the thing.
34:35Why not? Why not just do it? And also, I want to, I also want to say that it's a whole lot easier to take that first step when you don't have small children under your feet when you're in your 20s or 30s. Small children require a lot of attention and love and work. So if you're in your 20s and 30s,
35:01You really gotta be disciplined on your time if you wanna do something like whatever it is you wanna do. You've got to be able to block time. Yes. So if you're in that stage of life, don't beat yourself up about the fact that you wanna start a business, but you're not ready, because that's a different thing than being stalled out. That's right, yeah. And I think the thing is, when you're looking at starting a business, you think you have to allocate all this time.
35:30And that was what I actually found, that a lot of my mentors were all males, and they're into the hustle and grind, and you know, you've just got to do it and work until you've got things right. And I've realized that that's what I didn't want to do. And I got into the business side of things because I wanted to be there for my kids. The problem was, I did the hustle and grind, and I wasn't there for my kids.
35:59wasn't present in my business, wasn't present with the kids. It's like, oh, mommy's just gotta do this. I'll be with you in a minute. And two hours later, they're stuck in front of the TV and I still haven't achieved things. It's about, can I do something in an hour here, half an hour here and half an hour there? And so there's two hours in a day in bits and pieces where you can make small steps moving forward. It doesn't have to be, we've gotta get out of this.
36:27mindset that a business, our business, isn't a 9 to 5 job. It's a business that we want to do around the rest of the family so that you can be present doing both. And if you find those hours through the day, even if it is 7 days a week, if that's, you know, it's not a lot of, you know, half an hour here, half an hour there on the weekend, but
36:56If you consistently do that over time, instead of waiting 10 years and then going, oh my God, now I've got to work eight hours a day to do it, you're going to be a lot further along. When you even do an hour a day or two hours a day throughout your day, not this, I have to do nine to five to work. It's so different and it's a really different mindset to shift because we've been sold that nine to five is the only way to earn money.
37:26Yes. And I think that's what I was trying to say, but I think you said it a lot better than I did. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I don't really have a whole lot more questions for you. I just wanted to have you back and revisit some of the things that we talked about in the first one that went away. I'm so sad about the first interview going away because it was really good. I had listened to it back and I loved it. And then I found out it was gone. And I was like, where did it go?
37:56Like that happened to me the other day on a coaching call with one of my clients and was in the group coaching and this one client had been able to show up and man, it was amazing. You know, she got some aha moments out of it and put pieces of a business together. It was incredible. And I went to, you know, download the recording and stuff and I went, oh my God, it's not there.
38:25I had a glitch in the middle of it and I thought that we'd just re-recorded it, but it didn't, it went. And sometimes our best stuff is just made for the person who actually gets to be there and do it. Maybe that was just it. I don't know, but computers have gremlins just like everybody, everything has gremlins. So sometimes things just don't work correctly. Hopefully this one will work great.
38:52So don't leave me after I stop recording because I need your file to upload from your end. I keep meaning to tell people this at the beginning and then usually I do and then I forget. So Kate, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me. I appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed this and I hope that some listeners, it's given them the kick that they need to go, come on, let's just do it. Let's just start that business and give it a go and see what happens.
39:22And you know, they can you can connect with me new generation homesteader on Facebook, Insta and YouTube Just search up that okay to effort and you'll find me And even if you don't want to start a business go listen to Kate's voice because it's so beautiful I could listen to her talk all day Thank you All right, Kate. Have a great day. Thank you very much you two
 

WhoopsyDaisy Farm

Today I'm talking with Rachel at WhoopsyDaisy Farm.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Rachel at WhoopsyDaisy Farm, I think is the name of your place, right? Yes. Okay. I have, there are so many endings to people's names, farm, homestead, farmstead. I'm like, which is it?
00:27How are you? And tell me about yourself. I'm doing great. So yes, we are WhoopsyDaisy Farm. We are an eight and a half acre homestead in central Kentucky. And we raise dairy sheep. Very nice. If I sound a little flustered, it's because I, you are the ninth episode I have recorded this week alone. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So it's been, it's been crazy. I've talked to a lot of people this week. I've made
00:55As of now, nine new friends. It's been really fun. Well, awesome. All right. So, um, where are you again? We're in central Kentucky. Okay. And do you have a big sheep raising operation or a small one or how does this work? Well, we have 30 sheep. So some people say, oh my goodness, that's a ton. And other people say, oh, that's it. You're a micro farm. So it kind of depends, um, on what your perspective is. Uh, I mean, it's, it's.
01:25It's a mid-sized sheep operation, I would say. It seems like, again, you either own hundreds or thousands of sheep or you own four. I mean, there's not really a lot of middle ground in the sheep industry from my experience. So yeah, we're on the smaller range. We're larger for a homestead dairy operation, but we actually raise two different kinds of sheep. And so that's why we have so many. So we, yeah, we raise.
01:52We raise dairy crosses and then we raise purebred Gulf Coast natives. So like we have a ram flock of at least five rams at all times so that we have genetic diversity for both types of sheep. Awesome. So tell me how you got into this because raising sheep is not something you just go, I think I'm going to get a couple of sheep and raise them. Especially not wool breeds in America today. So my...
02:18Origins with sheep were when I was growing up in New Mexico, my best friend's mom had a fiber store and they owned two sheep, two llamas, and 18 Angora rabbits. And they harvested all the fiber, they processed it themselves, they spun it and they would either sell the yarn or they would knit clothing and sell those. And then, you know, they ordered either wool from other shepherds or they got yarn from other yarn outlets and they sold it in their store.
02:48I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. So I always wanted to have some wool sheep just so I would have quote sheep yarn unquote in my backyard. But it wasn't really something I thought you could sustainably do, you know, during your working years. This was going to be like hobby farm when we retired that kind of thing. And then between high school and college, I went to Romania on the mission field and I tasted sheep milk cheese for the first time there. And I
03:16never heard of sheep as a dairy animal, but the cheese was absolutely amazing. And then when I was in college in Louisville, I went to this little Russian grocery store and they would import sheep cheese from Bulgaria and that was always my favorite kind too. So I kind of had in the back of my mind of, you know, okay, well, I'll have sheep when I retire for wool and milk. And so then
03:40You know, I got married to my husband and he had a major health crisis after he donated bone marrow right after we got married. And so we started seeing a nutritional therapist. I got my certification in nutritional therapy. I started learning about, you know, all the nuances of the food industry of our country and the medical industry. And we found out about Joel Salatin. And my husband was like, well, I want to farm like Joel Salatin.
04:10thing he was actually passionate about after getting so sick. So I was like, well, let's get a farm then. Because if you're chronically ill, that's what you do. You go get a farm. Sure. Why not? That'll help. So we got a foreclosed property and Joel Salatin says put animals on your property right away. So we got the chickens because that's what you're supposed to do. And we were trying to do a pasture poultry operation, but in Kentucky, everyone still raises chickens.
04:41corner of the world where everyone has little gardens every summer, everyone has chickens, everyone kind of gives you eggs in the spring or whatever. Like we haven't had a garden the last couple of years for a variety of reasons. And I mean, I don't miss it because people give us produce because they just have it. So all that being said, it's a wonderful place to live. It's not so great if you're trying to make money selling organic eggs pre-pandemic. Because I wanted four or five dollars a dozen.
05:08for my organic chicken eggs and that was just ridiculous. Back then like, anything over 99 cents a dozen was just silly. So we were like, well, let's, we need a farm product to sell to help offset costs. So, you know, the next thing after chickens is you're supposed to get dairy goats if you're a homesteader. And so we're like, let's get dairy goats and we'll do like the goat milk soap thing. And so we were all signed up to get our.
05:36starter flock of goats and we were supposed to pick them up in March of 2020. Mm hmm. And so that didn't happen because it was March of 2020. So, um, I don't know what happens to starter flock. They just, they weren't available. Traveling wasn't an option. So I started looking for four-legged in our area and, um, I was like, well, I know some shepherds in our area and I know you can get milk from sheep.
06:06And this was kind of when we were more like everyone was hoarding toilet paper and pasta. And I was like, well, I don't need to hoard toilet paper. We've got oak leaves for that. My husband can't eat grains. There's no point in hoarding pasta. And all it takes is one pregnant mouse and there goes your stash. So let's, you know, we've got chickens, we've got protein sources, but we should probably get a red meat source and a dairy source just in case the wheels really fall off. So
06:30There were these two border lester sheep available and those are not traditional dairy breeds at all, but when I was looking them up, the research I was doing said they've historically been used for dairy as well as fiber and meat. I was like, okay, well, it's a tripurpose breed. Let's do that. So we brought these two sheep home and we were just going to have the two for a while just to kind of get our feet wet. And the longer we had them, the more my husband was like, I like sheep. I don't really think we need to do.
07:00goats, let's just do sheep. And I was like, okay. And then, you know, we started getting stimulus checks. And he's like, let's boost our farming economy and go buy more sheep. And I was like, cool. So we ended up getting a ram in a weather, what they were both Gulf Coast natives. And then we had a Gulf Coast native you, because I wanted to do some critically endangered breeds just because I thought it was cool. And then we have the border lusters. And then I got two dairy mutts.
07:28Yeah, so they were crossbreed of East region, Awasi, and they had some Icelandic in them. So we don't have purebred dairy sheep in the United States right now for, again, a garden variety of reasons. So when people buy dairy sheep, they're usually a high percentage of the purebred you want, but then they're crossed with something else. Does that make them more hardy? I...
07:51wouldn't say so because when they import the semen and the embryos and the frozen eggs from overseas so like the way we get our dairy sheep is you start off with a you who is Similar to the breed you want so Yeah, you say you want to eat freeze and I'll just pull a breed out of my hat You'll start with a Chevy at you
08:16which is a meat breed, but they're larger and their wool is kind of like an East Frisian, so it wouldn't take much genetic tweaking to make them look like an East Frisian. And so then you would either import East Frisian semen from overseas, or now they've allowed you to import frozen, fertilized embryos. And you either do in vitro fertilization on the ewe, which is a surgery, so stupid expensive.
08:43Or you would do an artificial insemination with the semen, which is also a minor surgery with sheep, which is also expensive. And so then, I mean, the success rate of this is not very high. So I know a shepherd who did this and she impregnated six ewes and she got one viable lamb out of it. So if you do the semen, the offspring will be 50% the breed you want and 50% the breed that you use as the host. And so then you would just repeat that process with the offspring until you get
09:12you know, the high enough percentage that's considered an American version of that breed. So, so like the highest percentage you're going to get with this system is I think it's like 99.5 or something like that. But I think once you get into the 97% range, then that's essentially considered purebred. Okay, cool. Thank you for the genetic lesson. I love it. I really, really do.
09:38Yeah, you can get really nerdy and technical with some of this stuff. I find it fascinating and other people are like, just tell me what to milk. I don't care. Well, you just gave me an opening to chat about my dog because I talk about the dog all the time and this is a legitimate reason to bring this up. My dog is a mini Australian shepherd. And in a lot of circles, mini Australian shepherds are not an actual breed. They're called an American shepherd. Okay.
10:08their bread from Australian shepherds and supposedly smaller breed dogs. I don't know about this. I have to go dig some more because if you look at my dog, she looks like a 35 pound version of a black tri Australian shepherd. I don't see any other breed in her anywhere. So genetics are crazy. How they're absolutely crazy. I, we have a ram and we use a purebred Gulf coast native ram.
10:38And the Gulf Coast do not look anything like any dairy breed whatsoever. And we crossed the Gulf Coast ram with my best dairy you to try to get hard to your offspring. And she had a you and a ram. The you and so she had twins, right? The you looks just like the dairy cross mom. The ram looks just like the Gulf Coast ram. Weird. And they're twins. Like they grew up in the same, you know, bag.
11:08look like two completely different breeds of sheep. So yeah, it's crazy. I don't, I think genetics are awesome, but I don't understand them. That's why they call a genetic crap shoot. Because you can hope for the best on the breeding turning out the way you want it to. Yeah. But Mother Nature is always going to throw you a curveball. It's never going to fail. She's always going to be like, haha, look what I made. Yeah. Yeah.
11:34Yeah, we were both, my husband and I are both control freaks. So naturally we started homesteading because we joke the almighty needed lots of opportunities to humble us and take our control freak, get this out of, out of the system. So. Absolutely. I, I used to be a control freak really, really bad. I didn't even know I was one until someone pointed it out. And as I've gotten older and as things have not gone according to plan and I have had meltdowns about it.
12:03I have learned that it's so much easier to go with the flow as long as nobody is mortally wounded. Probably going to be okay. Well, that's probably why we called our farm whoopsie daisy farm because I said we're going to make mistakes and we can't just become incapacitated by that. So we're just going to have to be like whoopsie daisy and we move on. Like we're just so we're going to name our farm that as a reminder to just keep rolling with it. So.
12:30Yes, and I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they stuff their feelings about things on the homestead because that's a really good way to get the courage and give up. So if something bad happens and you feel like you need to cry about it, have a cry about it. Oh yeah, absolutely. But then realize that life is going to go on and things will get better. Well, and with shepherding, I mean, I tell people all the time, like,
12:57shepherding is going to force you to face every single emotion possible to experience as a human at some point in your shepherding journey. So you are going to have to get comfortable with feeling all the feels because you will experience the worst rage and the most deepest joy and the most profound grief and the most euphoric happiness sometimes in the same hour. So if you don't have the ability to
13:24look at your emotions and say, I have that emotion, but then you process that emotion and you keep going, you're not gonna stay in shepherding very long. So, yeah, it's very important to acknowledge what you're feeling, but just not to be incapacitated by it. Yes, and I think that that actually has a lot to do with control freakism. I feel like back when I was younger, I didn't know how to process what I felt.
13:52And so it got all bottled up and I would try to cope with it by avoiding things going wrong. Because if nothing went wrong, nothing hurt. Yeah. So as I, like I said, as I got older, I realized that it's probably not the end of the world. Everything probably will work out. And then I could let go a little bit. So, yeah, yeah. Yep. But anyway, um,
14:19Now that we're done with our Dr. Phil moment. Done with psychology, yes, exactly. And really, I mean, I hate to be all psychology-y, but there's a lot of stuff that is feelings when you're raising animals or raising produce or raising kids or raising a relationship. It's all tied into homesteading and farming. Yeah.
14:47influential in how our culture views animals or or PETA, for example, or, you know, all the all the things where in our culture as a general rule, the only animals we really interact with on a daily basis are pets, not food, or a zoo animal, but not food. And so when you leave, you know, mainstream culture to do something countercultural, like homesteading,
15:15you really have to confront that we actually have a lot of emotion. I mean, like, you know, when I was a kid, if the goldfish died or the hamster died or the dog died, I mean, it was like, yes, you're going to grieve now because your friend died. But if your chickens die, as an adult homesteaders, like, well, I, if I grieve every time a chicken kills over and have a little minor funeral for it, like, I'm not going to be
15:43protecting the other chickens that are alive. Like, you know, you have to kind of rewire some parts of your brain. And again, not to say that you can't feel your feelings. Like, of course you're going to feel grief that you lost animals, but there's a learning curve, I think, for new homesteaders from moving from, you know, Bambi or, you know, our love of dog Fido to, I do love my sheep. I care for them. I'm their shepherd. Like, I know each one of their ball and what sheep it goes to. They know me as their shepherd.
16:13But at the end of the day, their ultimate goal is to provide my family food. Yes. Yes. And, um, we just, we just lost a barn cat of a couple of weeks ago. This is like, this is like the fourth or fifth barn cat that, that we have lost. And it's the second one that has just disappeared. Like we don't know what happened to her. And the first one, I've talked about this already on the podcast. I cried. Like I was so upset about that first one.
16:42This one was missing for a day and she had kittens, which sucked. She had like three or four people kittens. And I was like, well, if she doesn't come back tomorrow, we have a problem because we are not bottle feeding kittens. This is not a thing they're doing. Yeah. They're barn kittens. That's not happening. Yeah. And then she didn't show up the next day and I was like, crap, we're going to have to put those kittens down. Not, not a happy moment at all. No, no, no. And.
17:12You know, I think that's part of homestaying that ever, it's becoming more talked about, I think, now, that so many people are turning to this lifestyle of, you know, you're gonna have a lot of hard. Yep. So you're gonna have to, A, embrace the hard, but B, choose your hard. You know, because it's hard to put down kittens, it's hard to bottle raise kittens. So which hard are you going to choose? And, you know, only you on your home said no, which hard is,
17:42Feasible for you, right? Exactly. I mean I have a one-year-old. I can't bottle feed a ton of kittens. Mm-hmm Yeah, bottle feed one lamb because they actually stayed in the pack and play together for a while but Probably not Yes, and and they were already they were already young She was not a great mom to start with so they weren't the healthiest little critters that ever seen right and I was just like
18:10No, this is not a feasibility for us right now. Mm-hmm. But the point in telling the story is that I was sad. It's soft. And I kind of miss Chirp was her name. She was a really friendly kitty. But I'm not broken up about it like I was with the very first one because I have learned that this is the kind of thing that happens. Right. Also, Chirp's mom had had a litter of kittens like two months before Chirp did.
18:38And we kept one of those kittens and we're keeping him. He's becoming the new boy male, uh, barn cat. And so yes, we had to put down three or four sickly kittens, but we also got to keep a really healthy male barn cat who will do a very good job in keeping mice down. So it's that, it's that one hand is empty and one hand is full, you know? Yeah. And I mean, you know, Daniel's Alison talks about how to be sustainable. You have to call.
19:07with a very heavy hand. And I mean, you need to cut your losses and invest in the viability, which again, I think is very counter-cultural because we have special need pet clinics for you to go pick up your special need animal. And so the thought of like, we had a lamb, our first lamb ever born on our farm was born crippled.
19:35And you know, we were brand new shepherds. And I do think the learning curve was beneficial for us to learn, like, all the options to care for this ewe. But at the end of the day, we were like, she's gonna have to go in the freezer. I mean, she's a critically endangered ewe. She's purebred. She's got amazing parasite resistance. Her fleece is okay. But if the flock has to run for some reason, she can't keep up. And if she gets bred, that'll kill her.
20:03And then are we going to have a viable lamb or a deformed lamb? Like, it's just like the odds of really hard choices outweighing any possibility of physical redemption here. And you know, that was like our first time we had to make this culling decision. And it was really hard because we were like, did we fail her? Like, is the amount that we have to put into her?
20:27Like, are we just being lazy? But then like the amount we have to put into caring for her is taking into time we need to put into the rest of the flock and that kind of stuff. But anyway, fast forward to picking her up from the butcher, then we tried the meat and we're like, oh, maybe culling's not so hard anymore. Because the end result is really tasty. Yeah, and I really don't want this to be a downer. Like, we're talking about the realities of the choices that we make.
20:57raising animals or raising produce or having a farm or whatever because it's not all prettiness. It's hard work and it will hurt your heart but it's also really good for you, makes you strong and there's lots of really happy things that happen too. I get told by my city friends all the time, your life is so ideal and I just laugh because
21:21Yes, there are so many idyllic moments there. There really are. I mean, Instagram is wonderful for making sure I can just tap on an app and I'm instantly shown my grid where there's all the ideal. But behind every ideal moment and photo, there's a lot of work and there's a lot of hard and there's a lot of sweat. Sometimes there's even blood and tears. And, you know, I don't want...
21:45the hardness to erase the idealism, but I also don't want people going into this thinking the idealism is what is the overarching experience you're going to have because, you know, I like hard work. But you know, I've had to work harder than I ever thought possible my entire life because you know, if you're in lambing season, you don't really have an option if you're tired or you've had a bad day or you're sick with something like when we had COVID, we still had to go milk the cow.
22:15So, you know, that when you live in the town or the city or whatever, like if you don't feel good, you just put it off and you can if you're on a homestead, like the animals will get sick or die if you put it off. So you really have to embrace self-discipline and you're you're just inner moxie, which I think is rewarding, but it can catch people off guard. Yeah. And and if you're actually really, really sick.
22:44Hopefully you have a partner who will kick in and help. Or you have a backup plan somewhere where somebody knows your routine and can come help you. Well, I will say, we didn't know to really, like, hardcore cultivate community when we first started because we were in this to be independent. And so when we were just kind of trekking along doing our own thing,
23:07And when we did get COVID, we reached out to people and they did step up and come and help us and stuff like that, but it wasn't until I got pregnant and we had other small farmers and homesitters in our area basically knocking on the door and saying, here's my phone number, you are going to call me, right? Because you are going to get to the point where you can't do stuff anymore. And...
23:33you know, then when we did have my son, I had a really hard labor and to recover was a lot more intense than I planned. And I mean, if our neighbors hadn't stepped in, we would have lost the farm because it was right after lambing, like, you know, sheep needed milk, stuff needed to moved around, parasites were hitting really hard. And our neighbors stepped in and just took over for us so that we could focus on healing and taking care of our newborn. And I mean, it was really an eye opener for us of like
24:01we've really got to talk more about cultivating community in the homesteading arena because it's starting to kind of be vocalized more, but I think it needs to be like, before you get your chickens, you need to figure out who your neighbors are first. Make friends and then get chickens. Yes. Yes, there you go. Yep. When we moved here, it was during COVID, we moved here in 2020, August of 2020. So we're
24:30August 7th is the day we moved in, so we're coming up on our four year anniversary. Well, happy anniversary. Yeah, very excited about this. And I don't know, like halfway through this past year, I thought, did we make a mistake? Did we really need three acres? Did we really need to do this? And I had to think about it for a couple of days and I had to sleep on it for a couple of nights because it was really bugging me. And I woke up on the third day and I went downstairs.
24:59and the sun was coming up over the horizon, and I was like, yeah, we did the right thing. Because that sunrise thing was not, we couldn't see that very well from where we used to live, and it was very important to me. Yeah. So, but we didn't meet any neighbors until six, eight months after we moved in. Because we live a quarter mile from our neighbors, any of them, on a two lane country road. And people had...
25:28They didn't want to meet new people. They wanted to be not around people in 2020 because of COVID. Right, right. So for the first year or so, we were very isolated here. And it was a little weird. Yeah. And then we finally met some people. And we were like, oh, OK, this is going to be fine. But we also don't have any livestock. And I have talked about this a ton, too. We don't have any place for livestock to graze. And feed is really expensive right now.
25:58So we're not doing livestock, we're doing produce, and produce is great. We like growing garden, it's fine. But we do have the barn cats to keep the mice down in the pole barn, and we have chickens. We have like nine chickens, and they keep us in eggs, and they're very happy, and so are we, so that works out great. So we already talked for like 26 minutes, or 28 minutes. 26 minutes. And...
26:22I wanted you to tell me about your book because when you emailed me you said you have a book about sheep's milk or something. Yes, I do have a book. It's called The Guide to Homestead Dairy Sheep. It's basically the book that I wish I had when I started shepherding. I actually ended up making a lot of friends online who are overseas and shepherd full time. That's where I got a lot of my shepherding know-how.
26:51There's some really good books on the market, like there's Stories Guide to Raising Sheep, for example. There's Pat Colby's Natural Sheep Care. But there really wasn't anything, like there isn't anything specific to dairy sheep. So there wasn't anything on here's how you train a sheep to get into a milking stanchion, for example. There wasn't anything on, you know.
27:16how to care for a ram or why you'd have a ram on your property. Because I mean, with dairy goats or dairy cows, you can do artificial insemination or you can borrow someone else's buck, but dairy sheep are still so rare that you really just need to have your own ram on property. And so I was like, well, it's a male, like they've got testosterone, like sheep are flock animals. So how do I do boy management? And so my book is basically just like,
27:44Here's the things you need to think about specifically for dairy. And then I do go quite a bit into the breeds of, you know, what is a dairy sheep? When do you want a dairy breed specifically? Or when would you want to, for example, milk a different breed of sheep? Like what are your options? Because, you know, like I said, the dairy sheep are still so rare in the United States. We don't have pure breads.
28:09So it's not always possible for everyone who wants to get sheep milk to get a dairy-specific breed. So, you know, what are your options then? And then one of the most common questions I get is, well, can you milk a hair sheep? Because a lot of people already have sheep for meat, and so they want to know, like, can I have a, can they be dual purpose? Can I have a viable, you know, sheep dairy with?
28:32or like can I just milk my katanas to try and see if I like it before I invest in a more expensive dairy animal. So I do go quite a bit into like how to pick the breed you want and why you would pick certain breeds over other breeds. And there aren't any dairy specific breeds on the market currently that are hair sheep for dairy sheep. And so I talk a little bit about the virtues and benefits of wool for homesteaders. But I
29:01probably going to have to write a whole book on the topic at some point just because it's really unfortunate how maligned wool has been in our culture so that the plastics industry can take over. But I mean, wool for the homesteaders is just a really amazing product that no one really knows about. So I do try to give wool a good plug as well as the milk.
29:29Did you self-publish or do you have a publisher for it? I went with an independent publisher. So it's a small brand new publishing company and it was started by a homesteader. All the authors are homesteaders and it's written for homesteaders. So it's not a big name label but it sawdust publishing. And they started actually a couple months before I signed my book contract. So I was their second book that they published.
29:55Okay, so is the book available on Amazon if people want to get it in e-form? It's not in e-form, but it is available on Amazon. Okay. Yeah. So the publisher said, you know, she probably will look at e-books at some point, but they're just they're not old enough yet to start branching into different options. Okay. So and then, you know, with people...
30:21Well, that being for homesteaders where folks are very rural. I mean, a lot of folks just want hard copies anyway, just in case, you know, internet gets spotty or goes down or whatever. Yep, okay. Well, I will find the link to your book and I will make sure it's in the show notes so that people can find it to buy it. Awesome, thank you. And if you order it from my website, I will sign it for you. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Perfect. All right, Rachel, I feel like we didn't really get into too much about sheep milk, but we sure got into it.
30:49We did, didn't we? Maybe you can come back in the fall and we can actually talk about the benefits of sheep milk and all the things that people might want to know more about. I swear 30 minutes is just not long enough for the podcast. Yeah, I see the virtue of 30 minute podcast episodes, but to really like flush out topics, you really need an hour, but then it's like an hour's a very long time. So I feel bad for podcast hosts. How do you make that choice?
31:17Yeah, and I'm really interested in you guys' stories to begin with because it's always interesting how people come to the choices that they make. Yeah. And if there's time at the end, I'm like, oh yeah, and you wanted to talk about duh. The actual topic. Yeah. So maybe I can have you back in September. I'm book solid from now until September, but. Yeah, I'm more than happy to come back. Let's set up a time in September and we'll stick to the topic of Sheeps Milk and why it's really good for you because I know that it is.
31:46Yes, yes, it really is. So great. Well, we'll talk again in September. All right. Thank you so much for your time, Rachel. I appreciate it. You're welcome. All right. Bye.
 

Legacy Farms

Today I'm talking with Janet at Legacy Farms.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Janet at Legacy Farms. How are you, Janet? I'm doing well, Mary. And you're in New York, right? I am. I'm just south of Buffalo, New York. Okay. So I'm going to ask my usual question. How is the weather in New York?
00:29Well, right now it's hot and muggy, but true to form, Buffalo is known for its snowy winters. So anytime I say I'm from Buffalo, people go, oh, you get a lot of snow. Yeah, yeah, we do. It's lake effect snow, right? Right. So there's been multiple times where.
00:59We've opened the door and there's six feet of snow out there, seven feet. Blizzards that take power out. Um, yeah, there's, there's been a lot of fun times in snowmen. Yeah. I'm in Minnesota. I feel your pain. And I'm going to say it again. We didn't get a lot of snow last year. We got a foot total for the entire winter, which is highly unusual. Uh, us too. In fact, I think it had.
01:28something to do with it wasn't cold enough to kind of kill off the bad bugs. So right now we're in like a very buggy kind of season. And it's so the weather does play an effect on crops and how many flies I have to swat. And yeah, so I almost wish it was a colder winter.
01:58We would be. We would have a lot less bugs. Yes. And part of the reason that I ask about the weather when I talk to people is because weather impacts everything we do when we grow produce. So it's kind of a way for me to gauge where we were at at this time when I listen to it back next year. Yep. And I mean, I'm not going to post on my Facebook wall every day what the weather is when I get up because that would get real old real quick.
02:27And I'm not sure that Facebook would feed me back that particular memory anyway. So, so it's just a good running tally on what the weather has been doing all over the U S so that's why I ask if anybody's curious. Um, so tell me about yourself and what you guys do at legacy farms. Well, I, um, that's a great question. I decided that I want to leave a legacy behind. I have four wonderful children. Um,
02:56They're 22, 15, 10, and 11. And I realized a while ago that my children did not have the upbringing and background and work ethic and all of the little nuances that my grandparents raised me with. I was able, I grew up canning and sewing and knitting.
03:26spinning wool and it was a really nice family dynamic and I wanted to bring that back for my children and try to educate them on homesteading and permaculture and self-sufficiency. They, especially with COVID, video games became
03:56Hmm, a really, for lack of a better term, just an obnoxious thing for them to spend their time with when we couldn't go out or do things. And I, for the past several years, I made it my life's mission to just buy a farm on my own, a single mom, and try to get my children these ethics and morals that
04:25I grew up with and I wanted to instill that education onto them. I want to leave behind a legacy so that my children and my community can be better off homesteading, knowing the homesteading basics, understanding some basic principles of farming and self-reliance. There's a lot of kiddos in the community.
04:55I mean, we know that there's drugs out there. It happens in the city. It happens in the country too. We know that there's kiddos that come from broken homes that might not have a mom and or dad. And I don't know about you, but there's been days, weekends where I've like, okay, kiddos, what do you wanna do today? And we can only go to the splash pad so often or the park, but I wanted to be on the map.
05:24is something, a place where moms or dads could check and say, Oh, well, Legacy Farms is open to the public. Why don't we go there and ride a horse or milk a cow or have a, you know, pet the chickens or pick some flowers or learn what classes are open for what days and I want I wanted to give the community something too.
05:53And that's really where it started. And I will tell you, my 15 year old really kind of started it. And I'll tell you how, because he is, first of all, I think he's gonna be a salesman or he's so personable. But Bradley and I were watching YouTube videos and he and I were watching how,
06:23young woman and she goes Garlic is the mortgage lifter crop And he goes mom, you know if we just buy some garlic and plant it you can take those bulbs pick them Pick them apart every clove turns into another bulb. He goes mom. This is a no-brainer We could sell this even if it's 20 30 plus dollars a pound This could this could be what we do and I go Brad
06:51That's brilliant. I said, well, you know what? Let's try it. Let's see where it goes. And I leased a bit of property. And we started with like 400 pounds of garlic, which I think in retrospect, three, four years ago, that was four years ago, that was probably more than I probably should have bought. But I went all in. And.
07:20bread's like, we're gonna market this, we're gonna sell it, we're gonna do it. And there was a lot of learning curves, but we decided we're gonna use the garlic as our bread and butter cash crop, and then build off of that. So two years ago, we bought a old farmhouse on 10 acres. This farmhouse was built in 1840.
07:50Oh, wow. Okay. Uh, yeah, it was a part of the Underground Railroad. A lot of history, a lot of history. And I'm a big history buff. So it was exciting to me to look at all the history that was attached to this property and the people, um, that have lived there before us and realized that there was something kind of special about this. So here we are just crushing it.
08:19You know. So I have a question. Was Bradley like 11 when he floated this idea? That was about right. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. I love that. He is a very brilliant kiddo. I he he is something else. Like he this is the child that I want taking care of me for my retirement. He he and I.
08:45go back and forth, he's already looking at investing and whatnot. So yeah, he's going to be a pretty good financial guy too, I think. Well that's great because with the state of the world, I'm glad somebody has a clue about money. Yeah, absolutely. Because man, oh no, this whole world with inflation and stuff right now is so hard on everybody. Okay, so garlic is your bread and butter crop.
09:15This is great because we've tried to grow garlic like three years in a row now, and it just doesn't do well. So I'm hoping I can pick your brain about how I can get garlic to grow in Minnesota. Well, yeah, and you're in a cold weather climate too for these winters. So there are two varieties of garlic mainly. You have your soft neck varieties and your hard neck varieties.
09:43A lot of what you see in the store is going to be the soft neck varieties that come from California or warm weather places. And I might be a little biased here, but the hard neck garlic that grows in the colder climates is now it is a lot to me better tasting. It does taste like real garlic to me. But the hard neck garlic is.
10:11really what you want for those cold weather climates. And it does really good if you plant it during October, the late fall, you could plant it from October. We've done as late as November when it's crunch time and we run a little later than we could, but it does love the colder weather. And it's one of those crops that
10:40Either people tell me it grows and it's like a bad weed, or they tell me that it doesn't work at all. My suggestion, I learned my mentor from Hugh Jick Farm out in Socrates.
11:10There's more market to be, I'm not gonna look at you like competition. He's very didactic, he's teaching, he's very open to teach me. And he said, this is what I do, you don't have to do what I do, but this is what helped me, so you don't have to cross those pain points by trial and error. And one of the things that we do is,
11:39when we're ready to plant, we try to test the soil, the pH, and try to supplement micronutrients. And there is a lot of research that says chicken manure is better. I noticed that the garlic that got watered, they say one inch of water a week on garlic. So the garlic that was watered better, grew better.
12:08bigger. So they like water like onions like water. Right. Exactly. Yep. And the way that we plant is very particular. On legacyfarm.org, our website, we show like how we do the hand planting. And we do hand planting because the roots need to be root side down or else it kind of grows all funky and crooked.
12:38But probably the biggest advice I would have for somebody is cover your garlic with about almost a foot of straw. It sounds silly, but cover it with a lot of straw and get as much natural fertilization you can in the fall. Cover it with straw and then when it comes up in the spring, cover it again with.
13:07some straw because it keeps the weeds down and the moisture in. When we go to plant, we do like a double soak. We rinse all of our cloves with peroxide and that kills some of the nasties that could damage the garlic later. Then once we do like a quick soak in
13:36and we also use, oh I hope I'm going to say it right, micro-risal powder, which people have used that a lot with trees and trying to help root growth, but it seems to really help the plants establish, the garlic bulbs establish that root growth so that they can get all the nutrients nutrients from the soil that we're putting in there.
14:04Okay, so I have a quick question. We don't really have anywhere around here local to buy garlic starts, you know, the bulbs for planting in September or October. We would have to order them because they sell them in the springtime here. Can you plant them in the spring and still get good results or is that a bad plant? Garlic really loves the cold weather so...
14:32I've heard people do start it in early spring. But so what happens is you have kind of like a window of opportunity to do this because the longer that it's in the ground, the better off you're gonna be when it comes to harvest time. I find that, because I thought about this as well. We had a bumper that we didn't sell, a bumper crop that we kind of didn't sell and we also didn't plan it. So.
15:01I wanted to do this in March or April and there was just too much mud. It was too hard to get the soil ready. We had to talk about weather. We had a lot of rain this spring. So I thought, well, with covering it with straw to try to, I mean, it does help with the moisture control. But I never...
15:31I never considered doing it in the spring for that reason. I didn't think it was going to get the best nutrient value and everything it was gonna need to do its best. Okay, because we've planted it in the spring and I'm glad that you mentioned that it really likes an inch of water a week because I didn't know that. And the last two summers, we've basically had a drought from end of June through the fall.
16:00And that might explain part of the reason we didn't get any good garlic. And we watered the garden, but it probably wasn't an inch a week by any stretch. So that might be part of our problem. And I don't know which variety we've planted. So I'm going to have to talk to my husband about the hard neck varieties when we do this again. And we'll probably just order some hard neck bulbs to plant in October, because that seems like a really good way to do it. Yeah.
16:29Just let me know. I'll send you out a care package. Oh, okay. Well, yeah. We love garlic. I mean, there's not a week that goes by that we don't eat something with garlic in it. And it's funny because I have friends who also love garlic and they keep posting things on Facebook, little memes about the recipe called for one clove of garlic. That's like a drop of salt in 10 gallons of water.
16:59it's not gonna do anything. And so you measure garlic with your heart, not with a number, you know? You have that right, yeah, absolutely. And it has a lot of health benefits and there's some things that I don't think are like really talked about as much. Everybody does like garlic, but every June, we harvest the garlic scapes, those little.
17:27pigtails coming off the tops that are the seed pods. Yeah. And that makes an amazing pesto, a really awesome stir fry we've made. I made like a finishing steak sauce where you just whip up some, you know, a little butter, a little scapes, a little seasoning, pop that on a steak and it's amazing. So I really wanna...
17:55I want to explore more recipes and see what restaurants would take that on a little bit more because I don't think it's as talked about as it is just the garlic plant, but there's actually a double harvest here. What I think is funny about garlic scapes is garlic scapes are kind of just an extra that comes with growing garlic.
18:23But people see it as this very gourmet, fancy thing to use. And I'm like, it's gonna get tossed in the trash if you don't use it. It's not fancy, it's just food. Yeah, yeah. And believe me, I've had to throw some away because there've been too much or haven't been able to sell some, but they freeze really well. And it's such a great piece of
18:53You know, I always look at the, when we sit down for dinner, I almost do it like, like make meals based on color. Okay, we have got meat, we have vegetables, you know, I, I hate a yellow plate. Usually it means it's all carbs, but, but you know, just to be able to take some dried or and add it to the meal. It just adds that nutrition and color.
19:22It's nice to have on hand. It gives the plate a pop is what it does. I have not actually eaten garlic scapes mostly because I don't buy them and I haven't had access to them in the garden yet. Are they a milder garlic flavor or are they just as garlicky as the bulbs? No, they're actually much, they're more mild. They don't have that, you know, if you bit into raw garlic, it would have that bite to it.
19:50The garlic scapes have more of like an onion, like a scallion type flavor, but instead of that onion, it's got a light garlic flavor. So they're almost interchangeable with scallions. So really good in a salad. Oh yeah. All right, cool. Well, you just helped me out immensely. You have no idea.
20:19I'm going to be chatting my husband's ear off tonight about garlic again. Yeah, let me know one moment. Yeah, and he's going to be like, oh, you talked to the garlic lady today, didn't you? And I'll be like, yes, I did. I talked to Janet in New York and she told me all kinds of things. So I was looking at your Facebook page. Do you have a new foal yet? Oh my goodness. I probably, I know that there's other farmers that probably sleep in the barn.
20:49I could probably sleep right next to her in her stall waiting for this baby to be born. She is ready any day and I am so excited. She has not had her full yet, but I can tell she's ready. She looks pretty round. Yeah, she is. She is. It's so hard waiting for babies. We have a barn cat and she was pregnant this spring.
21:19And she has obviously had her babies by now. It's tomorrow's August 1st. But she got so big, she looked like a basketball. And she was so uncomfortable. And she's the friendliest kitty. And my son went out to pet her and she hissed at him. She never hisses at anybody. She's aggressively friendly. He says, I think we're gonna have kittens tomorrow. And I said, well, we'll see. I said, she's been laying around and she's.
21:48pretty angry and she's pretty uncomfortable. And the next morning she had seven babies. But she looked, she looked due for like two weeks before that, she was huge. And I just kept waiting and waiting and waiting and I'm like, are you ever gonna pop? Are they ever gonna come out? So I feel your pain on waiting for babies cause babies are great. Well, my.
22:14My daughter Ava, she's 11 and she has a visual impairment. She's like 95% blind, let's say. She's not a fan of animals and I always wanted her to be a fan of dogs. Maybe she will need a seeing eye dog someday. The only animal she has really taken an affinity to
22:43is horses. So she has been, you know, checking on Betsy and she has been out to the barn and feeling her stomach and, mom, it feels bigger today than it does yesterday. And I'm like, I know we're gonna, we're really excited. But she's, you know, one of the things that is so funny about having horses and having a child with a disability is
23:12She'll never be able to drive, but she told me that she could probably take that horse through the Tim Horton's drive-through or the Dunkin' Donuts drive-through and be just fine because the horse knows where she's going. And I said, true. I said, Ava, well, maybe you will be a fine girl after all. Mm-hmm. Has she felt the baby move in the horse's belly? She has.
23:41So it was like a month ago, it was a lot more right now. She is so big. There's no room. There's just no room for that little fool to even, you know, just toss or turn. So we know that she's time. It's pretty much time. Uh-huh. Yeah, I halfway expected you to message me this morning and be like, I can't do it today because we're working on having a baby horse. I can't wait.
24:11I really can't. I want to, it's the first foal I've ever experienced. I've had horses and this will be the first one for our farm, our family. It's a pretty exciting time. Yup. Your heart just must be beating out of your chest waiting for this baby. Absolutely. Absolutely.
24:36It's funny, I was looking at your page and then Facebook reminded me I had memories to look back on because that's what Facebook does. And one of the first memories that came up in the list was that we closed on our new house four years ago today. And there's a picture of my son and I sitting in the bare nook in the kitchen eating our first meal, as it were, at the table in the kitchen.
25:01And I was like, my God, it's been four years. I can't believe we've been here four years. Well, not technically. We've owned it for four years. We moved in on August 7th in 2020. So I can finally say four years instead of almost four years now. That's a really, that's that in 2020, that must've been a lot of chaos to be moving in that climate, that crazy COVID climate.
25:31Well, we kind of did it ourselves because we didn't feel safe asking people to help because you know, we didn't want people to get sick and we didn't want to get sick. And it was my husband, myself, my youngest son because he still lives with us. And it was my older son. I have, okay, four kids. My daughter is the oldest. I have a stepson and then I have two sons that I birthed. So the two sons that I birthed helped us move in.
25:57And so it was a lot of getting all the big stuff in the beds, the bookcases, the tables, the dressers, you know, that stuff. And then for two weeks after that, it was my youngest and I going back and forth because we moved half an hour away from where we used to live. So we would drive up, pack up the SUV, drive home, unload the SUV, drive back up, load the SUV. It was a very long, hot August of moving things. Wow. But.
26:27I've been saying on the podcast basically since I started it last August, we've been here almost four years or we've been here three and a half years or whatever. So now I can change it to four, which is great because I'm tired of saying almost four. That's great. But in that four years since we're talking about it, when we moved in, there was basically a house, a huge pole barn.
26:52an old one-car garage and a useless two-car garage. Like we've never been able to use the two-car garage. It really needs to come down. And that was it. That was what was here on a 3.1 acre lot. And since then, we have put in a huge farm-to-market garden. We have put in a farm stand off of our long driveway to sell produce from the garden. And we just put up a hard-sided greenhouse this spring.
27:21So a lot of changes have happened in four years. Now, do you use your greenhouse year round? We will be, because it just went up in May. And my husband wants to put in a potbelly wood stove to heat it in the wintertime. And I'm trying to talk him out of it, because that means he's got to tend it. He's got to go out.
27:48before bed at 10 o'clock at night and throw wood in it. And he's gotta go out when he gets up in the morning before work and throw wood in it because it's gotta maintain a certain temperature throughout the winter. And he seems to think that that will work. And I'm like, dude, I don't know, because if you're sick or you hurt yourself, I'm not going out there at 10 o'clock at night to tend that fire, it's not happening. So I'm trying to figure out a solar.
28:16way, you know, solar panel way to heat it. And he's also got this idea of the, I don't know what they're called. They're these square plastic containers that hold gallons and gallons and gallons of water and they soak up the heat from the sun and that radiates out at night. So we're trying to figure out what the heating part of it is going to be. But the plan is that it will be a heated greenhouse in the wintertime.
28:45I noticed that composting, obviously composting for us with the animals, it started off really small because we just needed to clean out the barn. But it's grown into a really big pile of... It actually, we have a three room chicken coop.
29:15eggling chickens. Wow. Okay. Yeah, it's fun. They're my babies. I feel like the crazy chicken lady sometimes but the compost gives off a lot of heat. So what we did last winter and it actually worked really well was we turned one of the just regular run rooms of the chicken coop
29:43into a compost pile. And we continued it and it was able to provide like enough heat to keep the chickens warm and happy, but also our water, chicken water from freezing. And I was actually really surprised, but we've, you know, a lot of that organic material that we were just disposing of going in there, the chickens scratched it up, the heat.
30:13We turned it over, it stayed warm, it actually worked out really well. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because he had seen something on YouTube, I think, about someone actually using their compost bin as the heat source for their greenhouse. And we just don't know quite how that would work. We don't know how you would get the heat into the greenhouse because we don't want the compost in the greenhouse. That's right.
30:39So he's thinking of cutting a hole in the back wall of the greenhouse and putting like some kind of fan in that hole in the greenhouse and then having the compost bin enclosed with a door on the back of it to add more stuff to it and then basically having the fan blow the heat from the compost pile that's composting into the greenhouse. But we don't quite know how that's going to work yet. Yeah. And you have to be careful with whatever gases are being.
31:08know, expelled from the compile too. Yeah. So maybe, maybe some kind of fan with a filter on it or something. I don't know, but we're still looking into it and we have a couple of months to go before we really need to make a decision on how we're going to keep that thing warm. So, so we will figure it out. I like the word stove idea. I'm, I'm a Pennsylvania Dutch girl. So old fashioned, uh, slightly.
31:35Amish ways are right up my alley and a wood stove to me sounds like a good idea. Yeah. I'm on his side though. You don't have to repeat it, but I think I would. You're team wood stove? I'm team wood stove for sure. Okay. All right. You can be team wood stove. My only concern about the wood stove is God forbid something got screwed up and it caught the greenhouse on fire. That's my biggest fear because we got a grant to build that greenhouse.
32:05And so if it burned flat, we don't have the money to replace it. Right. So we have to do some, some discussing about what we want to do. And I'm a fan of the, the solar panel thing or the compost pile thing. Cause I think that would be very, very high techie interesting to talk about because yeah, we hit our wood stove or we heat our wood stove. Yeah. We heat our greenhouse.
32:32where the wood stove isn't as interesting as we heat our greenhouse with a compost pile and people are like, how does that work? Yeah, yeah. So I don't know yet. We'll figure it out. But I'm just thankful that we have a hard sided greenhouse now because hopefully the winds won't take it down like they've taken down our normal high tunnel style ones last two summers. Right, right. We had a windstorm this spring. It took down our greenhouse, our chimney.
33:02windows from our chicken coop. It was, it was pretty, I took a few shutters off the house. So yeah, we're, I'm, I'm really glad I didn't jump too fast to get a greenhouse in last year. Um, there, I, I really do have to, like, like you said, you need to put in the research and effort to make sure that you're getting the right, right thing for your climate. But
33:32That's probably on our next, one of the things that we have to do down the line is come up with a high tunnel that's going to allow us some year-round production. Yeah, we have friends that live about half an hour away. They have high tunnels and they have for a very long time. They have a high tunnel that has apple trees growing in it. Oh my bird, that's amazing.
33:58Mm-hmm. Yeah, we were over there a couple years ago and I looked in the door because it happened to be open And I said are those apple trees in the high tunnel? She was like, yeah I said don't they poke holes in the plastic? She said when we forget to prune the top branches, they sure do. I was like, okay Got it But it works. They have the most beautiful apples That is so awesome. They also have huge old apple trees in their backyard like the trees are
34:27at least 40 feet tall. They're gorgeous. And I said, how do you pick the apples from those? And she said, we pick them till we can't reach them. I said, what about a ladder? She said, you can't get a ladder up in there. She said, the branches are so gnarled that there's no way to do it. I said, okay. She said, so the birds get the apples on the top and we get the apples on the bottom. I said, oh, that's good. That works. So.
34:54Anyway, I could talk to you for another half an hour, but I have got to get done some things before I have my next interview at one today. So I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about garlic because now I have all kinds of ideas to float to my husband about the garlic for next year. Yeah, and that's wonderful. And, you know, we do sell seed garlic so we can send you out some information and some garlic, you know, to get you started. If, if, um.
35:23You can even do a taste test of a couple different varieties we have and see what you like. There's, yeah, there's a lot to it, but it's a work of heart. And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today. I feel like I got more out of this today than you ever will. So thank you so much, Janet. You're welcome, Mary. Thank you for having me on the podcast. Absolutely. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

Little House in the Woods

Today I'm talking with Dena at Little House in the Woods.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Dena at Little House in the Woods. Good morning, Dena. How are you? I'm great, thank you. How are you? I'm good. So where are you in the great state of Maine? I am about midway. I'm probably central Maine.
00:29Harmony, I don't know if anybody's ever heard of Harmony, but that's where we are. We're about 20 miles from Skowhegan. Oh, okay, yep. I know where Skowhegan is. I grew up in Maine, so I am very familiar with the landscape. I figured you were. Yeah, so tell me about what you do. Actually, Little House in the Woods is a domain name that I have had for many years, and I just started using it for my website. I actually grew up in a little house in the woods.
00:59And we grew up about a mile from any neighbors with no power, no none of the amenities whatsoever. When you said run and get some water, you meant grab a bucket and run for it. And that's what we did for a long, long time. It was a great way to grow up. It was wonderful. I can't even imagine growing up the way the kids do now. But my mother did everything. All our meals were cooked on a wood-cooked stove. She would
01:29phenomenal lifestyle. When I met my husband, we started running an off-grid sporting camp for bow hunters only. And that was more of the same kind of lifestyle. And that was fun, meeting people from all over the place. Our children enjoyed it because they got quite an education from the different people and the different walks of life and the things that they did. And just in the last...
01:56I know it doesn't sound recent, but in the last 20 years, we've moved to where we are now and our kids are grown. We have grandkids and it was time for us to do something else. My husband is working on his own website and I decided to get this one up and going and I make baskets. I hand weave baskets, pack baskets are my favorite. It's something satisfying about doing them, I guess. And I like working on a bigger project. I've sold.
02:26I can't even begin to count how many over the years. I started doing it where we previously lived because there was seriously nothing else to do. But I mean, it's good and it's a cathartic process. So I really enjoy it. I have a lot of crafty things that I do. I knit, I crochet, I weave on a loom, I weave baskets. I used to make a lot of soap. I like to bake bread from scratch. I got all that stuff from my mom, make donuts.
02:54My daughter is the same way. She's in her 40s and has kids of her own. And we just live out in the country and live each day as it comes. I work on my website to get things done and ready and trying to decide the best next thing to put on there that people may be interested in. Fun, so much fun. So you're an original off-gritter. Yes. And you work with your hands all the time.
03:24Yes. How did you learn to make the baskets? I saw the pictures on Facebook. They are stunning. Thank you very much. I actually learned where we lived before was in Jackman. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's right on the Canadian border and it's in the Moose River Valley. It's a very small town. It's very insular. There's not much there, but my husband's job took us there. So I...
03:51As I said, I had to do something besides work and take care of my children. So there was an adult ed class for basket weaving and this wonderful lady taught us how to do it. And she's after the second class, she says, well, you're already way beyond me. She says, you're just natural. I said, well, I just love doing it. I don't use any molds or anything. Everything that I do, they'll never be too alike because I do it all from feel and hand and just the way I like the looks of it.
04:21I write a lot of my own patterns, but it was fun. We did her class for like six weeks and by the end of it, I was totally hooked. I have been doing it off and on ever since. The off part, I had had a pretty serious shoulder injury where I kind of tore it all apart and had to have surgery. That kept me down for over a year, but I have learned how to compensate for my arm not working quite right. I'm back at it.
04:50Loving it. Okay, so what are the materials that you use to make your baskets with? I use reed. It is the inner bark of the rattan tree. Okay. And it does not come from the United States, unfortunately, but it is a wonderful fiber. There are many fibers here that you can use, and a lot of the native tribes will use ash, which they cut the tree, pound the tree, get the strips of ash, but I don't have that ability.
05:20But the reed is nice and heavy duty and it comes in different widths, different thicknesses. I can either dye it myself or buy it already dyed. I have a couple of techniques that I use that are maybe different than somebody else's. My husband makes all the double bases and runners from my pack baskets. And I make all the harnesses or straps for them. Okay.
05:46So tell me what a pack basket is, because I am not up on my baskets. I actually don't have any in my house. Okay, it is a basket. They used to call it a trapper's basket, if that helps. They, you wear it on your back. It's a pretty good sized basket, and trappers would put all of their gear and goods into them. The ones I make are potbelly, they call it. Have a rounder, at the bottom of the, bottom of them, they're rounder, and they stick out some.
06:16because it gives you more room to pack clothing or ice traps or anything that you might need to carry off into the woods. I made them for my son and all of my grandchildren and my daughter-in-laws because they all fish or hunt and they all just bring them with them. The traps go in there and everything's in there and they're very strong. They're tough. You put them in the back of the truck.
06:46And when they get dirty, like I have a basket that I made in class, it's called a napkin basket. It is just a simple square basket that regular paper napkins go in. Now I've had this basket for well over 30 years. It does not look worn, but it has been around. And if I see it getting a little bit dirty, I just put it under the faucet, warm water. I put a little dish soap in the sink and swish it around, use an old toothbrush if I need to.
07:13rinse it off and hang it up to dry and it's just like new again. And I have no problem repairing them or I've fixed a lot of them that I haven't made. And sometimes that can be a challenge because you're not really sure what the material was, but people are usually happy because they at least get to use them again. Yes. Um, so a pack basket is basically the precursor to the backpacks that we used to wear in school. Yes.
07:40Yes. Okay. So what other kinds of baskets do you make? I make, oh gosh, I make bread baskets. I make napkin baskets. I make what's called a two pie basket. And when that pattern was created, it literally would hold two pies to take to a function like a Grange dinner or something. And I use it for a lot of things. And a lot of people do it comes out really pretty.
08:08And what else do I make? Oh, I have one that I made recently to go on the tank, my toilet tank. It fits perfectly on the back of it. So hair brushes, odds and ends get tossed in there, extra roll of tissue paper, that kind of thing. I've made a few custom things like for motel, I made a basket that would hold separate little compartments for their sugar and creamers and
08:36coffee packets and tea and all that stuff. And I'm trying to think of some of the stuff I've done because I have done so much. Yeah, a bean pot basket. It looks just like a bean pot. And it's just, the only purpose for it is that it looks like a bean pot and you use it as you would any basket. But it has a wire bail with a wooden handle on it. I make some mail baskets, which is my own pattern.
09:02And usually I have like a wire hanger for those that will be a moose or a deer, a little boy fishing, a farm wall tractor or something like that. Cool. Awesome. I did not know I was going to be talking about baskets this morning. I have not talked to anyone about making baskets. I've talked with people about crocheting and baking and growing food and raising animals, but not baskets. And it's really funny because you know how people are like...
09:31I should take a basket weaving class when they're stressed. Right. I have never seen a basket making class offered anywhere where I have lived. And so this is really interesting to me because I know nothing about it. So my question is the reeds, are they a flat finish or are they shiny? They are a flat finish. You can buy a cane like you would, you know, the cane chairs.
10:02Cane chair seats, you can buy that cane on a rock roll, but it's expensive and it's very fragile compared to reed. Reed is quite flexible and quite forgiving of how you use it, whereas cane is not. It's a flat wood, like wood finish and it comes in, I can buy it in round, I can buy it in flat oval, I can buy it in what they call oval oval or just flat flat.
10:30Um, you can buy it anywhere from like a sixteenth of an inch on actually a 32nd of an inch up to an inch and a half wide. You buy it by the pound or at least I do. And I used to buy it locally, but with all the businesses going out of business, unfortunately, I order it online usually from some Southern companies or out West somewhere. Whatever.
10:57I watch for sales, but I only have like three companies that I usually buy from. I know their quality is always good. And they ship it to me and it's so much a pound. When I first started, it was like $6 a pound. Now it's $16.95. Wow. Yeah. Which leads me to my next question. I am guessing that your baskets are not inexpensive and nor should they be. Well, apparently they're more inexpensive than they should be, I have told.
11:26been told that my pack baskets, a 19 inch pack basket is like $190. I've sold them for more than that 275 at times. But I just feel like with the economy the way it is, people can't afford it. And I can still do that. And I can make what I have to for money to replace my supplies. And hopefully when things start getting better, then my prices will go up a bit. But
11:53like a two pie basket would be $85. And that's a, there is a picture of one of those, I think, on my website, it's not featured because it's, I don't have any right now. But I can't remember what I have on there. I have a couple of pack baskets and what else? Oh, I have a couple that I made last year without a pattern. One of them looks like a small laundry basket, or a craft basket, where you just toss things in and carry it wherever you're going.
12:22And the other one is similar, but it has straps on it like a tote basket. And you can put a fair amount in it. Like if you're quilting something, it fits right in there perfectly. All your supplies to take to a class or somebody's house to work on or anything, really, or your basket supplies to carry with you. Sure. So how many hours do you put in to make a finished pack basket? Well, that's kind of a weird question. It used to be.
12:50Before I hurt my shoulder, I could do one almost finished in a day. So I would say two days. Now I'm closer to four days to finish one. And that is if I can continue to work steadily. But that includes staining it and creating the straps for it. And I buy the strap material from a company called Strapworks. And they make all different kinds of strap materials. And this is like a polyurethane.
13:20It's like, it doesn't bother it to be wet on the ice for hours and hours. It dries right out. And I mean, it would take years for it to deteriorate. And I buy certain buckles for it that I like because they hold and they don't slide. Um, it's like, it's kind of an experiment over the years to what you like best and how you like it best. Um, a lot of people don't stain their baskets.
13:46On a bread basket, I don't put any actual chemical stain on there. I use mineral oil because it is, after all, a bread basket and I don't want any chemicals sitting near somebody's bread. But it's, like I said, it's kind of cathartic to do. I enjoy it. It's kind of who I am these days. The reason I asked how much time you put in is because that's important.
14:13People need to understand that handmade things take time. The funny thing is, like when you ask about a pack basket, it takes me that long. The little tiny baskets take me almost as long. Because they're fidgety. I don't do well with little fidgety things. Like my mom used to make Barbie doll clothes for me when I was a kid. I couldn't do those. I would just scream.
14:38And, but I like, that's why I like pack baskets. I make something big, but I do make some small baskets, one that's called like a weed basket, but I would make that. I should make compared to what other make other people make of that. I should make a couple a day, but I usually only make one a day because that's enough aggravation for that. People don't take your time into consideration whatsoever. It's like, apparently your time is absolutely worthless.
15:07Yeah, and that's why I asked because I I've crocheted things and when I first started it took me forever to finish a project because I was brand new at it. And then as I got better, it took me less time because I knew what I was doing, but it still took time. Yes. Time is worth something. And so. Yes, it's your time. That's what they don't understand. It's your time that you are putting in to make something valuable for them. Yes.
15:36And so when you say $190 for a pack basket up to $275, I think you said, that might seem like a huge amount of money. But when you consider the materials, your time, your knowledge, your talent, it's really not. That's actually a really great price. Taken care of, in all honesty, that basket should be here 100 years from now. Yeah. Yeah, it's an heirloom. It is. My son, my oldest son, has one. He didn't realize.
16:04what he had when I first made it for him. It was when I first started weaving baskets. You know, he was a teenager, get thrown in the back of the truck, there'd be a spare tire on it, this, that, the other. And he didn't want to tell me he broke the corner of it. But his fiance did. And she's like, he's like, got this thing wrecked. He wants to know if you can fix it. I said, of course I can fix it. So he hasn't given it back to me yet, because he decided he doesn't want it changed from the way it is because I made it. So I just made him a new one at Christmas time.
16:34and sit here. Use this one and you can just keep the other one as a, I don't know, let's keep sake maybe. A memory, yes. Yeah, a memory, but I mean you can only be just so rough on anything and it's gonna break, but if you take care of it, you will have it forever and it will be passed down. Yes, definitely. So were you like a fidgety kid? Were you busy with your hands when you were young? Well, I...
17:01We lived, like I said, in the woods a mile from anybody else. And I grew up with brothers and sisters, but my closest brothers were seven years older than me. So they were off doing their thing, and I would do mine. I read unbelievable amounts of books. But also, my mom, she taught me how to sew, which I started on a treadle sewing machine, which I still have. It was my great aunt's machine. And
17:29My mom made a lot of our clothes on it, but I also learned to knit, crochet, embroider, hand embroider, which I really enjoyed even though I was a little kid and that was fidgety. And I liked it. It was just doing anything like that is usually peaceful feeling. And I did a lot of it outside because I could, because we lived in the woods and had a big lawn and I'd go out with a big old quilt under a tree and just sit there and do whatever I was working on. But my mom had a rule.
17:58for all of us, boys included, if we decided we were sick and we didn't go to school, and she later found out that we really felt okay, we just really didn't want to go to school, we would have to sit down and knit either mittens or socks. So everybody, all the kids in the family knew how to make mittens or socks. And it was a great punishment. It really was.
18:28have so many feelings about all of this. I am 54 and I grew up in, not the Maine woods, but the Maine woods in Steep Falls, Maine. When I, in the eighties? I don't really remember the seventies because I was a kid kid, I wasn't a teenager. I remember the eighties far more. And I spent an inordinate amount of time outside and that was before tablets and cell phones and
18:57and all the gadgets that kids have now. And I loved it. I really, really did. And I learned really good life skills because when you have nothing to do, you find things to do, like weed the garden, or I don't know, learn about identifying plants in the acre, well, the half acre behind my house, or go fishing with my dad, or can with my mom, or you know, all those things.
19:25Right. That's something I do. I do canning and I got that from my mom. And I'm very particular and meticulous about following the rules and the rules change. Yeah. They don't stay the same as they did 60 years ago. They've got new methods, new learning, and it's important to go along with that. But that's all stuff. Like you said, you learn things because you're outside. You're not, you don't have your face stuck in a tablet or phone. And
19:51I don't think they're learning anything on there. I think they're just playing games most of the time. Well, in the defense of the few children who probably are crazy curious about the world, there's some that are actually learning some things that might be important. But yes, a grand majority of kids are playing games on their tablets. I agree. I think they're a wonderful tool. They're a wonderful tool. And I wish I had had them when my children were younger because we homeschooled and they would have been invaluable.
20:21that. And but two of my grandchildren are very, very outdoorsy, woodsy kids, they fish, they hunt, they never want to just sit inside here. They're always out running around looking at things, finding animal tracks, you know, different, just different things. And what is this bug? And what is that? And I'm like, Ooh, and they're all excited about it, or bringing me a frog, they know better than to bring me a snake, that would be the end of the world. But, but they do.
20:50all the time. And my granddaughter, Kayden, she's just turned 14 this summer. And she's like, I just don't want to sit inside all the time. I said, you know, if you're unlucky enough to have a desk job somewhere where you have to, then you'll get plenty of time to sit inside more than you'll ever want. And she says, what do you mean? I said, the worst job I ever had in my life was a bookkeeping job where I sat all day. And I hated it. Absolutely hated it because I couldn't move around.
21:20I don't mind working and moving around and doing things, but I told my boss one day, I said, you know why secretary's butts are that wide as wide as the chair? Because they're sitting on that chair all day. He laughed at me, but I said, no, it's true. Yep, absolutely. I agree. So I guess what I was trying to get to in a roundabout way is that I am really glad that I grew up the way that I did.
21:47And I'm really glad that I had that experience because then I got to share it with my kids. And my kids grew up as cell phones and tablets and things were coming into, you know, everyday use. Right. And they had cell phones. I don't think any of them had tablets. They weren't really a thing yet. And we couldn't afford them because they were really expensive when tablets first showed up. Yes. But we took our kids camping. We took them hiking.
22:17We made sure that they got outside time. And we were lucky enough to live in an area in Minnesota where there's all kinds of state-owned property, like state parks and trails and stuff. So we'd take them out on the trails and they'd be like, what's that? And it was a plant and we would tell them what it is and what it's for. And we found wild asparagus growing and they were like, can we taste it? And I'm like, of course you can taste it. It's probably not gonna kill you.
22:45And so they got to taste their first Everest variegus shoots from a hike in the woods. Nice. When I was visiting my parents, there was a little cemetery, like an old, old, old, small family cemetery next to their property. And there were wild strawberries growing. My kid, my youngest, his first ever strawberry was a wild strawberry. Oh, nice. That's wonderful.
23:08His face lit up like a Christmas tree. He's like, mom, it's so yummy. I'm like, yes, of course it's yummy. It's a wild strawberry. Right. You'll never taste anything better. No. So so we've we've tried really hard. My kids are all grown now. Youngest is 22, oldest is 34. But when they were growing up, we lived in a little tiny town in in Minnesota, in town.
23:33And so we would purposely on the weekends take them and go do something out in the woods because we're like they need something besides the library and the comic book shop, you know? Right. So it's important that kids get to experience as many things as they can. And I'm absolutely not saying that kids growing up in the city can't grow up to be fine human beings. I think that that's not, it's fine.
23:58But I also think that if they have the opportunity to experience other things, that that's good for them too. And I think too, that it's good for the country kids to experience a little bit of the city. Amen. Me too. Well, when they need to go to the city, they know what they're doing. Yep. You're it's funny. I was just talking to somebody on another interview last week and I had a conversation with my dad back when I was in my mid twenties. And I said, I think that people who live in the country,
24:27should go live in the city for at least six months. And I think people who live in the city should live in the country for at least six months. And he said, I think you're wrong. And I said, oh, he's saying anybody who lives in the country should ever have to live in the city. That would be terrible. And I was like, okay, that's fine. We can agree to disagree. But my point was that I don't think anyone should live in a bubble of sameness their entire life. No, no. I know when the first time
24:56we ever went anywhere away from Maine, my husband and I, my husband had been everywhere before he met me, but I had never gone anywhere really. And we flew to Florida. It was my first flight. It was everything. And I was terrified to fly. And then after that, I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. I like this. But when we got down there, the trees, the trees were really through me. And after three or four days, I said, I want to see real trees. I want to see real trees, like they weren't actual trees.
25:26And it's like, but I still feel that way. I don't know how people, many people from here have moved down there, obviously for the weather, you know, I mean, Maine is a rough climate, just like Minnesota is a pretty rough climate and we, I mean, we're used to it and I appreciate the four seasons. I just don't appreciate the length of winter per se. Um, our winters are extremely long, but I do appreciate the differences and the ability to just.
25:55go anywhere and do anything down there at any time, because the weather is almost always great. And that was a change for me, and it was a great thing to be able to see something totally different than what I'm accustomed to. My daughter just moved to Florida with her husband over the wintertime. And she got there and she was like, it's so nice and warm and there's a pool where we live so I can swim every day. And I was like, that's great. Just wait till July.
26:23And she said, what's wrong with July? And I said, you just wait. She says, is it going to be miserable? I said, I don't know. I'm not you. And I was just kind of teasing her. And she called a week or two ago and she was like, it is so freaking hot. She said, I can't step outside without being drenched. And I haven't done anything yet. And I was like, that's why I said, wait till July. Yes. And that's why we have snowbirds. That's why we have snowbirds.
26:52And she's like, I don't know if I can do this. I said, I don't think you have much choice at this point, but you guys might want to rethink your life choices come winter. And she was laughing. She said, it's not that bad. She said the house has AC and the pool helps. And I was like, yeah, I said, honey, I couldn't do it. Could not do it. I would be so sick with headaches from the heat. I would just die. Uh-uh. So anyway, she's she's experiencing a whole new climate while she's there.
27:20Well, that's nice. I mean, it's fun and she's getting to see what something else is like and that it's not all so perfect to go somewhere else. Yep. And visiting, visiting is always perfect. Visiting for a week or two is always perfect because it's new and you know you get to go home at the end of the week or two. Yes. I fell in love with St. Pete Beach and then it was like, I don't want to go anywhere else. I want to go there with the white sand beaches and the blue Gulf water. And then we talked about trying to move there, but I couldn't.
27:50I couldn't because I have grandchildren and I don't want to leave them for anything. Nope. That's kind of how that is. My girlfriend lived in North Dakota for about four years and she took the most, they traveled around a lot and she took the most amazing pictures out there. And every time she would fly out or back, they would fly in and out of Minnesota. And she'd say, I've never been someplace so cold. I said, well, that's saying a lot coming from Maine. And she said the wind.
28:20And I was like, what do you mean the wind? She said it's the same way in North Dakota. In North Dakota, there's hardly any trees. There's nothing to block it. It just blows. Yeah. It's a bit like all the roads in North Dakota because it blows off. Yes. I couldn't visualize that. Yep. Where I live, it's all open corn fields and alfalfa fields and soybean fields in the wintertime. And farmers...
28:48used to put in tree lines to break, have a windbreak. Yes. Every farmhouse has a tree line for a windbreak. We have one. And that's great when the wind is coming from the west. Yeah, the west. But if the wind's coming from the east, we get drifts six feet tall when it really snows. Oh gosh. It didn't really snow this winter. I think we got a foot total.
29:13It's been the strangest year here for weather and I keep talking about it and I probably should just shut up about it because people have heard me talk about the weather for months now about how nuts it's been. But it just depends on where you are and how your property is set up and where you are in the state. I mean, up north, it's very much like northern Maine. It's a lot of trees. Yeah. When we lived in Jackman, we lived right next to the airport.
29:38and the wind would come down across there. And I said, if we didn't have that line of trees, we'd be in the lake. Yep. Because, oh, it was just tremendous. You step out the door and it would just take you right away. And the climate difference in just like 70 miles is incredible. And it's probably the same way there. It is. It's unbelievable. It's like you think you've gone to a different state or something. Yeah, we've had that happen. We've, it's...
30:07We've had days in Minnesota in the winter where up north they got four feet of snow and we got rain. Yes. So, yeah, it's very weird. But Minnesota is a very tall state. It's a long tall state. And Maine is, I don't think Maine is as big as Minnesota. It's not much smaller, but I don't think it's as big as Minnesota. It's huge. People don't realize when they come here. They'll say,
30:33Oh, it's only up in Holton there in Portland. It's only up in Holton. That's only a couple hours. I said, okay, go do that. No, no, that is not true. Holton's quite a ways from Portland. It is a long ways. And it's a gorgeous drive. It is, it is. And, and the state is, is beautiful. And I am a big fan of back roads. I love the back roads. Me too. And dirt roads, you know, like in the summertime or.
31:02In the fall, that's the place to be. But on the interstate, I just get so bored. It's monotonous. And people drive like they're on the raceway. And it's like, I can't say that I drive real slow on the interstate because I don't. But it's like, I just want to get there and get back because I'm not enjoying my drive. Yeah, I am.
31:26I don't really like driving and if I'm going to try to enjoy driving, it's back roads. It's the longest circuitous route I can take that keeps me off the highways because I do not like highway driving. In Minnesota, it's crazy highway driving. My parents came to visit back when my youngest was a baby and my dad had a class in Minneapolis.
31:53and they had to drive like half an hour to get back to our place from Minneapolis. And my dad came back from class that first day and he was like, you people drive like freaking maniacs in Minnesota. I was like, what was your first clue, dad? He said, when I got cut off three times in the first five minutes, I said, oh, that's nothing. You haven't even seen it all yet. And he was just laughing, but he was visibly shaking from his drive and he loves to drive.
32:22Yeah, people drive like nut bars and I don't like it. And so I try not to go into Minneapolis for any reason whatsoever. I can't actually remember the last time I was in Minneapolis. It has to have been at least seven years ago. I never thought I would be such a hermit or recluse, but I will make any excuse in the world not to have to go anywhere. And it's like, I love the fact that I can order my groceries online, drive in.
32:51and they come out, put them in my trunk and I drive away. I don't have to go into the store and I order most everything online. And I know that that's a sad thing in a way for businesses because a lot of regular retail businesses, it's put them out of business. But it's wonderful for someone like me that doesn't like to drive in the city. I have a back problem, a back issue.
33:17And I have a hard time walking around very much. So getting groceries was a job. So now it's just simple. And it's like, I love some of the new things that we have acquired over the years like that. But driving, I can't even imagine. I've seen pictures in Minneapolis. I can't even imagine it. Yeah, it's a little much. And when I first moved here, I had a job that required me to actually drive in Minneapolis.
33:43because I had to deliver things for my boss now and then. And I didn't mind it then because I was young and dumb and didn't realize how dangerous it was. But as I've gotten older, I'm like, I don't want to be on the road with all these crazy drivers. I do not appreciate it at all. And one of the things that happened years ago, my husband was driving. My two youngest boys were in the car in the back seat. And he was going to...
34:09He was going to pass the car in front of him and he was doing everything right. He wasn't speeding, nothing, put his signal on. He looked back to go to pull out in the left lane and he looked forward again, started to pull in the left lane and two cars went flying by him on the left at like a hundred miles an hour. They were, they were drag racing on a highway. We could have died. I shook for two hours after.
34:35I was so scared. I didn't ever want to drive again. I didn't ever want to be in a car again. I got over it, but I was really scared. Just very selfish and unconcerned for anyone but themselves. Yeah. And not really concerned for themselves because they could have been killed. Yeah, and they could have taken out a whole bunch of people with them. So, if you're a driver and you drive, please be aware that what you do impacts other people too. And if your kids drive,
35:04Please let them know that they are driving a one to two ton bullet and that it can hurt people. Yes, definitely. I used to drive all the time. I did on road sales, but I worked coastal main and the coast highway is not fast by any means. Nope. It's stop and go, stop and go. And it takes a lot of patience and make sure you have a lot of bottled water with you because it's going to take some time.
35:31I didn't mind it because the views were so good and I just planned for it. And I don't know how it is driving down through there now. People are probably just as crazy as they are everywhere else, but people don't take into consideration that not everyone sees them. Yeah. Yup. It's, I don't want to make this into a people suck discussion. Let's not do that.
35:58True people people are people and some of people are very very considerate of other people and some people are not and that is true I try really hard to surround myself with a considerate ones because they're much more fun to be around Yes, I spend a lot of time with my family which are obviously my favorite people And a friend of mine and I in 2017 we started a food pantry here in town nice We have worked
36:25hours and hours and hours on that. And we have built it up to a lot. And it was so funny because some people think that we get paid to do it. And I'm like, no, we pay to do it. It cost us a fortune and gas just to go places. But it's very satisfying. And the people that come in, people will think, oh, they don't need anything. I don't know that we've ever had anyone come through that door that didn't need something.
36:54You just can't judge by how someone is dressed or what they drive or anything else. And I, my friend and I were talking about, I just love when the elderly come in and then we started laughing. We're like, we are the elderly, you know, but there are some people like in their eighties and they come in and it's, it's as much of a social hour as, as it is to get food. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, we get wonderful things. We get.
37:21organic produce and stuff like that that we, I mean, I couldn't afford to buy the stuff at the store. And, but we have some local farms and stuff that all donate and people can be very, very generous when they want to be. Yeah. So people don't suck. Okay. Good. We're going to end this that people don't necessarily suck. They're not all bad people. Good. They're not.
37:43Because I just, I hate ending the podcast on a bad note because I've had it happen a couple of times and I listen to it back and I'm like, oh, ended on not a great note. So let's keep it positive. You're doing a fantastic thing with that. We enjoy it. My husband and I work at it, her and her husband, and we have the most amazing volunteers you've ever seen in your life. They're all older and they all work hard and they are.
38:07extremely dedicated which apparently is very unusual from what I hear from some of the other pantries and it's like You just got to let them know that it it's theirs. I'm not the boss. You know what to do. Go do it You have to let them know that they are not at a job this is something that's important to them too and They are fantastic. They're always there. They're willing to help they come in and do everything We could not do it without them
38:36Yeah, because no one person can do it all. We all need to make teams of people to help out. Right. Awesome, Dana. Thank you so much for your time and everything you're doing and teaching me a little bit about basket making today. Well, I would love a chance to show you, but I guess you're a distance away. But my daughter-in-law says I should do some YouTube videos, which I'm not very confident about, so maybe someday. And if I do, I'll send it to you. All right, that would be great.
39:05Okay, thank you. Thank you so much, Dena. Have a great day. You too. Bye-bye.
 

More Than Farmers

Today I'm talking with Codi and Michelle at More Than Farmers.You can follow along on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Codi and Michelle at Not Just, or More Than Farmers is the name of your place, sorry. How are you guys? We're good, how are you? I'm good, I thought it was Not Just Farmers, but it's actually More Than Farmers. So, tell me about yourselves and what you do.
00:29You want to go ahead, Michelle? Oh, you can start. Yeah, so we homestead on about 5 and 1 1 half acres. For the past, it's been about 10 years now. And we have our own milk, eggs, beef, chicken. We raise our own vegetables, berries, working on fruit trees. I mentioned milk. This is about the first time anybody's hearing about this. But we're working on the process of switching
00:59a cow to possibly getting sheep in the future. So that's all in the process right now. But that's kind of what we do here. We've got four children and just trying to live the homestead dream. Yeah. We also have a YouTube channel called More Than Farmers and we have an Instagram account and we create content full-time teaching other people how to do what we're doing. So awesome. You are doing great things. So
01:24Is all this all the food that you grow or produce is that for you guys or do you use it to help support the homestead? It is just for us at this point. So when we had first started we had dreams of building More of a farm business where we would actually be like selling products and stuff um We got to we got through the realization that It was going to kind of either be One or the other as far as either we were going to have to go all in
01:53on growing food to sell or we're going to have to back off because that in-between stage of trying to grow some food to sell and still trying to hold down a full-time job and stuff like that, that's a really tough stage to be in. So we ended up backing off on the food production, just growing food for ourselves. And then that's when we started our YouTube channel. Yeah, we did Farmers Market for quite a long time. We had an egg business where we sold eggs to...
02:20a restaurant, we sold eggs to a kind of like a butcher shop near us. We really enjoyed those things to some extent, but also for the small scale that we were at, that we were on, it just didn't, it wasn't quite worth it. Codi had a full-time job the whole time, so I was the one who was at home trying to do all the gardening and washing hundreds of eggs every week.
02:50pretty much tanked after my third baby. And so we really just had to back off. We realized that the food production wasn't the kind of work that I was going to thrive on. And then plus we also wanted to homeschool our kids. And that adding that to the workload of the gardens and everything was just too much. So we really took a step back and just started focusing on growing our own food. And then yeah, eventually
03:19Codi was able to come home from his job and we did the content creation, but we've never made a full-time income just from selling stuff on our farm. Okay. So, you said you started this 10 years ago and both of you sound really young, so how old were you when you started? So I would have been 24, Michelle would have been 23. Okay, so you were babies. You're babies. Yeah. So what?
03:47Why did you want to do this in the first place? So Michelle grew up with some kind of farm-ish background. We both grew up in the Mennonite culture, but she was in more kind of a conservative group where like canning and things like that were just part of the culture. I didn't grow up quite so much in that. I was actually a skater punk when I was younger.
04:14I did grow up in the country though I had a horse. I did and do enjoy the country life. But I had no intentions or dreams or anything of becoming a farmer. But I had some really bad teeth problems after a while. I just ate lots of junk food, did not care about how healthy I was eating and stuff. I had a lot of teeth problems. Somebody gave me a book. It was called Cure Tooth Decay. In there, it talked a lot about like...
04:44the way you eat affects how healthy your teeth are. And it kind of was like a kick in the pants. And that kind of started it, just the desire for the healthy food. So we actually started like buying some bulk foods. We were living in a basement apartment at the time, but we were buying some bulk foods. We did a little bit of canning. We garden at a friend's house and at Michelle's parents' house. Started doing a little bit of that stuff here and there.
05:11And then somewhere in that time, our first son was born. And I guess I just kind of realized, you know, at that time we were living in a basement apartment that I wanted more than that for my children. And I had grown up in the country, loved riding four wheelers and stuff like that. And I wanted that kind of life for my children. So it was within, I don't know. Uh, let's see. It was only about a, uh, a year after our first son was born that we bought our piece of property.
05:41It's funny how having children who depend on you change your perspective. Yeah, totally. Yeah. It was funny because so my upbringing was much different than Codi's in that like, yeah, he had horses so he knew a little bit about animals. He lived in the country, that type of thing. But for me, I was a gardener all of my life. My mom was a big time gardener and we didn't go as all out with food preservation and stuff as me and Codi do now.
06:09But I definitely had a really good solid basis for knowing how to do that lifestyle. And so we moved into this basement apartment and I just wanted a garden so bad. And so we ended up like while we were still in the basement apartment, Cody put in a couple raised beds for me and I grew like some herbs and peppers and green beans. And we also got some Bantie chickens. They're the tiny ones that lay the tiny little eggs. But it you know, that was where we got started. And then eventually.
06:39we did find some land and went from there. So it was a slow build, which is great. As I've said on the podcast a few times and as people have said to me on the podcast a few times, diving in to the pool without knowing there's water at the bottom in home setting is not a great plan. Yeah, definitely. You got to start where you're at and you've got to take the time and figure out.
07:06how to do things and what you really want to do and how to get there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because, dude, there's no way to just jump in. I mean, you will kill yourself if you try to jump into a full-time homesteading lifestyle without having any idea what's involved. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, even with a basis, I mean, I'll let Michelle talk about it a little bit, but even with a basis, that can still happen. Yeah.
07:34So basically, we just kind of dove in headfirst after we bought our property. We had to build a house on our land. I mean, that's no small feat for a young married couple with – we had a one-year-old and then another baby on the way. We were living in a camper and so building a house on top of all that was huge. But then we also – we're just so excited about this homestead life. We tried to have a garden in the midst of that.
08:03before our house was even completely finished, we got a milk cow, which, you know, it was just so much. We actually burned out to the point that we almost quit completely. We would have these conversations of like, is this even what we want? It wasn't until we got to a much healthier place in our marriage, in our health, that we finally were like, we need to make this efficient. We have to cut back on so many things. That's kind of where
08:32our YouTube channel was born out of actually was just, we wanted people, there was this massive, after COVID there was just this huge, or I don't know, movement. Yeah. And people were like, you know, they wanna know where their food is from and they wanna start this homesteading lifestyle. And I would see some of these people diving in headfirst and I'm just sitting here like, you're not gonna make it.
08:58I mean, you're growing this massive garden, your soil isn't good, and it takes a long time to figure out this stuff. It's hard, but once you have things streamlined on your farm and your property and have your foundations in place, like good soil and all those things, it can be very manageable and very doable, but it's something that needs to be built up really, really slowly. And our biggest advice for people is just to, before you add another thing to your homestead,
09:26Like master what you're doing. That just helps so much with the overwhelm piece. I agree completely. And I'm going to say if you are a gardener, you can master every skill there is in gardening and it still might not work. Oh yeah. So yes, learn how to do the thing that you're in the middle of to the best of your ability and then consider what's next.
09:55We do not have livestock on our three acre place because it's a lot of money to feed livestock and we don't have any place for them to graze. I've talked about this ad nauseam too on the podcast. But we do have a huge garden and gardens don't take as much money to feed. As long as you have water and sunlight and air and good soil, you're probably good. I feel like there's
10:25payoff in gardening than there is in livestock. And I could be wrong, but it's my experience. So. Yeah, I think that like I've heard that both ways. I think you're right in that it doesn't take a lot of inputs with a garden. Probably if you're really trying to go on natural anyways, probably your biggest input is gonna be compost if you don't have a way to make it yourself. Cause like we just published a video earlier this week about like the different sprays and stuff.
10:54that we use in our garden and it's all natural stuff. We don't use any like harsh chemicals and stuff, but we do some spraying, but it's very, very minimal. So yeah, those costs are low. For us, I find, I think our milk cow, I feel like is probably has the biggest return. It also takes probably the most work, getting up every day and milking that cow or whatever. But that's gonna depend, I think,
11:23Like what you're saying, it's going to depend so much on how much land you have because I mean, you're right. If you had to feed hay year round, then that would be really hard to justify. But the milk cow can provide, they can have calves that you can either sell or you can raise it for beef. You can get the milk, which you can make cheese, butter, yogurt. You can use it for fresh drinking and all that stuff. So there's a lot of return there with the milk cow.
11:49Um, not quite as much with raising a beef steer or something, but the thing, the cool thing I think with a beef steer is they're so, so easy. If you have the land, you need probably at least an acre to two acres, depending on where you live for one beef steer. But I mean, you literally just put them out in the pasture and set up, you know, and simple rotational grazing thing. Um, put them out in the pasture and give them water every day. And that's basically all that they need. They're so simple, but you do have to have the land to make it happen.
12:19Speaking of steers, I know that cows, the female bovines, need friends. They're a herd animal. They want friends. They want a group to be with. Do the steers need a group to be with or are they okay on their own? So I think that's a fairly applicable question at the moment because right now we had our milk cow and our beef steer that we had living together.
12:48We had either just the milk cow or possibly the milk cow and a calf or milk cow, calf and steer. And we've got about two and a half acres of pasture. So it was never more than those three at a time. But we just, our milk cow just left and we're down to just the steer. So I guess I'm about to find out. I actually called my dad afterwards and just asked him what he thought. And he said, I mean, he thinks he'll be okay.
13:18We'll just have to keep an eye on him and see how it goes. It's getting close to the age of processing. So if it is gonna be here alone, it won't be for very long. And if I just see that it's not doing well, noticing anything different or odd about it or whatever, I can take it over to my dad's and let it run around on the pasture there with his cows. But I'm gonna make sure that I go out there every day just to say hi to it, at least let it know that there's another living being on the property and stuff.
13:45But we have actually had our milk cow by itself for several months at a time. It would be in kind of those in between stages of the calf was weaned and we sold the calf and then we hadn't gotten another beef steer yet or something like that. And she always did really well, but she was also being handled every single day, being milked or whatever. So I feel like that does make a difference too.
14:09Yeah, I've always been told that cows need friends and goats need friends and sheep need friends. So that's why I asked. It's more important for sheep and goats than it is for cows. I have heard. Yeah, that's what we've heard. But I mean, even if it works to have them by yourself, I mean, it's just good. They are going to be better off with company. Yeah. Yep. They need buddies.
14:32I it's really funny my my grandpa had friends that had a dairy farm talked about this in the podcast lately actually and He had many many dairy cows and many many babies and I said to him one time I said so why do you have so many cows and I was probably seven, you know I was little and he said well cuz I love them and I said well gasped, but why do you have so many cows?
14:58And he said, you're one of those. You want a real answer. I said, I do. He said, I have so many cows because if I have more cows, I have more milk. I sell more milk and make more money. And if I have as many cows, I have babies coming every year. And he said, I have more cows. He said, and it just keeps going from there. And I said, okay. And he said, plus the girls need friends. And it stuck with me from a whole life. Cows need friends. So that's why I asked in the first place.
15:28Okay, so you guys have a YouTube channel and it's about what you do and I see that it's fairly popular so yay team, that's good. Viewers and listeners are important. Do you get feedback from your listeners? Do they, I don't know, email you or comment and say thank you for sharing this particular thing because I didn't know about that and I wanted to learn about it? Oh yeah, absolutely.
15:57You know, you always hear about all the crazy people online, crazy things they do and say. And while we do have some of those, like I would say, like the large majority of people, especially on YouTube, are so kind, very, very supportive. We get very little negativity, I would say, on YouTube. Maybe three out of a couple hundred comments on a video will be negative. Like there's not much negativity on there.
16:27we see our channel at like we take it very seriously and we see ourselves as teachers like that's kind of what our passion is teaching and people are so kind. Definitely they reach out to us and tell us oh we started this herb garden or we started a garden this year because of you guys so it's very very fulfilling for us and we do get a ton of positive feedback. Yeah.
16:56Yeah, Instagram is a little different. For the first, like when Michelle handles pretty much all the Instagram stuff, for the first, like, what day, half a day, it's more like her core audience. And those comments are nice and kind of stuff. But as soon as, like if a reel starts getting up into the hundreds of thousands or up into the millions of views, it's just, it's a dumpster fire in the comments. I don't know, where are these people, what rock they crawl out from under? But...
17:25They can just get really nasty on Instagram. Yeah, and I think it's possibly, I mean, partially because it's such a short clip, you don't get nearly as much context around a reel as you would on a long form YouTube video. And also, like your videos, your reels are getting shown to people that don't necessarily want to see it. You know how when you're scrolling Instagram, sometimes you just flip right on past if it's something you're not interested in. And so this stuff is being put in front of people that might not actually be interested.
17:53And so I think it's just a completely different crowd, a completely different community. So we definitely prefer YouTube above Instagram. Yes. I was raised by parents that told me if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. And it'd be really nice if people would do that. That would be great. I've had exactly one comment left on my podcast in almost the year that I've been doing it. Okay.
18:21It was really, really lovely. And I don't know why people don't comment on the podcast because everybody I do talk to is like, I love the podcast. I keep doing it, but no one ever actually leaves a comment online. And I'm like, okay, what do I do to get people to talk to me? Well, it's so funny though, because on, when I, on Apple podcasts, it's like really hard, you have, don't you have to go somewhere else to leave a review on Apple? I think you. I mean, basically you just said you can leave a review, but
18:51I mean, probably if you'd post your podcast on YouTube, people might comment more often. I'm guessing you'd have a lot more comments on YouTube than you would. Do you do it on Apple Podcasts? Is that your main platform? I do it on, I post it on like 12 different platforms. Apple Podcasts is one of them. Apple Music is one of them. Odyssey, I think, is one of them. Okay. YouTube for sure.
19:15My podcasts are on YouTube. Oh, that's so interesting. But they're not, but there's no video to them. So I don't know if that's why people don't say anything. It's not a big deal. I mean, people are coming back to listen and that's what I want. So that's the most important thing for me. But it can also be nice to have some feedback, right? Yeah, and it's so funny because I was talking with someone yesterday for an interview and we got done recording and she said,
19:45She said, I need to tell you. She said, I've been listening to your podcast. She said, I went back and started from the beginning. Oh. And I said, that was like over 100 episodes ago. She's like, yeah, she said, but I have learned so much from the people you talk to. She said, thank you for doing this. I felt so good for like an hour afterwards. I was just like, yay, it's doing what I want it to do. I want people to enjoy it and I want them to learn from it. So.
20:13So I get how important this is to you guys because I'm trying to do the same thing just in a not video format. And it's a lot of work. And for me, it's not probably as much work as it is for you guys because you guys are doing video. So what kind of equipment do you guys have to do to do video? It's surprisingly simple, I guess.
20:40When we first started I did have to buy a new computer or something that was powerful enough to run an editing program I think I spent about eleven hundred dollars on a computer, which I mean that's a chunk of money But it was at you know, and everybody or at least us lower income people were getting Yes, and so that's what we spent that money on getting a camera and a computer I got
21:08fairly simple Canon camera. And for a long time, that's basically all we had. We've got my, I use a gimbal with my camera now, which just helps get a steadier shot. Wireless microphones for some of our parts of our videos and stuff, we'll even just use our phones to video. But yeah, it's pretty much still just the computer and the camera. It's all it is. And a gimbal. Yeah.
21:35Okay, because I know there's lots of people who do YouTube videos and they have a whole studio set up. Right. And I've watched videos of people showing their setup for them making videos, which sounds really dumb, but that's what I watched. And it's like a professional studio setup. Right. All I have, I have a desk in my big old bedroom. Thank you, Jesus, I have a big bedroom for the first time in my life. I have a desk. I have a
22:05desktop computer, I have headphones that plug into the desktop computer, I have a monitor that isn't very big, and I have a decent keyboard and a decent mouse. That is how I do this. And I just, I can't believe that this is all I had to do to do this. If I had known this years ago, I would have done it years ago. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much me. I do have two monitors for my setup that helps a lot with the video editing stuff. And I'm actually...
22:33in our bedroom right now too. I had been in our closet for like the last three years, but I just couldn't take it anymore. So I needed some windows. So I'm out in our bedroom now but I am in the process of building a small office detached from the house. I spend hours and hours editing videos and I just feel like I need to get out of the house. Needs to get away from the screaming children. Yeah. It can make it a little rough.
23:01It's coming and it works and you just you get you do what you got to do to make it happen Yes, and if I if I'd known it would be this easy. I would have done it 20 years ago however, the technology probably wouldn't have been as usable 20 years ago as it is now so I also bought a a really nice microphone you know one of the ones that has the arm that swings and has the the spit
23:28thing in the front so that you're not getting all the S's and the P's popping. I can't use it because it picks up every single noise. And we live on a country road where big old semis go by all the time. It picks up the rumble of the semis from a half a mile down the road. So I bought this microphone and can't even really use it. And my husband was like, could you sell it? I said, I doubt it. I don't think anybody would buy it.
23:56And I said, maybe five years from now, we can make a studio outside on the property somewhere and soundproof it. And then maybe I'll be able to do my recording out there. And he said, so for a hundred dollar microphone, you're going to spend $5,000 to make an audio. I was like, well, if the podcast does well, maybe we can afford to spend the money to build a studio, but we'll see what happens. So I guess my point in that.
24:25whole story is that if you are so inclined and motivated and inspired to want to do videos or podcasting or something like what I'm doing and what Cody and Michelle are doing, it is possible to do it on a very low budget and not have it sound terrible. Yeah for sure. Yeah I think honestly and if you listen to any you know gurus or whatever out there that are talking about how to start a YouTube channel and stuff they will also say it that the
24:55Quality of your content a high quality content has a lot more to do with The actual content you're putting out and not on you know The video not for sure not being fuzzy or something like I mean you want good good looking videos and good sounding videos But it's a lot more important How you're making the videos like you and your personality and the content that you're giving people if it's entertaining if it's helpful And stuff like that. I mean, that's the biggest thing
25:23Yep, and it helps to have a really good voice. I keep hearing this all the time. People I interview, I get done, and they're like, you have a really nice voice. And for me, I hear my voice through my own bones in my own head. So I don't hear what everybody else hears. Even when I listen to it back, I don't hear it the way other people hear it. But I know a good voice when I hear one. You guys have really nice voices.
25:53A lady that I talked to the other day, Nita, she is, Winfield Farms LLC is her episode. I think it came out yesterday. She has, she sounds like Angela Bassett. She has the most beautiful voice. And so for me, because I am so attuned to people's voices, this podcast is a joy for me because I get to hear different accents, different tones, different timbers every day.
26:24Right. Yeah. And I love music. So when people talk, it's like music to me. Yeah. Right. So I do this for completely selfish reasons. It makes me so happy on so many levels and everybody's like, thank you for doing this. I learned so much. And I'm like, no problem. I'm just going to do it because I love it. But the thing that I have learned in the last year, because I'm coming up on a year at the end of August of doing this.
26:53is that most people who have homesteads, and not all of them, but many, many of them, they have some kind of side hustle that relates to the homestead, whether it's agritourism, whether it's content creation, whether it's having people come and pick from their produce, whether it's a farm stand on the property.
27:20there's some other piece that isn't necessarily just growing food, whether it's meat or veggies, and selling it. And I think that part of being a homesteader is that you are creative. I think everyone I've talked to is creative in some way. Yeah, I mean, it takes grit and it takes, yeah, that creativity and everybody's creativity is gonna be different too. Yes, and that's what makes it so much fun.
27:50fun. And it also makes it hard sometimes because sometimes people are like, I'm going to do this thing and it's going to break my body, but I want to do it. Right. So, but so you said you have four kids? Yes. So we have an 11 year old, a nine year old and an eight year old at this point, and then also a three year old. So we had three.
28:16very close together and then we realized how hard it was and then we waited five more years to have another one. So, yep. Okay. And are they all in on helping out? Oh yeah. Yep. We definitely have them doing lots of things around here. The oldest three are doing chores. I mean, they honestly, now that we don't have our cow, do they do all the chores? Pretty much. Pretty much. I still have to do some like with the steer still here, I would do the rotating
28:45for him in the pasture, moving the chickens when they need to be moved but that's not every day. So like just your daily animal chores, they feed the chickens, give them water, feed the dog and cat. Gather the eggs. Gather the eggs, that kind of thing. Yeah, I can see that it's been – I mean they complain about it sometimes but – Just like all kids, yeah. But they – I can see it's really good for them and they also make – I make sure they make a little money doing it too. So it's, you know, teaching them responsibility in that way and stuff. Yeah.
29:15we homeschool them and we just consider that as part of their homeschooling. Yeah. Okay. And so do either one of you have an outside job, like besides the home side? No. I mean, the YouTube content is the job. I think a lot of people don't realize how much work actually goes into that. We spend one day a week planning a video, getting ready for a video, I would say maybe half a day.
29:45Um, and then the next day is usually solid filming all day long. And then I spend sometimes three full days, even more, sometimes four days editing a video. Um, I'm probably overly picky with my video editing, but I put a lot into it to try to make the story as cohesive and streamlined and smooth as possible.
30:13and I think people appreciate that, so I really work hard on that. But yeah, it is, and it's both of us working on it too. It's not just one of us, it's taking both of us working nearly full time to make it happen. Yeah. So. Do you put out one video a week, or how do you schedule it? Yep, one video a week. Michelle also does a few Instagram posts and stories, and like two reels a week or something on Instagram. But on YouTube, it's one.
30:43full length of video and every once in a while we'll either skip a video and do a live video because that doesn't take as much work afterwards and stuff. It's just the recording part. Or we'll even tack that on in between somewhere too if we want to. I think some people have this image in their heads of homesteading YouTubers. I'm sure this is true for some people but not for us. They have this idea that we just carry a camera around with us wherever we go.
31:12And it just isn't true. Like having a camera out, especially with four kids, can be pretty hectic. And so we're really, really, excuse me, we're very intentional about making sure that everything is ready to go, everything is streamlined. We have a plan for what we're going to do. That makes the editing easier for Cody as well, because he doesn't have to try to like piece everything together. And it also just makes so that it's so much more doable with trying to...
31:41shoot the video with our kids around. So we squash all of the filming into one day. Sometimes it goes over a couple of days depending on what we're doing. Yeah, depending on the subject. Yeah, but for the most part we have everything streamlined. Okay, wow, that's a lot. I mean, I know, I do know what it takes to do this kind of stuff. We tried. We tried doing videos of canning and making soap and stuff.
32:10My husband and I hated every freaking second of it. I think we made three and I tried to edit them and I was just like, honey, I know, no. You gotta love it. I mean, you may have to want to do it or it's not gonna work. And he said, why no? And I said, look at this. And I showed him the clips that we'd taken of the canning and the stuff we were doing. I said,
32:37It is going to take me two weeks to learn how to get this to work. I said editing software is no joke. Yeah. I said, we can't use the background conversation because we all swear like pirates. I said, so basically all the background noise, I got to get rid of it. And then we're going to have to talk over the video. Yeah. I said, do you really want to do that? He was like, no. I said, no.
33:04This is not us. This is not for us. And we did the whole thing. We got the ring camera, not the ring camera, the ring light. We got the thingies to hold cell phones in the right position. We did all of it. And now I'm sorry, we did that, but we did, because we wanted to make it right. And the video was fine. The video itself, the images were fine. But the editing in stuff,
33:33for sound, I give anyone who does that for a living props because watch a bean in the ass. It's funny because so many people, like you can tell they think we just have this cushy life where we make our money for making videos and stuff. But I think a lot of behind the scenes things that people don't think about is, I mean, number one, all of the editing. Like what is it, an hour per minute of video? It's about what it takes usually. Yeah. So if we have a 25 minute video.
34:03that's gonna take Cody about 25 hours to edit. And then also on top of that, it's just everything that you do while you're filming, if you're taking all the different angles and making sure that your image is changing every few seconds, everything you do, every task, every job that you do is gonna take double the time. And so it truly, truly is a job. It is not just, it's not just staying at home and playing.
34:33We've gotten the question a lot, like, how can I start homesteading while I have a full-time job? And we've done at least one, if not more, videos kind of about answering that question or whatever. And now that I don't have a job off the homestead, I've gotten the vibe from some people that, you know, it must be much easier now to homestead. You know, if you're just at home all the time, it'd be easy to homestead. It's pretty much the same.
35:00as it was. It's definitely better in some ways. Overall, we love what we're doing. We love that I'm able to be at home, that we're all home together, working together, things like that. But as far as actually getting more homesteading work done, it's pretty much about the same. Because like Michelle said, everything takes twice as long. We have to think through everything a lot more as how it's going to show up on camera and stuff like that. And it's
35:29all the hours of working. And so I basically, I tell people now I still have a full-time job and I'm still homesteading with a full-time job basically. And I like to tell people that because I want them to know that it's possible because up until just a year ago, I did have a full-time job off the homestead and we were at one point raising food to sell to other people.
35:56I mean, through the whole thing, we've been raising food for ourselves that we eat all winter long and stuff. And I love for people to know that that is possible. Yes, it is. And again, if we had more acres, we would be doing the same thing. But we don't because we could not. We bought our place in 2020. And I'm in Minnesota. You guys are in Ohio, right?
36:24Um, we got our place just before the housing market went crazy. Yeah. And it was one of the only places with acreage we could find that wasn't 25 miles outside of a town. Yeah. Right. And it's perfect. It's perfect for us, but having critters is not really part of the plan. I mean, I would love to have a goat. I would love, I would love to get two baby goats and a mama goat. And I would love to raise those babies.
36:54sell one at the end of the season and keep one and then have the mama bread again and just basically have a couple goats every year. Right. Yeah. But again, you have to be able to have them grazed. We don't have any of them to graze. So it's a thing. And instead of us growing our own meat, we try to buy from local farmers who do have steers and goat and lambs and whatever. Because if you can't...
37:23grow it yourself, buy it from a local grower. Yes, yes, amen. I think so many people miss that idea. It's kind of this idea, and I think I had the idea to begin with also, it's kind of like it's all or nothing. Like if you buy the land, or if you wanna go after the homesteading thing, you gotta do it all yourself. And that's just not true. I feel like we get a lot of people that leave comments that.
37:49tell us that they're living in apartments in the city and so they just can't do any of these things. Well, I mean, you've got an oven in your apartment. You can go to the farmer's market. You can ask farmers there, you can either just buy their produce there or even ask them if they've got seconds back at the farm that they didn't wanna bring to sell at the farmer's market if they'd sell at a discount in bulk or whatever. I mean, I would have loved if people would have bought our seconds at farmer's market. We had so many vegetables that we had to deal with.
38:17that weren't nice enough to sell the farmers market. But anyways, you could buy that stuff and you could start canning. You can bake your own bread. I hear people raising chickens in some crazy situations. I have a friend that was living in downtown in a city and he had this building that, it was on a, they were starting a mission and it was the building that was eventually gonna be their church house. And he had a section of it.
38:45penned off and he was raising broiler chickens inside that building. There's people that do rabbits and different things like that. You can get back to that creativity thing. You can get so creative. I just feel like you can start wherever you're at and it might not be in all the ways that you want to, but you can get started. Then, like you said, support your local farmers and people who are growing food the right way and stuff. We need the supporters.
39:14as much as we need people growing their own food. Because I mean, truth of it is, I mean, I haven't done the calculations, but there's not enough usable land on this earth for each and every person to have 20 acres or whatever. I don't know, but I'm guessing. And so, you know, there are just the way our world works. There is going to be cities and things like that. But if people in the cities would start supporting more of our local food and food
39:43farmers who are using regenerative agriculture practices and stuff. We'd have the Walmarts and all those places selling crappy food. They wouldn't last very long. Yep, absolutely. You were talking about small apartments and actually using the stove in your small apartment kitchen. One of the things that always makes me giggle is people have their kitchens remodeled. I'm not saying people have apartments. People have homes.
40:12They have their kitchens remodeled, these beautiful show place kitchens, and they never actually cook in their kitchens. My father-in-law and his second wife had their kitchen remodeled, like years ago. And it was beautiful. It was gorgeous. And I said to his wife at the time, I said, I would love.
40:41to cook in your kitchen. If you would like me to come over and make dinner for you guys some night, I would love to cook a meal in your kitchen." And she was like, oh, that's sweet, but you don't have to. And I said, okay, that's fine. And then like a few months later they came to visit our house and they'd had my cooking before. And she said, you know how you said you wanted to try cooking in my kitchen? And I said, yes. She said, would you like to make Christmas dinner for the family? I about sobbed.
41:11I was so happy. I said, are you serious? And she said, yeah. She said, you cook wonderfully and I know you can do a killer turkey and I know you make some homemade cranberry sauce. She said, I know Kyle makes, my husband's name is Kyle, I know Kyle makes wonderful breads. She said, do you guys want to make Christmas dinner this year at my house? I was practically dancing. I was like, yes, of course. And then she was kind enough to fund the shopping trip.
41:41Oh nice. For the groceries. I said you don't have to do that. She's like no, no, you're gonna be you're gonna be earning it. Please take this. And I did. And we we went all out. It was so much fun. And come to find out that kitchen wasn't quite as user-friendly as I. So it was it was a challenge. And it was really fun to to cook in a new place and realize that I
42:11But kitchens are for cooking. They're not for having company over and sitting around and chatting with a pop. They're for cooking. Right. So it just, it makes me laugh and it frustrates me when people go to all this trouble to make a beautiful kitchen that is set up for people to visit while you cook and then no one ever actually cooks. Right. Yeah, ours is kind of the opposite of that. We built our own house and we actually built it on top of...
42:41a pre-existing basement and it's a very small footprint. It's two stories, but one floor is only 660 square feet. In our downstairs, we have living room, laundry room, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom all on that one small floor. The kitchen is pretty small. Michelle, also, she's a little different than you. She actually doesn't really like to cook.
43:10ourselves and our children good food. She does a lot of cooking but you know, she's got definitely some hurdles with her kitchen size and stuff. But if it's something that you want to do, you'll find a way to do it for sure. Yeah. Oh Yes, the kitchen that I used to cook in was a galley style kitchen Oh, wow. And the kitchen that I cook in now is like five times that size I am I'm so thrilled having a big kitchen finally in my life and
43:39I'm not going to lie, cooking in the galley kitchen was easier because everything was within arm's reach. However, the kitchen I have now has a huge island which means that when my husband and I and my son all want to cook together, there is room to cook together and it's wonderful. It is so much fun. Yeah, that would be nice. So on that note.
44:03Uh, we've been talking for almost 45 minutes. I try to keep these to half an hour, so I'm going to let you go. But thank you so much for your time, guys. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. It was fun. All right. Have a great afternoon. All right. You too.
 

Homestead Bakes

Today I'm talking with Kay and Courtney at Homestead Bakes.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Kay and Courtney at Homestead Bakes. Good morning, ladies. How are you? Good morning. I wasn't sure who gets top building. Billing. Geez, I can't talk this morning. I wasn't sure.
00:27who gets top billing, so I just read it from the order on my screen. Sure. All right, ladies, tell me about what you do at Homestead Bakes.
00:39Well, so we're two local moms. We're both Sane Hole moms and we decided to start baking out of our homes. So we're cottage bakers. And we mainly started because we both have small children and we cook on a regular basis and we bake on a regular basis. But we wanted to start focusing more on nutrition for our children and our families.
01:09And bread was just something that we consumed every day. When we noticed one of our store bought bread that we actually paid a lot of money for, didn't grow mold for weeks on out, we sort of kind of came together and decided we have to change. We have to change something and try to make something from scratch that's nourishing and healthy and clean. And bread was that common thread that she and I both had.
01:38And we came to Instagram locally within our town to see if anybody was willing to teach us. Because you know, as you know, sourdough is very popular now. It's on trend. And you see it on Facebook and Instagram everywhere on how to make it. But with so much information out there, we really didn't know where to start. And...
02:03Luckily, a local baker around here, she was willing to teach us. So then once we were taught, we just couldn't stop baking. That's pretty much like how we got started. And Courtney and I, we've always talked about wanting to start a business, wanting to do something to contribute to our households, especially with us being stay at home moms. We needed another creative outlet.
02:31to help us get through the day, get our mind going in different ways. And other than just being a mom and being a cottage baker and being able to kind of dictate our own schedules with baking, it just all came together. And here we are. Very nice. I know what you mean about...
03:00the needing something to make your brain work when you're a mom, when you're a stay-at-home mom. My favorite part of having my babies was that first couple of weeks when they're brand new newborns and you're exhausted all the time and you just cocoon in for a couple of weeks and you just do what the baby needs and you sleep as much as you can. And if you have older kids too, it gets harder to do that cocooning. But when I had my first baby, my only daughter.
03:30That first two weeks was the most beautiful time of my life. But as she got older, I was like, I can only wash so many clothes and wash so many dishes and back in the floor so many times before I'm going to go insane. And so I found things to do. I read a lot because it was the only thing I could do at the time to feed my brain. And so yeah, it's being a mom is, is an honor, but it also will drive you.
03:59to insanity if you don't have something more than that. I'm like, well, the class didn't talk about the potty issues, right? Yep. I'm like, how can that be? There's just so many ways that the potty issues come up and we're just discussing potty. We know that you're a parent when you're starting to refer restrooms as potty, right? It doesn't go away.
04:26I still to this day if I'm like honey I need to go to the bathroom I say potty because it's so ingrained in you and I'm 54 my oldest kid is 34 so it's never gonna go away guys sorry and I'm gonna say something that's probably not popular I'm not a big sourdough fan I know lots of people love it and good on you for making it yay team sell it to whoever wants to buy it
04:54I can't, I don't love it because of that tang that it has. However, I'm really weird because I do like rye bread. So it's one of those to each their own things, I think. We've kind of found out that there's a lot of nuance to sourdough and it's really not, you know, there's so many ways to do it. And you can actually manipulate the sourness in the bread.
05:18found, you know, we can make it more sour or less sour, depending on, you know, the different techniques that you use. Basically, the longer you keep it in the fridge to cold ferment is how you develop that more sour flavor. Okay. So, we've kind of come to a happy medium. I think we've found a good spot where our customers really like our sourness of our bread that it's not too sour. And some people like it more sour and they can certainly request that, I think.
05:49Yeah, like Courtney and I, we're both a similar way that we don't, we actually like breads not as sour ourselves. And one of my mom friends, she also was like, oh, you know, I wasn't a fan of sourdough because I just remember the tang, the sourness of the bread. But our sour, our starter is very balanced because we personally, we make it to our problems and our children's palate as well. And yeah, it's not very sour.
06:18We recently had one customer that was saying like, I missed the tang, where's the tang? We're working to get the tang out of our bread. But I will make it more tangier for you. And she's like, okay. So, you know, she was happy with that. But yeah, I think with techniques and evolving, right? Everyone is, we're always trying to strive for developing new recipes, something.
06:46better or something that's not just out in the commercials, right, what's available at that. You know, I have a tush baby that I use for my nine month old and a lot of other moms and even mostly grandmas sees me using that. They're like, man, I wish we had that when I had my babies because that would have helped my hips. So, you know, and I just think that now these days, especially all these moms and women entrepreneurs coming up, developing things to help
07:16our everyday lives that not many factories or brands may have even thought of. I think the world is just kind of getting better and I think women and moms in general are kind of taking the reins and creating things and innovating things that helps us in our home lives, with our children, just to kind of better our lives.
07:44and make things easier for us, right? And we kind of feel that way with some of them. Like, yeah, we're like you, Mary. Like, we didn't like that a lot of tang. So we worked to get our starter very balanced, and she's very robust. We went through a lot of recipes to develop that balanced loaf that a lot of most general people would like.
08:11And the caveat is certain people would like zucchini, which we can do that too. So I think that's the beauty of being able to make your own, right? You're able to create something that you like. You don't have to worry about all the added preservatives or chemicals. Like you can control what goes in there. You know, like my sister, for example, she's very sensitive about salt. So, you know, I showed her, I was like, make it, and here's the baker's knife. You can figure it out.
08:41you know, the level percentage of salt that you want so that it fits your needs. And so we recently just got done with teaching a sourdough class to 21 people. And that was one of the points that we were trying to draw from, you know? Like, homestead dates, like what we stand for, you know, this community, you know, community engagement, just kind of getting back to the roots.
09:11of our food source, being able to have input into what you put in your bodies and what you feed your loved ones. Yes, definitely. I have two things. When did you guys start as a business?
09:29So we started as a business officially Memorial Day, Courtney? Yeah, we got our cottage license. It was around Memorial Day, just before Memorial Day, but we were baking way before that. Yeah. Okay. So Memorial Day was our first, that weekend, my neighborhood actually had a community yard sale scheduled. So Courtney and I, we've been waiting for the cottage license to go through.
09:58And we literally got it, I think day before, the day of the yard sale that we were thinking like, oh man, if the license comes through, like we would love to have a pop-up, in our neighborhood yard sale. And that's exactly how it ended up happening. And that pop-up was hugely successful. Like we got so much positive response from our neighborhood and.
10:24We actually like met one of our very regular customer through that pop-up. And she also has taken a class yesterday with her son and it was just so great. And we just love meeting people like just with a similar likely mindness, right? About the whole host of nutrition and just wanting to create something of your own. Yeah. Super cool.
10:53Okay, so the other thing I was gonna say is every time I talk to somebody on this podcast, invariably I learned something new. I didn't know that you can make sourdough without it having that tanginess to it. So I may have to revisit my not making sourdough bread because I had decided not to even try because I don't like how it tastes. But if I can figure out how to make it not so tangy, I might be willing to try making it. Yes.
11:22Just even the process of making bread, like seeing like how you mix everything, to make sourdough is literally three ingredients. And it's just amazing to see, yeah, flour, water, and salt. And it's amazing to see those ingredients transform into something completely different from what it started out with. And even just the texture and the sourdough process is based on fermentation. And besides all the
11:52health benefit comes with fermented foods, fermented grains. Just seeing that transform and seeing the bubbles and seeing that like your starter bacteria just working and fermenting, it's like transforming right in front of your eyes. I love it. I think it's just amazing. And I just wanna share with everyone. Like we're so passionate about it.
12:18Yeah, you just you want to have a video of it and say, this is so cool. You guys look at chemistry in action. This is new for happening. Yes. And there's nothing like the hands on experience, right? Like, I mean, I see videos all the time and yes, I can relate. But for someone that has never experienced it and, you know, like mix the dough from scratch, you know, using your hands, there's just really nothing like it.
12:43Yeah, the closest I can come to that, and I was just thinking about this an hour ago because for some reason I really want scones. I don't have time to make them today, but I will be making scones sometime this week. And when you put scone ingredients together, you put all the dry ingredients and the butter together first, and then you add the milk or the cream or whatever you're using for the wet. And it looks like nothing. It looks like flour mud once you get it stirred up. And it's very wet.
13:13The first time I made it, I was like, this can't be right. This is such a wet dough. How is it going to become a scone? And then I did what it said to do and I put it in the oven and I turned the light on the oven so I could watch what happened and it became this very tall light biscuit treat. And I was astounded that it actually worked because back when I did this, I wasn't really good at cooking. I didn't know what I was doing yet. And to this day, when I make scones, I'm just like,
13:41I love this process. So I think scones for me is sourdough for you. Yeah, it was really cool to see, because we did our class yesterday, it was cool to see the people go home and bake their bread and then report back to us later and say, this was so good and they sent us a picture. And it was really cool to see them kind of experience that for themselves. Yes, and teaching people is a gift to yourself.
14:12I think I really enjoy telling people how to do something or sharing the instructions. I don't want to say teach because I'm really bad at teaching. I have no patience. But if somebody's like, will you please show me how you do this? And I cave and I do. Watching them learn it and experience it and have the satisfaction in that they did it, it's just such a heartwarming moment for me. Yeah.
14:42for us as well. It's just amazing to be able to share and that and the other person receiving it right and seeing the value in creating something and not just relying on convenience or you know the store-bought things which there's nothing wrong with store-bought things right like in a pinch like yes it works but at the same time you know being able to
15:11Be sure creative outlet. I mean, like the sourdough alone, you can add in so many different flavors, right? Like rosemary herbs, that's one of our really popular flavors. Cinnamon sugar, jalapeno, cheddar. Roasted garlic. Roasted garlic. Yeah, that's a big one. There's like endless, you know, like combinations of flavors that you can create. I mean, it's just so much fun. And the starter, all people the starter.
15:40It's like having a baby. You have to like feed her. A lot of people name them, right? It's just like a living, breathing thing. Yep, I can remember my mom getting friendship bread starter, which I think is the same thing. It's sourdough starter. And she did it for a while. I was probably, I don't know, 10. She did it for a while, and she never actually made bread out of it, as far as I know, but.
16:08But she fed her starter every day for a couple of months. And then she said to my dad, she said, you know, she said, I'm probably never gonna do anything with this because I don't know how to do it. Because they didn't really tell her, they gave her a recipe but she was not really into it. And she said, I think I'm gonna toss Herman because she named it Herman. That's what's so great about the class because like you can look at a recipe but it's not the same as like
16:38seeing someone do it. Yeah, she really loved making, it's called anadama bread. It's a dark bread and it's sweet and she liked doing that. So she was already set, heart set on anadama bread and her friend gave her the friendship starter because she had it, the friendship bread starter. So I don't think my mom was into it. I don't think anyone around her was really doing it. The friend lived further away from her.
17:08So Herman, Herman met a sad demise in the trash can, but I still remember Herman, the friendship bread starter in the fridge. That's great. So it's really funny the things that stick with you from when you were a kid. But anyway, we're hoping to change those friendship bread starters into like memories of fresh baked bread that you will never forget because there's nothing like freshly baked bread.
17:35that's like straight out of the oven with like, well, not straight out. We recommend cutting it about an hour. Um, but you know, so still warm bread with butter. It's just, it's like nothing like it. You will never be able to eat like regular commercial bread, I guess. My, my husband makes honey oat bread and he makes a white herbed bread from scratch. And
18:03And we can't even wait that loaf comes out of the oven and we cut the end off right away and let it cool and try it because it smells so incredible while it's baking. Well, it's like savage moment. You're just like, oh, I don't care about any other toppings or making sandwiches. Everybody's just taking a piece and eating it. Oh yeah. When, when all four kids still lived at home and one still does and he still joins in on the ripping the bread apart thing.
18:30But when all four kids were still at home, we would pull a loaf out of the oven and it would cool just long enough for them not to burn their fingers and they would literally break a piece off and eat it. It was like pull apart bread, except it wasn't meant to be pull apart bread. The only thing that beats it is a fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookie from scratch and I'm not even sure that that beats fresh baked bread, but it's close.
18:59Okay, so do you guys sell it like farmers markets or how do you disperse your product?
19:09So we sell at farmers market. We have one locally that comes out every Sunday. And we also sell out of our homes. We get a lot of emails or Facebook messengers asking for loaf of bread on a certain day. One of our customers, she actually has an Airbnb property that she orders bulk from us. And she likes to gift her guests with our bread.
19:38But yes, our long-term goal is to be in retail. We would love to supply our freshly baked sourdough bread products to farmers markets that are open all year round. And so that's our long-term goal and what we're aiming for. But in the meanwhile, especially with our littles at home, with them being so young, we're waiting.
20:07Okay, we're doing the farmer's market and doing some classes here and there. Yeah, well. Where do you hold your classes? You don't do them at home, do you? Or do you?
20:20No, we don't do them at our not our homes because there's there just wouldn't be enough room, you know So we just did one at a local park. They'll have a lodge with a full kitchen And um, it actually can have up to 50 guests But you know our class kind of broke it up into like 10 10 to 12 and we think that was like the perfect amount between Courtney and I we were able to give
20:47like that attention right to each individual and just kind of like check up on what they were, how they were doing, making sure they're able to kind of follow and for them to get all the information they need for them to be able to make their own.
21:02Courtney's very quiet. I have a question for Courtney. So Courtney will talk to me too. What do you love about this the most, Courtney? I just love having the freedom to fit it into our own schedules as moms. I also home school. So right now that's quiet, obviously for the summer. So home school, you know, stay at home mom.
21:29We have like busy schedules, but it's nice that we can, like Kay said, contribute to our households, have a creative outlet and also still be moms. Okay, that's a fantastic answer. And I got to hear your voice for real. You have a lovely speaking voice. I don't know if you're shy, but you should talk more. It's pretty.
21:53I agree. Okay, so what's the feedback been like for your breads? I'm guessing it's been great. Yeah, we've had a lot of good feedback so far. Like we said, we had the one customer recently that was wanting a little more tang and we can do that. We've had a lot of good feedback from our different markets and pop-ups and people that we meet at the different markets and stuff like that. Those are the people that...
22:20they come to our classes because they love our bread so much and they want to try and give that you know do that themselves for their families. Yeah I feel like lots of people that I've talked to in the last year for this podcast people who are bakers or homesteaders or makers or whatever they're all really I would swear ninety nine percent of the people I've talked to have been more than willing to teach other people about what they're doing.
22:49And I feel like it's a certain, I don't know, heart set, mindset for all of us that we want to help. We want to share. We want to make the world a better place. Yes, we kind of feel that way too. We don't want to keep sourdough making a secret. You know, I don't think, I think we like the community engagement and meeting new people and sharing the craft with other people. You know, I think.
23:19We like that. Yeah. Um, we did always talks about, you know, especially with our breadmaking, not just the bread making, but things like canning, right? All the other homesteading like skills that goes into doing that, um, preserving food for during the summer, for the winter, like she, she calls it generational knowledge, and I think that really basically sums it up like it's knowledge that you can.
23:47my gift to your kids so that they can have good clean food for themselves and their families. Absolutely. One of my goals when my kids were little, like I made a list of things they had to know before they moved out. They had to know how to do their own laundry. They had to know how to cook a meal and a dessert that they would be proud to serve their friends. Even if it was only a one trick.
24:16wonder, a one trick pony. They had to know how to make something that was actually real food from scratch that they would be proud to serve their friends. And all four kids can do their own laundry and they can cook like crazy because they love to cook because they were given that opportunity. And when I told them in their teens, as they all reached like 15, I was like, okay, you need to pick a meal.
24:45that you like to eat that I make because I figured that was the easiest way to get them to do it, that you're willing to try making yourself. And the boys were not as into it as my daughter, my daughter, the oldest. I think that girls just know that they're expected to make food. So floating the idea to her wasn't that hard. I think the girls tend to be more the nurturers too.
25:13Yeah. And so she learned how to make something. I don't remember what it was now. It's been way too long. And she learned how to make cookies because she was like everybody likes cookies. So that's fine. It's a dessert. You can do cookie. Yeah. And to this day, if she, if she wants to cook, that's the thing she reverts back to is that first thing she learned to cook, which I think is funny. And the boys actually all love to cook all of them. That's great.
25:43Like we had a few males that came to the class as well. And we had one guy, I mean he was like 6'4", like really built guy, with a great reddish hair, like beard. I mean he looked like a Viking. And he was the friendliest person ever. And he was just chatting it out with all the ladies, you know, mixing breath. We'll go listen to this later, okay? Uh huh.
26:12It was so cute and I think men too, we don't give women that credit. I think given the chance, I think they like being able to create something. You know, like women, we get to create babies, but men don't. And I think that's why a lot of them like to build things, right, with their hands. Because they want to be able to have that feeling, right? That gratification from like, I have made this from nothing. I think bread is like the perfect.
26:42Sure. And honest to God, life skills are not gender biased. Everybody should know how to cook and how to clean. And the stuff that you have to do on a daily basis, it's not men do this thing and women do that thing. Everybody does it. Yeah. I mean, people have told my husband that he should have been a baker and he laughs and he says, it's not that I don't love baking. He said, I do.
27:12He said, but it would become a job if I became a baker. He said it wouldn't be nearly as much fun if it was my job. And he said it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a man. He said, I don't feel any less masculine because I can make a really good loaf of bread. Yeah. So, but whatever, it's fine. Okay, we have like three more minutes and I need to think of a really good question to end this on. Oh.
27:39What happens if a loaf of bread doesn't turn out the way you want it to? Luckily we haven't had too many fails, right? I mean we've had a couple, nothing great, like we've had some overproofing of bread, but yeah we haven't had any like crazy fails. If the bread doesn't turn out the way we want to, we still eat it because it's still tasty. Okay.
28:07All right, then my next question is, do you guys donate any of your bread at all to anybody? Yeah, so we're just talking about this earlier. I don't know if, is the buy nothing page like a, it's a national thing, right? Is it? I don't know. Have you heard of that before? I know there's local ones. Yeah. Like each local area has their own buy nothing page. We're both very active on buy nothing for all of our, you know, personal things too. But.
28:35You know, when we started out too, we gave a lot of bread away there too, just because we're baking so much. Like, what are we going to do with all this bread? You know, we need to share it. So we, you know, that's kind of how we started out, you know, gifting our bread away at first to share it with people. Different recipes and just for us to gain more experience. And yeah, like Courtney said, we were baking every day and we had all this bread. So we would just post it on our mapping page.
29:02And people would just come and pick it up, you know, and they thought it was really good. We're gifting it to our neighbors. And after like, you know, pop ups and whatnot, if we have any extras, we do a lot of the gifting as well. Again, at the end of the day, we're baking to nourish, right? And we don't want any of it to go to waste.
29:27We think it's a really good way to connect with the community as well. And to really get our name out there too, you know? And anytime I think you're baking, you're making food, right? I joke to Courtney all the time, like, anytime I go to Costco and I try a sample, I'm probably buying it. And I think there's nothing better to, there's no other better way to advertise food than to try it themselves.
29:55And I think we get a lot of repeat customers because they chart our brand. Definitely. Okay. So I think I don't have any more questions because we're at 29 minutes and we're at 30 minutes where we did it. All right ladies, thank you so much for your time. I know you're busy with the littles. Thank you for having us. Yeah, this is, you know, we've been.
30:23we were hoping to try to like, you know, get our, about us out there, you know? Like we were doing a class, we allotted some time to try to talk about ourselves and how we began, just to kind of get to know, for the customers and our students to get to know us, besides, you know, we bake bread and we can teach you how to do it. And we just felt like this was a perfect opportunity to get a little more stories behind.
30:51you know, the two moms that are baking. Yeah. And I love stories. That's why I do the podcast. So I'm really glad that you wanted to chat with me. Um, you guys don't have a website, right? Not yet. Okay. Not yet. We're looking to get one. Facebook and Instagram for right now. Okay. That's what I was asking. All right. Well, ladies, you guys enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you again for your time. Thank you. Bye.
 

Homesteading-ish

Today I'm talking with Troy at Homesteading-ish. You can follow on Facebook as well.
Homesteading-ish is a conference for new or current homesteaders.
"Do you want to learn how start your own homestead? Already have a homestead property and need some extra help? We're bringing the homestead community together. Real people, real life homestead experience, all in one place, learning and living out dreams."
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Troy at Homesteading-ish. Tell me about Homesteading-ish. Why is it called that? So it's Homesteading-ish is kind of an acronym. It's homesteading in search of help. So the ish is an acronym.
00:29And it was really, obviously the homesteading movements is really taken off here in the last several years and there's a lot of conferences and those things popping up. But here in West Virginia, we have not had one yet. So we thought, well, this will be a great opportunity to kind of do an inaugural conference here in the state. You get in these mountainous states, homesteading becomes a little bit more of a challenge in certain areas. So we thought, well, there's a lot of people in
00:58It's a rural state, so there's a lot of people that already kind of have that. You know, we raise a backyard garden, we do that kind of stuff. But what can we do to encourage them to maybe look deeper into a homesteading lifestyle? So that's kind of why we thought in search of help. So you're kind of already homesteading, but you're also in search of help. You're looking for that extra push or some of those new ideas.
01:22Awesome. I didn't even think about the fact that the ish was an acronym. I'm not with it today. So define your version of homesteading for me because I have talked to so many people in the last year who have different definitions. So what's yours? Yeah, so that's a great question, Mary, because it is all over the board. So I personally have a social media presence and talking about
01:53for goodness, probably eight years now. And I still get people saying, wait a minute, you're not homesteading. The Homesteading Act of 1863 was, you know, that's done, nobody's doing that anymore. And it's like, well, okay, maybe we need to call it modern homesteading, or as my grandma would say, well, it's just everyday life because that was rural life for her. So I think it means different things to different people, but I look at it as taking more responsibility for
02:20your livelihood when it comes to food, when it comes to income, when it comes to security, when it comes to just keeping the lights on type of thing. I think it's a pretty broad brush that we can paint with, but it'll mean a little bit of different things for different people. Somebody said, well, you're not really homesteading if you don't have this many acres, or you're not really homesteading if you don't have this many animals, or if you don't at least grow this much percentage of the food that you consume.
02:49And I don't think there's any specific parameters that we need to put on that. I see people, I've got a friend, Harold Thornbrough, my goodness, that guy's homesteading on like two acres and he puts away more food than people on 10 acres do. So I don't think there's limitations that could be set on that, but I think it does have some fluidity for people depending on what their motivations are. Okay.
03:14And you just made me really think about this because I haven't really defined it for myself either. And as you were talking, I was like, so the only people who aren't doing homesteading are those who don't actually do anything themselves. Like they don't cook for themselves. They don't do their own laundry. They don't grow anything. You know, if they don't have any self-sustainability skills, then they are not a homesteader. That's how I would define it. Yeah. And I think there has to be a conscious effort. Again,
03:41I don't think my grandma, obviously, she didn't call it home studying back then, but if you came back and said, are you trying to be kind of push against the cultural norm in what you're doing when it comes to your food and your income and how you raise your family, all that type of stuff, you'd say, well, no, no, this is everyday life for us. So you fast forward now to our generation and say, what's everyday life? Well, everyday life is kind of a nine to five. It's a...
04:11commute to an office, it's a majority of the population living either urban or suburban. And so home setting would be, well, we're kind of pushing against that. We're deliberately, instead of going to fast food restaurants all the time or doing an Uber Eats or necessarily working a nine to five, or maybe when I get home and my weekends are spent golfing or doing something else, you're saying, I want to do some of these other things. I want my hobbies to be.
04:40related to this more self-reliant lifestyle. Yes, exactly. That's what I was getting at. Okay, so this conference thing that you're gonna be doing, I'm very excited for you. I will not be in attendance. I am too far away and I am too broke to fly or drive right now. But I'm really excited about it because it's, I'm like a huge fan of this whole lifestyle because we do it, our friends do it.
05:09And it's not like we have to do it, but we really enjoy it. So what is the conference? Tell me the dates, tell me what's gonna be happening. Okay, so what we're doing is September the 13th and 14th, which is a Friday and Saturday. We are trying to jam as much information into those two days as possible without people screaming time out. But we wanna be sensitive to the fact that an overnight stay is expensive no matter where you go.
05:37So we're trying to cram all that together in those two days. The event is in Charleston, West Virginia, which is the capital of our state. And it's actually at the convergence of three interstates. So it is geographically beneficial. You're not going to come a long way. You're not gonna have to go, you know, come to town and then drive an hour out some country road to find the venue. So there's a benefit there.
06:04But also, we've got an airport right there. So if people do want to take the time to fly, then they can fly in and just a short Uber ride to the venue and also allows there, you know, there's a lot of hotels and areas and things like that in the area. So the venue has really allowed us to leverage some of our opportunities. So we were able to reach out.
06:28to, you know, Joel Salatin, obviously he's kind of the top of the tier of people that you want to come to your conference. And Joel has been very helpful with us. I've met him in the past. We've talked in the past, so it was good to have that relationship and get him on board. And so we're looking at, okay, who from the homesteading YouTube influencer book writing type of thing can we get? And so we got Josh Draper from Stony Ridge Farmer.
06:58Nathan Elliott from Out of the Woods, he's more of the sawmill forestry side. We've got Sean and Beth Doherty, they're not necessarily have a YouTube presence as much as they're just known in the homesteading circles as being experts in the field of, especially with livestock and those types of things. And of course, they're just across the river in Ohio. So there was some logic there. Chuck Lewis from Sheridan Park Farms, he brings a unique perspective from
07:28from taking a homestead to more of a commercial farm level, but still doing all that slow food, regenerative agriculture approach to it. So, and then Red Tool House, which is my YouTube channel, we kind of have this rural Appalachian-based homesteading approach to things. But then, so the flip side of that, we then said, well, okay, let's reach out, because our partners in this, this is actually, I'm a co-host with the...
07:57Capital Conservation District here in our area. So that's an entity that of course has resources and access to grants and those types of things and they can get over into more of academia. And so there it's become a really neat mashup of some of our speakers we have coming in. We have people that are coming that have these credentials at the end of their name that are gonna be talking about organic farming, they're gonna be talking about
08:24agritourism, they're going to be talking about, of course, beekeeping, all those type of things, but how to get certified and organic, herbalists that are talking about herbal medicines, finding mentorships or utilizing grants or utilizing NRCS money type of thing. So there's kind of this neat mashup of those that we say, well, kind of social media, do-it-yourself type of thing versus the academic side that's coming in. So...
08:52we're going to have 36 different topics discussed by over 20, I think about 24 presenters is where we're at right now. Wow, that is a lot. Yeah. Okay. So is it going to be like, I don't want to say lecture because I have a terrible connotation about lectures. I don't love sitting in a classroom and listening to someone talk. So is it going to be an interactive kind of thing, or is it just going to be
09:21Joel and all those other people standing in front of a group of people and just talking at them. How's it going to work? So there's going to be a balance of that, of course. When we get into some of these things, there's some things that are hands-on. So when the beekeepers are going to be here, obviously they're going to be outside doing that, you know, kind of showing their stuff. They're going to have frames. They're going to have hives that you can interact with. I'm looking down my list here. We even have...
09:49somebody from the state department that's teaching chainsaw safety. So they're obviously going to be out running a chainsaw mill or cutting up some stuff. And there'll be also times that it does make sense. I'll be talking about pigs, raising pigs in the woods. And so I obviously can't load a 500 pound sow into my truck and bring it to the venue. So there'll be more of a
10:14an inside room setting, but we'll be using video and PowerPoint, those type of things to kind of show the challenges with raising hogs in the woods on sloped land like we have here in West Virginia. It's a common challenge for all of us because of the topography. So it'll be a mashup of some will be inside, some will be in classroom setting as we kind of maybe get into some really detail-y stuff, and then others will be hands-on. We have a foraging expert that I think they're going to be taking people.
10:43through the woods around the venue. The venue is actually a very large church that sits on 90 acres. So there's a lot of woods around it. So they'll actually be walking through the woods, kind of doing a live foraging demo. Okay, that sounds amazing. Speaking of Joel, I actually interviewed Joel back a few months ago for the podcast. And I was so excited to chat with him and I was scared to death because I didn't know how that was gonna go.
11:13He is the nicest, most personable, down-to-earth guy ever. He reminded me a lot of my dad. And Joel's probably not that much older than I am, but he reminded me of my dad. And I really enjoyed chatting with him because he was so, I don't know, welcoming and open to the conversation. So I don't know if he's different in a teaching mode at something like this. Well, I would almost, I'd bet my lunch money.
11:43that Joel is not, well, I know for a fact Joel's not coming with a PowerPoint presentation. Joel's not coming with a stack of notes. Joel's coming and you know, the really challenge, the only challenge we're going to have was just to have him keep the microphone close to his mouth. Because Joel's going to be one of those guys that just, he just eats, sleeps and drinks this stuff. I mean, he's, he's, my goodness, he's so sought after he's traveling the world now, speaking about, you know, what he calls his lunatic farming approach. And
12:12And so it's just going to be, I think it's just going to be great to be able to get him to talk about, I'm trying to look at the lineup we have here for him. Goodness. I mean, he's like, Hey, I can speak about 16 different things. What do you want? Um, but just be talking about like, um, startup. So, uh, you know, a business startup, a lot of us with homesteading, like, okay, we need to, to be able to build this lifestyle. Obviously it takes capital investment to do so. So what are we doing on our homestead slash small farm that can generate
12:42some income to help support our hobby and our desire to move in this direction. So Joel addresses those type of things. He's obviously written books about how to do pasture poultry and turn that into a $30,000 a year profit. And so he can speak into a lot of those things. So I think that's one of the things that Joel's going to bring to the table is just his ability to kind of ad-lib and even feel the crowd out and say, okay, maybe we go this direction or maybe we go that direction. But we're also going to be doing a roundtable on Friday night where we have...
13:11Joel and a couple other keynote speakers where we can just do some open questions. That's something I'll be emceeing and just be able to kind of just let it go where the crowd wants to take it when it comes to discussing key things around homesteading. Awesome. I think Dawn is with us but her mic is shut off. So if you're there Dawn, if you want to turn your mic on and say hello, that would be great. I don't know if she can do it or not. So let's see.
13:41Maybe not. I don't know. Okay. While we wait to see if Don's going to join us or not. So how did you decide to do this conference thing? Because this is not an inexpensive endeavor. I know it's not. So how is this, how is that going to work? Right. So there's no way in the world I could have done this on my own. In fact, capital conservation district approached me and said, hey, we want to do this. They, they have always been in an educational area.
14:11That's kind of been their wheelhouse. And of course they partner with other organizations that are both local, state, and even at the federal level. And there's resources there to say, Hey, we want to educate people on agriculture. And what I think is just amazing that this, whatever you want to call it, regenerative agriculture, slow food, homesteading movement, all of those things are sometimes synonyms, sometimes they're, they're, they're close cousins to one another.
14:39But it's getting the attention, it's getting input from larger and larger organizations. This is really, pardon the pun, this really has been a grassroots type thing. So when you see people like the Capital Conservation District has been here, been around forever, been trying to do great things in the area and have these resources, like, hey, let's take what we've been doing for a long time in education and just kind of...
15:04not rebranded, but just kind of package it differently, partner with somebody in the homesteading community that has an audience and has some expertise in this area. And let's see if we can do a conference. And that's kind of the genesis of how we got to talk in. And being a small town, small state area, the director of the conservation district is a friend of mine. We've known each other for a while. So it was just a logical conversation to say, hey, can we?
15:33Can we pull this off? Can we do something where you're bringing your audience this way and your type of people this way and we're bringing our expertise and our resources from this way? And can we put something together that people will really enjoy? So that's kind of where it started this about, almost a year ago now that we started this conversation and it's like, hey, yeah, I think this will work. Let's see what we can do. That's a pretty quick turnaround. I'm impressed.
16:02It's funny to me how great ideas are born from friends sitting around, shooting the shit, going, what if we tried this? What if we tried that? Have we considered this? And there's usually coffee or an alcoholic beverage involved. So, yeah, it's, it's, I don't know, some of the best songs ever written, I think started with a beer and a couple of people sitting around with guitars. So, um,
16:32So are you guys going to have anything about beekeeping? Did you say beekeeping? Yes. Yeah. We have some beekeepers. And then, what's neat, again, the Capital Conservation District, because of their expertise and their years of doing this type of stuff, they've got access to a lot of very educated people that have a lot of data to back this up. So I think of.
17:00Some, you know, we'll take me for example. So, uh, you know, we're talking about sawmillings. Like Troy, what makes you an expert in sawmillings? Like, well, I'm not necessarily an expert. I've just had a mill for 20 years and I've had a lot of lumber on my place, but I'm, I don't do it for money. I don't have a commercial operation. I don't have, you know, not that there's are these certifications, but I don't have certifications, but when you look at what they bring to the table. Say, Hey, we've got somebody from academia that can come talk about pollinators.
17:28So not only talking about the honeybee that everybody loves because of the product they produce, but then also when you look at, hey, if you really want your garden to flourish, you need to encourage pollinators to hang out. And this isn't just honeybees. And so we'll have a pollinator expert come in and this person has had a history of presenting, has all of this research and data to back stuff up because that's just the direction they're coming from. They have that resource. So we're gonna have...
17:55Like I said, from that side of academia talking about pollinators and honey versus, like we've got some real estate agents that are coming to talk about, you know, how to find land because that's usually the biggest obstacle for a homesteader is, yeah, I recognize I want to get out of my postage stamp lots or I want to get out of my housing development that has a crazy HOA that doesn't allow me to do anything. They're going to freak out if I plant a garden in the front yard, much less put a chicken there.
18:25So that next step, of course, is how do I find land? Well, land prices are just crazy right now. So getting a realtor to come and say, hey, when you're dealing with raw land versus postage stamp lot or developed land or those type of things that most realtors prefer to work with and understand to work with, then they're going to bring their expertise to the table. Say, no, here's how to navigate looking for raw land or what I like to encourage people to do is look for land disrepair.
18:53land that's been trashed, unfortunately, and say, if you've got the elbow grease and the sweat equity that you can put into it, then you can really turn a diamond in the rough into something really neat. So having those different topics, people come in with those different topics, and we're trying to be as eclectic as possible. So we're looking at topic categories of land and land management, security, and we say security by kind of being around the infrastructure of your homestead, financial security, food security.
19:23And then of course, just legitimate security, how to keep somebody from coming stealing all your stuff. We'll have a specific track that's kind of devoted directly to Appalachia. So Appalachia is, is, you know, hardwood forest is just, everybody has a tree around them type of thing, so benefits of that. And of course, as I already mentioned, some of the challenges of, of raising livestock or doing a garden when everything's on 20 to 30 degree slope.
19:47And then maple production, our state is really doubling down into maple syrup production because we are far enough north that we get a hard enough winter to allow the sap to flow. But our maple trees, I mean, we rival New England when you look at the number of maple trees per square acre in West Virginia. So the state is dumping a lot of money and grants and those type of things, business
20:16people producing maple syrup. And so we're having those people that are experienced in how to present that. They're the ones saying, hey, here's a grant that this organization is doing. This is how you do it. So they're coming to talk about that. But we'll also do organic tract. We're doing homesteading skills tract and then even urban homesteading for those people that say, I want to do this.
20:40But I'm not ready to do it yet. Maybe it's a retirement thing I'm gonna do. So how can we do stuff in the backyard? How can we do stuff even on a terrace per se if if I just want to learn how to grow some of my own food And and stick my toe in the proverbial homesteading waters there Okay, if if I wasn't already doing homesteading, I would be going to this conference to learn about it It sounds so amazing. So two things
21:05One has to do with how much it costs to attend the conference. And the first one I want to talk about is I actually interviewed our realtor a couple of months ago who found us our acreage. And she was really great about talking about the things that you, you won't think of if you're coming from an in town or suburb in place and then moving to acreage, like when we moved here, it, there was nothing, there was, there was no equipment because
21:34the person that sold us the house and the land didn't sell us their equipment. So she was talking about how you really need to think about how you're going to heat your home. Because if the power goes out and you are miles away from people, you're probably going to want to have a secondary heating source, especially in Minnesota, because it gets really cold here. And she was talking about how you're going to need some kind of small tractor to mow your quote unquote lawn.
22:03because you're going to have something you need to mow and it's not just going to be a push mower kind of situation. And you need to look at if you want to grow crops or if you want to have animals, how are you going to make that work? There's a lot of thinking and planning that goes into this. And she was so great about helping us find our place. So I'm really glad that you have a realtor or someone who's going to be there. That's fantastic. So having said all that.
22:31How much is it gonna cost people to attend the conference? Well, right now, we just, at the time of recording this, we just hit kind of our last month of ticket sales. So, we kind of have our, what we consider a late registration. So, you're not too late, because ticket sales will go on all the way through the month of August. But right now, there's $75 a person, and that gets you both days. We do actually have an additional add-on if you want to do a meet and greet with Joel Salatin. It's like a...
23:00a personal, small, intimate setting to hang out with him for the evening. I believe we may be sold out of those already. But yeah, it's $75, and I believe, and this is where I may be ill-prepared, I believe we even have a discount code. So I'm going to say on the record that I think there's a discount code, and then we can put it back on you to include that in your show notes. Oh, yes, absolutely. That's fine.
23:30Okay, so I feel like $75 for two days is not terrible at all. I think that's actually really, really reasonable for what you're doing. Well, thank you. Yeah, and we're going to have some, we call it swag bags. That's the other neat thing of having an organization like the Conservation District coming along with those resources. You're not going to leave this conference empty handed. Your head obviously should be pounding with all the knowledge that's been poured into it.
23:58but you're not gonna leave empty handed as well. There are going to be some takeaways that we think are gonna be beneficial or at least commemorative of your time with us. Yeah, if you leave empty headed from this, you didn't do it right. Exactly, exactly. Okay, so for people who can't or aren't going to go to this, do you have like a website or something where they can go and learn certain parts of this from you or is it just this homesteading-ish thing?
24:27So this is so new that we are really cutting our teeth this year on it. And we've already learned so much about what we want to do different next year. But fortunately, the venue we're working with, like I said, is a really, really nice, very big church. Their auditorium can seat a thousand people in that one primary room. So they've got a lot of audiovisuals. So they're going to be helping us out with recording some of the...
24:56some of the presentations, but we're not going to be able to get all 36 presentations recorded. We just don't have the bandwidth to do that. So our plan is after the event is over to make these presentations available, obviously we've got to sit down and do the non-fund accounting portion of that to see if we cover our costs, can we pay our bills type of thing, and whether that allows us to do...
25:21you know, a small pay to play to access some of these things, or, you know, it's a free resource at that point. We're just going to have to play it by ear and see. But we definitely don't want to stifle the opportunity for people to get this information. That's the key is to encourage people to do this. But obviously, we got to make sure we're covering the nut of expenses there because if we go in the hole, then it makes it tougher next year to do it again. So yeah, we think we'll have some resources available afterwards for sure. Okay, cool.
25:50So we have like five more minutes to go here. And I guess I would love to hear your opinion about the whole shift to homesteading stuff during and after COVID. Because a lot of people in that first year with the COVID pandemic had time to sit back and go, okay, what are we doing with our lives? And what do we actually want to be doing with our lives? And a lot of people shifted to this homesteading thing.
26:18What, what do you think of that? Cause I think it's great, except that I also think that a lot of people got in over their heads. So what's your take on it? Wow. Um, I, I could spend an hour talking about this and I know we won't, but, um, yeah, definitely some personal experiences in this. So, so yeah, so COVID happens. We all freak out. We all get locked down. All the things that go along with it. It gets, you know, deeply politicized. I mean, just, just everything you can imagine, but we all got that little taste.
26:47of just what it may be like if our everyday lives get drastically changed for whatever reason it is, whether it's a global catastrophe or a virus. So we got that taste. And like you said, that got a lot of us thinking, okay, we got to snap out of this dream world that we're in, or we got to at least take the blinders off and be able to see 360 around us. So.
27:13What's interesting is, is I saw that firsthand here in West Virginia, because people started reaching out to me that, you know, as you're sitting around in lockdown and quarantine, you're, you're obviously skinning the internet, you're on YouTube, so I, a lot of people found me at that point where I'm talking about rural land and how to acquire it and all of that. So I started getting a lot of inquiries. Hey, how do I find land? Like you're giving in these examples, you know, like your own personal example, where we got a hundred acres for $250 an acre.
27:4324 years ago, is that still possible? And so we started having these conversations and it's just over and over again, it was, if I've learned anything through COVID is that I do not want to be in an urban setting. I do not want to be reliant on trucks or other businesses providing me food more than a day or two in advance type of thing. And so there's definitely a pro to that. I say, you know,
28:11good for these people to recognize that and to realize that, yeah, you can't always depend on other entities, other people, other organizations or our government to take care of us. We have to assume more responsibility for our own livelihood and our own existence. So that was a pro. The con, as you mentioned, is some people are like, okay, I'm going to dive into this head first. And I won't get into the details, but I could tell you of a couple that did that very thing.
28:40They purchased 111 acres, very rural, more, I mean, makes my place look downtown, but very rural here in West Virginia. And they asked me to do some consulting with them and help before they moved. But they moved in the grand scheme of things, but because of just not being prepared, they spent the first winter in a makeshift cabin they put together that had no insulation and it was not good.
29:07It was not a good situation and that's kind of an extreme example, but I think a lot of people that pulled the trigger on buying land, that land may be still setting fallow. Some of it's not. Some people have moved on and started working it. Or if some people went out and bought a piece of equipment or maybe it was a food dehydrator, it's like, well, I'm at least going to be able to try to put some food up or a pressure canner. All that stuff's good. But I think some people...
29:34Got in over their heads or they got it and realized, well, this is harder than it looks. Or they got into it and say, well, I'm, you know, things are going back to normal. So I'm going to, I'm going to be comfortable with putting my blinders back on. Another con that we've seen is that rural property prices have just skyrocketed. And I did an example of this on my YouTube channel where pre COVID it was, you could still find acreage here in West Virginia below a thousand an acre. And that was, you know, that was 2019. I did a video on that, I believe.
30:03And now, we're doing everything we can to try to find people land that's 3,000, 4,000 an acre. So we're definitely riding this bubble right now when it comes to rural, raw land. I think it'll settle down again, but I don't know that it'll ever get back to where it was pre-COVID. So that's kind of the drag is if people didn't get a chance to move on land before the bubble hit, then they're going to be spending more money to try to pursue those dreams if they're trying to acquire land.
30:32Yes. And that's why we bought 3.1 acres in 2020 before everything went crazy because we were like, we were like, if we're ever going to do it, we need to do it now. And we're so thankful that we did. So I was just curious because I've talked to many, many, many people in the last year for this podcast. And it seems like everyone had a COVID baby. And I don't mean a human baby. I mean an idea or a project or something. And
31:01COVID was terrible, and I've said this a lot, it was a terrible thing. But if you didn't lose someone you loved, if you didn't get long COVID yourself, you had time to reevaluate and think about what you wanted to do. And if you were lucky enough to move forward on what you wanted to do, you did. So again, COVID sucked, but some great things came out of it. And we're not done with it yet. There's still, COVID is gonna be a thing forever. Now just like the regular flu. But-
31:30the insanity of that first year and a half is maybe settled down some. Yeah. So, yeah. And it's, and it's not going to be a rarity. I mean, a global pandemic of a virus. Yeah. Hopefully that doesn't happen every summer type of thing. And like you said, we're going to be dealing with the COVID virus. It's getting watered down. Um, but there's always going to be something. And just this, um, couple of weekends ago, I was trying to fly back from Canada and the CrowdStrike thing happened. And.
32:00And while that wasn't anything close to what COVID was like, it still just, it reminded me again, cause I was stuck in Charlotte international airport and I saw people start to break down. It's like, okay, we, society is just, it's just balanced so fragilely on the edge of a knife right now that if anything upsets that, whether it's access to food or access to travel or access to just even creature comforts, people are going to start to freak out.
32:30And what can we do? I don't necessarily think the big prep when it comes to homesteading that we got to prep for an apocalyptic type thing as much as it is, we need to just be ready for a four week to four month lull in resources. So it could just be that things get paralyzed before they can get reset. And if it's one of those things, are you going to be a victim in that situation? Or if my faith tells me that...
32:54I don't want to be a victim. I actually want to be a resource for others. I want to be able to help others. So if I've got plenty, because I've been the, you know, I've been the aunt instead of the grasshopper per se, then I can reach out to my neighbor in a time of need to say, hey, it's really rough right now. Things are going on. We have some resources for you. We've got some food or we've got some other things. That's what I feel challenged to do. And that's what I like to see.
33:19to see others people just embrace. It's like, what can I do to not only take care of myself, but take care of others should we see a lull in these resources that we're so used to? Yes, and the thing that I hang on to is that worry is just borrowing tomorrow's troubles. So don't worry, just be proactive and take care of yourself and try to help people around you and then you're too busy to worry. Right, very good, yes. So, all right, Troy.
33:44I really enjoyed talking with you and I'm so excited for your conference. I kind of wish I was 20 years younger and a lot richer so I could go. Well, I'm sure there'll be a home setting conference in your neck of the woods. They're popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain, which I think is just fantastic. I love, love to see people get more and more involved in it and to see, to see big business corporations, all that stuff, even wake up and see that, Hey, you know, there's
34:11let's support this stuff, let's get behind it, let's do what we can to fund some of these things because it is a growing area and they want to cater to their audience, but it's good to be able to have that back and forth where we can see more organizations do these type of things and be able to cover the cost of them because it is expensive to do and it's nice to see companies partner with these type of events. It really is. I'm really glad that you have the opportunity to do it.
34:41Again, don't leave me when I stop recording because I need to file upload. Thank you so much for your time today, Troy. I appreciate it. Wonderful. Appreciate it, Mary. Thanks for your time.