A Tiny Homestead

Whiterock Homestead

Today I'm talking with Jason and Tara at Whiterock Homestead. You can also follow on Facebook.
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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 Jason and Tara at White Rock Homestead. Good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning. We are doing great. Is it a nice day there? Oh, yeah. It's a beautiful morning. In Arkansas, you said?
00:29Yes, ma'am. Okay. I am not in Arkansas. I am in Minnesota and it's actually really nice here today too. Thank God. We have had the worst spring ever. So tell me about yourselves and what you guys do. So yeah, well, I'm Jason. Obviously this is my wife, Tara. We actually sold our property about a year and a half ago in Michigan.
00:59and we moved south here to north central Arkansas and I retired from the Marine Corps. She's retired from nursing and we looked at life and said we need to do things for ourselves. Grow our own food, raise our own animals and just have something that is ours that nobody else can tell us what we're going to do and how we're going to do it.
01:29So we spent a few years researching, driving around, searching different areas to finally settle and we're building, we're running a homestead while we're still trying to build a homestead.
01:43I understand completely we're doing the same thing. We've been here for almost four years and we're still building on it. Oh yeah, it's not gonna take an overnight thing. It's always a work in progress. Yes, absolutely. And Jason, thank you for your service. My stepson is a former Marine, although he says once a Marine, always a Marine. So he's always a Marine. So thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. And he is very correct in that statement.
02:12Yeah, our sons and Maureen as well. Yep, it was the hardest eight years of my life waiting for him to be done with active duty.
02:23Cause that boy has my heart and every time he was like, I'm getting moved here. I'm like, no, I want you to go home. I appreciate what you're doing, but please don't die. Yeah. I mean, there's always that chance or option, I guess. Uh, but for the most part, we try to go where we're going to go and come back and experiences that we couldn't have gotten had we not joined, um, and you know, of course the protection of our nation and, you know,
02:53all that that lovely gig of a role but loved every minute of it. I mean there was moments that I could have questioned myself but definitely a great choice and it and honestly has been a good stepping stone. I remember early on in my career and I think even before I fully enlisted and left for bootcamp was somebody had told me they said if we gave you the best advice about joining the military was get a job that translates when you get out.
03:22Um, and I said, okay, great. So I went in as a mechanic and I'm like, Hey, you know, there's always mechanics needed and you know, lo and behold, I'm not, well, I do a little bit of mechanic and around the homestead, but a little bit. Yeah. You fix everything, which I think as a homesteading family, you have to have that resourcefulness. So I'm, I'm very blessed to have a husband with those skills that we don't have to farm out, you know, every single thing that breaks her.
03:52Um, you know, he's, he's able to, to fix it all. Yep. It's a good thing. Um, my stepson went into, I think it was like computer stuff. I don't know exactly what his, his MOS was, but, uh, he is now basically he would call it on effing problems with servers. I will not use the word cause I don't use that word on the podcast, but I think you know what I'm saying.
04:20And he loves it and he's doing great. So he went into a field that translated after he got out as well. Okay. So enough about the Marines. And again, I really do appreciate our service to people and I feel for their families when they're deployed, cause it's really hard. So what do you guys do? I mean, do you have livestock? Do you grow gardens? What do you do? Oh, yes. So one of the first things that we put up.
04:49on the homestead was a greenhouse and a chicken coop. We had those where we even had a structure. Well, I guess the well house, but prior to Jason and I getting together, I'd had a homestead in Ohio for 10 years. And so I had a really good start on what it took to build certain things, what worked, what didn't work and was able to kind of dial in for this homestead, things that I felt would work. Although it is a different,
05:19climate in a whole host of different ways you have to learn the garden. But the greenhouse was definitely a pillar to getting us food sustainable. And we added chickens, we do meat rabbits, we have goats, and a sawmill, which provides us the ability to do all of those things relatively inextensively with just our time.
05:49like an actual sawmill or is it one of the ones that you use on a on a chainsaw? No it's real. No it's a woodland mills it's a legit full-on band you know I guess it could be portable I didn't buy the trailer option but it's a full-on sawmill. Very nice. So did you know how to use it before you bought it?
06:16I had a little bit of experience with one. Tara's uncle in Tennessee has one. And I was able a couple times that we had went and visited, I was able to go out there and run it with him and get the basic idea of what it was. And then I literally just ended up watching a lot of YouTube videos, tips and tricks and that kind of stuff to...
06:44be a little more effective on it. And it's a daily learning curve with that. Yeah, my husband really, really, really wants one. And luckily we can't afford to buy one right now because I am scared of it. I'm afraid that he's not gonna do something correctly and like take an arm off. And I tend to be the more conservative, more cautious of the two of us on a lot of things like that. So.
07:13he's all, I want a sawmill and I'm like, uh-huh, okay, let me know when you wanna do that. It's actually not really, I run it all the time myself also. Yeah, okay. And it definitely is paid for itself. When you sell everything and move, you've got your profits and your savings and your investments or whatever it is, whatever you're coming out of, wherever you're moving from. Yeah. And so you have a chunk of money, right?
07:42And you have to play it smart because I will tell you, and any homesteader that's done what you've done will tell you the money goes way faster than what you think it's going to. And so we had sat down for several years and determined what the core equipment would be needed on our future homestead. And so we were both in line with the sawmill and a nice tractor. And...
08:11Short of that, honestly, those were the two largest ticket items, but they have saved us double back what we would have spent to pay somebody to do what the tractor's done and to do what the sawmill has done. So, for us, we chose to go that route with putting what money we had into the land to be debt free and the equipment that would be needed for that versus just spending the money on, you know.
08:39end up in a large structure or a big home or whatever. For sure. I interviewed our realtor three, four weeks ago who helped us find this place. And one of the things that we talked about was when people start looking for a place to make into a homestead or buying an already established homestead, people don't realize if you're starting from scratch. Like if there's no
09:06equipment or tractors or anything that comes with the purchase, you have to take into account that you're going to need a tractor because you've got to be able to move heavy things and that you will probably need a pickup because you need to go get things to bring back to the homestead to build it up. You're absolutely correct. I forgot that. We did end up with a truck kind of pooper out on us and we did have to buy another truck. So between the truck, the land, the tractor and the sawmill, you know.
09:35That was a big chunk, but you're absolutely correct. You don't, some people don't take those things into account. Um, you know, that unless you want to break your back, uh, and do it all manually, those things are a necessity to, to get it up and going if you're buying raw land and even if you're not sometimes. Yep. And the other thing I'll say is buy, buy the thing that you can afford to buy that you really love.
10:01whatever that means, whether you like how it looks, whether it's the functionality, whatever it is that you love about it. Because when we bought our pickup truck, there were two pickup trucks. One was an older model, it was about $4,000 less than the one that I actually wanted, which was a newer model, and had the bells and whistles that I wanted, and we ended up buying the less expensive one. And to this day, I have buyer's remorse because...
10:29can't hook my phone up to the truck and have music play from my phone. And I love music and I love, I love having music on when I'm driving. So I'm kind of stuck with the radio and I don't know if you guys have listened to radio lately, but it's not great. So buy the thing that you can afford because I wish we had bought the other truck. My husband actually now wishes we bought the other truck too. So I'm not alone in my buyer's remorse. Yeah. And we were in that situation when we have the
10:57truck that we currently have now because we had drove the truck that got us here and moved all of our stuff and got us started. We had gotten a great deal on that truck and we drove it from Michigan clear to Texas and back and Tennessee. I mean we made multiple trips and it moved. I mean we spent two years riding around in that truck. Didn't have all the bells and whistles. Was not the most comfortable truck.
11:24But it was something that we said, hey, when we get our major structures and expenses covered on the Homestead, we'll look at upgrading the vehicle. And it just so happened that truck started getting a little too finicky and we bought an upgrade of a truck. And it's been, yes, a night and day difference too. And it's funny, you mentioned the whole stereo. I've, I've bounced through the trucks in the last.
11:53you know, seven, eight years. And when I end up having to step back a little bit and get one that doesn't have the Bluetooth through the stereo, it's uh, you guys are bougie. I got the bougiest husband ever. There's those comforts though, especially for us, we travel a lot and, um, having some of those comforts that it provides makes those trips less horrible.
12:20Yeah. And we, we were able to take the other one ton truck and even in its condition mechanically and trade it for a side by side, which is something that I really wanted. That was, I wanted two things when we started the homestead, a wood chipper and a side by side. And I got, I got my wood chipper and I got my side by side. Very nice. Yeah. I feel like.
12:44complaining about the fact that the radio isn't what I want in my truck is a very first world privileged problem to have. So sorry guys, but when you love music as much as I do and you love to sing as much as I do and not in front of people, but in the truck and in the shower, music coming through the speakers on my truck is really important to me. Well, that's an easy upgrade. I think it's fairly simple to put in a new stereo.
13:13Quality is what the factory ones are. I really wasn't even so much the music as it was if I'm on a long drive We typically that's that's when we have time to sit and talk to people Yeah, so it's the Bluetooth function of being able to use the phone, you know while driving And you know meeting all the laws and requirements so Definitely, like you said first world problems I mean we're struggling now because my air conditioning is out in the truck and I'm like no
13:43Um, but we're just, we roll the windows down and, um, but circling back to what you had said, I think that that is a very, for anybody listening that is looking at wanting to get into the home setting is you need to set yourself some realistic goals of what you want your home set in a timeline, but also financially. Um, I think.
14:10at least for our friend group and the circle of friends that we've been surrounded around is we don't have that keeping up with the Joneses mentality which you know Tara and I both have lived those lifestyles you know previous to us getting together was like oh this new thing came out we want to go get that because you know Joe the neighbor got one or you know
14:38whatever that case might be. And if you're gonna be realistic in homesteading, you need to lose that mentality and be okay with what you have. But then also surround yourself by friends that have equipment to where you don't go brofying at all. Yeah. Yes. I have a saying that I always say, that alone we can't do everything, but as a community, we can do it all. And that means a lot when you're looking at,
15:08sharing of your resources, knowledge and time. Those are things that our great grandparents did, our grandparents did, you know, a hundred years ago and beyond. And it worked for them and it worked for the communities and it, it worked for humanity. And we love the homesteading community because we're all trying to bring back that feeling of being surrounded by people who are actually genuinely interested in you.
15:37and interested in what you're doing and extend a real friendship through their time, their knowledge and your own resources. Absolutely. Friends are good to have and if they're into the things that you're into, they're even better. Absolutely. Yep. We had, we, it wasn't me. I didn't do anything. My husband and my son built a greenhouse, a hard-sided greenhouse this spring. And they pretty much did it.
16:07themselves and it's I think it's 40 by 20 feet I think. Oh nice. And neither one of them really like heights so they had to be on a ladder for yeah probably eight ten hours total you know not not all in a row but that was a total amount of ladder time and there was a Saturday when it was nice and they were out there and my husband was on the ladder for
16:35you know, on and off the ladder for about half an hour, hour. And I would looked out and my son was then up on the ladder half an hour, hour, and then they were done with that for the day. And they came in and I said, I said, you guys done for today? Cause it's only two o'clock in the afternoon. And they were like, yeah, we can't face that ladder anymore today. And so they did other stuff that needed to be done. And then they went out the next morning and got the rest of the roof done.
17:02so they didn't have to be on the ladder anymore because that's how much they hate climbing on a ladder and being on heights. So they sucked it up and they got it done and that greenhouse has been wonderful this year because it's been terrible weather here and it's been very wet. So a lot of our stuff that's growing is growing in the greenhouse in buckets. Yep. And that's really important because I've actually gotten to have a couple cucumbers and if I was waiting on the garden, I probably wouldn't have very many right now.
17:32Right, and that's the beauty of having the greenhouse. Eventually I would love a hard-sided greenhouse, but honestly I'm fine. I'm not bougie like my husband. I'm good with, you know, we did a cattle panel greenhouse. I would have done it up north, but as you know, with being up north, the snow loads are too great on anything but with cattle panels. But that's kind of the beauty of being in North Central Arkansas is we don't have that snow load.
18:00And it allows me to take the plastic off in the summer and actually trellis, you know, use the structure as a trellis too. So it's kind of a double dip in type of situation. They actually have cattle panel ones. Honestly, when I started looking on YouTube for building one, most of the ones that I found were out of Alaska. I don't know. When I was researching them, I just...
18:28seeing failures from snow load. And I'm like, goodness, this is why I didn't do it up north. But I mean, I'm sure it's anywhere. And I think a lot to do also would be how wide you make it. Because the wider you make those cattle panels, the less structural integrity it would have from a heavy weight on top. So if it was a real narrow tunnel, yeah, I think that would work.
18:52Yeah, we had the high tunnel style ones the first two summers we were here. And we had, we have had such high winds in the spring and the summer that they would just go over. It didn't matter how secure we thought we had them with the stakes or whatever. The wind would take them and flip them over. And the last draw for me was two summers ago.
19:21We had a whole bunch of seedlings that were growing in the greenhouse to go in the garden. And it was just whipping and it went over and took all those seedlings with it. So we had, we had like surprise gardens all over our property because we didn't know what the seedlings were. So we just planted them. And it, they did really well. But that was it. And I was like, next greenhouse that goes up, I want it to be a hard sided greenhouse because this is killing me.
19:50This is making me so sad every time we lose a hoop style house. Yeah. We're actually interested in seeing, um, we've got friends that live close and they're, they're homesteading also. And he, um, he had a lot of, of good soil that was flat ground, which are two things that are very rare in Arkansas, um, especially in our area and he had planted several crops and some of them work, some of them didn't, but he had a,
20:19very large chunk of two separate gardens he put in that didn't have anything planted. And they actually, a friend, neighbor of his had a couple bags of this, what they called chaos gardening seeds. Yep. And they just went and broadcast it. So he's like, I don't know what's going to come up and what's not going to come up and how well it's going to grow, but going to be a very large area of, hey, let's just see what works. But.
20:46I think that's a big thing of homesteading though is also those experiments, you know, because what might work for your neighbor might not work for you. And so we just always call everything that we're doing at this point as an experiment. And we take the notes of, hey, this worked and then this didn't work. And what changes to make for the next season. Yep.
21:13That's what we do too. I wanted to grow luffa gourds because I wanted to make soap around the actual sponges that come out of luffa gourds. And luffa gourds have a very long growing season and it gets too cold here. And so this fall I'm going to order luffa gourd seeds and we're going to start them in the house in like February and then move them out to the greenhouse in like...
21:43end of March and that'll give us that extra growing time that we couldn't get if we just started them outside. Because these soaps that I want to make, we already make cold processed lye soap. And basically what you do is you pour the soap around the spongy things in the luffa gourds when they dry out and then you cut them and it's like a exfoliant kind of scrub thingy with the soap around it. Oh nice.
22:10And we've bought some before and we love them. So we wanna try making them. So that's our experiment for 2025, not this year. Oh, that's fun. I wanna grow luffus too. That is something that's on my list, but like you said, everyone was about the day and all in time. My dog is losing her mind because there's a delivery truck in the driveway. I don't know if you guys can hear her barking. Oh, we got one of those too.
22:38Yeah, she's an excellent watchdog, but she does this every time I'm recording. Something sets her off and she has to bark in the background. So that's Maggie's cameo appearance for the morning.
22:51I love her. This is the worst thing she does. We're all good. Yeah, I know. That's the exact same position we're in. We get a lot of deliveries as well. She goes nuts, but she's a full pit. She can be intimidating and scary. There's no one that's going to be coming on the property for sure. Yeah, Maggie is a mini Australian Shepherd. She weighs 35 pounds. Our male delivery guy is afraid of dogs.
23:19So we have to make sure that Maggie is in the house when he comes because he won't, if he's delivering something, he's really afraid to come up the house if she's outside. And she would never hurt him. She's never ever hurt anybody. She's almost four years old. She's never offered to bite anybody. So he has an actual phobia of dogs and he's already talked to me about this. So we go out of our way to make sure that she is not outside when he shows up. Right.
23:49So anyway, what's the plan for the homestead? You guys have been there how long now?
23:56A year and a half, maybe just over a year and a half. Okay. Obviously we wanna just keep building ourselves in the simplest version of saying it, is keep working towards the self sustainability as much as possible. We're aware that there's things, flour, sugar, those types of things that we're just gonna have to rely on.
24:26the normal market to purchase. And, but yeah, we, we've got the tiny house done. We have plans in the next few years. It's kind of a three to five year plan to build a log cabin as our forever home on the property from trees off the property. And just keep developing.
24:53Our animal structures, the garden area, that kind of thing to be more established. We bought pretty much raw land. There, there was electric already ran to the property. There was already a well established on the property and somebody had started to build a foundation to a very significant house, but then it went abandoned for probably 10 plus years and it's. The block is usable.
25:23but as the foundation right now is not a usable thing and so we just a lot of starting fresh clearing the land to be able to make it usable for something um whether it be we can't really do a lot of pasture the soil here all of our gardening is in lick tubs so basically the equivalent of raised beds because in-ground growing around here it's not an option um and yeah just
25:53We want to age in place. So the idea is we're going to build everything up to be able to spend the rest of our days here on the homestead and build it in a way that even when we can't move as well, we can still function just maybe slower. Yep. I understand when my husband and I were looking for our place, I said, the place that we find that we buy is where we're going to die.
26:21I don't ever want to move again. And it's funny because it was remodeled a year or so before we bought it. And there used to be a bedroom on the first floor. And when they remodeled it, they changed it. So we have this really weird living room where the living room is almost a square. And then to the right of when you walk in the living room, there's like an L shape where the bedroom used to be. And so it's just an open room now.
26:50I keep looking for ways to turn it back into a small bedroom because I would love to have a bedroom on the first floor for as we get older and can't come up the stairs to go to bed. And haven't quite figured it out yet, but I keep looking at plans going, would that work? Would that work? Yeah. We've not decided on a full out plan yet for the log cabin. But you know, that's several years away. So we are making adjustments to the tiny house.
27:19What we're realizing living in a tiny house is it's extremely difficult to be full on homesteaders and full on self sustainable in such a small space because you have food storage to think about. You have mass production of processing vegetables to think about. Where do you put all that stuff? Where do you put your equipment? I have a beautifully large kitchen, it's for a tiny house, but it is half the house. But it's those things that
27:49Realistically, you do need a little bit larger of a space, unless you have like an exterior reseller or something to store your stuff in. So we've got a lot of plans. We're actually gonna add on to the tiny house, a master bedroom downstairs, just for those reasons that we discussed. And we are adding an outside kitchen to the tiny house as well, which will be a little bit more functional in the summertime.
28:19with canning and processing and everything. And well, right now we're working on our YouTube studio, which is another structure outside of the tiny house. And then we got a barn to put up. And yeah, there's never a shortage of projects. No, no, there isn't. And even when you're not starting from bare land, there's never a shortage. We always have stuff going on here. Right, yeah. Like,
28:48Like, I don't, I am a bad homesteader, I'm going to admit it. I really, really love cooking, and I really love crocheting, and I really love podcasting, obviously. And so for me, when we talked about buying acreage, and we ended up with a little over three acres, I said to my husband, I said, the garden is going to be all yours. The outdoor stuff is going to be all yours, because that's not what I'm into.
29:17I said, are you okay with that? And he said, yeah, he said, cause that's how I de-stress. He said, that's when it's quiet and I can just think and putter. And I was like, okay, good. And so for me, I, in my younger years, I loved to garden, but I'm 54 and like, I don't know, eight years ago, I was like, I'm kind of over it. I don't wanna sit in the garden in the dirt anymore. I just don't. And my husband loves it. He comes in sweaty and
29:46dirty and he whips his shirt off and throws it in the washer in the bathroom and then gets in the shower. I'm like, yes, please do that. That's awesome. So for me, I'm not, if he came home tomorrow and said, I don't think I'm happy with this. I think that I would just like an acre closer to town and have a small garden and keep my job. I would be fine with that. That would be okay. As long as we got to keep the dog.
30:14I can't give up the dog, she's my life. I can't give her up. But in the meantime, I love where we live and I love that I get to can tomato sauce for spaghetti sauce in the wintertime. I love that it's quiet. There are things about homesteading that aren't necessarily busting your body up that are just a benefit in and of themselves. The quiet is one of them. Right, yeah. We love the quiet as well. And I don't...
30:44We rarely have ever watched TV. It's something we turn on at night before we go to sleep so I can turn my brain off. But short of that, we don't have music running. We don't have the TV going. We like the sounds of the homestead for the most part. I mean, while being YouTubers also, we, when you're filming your life, you get used to not being able to have the radio on because of copyright purposes. So.
31:14We're kind of used to that aspect of it, but even outside of YouTube, we find peace in the silence and peace in the beauty of the homestead, even when the goats are being loud. Yeah, I can't see us. If we do anything, we do have a five year plan. The homesteaders are heading to the ocean and the river systems. We're going to do the great loop. And so.
31:42It'll be interesting to see how we transition from life on the homestead to take a year out to be on the loop. And being on water and I don't know I've got some ideas in my head on how to transition that but that's a dream of ours and it's something that we both want to do and it'll be fun to add that element of nature into what we love. Absolutely.
32:09You were saying that you love the sound of the goats and that you can't have radio on because as YouTubers you can't because of copyright issues. I got up at about three o'clock in the morning a couple mornings ago because I couldn't sleep because I said this on another podcast recording last week. My husband snores so sometimes it's too loud and I just can't sleep so I get up and I went downstairs and I sat on the porch because I like to listen to the noises at night too. Oh yeah. And it was eerie because it was dead.
32:39Silent no crickets. No nothing. I was like did a bomb go off. I don't know about It was silent. No trucks went by no cars went by I sat there for five minutes and I was like this is eerie I'm going in the house. I didn't like that. It was silent because usually You hear that the cow lowing a quarter mile away at the neighbor's place. You'll hear the crickets You'll hear a car go by
33:08Something there was nothing it was the strangest thing in in the almost four years. I've been here has never been dead silent here Maybe that would be Sasquatch up You know, they say it all gets silent when Sasquatch comes out I don't know what it was, but it was bizarre and there was no wind either So there was nothing, you know, we have a tree line and there's a cornfield around it So, you know how it sounds when the wind blows through leaves and through the corn
33:35That wasn't even happening. I was, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I was like, yeah, I'm not going to stay out here by myself in the middle of the night right now. It's too quiet. Yeah. Most of the time, I mean, I'm notorious for waking up extremely early. It's all the years I've worked in for shift as a nurse. You know, I'm, well, this morning I was up at four. So a lot of times when I am outside in the middle of the night, I find peace in that. And there are different sounds at 4 a.m. than there are at 10 p.m.
34:04And I know exactly what you're talking about on those mornings or in the middle of the night when it does go dead silent. And it is a creepy feeling. I'm, I'll agree with you on that. And I typically won't stay outside either. Yeah, I just couldn't figure it out. It has never been dead silent here. Ever. So it kind of made me nervous. I didn't like it. So I was like, okay, I'm going to go in the house. I'm not going back to bed, but I'm going in the house. Yep.
34:33The dog's in the house. She may be 35 pounds, but she's going to protect me if something bad happens. I know she will. It'll be okay. So anyway, I feel like we've just talked about the things that people should consider when they're thinking about becoming homesteaders, and that is super cool. I just didn't know if you guys were gonna try to make anything.
34:57support the homestead as you build it from the homestead like if you're going to sell wood or if you're going to sell produce or anything We've tossed that idea around And it's it's it's funny because we haven't got asked that question since we started YouTube And it was actually one of the first questions that we got asked was What is what's your business model? What's your business plan for your homestead because a lot of times?
35:25And in most situations, people do homesteading with that intention. You've got to have some source of income, right? Homesteading is not a cheap way to live necessarily, especially starting out. I think as you get developed, you can make your expenses less, but irregardless, there's expenses out there that we have to cover. Even in an off-grid situation.
35:51they're still paying for an internet service or they're still paying for a cell phone. And while we know you can't go anywhere and not pay car insurance. So there always needs to be a source of income. We honestly, we do not have a business model set up for our homestead because we didn't build it, we're not building it and our intentions coming in. We're not to make it a profitable
36:20making it a sustainable. Now we have several friends that are close by that you know they're home setting, they're doing a lot of the same things we're doing, but they don't have an outside source of income coming in so it's like hey what do we do? So they prepped their land and their model was to do a market garden, grow a large garden and be able to take it to the markets and
36:49and make their money that way. And for the most part, it's doing really well for them. They're on year two of doing that now. I think we both moved to Arkansas within just a couple months of each other. And so now, for anybody that's went and watched our YouTube channel, we did build a market stand that we wanna put out by the road. And that basically,
37:18That's just some excess. Yeah, that's for excess. You know, when the chickens are really full laying and we're getting, you know, 20 plus eggs a day, you know, we can't eat that. We eat a lot of eggs, but not that many. And so what the behind the mart, that is to recoup our cost and feed, honestly. Well, plus I've also started getting into like, you know, team shows and
37:47We've done a viral study on...
37:52Uh, crap, I'm losing them. Was that Ruth? No. Or the frankincense and stuff? It was the frankincense. And then. Wasn't that in Ruth? No, that was Esther. Sorry. Oh yeah. Go back if you. And, uh, you know, it got me thinking if she spent six months, uh, getting treatments of oils, uh, being castor oils and frankincense, then if it was good enough for Esther, it's probably good enough for me too. And you'll be in 50. Uh.
38:21I'm not getting any younger and so I noticed some crow's feet and stuff. And so I've started making my own lotions and base creams, kind of dwell them into that. I've got some oils marinating, tinctures marinating, and just kind of doing some of those more natural things. And if I sell some oils, I'll put it in the market stand.
38:48I don't know, it's not something I'm going into to like make a bunch of money for. It's more I need to find out what works for me. And I, like anything else on a homestead, you want to be dependent on your own skills and what you can create for yourself and protect yourself. And face creams are one of them. When you look at the chemicals and everything inside what you're buying in the store, when the whole time, you know, you can make up.
39:18something with castor oil, frankincense and tea tree oils and just all those different things. Weeds out of the yard, behind the mow. Yeah, so it goes along with just being self sustainable and yet having such a superior product. And so I've shared them with friends and everyone's loving it. And I don't know, I made for some of that in the market stand as well, but it's not for excess. Yeah, and there is potential. I mean, I guess if we go down that discussion,
39:47We potentially could do things for profit. We have the availability of growing a larger garden and selling the produce off of that. Or selling the wood, you know, we could timber. We've got the, well, we've got timber, we could do firewood. We also have the saw mill. So I know that is, that's a big, I guess a big selling point for a lot of the
40:15people that I've seen online or even talked to that buy a saw mill is they get to mill their own lumber, but when they're done milling what they need personally, then they can start doing it as a business and make that money back and be profitable. Especially with the price of lumber at the big box stores if somebody can do some rough sawing lumber. I mean, I think it would be something that we
40:44if we were looking to make money off the homestead, it would be as a hobby, I believe, because you spend, I always knew I wanted to be a homesteader. I was always into Grizzly Adams and Laura Engel Wilder, and it always resonated with me. And so I always knew I wanted to be a homesteader. And through raising my kids and being a single mom, I worked and worked and worked hard.
41:12so that I could retire early. And, you know, we have one little friend of our daughter's that he's always looking for the next business venture and wanting us to go in on it. And I'm just like, dude, I hustled for 40 years. I don't wanna hustle anymore. You know, 34 years. It was all about, you know, putting us in a position to be able to do this. And if the need be, I would go back to nursing. You know, I never say never, but I think at this stage in our life, we're just,
41:41enjoying loving what we're doing for ourselves here and for our friends and you know if there becomes a situation where we got to make more money I'm not opposed. Right the options there but that's not our main our main goal is is sustainability of ourselves like making a dollar. Well I think you guys have it figured out you have a wonderful next 45-50 years to look forward to.
42:10Yeah, we can only hope so. I would hate to know what my body's gonna feel like in 40 years. Yeah, well, I could have said 20 and then you die, but I don't think that's what's gonna happen. So well, and I think that that's a good reminder to a lot of people is, you know, I've even got family that have said, you know, man, I wish I could do it the way that you're doing it or, you know, I'd love to move there, but I'm just too old to do that. And.
42:36I don't know. I'm a firm believer because I do have quite a few family members that have lived into their 80s and 90s and You know Age is a number and I mean obviously our body tells us what we can and can't do And we are doing it on the fairly younger spectrum, I guess But it is something that holds a lot of people back because it it's a very it is a very active lifestyle Yeah
43:06You know, typically in your normal society where you're working a nine to five and you're not trying to homestead, maybe you have a little garden, right? But you're living in suburbia. You're going to your job every day. Your kids are going to school. You're doing that. So, you know, your weekends are always, Hey, I want to sit around and barbecue and relax and not do much, or you're hammering down on projects, but it's only for a couple of days, and then you're right back to your, you know, a lot of times, you know, an office job that. Um.
43:35isn't typically a physically active lifestyle. So it can be a big change depending on what you're coming back from. And I know even, even for me coming out of the Marine Corps, um, and, and it was what five, six years, I think that I had been retired before we started homesteading. Um, but even then I w I had been in the Marine Corps so long that my job was to sit behind a desk.
44:05and I went to sleep at night out of boredom. And now I go to sleep out of exhaustion and it's such a better sleep. I feel better being more active. And we always say, if you don't use it, you lose it. And so we try to stay as active and no matter what it is, it's possible for as long as we can. If it makes you feel any better about 50 years from now.
44:34My dad will be 81 years old next week. He and my mom live on a 14 acre property in Maine. They have a beautiful home that they had built eight or 10 years ago, I can't remember, on the property. They have a border collie. My dad has a wood stove that he uses for heat in the house. He chops all his own wood. He has a garden. My mom and dad both go down and work on it after he plants it.
45:04and my mom just turned 78 two days ago. So they are busting their asses all the time too, and they are 78 and almost 81 right now. So it is possible. Yeah, very much so. And that's what we hope for ourselves. And we don't have all the answers and we don't do everything correct. We just do what feels right in our hearts and we go from there. And we are both finding so much love in what we're doing.
45:34And it's kind of an awesome feeling like right now the goats aren't giving us milk, but when you only go to the store to buy dairy products, and that's literally what you're walking out buying, you know, I get frustrated that I am going to the store to buy those things. So eventually when the goats give us milk, then hopefully I can diminish my reliance even more. But it is, there's a beauty in that and there's challenges in that.
46:03being outside and doing the chores and building things. Cause I, as much as I'd love to be in the kitchen all day, every day, my husband and I are a team and we build together. My dad was a contractor and so I grew up on work sites and have those knowledges as well as he does. So we work together on everything and you know, it not as efficiently as we did 20 years ago, but no, so keep going. Yep.
46:32Okay, I have one thing about the beauty in being self-sufficient and then I'm gonna let you guys go because we've been talking for 46 minutes now. We canned a whole bunch of tomato sauce, summer 22, and then last summer. And we are down to maybe six jars of tomato sauce left. And I actually, I mistakenly bought tomato sauce from the store when I was trying to grab tomato paste. And we used some of it the other day. The store bought stuff.
47:01and it was the store brand tomato sauce. As soon as the tomatoes start rolling in in August here, we will be canning tomato sauce because that tomato sauce from the store was terrible. So yes, there is satisfaction and beauty and thank God there is in doing your own thing because I don't wanna have to buy tomato sauce ever again. It was disgusting. And I think when, I wanna say it was one of our last trips
47:32because we were there for an extended period of time. And we had taken several dozen of our own eggs with us. But then we had to go buy eggs at the store. And it was like, no, this is not acceptable. Do we need to do a, how do we hook a mobile chicken coop up to our camper to constantly have an egg supply? On a good note, we are gonna be within driving distance
48:02my aunt and uncle who also have children. So they have a homestead. But we say it all the time, that same thing. It's refreshing, I guess, to know. I mean, we know we're not the only ones that have that same comment. But when you're used to eating your own homegrown food and products, and then you have to buy something because, hey, I'm in a pinch or I'm not in a place that my stuff's available, you clearly know the difference. Yeah.
48:29Uh-huh. I was sad. I made spaghetti sauce and I was like, this is terrible. I hate this. I need my tomato sauce. Yeah, for sure. And, uh, you know, since we're wrapping up, if, if you are a subscriber of ours on our YouTube channel, there are going to be some changes coming up. Um, we've announced it on one of our channels on the coffee chat, but we are leaving back out Monday or Tennessee for an undetermined amount of time.
48:58My father is not well. And so we are going to be in Tennessee, we're going to take our little camper we call it nugget and Be there to be able to spend some time with with my dad and So we're going to actually be filming and doing our best to homestead from Tennessee from Arkansas so if you if you're a subscriber and You're you've probably already
49:26gotten wind of that, but if you're a new subscriber, just letting you know that we're gonna be in Tennessee, probably in the next couple of videos, and for an undetermined amount of time. So, hang with us because we're just doing what we have to do in our hearts to be there for family, and we will be coming back to the Ridge at some point and picking up where we left off. Awesome. Well, I'm sorry to hear about your dad, but at least you can go and be with him. That's amazing.
49:55Yes, true. All right, guys. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you for having us. Yes. Thank you for the invite and having us. We love talking homestead if the time on this video doesn't show. Uh-huh. All right. You guys have a great day. Thank you. Thanks.
 

Davis Farm

Today I'm talking with Tammy at Davis Farm. You can also follow on Facebook.
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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 Tammy at Davis Farm. Good afternoon, Tammy, how are you? I'm well, thank you. How about you? I'm good. It's a beautiful day in Minnesota. Is it lovely in Vermont? Oh my goodness, yes. It's absolutely amazing.
00:29Finally, we've had this ridiculous humidity that just we're not used to. So today is a glorious, you know, they call it a bluebird day. It's just blue skies and green, green pastures and cool weather. It's a bluebird day here too, but it's muggy as hell. So I'm so, you know what? My heart goes out to you because I thought I was going to die last week and the week before. Yeah. At least it's not raining.
00:59I have talked about this a lot. It's rained a lot in Minnesota this spring, so we're really happy to have some sun. Yeah, we've had a lot of rain. We had an incredible amount of flooding again, which we've had this 100-year flood now, literally on the same day, two years apart. That's not 100 years. Indeed. Indeed. All right, Tammy, tell me what you guys do at Davis Farm. Yeah, well, we're a dairy farm. So we...
01:29We're milking probably about 70 cows now. We used to be a conventional dairy farm. We shipped to DFA for decades. And then in 2016, we made the decision to go organic. And then in 2000, shortly thereafter, I don't know, 18, 19, we decided to go grass fed. So we stopped feeding grain.
01:57and we're fully organic now. Very nice. I have to ask, is that an expensive proposition because I keep hearing that going organic, anything costs a lot of money to get certified. Yeah, that's a great question. For us, it was not too much of a transition. The grain situation was kind of brutal because you have for the first year,
02:24For us, we had to buy organic grain but still ship at conventional prices. They did give you, I think, like $3 per hundred wheat to help with the grain transition. But other than that, that was a little bit tough. But all of our land and most of our practices have always been organic anyway. We've always been a pasture-based farm, so there was not a lot for us to switch. We should have done this 30 years ago. But, you know.
02:53how life goes. And so anyway, so, um, but it has been a great, a great, um, move for us, um, for our business. Good. So I know nothing about dairy cattle and I've been looking for someone to talk to about it. So guess what? You're it. Oh, fun. So you said you have 70 cows you're milking. Yes. That is correct. Yes.
03:20Okay, so are you selling that milk to, I don't know where milk goes to, to be sold at grocery stores? Sure. That's great questions. So we belong to a co-op. As I mentioned, we belong to DFA for years. And then we transitioned and we went with Organic Valley co-op. So we shipped to Organic Valley. And they...
03:49They basically pick up the milk and then once it leaves the farm, it leaves the farm as fluid milk and then they go and they take it and they do the marketing and most of our milk goes into fluid milk or cheese in this area, in the New England area. And then, yeah, I guess I should say that I'm from Northern Vermont. We're about 45 minutes from the Canadian border. Okay. So in our area.
04:20Most of our milk goes into New York state and then gets processed or distributed. Okay, then that leads me to my next question. When people who sell milk from their cows sell it to a co-op and that milk goes to be processed, pasteurized, whatever, to be sold in gallons or half gallons at the store, it's not just your batch of milk in that.
04:47jug, it can be mixed with other people's cow's milk, right? That is correct. Yes. So right now we're on the grass truck because we're a grass-fed farm. So all of our milk is picked up with all the other grass-fed farms in the area. When we were conventional, it was a huge truck that would come and it was all the farms in the area. They're on a milk route.
05:15And so then it would just come and pick up all the different farms. Now every farm, I don't know if, if sort of you were getting to this. So every farm, when they pick up our milk, um, vials are taken samples of our milk. So everybody's, um, milk is tested and, um, you know, and then the tank is tested to make sure like everybody, you know, if somebody had bad milk, you know, um,
05:45know, we might have to get dumped. I mean, it depends upon what happened. Yeah, that was going to be my next question because I think that when I was young, I assumed that the milk and the jug in the fridge probably came from the same cow. And as I've gotten older and talked to people in the business, I'm like, oh, it's a mix of different cows milk. It is, but it's fun because, you know, every area has a lot number. So, you know, when we used to ship to conventional
06:14You know, we would work with the elementary schools and we could find, you know, where, you know, our milk went to, like which, which school or whatever, because you could look at the lot number and you know where your milk has gone. So that was kind of fun. Yeah, I mean, it's government regulated, so they're going to want to keep track of where stuff comes from and where it's going. So my next question is, do you sell raw milk?
06:43from the farm because we can do that here in Minnesota if we had dairy cows. Yeah, we're able to do that too in Vermont. Vermont has done a great job with lobbying for raw milk sales. Again, it's highly regulated. We have a separate certification for that, separate requirements and criteria that have to be met in order to do that. But that is
07:13actually quite a bit of raw milk. And do you, I don't know, I assume you know who your customers are, so you probably have an idea of what they're doing with the raw milk. Are they using it for drinking milk? Are they using it to make cheese or yogurt, all of the above? What do they do with it? Yeah, that's a great question too. Most all of our customers use the milk to drink. There are, you know, most everybody does make yogurt. A few people make
07:43cheese, not a lot. But you can't use raw milk for another sale. So nobody's using our raw milk to make any other products to sell. It's just for home consumption. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the same way here. I think. I don't know. Yeah. That's a pretty common thing. Yep.
08:12Can, okay, this is gonna sound crazy. Can raw milk be sold in grocery stores in Vermont? No, not in Vermont. You cannot sell raw milk in grocery stores. And we just recently are able to bring it to a farmers market. And that's a different, there's a two tiered licensure to sell raw milk and it's not a license, it's just whatever, certification.
08:41and so and you can do that. I don't know all of the, I haven't done that. We just have a great customer base. People come to the farm so we have not branched out into that area but I know that you can sell either vouchers and they come to the farm to get it or you can bring a certain amount of milk with you to a farmer's market now. Okay the reason I ask is because when we were visiting my parents in Maine back in 2014
09:08They have a general store down the road from them. They live in Whitefield, Maine. And the general store, they sell, basically everything is local. Local things that are made, local things that are grown. And they had raw, unpasteurized cow's milk in their cooler. And I was dumbfounded. And we got, I think, a quart and took it up to the counter to buy it. Because I love raw cow's milk, especially for coffee.
09:37And I don't get it very often. And when I walked up to the counter, I said, how long has Maine been able to sell raw cow's milk? And the woman looked at me and she said, for a while. She said, are you, where are you from? And I said, Minnesota, but I grew up in Maine. And she's like, huh. She said, I thought I heard just a little tiny bit of Minnesota in there. And there's a tie in for her too to Minnesota.
10:06And I said, yeah, I said, um, I said, we can't get raw cow's milk in Minnesota in a store in a public venue. And she said, really? And I said, Nope. I said, you have to go to the farm and get the milk from the cooler from where the farmer milked the cow and put the milk in the cooler. And he, she was like, really? I said, yeah. And she said, well, she said, I don't know how long it's been.
10:36legal in Maine, but it's been legal for a while. I said, thank you, Jesus. Yes. And she's laughed at me. Well, it is. I mean, there are lots of people who grew up in raw milk and have a really hard time trying to find it. And every state is different. I don't know how many states in the US allow it to be sold in a public venue, but I know there's not a lot. Yeah, I don't know either. I know that.
11:03I don't know, about 20 years ago, we went to South Carolina to visit one of my cousins. I know that when we were down there, they had low pasteurization, which is an interesting thing in and of itself. That was able to be sold in the stores. I haven't really looked into other places very much. I've just been very, very thankful for the work that's been done in Vermont.
11:33Vermont is a very low populated state and, you know, it used to be predominantly farms, dairy farms. And so to have that leaving, you know, it was harder and harder to get raw milk. So I was very grateful when these laws passed.
12:01sell or can't ship their goods at all anywhere, even in the state. And every cottage food producer I know is like, they're working on it. They're working on it. And I'm like, I wish they would work on it and get it passed. I wish there was more information and more support for drinking raw milk across the board. I grew up in the city, so I didn't grow up.
12:30on a dairy farm. I came here to Vermont when I was about 22 and met my husband. But that was all new to me and just the health benefits and there's just so many, I mean, like everything, you need to be educated. You need to educate yourself. Don't take someone else's word for it. But it just, there's a lot of misinformation out there and it just, it makes me kind of sad. Yep. You and a whole lot of other people too. You are not alone in that boat, I'm telling you.
13:00So do you, if you have dairy cattle, then you must breed for the babies that you have more milk coming in. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. When we, when we were shipping to conventional market, we, you know, we'd used AI and, you know, we would joke. My husband and I would, you know, have our date night and choose our bowls. And but with, um.
13:24Pastry management with all of our children, with everything that was going on, we kept finding it harder and harder to schedule breeders. We've just been through a lot in the farm. We mostly just use bulls for breeding now. There's a lot of different thoughts on that. We have a mixed herd, so we have Holstein Jersey Crosses. We just breed too.
13:53depends upon what year to a jersey and then for the younger stock and then we'll breed back the next generation to a Holstein. Nice. So on average, how many, okay, number one, do you only have like one, I don't know what the word is, batch of calves a year or do you stagger them so you have a couple? Yeah, another great question. We have done it.
14:21different ways throughout the years. We tried to go seasonal one year, so we were having calves all in the fall because there's a premium for fall milk production. We tried to do all calving in the spring to have maybe a couple months off while the cows were dry and then so that everybody's calving at the same time and then the cows are getting fresh grass.
14:49As soon as they calve, now we pretty much just try to calve in the warmer months. We just try to have the bulk of our calves now. We start calving maybe the end of May through the end of October.
15:14And then of course, you know, we always have those teenage pregnancies during the winter. Those, oh shoot, whoopsie. Surprise. How that happened, but. Surprise. Yep. Okay. So that leads me to, you said you have 70 cows, cows, not, not the bulls aren't included in that number. Right. Um, we have about 70 milkers. We have.
15:43I don't know how many dry cows we have right now. Probably just a handful of dry cows right now. I don't know how many heifers we have left to calve this year. There's probably again probably a handful there and then the young stock there's probably we have two groups of calves that have calved this year and then the the calves that will be ready to breed next year.
16:10So probably another, so we probably have about 100 head total in cows. And that's, you know, we used to milk about a hundred or a little over a hundred. I mean, we had about 160 animals or so. So we're down. We're, you know, we're phasing out a little bit here. So maybe, yeah, we have just a little over a hundred animals right now. Okay.
16:38So that leads me to two questions. First one is cows typically have one calf, on average one? Yeah, their gestation is the same as ours. So they calve every nine months or so. Well, we like to have them within 13 months spread again. So. Yeah, but they're not like goats. Goats tend to have two or three babies at a shot and cows.
17:05usually have one. They have single births, right? Their twins are, they can be and we love it when we have twins. They need to both be female or both be male. One is a female and one is a male. The female tends to be a free martin. She's not, doesn't typically have parts to breed.
17:35So if there is a free Martin, do you guys raise it for a while and sell it? Um, no, typically we, we just sell calves, you know, within a couple of days we rate, you know, we, we let them have their mom's, um, the colostrum and then probably keep them for a couple of days and then we just put them on the beef truck. Okay. And that leads me to my second question. If you have male calves,
18:03Do they hang around for long or the same thing? They go on the beach. We save, it depends upon, it depends upon where we are in our cycles of breeding. We will raise one or two bulls to use. We have in the past raised them as steers for meat, but we've been raising Highland cows over the past.
18:29I don't know, 15 years or so. So we've been using the Highlands for beef pretty regularly now. Okay. All right. The reason I asked all that is because when I was growing up, my grandpa had friends that lived down the road and they had a dairy farm. And I just assumed, because I was young, that they just kept all the babies. I thought that the babies just grew up and became mama and daddy cows.
18:58That's why they had so many cows all the time. And then I discovered in my teens that no, some of those cows went to the grocery store or freezer camp as my grandpa's friend called it. And I was heartbroken for a little bit. And then I realized that that was silly. I didn't need to be heartbroken because beef is beef and it's yummy and people eat it. So a lot of people do not necessarily understand how this all works. You're right, they don't.
19:28They don't. I actually have some friends that came to visit and we got into talking about what we were eating and I was like, oh yeah, you know, we're eating our own meat because we raise everything. And they were like, oh, no thank you. I'd rather go to the grocery store. And to this day, we still joke about it because it's like they would rather eat something from the grocery store, which is, you know.
19:56similar to what we have except we just know what's gone into our meat. So, but yeah, people are very disconnected from the food chain. Yep, they sure are. And I was one of those people because I didn't know. And as I've gotten older and learned more and discovered more, I understand that if I happen to meet a steer at somebody's farm and if I happen to buy beef from them, I'm
20:25I might be eating the steer that I met, which was alive and friendly and let me pet its nose, you know? Indeed, yes. And we are terrible because our kids have often named whatever we're raising for meat and they'll joke at the dinner table, oh, we're eating so and so. And I know other people don't find the humor in that, but my kids did. It's probably a way of them not...
20:54not coping with but processing the fact that they knew that animal before it became meat. Yeah and I think that they like the fact that the animals were cared for and you know taken care of and and it was also expensive to eat so I think we were all very grateful to have food. Absolutely. It's not a very lucrative lifestyle. Yeah.
21:17It's not. The other thing is if you live on any kind of farm or homestead or a place where you're going to have chickens or rabbits or goats or cows or whatever, I don't name our creatures unless they are pets. And we have a pet. We have a dog. Her name is Maggie and we love her to pieces. We have three barn cats.
21:43They have names because they have managed to survive being barncats. The chickens do not have names. We don't name our chickens because chickens die for no reason out of the door all the time. So we don't name our chickens. I don't need to name my chickens. When we first got chickens, we had four and they're distinguishing monikers or A, B, C, and D. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. We have chickens as well.
22:13We just have so many of them. We just, yeah, I can't name them. Plus we've had them for so many chickens over the years. We've run out of names. I think the only chicken we specifically named was one that came in a batch, and it didn't look like the other ones. Oh yeah, so you could tell which one it was. And its name was Oddball because it didn't look like the other chickens. Oh.
22:41That was the only chicken we've actually given a name. And Oddball died like last year. And I was not heartbroken at all because we never, I don't like hang out with the chickens. I don't like chickens. I like eggs. I don't like chickens. Yeah. So when my husband came in and said, Oddball died, I was like, that's a bummer. Yeah. And that was kinda it. However, I made a big mistake last fall when our barn cat had kittens.
23:12First experience, first experience with this. Oh, good to hear. They were super cute. Yeah. And Mama is a really fluffy cat. And so some of the kittens were short haired and some of them were really fluffy like mom. And we of course named all the kittens because they were adorable. Yeah. I think one, yeah, one kitten out of six survived ultimately. And is actually living her best life with someone who adopted her.
23:41This time, this spring, when mom had babies again, we did not name them anything special. Like one was yellow and white and had black spots. So that was spot. And one had a head tilt for a while. So his name is Tilt. He's the one we kept. He's doing great. And every one of the seven kittens survived except for one. And that one actually died at like a week old. There was something wrong with it. So.
24:10Six out of seven survived this time. That's awesome. Yeah. Yep. And they all went. Barn kitties are the best. We love. I love kittens. My kids all have allergies, so I can't have them in the house. I love having them at the barn in there. They get loved on very much by all of our customers. Even our chickens, people love our chickens. We have a couple of people who bring food to them when they come to get milk. So they're actually quite.
24:40quite friendly and very sweet. So we just have a, we have an issue with a fox that comes and takes them off one by one. Drives me nuts, but other than that, so. Well, I was very careful with this litter to not get attached to any of them until we decided we were keeping Tilt, and Tilt is a boy, and he made it to eight weeks, and I said to my husband, I said,
25:11He was like, well yeah, but if he gets hit by a car, you're gonna be really sad. And I was like, that's different. Yeah, yeah. So.
25:20But anyway, yeah, don't name animals that are destined for the freezer or who have a high likelihood of just dying because you don't know why they died. Yeah, yeah, that is tough. That's part of the life cycle of farming. And it's something that I feel like benefited our kids and that a lot of kids don't see. And they're able to.
25:49to deal with their own things, I think, because they've had such a versatile experience on the farm, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I hate to say it, but living on a farm is a really good way to be introduced to sadness and disappointment at some point earlier than most people are. Yeah, it's a lot of great things too. I mean, we've had the benefit. My mother and father-in-law lived next to us and my husband's families.
26:15rather large. So the kids, the cousins all grew up together. My sister-in-law lives in my mother-in-law and father-in-law's house now, and then my brother-in-law lives on the backside of the property. And now my kids are all coming home now too. So my daughter and her husband and our new grandbaby are living in our apartment, and another son and his fiance are living on the property. And then another daughter is getting married.
26:45She and her fiance will be buying our guest house. So, you know, everybody's coming home. So it's been nice for the kids to have a space to come back to, too. So it's a family farm for real. I mean, everybody, yeah, nobody works on the farm. Our son Cedric has a manure spreading business. So he started spreading manure when he was 16, bought his first tractor.
27:12a newer spreader and then he does a lot of other things as well. He's very diversified. He's been around the farm. We thought our youngest daughter was going to take over the farm, but she's very into horses. We have horses. She graduated from high school a year ago and has been starting an equine business. She gives horseback riding lessons.
27:41She ran two summer camps this summer, which was really fun to watch her do that. So, but nobody's very interested in the dairy. Yup. I'm not, I'm, I'm not surprised, but that's how it goes sometimes. It is. And it's okay. I mean, it makes me sad to think this is, you know, we're third generation farmers here on this farm. It makes me sad. But I.
28:09We've done some other things. You know, we've been having, hosting weddings on the farm. We have a beautiful view of Mott Mansfield. Um, you know, we have a compost business. I have a guest house. So we've been doing a lot of other things. Um, we actually went to once a day milking about, uh, just, just about, um, during COVID and, um, and that's been, that's been great. That was a great transition for us. Um, it's.
28:38afforded my husband some time in the afternoon, which he's never, never ever had. So, yeah, so I'm sad. I'm sad to see dairy farms just going by the wayside. It's sad. It's sad to see that lifestyle. I've been very blessed. I've loved being a farmer's wife. I loved raising my kids here. I'm sad that that's going by the wayside. But we've conserved our land.
29:08No developments can be built here and hopefully our kids can enjoy this space doing other things. Great. So, when you say once a day milking, are you talking about the machine milking? You're not talking about milking that many cows by hand. Oh, goodness. No, no, no. We have, yeah. And we had a tie stall barn and then in 1993, we built a new barn and started milking in a...
29:37milking parlor in 95. And yeah, so we have a free stall and a milking parlor. But we've always milked twice a day. And then like I said, 2000, when we had gone grain, when we went grass fed, we got rid of the grain, the milk production dropped quite a bit. And so we had thought about going to once a day milking and
30:07there were a lot of things that happened around here. And so we just made the decision to go to once a day. And it was actually a great, great decision. And the cows didn't object. They didn't, you know, just like, just like us, when we're nursing, we adjust, they adjust, they had really dropped in milk anyway. So milking twice a day was a lot of, um, uh, a lot of effort, you know, it was, I think it was, it was cost effective for us to go to
30:37You know, now their milk has it. We were really new to grass fed, so no grain. So we were in an adjustment period. And I would say, I think this year for the first year, we've done a really good job of feeding them and they're making pretty good milk. I mean, pretty good milk for a grass fed. Not like some of these amazing cows that are on grain. I mean, they make so much milk, it's crazy.
31:06But we're doing a good job. Good. I was going to say, is there a difference in how much milk fat there is when you change from grain to grass-fed? I think that's more affected by the breeding than the grain. We produce really high butter fat because our cows are.
31:35across. So we we often do really, really well. So you get paid. So you get paid by the by the butter fat and the protein in the milk. That's sort of what is, you know, what, what the bulk of your payment is. So having a really high butter fat and really high protein is, is a good thing. So and so we're that's why a lot of farmers are
32:06are Jersey farmers because they make a lot of butter fat. But we do pretty well. So I would say no, I think it's more the grain helps to balance milk production. You're able to say, oh, they're not getting enough protein in the grass because it's getting late in the season. So then you supplement with the grain and we don't have that luxury right now.
32:35Okay, so I have so many questions and I don't want to keep you too long. I know a lot about the East Coast because I grew up in Maine. I know Vermont's cold in the wintertime and I know that they're probably not eating green grass out of the field, out of the pasture in December, January and February. So are you buying hay for them? So we put up our own feed. Okay. I mean, we're pretty, we've got quite a few acres and then we rent.
33:05another, you know, 100 or 150 acres and get a good crop off of that. So we put up haylage, we put up the round bales. Then we can put up some pretty good feed. Um, past couple of years has been a little bit difficult because of all the rain and the flooding. So, um, that was a little difficult, but we actually cut back a little bit on our herd to be able to, um, be able to feed everybody through the winter. Okay.
33:34I was just wondering, because I know that a couple, well, I don't know how many years ago, but a while ago, there was a shortage in hay and people had to buy or bring in hay. Yeah, we did. We did two, three. Well, I mean, pretty much most of the winters we will buy feed from other organic farms in the area. So we'll get in touch with Organic Valley and they'll send us lists of farmers in our area.
34:03that have organic feed. And then, you know, like right about now, I mean, we're, we're, we're done with our second cut. So we can pretty much project what our third cut will be. We might be able to get a fourth cut this year, but, you know, we'll start looking at how many bales we have and start preparing for the winter, letting other farmers know if we have to buy hay.
34:33What kind of hay are you feeding them? Because there's so many different kinds of hay. Yeah, we just do straight grass. We don't add to our fields or we might, it's mostly clover. If we enhance our pastures, we'll maybe put some clover and festiolium in there if we get time to frost seed, but it's just been hard.
35:02We have some really good help now, but it's been hard because we haven't had the greatest help in the past. So we haven't been able to do a lot of things that we would like to do. But yeah, it's just, you know, we don't plant any crops. We don't plant alfalfa or any of the grasses. Okay. I just, I don't know anything about this. So you're the only person I think of today to ask these kinds of questions and you are so forthcoming. Thank you for doing that.
35:31We're pretty, we're very, we're minimalist. We're not, you know, we're not charged to, you know, put up the best grasses or, you know, I mean, there's a lot. I mean, it's fun. I mean, there's, I mean, you can spend all of your days managing, managing the farm, but there's other, other things we also do. Okay. And then I have one more question, should be a fun one and then we'll wrap it up.
36:01baby bottle babies for calves. For the calves? Yeah. Yeah. We bottle feed. Uh, we let them stay with their moms, but then we bottle feed all of them for probably, probably, um, maybe a week or so. And then they go on to sucker pails. Okay. I was going to say that's the worst week of your life, isn't it? When you've got a bottle feed them little boogers. We don't mind. I know.
36:29Teaching them to drink out of the buckets used to be, that used to be so hard. I used to teach elementary school and I would go out before I went to work and feed the calves and oh my goodness gracious, teaching them how to drink from a bucket was, yeah, you'd lose your mind. So I like feeding them from the bottle and kids love to come and help feed and you know, for the most part, that's actually a fun job.
36:56Do the calves get milk drunk like babies get milk drunk? Yes. They're very cute. They really are. They're a lot of fun. And we moved them into a, we had a really bad windstorm in 2017 and we lost our barns. And we were able to rebuild one of them. One of them hasn't been rebuilt yet. And then we had another really, really bad windstorm at Christmas Eve a couple of years ago. And it...
37:25destroyed our heifer barns. So we're still short couple of barns, but they go into groups of five. So they're like, you know, we usually raise about 20 calves. So they're in these little groups, these little groups and they're like, you know, just little family members and they're very, they're very darling. And so after they've been fed, they're, they're, they are very milk drunk and a lot of fun.
37:55Cause I watched some of the barn kittens, you know, nurse from mom and they would just go fall over on each other and go to sleep. They do, or they get the zoomies. That's, that's the other thing. The little calves, like, you know, like a puppy will get the zoomies and run around. So they're, they are, they're very fun to watch. And often, you know, as we've gotten older, we will let them just go with their moms out in the field. And that's an awful lot of fun to watch the calves.
38:23running out with a herd. They're very silly. Yep. I love what you're doing. I can hear how happy you are about what you're doing. We do. We have a lot of fun. I have to say, like I said, my kids are great. My grandkids love, love being here. So, um, and it's always fun to share. You know, like I said, I grew up in the city, so this is, was all new to me. And I'm, I feel very blessed to, to have, um, stumbled upon this lifestyle.
38:54Well, I'm really happy for you because it's amazing when you find the thing that makes you happy or you find your calling. And if they are the same thing, that's even better. Yeah. Well, my husband will definitely say, I mean, this is all he's ever done. And, you know, it's a, it is definitely a lifestyle. Mm hmm. Yep. I, okay. I'm going to go on a limb for a second. I think that a lot of people have adopted.
39:23lifestyles since COVID. Yes. And it sounds like this was a before COVID thing for you guys, but I have talked to a lot of people over the last year for this podcast. And I would say 85% of the people that I have talked to have come to the thing they're doing because they had time to reevaluate what they were doing during COVID. Yeah. I would say that that is true because our raw milk sales.
39:52I mean, they quadrupled during COVID. And I think because people wanted to come to the farm to get food. Mm-hmm. And it has been, I mean, it's always been, my husband and I love to talk to people about what we do. And I would say since COVID, you're absolutely right. We've met so many people who are wanting to make yogurt and make cheese and make ice cream and just slow things down a bit. And I think that
40:22that I've appreciated that from people. Yep. I think, again, I've said this a bunch of times. I think that COVID was a terrible thing to happen. But some really amazing good things came out of it. Oh, yeah. I did, too. It was a horrible, horrible thing. But I think anything that causes us to stop and reevaluate and look.
40:48at how we can do things better is a great thing. And I think that that caused so many of us to do that. I mean, I feel guilty seeing this, but I mean, we weren't affected. I mean, there was nothing for us that stopped. We still had to milk cows. We still had to take care of all of the things here. So, and we were very fortunate. Nothing was interrupted, milk pick up.
41:16know, those milk truck drivers need awards for picking up milk in all of the weather and, you know, farms that are hard to get to anyway. They're amazing people. But yeah, for us, things didn't stop. But people, more people came to the farm and that's been a blessing. And we've enjoyed getting to know more and more people and sharing about what we do. Awesome.
41:44I'm so glad that it worked out for you because it didn't work out great for some people, but for others it did. It really did. Yeah. Us being one of them, we actually moved during COVID and we are so happy we did it. Yeah. All right, Tammy, thank you for entertaining my questions about dairy cows and milk and how it all works. I really appreciate it. Have a great afternoon. Thank you. All right.
 

Winfield Farms LLC

Today I'm talking with Nita at Winfield Farms LLC. You can also follow on Facebook.
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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 Nita at Winfield Farms, I think is the name of your place. Good morning, Nita. How are you? Good morning. Good morning, Mary. I'm starting to get confused because I've talked to so many people with so many names that I'm like, I know the name of the place when I sit down and when I start to introduce it, I'm like...
00:29What was the name of the place again? So what do you do at Winfield Farms? So Winfield Farms has been around since like 1890s. So it's been traditionally a row crop farm. And after my mother was no longer able to manage it, my sister and I took it over and we now own it. And so we're moving from row crops to more agritourism.
01:00and we're looking, we partnered with an organization that helps us get our food out to food deserts in the city. So we're taking a different approach. We're bringing the soil back up to where it needs to be, but we're also focusing on agritourism and food deserts. Awesome, I love that. Tell me about the history of the farms. I was looking at your website and it's really interesting. So tell me about it.
01:29So our family has a really long, long history in Surry County as free blacks as early as 1804. But this was that's on my grandmother's side, but the wind fields are my grandfather's side. And so the first property was purchased by my great grandfather on a land contract in 1890. And that's where my grandfather was born in 1892. And then my grandfather, then the second track.
01:56we have, which is the one that my grandfather purchased in 1923. So we have a total of three tracks. One was later purchased by my uncle and we've consolidated all of those. But the family has a very diverse history. My grandmother, it's funny, and you ask me this and it won't take long talking about it, but people look at me and they say, well, how old are you if your great grandfather was in the Civil War? And so.
02:24That's more like great, great, great grandfather, right? But my grandmother's father was a Civil War veteran. And she was born in 1892. My grandfather was born in 1890. She was born in 1897. Grandfather was born in 1892. Okay. And my mother was the youngest. So we have long generations. My mother was born in 1930. And so to end up with a great grandfather in the Civil War, he married twice.
02:50And my grandmother was the youngest of his second marriage, his first wife passed. So that's how I end up with that long span in terms of generational gap for us. So we have a lot of history in this story. That's called longevity and that's amazing. It is. Okay, so one of the things I try really hard not to do on the podcast is talk about religion or politics because they're very divisive topics.
03:21However, the fact that your family was free blacks who owned land and made it go is really, really interesting. And I say that as a very, very white woman. I have been called whiter than the queen. And so it's always interesting to me because I actually, I think I have been told, I don't have it verified.
03:48that one of my ancestors was an Abenaki Native American woman in Maine. And so I always feel real divided because I know what happened with the Native Americans. So if I have Native American blood in me, I am very, very conflicted a lot of the time about the things that happened. So I don't, like I don't want to make this a story about how terribly people who weren't white and privileged.
04:18We're treated because I don't really want to get into it because we all know that that's true. But like, it's amazing to me that your family with probably a lot of odds stacked against them managed to do what they did. And now you're doing something that benefits your community. Right.
04:40I'll tell you what, I think you see on our website, and at least we're a part of the Surrey Cultural Trail because of our family's history, we brought together a diverse group of experiences for African Americans because there were African Americans, and yes, slavery was bad. It was terrible. My grandfather's father was the son of his slave owner.
05:07My grandmother's side of the family, they were free in 1804, property owners. And my grandmother's maternal grandfather escaped through the Underground Railroad and went to Canada. And so my great grandmother was Canadian and came down and married this guy who was free. So when you look at our family, it is, I think we have captured about every, well, close to every single kind of experience African Americans had in the 1800s in the US.
05:35from being free property owners, going through the Underground Railroad, being a child of the slave owner, having land, not having land. So it's diverse. And I think that people always focus on just one aspect of the African-American experience. But for us, it was very broad. My ancestors were educated on one side. Helped to fight.
06:04to establish Virginia State University. On the other side, they were not, you know, so it's broad. And so I can see where there's both camps. My family was in the Civil War as free blacks in the Civil War. And then went on to become the first group in the House of Delegates that were black for the state of Virginia. But then we had others, you know, the haves and the have nots are all there in our family. So.
06:31I feel like you might have a book in you. I think we do. I think we have a series. Sounds like a Netflix series to me. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you're a writer, but maybe there's a writer in your family who would be happy to write your story because I would buy that. I would read that. I love books and I love books about history. So okay. So um, so.
06:58What exactly do you do at your place? You said that you provide food for the food deserts around you. So it's what we did. We started out when we took over the property, you know, with row crops, they do not necessarily, farmers don't necessarily when they're renting your land, take care of your land. And so the land had been rented for a while. And so we found that it was not, you know, the pH wasn't being managed properly, the soil wasn't being managed. So we took that back and we have about 100 acres.
07:28And so we put part of it, we've gotten a lot of grants to take part of it back into trees, so what we can manage. Because we're really environmentalists at heart, so to speak. And in order to get the soil back up, we started planning just cover crops, working with the USDA so we could get the grant funding. And we said, okay, the first year we're gonna put in sunflower seeds, because it was the cheapest seed we could get, right? And then we could plan our cover crop where we would get the reimbursement. So many people stopped for the sunflowers.
07:58My sister and I looked at each other and we said, this might be a business. So we had our second annual, we planted them three years now. This year we just had our second annual sunflower festival. People are coming from everywhere. We just let them, we sell them a vase and it's all you can pick some flowers. So that's what we've done in tourism. And it's amazing how many people come to just pick some flowers over.
08:26We have about 40 acres planted and we just cut ass through where people forage for flowers for the... So that's what we do in the fall because we're still trying to rebuild our barn. And so we have to use the weather to work with us in terms of storage. We plant fall crops, brassicas, and from our broccoli to our collards, we have sweet potatoes as well. And so those are the ones.
08:55We work with the Black Church Food Security Network and we're also GAP certified. We got GAP certified last year. And we provide those to 4P, but with the Black Church Food Security Network, we provide food to churches. And that's a plan for this year. They've also invested in a half acre of blueberries, knowing that it will take about three years to get those to market. And we've planted blackberries.
09:23They're fruiting this year, but again, you know, they are more floricane as opposed to primocane. So we only have a few blackberries, but again, all of those we will use to support the Black Church Food Security Network. Okay, what is GAP certified? I haven't heard about this yet. GAP is good agricultural practices. So it's a USDA certification that allows you, that says you practice safe agricultural
09:51methods for harvesting, for growing, you track what animals come in your field. If they make a deposit in your field, then you isolate that area, you have good hand washing procedures, you have procedures for your workers. So we obtained our GAP certification last year, which is really good, and you renew it every year. That allows you to sell to K-12.
10:17to universities. Restaurants don't necessarily have to have it, but people want to know that you have good agricultural practices in terms of hygiene, how you handle your pesticides or pesticides or whatever. So we now have achieved that level of safety in our production process. Very nice. Tell me again what state you're in. We're in Virginia. We're in the eastern part of Virginia, yes. Okay.
10:45I don't know if Minnesota has that GAP certification thing. I've never heard of it. They probably do. I just haven't heard of it. Well, it's through the USDA. So it's a national program. And the USDA subcontracts with the Virginia Department of Agriculture to come out and audit your facilities. And then the paperwork is sent to the USDA. So I'm sure it's a national program.
11:13And for small farmers, they reimburse you for it as well. Okay, I have no idea. Maybe it's for like bigger operations than your usual farm to market kind of little place like we have. I'm gonna look into it though, cause now I'm curious. See, this is what happens. I talk to you guys, you tell me stuff and I'm like, gotta add it to the look it up list. I have a look it up list. So.
11:40Sunflowers. I have talked to a couple people on the podcast about sunflowers. We grow sunflowers, but we grow them because they're pretty and we don't grow very many. To me, sunflowers are the most wonderful thing on earth to grow because they will grow anywhere. And they're beautiful. Ours just started blooming a couple weeks ago.
12:06And I looked out my living room window in the morning when some was coming up and I could see one and I'm like, Oh, it's back. I love this. It makes me so happy. They're just, they're the happiest weed-ish flower I've ever seen. So how many, how many acres did you say you have? We planted this year, we planted just about 30 acres. Do you have?
12:33photos of it on your page, your Facebook page? Yes, we're probably going to, on my Facebook page, I should, I have a lot of ads. We have photos for this year, we have photos for last year. I can email them to you as well. I'm getting ready to update our page, but in some of our videos I have. Yeah, do you guys have a drone? No, we do not.
13:02Do you know anybody who does? It would take aerial photos of your 30 acres of sunflowers? I probably could find someone. And they're on the downside now. I have some other photos I could send you that are not drones. But you know, that's a good idea I never thought about. Yeah, I bought my husband a drone for his birthday. I think the second year we were here. We're coming up on four years next month. And he was like, why did you buy me a drone? He said, thank you. But what?
13:32is this about?" And I said, we have three acres. I thought you might want to be able to take aerial footage of your three acres as things are growing. And he went, oh, yes. So the thing I would suggest to anybody who has anything going on like you do is pick up an inexpensive drone. They're not that expensive and get video of your property because we did it and we were so glad that we did.
14:00trying to build infrastructure or rebuild infrastructure. You don't think about things like this. But yes, it's a good idea. That's a good idea. I do have photos from the ground. And this year we really struggled. We thought we were gonna have crop failure because we went for three and a half weeks with no rain. And even though sunflowers are super, super, super hardy, they did not get a lot of hype to them. But guess what? They bloomed like crazy.
14:30after the rain. They're short little jokers, right? You know? But after we started getting rain they started shooting up. But we really were concerned we were going to lose the crop this year because we went through a terrible drought. The corn farmers are suffering. They are going to have much of a corn crop this year. I know where all your rain went. It went here. Right!
14:55Now we're getting rain and rained on the day of our sunflower festival in the morning. We were thinking, where were you a month ago? Yeah, you guys had exactly the opposite weather from us. Our cucumber plants are already showing blight because of all the wet. And I freaking love cucumbers. And my plan every January.
15:22is to talk to my husband about how many cucumber plants we're going to grow because I want a cucumber every day from the end of June until they die. And I have had one so far and it was wonderful. My son just brought me in another one this morning and that will be gone by tomorrow. And it's going to be a really sad year for us for cucumbers. So
15:45I understand what you're saying and I don't want to bitch too much about the weather because it actually been okay the last week or so and I would like it to continue to be okay.
15:57But you bring up a really important point. People who grow anything are at the mercy of Mother Nature. And some years, she is really kind to us and we get wonderful produce. Other years, she has a being her monnet and she's not kind and you don't know what you're gonna get. That is absolutely correct. And all you can do is
16:25decide how am I going to mitigate the risk at the beginning of the year. And we did not do that well this year, but next year we will have patches of sunflowers where we know we can keep water on them and keep them irrigated. And because I'll tell you trying to irrigate 30 acres is like giving a whale a tick tick. It does not work. You just can't do it.
16:51So we're going to try to mitigate that risk. So we have larger sunflowers. It was disappointing that the size of them weren't great. We had some that we were able to keep water on and they were beautiful, but yeah, it was sad to see. Yeah. So when you say we, who's involved in the farm? It's you, your sister?
17:14Right, my sister and I and my family. My sister, my family, I have cousins. We all, they all participate. Not necessarily to the extent that I do, but I am not going to discount any help that I get. It's all good. Everybody works full-time and, you know, to a lesser degree I'm the only one that has children or a child out of the house. Everyone else has kids
17:43So they're still participating and contributing in a lot of ways. So we're making this a family effort and the goal is to bring all of the parcels back together and put them in the trust for the benefit of the family. I love that. I'm so glad you're trying to keep it so that it is a legacy. Great, great. You can't throw away property that's been in the family since 1890. And we are just determined not to let...
18:13one generation just decide, oh, well, we'll sell it. We wanna avoid that. Yes. And I'm guessing that if it's a trust and if none of the younger generation at some point wants to do anything with it anymore, is there a clause that says that if someone wants to take it and do what you're doing with it, continue it, is that doable?
18:43Okay, I don't know. No because what we've done, our strategy is to have enough of a long-term resource where the funds go into the trust and maintain the property. And a part of what we're doing is we're bringing the younger kids in so that they have an attachment to it like we all did. You know my older cousins and I.
19:12You know, we all grew up with granddaddy, we know, but the younger ones, they don't know. So that's the other thing. We're trying to bring the younger ones in, but we have a long range investment strategy. We have, you know, the loblolly pines, but we've planted hardwoods. We're putting up the barn so that infrastructure can be rented in, not just the land. And then the trees can be harvested over 20 years, 40 years, 50 years. All of that goes into the trust, the mineral rights, everything goes into the trust.
19:41so that it isn't a financial burden for any future generation, that it is self-sufficient. Okay, that makes more sense, thank you. I don't know enough about all of this to speak to any of it, so I'm really glad that you're explaining it to me, thank you. And I'm still learning about the trust too, but the biggest piece that we found to be most challenging for a lot of families is the financial burden that a farm brings with it. Because...
20:10renting the land and getting row crop money for it isn't enough these days to cover the taxes. It used to be, but not anymore. Yep, taxes. Taxes suck. Doesn't matter what is being taxed, it just sucks. And I get it. I get why we have them. I get that taxes are used for things. I understand it. I just don't like it. But that's okay. I don't have to. I just have to pay them.
20:39So, do you guys have any animals or is it all just produce? It's all just produce and orchards. We have a small orchard now. We're building it up of Japanese persimmons, which are pretty popular and they grow well in this area. And the blueberries and we're growing the blackberries, but we don't want animals. That's just a little bit too much. There are too many rules now for what they eat, how to take them to market.
21:08you know, it's just, it's more complicated than, than we want to deal with. Yes. And plants don't eat grain or hay. Um, one of the things that I keep hearing is how expensive it is to have livestock. And we do not have any livestock here. We have, well, we have chickens, but they don't, they don't cost too much to feed because we only have like 11 chickens now, so we're not feeding them too much. Um,
21:36and we have like three cats and a dog. So we don't really have livestock. And the reason for that is that it is expensive to feed livestock if you don't have acres for them to graze and we do not. Correct, correct. And I'll tell you what, even chickens, some of the insurance companies here do not want you to have roosters on your property. Really? I know.
22:01I know one of the farmers who's been mentoring us was just contacted by his insurance company and they said, oh, you have roosters. You know, they did an inspection and they said, well, you got to get rid of the roosters or we're going to drop you because roosters are ugly creatures and they're not friendly. So now roosters are. Yeah, that's all I got to say on that. He's looking for another insurance company.
22:30You've got to be kidding me. That's nuts. Did you not? Huh. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, our neighbors have a rooster and he sings every morning and he is at least a quarter mile away. And that is one of my favorite sounds here. So I am offended for your friend. I know. I love the sound of rooster. I love it. That's how you know you're in the country. Mm hmm. I love it.
22:57Yes, the same neighbor also has or had, I don't know if they still have him. They had a donkey and we could hear him braying too. And that was really fun. Obnoxious, but fun. They also have at least one cow. I assume they have more than one cow. And I think one of them is for milk and she lows in the morning. She does that, that low like moaning noise.
23:25I hear that and I'm like we live in the country. I love this. This is great I know we grew up with animals on the farm and so I do miss them. But right now it's just it's just too expensive Uh-huh Everything is too expensive right now I Again, I don't want to get into politics, but I'm really really really really hoping that by this time next year maybe food
23:54will come down to almost reasonably priced again? I know it and there's no reason for it. The farmers are not getting the benefit of these high prices in the grocery stores. People still want to buy cheap and resell it expensively. I mean even the wholesale prices are not reflective of what it's being sold for in the grocery stores. No, no it's not and it's offensive and I'm going to say this, I've been saying offended and offensive for the last two weeks. I just...
24:24everything is crazy right now. And I wake up in the morning and I'm like, Oh, we're still here. Okay. That's good news. Cause I go to bed at night thinking, is the world going to actually blow up while I'm sleeping? You know, it's scary times, you know, scary times. And I think, you know, not just, you know, politically or whatever, but
24:51because there's so much construction, so much of our farmland is now being developed. Animals are moving closer in, they're not away. We have more bears in our area, so that scares me. I'm looking at just, growing up, I never would see bears close by the farm, or a lot of wild turkeys. Most we had to deal with were deer. But now we even have coyotes in Virginia.
25:21you know, there's so many bears out. So it's just, things are changing in a not so good way. I think we're just over developing, you know? Yeah, things are out of balance and it's not great. You mentioned coyotes. We actually have coyotes around us and we live in the middle of cornfields right now. And every spring, the coyotes have puppies. They have their babies.
25:48And if you are up in the middle of the night, like I sometimes am, because I can't sleep because my husband snores, don't tell anybody. I will sit out on the porch and listen. And in the springtime, you can hear the puppies, the coyote puppies yipping just like regular old puppies. And I feel like all I'm talking about is the sounds that I hear around here. But it's adorable. And then I think, oh, those puppies are going to grow into adult coyotes. That's probably not good.
26:18But I relish in the sound when they're puppies and then when they're grown, I pray that they just stay not on our property because we have a dog that I would not like to see get attacked by coyotes. Right. So it's a double edged sword when you live in the country. It's wonderful. I love it, I do. But you are at the mercy of what is naturally occurring around you.
26:47And so far we've been fine and I am not going to lie. The first time I heard coyote pups, yep, I was tickled. I giggled. I thought it was amazing. But when I heard the howl that the grownups do when they make a kill, I was like, Oh, I don't like that part. That's not good. But like I said, everything seems to be very out of balance right now.
27:13And that makes everybody feel on edge and that makes everybody testy. And so if I had anything to say to the listeners is, is take a breath, do what you can do to make the world a better place and just hope that everything turns out okay, because that's what I'm trying to do. Take care of my little piece of the world. Do what I think is right. And then hopefully everybody does the same.
27:42Yeah, and regarding the grocery prices, we were so excited back in February when we were planning our garden. Planning, not planting, because we had great plans to grow a whole bunch of really good produce and donate like half of it to the food shelf so that there would be really good food for our community. We're not going to have nearly enough to do that. We will donate probably...
28:09if we're lucky, 20 pounds of tomatoes to the food shelf this year. And we donated hundreds of pounds last year. So, so yeah, it's hard. All of this, this year is hard and I'm having a hard time with it. I'm not going to lie. I, my husband told me yesterday, they were out working in the greenhouse in the garden, my husband and my son. And he came in and he said, well, he said,
28:37We've got 200 tomato seedlings to put in." And I said, what? He said, there's 200 tomato seedlings in the greenhouse that we're going to be planting over the week. I said, when did you plant 200 tomato seeds? He said, like a month ago when it was raining. I said, oh. He said, honey. He said, I knew we were going to have to replant. He said, so I just went all out. I said, good. I said, when will those come in?
29:06This is probably end of August.
29:10I said, okay, well the food shop's gonna get a whole lot of tomatoes at the end of August!
29:18Well now, do you all do all the work around your farm? Because that's one of the challenges we have, is just finding people to work. Yeah, honestly, it's my husband and my son. My husband loves gardening beyond all measure. And he has a real job, he has a jobby job that he does Monday through Friday. And his way of de-stressing is gardening. And...
29:45Our garden is like 100 feet by 150 feet. So it's not huge by any stretch, but it produces a lot when the weather is good. So my husband does it because he loves it. He enlists my son to help him because he needs help now and then. And I basically market what we're doing and I cook whatever he brings in for us to cook and we do a lot of canning. So it's us three, that's what we're doing.
30:15Well, I'll tell you, when we obtained the GAP certification, we realized we were moving from large gardeners to small farming. Yes. And we needed more automation for planting as well as for weeding, for cultivating, and that we could no longer manage our garden.
30:40And the size and the volume that we needed because I'll be honest with you when we obtained gap certification There was so much demand for our produce that we literally sold out the first You know, we thought we had enough produce for like, you know two months We literally sold out after our first delivery on all of our broccoli We were just shocked and so this year and that was last year. So
31:10Both organizations that we work with are like, well, Nita, what can we have? I told them, I said, we have to grow our infrastructure in order to be able to meet your need. This year, we're actually trying to invest in cultivators and vacuum seeders because we have to reduce our cost of production by reducing our labor and
31:37cost of buying seedlings. We have to plant seeds. And then we need the barn. Our barn fell down. It was over 100 years old. So we're trying to build a new barn. But I don't even have anywhere to store all the produce that everyone wants. You know, again, I was telling them, I said, look, our winters are warmer now. I can't just leave your broccoli outside overnight before I deliver it in the morning. It's still going to cook. And so that's one of the growing pains that we've had to contend with. And that's
32:06slowing down and not taking so many orders because the demand is there.
32:22That's okay. Yeah, so that's been the challenge. Yeah, and I'm glad that you said all that because there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that most people don't know about. Right, right, there's a lot, there's a lot. Especially when you're a bigger production situation. Here in Minnesota, we...
32:50don't have a whole lot of restrictions on growing produce. Basically, we here at our place, we don't use any insecticides, we don't use any herbicides, we don't use any manmade fertilizers, we make our own compost the way you're supposed to with dirt and coffee grounds and stuff, you know, not stuff.
33:19from the garden. Like if we need greens for the compost pile, we're going to pull some lettuce and the rhubarb and throw it in the compost. So we're not at the mercy of a whole bunch of regulations as long as we're doing what we know to be right. And that's what we know to be right. But I hear from other people that there's a lot of different restrictions and a lot of different states on what you're allowed to do to be able to sell.
33:48to other people. So we're really lucky here. And I'm glad that we are because if it was a lot of restrictions, our life plan might have been a little different.
34:04Right. With the GAP certification, you do have a lot of restrictions with organic. So, we have to be very mindful of what we do with GAP and with how we handle it. Yes, we do. So, you're right. I think a lot of people don't understand what it takes to farm, what it takes to deliver produce commercially versus just out the garden. It's a big difference.
34:33a big difference. It is and it's a huge difference in regulations, it's a huge difference in manpower, it's a huge difference in time. I mean if we were doing the entire property as as produced we would have to hire people there's no way that we would be able to keep up and that's just three acres. So...
35:00Right, that's right. And we limited our produce that we're growing commercially to about an acre and a half. The agritourism part covers the rest of the acreage and then we're putting in trees. So, no. And you can't find labor. So you have to mechanize as much of your process as you can. And then you have the labor for harvesting and packing. Because people are not working for minimum wage.
35:30They're not because even your migrant laborers, they're making $20 an hour and then you have to provide housing. Yep, it's a different world. It's completely different. So what kind of fruit are you growing? You said blackberries and what else? Right, we have blackberries, we have blueberries, and we have the Japanese persimmon, not the Native American, but it's called a Fuyu persimmon.
35:58And it is super sweet. It's not astringent like the Native American persimmon. So when you bite into that, the Native American one just seems to take your adenoids and suck them out of your mouth. Right. You know, just so dry. But the Japanese persimmon is super sweet and you can eat it just like a peach, you know, and it's firm and nice. And that's a tree? It's a tree. It's a tree. It's a tree. It's a tree.
36:27it has a wonderful, wonderful and expensive fruit too. So is it, I don't know anything about persimmons. In the spring, is it blooms and then they turn into the fruits once they're pollinated? Yes, yes, they do. Do you guys have wicked winds in Virginia? We do have wicked winds and we have those trees staked.
36:58Yes. Okay. The reason I ask is we have apple trees and we got apples last fall for the first time since we moved in almost four years ago. And this spring, all of our trees were loaded with beautiful, beautiful apple blooms. And we had a terrible windstorm come through, took almost every single blossom off the trees. And we have like eight apples out of 20 trees.
37:24So that's the other thing that is tough if you're dealing with fruit trees is that again, the weather really does affect how things happen. I was so excited to finally get Harrelson and Regent apples this fall and there is one red apple on those two trees. One. Oh wow.
37:48Yeah, our winds are not that bad. Our trees are about three years old, so I would not allow them to fruit this year. And I went through and picked off most of them. I got most of them. There were a few. But they were really full of small fruit. I waited too long before trying to get the blooms off of them. But I got the fruit off. And they seem to do pretty good. We are going to have to stake them. And we might use an espalier method, you know, where we just put the wires in and...
38:18and you know drape the leaves kind of attach the branches to the wire but um but no so far the winds are not that bad they're not too too bad. Yeah it pretty much destroyed our apples and I'm starting to understand why when people start apple orchards they do like rows and rows and rows next to each other because the outside rows protect the inside trees. Great.
38:44So we're gonna have to figure out a way to acquire some more trees and do rows. Because we have a row on one side of our property and a row on the other side, and that's not really working well. So we have to figure this out. Great. We have four rows and we're probably going to put up a windbreak as well. So that helps us out. Yes. And honestly, we live in the land of...
39:13flat corn fields. So figuring out a plan for apple trees is probably a good idea because otherwise if the wind picks up when the blooms are blooming, we're screwed. And I would really love to have apples. You know, part of our dream when we looked for a place was to be able to have room enough to have apple trees. Well, we have apple trees. It'd be nice if they actually produced apples. That would be great.
39:39You'll get them. It sounds like you have a plan forthcoming. We have plans for everything. It's just a matter of whether the plan actually works. And then implementing, there's always something to do. You know, you're never finished. You are never finished on a farm. Never. No, and there's always, always some new technique that you didn't know about. And you're like, why in the hell did I not think of that?
40:09I know, I know, I know. But, you know, and then, you know, you have people say, well, you should be taking notes. And you're thinking, all right, you know, if it would be really good if I had time to write all this down. And so you try to dictate it. I try to take a few notes, but that's easier said than done. You know, you need an assistant to take all the notes and jot everything down for you. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Or you just need to hit the record app on your phone.
40:38Right. And record it, go back and read it later, type it in later somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, I don't want to say it's really hard. I say it's really hard all the time about stuff. It is a lot of things to keep track of and remember and do. And you're one person. And if you're like everybody else, sleep is a commodity.
41:03So if you're lucky, you get maybe four to six hours of good solid rest a night, if you're lucky. So it's a wonderful life. However, it is a lot of things to do in the time that you have to do it. That's correct. And you have to love it. You have to love it. People who say, oh, I want to farm and they don't love it, they're in and out in three years.
41:32because it really does take three to five years before, you know, not for a tomato to grow, I'm not saying that, but if you are really wanting to make farming a career, it is not a slow process, it is not slow, and it is not inexpensive either, you know? So, and I think today now, you almost have to inherit the land, the cost of land is so expensive, I don't even know how new farmers, young farmers are able to get into the business.
42:01unless they've inherited the FAR. I don't see how you can break through. Well, having done this podcast for almost a year now, you're absolutely right. It does tend to be that they get into it through family land.
42:19I think that's the only way, the cost of land. And then if you are a big row crop farmer, the equipment is out of this world. That was the reason why we said, no, we don't have enough land to do row crops. Even though it's a hundred acres or so, you can't even afford the combine to, you'll never make your money back on a hundred acres. If you're not farming 500 to a thousand acres, it's not even worth your time. You can't even pay the lease on the equipment. Yes, and.
42:48It's not just the the outlay for the new equipment It's the the money to keep those that equipment repaired and up-to-date right So host of seed and fertilizer and lime Yeah, it never ends I know I was so worried about our friends that well not our friends our neighbors We don't really know them our neighbors who owned the cornfield around us Because the cornfields were just flooded out this spring
43:18And I was like, what are they going to do? And my husband said, they got it implanted before it started raining so much. He said, probably they will have a crop. And until about the middle of June, they had little baby short corn plants out there. Right now, some of those plants in the middle of the field are eight feet tall. What? So they know what they're doing. And, and there was a.
43:47There was a news story on a couple mornings ago with some of the farmers here in Minnesota. And one of the guys was a corn farmer. And he was talking about that they really lucked out because they had some parts of their fields that flooded out and the seed rotted. But a lot of their corn survived. And he said, just thank God it wasn't hail, because hail would have destroyed the plants. What? Mm-hmm.
44:17So there's a bright side for you. Right. You have to be thankful. You can find that silver lining and no matter, no matter what, you know, you do find it. So, absolutely. All right, Nita. And on that upshot, I'm going to let you go because we've been talking for almost 45 minutes. And I'm so glad we have been. Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. All right. And thank you for the invitation. I enjoyed.
44:43I enjoyed chatting with you. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for your interest in the forum. Of course. Have a great day, Nita. All right. You too. Take care. Bye.
 

The Homemade Homestead

Today I'm talking with Crystal at The Homemade Homestead.
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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 Crystal at the Homemade Homestead, which I love the name. Go ahead, Crystal. Crystal, how are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm good. Tell me about yourself and what you do.
00:24Well, my name is Crystal. I'm married to my husband, Robert, for 24 years, and we have four kids, ages three to 21. We had a little age gap in between number one and two, three, and four. And so we decided that we wanted to do some homesteading. It started many, many years ago when we lived in Georgia, and then we moved to Alabama.
00:51and decided to purchase a poultry farm, a commercial poultry farm. And if you know anything about commercial poultry, you cannot have backyard chickens if you do commercial poultry. So we ended up selling the poultry farm and buying some land and decided that we really, our dream was just a homestead. Well, more so my dream. My husband was kind of along for the ride, but he gets more and more interested as we go.
01:20So the Homemade Homestead was just a way for me to kind of talk about some of our beginner homesteading. I kind of consider myself a beginner at this point because all the things that we did in the past, I've kind of either forgotten or, you know, things have changed. I had to remind myself of things with with all the stuff I've got going on. But the Homemade Homestead was a way for me to document some of our beginning.
01:50things with homesteading. We're a pretty private family, so we don't allow our children, we don't allow their faces on any kind of social media. So that presents a challenge for me when I want to document things because my kids are always around. So, but that was also a way for me to document my soap making and tallow. I started making homemade tallow balm for my face and homemade soap.
02:18And once I started making it, it was so exciting to me just to be able to make something from scratch that I created that was natural and non-toxic. And then I started selling it. And now I'm just obsessed with all things natural and making whatever I can. Awesome. And I'm going to tell you a secret. I think that everybody is a beginner homesteader, even if they've been doing it for 20 years, because there's always something new.
02:47Oh, yes, absolutely. It's a little scary, you know, when you, especially me, I love to research things and I get on there and I start researching stuff and it becomes a little overwhelming. And then you kind of get paralyzed because you're afraid to start. So I have to kind of withdraw myself from doing too much research and just get in there and do it. Yeah. We had a thing happen here last week. We had black ants.
03:16flying ants coming in our window frame into the house. And we haven't had this happen in almost four years we've been here. And I was like, there's gotta be a home remedy to make these guys not come in. So I went to Google, as everyone does, and it said they really don't like lavender, they don't like peppermint, and they really don't like vinegar. And I had lavender essential oil and I had peppermint oil.
03:44but I already had vinegar in a spray bottle. So I sprayed the window frame and within 24 hours, no more ants. And I was like, hey, it worked. And that's a homesteading hack, you know? Absolutely. There's so many natural, easy ways, even for somebody, I think, that lives on small acreage or apartments or anything small. There's so many different ways you can get into it that are fun and don't require a lot.
04:13Absolutely. You are absolutely right. We did it out of necessity because we were raising four kids on one income and it's more time but less money if you make things yourself typically. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I know with a lot of the things that I make are out of necessity for our health. We each have our own set of health challenges.
04:42I've got really bad migraines. My husband, after we had our poultry farm, he was in there in those houses for hours a day, breathing in just really nasty, dirty air, and he didn't wear a mask. And then after COVID, we had COVID three different times. And I think it might've damaged his lungs a little bit, along with all of the poultry house, just the in and out.
05:08daily breathing that stuff in and he suddenly developed adult asthma, which was a huge hindrance to my homesteading goals because I need him to build things. I make things, but he builds things. It got to a point for a while where he couldn't even walk to the mailbox because he could not breathe. He felt like he was suffocating. He would start coughing so bad that he was gagging.
05:37Just making natural things is a huge part, I feel like, of trying to regain our health. And I want my kids to have a better life than I did. I want them to have good health. And I feel like that starts with me as the homemaker. I kind of guide the temperature of our home. So it's exciting to me. Yes. And I will share a story about
06:07not being able to breathe. When my kids were young, they would get a head cold and they get all stuffy, you know. And there's a thing on the market that is Vicks Vaporub. And I'd been brought up with that and I don't love how it smells and it's really sharp. And so I was like, hmm, I wonder if there's a way to make something like it that isn't something I buy. And so what I did is I got eucalyptus essential oil and
06:35Rosemary essential oil and something else. I can't remember what now. Maybe lemon. And I mixed the coconut oil and the oils together because coconut oil is typically hard at room temperature. And so I tried that on the kids and they were much more receptive to having that under their nose and on their chest because of the lemon scent.
06:59because it masked some of the sting smell from the eucalyptus and the rosemary. So same result, but different ingredients. And I don't know what they put in Vic's vapor rub besides the acid ingredients. So I was very impressed with myself that the kids were like, that smells really good. Can I put it on again? Hey, that actually gives me an idea. Because the
07:27The bombs that I make for my face and our soap, I make out of tallow. And it was kind of an accidental thing, I guess. I was at our butcher one day. I tried to get our meat from a local butcher. I'm a big proponent of shopping local and supporting local businesses. And so I had started buying all of our meat from a local butcher and he had beef fat. And I had read about making tallow.
07:57and making it for your face and all the benefits of it, cooking with it and so forth. So I bought a bunch of it from him and that's when I started making the tallow and I render it down myself. It's a long, painful process when you're making it for face cream because you don't want to smell like a cow. So I have to do a lot of purification on it to make it smell where I would be comfortable using it.
08:26wondering and trying to research different things that I can make with tallow. And I never thought about doing like a Vicks Vaporub. So like you use coconut oil, I wonder if I could use tallow because it's also hard at room temperature. I think you can. Yeah, that would be a great idea, especially with winter coming. And you know, for my husband, he he can be a little stubborn when it comes to
08:53my natural remedies. He'll do it, but he's not exactly pleased about it. So he will try it though. So now I've got an idea. I'm going to make some. All right. I helped somebody today. Yay. Yeah. And the other thing is I was going to say if anybody's going to try using essential oils, the important thing to remember is that they need to be in a carrier oil if you're going to put it on your skin. Yes, absolutely. Because some
09:22some of the essential oils will actually sting or burn your skin and it hurts. So don't do that, do not use it. Great. Yeah, yeah, we, I've been using essential oils for probably maybe six or seven years. I didn't really know anything about it until we moved up here and I started meeting all of these friends that were into the same things that I was, it's kind of funny.
09:50when you find a person that is into one thing, they typically are into other things that you are interested in. So I kind of find that the people that I meet that homeschool because we homeschool are also interested in homesteading and they're also interested in natural health. And it just typically works out that way. So once I started getting into the homeschooling, I met all these friends that were into essential oils.
10:17natural remedies and things like that, and I started getting interested in it as well. It's very fascinating. You found your tribe. Well, I did. I'm not much of a people person, so I have to kind of make myself go out and be around people, but I do find that when I do it, I enjoy it, and I can glean information from individuals that means more than if I'm just Googling it at home.
10:47Yeah, and I am not a people person either. I always say that I don't like people, but I love persons. And when I do actually spend time with my people, I do enjoy it, but it's exhausting and I don't do it often. And it's really sad because this podcast has made it possible for me to talk to so many people who I consider to be my people.
11:15I will never meet you guys. I don't travel. I don't want to. I have no interest in traveling. I like where I live. But I feel like I make a new friend every time I talk to somebody for the podcast because you guys are into what I'm into. Yes. Or I learn something new from you, which makes me so happy every time. Yeah. I'm the same way. My husband tries to, especially for our boys, you know, our children, they need friends and they need...
11:43They need more interaction than I do. So, you know, I kind of do it for them, but me, I would be perfectly content to text or speak audibly to a person and exchange tips and learn things about them, but I don't necessarily have to be sitting in front of you. I'm kind of, I'm introverted in that way. So homesteading seems to work out well for me because, you know, I love to be home and we have a lot of plans for our property.
12:12um... things that i've wanted to do but i didn't feel that they were possible uh... and i don't know if you've ever listened to the holler homestead uh... or watch their youtube videos they uh... they have some property over in north carolina and they do a bunch of videos on how they homestead and one of the things that they had they had a lot of woods and uh...
12:38I've always wanted pigs, but our prop, we've got 44 acres, but it's probably 80% wooded. And they would use their pigs to clear their land. And so once I started watching their videos and I saw how they were able to homestead on land that was very similar to ours, it just, it kind of opened up a lot of possibilities for me and it was very exciting. So.
13:05I've been slowly trying to convince my husband for us to get some pigs and a dairy cow. So I need prayer. Okay. Everybody pray for Chris. She gets pigs and a cow, a dairy cow. Yeah, it's funny how you can make your land work with you, but you have to work with it too. Oh yeah. And when we looked for our 3.1 acre place that we live at now.
13:34My husband said, we need to find a place that has a place for a garden. And I said, yeah, that's, that's great. But you know, we can always make a place for a garden. Yeah. He said, honey, he said, I don't want to have to take down trees and, and clear the land to make a garden the first year. He said, I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for this. And I was like, okay. And so when our wonderful realtor friend found us this place and we came to see it for the first time.
14:04there was an open fieldish kind of thing to the left of the driveway. And my husband looked over at it and went, that's where my garden's going. And I said, you've got your wish, you're set. And he did get his wish the last three years, not this year, but the last three years, that garden has produced food for us, for us to preserve, for us to donate to the food shelf, for us to sell at the farmer's market, for us to sell at the farm stand on the property.
14:33This year, not so much. We've had a ton of rain and the garden is like three weeks behind. Oh, so you're the opposite of us. We've had hardly no rain and our garden is, it's pitiful. It's not even a garden anymore. Yep. We've been, we've been doing, we're not really God people, but we've been doing a little asking Mother Nature to smarten up and maybe provide some good weather.
14:59for us so we can have some zucchinis and tomatoes and cucumbers this year. I ate my first cucumber the other day. So we had one. That's exciting. It was better than none. Yes. And it was delicious. And I tried to share it with the husband, but he was like, Nope, that one's yours. Oh, yeah. We, um, I let my kids, um, I was a little hesitant to do a garden this year because we did own a business over in town. Um,
15:28at the time and we ended up shutting it down. But my neighbor down the street had offered to plow us a little garden and because my husband's tractor was not working at the time and so our tiller was broken, everything's broken. So he had texted me and asked me, he knew that I was wanting to learn gardening. And so he asked me if he wanted, or if I wanted him to plow us a garden and I said,
15:56I would love to, but I think right now we're just so busy because I was running our business, plus homeschooling my kids, plus cleaning and cooking, and my husband worked full-time and traveled for work, so it was really busy. So we closed our business a few months ago, and I texted our neighbor and I said, I know it's late, but I think I'm gonna try a garden. So he came out and tilled me. It's about...
16:23It's huge. It's way bigger than I actually needed, but I thought I'd rather have too much than too little and wish that he had done more So I've kind of divided it and I let my six-year-old and my nine-year-old plant their own little portions of the garden because I want them I want them to understand where their food comes from and I want them to be a part of growing things especially my picky eater
16:48I feel like if he is a part of it, then he's more likely to eat things and make healthier choices. So we all three planted the same soil, the same garden. It's probably maybe 50 feet long. And my boy that planted on the left corner, his garden did way better than mine or my other boy, even though same seeds, same soil, same sun, same rain, same everything. So...
17:17I'm a little confused as to what happened this year, but it's not good. Yeah, we have sort of the same situation in our little field. We actually ended up putting up a greenhouse where nothing would grow because we have gray clay underneath our dirt because we live just above where the river valley starts.
17:46on our property. Yay. And so where the garden grows, we have like six to 10 inches of really good black dirt. And then underneath that is a bunch of gray clay. But at the end of the garden to the tree line, so like the garden again, it's all clay. You dig down a couple inches, it's clay. So if we hadn't known that and had planted, we would not get the same results.
18:13as we do in the other part of the garden. It just depends on what's going on in that soil and underneath it. Yeah, we have red clay. We're red clay as far as the eyes can see. It's it's horrible. Yeah, yeah. I hear about red clay from people in the South a lot. Yeah. Well, when we lived in Georgia, you know, everybody talks about Georgia red clay. And when we moved to Alabama, I called my mom and I was like, wait.
18:41There's red clay everywhere up here. It's not a Georgia thing. It's a Southern thing. So it is really bad. I think, you know, as we learn and grow with this whole homesteading thing, it's, you know, it's a, a work in progress. Um, and I, I've learned a lot this year of what not to do, what I want to do. Um, so next year I've got some pretty big plans on how to grow, um, not just grow a garden, but grow our homestead. And, um, you know, we.
19:11We've got some great, well, I have some grand plans. My husband has different plans than I do. You know, there's different things that he wants out of our homestead dreams and different things that I want. We have had, in the past, we had a dairy cow. So I'm familiar with milking. And that is why I want another dairy cow. I currently drive 30 minutes every Thursday. So today's my milk day to go pick up milk from a local farmer.
19:41but there's just nothing like having your own milk, but it is such a, it's a huge undertaking to do it yourself from, you know, the having the cow milking it every day. Well, we had trained hours to do once a day milking, but I'm really excited to get back to that. And I have a lot of goals of things that I want to learn. I wanna learn all of the home preservation skills.
20:05I have not learned to can yet. I'm a little scared of it, but that is my goal for probably winter when things kind of slow down a little bit, you know, I wanna get into all of those things. Eventually to be pretty self-sufficient as close as we can. Awesome. I'm gonna tell you something about canning. Canning seems scary. Yes.
20:30I did not want to can. I've told the story a few times on the podcast already, but I'm going to do it again. My mom canned in the hottest months of the summer, no AC, in Dean, where it was hot and humid in July, August, and September. And it seemed like the walls would sweat when she would plan. I don't have good memories of canning from growing up. However, my husband and I did it for the first time.
20:58three summers ago in our house that luckily has central air conditioning. It did not make the walls sweat. We were okay. We did break a jar or two in the canner. That was fine. You just pour the, you just pull the cans out that didn't break, the jars out that didn't break. And then you drain the, the water from the canner into a colander in the sink and then the glass gets caught and you shake glass in the trash. You rinse the colander out and you start again. Nobody gets sliced.
21:28Um, have not dropped a can on our jar on the floor yet. Thank God. And I suspect if you've never done it yourself before, once you do do it, you'll probably love it and you'll want to do it again. Yeah. Well, I had a unfortunate incident with, um, a pressure cooker, not a can or like an instant pot, but it was the off brand. And, um, this is years ago.
21:54when we had our dairy cow and I was making yogurt. I had learned how to make yogurt in this off-brand instant pot. And I was homeschooling my boys. They were at the kitchen table doing their score and I had put the milk into the pressure cooker. And you have to boil it first. And I had it on the boil function. And for some reason, I guess I was distracted. You know, young kids will do that to you. And...
22:24all of a sudden this thing just started wiggling and jiggling and making these weird noises. I guess because I was unfamiliar with it and also distracted, I walked over thinking, hmm, that's weird, and I opened it. Oh, no. Yeah, it was horrible. Scalding milk exploded, and it was waste. It was at my waist. The scalding milk exploded out of it.
22:53I had second degree burns all across my stomach, all down my arms. Of course, I screamed and I was crying. My husband works from home and he'd come running upstairs and ask me what happened. I've never thanked God so many times in my life because normally my kids are under my feet. Had they been under my feet at stomach level, it would have got their face. It would have burned their face.
23:21And I just remember leaning over the sink, praising God, thanking him so, so, so much for protecting my children. Not even thinking about the fact that my skin was peeling off because I was so severely burned. So that kind of imprinted in my mind with the whole pressure canning thing. And I know, you know, it's not likely that anything will explode. I think my
23:48biggest fear with canning is botulism, that I would mess something up and not realize it. But again, I mean, that's like anything with homesteading. You've got to overcome that fear and just get in there and do it. Absolutely. Yes. And my mom always said, when in doubt, throw it out. If she had any question about anything she can, it went in the trash and we started again. You were saying that you have big plans and dreams for the homestead and your husband has maybe slightly different
24:18plans and dreams for Homestead. My husband floated an idea the other day and I have learned to just listen and say, I need to think about it or I need to sleep on it because my knee jerk on a lot of things is no. Yeah. I've had to train myself to not do that because he thinks that I'm just being adverse and I'm not. My immediate thought on things that are going to cost a lot of money is no.
24:46And so he floated this idea about how we could get a garage on the property and use half of it for a workshop and then on the other side of the garage we could do more gardening stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's telling me this grand plan and I know my face is doing the, I don't want to do that face. And he looked at me and I said, please don't read my face. I'm listening. I'm considering, can I think about it?
25:14And he was like, well, we can't afford to do any of it yet anyway, so you have time. And I said, okay, good. And I slept on it for a couple of nights. And this morning, I said, you were talking about the shipping containers as the structures. And he said, yes. I said, if we can make them not look like shipping containers, I would be okay with that. And he immediately gets his phone out and pulls up pictures. Oh, goodness.
25:43of people who have used shipping containers to do what he's talking about. And he said, it really doesn't look a lot different than the pole barn, does it? And I said, no, that would be fine. I said, luckily we have a couple of years to think about this, refine the ideas, and have the money to do it. Yeah. Well, one thing you might want to be concerned about with the shipping containers, because we thought about the same thing, not for your purpose.
26:10We had a friend years ago that had a huge operation. He did all organic All-organic meat and he was big into As natural as possible, but he was also big into prepping and he wanted to get a shipping container To I think he wanted to bury it as like an underground bunker. Yeah, which I thought was a fantastic idea But he was mentioning that the problem he runs into
26:39is a lot of them are coated with lead, which would be a health hazard. Because he wanted to, it's not pressure wash, like sandblast, to get it all off. And then you run the risk of that lead leaching into your soil, and especially if you're going to do gardening. So that kind of always stuck in my mind with the shipping containers. I don't know how you would find out if they do or don't.
27:08Maybe something to keep in mind. Google knows everything. We will have to do some real research into that. Yeah. But either way, when my husband says, I was thinking, I say, yes, and? And he tells me, and I listen with as open a mind as I possibly can. And the biggest issue he and I run into is I process information really quickly.
27:37And then I think about what I know about the thing that he's floating and that gets added in. And I'm at my probable answer within a minute. He processes slower than I do. So he comes up with an idea and he hasn't actually looked into it yet. He just fits it out. And so we've had not knockdown drag out fights about things, but because of the way we both think differently.
28:05We've definitely had some discussions about things. That's kind of like me and my husband. I think about every possible scenario. I have already got it all planned out in my head and my husband, he's more thoughtful and he takes more time to process something. But you know that God created him different than me and he knew that we couldn't have two of me or two of him.
28:34It works out good. Although my husband is usually the one that says no between us two because we're both dreamers. We both love to dream and plan. We just do it differently. We're kind of at a crossroads right now with a property beside us that it's an acre and a half property that was cut out of.
28:59a 46 acre track and we bought 44.5 and then they cut the other one and a half out for an elderly lady that lived next door. She is currently in a nursing home and they're not expecting her to come back out. So eventually that property will come up for sale and when we bought this property, we signed first right of refusal that would guarantee that we would have the first shot at buying that if it came up for sale.
29:28And I want that property so bad I can't stand it. And my husband is more like, yeah, we don't have the money to do that right now. And I'm like, okay, well, how can we get the money? What can we do? And I'm dreaming and I've already got, I've got this entire homestead planned out knowing that we're gonna own that land. And he just, he kind of shakes his head and hugs me and tells me, okay, honey, we'll see what we can do. But knowing that we probably won't ever get it.
29:57It's fun. It is really fun to dream. And my husband and I years ago, like 20 years ago, we're talking about what our life looked like after the kids were grown. And we both wanted to live on at least an acre in a decent house where we could grow a big garden and have a dog and all those things. And we never thought that we would be able to actually do it. And some things happened. We lost a couple of parent figures.
30:27and those parent figures were kind enough to leave us some decent fundage. And we thought, why not take that fundage and buy a place where we are really happy till the end of time for us? And that's how that worked out. But had you asked us 20 years ago if we'd be where we are now, we would have been like, we don't have the money to do that. Yeah. So you just got to have faith, I think. Yeah. And not just the money, but just the foresight.
30:57to know, I mean, life is so vastly different now than it was 20 years ago. We're having to think differently, the way the world is going. It's being self-sufficient is so much more important now than ever. And I think there's this huge movement for people that want to be self-sufficient and want to go back to a simpler time.
31:27want to actually homestead, still want to have a simpler lifestyle, you know, kind of as an escape from the craziness of what life is now. So I see a lot of people, especially younger people, that I wish that I would have been like that when I was younger and been into the homesteading thing. And you know, it's fun to see it, you know, to see so many people coming around to the idea of this type of lifestyle.
31:56um, things that I want that my husband wants. I wish, I wish my daughter, my oldest is 21 and she has absolutely no interest in farming, homesteading, um, natural remedies, anything like that. And it hurts my heart a little bit, but you know, she's, she'll have to go her own path. Yeah. My oldest is also a girl. She's 34.
32:25And I just talked to her yesterday and she was talking about how she's watching the pomegranates on pomegranate tree where she lives in Florida. My daughter lives in Florida. This girl is not, she's not a homestead and kind of girl. She loves the city. She loves clubs. She loves good restaurants. You know, she's not into the whole thing. And I was telling her that I usually have 10 episodes in the bank for the podcast.
32:54record it ahead of time and that I was going to be lucky if I had five to put out next week. And she said, you know, mom, she said, I could be a guest on your podcast. And I said, okay. Um, why, how? And she said, well, we have lemon trees, we have lime trees, we have orange trees on a property. She said, and I've been watching those cause I'm ready for a fresh off the vine citrus fruit. She said, and I'm
33:24it's just me and my husband here right now, so we're taking care of those trees for his mom. And she is not out in the country by any stretch. And she said, so we're doing some homesteading things. She said, and she said, my husband cooks from scratch all the time, he's amazing. Wow. I was like, I might just hitch you up at some point to have you talk about that, because you're riding that line between suburban and homesteading, and that's a great line to ride. So.
33:53I have my daughter on at some point. I think that would be great. You know, I think there's so many people that think unless they have huge amounts of acreage or unless they know all of the skills that they're not a real homesteader or they're not gonna ever be able to achieve that type of lifestyle. But I mean, there's literally hundreds of different small things that you can do to be more self-sufficient, to work towards that goal.
34:23Um, you know, that's one of the things that I have to, because I'm a, I'm a, I'm a big, um, if I don't do it huge, then I'm just, I'm not succeeding at it. And I've had to retrain myself in that, you know, that I'm in a season of life right now where I have young children and, um, when Hannah or oldest, when she was younger, I was, I was young when I had her. Um, so with my boys, I'm at a different stage in life. Um,
34:51I see things differently, but life is very, very busy. And so I tend to get down on myself because I haven't learned how to can yet, or we don't have my dairy cow yet, or I stink at gardening. But it's just, it's one thing at a time, one skill at a time. So that's kind of my goal, especially now that we've closed our business down. We still operate an online business,
35:21our storefront is closed down. So I'm home all the time now. And that's kind of my goal over the next year is to pick a skill and learn it instead of my normal. Hey, I'm going to learn 10 different things at the same time and then I get overwhelmed and I learn nothing. So with with the homemade homestead that it's a fairly new Facebook page that I started and
35:48That's one of the things that I really want to start doing is having people follow along with me. So maybe I'm going to learn how to crochet. I really want to learn to crochet and work on that for a set amount of time. And then when I not necessarily master it, but feel comfortable with it, then I can introduce the new skill or canning. I'll start with water bath canning and then work my way up to pressure canning.
36:16That way I can feel like I'm learning something and I'm not too overwhelmed. Yes, the only thing you learn when you try to learn more than a couple things at a time is that you can't learn more than a couple things at a time. Yes, yes. I'm great at multitasking when it comes to things that I already know how to do. But when I'm learning something, I'm the type of learner I need quiet and I want to
36:44I don't want to hear you. I don't want to see you. I need to focus on what I'm doing. And there's no such thing as quiet in this house. So that has prevented me from a lot of the things that I do want to learn. And baseball season's about to start back. So we're going to be in the thick of baseball practice with two of my boys. And come spring, my youngest will start T-ball. Then we'll have three boys in baseball. And I'm going to have to learn how to still do the things that I enjoy because I don't want to.
37:13I don't want to lose the love that I have for the natural, simplistic, homesteading lifestyle. And I feel like sometimes that gets overshadowed by the stressors of life. But it's exciting to me. I love to look and see how other people do it. It gives me ideas on how I can kind of streamline things. Because for my husband, if he's going to be involved in something, it has to be something that he sees as attainable.
37:43So, you know, I need to sit down and write out a list of what's important to me, what I want, and then give that to him so that he can execute it. So you know, I've got, he actually is very open to pigs and a dairy cow. In fact, he thinks we should get a cow first. I'm not sure why, but I did not complain when he said it. Don't ask questions, just go for it.
38:12So it's exciting that we've got so many plans and money always is a big factor. You know, homesteading is not cheap in a lot of ways. So, you know, as we were also right now, and this is something that I posted on our homemade homestead, we're doing the Dave Ramsey debt payoff plan. If you're not familiar with Dave Ramsey, he is fantastic. He's got a program called Financial Peace. I think it's called Financial Peace University.
38:42So it's a way that you structure your finances to pay off all of your debt in an attainable way. And so that's what we're doing right now. We just sold my suburban, got rid of that car payment. We just paid off our truck, got rid of that car payment. And we're just chugging down the line so that we can start building more infrastructure around here and getting the animals that I want because they're not cheap.
39:13Nope, they're not and you got to be able to feed them too. And that's not cheap. No, it is not. But I totally get what you're saying. Oh, I was gonna say something and now I just blanked out because I was thinking about all the bills we have to pay today. So, when my kids were young, and they're not young anymore, oldest is, I mean, youngest is 22, oldest 34. I was really busy too.
39:41And I had to, like I had no choice. I had to learn how to work on things with it not being quiet. And it was one of the hardest things I ever did. And I learned that if I invited the kids into helping me with whatever I was doing, they were a little quieter. Like I learned to crochet when my kids were six. The youngest was six, next one was.
40:1010, next one was 12. Oh wow. I think the oldest was busy doing other things. But they learned how to do the chain stitch and the single crochet, and that was about as far as they wanted to go. But they did it with me, they learned it with me. And if I was learning a new recipe, I would be like, you guys wanna come learn how to make, I don't know, chocolate chip raisin oatmeal cookies? And invariably the two younger ones were all in cause cookies.
40:39Yes. And so all the kids learned the things that I was learning along with me, which was really fun. And I know your youngest is little, little, but soon, soon youngest will be big enough to kind of join in on the things you're learning if it's not totally dangerous. Yeah, it's hard. I think I'm the type that I'm very servant minded. I want to serve my family.
41:09that for me that involves you're not coming in here and helping me. I'm going to do it and I'm going to serve you. And I've had to break that mindset, especially with my boys, being patient enough to let them come in and help me. And especially with the three year old, because he wants to be held. He wants to he's not very patient. You know, he just wants to get in there and do it. So it has been something that I've had to to really.
41:38be intentional about and stop myself and say, hey, even though this is hard, I'm doing them a disservice by not allowing them to help me. So it's a learning curve for me because that is very hard. I would rather you go sit down and me do it all for you because mom is going to pamper her babies. But really, I'm just hurting them in the long run by not allowing them to help.
42:06the more that you teach them about life skills, you are serving them for the rest of their natural lives. So I'm gonna encourage you to get them involved and teach them because number one, boys, boys don't get taught life skills the way that girls do usually. So you are actually doing them the biggest service ever by teaching them how to cook, how to sew, how to create, how to clean, how to do their own laundry, and...
42:36When they get older, they do it themselves, which means you don't have to do it. Yes. Yeah. There's, there's, um, a lot of things that my husband teaches them. He's a lot better at letting them help. Um, but you know, it's a lot of it's the way that I grew up. I grew up, my mom, um, she, she did all the, she is the way that I am. And I learned it from her. So I didn't learn how to cook as a child. Um, you know, she didn't really teach me. How to.
43:06hook or do now I did learn how to clean because she made us help to clean but you know with my boys I want them to not just learning the skills but being included in something and we're a very close family we spend a lot of time together and so if we're going to be spending time together we might as well be doing things that are functional and then learning something from it. So and that's a big benefit of having.
43:34animals and having a homestead and gardening because it's good things that they can learn that are practical and I think when their minds are busy on something that's worthwhile They're less likely to get in trouble as they get older Yes, and as a God person you are a God person. Yes, I understand that God created the world and is like nurturing the world and
44:02in teaching them to cook and garden and do those things, you are giving them the gift of nurturing that you believe in. Absolutely.
44:13So I'm all for it. I think it's great.
44:18Yep, it's exciting thinking about all the things that they're going to learn and they're getting older. And naturally, I want them to lean towards what we see important. And the only way they're going to do that is if they're taught it, especially when they're younger, it's more likely to stick. So I remember the first time when we butchered chickens and my daughter was absolutely mortified and how disgusted she was.
44:46And she was a teenager and I remember her saying, that is so gross. I'm going to McDonald's. I said, Hannah, do you know where their stuff comes from? I don't care, I'm going there. And she was just so grossed out by it. So, you know, I think back to that and how exposure to things like that, now when my kids are younger and for them to have the appreciation that an animal is giving its life up for us to eat.
45:14You know, and teaching them hard work, good work ethic. There's just so many benefits that this lifestyle provides for my children and for us. So it's exciting. I've got so many plans and this, I think talking about it kind of reignites some of those cause you know, you get kind of down and just kind of forget what your goals are. And so talking about it kind of reignites that.
45:43Yes, absolutely. The more you talk with people like me and your tribe of people who are into the things you're into, the more things pop in and you're like, why not? Why not try that? I say why not more now than I ever have in my whole life. Yes, might as well. Why not try it? The worst thing that happens is it doesn't work and we try something else. That's right. That's me and gardening. I'm going to try again for a fall garden. So, you know, I learned a lot.
46:12And it's just a learning curve, just like anything else is. Grownups have to learn it just like kids do. Yep, and the minute you stop learning, you might as well start digging the six foot grave because that's it. That's right. That is true. The more curious you are, the more you're willing to learn, the longer things last and the happier you are because you're feeding your brain. Absolutely, absolutely. All right, Crystal, I have really enjoyed this conversation.
46:40Do not leave me when I stop recording because I need your file to upload completely. I keep meaning to tell people that at the beginning and I keep forgetting. Oh no. And thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm gonna go plug my phone up. All right, thanks. It was nice talking to you. Bye.
 

The Wild Midwest: Heritage Livestock and Native Plants

Today I'm talking with Kayla at The Wild Midwest: Heritage Livestock and Native Plants. You can follow 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 Kayla at the Wild Midwest Heritage Livestock and Native Plants. Good afternoon, Kayla. Hi, how are you doing? I'm okay. A little crazy, but good.
00:26I'm excited to talk to you because you're in Illinois and I'm in Minnesota and we're going to talk about native plants. We put in some native plants to Minnesota last summer in the middle of a drought and we forgot that we needed to pay attention to them and they died. I'm very excited to talk about native plants today. Tell me about yourself and what you do.
00:54the Wild Midwest, that is the business that I own and operate. And so it's currently a side hustle. And I also have a full-time job with a company called Canopy Farm Management, where I work in regenerative and restorative agriculture, especially as it pertains to tree crops and agroforestry. So my two gigs are kind of, they go together well.
01:24I actually love that I've talked to a couple people in the last two months that have the same kind of symbiotic relationship with their jobby job or their career and their side hustle as it were. Yeah. I mean, do you want me to expand on like the business a little bit? The business that is your side thing, not your job? Yeah. I want to know how you came to doing this actually.
01:54Okay. So I have my undergraduate degree in animal sciences and I knew that I wanted to do something that was helpful in terms of like conservation of biodiversity and like creating healthy habitats. So I ended up pursuing my master's degree in landscape architecture and during that time
02:24studying more and more with the intention of trying to figure out how we can live in the world a little bit more harmoniously with the other species that are here as well. I stumbled upon how important native plants were to that whole process. So it became...
02:46sort of a huge passion of mine, I started attending the Illinois Native Plant Society gatherings and hikes. And I had a seasonal position at the Champaign County Forest Preserve where I got to meet a lovely botanist who helped me learn a ton about the native plants to specifically Champaign County. And it just sort of became...
03:15I just sort of became completely consumed by it. I started growing my own plants when I was still in grad school. And I think it was 2018 when I grew my first couple hundred plants and had a couple of design projects on the side with some acquaintances and friends. And then it's kind of just grown from there. I graduated in 2020 and
03:43Due to COVID, it was pretty difficult to find another job. So I did have about close to a year of just working on this business and getting it spun up before I did get other full-time jobs. My full-time job I've been in now for not quite a year yet. So, I mean, I would love to.
04:10work on the nursery full time and that is the eventual goal. But it's pretty, nurseries in particular are pretty high overhead businesses to run and they're pretty difficult to get off the ground because they just take so much infrastructure and investment. So yeah, we're still very much in the building phase of the business to try to give it some legs.
04:39you put yourself into starting a business. And many, many people did.
04:48Yeah, absolutely. And kind of out of necessity for a lot of us. Yeah. We moved in 2020 so we could start our farm to market garden and see what we could do with that. That's what we did. And my husband has a jobby job and he comes home and he putters in the garden and he does the farmer's market on Saturday and we sell stuff in the farm stand on the property. We did the same thing too. And it was time. It was time for that to happen.
05:19I keep saying that COVID was terrible, horrible for so many people, but amazing for people who didn't lose anyone they loved and who didn't get sick themselves because it gave us time that we didn't have before to think about what we were doing and how we were doing it. Yeah. It was definitely bittersweet in that regard because for me personally, it certainly gave me some challenges.
05:48debt burden and not having a full-time job was pretty challenging. And thankfully I have my husband who supported me during that time. But yeah, I don't think I, the business would not be as far as it is today if I hadn't have had that time to just solely focus on it. Yep, exactly. So I'm guessing you're probably in your 20s? I'm actually, I mean, my...
06:1630s. So I'm 33 this year. All right. So did you go to school later than after you graduated high school? I took, it took me about five and a half years to get my undergraduate degree because I maintained a couple of part-time jobs during that time. And then I took a year off between
06:43I took a couple years off between undergrad and grad school. I had a full-time job at that time. And then, yeah, then I went back to school. I needed a little bit of time to sort of figure out what I wanted my master's degree to be in. Yeah, because that's a huge decision. I don't blame you at all. And also, I commend you for taking on the weight of the student loans because...
07:11I, if I was graduating high school right now, I don't know that I would feel comfortable doing that at all. My daughter is 34 and she went to school for two years to get a general bachelor's degree, BS degree, something, just to get her core classes out of the way. And I don't even talk to her about whether she's ever going to go back to school because all she does is cry because she's still paying off those loans.
07:39So I don't say anything about college ever to her because the first time I asked her was like two years after she'd gotten the degree that she went for. And I said, so you're gonna go on and pursue something with this? And she started crying immediately. And I said, why are you crying? And she said, because I'm going to be paying off this money for the rest of my life. And I'm probably never gonna work in a field where it's going to apply anyway. She said, I am so upset about all of it.
08:10And I said, I will never ask you again. She said, thank you, mom. I appreciate it. So it's hard. It's, I feel like it is so much harder for people now. And even, I don't know, 20 years ago from 20 years ago till now to get a college degree, because it's so freaking expensive. It's ridiculous. I hate everything about it.
08:36I know, I need to. Okay, now that I've said that, now I've said all that, I always have to tell that story because it just made me so sad for my kid that she was that distraught about her student loans. So tell me what you do regarding the native plants and the stuff that you do. Yeah, so my day-to-day kind of looks, it's a lot of plant care, just keeping the plants alive all.
09:03Throughout all the changing seasons, they all have their own challenges with the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter. Spring and fall are definitely my most favorable growing season times. Right now in high summer, it's a lot of just constantly checking on plants. Sometimes I'm having to water two to three times a day.
09:29And then other than that, it's a lot of, you know, just it's running a small business, keeping the website updated, keeping social media updated, doing social media marketing, making sure Google business listing is up to date and organizing plant sales, reaching out to other small businesses to see if we can collaborate in, you know, any number of ways.
09:56I also do take on design clients and consultation clients. So I'll do one-off consultations where I'll go out to people's yards and they have an hour of my time and they can ask me questions. And then I'll provide a write-up based with my recommendations and some suggested resources for them. So that's kind of our lowest service tier all the way up to me fully designing a property and giving the person.
10:23the plan and then we also will go in and install and maintain those designs as well. Super cool. Do you love it? Do you love doing that, that part? I do. Yeah. I mean, and I actually do like enjoy the social media marketing as well. And you know, I enjoy all of it, but at the same time, it's a ton of work and I'm just get tired.
10:52Well, yes, I can understand that because it's physical work and it's brain work. Whichever side you're working on, you're exercising one part of you or the other part of you or both at the same time and it's a lot. It's a lot for someone in their 30s. It's a lot for someone in their 50s. I couldn't do it. I don't want to do it. I think that people like you are amazing and I'm going to stay in my lane and learn from you guys from what you're doing. Yeah. I do feel like I'm crazy.
11:22a little crazy sometimes. Darlyn, we all are in our own special ways. Everybody is a little bit loopy now and then. So it's okay. You can be crazy. I cheer you on in your insanity. Enjoy. Thank you. Okay. So when you go and do the consults, do people actually take your advice and keep up with whatever it was that you helped them figure out? Or do they just kind of...
11:52Like it was a thing when they asked you to come, but then they realized what they need to do and they're like, eh, I don't want to do that. Or are they actually committed to continuing? I get a mixture of both. I think a lot of people, a big part of my consultations and just my work with clients in general is trying to encourage people to.
12:17Decrease the size of projects that they start and that they work on so I recommend I like to recommend a hundred square feet is a pretty reasonable size for a person who has you know, maybe a full-time job, but a little bit of free time to install and maintain on their own in a single season So a lot of my work is just trying to get people to decrease
12:46the size of projects that they're working on. Cause that's where people get in trouble is they take on a project that's way too big, it gets overwhelming and then they wanna quit because it's not fun anymore and it's just a constant struggle. And there are a good number of people who do take my advice and are super appreciative. And like I just recently went back and saw one that I did a consultation for a couple years ago and their front yard,
13:15beautiful. I was so happy to see all of like, they had totally redone an entire corner of their front yard with all native plants and it was gorgeous. And then I have some other people that you know, I visited them a year or two ago and I've come back and you know, they've just done a few things that we talked about. But almost everybody makes at least a little bit of forward progress. Okay.
13:43I was just wondering because I talked to some people on the East Coast for an interview a while ago. And what they do is they go in and they help people start gardens in their yards, even if it's just a small yard. And they do a lot with raised beds because that's their specialty. And when I asked the couple how they came to doing this, the husband said that...
14:09They would get asked questions all the time about how to start a garden in a small yard or a half acre yard, whatever. They would just out of the goodness of their hearts go and talk to people and teach them and tell them. They would go back to visit and nobody ever did anything. But the minute they started charging for their services, people took it seriously and they would go back and visit and people would have done the work and have these beautiful raised bed gardens. The guy says,
14:37It's almost like when you put hard-earned money into something, you might want to get something out of that money you spent. And I just laughed. I thought it was very astute of him to say that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I do charge for my consultations. I pretty jealously guard my time because there's not a lot of it. And I want to work with the clients who value me enough to pay me. Now I do some things for free. Like I'll do...
15:06If somebody sends me some pictures and like a rough square footage, I'll like give them a list of plant recommendations or if I've worked with somebody before and they just have a couple quick questions, I'll do like a phone call and talk to them for free. But yeah, otherwise I've gotten pretty strict about charging for my time. Good, because your time is money. You need to be paid for your brilliance. Thank you. Yes.
15:35Okay, so I have questions about native plants because I'm guessing that a lot of the stuff that's native in Illinois is probably commonly native in Minnesota. Like I assume that you guys have native coneflower and I guess it's called bee balm. You guys have that in Illinois? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We bought some from people who had it growing in their yard. They...
16:04They are gardeners. They are really good at what they do. And they work in agriculture. And they do a plant sale every year from their property. So we bought some bee balm and some coneflower and some prairie something. I can't remember what it's called, but it's very pretty. And we put it in on our property. And it was during a drought two years ago. And promptly,
16:32forgot that, oh gee, we might want to go check on those and water them. Didn't water them and they died because we were dumb. I should have been on my husband about it and I am not the one who gardens. So I didn't think to say, Hey, have you checked those plants we put in? My question is, is if we had put them in and actually paid attention to them and watered them, they should have done fine because they grow everywhere here. Wild. They are basically weeds.
17:02So I'm assuming if we'd done the things we should have done they would have grown and spread and we would have lots by now
17:10Yeah, absolutely. So that care during establishment is, there's a couple reasons that projects commonly fail. One is not an adequate care during the first season post-establishment. And if it's a drought year, then you're probably looking at having to water them for basically until the first frost and maybe even a little bit the next spring if it ends up being a dry spring.
17:39And then the other one, the other common reason for failure is not good weed management. So these plants are tough and they can take care of themselves, but they do need a little bit of a head start, which I recommend for the first week post planting, watering every day. The next week, watering every other day. The next week, go down to twice a week. Then following week, you can start once a week and stay at once a week.
18:09until you either get good natural rains or the plants go dormant. So I actually really like planting in fall because that means as long as you plant early enough for the plants, you know, probably about six to eight weeks before the first frost, so they have enough time to sink some roots down, you have to water way less than if you do a spring installation because then you have to water all summer long.
18:38Yes, and had I been thinking about any of this in a clear-headed way at the time that we did it, I would have done it differently now that I know that, oh, if you don't water plants they die. And I knew this, but I just, I don't know, for some reason it just didn't click that just because they grow everywhere doesn't mean that when you rip them out of the ground and then you put them in the ground in a different place, they're going to need some care. Duh. I'm actually not.
19:07stupid about gardening. We had so much going on, we just completely forgot about them, which sounds terrible. I feel like we murdered plants and that's just sad. I have to, I myself can't even tell you the number of plants that have died under my care. It's just maybe a tray is just out of reach of the sprinkler and I didn't realize it for a couple days and the whole thing crisps out.
19:36Or, you know, I've planted things that are especially early on when I was doing a lot of experimentation in our own yard that just weren't right for the soil conditions or the sun conditions. So unfortunately, you know, you don't want them to die, they're living things and that kind of feels yucky. But on some level, you kind of do have to kill a fair number of plants to become a good gardener, which I feel like you're probably familiar with.
20:07It's kind of like you got to kiss a lot of frogs to get to a prince. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Well, we did. We murdered a hundred dollars worth of plants and I was upset about it and then I was like, you know what? We can try it again a year or two from now when we're not quite as swamped with everything else going on. And I think that's going to be next summer. I actually will probably get some plants in end of August versus September.
20:34you know, native plants and put them in and that way we only have to worry about them for about a month and a half. So, it'll be fine. Yeah. Well, and you know what? It's interesting because I run into that a lot where people think because they're natives, they don't require as good of site prep or as good of establishment care. And I also see this with seed mixes. People are like,
20:58Oh, they're wildflowers. I'll just throw them out in the grassy area and they'll take over. Well, no, they're not going to be able to compete with established grass as seedlings. So like site prep is another really important piece that gets missed a lot. It's so interesting that you bring that up. We wanted to put in two small wildflower gardens and not the native flowers, just wildflower gardens.
21:28My husband was thinking that he would just throw the seeds in. And I said, no, no, no, no. I need you to actually get the tractor with the tiller and till out the spaces. And he said, but they're wildflowers. And I said, yes, they are wildflowers. That doesn't mean they can compete with everything that's there already. Plus, how are the seeds going to get down in the dirt? There's a ton of grass there. And he was like, oh, oh, yeah.
21:53He said, you know, you're actually better at this than I am. I said, I'm better at the thinking through it. Usually I said, you're good at the hard work. We're a good team that way. And he just laughed. He said, yeah, cause you don't have to beat yourself up to get your wildflower garden. I said, no, but I have to redirect you from not getting it started in the first place. We have a very fun relationship and he's really good. When he's kind of poking me and I poke him back, I think he wants me to poke back just because it's fun.
22:23So we have a good thing going. But anyway, we did till it up and we did do the putting the stuff in the dirt the way it said to on the package. And some of them required winter stratification. So we knew that some of the flowers wouldn't come up the first spring. It would be the second spring. And this is the second spring and those gardens are so, so pretty. They all came up, they're great. So.
22:50not a total idiot when it comes to gardening, just have terrible moments where I go, oh, I did not do that right. Yeah. And yeah, we all have those for sure. Yeah. So in your business name, the part of it is Heritage Livestock. What's the story with that? Yeah. So that's, that's sort of room that I left myself for expansion. We are looking at
23:18potentially moving to some property that our family owns and leasing it. It's about 120 acres. Um, and so part of, part of like reintegrating humans in biology in a healthy way, um, is absolutely agriculture and like incorporating.
23:45biodiversity and native species and appropriate livestock all together in the same space. And that's kind of where my day job especially fits in really beautifully with this. So right now we have, since we live in town, we do live in an area that has pretty lax legislation around poultry. So we have
24:12flock of Welsh Harlequin ducks with three separate bloodlines that I'm working on crossbreeding. My goal is a duck that is like the ideal small farm duck so they can incubate their eggs and raise their babies themselves. They are good layers, they're good foragers, and they are halfway decent table birds, the boys especially.
24:43Yeah, my ducks are, so, you know, we have a fairly small yard, but to the extent that we're able, we do rotate them around our different prairie areas within the yard. And so we incorporate our ducks with our native plants and we get eggs from them and we harvest the boys and I will sell some of the excess girls to other people. And that's something that I want to expand with more people, more species of animals
25:13as the nursery grows, utilizing animals to help me manage spaces because animals will work all day long just for the price of being able to have good food and shelter in terms of weeding and managing plants for you, especially if you are really careful about good fencing and things like that. So I'm really interested in how animals can help me manage my space and how I could share that with other people.
25:42Okay, I have to ask, are you going to get goats so they can keep whatever brush you have trimmed back? I might get goats. I probably would get sheep first. Okay. Just wondering, I have talked with so many people about goats on this podcast and I say that like I'm sick of it. And I'm not actually sick of it because I learned something different from every person that has.
26:08goats or sheep or cows or horses or whatever animal they have. But goats are the big thing from my podcast because most people who are into homesteading either have goats, have had goats, or are thinking about getting goats. So that's why I asked. I have a different question. I have a question about your ducks. If you get ducks as ducklings, do they like
26:35imprint on you and are they friendlier? Can you handle them easier if you need to pick them up? Because our chickens are ridiculous. We did not get them as babies and they fly the run all the time and we have to clip their wing, one wing, so they can't fly out of the run. And they don't like being picked up and they don't listen because chickens do not understand human language. And it's just a total pain in the ass to catch them to clip that one wing. So
27:04Are ducks different or are they kind of the same as chickens? They are, so this, they're quieter. In terms of like temperament, they're usually quieter than chickens. Now I also have a fairly docile breed, which I chose intentionally. There are some duck breeds that are pretty high strung. But they, in order to imprint, you have to get them like...
27:30essentially right after they come out of the egg, which is difficult when you buy from breeders or hatcheries, you know, with the shipping and the transport process. They usually are two to three days old by the time that they get to you. Okay. Yeah. Now, I do spend a lot of time with them as babies, so they're pretty accustomed to my presence and I can catch them. They don't love it, but they don't beat me up quite like my chickens used to when I had to handle them.
28:00Yep, I don't love chickens. I have said this a few times already on the podcast. And the only reason we have chickens is because I love fresh eggs. I love the fact that we have day old eggs at any point in time while we have the chickens. And eggs right from the coop in the pan scrambled taste amazing. Yeah. So that's why we have chickens. My husband on the other hand thinks chickens are great. He thinks that it's a riot to.
28:27get earthworms out of the garden and throw them in the run and chickens lose their minds. He thinks they're fun. I don't love chickens and I've never had ducks so I don't know if I would like ducks or not. And not really all that important. I was just curious about the difference in temperament between chickens and ducks. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, certainly we enjoy them more than the chickens. And so one thing
28:56They do have high water needs in terms of, you know, you might not, you don't always necessarily have to provide them with swimming water, but they at least need to dock their heads fully so that they could clear out their sinuses. And they love, they need clean water and they are really good about making water dirty. So it's constantly managing their water, but that's actually a pro for us because
29:23we take that dirty water and fertilize our nursery stock with it. Um, and so, you know, we are, it's kind of combining two things that way. Yes. I, I, some of the stuff that I love the most about homesteading and about talking with you guys is all the dual purpose and the full circle situations that come up. Absolutely. It, I do this thing.
29:51with my house where I try to practice no wasted motion. So if I see something in the living room and I'm headed toward the kitchen and the thing belongs in the kitchen, I grab the thing out of the living room and put it in the kitchen. Or if I'm going downstairs and I notice that there's dirty clothes on the floor from the night before, they go downstairs with me. So I don't remember 20 minutes later and have to come back up to get them. No wasted motion as often as I can do. And I feel like it's a thing.
30:18that people who are into agriculture, livestock, homesteading, crafting things, whatever, they all just innately do it. They just notice it and go, oh, this makes things easier and it's a natural follow through. So why not do it that way? Yeah. So I love that. I think it's great. Yeah. And I feel like finding those little opportunities is also super fun. Yeah.
30:44It's always funny when you finally notice something that correlates to something else and you put it together in your brain and your brain goes, oh, that's why that works that way. I have this happen to me all the time, the older I get, and I have it happen with words a lot of the time. There are words that are two words that got put together at some point in the past to make the new word. And it doesn't click for me until...
31:12I was this many days old when I realized the thing about the word. And every time it happens, I'm like, God, I'm an idiot. I've been reading for years. I love words. How did I not know those two things ended up together to make that word? And I feel like it's the same moment when you realize the correlation in your work or your hobbies or your life or whatever it is.
31:35It's just this light bulb that pops on and you go, oh, I'm so dumb, I should have known that. I should have noticed that before. Yeah. So, okay, so basically your whole life is about
31:54gardening and regenerative practices and making things work the way they originally worked in nature. Really, that's what it sounds like. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's awesome. I think that's a beautiful way to live your life. Thank you. You're welcome. And that's about it. I try to keep you to half an hour and we're at 32 minutes. So Kayla, thank you for your time and talking with me.
32:23Absolutely. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Bye.
 

Hog Trap Herb & Flower Farm

Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Hog Trap Herb & Flower Farm.
 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 Jennifer at Hog Trap Herb and Flower Farm, I think is the name of it. I'm sorry, I got stuck there for a second. Good morning, Jennifer, how are you? I'm wonderful, how are you? I'm good. You're in Texas?
00:29Yes, we are actually in an odd spot. We're in south Texas and we're not really central Texas. We are south of Austin and east of San Antonio. So we're in a non-regional area. So we call it south central Texas. Okay, well I'm in Minnesota and it is like seven, it's not even 70 degrees yet
00:59And the reason I say this is because we have had the wettest, most miserable spring and early summer ever. So I'm so excited that it's gorgeous out today. Yes, yes, that it helps. But we've had rain, but we've had more storms this year, which has really impacted us a lot a bit. Yeah. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Okay, so I am actually a Texas transplant. I grew up along the Mississippi River.
01:28Mississippi and Arkansas, lived in DC for 10 years and moved down here to Texas. And then married a cowboy down here and we live on a fifth-generational ranch. We do raise cattle, but we also have some areas to the side where I do some farming for our herbs and flowers. I'm a grandparent.
01:57and we have a whole bunch of kids and I'm actually transitioning back into teaching and we're pretty active in our community and just outreach and just we stay busy. We really love living life to the fullest and we are constantly always adding to our busy schedules. Very nice, so my first question.
02:23is I saw on your Facebook page that you have the apparatus to distill your own oils from herbs. What is that called? Oh, I am so excited. So that's kind of a new addition and it's kind of, I've learned to diversify a lot doing this type of work. And so it is a still, it's a distillery. So instead of making moonshine, we're filling a set of stills from raw material.
02:52Oddly enough, I watched it on a TikTok and I thought, you know what, that seems really easy to do. And I purchased it probably about two months ago and I'm already looking to upgrade to a larger device. And so it's something I've really enjoyed in the spirit. It seems like it could be overwhelming, but it's very, very simple.
03:19to use and it's just another avenue for us to get our product out into the market. Okay, the reason I asked is because I didn't know if it was called a still because I thought maybe it had a different name because stills are associated with alcohol. Yes. So no, it's a distiller. So what it does is I use depending on what I'm trying to get from the product. It uses steam and so on the it uses a bottom heat which of course
03:48heats the water and uses the steam that goes up into a column, which then produces either the essential oil in the beginning and then it slowly turns up the hydrosol, which is basically just scented water at that point. You can use it that way or you can just use it for hydrosol and that's when you would just put the material directly into the boiling water and the steam would rise and you would get more of the hydrosol that way.
04:17Okay, so how much essential oil do you get from like one batch of doing this? Because I'm assuming it's pretty small. It is very small. So it all depends on the, it has, if you have a high quality product or if it's dry material will help, will kind of affect the average, I guess, what you get from it.
04:46So if I use dry lavender buds, for instance, I could probably use...
04:56almost a pound and I may get one mil of essential oil. Wow. And how long does it take? Oh, it takes about... So for the essential oil process, you want to grab that first 30 to 40 minutes of the oil. After that, it kind of depletes. It's kind of... Not its pureness, but the aroma effect of it.
05:21But the remaining time, the other two and a half hours, you're going to get your hydrosol from that. And the longer that it kind of distills, the less quality of a product because it kind of goes away after time. So for the most potent part of the whole process, it's going to be the earlier the better. I usually cut everything about two hours. And I usually get about a quart of hydrosol.
05:51You could go longer, but it's not as potent as you do the initial batch that you get. Okay, so what do you use the hydrosol in? What do you use it for? Oh, there's a few different ways you can use hydrosol. You can add witch hazel. So if you're doing a lavender or even a rose, if you go to like department stores and beauty supply, you'll see a lot of the rose water.
06:18And sometimes they'll put like witch hazel in there and use it as a toner for your skin. I also do it, the lavender, and the lavender will help with like inflammation on the skin. This is a safer avenue for smaller children too, because you have to be careful about using the oils on children, but this, because of the water content, is safer for the children. And then you can just also,
06:47We'll take the hydrosol and we'll add pure grain alcohol as a preservative and you can use it as a room spray or to spray on your linens, just to freshen the air in the car. And then you also just have the regular hydrosol with nothing in it that you can actually use as a culinary. If you wanted to add something to a liquor or to...
07:15a mocktail or something, you can use that. Because it's just, it's basically you're catching the smell of the herb or whatever material you have. It's like a flavored water without adding like sugars and all those other things too. Super cool. I didn't know anything about that. But it is, it's, there's so many avenues to, to go down the whole distilling process. It's really interesting.
07:44This is why I love this podcast. I learned something new every single interview. It makes me so freaking happy. Okay, so I wanted to know about the still because I thought about getting one too and then I saw how much they cost and I thought maybe not right now. So what kind of herbs do you grow? What varieties? Oh, so we, I grow everything from your basic.
08:08I say culinary herbs just because people know them for cooking only. They don't realize there's like herbal benefits, medicinal benefits to those herbs too, but I grow everything from your basic rosemary's to basils, different types of basils, oregano's and whatnot. And I even grow things that are a little bit harder to find that aren't familiar with people like
08:36whorehounds and we do motherwort here. It's really a variety. Whatever will grow in Texas, I try to grow. And trust me, I have been through the ups and downs of growing herbs in Texas. So I think I've kind of pinpointed what's working. But we also do the floral, like the calendula, which is a great source for different properties and benefits for venus and oil uses too. So.
09:06Okay. Um, so are we talking acres of herb plants or are we talking not acres? Acres would be wonderful, but unfortunately with irrigation, there's always that problem. So I really kind of concentrate on, um, raised beds, but it's in a large area. So we'll do it around, we do it around the house and the house sits on about five acres. So maybe.
09:36We're looking about maybe about a half an acre to three fourths of an acre total for everything that's spread out around the house. Yeah, I'd love to get to that point. I did have, I did have for the first three summers we were here, this is the fourth summer, an herb garden that was like, I would say 15 feet by 15 feet. And it was packed with time.
10:05sage and chives and lemon grass and lemon verbena and a bunch of stuff. And it was gorgeous. And we, I dried a whole lot of it for the winter. And then my husband was like, I'm going to till your herb garden in. And I said, I said, you're going to what? And he said, I'm going to till your herb garden in. And I said, why? He said, because I want to start over. He said, the weeds are really getting bad in there. And
10:34He's the gardener, I'm not, so I don't actually take care of the herb garden, he does. And he said, I want to start over. And I said, okay, so can I give you a list and we start over? He said, yes, you can, as long as I can till it under. I said, okay. So that was the plan. And then this spring, it rained and rained and rained and rained. So there is no herb garden in the big garden now. The herbs are in the greenhouse and they're doing okay. We had our first batch of...
11:04however you say it, bruschetta or bruschetta last night with our basil. And it was delicious. So they're doing really well in the greenhouse. Yeah, we just opened a new greenhouse. My husband built it. And so we do start our own seeds here. We order from one company and they are heirloom seeds. So.
11:31We, it's great because you get such a different variety that I think people get stuck in the rut of what they know and they don't venture outside a different species of that plant. Um, like basil, yes, we all know Genovese basil, but a lot of people don't know about Thai basil. And so- And cinnamon basil. So we, I tried to kind of introduce that to the community. Um, and we do that through-
12:00markets and then we also we open the greenhouse and we have like a farm store we sell our products that we make as well as seedlings and starts and stuff but I like to kind of open and show them that you can look outside that species and find something that that may taste a little different that grows maybe a little bit different and just kind of educate them outside the box I guess kind of learning.
12:29Yes, I love that. When people ask us about the stuff we cook with, I'm like, what stuff in particular? Do you mean herbs? Do you mean spices? Do you mean what kind of beef do we get? What do you mean? And a lot of time I get, I don't know as the answer. I'm like, oh, okay. Do you want the long story or the short story? And usually it's a short story. So speaking of basil, we picked up a basil plant.
12:59years ago. I don't remember the variety but it had big leaves and they were like crinkly almost like um like parsley crinkly. I don't know what it was does this ring any bells for you? It doesn't ring a bell but I would be interested that I when we're done here I'm definitely going to be researching that and seeing what type of basil that was because um that sounds very
13:29Tasted does it have a flavor that's distinct from the other basils or it just tasted like regular old? Genovese basil, but it was so beautiful So, I don't know what it was and I think it was a variegated color I think it was green and like a little bit of gold. Oh, so I don't know but it was really pretty and it was great And it did Fantastic like it got huge. Oh, well So I've been trying to find it since and have not seen it since
13:59And the other thing that I was going to say about people stick with the varieties that they know, I didn't think we could grow lemongrass in Minnesota. And they had it for sale at a nursery. And I was like, well, let's try it. The worst that happens is it dies. And lemongrass does really well as long as it's in full sun all day and we get some hot weather in the summer. Yeah. It's funny what...
14:25This is what I like to tell people. They ask me, well, what will grow well here? Well, pay attention when you go to the nurseries and to these big box stores. They're not gonna sell stuff that won't grow well in the area. You can sit down and you can look at your, you know, your county extension list and get that information too. But when you're wandering around, be kind of mindful of the plants that they're selling because why would they carry something that's not gonna sell? So that's another avenue.
14:53Like when you're out, say, oh, like you said, I wonder, I didn't think it would grow here. Well, they wouldn't sell it there if they didn't, if it wouldn't grow there. So I think people are like, I don't want to kill another plant. So they're scared to kind of do something different, but it's all, I'm a hands-on learner, so it's, it's experimental and learning about that plant in the process. Um, but yeah, we, uh, we grow lemongrass here as well.
15:21And one of the distinctions you were talking about growing in full sun, one thing that I tell my customers, full sun and Texas full sun here are two different things. And so you have to really have that understanding and experiment. I say plant it in a pot first, move it around, see whether it likes the best and plant it there. Doesn't always have to be so landscaped. It's where it's going to do the best. Yes. And the other thing in the paying attention vein here,
15:51is if you're going to buy fruit plants, I'm not, we're not talking about fruit plants today, but it's important. Make sure that you know whether you need to get different varieties of the plant so it will pollinate because my husband bought cherry plants last year and he didn't get a different variety. He got two of the cherry, the winter hardy sweet cherries that will grow in Minnesota. And I was like,
16:19They're related to apples. They're going to need another variety. And we ended up having to buy a Rainier cherry tree because that was the one that was recommended to cross pollinate. I don't know if you know anything about cherry trees, but Rainiers are one of the most expensive saplings to buy. Yeah, that was fun. Um, I, I, I love him. I love him. He's a great guy, but.
16:47He loves gardening, but he doesn't love the research. So I end up doing the research. That's my job. Yeah, it's a learning opportunity. That's why it works, right? Yep. So I understand that you grow herbs and you grow flowers. So do you, and you're distilling the oils from the herbs. So do you make things with that? So yeah, again, we make the essential oils with it, but
17:16So we kind of refocused our whole agenda, I guess, this year. And I want to concentrate on being a little bit more of a supplier to homemakers that do the soaps and that do more homemade items and be a supplier that way, because they already understand the importance of having good, high quality products to put into their product.
17:43And I just find in general public when we do the markets and stuff, sometimes it's more about, oh, well, I can get it cheaper on Amazon or, you know, I can go down to Walmart and get the same thing. So with the oils, we're just really trying to focus on building our inventory so that we can be that supplier for other homes setters and other people that are interested in that field.
18:12But also, you know, the products that we make ourselves is we make like the salves and we make the lip balms and we make the candles and stuff with those as well. So I'm not a big soap maker. I can never figure it out. I just, you know, there's just things I just can't do in life and that's one of them for me. So I like just being the outlet for people to come and purchase, purchase just raw materials like that as well. Nice.
18:42You were saying that people say they can buy the same thing at Walmart or Amazon for cheaper. It is not the same thing. That's your correct. All right. And so we, I try to go into that education part of it, but you lose people very quickly when they're just looking for like a fast grab and go that aren't interested in really learning about, um, what goes behind creating a high quality product. And that's okay. Cause not everybody's into.
19:12into that aspect of it. So that's why we kind of diversified a little bit and looking at the market being a little bit more of a supplier than the direct sales to the customer. Yep, for sure. Well, I have listeners who do wanna know about why it's not the same. And I would be happy to share my experience about why it's not the same. We do, we make soap, we make lip balms, we make candles. And...
19:41I did order some essential oils from Amazon. I did not get any at Walmart, but I used to get essential oils at Walmart years ago. And it is not the same. They don't smell like they're supposed to. Unless it's somebody who actually does this as a business, it's not the same. Factory produced is not the same. And we had a batch of soap that just crumbled as it cured.
20:09because the oil that we used was not good. And it's expensive to make soap. And we were out probably about $50. And I looked at my husband and I said, no more. No more, we are finding a reputable place to order our essential oils from and our fragrance oils from because this is not okay. Right, it is about the quality. I have found, I did a lot of research, you know, when you get the more commercial,
20:37made oils and stuff. It's not always that oil. There's additives in there. There's like scent boosters. They add things to those, which does affect the quality of the product that you're making as well, like you said, with your soap. So my name is on it. The person that I'm selling to that's making the soap, her name is on that. And they're going to tell that consumer that, oh, well, I know I get my oils from hog traps.
21:06I want it to be a positive that's attached to our name. I don't want it to be a negative. So quality is extremely important when it comes to our products. Absolutely. I would put a word in the middle of absolutely and lutely, but I'm not gonna do it. So why is it hog trap? So I wish that I really had this great, funny, whimsical story that.
21:32to tell you, like I wrestled a wild hog over the land or something like that. But honestly, this is my husband's family's ranch and where we put our house, there used to be a hog trap there and that's it. Well, that's okay. Oh, wonderful, cool story. Like I was attacked by a wild hog or, you know, I killed him with my bare hands sort of deal.
22:01We need to make one up to really entertain people But it's something as simple as we took the hog trap down and we put our house and we're like, hey, let's just call it hog trap So let's go Sometimes the most obvious thing is is the right thing You should you should make up a story a legend about hog trap I'm thinking we like that. Yeah, like that like the ghost hog that comes at night or something like that I think we should we should definitely do do something like that
22:29That would be fun and funny and you could be like in, you know, a little tiny fine print. You could print the story out and fine print at the bottom, be like, this is not a true story, but it's funny. Exactly. I think that might be another avenue that we can go down, you know. Why not? Anything to market what you're doing that is positive is a great thing. Well, it's definitely an attention getter because we'll be at a market sometimes and even the guys will walk past us, a hog trap, because it's...
22:59They're thinking, oh, trapping hogs because it's a big thing here. And that kind of makes them stop and kind of read the rest of my sign. And they're like, oh, okay. You're not selling hog traps, selling girl stuff, you know, or whatever. Girl stuff. Yeah. Then the wives are coming over like, why are you in here? And they're like, oh, you know, yeah, it definitely draws attention. I got suckered in honey. Come look at your girl stuff. No, I know that happens a lot.
23:29Uh-huh. So what flowers do you grow? So we grow most of everything I grow to be a dual purpose. So it's it's pretty, but it's also edible or medicinal in some way. So we grow a lot of calendula, which we make a lot of things with those. And then lots of yarrow because I use those in arrangements as well. Sunflowers, which we.
23:56like the seeds and then I have my non-dual ones, more like the zinnias, which do really well here, the cosmos and we do grow snapdragons seasonally. And when I make my bouquets, I use those flowers, but I also add herbs into it as well. So you're kind of getting the whole, just a little bit of everything that we grow here.
24:22Yes, herbs make bouquets smell so good. I put together something last year and I threw some basil in it. Oh, yeah. And when I gave the bouquet to the person that came for the CSA pickup, I was like, if you run your hands through the basil, it will make the house smell good along with the other flowers. And she was like, really? And I said, yep. I said, and your hands will smell like basil for the day too. And she was like, oh, okay.
24:49Absolutely, kind of provides a little bit of aroma therapy. So if you throw a couple of twigs of rosemary in there, which I adore rosemary, um, and you just brush against it and you smell it, you know, it's a, it's a kind of aroma therapy, you know, uh, effect on you as well. And I don't think people think, uh, herbs as being part of a bouquet because they only see the greenery, but they do flower out like the, the basil will flap.
25:18Most of it will and so it does provide another kind of beauty about the herb to it as well. Yes, basil flowers remind me of little tiny orchids. They're really, really pretty. I had a question and then I got thinking about the flowers on basils and I forgot my question because this is what I do because I'm a terrible journalist. What was it? I don't know what it was now. So do you love what you do?
25:48I adore it. So I'll give you a kind of reason why we started it kind of really in 2016. Very, very small. And then of course, over COVID, because I was teaching at the time, a lot of time on my hands, I kicked it into overdrive. But my mother also come down with cancer. So I moved her in to take care of her. And so our whole
26:16little farm, my little herbal and flower farm is based off healing. And so while taking care of my mom and passing my mom passing away, I kind of have this area out by the house where a lot of the herbs are and I call it the healing garden. I don't think people understand how much you can heal not just by medicinally with herbs, but in flowers, but just being in nature period.
26:46And so my mom kind of just started that with me. And so we have our little ashes actually buried out there. So when we do classes, I'll take the plants out and we sit at an herb box and we sit at a flower box and you're looking at the dirt, you're looking at the bugs in the dirt, you're connecting back to nature and it's very mindfulness based. You're touching the plant, you're watching the plant flow in the breeze.
27:16And we're all right there centered around this big magnolia where my mom is buried. And so it's it's we are motto is healing with nature and really in all aspects of it, whether it's medicinal, where it's mindfulness, whether it's just seeing a beautiful bouquet of flowers that's making you feel good about yourself. That's what we center everything around. And I have found such an enormous positive feedback in little town in.
27:46in Texas where I have seen just an emergence of people really taking time from themselves and connecting back to nature and really enjoying the things that are around them. Awesome. I feel like nature gives you the opportunity to be in the moment they are in. Absolutely. And that's the only moment we have. Right. Is the moment that we're in right now. Absolutely.
28:15And we just take it for granted. We're such a disposable, fast-paced replacement. Let's go, go, go, multitask. A society, and what we don't realize is all of that that we put on ourselves when we're multitasking, we're wearing ourselves down emotionally, physically, and health-wise. And so it's hard for us to stop and smell the roses, in a way, because we feel like we're not accomplishing anything.
28:45in reality you are because you're taking care of yourself in a way. Yes, and with any luck the things that you're doing to take care of yourself and make your soul happy ends up helping other people too. Absolutely. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean I come across people all the time that they'll come up to me and we'll start this conversation and I tell them the story about...
29:13healing garden and herbs and stuff and they you can see their face kind of transform into you see the little light bulbs going off and you're like oh that's right oh maybe I should do that and that's they might not buy anything but I've planted that seed I've planted that kind of thing in their mind that um reconnecting with nature kind of going back to that childhood when you used to lay on the ground and make shades out of clouds you know take
29:43and reconnecting and to me the only way to do that is using nature. We just adore all that nature has to offer. Yes it is. It is like, it's like, I don't have a word, not Prozac, but it's anti-anxiety medicine that is completely natural. Yes, yes it is. But again it's hard for us to let down those expectations of things that we have to do
30:12complete, you know, there's other things that you can do too. And again, the self care, if gardening is your thing, you know, those are just as important as completing a work assignment. And, you know, being so stressed and all of this stuff, we just got to really kind of take it back in a little bit and reprioritize what's really important to us.
30:38Absolutely. Yesterday morning I was sitting on my porch looking out the window having my coffee and we have three cats right now. We have our male barn cat, we have our female barn cat, and we have our kitten. And the female barn cat is the mama to the kitten. And the kitten lost all his siblings to new homes. The last one went to a new home two weekends ago and he's about 15 weeks old now.
31:05He lost his friend he doesn't anybody play with so he's been trying to get mom to play And I was watching this little boy play with her tail yesterday And she kept batting at him like no no and then finally she gave up and just Plumped him to the ground and rolled him over and was playing with him like she was a kitten My heart felt so good watching that happen and that's nature. Yeah, that is they get it You know they get it so we need to get it. We are the we get
31:34in front of ourselves. We are our worst enemy sometimes because we have these unrealistic expectations and sometimes we just need to dial it back and just let things happen and uh remember while we're here you know and um but I love educating people about that and the mindfulness and being in with the plants and I have seen people really taking what we've taught in classes and stuff and now they're out.
32:03doing similar things. And it's, I love seeing those little seeds that I've planted kind of bloom into something that they were passionate about, but nobody told them it was okay to pursue. They needed that validation. And so I think they get that if you take the extra time and educate them a little bit and so show some support, then they, they can go off and kind of follow that.
32:31Yeah, I feel like people forget that they're growing too. It's not just plants that grow, people grow. Right, absolutely. So, I don't know, it's a very new agey kind of morning around here and I say that with the most respect ever because people are like new age stuff is so silly, it's not. But is it new age? I mean really, I think it's this is stuff that people did,
33:00to these, we went out to Big Bend for a vacation and toward the little ruins of pioneer villages and stuff. And when you step out the back door, right beside the back door, they had herb gardens, but they used it not for culinary, but also for medicinal stuff. I think people back then just appreciated time probably because they worked so hard. So I, you know, I
33:28In some ways there are a lot of new age things, but I think we're also getting back to more of the roots and stuff that our previous people have done here for hundreds of years. Yeah, I think that we're finally maybe getting a clue, some of us, about the fact that the old-fashioned ways and the new ways of doing things can meet up in the middle and be a beautiful thing. Absolutely. So, that's what I think this morning.
33:57Jennifer, I try to keep these to half an hour. Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me. I appreciate it. Yes, it was wonderful. Thank you so much. Have a fantastic day. You too.
 

Simply Rooted

Today I'm talking with Savannah at Simply Rooted. You can also follow on Facebook.
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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 Savannah at Simply Rooted. Good afternoon, Savannah. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. You're in Georgia? Yes. We are up in northern Georgia, very close to the North Carolina and Tennessee border.
00:29Is it warm there? It is warm. Occasionally we will be up in like the 90 degree area, but mostly we stay in like the mid to high 80s. So like on average all summer long? Yeah, I would say so. It definitely gets hotter as summer progresses and that our winters are pretty mild. It's funny like we're all the way up in like the mountains of Georgia, but we're
00:57technically a, I think it's called like a temperate rainforest here. So we do get a lot of rain in the winter time. Okay. Well, Minnesota, the summer can't make up its mind. What the hell it's doing. We were really, really cool over the weekend. I mean the high on Saturday, I think maybe got to 70. Wow. Maybe. And today it's really muggy and I think it's 75. And then, um, two weeks ago.
01:24it was hot and the humidity was high. It was just gross. So we never know what we're going to get here. It's like a box of cracker jacks. You never know what the prize is going to be. So anyway, tell me about yourself and what you do at Simply Rooted. Yes. So I actually started Simply Rooted back in April and it really started as a subscription box. I am actually by career a registered nurse.
01:53And so I work from home and I have my own company at home. I work with attorneys and I review their clients' medical records. But my husband and I, we have eight acres and we're very much into like the homesteading lifestyle, slow living type of thing. So I wanted to create a business kind of around this lifestyle because I'm so passionate about it. And I have a lot of our friends and family ask me,
02:22about what I do, how I got started. And so I decided to kind of create a subscription box for those who are interested in that more simple living, slow living type of lifestyle. And so it's a quarterly subscription box and it comes in January, April, July and October. And so it's mainly seasonal, but we include products from
02:50small businesses and small family-owned farms from other country. We put their products in our box and we usually shoot for about six to eight different products every quarter. They all kind of revolve around kind of like that home setting lifestyle, that simple living lifestyle. So, you know, we have non-toxic all-purpose cleaners, tallow body butter, tallow body soap. In this box, we have a peach jam.
03:17and we have some non-toxic mosquito repellent. In our last box, we had a homestead and cookbook. And so just kind of things like that, kind of to push people towards cooking from scratch, creating a non-toxic home, getting in their garden and planting different things to kind of really push you in that direction. So there's so many people like with prices today that they really, and like just the stress of everyday life and they really just wanna take it slower.
03:45and enjoy life and not have that stress that they have on a day to day basis. Okay. So I have a question. The in the subscription box is anything made by you or is it just from other crafters that you know? It's mainly from other crafters. We buy it through wholesale. We also have a couple of local people in our community that we get products from as well.
04:11And then something new that I'm going to add here in the future is have our subscribers send in people that they know in their community and we can feature products from someone in their hometown. Nice. So you're a curator of good things. Yes, definitely. Yep. Fun. I should consider that.
04:38I should think real hard about that because we do make stuff. We make lip balms and soaps and candles and whatever. And it's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. And I don't mind doing it. It's fine. But I like your idea better. Yeah. And it just gives a way to support the small businesses around the country. And a lot of these products you can't find on Amazon.
05:04That's kind of like the whole point of it too, is that they're not readily available. And so by supporting these small farms, small businesses, you're supporting their kids and their college fund and all those great things. And then you also get a benefit of it too, if you get these amazing products that are actually good for you. And they come from good ethical people who care about your health as well. Yeah, I love it. That's a fantastic idea. Thank you. So I saw.
05:33On your Facebook page, one of the latest posts, there's a candle and I can't think of the name of it right now, but I looked at the top and middle and bottom notes of it and all I want to do is wear it as a perfume. Those are some of my favorite scents. It smells so good. I am obsessed. I picked up the candles. It's actually from a family ran business here in my hometown and we have her candles in all of our boxes.
06:01I picked them up and I'm like, oh my gosh, these smell like they it might be one of my favorite candle scents like ever. What's the name of it again? I can't remember. It's called Golden Hour. That's it. Thank you. Yes. And that's a perfect name for it because that's what I would I would think of. But I love bergamot and I love musk and I love citrus and and honestly the perfume that I wear all the time is an essential oil blend.
06:28And it's a light musk and a light patchouli. And patchouli is terrible. Like, I don't love patchouli, but this light patchouli essential oil is beautiful, mixed with the soft musk. But there was a perfume out, I can't remember the name of the company, it was many years ago, maybe 15 years ago, that Target sold. I wish I could remember the name of the company. And it had tuberose as one of the...
06:57the scents. Interesting. And I loved this perfume and it was actually like a like a face powder perfume. It was that texture. It wasn't a liquid or an oil. Okay. And I loved it and they don't sell it anymore. And it's probably a good thing they don't because it probably had all kinds of terrible things in it. I know right. But.
07:20Those scents are amazing and I didn't even know what tuberose was until I looked at what the scents were and I was like, I need to find out more about this. Right, right. Yeah, I've never heard about you there. Yeah, so and ylang ylang or whatever that is. That was one of them too. But yeah, I love scents when we make our candles. Our whole house smells like whatever candle we're making.
07:45And those are my favorite days when we do lemon grass candles. I'm high, high for three days on the scent of it. I love that though. You know, it's like, it's good for you too. It's not like it's, you know, causing any sort of damage internally, like some of those, you know, other candle, big candle companies. Yeah. I can't handle, I can't handle it when we do lavender. I love lavender. I do.
08:13but the scent is so intense, it gives me a headache. It is. So I brace for it. When my husband says, we're doing lavender candles, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna down some Tylenol now before we even get started, because it's gonna hurt. It is, it's definitely a unique scent and it can be very strong, I agree with you. Yep, then we do a coffee scented candle. I love coffee, like I am a coffee fiend. Me too.
08:41I will drink it, I will smell things that smell like coffee. I just, I love coffee. And when he says it's coffee candle day, I'm like, yes, it's coffee candle day. So there's a whole thing that goes with making things, you know, it's, it's the experience, it's the, the love of doing it. It's knowing that people are going to enjoy it when they buy it from you. That it just makes me so happy.
09:09Okay, so now I raved about all the smells and scents and stuff. I saw that you have zucchinis right now. Yes, yellow squash, I guess. They are coming out of the garden like crazy. And we also have a ton of cucumbers and we only bought like four cucumber plants. But I think we are at like 60 or 70 cucumbers now that we've come out of the garden. I am so jealous.
09:38We have nothing but radishes right now and peas because all it's done is rain all spring here. So my husband got the gardens in late because the dirt was soup. So we are very patiently waiting for the garden to finally dry out and start actually putting energy into growing what's in the garden. Yes. Yeah. I, that's hard to do. It's just so wet. Yeah. It's, it's been a hellacious spring here for the first time since we moved in.
10:07four years ago. And so we're very disappointed because I keep seeing the photos come into my Facebook feed or the memories thing of everything we were pulling out of the garden this time last year and the year before and the year before and I just want to cry. It's not fair. But I'm hoping that we will have an extended autumn and maybe we'll catch up. Right. Yeah. Are you starting all your stuff?
10:34from seed like indoors or do you just plant right in your garden? We've started a whole bunch from seed. And then we moved that all out to the finished greenhouse that just got finished in May. So the greenhouse is full of plants, but they need to get into the garden to get big. So as soon as we're sure that the garden is not going to be soup every other day, we'll get the stuff from the greenhouse into the garden.
11:04But you know how this goes, weather is the thing that we all deal with when we're trying to grow things. Yeah, so it's funny, we actually watched this show on Amazon, it's called Clarkson's Farm, and it's about this, I think he's either a millionaire or a billionaire, I think he was on British's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, I think he hosted that show. And he bought like a thousand acre farm and decided he was gonna see what it was like to actually be a farmer.
11:31And he's had three seasons now and watching how just almost kind of helpless they are with the weather because I mean, they're growing wheat and corn for the masses to sell and make a livelihood off of and it could either they're dealing with rain and drought, cold weather, warm weather, and it's, it's insane how
11:57you know, these big commercial farmers, all the things they have to go through just to get their crop. Yeah, that's why we are not commercial farmers. I don't ever want to be playing that game. No, me either. Nope. The fact that our garden is basically not producing anything right now is not going to make or break us. It is sad. It is disappointing. Yeah. But we're not going to die because we didn't.
12:25We didn't grow a big garden and sell the produce. Right. I can't imagine being in a position where our livelihood counted on this. Right, I know. I think about that often too. I'm like, I wanna grow all of our food on our own and I don't wanna lack the grocery stores. Then I'm like, I have to be thankful for the grocery stores because I can't imagine what it's like to not have that as a backup. Uh-huh.
12:52We here in Minnesota, in LaSore, Minnesota, are very lucky because the town just south of us has a co-op store. They actually buy produce from local growers and then sell it. And so if we don't have a green bean crop, because they died, because they rotted out, we know where we can get really good green beans that someone nearby grew.
13:21We also sell at the farmer's market whatever we have to sell. And so, so we know the vendors and if we're like our tomato crop went this year, they're going to be like, here, take these. And, you know, at probably a discount, who knows, but we are not without resources here because we live in the land of people who grow crops and grow farm to market gardens and, you know, we're not, we're not.
13:50there's a bad word coming to mind, I'm not gonna say it. We are not in trouble if we don't grow a single thing in our garden this year. Right, right. Yeah, that's always good to have a community around that. Also does something very similar to you. That's kind of where we live too. A lot of people have gardens and I think especially in like recent years, I see a lot more gardens popping up. And even like our friends and family who never garden before are now having these amazing gardens
14:20It's really cool to see people going towards that way because I did not grow up gardening. We had houseplants, but I also lived in South Florida where it was super hot. I definitely lived more in the city type of life. So growing up this way, I did not grow up with vegetables and farm fresh produce at all.
14:50I want to say backyard garden, but it wasn't backyard. It was side yard. Side yard vegetable garden, because my parents had a garden from the minute they moved into our house in Steep Falls, Maine in 1976 when I was like six years old. And so I never didn't have access to homegrown produce. And my grandfather also grew a...
15:15pretty decent sized produce garden at his place about an hour and a half away. Okay. So all summer long we were eating cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and whatever was growing we had free range to just go pick it and eat it. Yeah. So I did grow up with it and I loved it and I love this life that we're living now except that I don't know if I'm going to have any tomatoes to go pick out of the garden this year. I know.
15:42If we lived closer, I would totally send you tomatoes because we planted like, I think we planted 20 tomato plants and they are all on the vine ready to go. They're still green, so we're waiting for them to ripen. But very soon here, we will be drowning in tomatoes. Yeah, we were drowning in them last year. Luckily, we canned a whole bunch of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. So I'm not completely up the creek on this.
16:12You know what I'm saying. There's nothing better than a sun-warmed tomato on a salad. I agree. With a little bit of salt too. So yes, and again, I sound like I'm an evangelist and I'm raving about homegrown produce because I am both. I keep saying I'm not an evangelist. I'm not saying everybody has to do this, but I love that we
16:40do it. So when I'm talking to someone else who does it, it becomes this this fest of, of, yay, I love doing this and you love doing this. So, yes. Anyway, um, are you, do you have kids? No, we do not have kids. Um, I am 28, my husband's 30. We are in that stage now where we would like to have kids and we're trying for them, but as of yet, we don't have any. Okay. Yeah. Well,
17:09when you do, they are gonna be some of the luckiest kids ever because their mom has it all together on this being healthy thing. I like to think so, so I mean, we do sourdough, we do as much produce as we can. And I've always like in my 20s, I was in nursing school at the beginning of my 20s and I kind of had this vision for my life. I was like, I have all these things in place that need to be checked off before I will have kids. And I finally feel like I'm
17:38actually at that point now where like all those things are tucked off. Uh-huh. Yep and that's awesome and I kind of wish I had done that too but I didn't. But I also feel like the most perfect time to have kids is whenever they come. Right, yeah. I agree. So I mean I was very young with my first and I was 32 with my last and it all worked out so.
18:06Yeah, I just pretty much, you know, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And we're just going to keep living our lives. Yeah. And honestly, if it doesn't happen in the way that it usually happens, there are lots of babies and kids looking to be adopted. Yes, absolutely. And I've had some really good friends who are adopted.
18:32really great people and have touch base with their birth parents and it's all worked out great. Yeah, that's awesome. So there's options. Yes, lots of options. Yep, and honestly if I was younger and not so tired from already raising four kids to adulthood, I would consider adopting another one, but I think I'm good. I think I have done all the intense mothering I need to do ever.
19:00Yes, definitely four kids. That's a lot. Yeah, I'm done. I'm 54 years old. I raised four great kids. I've done my job. I'm finished. It's all good. Time to relax. Yes, and can't actually relax because the youngest one still lives with us. But he's an adult and he helps out a ton here on our little quote-unquote farm. So he's a big help. Okay, so what else do you do?
19:29You do the subscription box, you guys have a garden. What else do you do, anything? The only other thing that I do, which I know I mentioned, is I have my consulting business. So that actually is more of my day-to-day job. And I really enjoy that and I love it. I have the best clients and very interesting cases that we get. And so it's nice too, because I used to be a night shift nurse in the NICU, which I love.
19:57but working night shift, working weekends, working holidays, is, it was not where I saw my life going at all. And that's kind of where this journey started, was I was thinking, I'm like, how can I make my monthly bills so low to where I don't have to work three, four, five days a week as a nurse and have to put in 60 to 80 hours?
20:23just have the things that I want. And so I kind of, that's kind of how I also got into that home setting place where, you know, you don't have debt, you don't, you know, spend more than what you make. You live off the land as much as you can, you make your own products. And so I was kind of in that space and that's kind of also what led me to trying to find it, you know, trying to find different things that I can do with my nursing.
20:52career and my degree. And so that's kind of how I got into consulting. So I can work from home, make my own hours, no more holidays or weekends, which is so nice. But yeah, so that's mainly what I do day to day. And then, you know, right now the garden is just always calling for us in the evening. So we do a lot of that. And then my husband and I always try to every Friday take off from work.
21:19and we will go to a different waterfall or a different hike or a different swimming hole and kind of explore the area around us. And so we love doing that. And we honestly, we just live a very simple, slow life. Awesome. Awesome, you figured it out before you were 40. I try. Yeah. I'm gonna go back to the subscription boxes for a minute. Yeah.
21:46How do you find the stuff? I mean, have you been, like, I find you guys to talk to because Facebook is amazing at feeding me more of what I'm interested in. So every day, every hour, there's a new homesteader or a new crafter or a new baker coming from my feed. Do you have that too? I do have that. That's kind of one of the things I love about Facebook and social media is the algebra doesn't point you.
22:12into that direction. So I was talking to my husband, I'm like, I hate just like aimlessly scrolling on my phone, like I want to learn more more about gardening and cooking and all that stuff. And so that's something I like about Facebook is that it pushes you towards those people. Right now, kind of when I posted about my box at the beginning of the year, had a couple people reach out to me. And so for example, the girl who does our candles,
22:41We put her candles in all of our boxes and we do like a it's very seasonal. The scent that we pick. But I also purchased off of a website called Fair, which is F.A.I.R.E. And the best way I can describe it is like Etsy, but for wholesale. And so all sorts of creators of different products will post their products on there and then you buy at the wholesale rate.
23:09So that's how I kind of find a lot of our products. Eventually, you know, this is only our second box that we're doing so far. So eventually I would like to, like I said, reach out to our subscribers and see if they have anyone in their community that has a really great product and we can feature them in a box. So I think slowly over time we'll move away from FAIR and just get a couple of our products from there. But I would really like to support our...
23:39subscribers community as well. Nice. Okay. I was just wondering, because now that you told me what you do, my brain is just spinning on how would I do something like that? There's lots of subscription box things out there right now. Yeah. It's funny though, because I try to look to see if anyone else did something similar to this.
24:07And the only thing that I could really find was some people did produce boxes with like actual produce or I saw a lot of meats like frozen meats that would be shipped to your door. But I never could find anything where you would get a mix of different items from small farms, small businesses, family ran. That was like well curated and that would be shipped to you either either every month.
24:36every three months, every other month. I could, I still have not found anything similar to that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I haven't heard of anything like what you're doing. I'm just saying there are so many subscription things out there right now that it's kind of nice to hear about somebody doing one like yours. Yeah, yeah. It's really just the whole point is to get people kind of...
25:03back into their kitchens and cooking for their families, even if it's a quick meal, or even if it's just planting one tomato plant in a pot, doing those little things or making your own detergent or instead of buying the dove soap from the store, you're using our tallow soap. So just different things to kind of get people thinking and using.
25:29understanding where their products actually come from. That's from a family and not a corporation. And so that's kind of like the whole ethical and the whole principle behind the box. Yeah. I love it. I love that that's the premise because not everybody knows where to find this stuff. That was the other problem that I ran into is I would do research on different products and items and I just could not. It's not like I would type in non-toxic.
25:59you know, dish soap and you know, all kinds of things come up, but a lot of it is still big brands and big companies and some of their ingredients are still a little bit questionable, whether it's toxic or non toxic. And so I was like, I bet I bet there's so many businesses, small businesses that no one even knows about or you know, the masses don't know about that we could be supporting. And you know, with the subscription box, they also include like a pamphlet.
26:28and on that pamphlet has each brand, what they stand for, a little bit about them, a little bit about their product or products. And so, you know, my subscribers are more than welcome to repurchase any of their products through those brands. Eventually, I would like to have a kind of a members or subscribers only store where they can repurchase their products all in one place. But for now, I encourage them to
26:58you know, purchase from the brand that we buy from. And so you're supporting them once, but you're also supporting them potentially multiple times as well. So it's like if you liked the thing in the box and you want more, here's where you get it. Yes, exactly. Awesome, fantastic. I was gonna say, I don't wanna, it's gonna sound like I'm bad mouthing my parents, but I'm actually not.
27:26It's just this thing that has confused me forever. My mom and dad, my mom is 77, my dad is 80, and my mom will be 78 this month, and my dad will be 81 this month. Go big. And I swear these people have been using margarine instead of butter for years. Uh-huh. I hate margarine. Me too. Okay? Me too. Number one, it's not good for you. Number two, it's not butter. Right.
27:57And my mom's like, you know, she's like, have you tried using margarine in your cookies? And I'm like, yes. And I don't do it because they go flat. They're not, it's not made for baking with. And she's like, you always bad mouth margarine. I'm like, because it's not good for you. Ants won't even eat it. They'll eat butter, but they won't eat margarine. She's like, but butter, high fat, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, it's from milk.
28:26cows. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy. Like I like my mom was very much low fat. That's what they that's really what they preached. When we were growing up is low fat, low carb, sugar free, low sugar, all those types of things. And it's funny now, because you know, the studies on red meat and studies on dairy and gluten.
28:52And what I've realized is a lot of those studies are on commercially processed, commercially highly processed dairy and red meat. They're not done. These studies are not done on locally raised, ethically raised, raw dairy, uh, meat that you raise on your land that's grass fed. You know, a lot of those things are not done on those things. So they say butter is bad, but butter is actually very like it's, I don't want to say it's very good for you, but.
29:22You need fat, your brain needs that fat and you, you know, the dairy, or sorry, the gluten, the whole gluten thing with being gluten intolerance. And I tell a lot of people, I'm like, there's other options, you know, you have sourdough. You also have different types of wheat berries, such as like einkorn flour. That is an ancient grain, you know, we're given all these.
29:46highly processed gluten and corn products to eat. And no wonder we're getting sick and no wonder they're saying it's bad for you. If you just go back to the source of the purest form of those ingredients, you're gonna be healthy. You're not gonna be obese and have arthritis and degenerative joint disease and all those things that we talk about are heart failure, heart disease, by eating good quality butter or raw milk or...
30:16sourdough or kefir, anything like that. So it's so interesting how, I mean, no offense to the older generation, but the older generation is definitely kind of stuck in those ways a little bit. Yeah, and I finally said to my mom, I said, if you want to have margarine on your toast in the morning, have margarine. It's totally fine with me. I am gonna have butter if I have toast, because I want butter. I don't want margarine.
30:45And so there are all these things that are In quotes bad for you that that my folks do all the time and I'm amazed that they are the ages They are that they've made it this far, you know, yep And and sugar dude. I have tried Maple syrup in my coffee. It's not right. I have tried Honey in my coffee. It's not right. Yeah, I'm the same
31:13A tablespoon, a teaspoon of sugar in my coffee, regular size coffee mug in the morning, I'm good. Yes. Sugar, sugar is not going to kill you. Butter is not going to kill you. Excess is going to kill you. Right, or highly processed white sugar instead of the cane sugar or tons of turbinado sugar, different options of sugar.
31:43you know, you and I probably didn't grow up this way. You know, you grew up eating margarine and highly processed white sugar and seed oils and all those things. And so trying to understand us a different way, there's different things you can do is also a challenge as well. Yeah. Turbinado sugar is the most yummy sugar I've ever tasted. It is really good. Yeah. I'm a big coffee person too. So I try to like make.
32:12my own vanilla syrup and my own caramel syrup instead of buying it, you know, from Amazon or whatever. I think it tastes better too. Yeah. Yep. I think anything that you make yourself tastes better because you made it. Right. You know exactly what's in it. There's no fillers, no preservatives, no dyes. Yep. The only thing that tastes better than what I make is what other people make from scratch for me. Right. I will do that all day long.
32:40It's so funny, like I make my husband a latte in the morning, so we got an espresso machine. And I'm like, he's like, I wish I could have this every morning, because sometimes I'll sleep in and he'll go to work. He'll be up earlier than I am. I'm like, I can teach you how to make it. And he's like, no, no, no, no, it won't be the same unless you make it for me. Uh huh. Yeah, my husband makes yeast breads. And the reason he makes them is because the first two times I tried to do it, I killed the yeast. And I was like,
33:09you're better at this than I am you make it. Yeah. Yeah. And I keep telling him that I'm going to try my hand again at making yeast honey wheat bread, honey oat bread, because I love that. Oh yeah. And I've been saying it for months and I haven't done it yet. And he looked at me the day he said, it's summertime, you're not making honey oat bread now. I said, no, I'm not. It's too hot. Yeah. He said, you've been threatening for months to do this. He said, first cold weekend this fall.
33:38I dare you to make honey oat bread. And I was like, all right, challenge accepted. So probably sometime at the end of September, I will be trying it and I will probably be saying, what did I do wrong? Right. Bread can be tricky. I don't usually have like, I mean, I will make yeast bread, but it's kind of, it's a little difficult, honestly, to get like the rising and letting the yeast like absorb in the water and the sugar and having your house at the right temperature. It can be a little tricky.
34:07Uh-huh. And he just, he works this magic over it and it's always delicious. I'm like, you should have been a baker. Yeah. And he laughs. He's like, no, because then it would be work and I would hate every second of it. I'm like, okay, fine. Yes, you're right. But boy, he makes some amazing breads in the fall and winter because I don't know what you know about.
34:32baking breads, but if you bake breads, it makes the house feel warmer, whether the house is actually warmer or not. It feels cozier. And the smell too is so good. So as soon as it gets cold on the weekends, I'm like, will you make a couple loaves of bread? And he's like, yes. Yeah, I was saying the other day as I haven't made sourdough in a while and I'm just like, I don't really want bread in the summer.
35:00I don't know. There's something about bread in the fall and the winter and it's like that's that is my bread making period. Yeah, I figure the first weekend where I make a big batch of French onion soup, he'll probably want to make bread to go with it. Oh, that's the best. Soup and bread. Oh, man. So yeah, and I I'm not even a huge fan of bread. Like as a general rule, I don't eat bread every day because I don't feel like it's good for me and I don't enjoy it. Right.
35:29but oh my God, homemade right out of the oven bread. That's the best. Yeah, and it's so funny because people, a lot of people don't even, haven't even experienced that in their whole life. I know, I know, it's insane. It's kind of sad though too that we've like gotten so far from doing those types of things. Like, you know, I, my mom was, she was a great cook. She was amazing cook and I learned so much from her, but we still.
35:59We bought the bread from the store. She never baked bread. Um, you know, spaghetti noodles from the store. She never cooked your own noodles. And it's just like, we've gotten pushed so far into going to work, working nine to five, coming home, making a quick dinner, putting your kids to bed, and then doing it all over again, that there's no time, like we've almost like our society has created this life where you can't even really do that even if you wanted to, cause we have all these.
36:29We want and need all these different luxury items. And the more you need and want, the more money you have to go and make, and the more you have to work. And it's like this vicious cycle that you can't ever get away from. Yeah. And then there's no time to actually enjoy the things that you wanted to do in the first place. Right. Yeah. So yeah, it is, it is a vicious cycle. And I'm, I'm not saying that everyone should.
36:58quit their jobs and go buy a farm. I absolutely am not saying that. I guess what I'm trying to do with this podcast is just share other people's perspectives. And I'm so tempted to find somebody who lives like in the middle of New York City and doesn't do any of the stuff that we're doing and just see if they'll come talk to me on the podcast about what their life is like. Right.
37:28Right. The thing is I have a feeling that it would come off as snotty and I don't want to do that. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah, I do know what you mean. It's hard. It's hard to because I encounter, you know, people all the time where they will never understand why we do what we do. And that's totally okay. And that's totally fine. And
37:55there are some people that genuinely love to work and they want to be the CEO and they want to be in the Fortune 500 companies and that's what they genuinely love to do. For me, I thought that's what I wanted and I thought I need to build an empire and I need to do all these things and I need to work and you know, but it's so funny how things change so fast when you realize you just that's not what makes you happy at all. You just want to.
38:25wake up in the morning and drink a latte on the front porch and go to your garden and pull some weeds and then come back up and make sourdough bread. You know, it's so funny how things change so fast. Yeah, absolutely. You can't know until you know. Right. And if you haven't been exposed to something new, you can't know that's what you want to do in the first place. Exactly. So, yeah. I mean...
38:55back 20 years ago, 15 years ago, my husband and I were talking about, you know, our life after the kids were grown. And I was like, I would just like to have a house we don't have to repair every six months and a little bit of acreage. Like I would have been happy with an acre. And he said, what do you want to do with that? And I said, I don't want to do anything with the
39:25I just want to have it so that our neighbors aren't 10 feet away from us. And he said, oh, so the acreage is for me? I said, yes, what do you want to do with it? He said, I want to grow a freaking huge veggie garden. I said, okay, cool. And so from that point on, all the things that we were interested in making happen at this future projected place was what we studied up on, what we learned about how we did our life on our city lot.
39:55Yeah. And then four years ago, we actually moved to 3.1 acres. That's a big. With a house that we have not had to paint or patch or anything since we've been. It's been great.
40:11And so we manifested its life. Yeah, we manifested this thing that we're doing now. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm very big into manifesting. I feel like you have to. You have to live like you already have it. Yeah, and we did. We grew a garden on our little tiny 0.10 acre city lot. And that 0.10 acre.
40:37had a house and a four car garage on it. So you can imagine how small the garden was. Right, right. But we did it and we grew flowers and we grew from scratch and we made things and we did stuff in practice for where we're at now. And I'm so glad we did because I really wouldn't recommend anybody go from zero to a hundred in that situation. That's very overwhelming too.
41:06It's overwhelming. It is, it's a huge, steep learning curve to go from DoorDash and a loft apartment to a big yard and a dog and a barn and you know. Yeah. It's like, oh, I don't know where I am or what I'm doing now. Right, it's exciting thinking about it. And I kind of had that a little bit too, like we.
41:32move on to eight acres and I was like, I want a big garden. So we did a 4000 square foot garden. I bought all the seeds, all the stuff and I was like, Oh man, I'm a little overwhelmed now. I'm like, I'm just gonna. So in the preceding years, I just kind of was like, I'm just going to do minimal. I'm gonna learn this and get really good at these few vegetables and then we will add on to it later another time. And so I think a lot of people
42:02end up quitting before they get started sometimes. And because it's exciting, you want to do it all. Like I'm a very much go big or go home type of person. So if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it like to the extreme and plant a 4,000 square foot garden. But I don't, I definitely don't recommend that. Yeah, I might go big or go home when it comes to the researching and learning about the thing that I want to do. Yeah.
42:29And that really helps because as I research and learn, it puts it into a more reality perspective for me. And I go, OK, yes, I can do these things to start with. Right. So I love researching. I love reading. I love learning. I love learning, too. I tell my husband, I'm like, I just want to learn a new... Like I was feeling a little bit bored lately because I feel like our garden, this is like our third year in our garden.
42:58I've really kind of mastered over the last four years cooking from scratch. I always love to cook, but cooking from scratch is obviously, there's a little bit more to it. It takes a little bit more time, a little bit more skill, but I feel like I finally got my sourdough together. I've got all these things together. And so I'm like, well, what's next? So I'm like, ready to learn a new skill. Yeah, that's kind of how the podcast happened. My
43:25my youngest was going to be moving out and that actually didn't happen. Very long story, not allowed to tell it. Again, very important reasons that he is still living with us and he is a huge help. But I needed a new baby because I thought I was going to be dealing with emptiness syndrome. And it was either sob my eyes out every day or find a new baby. So the podcast became the new baby. And then basically a month and a half after I started
43:55two months after I started it, he was back. And I was like, I have a schedule now, so here's what I'm doing. If you need me to, if you need time from me, you have to put it on the calendar. You have to let me know. And it took him a month to remember to put things on the calendar. Oh my gosh, yeah.
44:20One day he was like, I need to go to this doctor's appointment and he can't drive right now. And I was like, um, that sucks because I have this thing that I'm supposed to be doing that I scheduled months ago. And he said, can you reschedule it? And I said, I love you. Yes, of course I can reschedule it, but this is why I need you to check with me before you schedule your stuff too. So it's a learning curve on this grownup.
44:50relationship now. Yeah, that's definitely interesting that changes in relationships too with your children and trying to find that new thing that you want to do that fulfills you. Yep. Yep. And he was so funny because I told him I was going to do this. And when he came back, I really didn't understand my stats for what the podcast is doing, how it's progressing.
45:20And he said, do you have stats for your podcast? And I said, I do, but I don't know what they mean really. I mean, I know how many downloads I'm getting a day. And he said, how many? And I told him, and he was like, that's not too bad for a baby podcast. And I said, yeah. I said, but there's this other number retention. And he said, what is it? And I said, 100%. And he swore at me and said, I don't even wanna talk to you about this and walked away.
45:48And he was smiling the whole time. Yeah, yeah. And I gave him a minute and I said, why did you swear at me? And he said, because that's unheard of. No baby podcast gets that. You have loyal followers. Yeah, he said, you're better at this than you think. I was like, well, thank you, son. So there's been this whole weird re-establishing boundaries and...
46:13time parameters and what we all need from each other with three people in this house. And it's been really, from a psychology standpoint, it's been really interesting. But thankful that he's here because he helps so much. Yeah, that's always so nice when you have that extra help too. Yeah, especially with the gardens and the chickens and he loves to cook so he cooks like two nights a week, which is amazing. Yeah.
46:43What a journey. I did it right. I raised him right. Yes, you definitely did. 100%. All right. So before we get too far down this parenting rabbit hole, because I'm always up for talking about raising kids because I've done it for a long time. I'm actually going to let you go because I try to keep these to half an hour. And I, oh, and you wanted to share something about the subscription box. Yes. So.
47:09For all your listeners, we are offering 15% off your first box. You can use the code podcast all in lowercase letters. Right now, our July box is sold out, but you can go ahead and pre-order the October box. It'll ship first or second week of October, is what we try to aim for. It's going to be all around fall.
47:38You might see some elderberry syrup or fire cider. We'll definitely have a non-toxic fall candle, and we'll have several other things as well in there. All the good things. All the good fall things. Awesome. All right, Savannah, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Yes, absolutely, thank you. Have a great afternoon. You too. Bye.
 

Nana's Kitchen MN

Today I'm talking with Nancy at Nana's Kitchen MN. You can also follow on Facebook.
 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 Nancy at Nana's Kitchen, Minnesota. How are you, Nancy? I'm doing good. How are you doing today? I'm good. The MN is for Minnesota, yes? Very good.
00:24Okay, good. I never know if people want me to use the word that the letters stand for or just the letters. So, nope, we just had to tag it on there when I got my cottage kitchen because believe it or not, there's other Nana kitchens. Well, there's lots of Nana's in the world. So it doesn't surprise me. Yeah, so we had to distinguish ourselves. Okay. Well, tell me about yourself and what you do at Nana's kitchen. I cottage kitchen and I make gluten-free, basically pastries, pies, cookies,
00:54I also make some that are dairy free. Been baking gluten free for the last 16 years and just have done it for family and stuff like that. People always say, gosh, you're so good. You ought to try to sell them. It's one of those things to kind of get the nerve up to put your neck out there and do it. Yes, I do. Yep. One of my daughters retired from the military, moved nearby, and she's been pushing me, just do it, mom. Just do it, mom. She's my spokesperson.
01:23She pushed me into it. But anyhow, I enjoy baking. Gluten-free is something you have to learn to do. It doesn't come easy because there are so many different types of flours and stuff like that. I've worked on a technique that works for me and it comes out pretty darn good. You don't know that they're gluten-free products and that was the whole goal. People don't miss the gluten when they eat the product. Awesome. So when did you start? Okay, two things.
01:53I can't talk this morning. How did you come into this? Like, why? Yeah. And when did you start the actual business part of it? The business I just started doing this year, like in January, I just kind of started putting stuff out on Facebook. Well, my daughter started putting stuff out on Facebook. She's my social media person, like I said. 2008, my oldest granddaughter was diagnosed with celiac disease and she's autistic. And
02:23With that time it was, huh, what's celiac disease? I hadn't really thought, heard about it. Her mom had kind of, my oldest daughter, had kind of looked into it because of the autism, this connection sometimes with different things causing autism. But we waited, it was like December 2007, so January 2008 we had her go gluten free and it was, I mean, at that point in time there aren't products on the shelves. Like you can go in the store now and there's Char and Glutino and all kinds of different.
02:50products you can buy that are gluten free. It was very, very limited. So she wanted like, you know, cookies and the things that she would miss. So I started baking those, looking for cookbooks and recipes. And back then it was a lot of gabaazanbee flour and heavier flours, and it was a product, but it didn't taste the same. And over time, flours have evolved. There's different types and brands you can use. And I'm finding different blends, putting different starches together. Finally, just all worked out that I could bake stuff.
03:20that was palatable and she enjoyed it. So I went from cookies to cakes, all kinds of different things. But as it turns out, her mother then, my oldest daughter was diagnosed with Celiac of May of that same year, 2008. In July of that year, my daughter's younger son, who was seven, was diagnosed with Celiac's disease. Wow. So now we had three of them, which then, my youngest child, I have three daughters and a son. He at that time was 25.
03:49And he got tested. Actually, the whole family did blood work tests. He has celiac disease. So if my four children, two have celiac, two don't. I have five grandchildren, three have celiac, because then the daughter has another child with another man, the second husband. He has celiac disease. So all three of her children have celiac disease. So it runs in the family. We did DNA testing on 23andMe. I'm a carrier. I don't have it, but I carry it.
04:19And the percentages of I have it are the same as my daughter and granddaughter and stuff like that. So I'm gluten free as well. But I suspect my mom had it. She had symptoms years ago that hindsight looking back on it, I think she had celiac disease. So that got me started because I had to cook for the grandchild. Wanted to give her baked goodies that tasted like everybody else's that she could watch her friends at school eating cookies and she couldn't have one. So that's how it kind of evolved.
04:48to process. So I don't, okay, I talked to a lady a while back who has celiac disease and her baby son has it too. And she told me all about how this all works. And I was so thankful that she did because I had no understanding of how bad it can be.
05:14Her situation is if she even walks into the bakery section of a grocery store, she reacts to the flour in the air. Yeah, I never heard of that. My children, well, what's funny with my children, because I'm an old hippie mom, got married in 74 and my children were born late 70s, early 80s. Everything was whole wheat and wholesome homemade. I made all the bread and everything. Whole wheat, whole wheat, whole wheat, whole wheat. And yet...
05:41Two of these children now have celiac disease. Is there a correlation there? I don't think so, I think because of the family genetics is why they have celiac disease. But as a child, there was no reaction, there was nothing. I mean, they grew up on it, they were fine. Only as adults, which is really weird that it took effect and exhibited itself as an adult with them. My granddaughter, it was tummy aches and things like that. The grandson had...
06:10And she was always constipated. Grandson, the same thing. Those are really typical symptoms because the intestines are just not moving. Don't care how much water you give the child. But once they all became gluten free, if they eat gluten, the boys will throw up, like there's no tomorrow. I mean, hours on end throwing up and then their stomach and intestines are sore for days.
06:39my daughter and granddaughter, it goes the other way. They don't throw up. It goes the other way. But the same thing, it'll go on for hours and then their intestines are just ripped apart for days. But it's funny because nobody reacted to we, proceeding going gluten-free, then once they did and it got out of their system and it came back, wow, do they really feel it? Yeah, it can affect everybody differently and some people can actually go into shock with it. It just depends if you're allergic to it or not.
07:08You don't need to have a shock going on. Yeah. Okay, so is your gluten free is a very specific term. Yes, it is. I've been told by many, many people that if you're going to say that your food is gluten free, you basically need to not have any kind of gluten in your kitchen. Correct. So is that how you do it? Yes, there's no gluten in my house.
07:33My husband is not celiac, he's not gluten-free, but he eats gluten-free. Unless we go out somewhere, then he'll order a regular hamburger bun or something like that. But there's no gluten in the house. I don't bake with it, and it's not in the house. He just eats gluten-free because everybody else does around him. I could say I'm a dedicated kitchen. I can't say I'm certified gluten-free because the state has to come in and they're not going to come into your home and certify you gluten-free. Yeah.
08:00So was it hard for your husband to switch over or was it a fairly simple transition? No, he's fine with it because the products that I make, I mean, you're talking regular meals are not a big deal. Pastas are all gluten-free pasta, not a big deal. He eats it, not a problem. Hamburger buns, I make hamburger buns, he's fine with them. No, it's not a big deal. The baking, I've perfected it such that like cakes and treats and things like that, you can't tell the difference.
08:30In fact, one of my customers had a birthday cake she wanted me to make for her. I think she posted a review on my website. She was telling me recently, we did an event and she was there and she said, it was either her brother, her brother-in-law, I don't recall now, was a professional cook. He kept tasting the cake and going, this is not gluten-free. Then he would look at the ingredients and go, no, it's not gluten-free. Which is flattering because that's the whole premise. I don't want you to know it's gluten-free. We had someone at an event.
08:59we offered him cookies and he took a bite of a chocolate chip cookie and he goes, hmm, not bad for a gluten-free cookie and walks off. Well, he's not gluten-free and they taste fine. You wouldn't know they're gluten-free. It was just kind of a catty thing to say, I thought. But you know. There's always one. I know. I know. Always. Always. Somebody's got to ruin it. And this is nobody who even eats it, you know, so why are you taking this cookie sample? Whatever dude. Uh-huh.
09:26But no, my husband has no problem with it. He knows that the kids can't have it and the grandkids. So no, he's a sport about it. Like I said, if we go out somewhere, then he eats regular. It doesn't phase him, but no, not a problem with it. Awesome. Yeah, good. Good. Okay, so I looked at your website of all your goodies for sale. I should not have looked at it at six o'clock this morning because all I wanted was cake and whoopie pies and stuff.
09:53And I don't even really have a sweet tooth, but when I see beautiful treats, I can taste them in my head if that makes sense. And I'm just looking at your site going, oh my God, I need to go find her right now. But I didn't. That's far from you. Yeah, I know. You're a new preg. Yep, yep. But I decided that really it was okay. I didn't have to drive to new preg at 6 a.m. and wake you up and be like, hi, I need all the things now. However.
10:21The photos of your stuff are beautiful. Do you take them or do you have someone take the photos? No, I take them or my daughter takes them. Gorgeous. Just take them here in the house here. Yep. Yeah, we've, you know, iPhones have come a long way. I have a regular Nikon camera that hardly gets out of the cupboard anymore. Everything's on an iPhone, you know? Yeah, it's easier. Yeah, oh, absolutely. And you can look at it right away and mean that it's a digital camera too, but this is so much easier. You can post from it and you know.
10:51Makes it really easy for you. Yeah, you're very good at your photos. Well, thank you. But I enjoy the baking and I, part of when I started doing this too is I don't want to make the prices crazy expensive for people because you know, as a young mom, I remember taking the kids to events or something and they all want a cookie or they want this and you look at prices sometimes at events because they're always higher it seems like. And it's like we were on such a limited budget. They couldn't always get something or we would.
11:19So when I started baking this stuff, you know, I've had people tell me, you know, it's gluten free, you can ask for more, you can ask for more. And even at that, the prices that I sell it for, I kind of go, pff, just seems like a lot. But I know that it's not, because I see what other people are pricing out there, you know, but I wanted to make it affordable so people could buy stuff for their kids, the treats and things, you know, and not feel like, well, I can't afford $7 for a cookie or a donut or something, you know. Yeah, pricing- So I tried to price them more reasonably, sorry. Pricing anything, anything that you do,
11:48is one of the hardest things on earth to do. I actually have a sponsor interested in sponsoring the podcast and I'm trying to figure out what the reasonable price for sponsoring my podcast is. And I went and did a whole bunch of research and I'm like, I have no idea. Didn't help you, did it? Not especially. So I went with what I thought and I'm waiting on the email back and I'm very excited about this. Yeah.
12:16Even when we started selling our candles and soaps and lip balms and stuff, I was like, I don't know what is reasonable here. Yeah, I know. It's so difficult because you don't want to price yourself out of the market. Nope. You don't want to just be like, well, the market will bear $20 for a bar of soap. So that's what I'm in charge because that's ridiculous. I just, it's so crazy to me, all the pieces and parts of running a business that you have to learn on the fly as you go along.
12:45Absolutely. Yep. I agree. Yep. Pricing is hard. I mean, I go through what my products cost me, my ingredients, putting it together, you know, and then I know there's formulas you can use for your time and this and that. It's like, well, if I do that, I'm never going to sell anything that's really affordable. No. I'm not doing that. I'm just going by, okay, this is what it cost me to make it. Okay, this is fair to sell it. Forget my time. I'm not worried about it, you know. Yeah. And I also
13:15which I think you do. Yeah, I do. Your time is a joy. Yeah. The time you put into it is a gift to yourself. It is. And I'm not saying you shouldn't charge for your time because that's part of it, but it's easier to maybe knock some of that down when you enjoy what you're doing. Hold that and you get positive feedback from what you've done.
13:41Oh my god, those are great. You know, I'm so glad they got to buy it, you know, so the feedback is good, too I don't you know, that's okay Yeah You make two of my favorite things on earth. I love anything pretzels. So your pretzel bites look amazing Oh, thank you and your whoopie pies. I grew up on the East Coast So I know what a whoopie pie is and I know the absolute bliss of biting into one And yours look fantastic
14:11Well, thank you. And it's funny because I'm from California and whoopie pies are kind of like, well, what's a whoopie pie? And we thought adding it to the menu and I saw their East coast pretty much. I saw a lot of them from Vermont, things like that places, you know, you hear whoopie pies up that way. So we offered them some, I thought people in Minnesota knew what whoopie pies were and surprisingly a majority of them when we've had them in an event kind of go, what's a whoopie pie? Seriously?
14:38Thought you guys knew what whoopie pies were. So we are selling them at the events. I was just surprised that not more people knew what they were. They do now. But we're going to do different fillings in them. I've got peanut butter and then Irish cream and mint, different fillings that we're going to do seasonal with them. Awesome. Feel free to order them any time you want, Mary. Yeah, I just have to get over and pick them up. I'll meet you halfway. How's that?
15:06That's a great idea. The Apple Barn in Jordan has whoopie pies that they order from the place in Maine that makes them. Do they really? Okay. Yeah. And those are the ones that I was introduced to as a kid because I grew up in Maine. And when we went there, we lived like five minutes from there. Oh, wow. Four years ago. So we went there and I discovered they had them and they have...
15:32the different kinds. They have the chocolate with the chocolate filling, they have chocolate with the vanilla filling, they have a whole bunch of different kinds. And I was like, okay, once, just once, I'm going to buy one of each flavor. And we're going to try them. We had three people living in the house at the time. And so we would pick one a day and we cut it into four pieces and I would get half. So I got two quarters. And my husband and my son would try the other quarters. And we decided that the classic whoopie pie, the
16:02the chocolate cookie with the vanilla filling is the best one. That's what we decided in our house. Yep. Isn't that funny? Yeah. The very basic one, huh? Yup. Yeah. And the thing that I love about Whoopie pies is that the cake, cookies, whatever they are, they're like smooth on the outside cause they're usually wrapped in plastic wrap. So they get that smooth, like sticky coating on them. And then they're like a
16:29the cakey cookie in between the top and the flat part of the cookie. Yep. Yep. So you get that silky thing on your tongue and then you get the cakey cookie and then you get the filling. And the reason they're called a whoopee pie is because you think whoopee when you eat them, I swear. They do make sticky fingers, I'll tell you that. Well, they're messy. They're messy. They are messy. They are messy. And what's good about when I make them, they're also dairy free as well as gluten free. So anybody can eat them has issues with that.
16:58Yep. And that's awesome. I have made whoopie pies from scratch once and I probably won't do it again anytime soon. It was probably at least 15 years ago. And it's work. It's a lot of work to make whoopie pies because it's a bunch of steps. Yeah, there's a couple steps to it. You got to make them and then, yep, got to make the filling, put them together. Yeah, yeah. Not horrible, but it's a few steps.
17:22Yeah, but I was real proud of myself because I did everything and I wrapped them individually in plastic and put them in the fridge so they would do that silky thing that they do. I handed my husband one and said, try this because I need to know if I did it right. He bit into it and he was like, tastes just like the ones we get in Maine. I was like, yes, I did it. Great. There you go. A true labor of love. Yeah. Oh yeah. If I'm going to do something like that, it's because I want to.
17:50and I want to prove to myself that I can do it. And you did it once. Good, check that off, right? I sure did it. And I think there were 14 of them in the batch when they were done. I think I ate probably eight of them. Oh my. Uh-huh. Well, they were lip smacking good, then it sounds like. Good god, they were amazing, yes. And honestly, I couldn't get whoopie pies at that point. There wasn't anywhere near us 15 years ago to get them. They didn't carry them at the Apple Barn then, I don't think.
18:21So I was just really craving a whoopie pie and I went out to Google and found a recipe and I was like, I can do this. I can do this, it will curb the craving. It'll be good. So it worked out great. I'll have to go to the Apple Bar and check those out just to compare it by one and then bring it home and compare, you know? Oh yeah, yeah, that would be great. And then your pretzel bites. What kind of flour are you using for the pretzel bites? Well, the flours that I use is my own blend that I figured out and put together.
18:48And so it's a white rice flour with some starches and stuff. And then there's psyllium in it. There's whey. There's some different things like that in it. And the pretzel bites are great warm. They really need to be warmed up. If you let them sit around like any pretzel bite, they're not as tasty sometimes, you know? So I always, when I sell them to somebody, hey, pop them in the oven, 350 oven for about four or five minutes just to kind of perk them up again, you know? But they're tasty. No, they're a very tasty treat dipped in like, you know, nachos type of sauce, cheese sauce, you know?
19:18Very good. Yep, they're tasty. Yeah, I love pretzels. I don't know why I love pretzels. I think it's just the salt. Yeah, there's definitely salt on them. Yep, the zisto so it rises and everything. But yeah, they're a tasty little critter. My grandkids love them. I just made some a couple weeks ago with some grandkids that were visiting from California. They got devoured pretty quick. Gone. Yeah, they're gone like a shot. Yep, you make a batch and they're gone. Yep, absolutely.
19:46Okay, so you mentioned yeast. So you do use yeast in the flour that you work with? In the pretzels. Yes. The pretzels are a yeast and cinnamon rolls are a yeast. Anything that's a bread type of product like that. Yeah. I use yeast in it. It's, it's risen in the, and then kneaded down and it's a different, yeah, go ahead. So yeast does work with all these different flours. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Again, it's just a matter of kind of figuring out which one liquid measurements differ. I take a lot of recipes that are just a regular one and I adapt it.
20:16But sometimes you have to adapt how much fluid, liquids going in there because starches absorb more than regular wheat flour would. So, most of them that I adapt come out pretty good. Now and again, I'll get one that go, mm, okay, I need to work on that one. But yeah, the yeast flour, the yeast that I use in all the raised type of stuff, pretzels and cinnamon rolls, hamburger buns, all that type of stuff is yeast dough.
20:43Okay, I didn't know you could use yeast in anything but just regular old wheat flour, so that's good to know. No. Thank you. You can use it with a gluten-free blend. Yep, you can do it. It works out okay. Again, it's not like somebody couldn't take a bag of one-to-one ratio like King Arthur or something unless they do have a bread flour mix, I know, but if you took just a regular all-purpose and tried to use it in place in a recipe you're trying to adapt, it's not going to work. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
21:11So you are a cottage food producer, you don't have a commercial license, right? Correct. That's correct. Okay, so you are not allowed to ship your stuff just like any other cottage food producer in Minnesota? Kind of sucks, huh? Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah, I know. I know. They keep trying to get it pushed through and the government in Minnesota keeps saying no. Which is interesting because I believe you can mail dog treats through the mail. Yes, you can. Yeah, you can do dog treats to Cottage Kitsch and send them in the mail. So they may change it eventually, you know.
21:40But then again, some of the stuff I question, like, what I really could ship them would survive it. Like the cupcakes, I can't, not gonna mail a cupcake. You know, I could mail donuts, I could mail cookies, I could mail coffee cake, you know, stuff like that. But not the cupcakes, the icing just not gonna make it. No, and you know they're gonna get shaken and they're gonna get beat up and it's just not gonna work. But cookies, my God, why we can't ship cookies is beyond me.
22:06It's kind of silly. Well, they change the rules every year, so maybe they'll adapt it. I'm hoping that'd be nice. Yeah, I have talked to a couple of people who are part of the getting the rules submitted to the legislature regarding cottage foods. And they're working so hard to get it through and it just keeps getting shot down. Why? Don't know.
22:32And I get so frustrated for them because last year they thought that it was going to go through and nope. Yeah, you have to wonder what the snag on it is, why they wouldn't want people to be able to sail through the mail because they can't make money off of it. I don't know. I have no idea what the hangup is. And it also makes me, I don't know, in this very sarcastic way giggle that we can send pet treats through the mail.
23:01Currently the government doesn't care if our pets die. Right. How nice of them. And I have a dog. I have a dog who is the love of my life and I am really careful about what we give her. So, I mean, I haven't even bothered to try making pet treats for her because she has such a sensitive stomach anyway that I don't want her to get sick because of a treat I tried to make for her.
23:29Yeah, let alone by one that's coming through the mail right from someone's kitchen. You don't know what they did Yeah, yeah this dog. I swear she loves cheese So anytime we open the shredded cheese bag. Oh, yeah pizza or whatever. She's right under my feet smiling at me Oh, yeah, I have some please that sounds like ours So she gets a pinch of cheese because it would give her more than that She's sick for three weeks three days because her stomach is so screwy. Yeah, and she Absolutely loves whipped cream. Oh
24:00So if we have any kind of whipped cream in the house, I will spray a little bit on my finger from the can and let her lick it. And she looks at me, wags her tail nubbin because she doesn't have a long tail. She was docked when she was a baby. Okay. And she goes and lays down perfectly happy. What type of dog is she? She's a mini Australian shepherd. Oh, okay. Those are cute. High energy. We were really lucky. She's very.
24:26She's very go, go, go when she's outside. But if she's in the house, she's pretty good about just wanting to be petted. And then she goes in her crate and takes a nap. And then she asks for things and pets and wants to lick your hand. She's very calm in the house. Well, that's good, good. We lucked out huge. But point being is I clearly talk to people who make things all the time on the podcast. And there's a lady who makes the little bandanas that you put on the dog's collars.
24:57and she also makes dog treats. And she was talking to me about how she's really excited because now she can ship her dog treats. And I was like, that is awesome. Really, really happy for you. I'll be even happier when we can ship our baked goods too. She was like, yeah, me too. She said, because I do this thing where I make a treat for the human and I make a treat that goes with that treat for the pet. So it's like a set. Yeah.
25:27And she can't ship the human stuff, but she can ship the pet stuff. Yeah. It's just kind of nuts. Isn't it? Hopefully they do get that straightened out and say, yeah, you know, folks, go ahead. I'm sure there'll be safety procedures that have to be followed, followed to do it. You know, that that's fine. You know, I just wish that somebody in the powers that be would, would say why they keep saying no, because then I might be able to understand why they keep saying no.
25:54Yeah, it's, yeah, I don't even know who we'd go to to encourage them to it. You know, what, you know, our congressperson or something, you know? Probably our representatives. That's what I'm thinking. Like Angie Craig is ours. I wonder if we went to her and said, hey, can you fight for us on this? You know, I should email her later today and be like, hi, you don't know me from EU.
26:22This is what I do and these are the people I talk to and could you please maybe share with me why? Yeah Why yeah, I don't know what she'll answer to me, but I could try it. Yeah, I'm hurt. Can it? You know my sort of movement be like we talk about this all the time on my podcast Do you want to come on and chat with me about why there you go and fight her and I like her actually So I do too. I do too. I like Angie Craig very much. She's for the working class guy, you know No, I like her. Yep
26:52I don't usually get into politics. I don't usually say who I like or don't like, but I do like her. I think I do like her. I'm a neat woman. So there you go. Reach out. Maybe you get some response from her. You know, she seems to be responsive to people. Yeah. And I've never talked to a representative or a Senator on my podcast. That would be a brand new thing for me. There you go. Might be fun. Who knows? It might also be very uncomfortable. I don't know.
27:18Anyway, we got very far afield there for a minute. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. So what's the reaction? I mean, you said that people really like your positive because it doesn't, it doesn't taste like gluten free. And I don't know what gluten free is supposed to taste like. Well, a lot of the times it's very gritty because if you use a regular rice flour, there's a lot of grit to it. I use a super fine so it's milled really, really.
27:44almost like regular flour, so the texture when you eat something, you don't get that gritty taste in it. And when products were first being manufactured, the gluten-free cookies that came out, and I remember Glutino made some mock type Oreo, my granddaughter was just ecstatic when we found those, they didn't taste exactly like an Oreo. You could taste the gritty rice flour in it. However, today's gluten-free Oreos that you can buy, you can't tell the difference if you have an Oreo and you have one of the gluten-free ones.
28:11They've come so far with manufacturing the rice and the products are much better that they use now. So a lot of times, it just depends on the product where you're buying it. Sometimes they still have that grainy taste to them, but not always. It just depends on the company and what they're using. But that's the big thing is like tasting gluten-free, you're going to taste the grit. It just is, there was a grit, regular gluten-free not using a good flour is gritty tasting. Okay. Yeah. All right. So...
28:39Do you love this? Do you love what you're doing? I do. I've always loved baking. I like seeing people pleased like after they eat it and they go, wow, that was really good. You know, it's like, okay, great, I did it, you know? So no, I enjoy what I do. I've done it for so many years. I've been married for 50 years. So it's a long time to cook and bake birthday cakes and all that kind of stuff, you know. Last 16 years is definitely different than making a regular birthday cake because it transitioned to all the gluten-free stuff. But...
29:06hey, it works out okay. They come out tasty and yummy and nobody knows the difference. So have you made a birthday cake for someone outside of the family and sold it to them? Yes. The lady that I was mentioning that she said it was either her brother or her brother-in-law. Oh yeah. And she brought it to the party. She was the only one that was gluten-free. And she took it to the party and she also brought cupcakes and she messaged me and she said, oh my God.
29:35you know, that she couldn't believe how good they were. And her brother, or whoever it was, the person with her, just couldn't believe that this was a gluten-free birthday cake. He just kept looking at the ingredients and going, no. And then eating the cake again. So that to me is validation that, hey, it's pretty darn good, you know? Yeah, because if you're gonna make a birthday cake and have someone buy it from you for a party, as the person who made the cake, you really want it to be good. Well, yeah. Yeah.
30:06Yeah, because I don't like making things like that to sell. I mean, I make granola and we sell it at the farmers market because granola is granola, whatever. Yeah, right. I like it and other people like it, they buy it. But I don't, I do not have what it takes to make a birthday cake and ask money for it and have it served to a bunch of strangers. I would freak out.
30:29It's intimidating. Yes, it is. So I was really glad when I got the feedback from her that she liked it and that everybody there liked it. Okay, validation good. It was great. That was good. So cupcakes are easier to make, you know, as far as making stuff and birthday cakes aren't that much harder to make. But yeah, it's putting yourself out there a little bit to do it and hoping that you're not going to get judged negatively on it, you know? Yeah, exactly. And I'm going to step
30:58thing for a minute. It's so hard when you're a female in this world because you're taught to on one hand don't give a crap about what people think about you and on the other hand worry about what people think about you and that transfers to whatever you make or do or think. Yep. And grow a thick skin but be nice.
31:26It's like the whole Barbie monologue thing that that America Ferrer or whatever her name is did in the movie last year. It was cute. Yes. It was beautiful. Yeah, it was cute. Yeah, but it's so frustrating because on the one hand, I don't give a whatever I don't give a rip about what people think. But then again, I'm doing this podcast and I want people to listen and enjoy it and think well of it. There you go.
31:54Is there a middle ground somewhere on anything in this world regarding people's opinions? You know? I know. Yep, absolutely. It's so hard. And every time I do the podcast, every single episode, I say it's so hard about something in the podcast episode. Life is hard, people. Deal with it. It is. Yep. You suck it up and you do it, you know? Yeah. And life is also beautiful.
32:24So again, we're in that extremes, you know, from one extreme to the other. And I wake up every morning and I'm like, who am I talking to today? Oh, I'm talking to Nancy at Nana's kitchen. And I'm like, I wonder if Nancy's going to be chatty. I wonder if Nancy's going to be in a good mood. I wonder if it's going to be hard getting conversation out of Nancy. And whoever's I'm talking to. Yes. Invariably.
32:50I get done talking to whoever I'm talking to and I'm like, that was great. I'm so glad I did that. My day is made. I can compare that to when we started doing farmer market venues and the prep going into it and oh my God, is it going to be worth it? And the stress then when it's over, it's like, okay, it came out okay and I made some money. So I understand what you're saying. Yes. Yeah. It's. Yes.
33:16crazy the things that we do because we need to solve a problem. And then other people find out we're doing it and they're like, I have that problem too. Can I buy the thing you made to fix the problem I have too? And then you feel satisfied that you've provided something to someone. Yeah, exactly. It's a beautiful cycle of help. And it makes me really happy.
33:41And it's all about me being happy. Obviously, the whole world revolves around me. Well, of course, around each of us has our world revolving around us, right? Mm-hmm, yep. So anyway, thank you, Nancy, for your time today. Well, you are welcome. And your thoughts. It's a joy talking to you. Your thoughts and your words and everything. Yeah, Mary, it was wonderful talking to you. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, thank you. Have a great day. Okay, bye-bye.
 

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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 Jeff at the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference. Good morning, Jeff. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm well. How are you? I'm great. So I don't know a whole lot about you or what you guys do, so tell me about yourself and the conference.
00:30I sure will. Well, that's, uh, I'm, I'm known to many out there as the everyday prepper I got originally got started in the preparedness side of things. Uh, but always been into gardening and probably the last 12 years or so, my wife and I have been working towards being more self-sufficient and, uh, we just moved to a new place last year. Gives us some new opportunities. So we're, we're working to get everything going there. And, uh, it's, you know, one of my big things is.
00:59coming from both sides, homesteading and preparedness, I really realized how the two really need to come together in a lot of ways and both sides need to learn from each other. Yes, absolutely. And the great thing about homesteading is it doesn't have to be a huge property. It can just be a quarter of an acre or a 10th of an acre. You can still.
01:24grow things, you can still cook from scratch, you can still learn how to take care of yourself. Yeah, and you know, we had, I was just talking to a potential vendor for the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference, and they have a business in urban Cleveland, Ohio, and she was telling me about how many of their customers are.
01:48actually, you know, in an urban area and they're growing whether it's on their balcony or on a rooftop or wherever they find space there Grown their own food and they they're developing an interest in homesteading Yes, because it's a lifestyle. It's not it's not defined by space or Ownership of lots of room and I love that because we did the same thing back when we lived in town so that's part of
02:14The reason I started the podcast is because I wanted people to realize and maybe learn that they can grow some of their own stuff and they can make things in their apartment if they want to. My daughter, the apartment she lived in for several years while she was in college, she was able to have, I got her some planters that would fit over the railing on her balcony and she had some...
02:43peppers, some tomatoes, some other things going there. And I got her a hanging herb basket arrangement that you could put about, if I remember right, about eight different plants in there. And she had that hanging on the side of the railing. And then she had, I think, one or two pots with tomatoes in them. So, you know, there's lots you can do and you're really only limited by your imagination. Mm-hmm, yeah. And...
03:09Honestly with YouTube and Facebook and all the things on the internet you can learn how to grow anything or how to do anything I am so Happy that I live in this particular time. Oh Yeah, and there's you know, there's the internet really gives us the opportunity to really expand expand our knowledge and the ideas that are out there because that's
03:37You know, 40 years ago, if somebody told me one day I would be raising hydroponic tomatoes, I would have told them they were crazy or growing hydroponic tomatoes. But that's, we did that a few years ago, just more or less as an experiment. We got everything we needed and we tried it. We haven't done any here at this house yet, but I imagine at some point in the future we'll be doing it again. Yeah.
04:01I don't know how that works. Could you give me the short version of how hydroponics works? Because we've never done it. Yeah, sure. And you're just putting a combination of things. If I remember correctly, there's some salt and some other stuff that you make a mixture that you put in there with water by nutrients. And basically, we would get a five-gallon bucket.
04:30and you can go online and you can find these covers. They're like a lid, will fit right over the bucket, but the center of them drops down and has sort of a mesh cup in there. And that's you put the plant in there, use some hydroponic medium. The stuff we were looking to look sort of like using looks sort of like lava rock that you would put down in there and actually plant the plant in there.
04:57And you just had to make sure that the liquid stayed up where the roots of the plant could get to it. And really you could do anything and it was amazing. You would pull that lid off and look and the mass of roots that had grown down into that bucket, into the liquid was just amazing. Huh, okay. Well,
05:17It's something to think about for us here. I don't know that we're going to take on any more projects this summer because Oh, come on. You always got to have more projects. Uh, yeah, no, my husband is actually at physical therapy right now because he has a herniated disc. So, so I think that maybe the gardening that we're doing is probably the gardening we're going to be doing this year. That's probably it for now. That may be wise. Mm hmm. So, so tell me your definition of self-reliance.
05:47My definition of self-reliance is basically, you know, nobody's going to be a hundred percent self-reliant because, you know, basically you're always going to need something. It'd be very hard to be totally self-reliant. But what I'm looking at is just having the ability to get along without having to run to the store every week or some people run there every day and trying to make sure that we are prepared in a way that if...
06:16if society would shut down for a while, that we're still gonna be able to survive. We're gonna have all the essentials we need. You know, we're obviously not gonna have everything we'd like to have, but if you give it some forethought and you plan ahead, you can easily adjust so you'll know what you can live without. You'll know what's essential that you better stock up on. And I think being able to live a self-reliant lifestyle,
06:46run into an emergency or we have problems with supply chain or anything else, I think that's the way to go. I think everybody should try to obtain that. Okay. So that's how my husband and I have been living basically since we got together. We always kind of plan for a two-week.
07:08stint of not being able to get out because we live in Minnesota and it snows and there have been times where we have not been able to get out of our driveway for three days. So, we tend to shop for two weeks at a time, sometimes three. We're lucky enough to have some storage space so we can buy a head on bulk items. But also on the self-reliance part, for me as a woman,
07:37My self-reliant stuff is that I know how to start a campfire. I don't need my husband or my son to do it. I have fired a.22 rifle twice. I'm not really a gun girl. I don't love it and there's many reasons why, but I can do it and I'm a pretty good shot. Knowing that it's really good to have extra blankets and extra clothes for if the power goes out and it's minus 20 outside.
08:05You know, those kind of things that aren't necessarily food based, but more, more warmth and heat if we need it kind of stuff. So I think that for us here, self-reliance is about going back to the basics. And if you don't have gas to your stove or electricity to your stove, you can go outside and start a campfire and cook over an open flame. And there is some skill to that.
08:33The first time I did it, I burned the stuff I was trying to cook.
08:40So at the conference, do you guys talk about that kind of stuff too? Yeah. And that's, we're also going to have a, I wanted to have a life skills line of classes there because as I go around and talk to people and meet with different groups and do some training, it's, it's just become an obvious that, you know, society has changed, has changed from, from when I was a kid, because, you know, we had shop class and a home mat.
09:08And people learned a lot of the basics there if they weren't picking them up at home from mom or grandma or dad, grandpa. But a lot of that's gone away. We have people today that can't necessarily read a tape measure. They may not know how to use some of the basic tools. They may not know how to start a fire, sharpen a knife, sharpen an axe. We're also going to have one of my friends who's a member of
09:33Team Rubicon, he's a sawyer for them. They respond to emergencies. He's going to do a, a class on chainsaw maintenance with a little safety thrown in as well as some app sharpening there. You know, there's just so many basics that, that people don't really know that would benefit them. Figured let's, let's put them in the, to short classes that'll sort of fit in between the other classes and give people the opportunity to pick up on some of that stuff. Yeah.
10:02that's really important. When we moved here for, well, almost four years ago, I keep saying this, almost four years ago, it will eventually be four years, I promise people. My husband hadn't really used a chainsaw at all and we have a wood burning boiler that heats our house. And so he got ready to go out to use the chainsaw on the big logs we had delivered.
10:31And I said, what do you know about doing this? And he said, I pulled the cord and I saw the wood and I said, let's back up a minute, please. Because my dad used to do this all the time. I used to help him with the wood. I used to watch what he did. I don't use chainsaws. I don't like them. I'm afraid of them. I don't wanna do it. And if I had to, I would, but I don't want to. So I was like, here's the deal. Number one, you need to be really careful
11:01because you're gonna get hurt if you don't know what you're doing. Number two, there are safeguards on chainsaws, but that doesn't mean you're safe. Number three, when you kick the wood out of the way, make sure it's not right behind your feet, because if you step back, you're gonna fall with a chainsaw in your hands, things like that. And he didn't know any of this stuff. And I was losing my mind. I was like, okay, I was already nervous enough, but now that I know what you don't know, now I'm really afraid for you.
11:31So a chainsaw skills class sounds amazing. The other thing I was gonna say is the other part of self-reliance that I learned a long time ago is being able to recognize edible plants if you're out in your yard or in your tree line or hiking in the woods. Because if you can't get to a store or the stores are not open because the computers went down and the world has gone nuts.
11:58Knowing what you can eat out of your yard or your treeline or within, I don't know, five miles of your house is really important. Do you guys do anything like that? Well, we're hoping to. That's, I need to go and look at the venue there to see what's going to be available in the area. Um, we know some folks who do do classes like that. And my wife has been through a lot of them and, you know, it's really, really difficult. And the best way is to have somebody actually take you out and show you, because it's really difficult.
12:27to look online or look at a book and then go out and find a plant and be 100% sure that you identified it correctly. But you're right, there are so many things out there. If you would see our garden, we have things that volunteered there when they started growing in the spring that I'm not allowed to till down because they're beneficial. We have some lambs quarter and some other things in there.
12:55Basically, you know, I spent my whole life whenever I'd see them, I considered them weeds and would go into the destroy mode. But now we're actually using them as part of our diet. Yeah, it's amazing. We had this weed growing in our garden at the old house and it looked like a succulent plant. A succulent is a plant that absorbs water and hangs onto water so the leaves look fat and turned out to be purslane.
13:24Perslane is amazing. I've talked about this a couple of times already, but it has more nutritional value than spinach. Yeah, and So we tried it we liked it and when it grows in the garden here We don't take it out because it's actually good for you we have a feet trough that we've done experiments on growing several different things in and This year my wife planted cucumbers in it
13:50and some purse lanes start going in it. So now we have cucumbers with purse lane growing all in between them and under the vines. And it's really amazing because you know, you get the two beneficial plants that are coexisting and thriving. So, you know, people gotta learn what that stuff is and learn how to benefit from it. Yes, yes they do. And hopefully your conference will help with that.
14:20It must be really, I don't want to say difficult, because difficult is probably the wrong word. It must be a lot to set up this kind of conference because there are so many things that you could have a class on. So what are the classes that you have planned already? Well, we're gonna have, Sean and Beth Doherty are gonna do some classes for us. Their son, Luke, is gonna do a pork processing demonstration for us.
14:49And then I've got William Bond, the permaculture consultant is going to be there. They haven't quite nailed down which classes he was going to do. But you know, I sat through one of his soil classes back in March and incredible, incredible gentleman and he's got some really great knowledge. And people, it's one thing that people just really don't understand, you know, the ins and outs of soil.
15:18that's going to be very important. On the preparedness side, there's so many things to go into there, but I want to focus on things that are going to help move towards self-reliance. Things are going to be beneficial for folks. I'm hoping to get a couple of classes in there. Something hit me here about a month ago, and I'm working on finding somebody to teach it, but when I was a kid,
15:49Now people wouldn't even know how to hold a slingshot. And a slingshot is a great thing to have on hand. You could go out and get food with it. You could actually defend yourself with it if you needed to. But people, that's just something that has sort of slipped through the cracks. I'm also hoping I've got a bow maker. Again, I'm really hoping I can get him there. But we're sort of up against the archery competition time there. So we'll have to see if he has an opening.
16:19but I've seen him do an incredible class for the kids on archery. And, uh, you know, so in between homesteading and preparedness, I'm just going to try to find things that are going to cover all bases, especially with the homesteading. We want to have some classes that are going to be interesting to people who have been in into it for a while. Then I also want to have classes for folks in urban and rural areas to kind of help them along and point out some of the things they could be doing in there.
16:48their own conditions there. Fantastic. I actually worry a lot about the people who live in the cities when I think about all this stuff going on in the world. Because my husband and my sons and I used to have long what if discussions when they were younger because they were interested in this stuff. And the big what if that always came up in those discussions is what if we lived in an apartment in the middle of Manhattan?
17:19And everything went crazy. How would we survive? And my husband and I were like, well, we're still young enough that we would be taking you guys with backpacks and we would be hiking our way out of the city and praying that we actually got out of the city. Because the city is not the place to be in that situation. And so the boys were boys, obviously boys are boys, and they think about shooting things and beating things up. And...
17:49looting stores to get food and that kind of stuff and of course video games play into that too and They were like we would be fine We know what we're doing and I said I don't think you actually do I don't think you understand that humans are the most unpredictable creatures when panic is is Flowing and you might think you know what that group of people over there are gonna do, but you don't actually know and
18:16They thought they had it knocked and then COVID happened. And my kids were pretty much grown at that point, four years ago. And my youngest was still here. He is still here. He's 22 now. And he was very concerned about the fact that stores were closing and that people had to wear masks and had to make sure they used hand sanitizer and wash their hands and had to do all these things.
18:46And I said, darlin', this is your first apocalypse. And he said, this is an apocalypse. Apocalypse is loud. And I said, no. I said, this is a form of an apocalypse. It is something that hasn't happened before and it is impacting the entire world. That's an apocalypse. And he said, huh. I said, yeah, this is probably the quietest apocalypse you will ever encounter. And it really made him.
19:12stop and think about all his preconceived notions about what he would do if something happened that was out of the ordinary in a big way. And there were many discussions had during that time frame too.
19:28So, yeah, it's a thing. So, with the conference, tell me when it's scheduled for.
19:37It is scheduled for May 2nd through the 4th, 2025. It's gonna be at the Harvest Ridge Event Center in Millersburg, Ohio. It's right in the heart of Amish country in Ohio. And Millersburg and the Holmes County area are just such fantastic areas. I mean, this location, you would wanna go there even if there was no conference. There's so many things to see and do there. It's just incredible, great people all around.
20:06People that follow the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference on Facebook are gonna see me doing some reels. As we get closer to the ticket sales in the first October into the conference, I'll be doing more conference-related things. But over the summer here, I wanna visit some of the establishments in the area, some of the restaurants, some of the other businesses that might support people that are going to the conference.
20:35And I have, I have sworn to the people who are coming to the conference that I will go out there and vet these locations who have pie or ice cream. Okay. I want to make sure I take care of that. I don't want to let anything slip through the cracks. People got to know where the ice cream and the pies are. What about cookies? Oh yeah, them too. You know, no, no good cookie gets left behind. So.
21:03Yeah, I want to hit all of them because some of them just have some fantastic stuff there and I want people to know about it so they can take advantage of it when they're there. The best part of road trips is finding the unknown mom and pop places that do it absolutely right. And just down the road from the conference, there's a place called Mama's Diner. They're doing some remodeling there right now. Great food.
21:30There are so many little places like that throughout the area. I'm going to highlight all of them so people don't have to go out and look for them on their own when they get there. They're going to have a list and they can get their targets set up in advance. So basically they come for the yummies but they stay for the information. Yeah. Boy, you're smart. A hungry person might not learn real well so I think they ought to be happy and get in there and enjoy.
22:00Well, yes, because why would you want to miss an opportunity like that? No, I get it. It's a really good idea and it's fun. Yeah, and that's, you know, I want the I want people to be aware of what's out there in the community. I also want to get the community engaged so they know that people will be coming to the conference and they'll be ready to welcome them. So can people buy tickets now or do you have a start date for when they can get tickets? No, ticket sales will begin the first of October.
22:30And we're going to be doing ticketing a little bit different. A lot of events will start ticketing at a certain time and they'll offer, you know, some early bird sales and everything. What we're going to do is starting October 1st, we're going to be on level one of early ticket sales and we're going to offer a designated number of heavily discounted tickets for level one. And
22:56everybody who gets one of those tickets is also going to be placed into a drawing. And if you get in level one, you're going to be in the drawings for all five levels. Those who buy soon are going to get the heaviest discount and they're going to be in five levels worth of drawings. Awesome! That's great. I'm guessing you're trying to do this so you get the buzz going about the conference.
23:23but also because some people who are into homesteading and self-reliance and stuff, don't necessarily have a lot of money to spend on a trip like this. That is true. And, you know, and having the opportunity to start that far out and have people work towards it and get some good deals, I think is a good thing. And, you know, from my perspective, I'm renting what is basically a county fairground that's used for an event center.
23:53And I have to, I've made a down payment on that, and I have got to pay the bill six months before the conference. So it's not like I can wait for people to come in the gate. Yeah. I need to get some cash up front there so I can pay for the whole place and make sure this happens. Yeah, and on that note, that's a lot of responsibility and a lot of taking on an unknown. So.
24:22So why, how did you get into this in the first place? Well, I've had had friends in the prepping world asking me for several years, you know, if I was ever going to do a conference up this way, because the majority there's there's a preparedness and homesteading conference festival down in southern Ohio. Just change your name. Heritage skills are down in Vinton County. And then we also have the Food Independent Summit that's also in in the same area as our conference.
24:51But getting both preparedness and homesteading up in the area that we're in, people have been asking me, and I think a lot of the folks I know down south just want to come up to see Amish country too. The one thing that always bothered me was the venue, finding the perfect venue. My wife and I were at the Kentucky Sustainability.
25:18festival they have down in Bowling Green, Kentucky. We were down there last October. I woke up two o'clock in the morning and said, the Harvest Ridge Event Center in Millersburg is the perfect spot. And we got with the folks there and they said they had never heard of what we're doing, but they were more than happy to help us. And then things have just worked out. We've come into, run into so many roadblocks where you think, okay, this is the end of the show right here, we can't go beyond. And then we pray about it a little bit. Next thing you know.
25:47things are worked out and we're back on track. So at this point where we're committed, there's, I don't believe there's anything to stop us now. So we're just gonna push ahead and get it done. Awesome. I always get a little bit twitchy about the term prepper because people have this perception that preppers are not exactly sane people. Yeah.
26:15When I come across people who go, oh, preppers, they're crazy. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Preppers are people who prepare for things that are unseen coming down the road toward them. Yes, there are some people who take it to the extreme, but there are people like my husband and I who know that you can get stuck in your house for three days because you can't get out of your driveway because it snowed for two days before that.
26:45and you're in blizzard conditions and you can't get out to clean out the driveway, let alone drive. So we consider ourselves preppers, but we consider ourselves preparers for things that might happen. And it makes me slightly angry when people are like, Oh, preppers are crazy people. They, they're hoarders and then, and then, and then, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not everyone is the same.
27:15When I saw that you were the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference, I was like, okay, is this going to be somebody like us who's reasonable in understanding that preparation is key? Or is this going to be someone who is a hoarder and, you know, at the extreme end of prepping? And I'm really glad to know that you're not at the extreme end of prepping because that would have been a totally different conversation today. Well, yeah. And really, it's...
27:42I get what you mean by extreme, but really, you know, whatever level of preparedness somebody wants to get into is really, really their concern. What's really irritated me over the years is negative connotation, the media, and some of our government officials have put on prepping. And they've, some of them have done the same thing with homesteading as well. And that's why I throw preparedness in there instead of prepping.
28:10I kind of want to disarm them on being able to use the word term prepping. And I'm hoping that I was afraid prepping would turn some people off. And I just wanted to come in and get a full understanding, you know, prepping homesteading is all about taking care of yourself. And I think that's a wonderful thing. I wish everybody was equipped with the knowledge and all the supplies they needed to be.
28:39be able to take care of themselves. But the fact of the matter is, a lot of people need help with that, and that's what we wanna do with the conference. Yes, and I wanted to make the distinction because it really does bother me when people just assume that they understand the term you're using, and they may not understand the term you're using because words mean different things to different people. And I am a big...
29:06Word girl, I love words, I love reading, I love learning by reading. And so when it's a distinction between crazy prepper and reasonable person who is prepared for something coming down the road, I want to make that distinction. Oh yeah. And I always get a kick out of people that, you know, kind of look at you and say the word prepper with a little bit of a sneer or smirk.
29:34And I just sit back and say, okay, you won't see me at Walmart when a snowstorm's coming in. No, because you won't need to be at Walmart because you already have a plan. We can just sit at home and enjoy life. Mm hmm. Exactly. My parents called me, I don't remember, a couple of winters ago to make sure that we were OK, because they knew we were having terrible weather. And they're in Maine and I'm in Minnesota. And I answered the phone and my dad was like, how you doing?
30:04And I said, we're doing fine. Generator kicked in when the power went out. Wood burning for, ah, can't talk. Wood burning boiler is doing its job and heating the house and we're having a really good dinner tonight because everything's still working. And he said, that's my girl. You made your heart happy. Oh yeah. And they have the same, almost the same setup that we do. So when things hit the fan.
30:34There, I usually am pretty sure that my parents with their lovely fortress of a home are safe and they're almost 78 and 81 on the 23rd and 30th of this month. And I used to worry about them. I don't worry about them. They got it knocked, they're set. So there is some real security in being self-reliant and being prepared.
31:03And I love that you're doing conference about this because people do need to know how to take care of themselves. Well, thank you. And that's what it's all about, helping people, helping get the word out, helping getting people educated on the things that they need to move them towards a self-reliant lifestyle. And that's, you know, we're at the stage now, we're trying to get the word out, so we appreciate anybody who can spread the word.
31:32If you're on Facebook, get on there and like and follow the Heartland Self-Reliance Conference page. And we're going to be blasting social media trying to get the word out and doing a number of other things we haven't seen other conferences do. But we're going to try to get the word out to as many people as we can. We appreciate anybody can help us do that. How many people do you have room for for this conference?
32:00Well, you know, that's right now with what everything that we have arranged the facilities we have arranged to get there, we could probably easily do upwards of a thousand. But if we use the entire fairgrounds, we can probably get upwards of three thousand in there. Okay.
32:19And then those people will go out in the world after they attend the conference and share what they learned and other people will learn from them. So it's a really nice spider web of information going out after the conference. Definitely, and you know that's when you look at the math on that. If you just have every person attends goes out and spreads it to two people and they spread it to two people, you're really getting the word out there. Yep, and that's what we need to do.
32:49the hub of it to start spreading that out? Well, it's been a lot of fun so far. I'm meeting some really great people. A lot of the great people are right up there in the Millersburg, Ohio area, including the staff at the Harvest Ridge Event Center. And you know, I can't say enough about the event center because it is easily the nicest facility we have ever seen for any event like this. Fun and great.
33:16All right, Jeff, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're at that point. So thank you for talking with me today. I really appreciate it. Oh, thank you, Mary. Thanks for having me on here and let me talk about something I love. Oh, that's why I do this because I love talking to you guys and you tell me stuff you love and it all works out great. Good deal. All right, have a great day. Thanks, Mary. Bye.
 

Empty Pockets Ranch

Today I'm talking with Lori at Empty Pockets Ranch. You can also follow on Facebook.
 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 Lori at Empty Pockets Ranch. Good morning, Lori. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm good. And I can hear the wind blowing, so it must be sunny and beautiful there. For right now, yes. And you're...
00:30You're in New York? Yes, I'm in upstate New York. Okay, awesome. All right, well, tell me about Empty Pockets Ranch. Yep, okay. Tell me about Empty Pockets Ranch. Is it called that because if you're going to run a ranch, your pockets are going to be empty? Yes, basically. And it's funny because that's probably like the number one question I get asked by visitors is, why would you call yourself something like that? And I feel like if you're remotely involved in any type of agriculture...
00:59like you're going to get it. It takes a certain kind of someone to want to do this. You work a bazillion hours a week for hopefully to break even type of thing. So it's just like a running joke amongst so many farmers about having empty pockets. So I was like, this is a nice tongue in cheek way to salute everyone in agriculture because we're all in this together.
01:30Yeah, I was telling my son that I was going to be talking to you today and the name of your ranch and I said, we should have named our place Go For Broke Acres. It's true though, right? Yup, exactly. It's hard work and it's expensive and it takes time. So I think it feels like all of your resources are sucked dry all the time. Yes, exactly.
01:59economic mess that we're in. It's so hard to be able to predict the future, what's going to happen, what should you invest in, what should you grow. It's very, I don't know, it's weird times right now. Yeah, that's what everybody I've talked to lately says. They're like, I don't know what's going on with this world, but we're just gonna keep trying to grow food and feed people. And I'm like, good, do that. Right. So I looked at your Facebook page and your website,
02:29By the way, tried to look at it 10 minutes ago and I couldn't do it. Something about DNS stuff. So you might want to look into that. Yes, it's brand new. So maybe there's some kind of issue. Yeah. I don't know, but wanted to give you a heads up. So look, looked at your Facebook page. You have a gazillion things going on, like you said. So tell me what you guys do. So we started.
02:58in 2017 with dairy sheep. And I had worked at a big dairy sheep downstate milking. And most people are like, oh, you can milk sheep? And then I say, yeah, you can milk anything with nipples. But I started my own flock after college. I went back to college as an adult later on and getting into cheese making is pretty much impossible.
03:29Okay. It's so regulated. There's so many rules. Just to get started, I needed about $100,000 worth of upgrades to my barn. So right off the bat, I said, okay, no, can't do that. I had already started to piece together East Frisian sheep. They're not very common in my area of the country.
03:59wax compared to here. So I had these sheep now and I'm like, all right, these aren't cheap. I went all over the place looking for them. Doing sheep cheese is not going to be an option, at least not at that time. So I'm like, what can I do next? So I bought a soap business. I had never made soap in my life. And I started like experimenting.
04:28using the sheep milk and soap because goat milk was like all the rage several years ago. But it was getting played out at that point. So I'm like, all right, this is working. And I started doing pretty well with the sheep milk soap because it's different, you know. And we upgraded our farm. We were renting a farm in another town and it was only on four acres. So we had the sheep, we had the livestock guardian dogs.
04:55And then we moved to this bigger farm that was 94 acres. So I went from four to 94. And then COVID came, like right after we had moved in. I did most of my business downstate on Long Island because that's where the money was. My town up here is pretty poor, rural, like typical agriculture town where they can't justify.
05:24you know, the added expense of a luxury item like sheet milk. So, so I would take all of my stuff downstate. COVID came and everything was canceled. You couldn't go to markets. You couldn't go anywhere. So we had a three-car garage just sitting here on the property, and it was full of prior owner stuff. So I was like, all right, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm turning this into a farm store. So that's kind of what I did.
05:51I started filling the store with soaps, like some crafty things that I did. I grew a lot of blueberries. And it just kind of like evolved from there. That year, everything had shut down and I had no idea what I was doing, but I opened the farm to the public. So I started doing festivals here and I had to be in compliance with the Department of Health laws.
06:19And the Department of Health didn't even really know what the laws were. Um, so it was kind of like, okay, you're outside, everybody, you know, wear a mask, blah, blah, blah, and everything started going well. So that year I decided, okay, like, I'm going to take some stuff that I've seen work in other areas of the country and I'm going to try it out here and see how it goes. So I planted two acres of sunflowers, just hand planted them to see how they would do.
06:48No one in my area was doing that. And then that was kind of like the kickoff of how things happened. Um, we had a news station come over to do a story and I particularly was not ready for that, but you don't say no. Right. Yeah. Um, they came and they did a feature on the farm. And then after that, it was just like wild. It was the amount of people that were coming here, visiting the farm. And you know,
07:16Like once you get to that level of popularity and you have to always come up with new things because if you don't, someone down the road is copying you. Well they're probably going to copy you anyway. But you always have to keep new things coming, right, to be able to keep the people coming. So I expanded into now I do a total of seven acres of you pick flowers. So I do zinnias.
07:44I do sunflowers, I have all kinds of you pick flowers. And then I got the NRCS high tunnel grant last summer and I've really focused on specialty dahlias and it's a super hot market and there's multiple income streams off of the one flower. So you can sell tubers, you can sell cuttings, you sell the cut flowers. And I went for the stupid expensive high end varieties that the florists want.
08:14So now I can wholesale to florists. I have them come and they cut their own flowers out of the high tunnel of what they want and then they pay me. I've done wedding design work. I do the upick. So, and then I have my own shop which I supply flowers there and then I supply flowers to several other shops in the county. And it's funny because five years ago I didn't even know what a peony was. So.
08:42It's kind of been a strange turn of events of things you don't necessarily ever expect to do and opportunities just fall into your lap kind of thing. Uh-huh. Congratulations on the grant. Grants are amazing. We got one for a heated greenhouse and I think we got it in October of 23 and just finished the build in May. So I understand about grants.
09:10It's really weird because sometimes grants are a thing where you have to sit down and really think about your answers and really write in a very professional manner. And sometimes grants are two questions. You answer the questions and by some miracle you get the grant, which is what happened to us. So. Right. And it's so funny because one of my best friends from- It's kind of crazy. Yeah. She does grant writing. So she helps me out with the ones that are tough.
09:39I mean, I could do it, right? But since I'm pulled in 7,000 directions and my friend does this for a living, I'm like, hey. Sometimes I'm good with the words, so why don't you help me out? And I honestly, if I sat back and totaled it, I probably have gotten upwards of $75,000 of grants. I'm just really good at finding them. I don't know how, they just like come to me and.
10:06But they help, you know, they absolutely help, especially when you're first getting started and you don't know what you're doing. It's nice to, you know, have some help with it because businesses are expensive, you know. Yes they are and more expensive than you would have guessed most of the time. Yeah. All right. So I have a question.
10:29How old are you? You don't have to tell me exactly. You can say mid-20s, mid-30s, whatever you'd like to say. Oh, God, I wish I was mid-20s. I just turned 41 in April. Okay, so it's not the boundless energy of 20-year-olds that's keeping you going. So how do you manage to keep this all organized and how do you schedule or plan your day so you get everything done?
10:55Well, I plan my day one way and then it never goes that way. So I have a toddler too. So that doesn't really help my time management situation. But I do have older kids that are 18 and 16 and they do a lot here. Like they do most of the farm chores. They help me run the store. They do a lot of like the grounds keeping type thing. We don't have employees. We should probably have employees, but.
11:25I'm very much like why pay someone when I can do it myself kind of thing. So it's just like I'm very you have to be flexible right because like you go out to do one thing and then a rainstorm comes out of nowhere and you're like okay can't do that, pivot on to the next activity. So I kind of just do like what needs to be done and what can wait. Like that's kind of how it is.
11:50I'm a little behind from my sunflower festival this year in August. It's a big festival. We have like thousands of people that come. And I'm behind on still getting vendors and stuff like that, but I'm like, nah, I have time, you know? Like, the flowers need fertilizing first. So I kind of just roll with the punches type thing. And something's always going to go wrong. Like last Thursday, I came home from my preschoolers' graduation.
12:20and our store freezer had completely crapped out. I went to the- Oh no. I lost $2,500 worth of prepared dinners that we had just made the day before. And I didn't know if I wanted to like rage throw the freezer or cry, you know? But I'm like, okay, you know what? It's Thursday, we're gonna be busy. I don't have time to like have a mental breakdown over this. So I'm just gonna take care of it and move on. And you know, luckily I have insurance on-
12:49everything because of you know this is going to happen and I knew it was going to happen at some point but you know these things happen at the most inconvenient of times as well so you just have to like know that that's that's all part of this you know you're going to walk out to the field and your cow is stuck in a fence or did something stupid you know or a sheep like cut themselves like they just do things so I think you have to be able to have that like oh well.
13:18onto the next type attitude or it's going to be really hard to survive. Without going insane, yeah. Yeah. Oh, if anyone who wants to get into this willingly, there's probably like a mental illness component to all of us because who wants to work like, you know what I mean? Like it really takes a certain kind of person and you really have to love the lifestyle and
13:45That's why on my post, I try to do as much education as possible because where we live now, we've had a lot of people move up to the country during COVID that thought they wanted to be a farmer. And so they've collected all these farm animals and, you know, want to do a big garden. And then they realized like, wow, this kind of sucks. Like I can't go on vacation.
14:13I can't just leave for the weekend when I want to, and I could work the entire summer and still have a crop failure. So I think there's like a really steep learning curve for people and you really have to have tough skin to be able to make it in this industry because the chance of things going wrong is way higher than the chance of things going right, if that makes sense. Yes, and having said all that,
14:42I don't want to scare people away from trying homesteading or farming or whatever because you can dive in whole hog and spend all your money and get all the animals and all the tractors and all the seeds and all seedlings and basically run yourself into the ground in the first six months. Or you can start small. Right.
15:07You can buy a place with a decent house on it with an acre or so, and you can do a small garden and get your feet wet and your hands dirty. And then you can decide if that's working and then you can make the next step. And if you find that you absolutely love it and you love the chaos and the surprises, then you can sell that place and buy a bigger place if you wanna go bigger. So.
15:34I understand what you're saying and you are absolutely right, but I also want people to understand that you don't have to start all the way in, if that makes sense. Right. And that's what I did. I mean, there are days where this place is overwhelming to me. I mean, I have a 12,000 square foot barn. I board horses. I have a store.
15:55I do flowers. I essentially have like six businesses in one. And if I had like jumped into this, I would be in the nuthouse by now because it is, it can be very overwhelming. And that's definitely the best advice is to start small because you don't know what you're going to like too. I felt like I had to grow vegetables because like, oh, you know, you have a farm, you have to grow vegetables.
16:24After year two, I discovered I absolutely hate growing vegetables. I hate it. I loathed it. I did not enjoy anything about it. So it took me two years to figure that out, that I really didn't like it and I was doing it because I had to. But I did it on a small scale. So I wasn't out a ton of...
16:48I was out of time, but I wasn't out a ton financially, and then I could repurpose the space for something else. So I think that's a really good idea to start small because you might try something and be like, oh, I really don't like this. So cut it off of the table. Yeah, my husband loves to garden. I have talked about this ad nauseam on the podcast since last August, and I don't.
17:15I don't love gardening. I don't love weeding. I don't love it. So that's his de-stressor from work. And honestly, if he came home tomorrow from work and said, I can't do my job and the gardens anymore, I would just dance a jig and be like, okay, cool. Let's just plant peonies on the whole property next year. We will have a peony farm. Three years from now, we will be selling peonies like hotcakes.
17:43He would probably go for that because they grow really well here in Minnesota. Right, right. And they're they're a high value flower. I mean, some of them get seven dollars a stem for you plant them once and they come back every year. And I think that's something to consider, too. Not like I want to like preach everyone go grow flowers. And that's the answer to your problems, because, you know, it's not. But I think like looking at it from a value perspective, too. So.
18:12where I live now, we have a ton of city people that are moving up, and then we have an influx of Amish coming up from Lancaster because they can't afford the taxes, I guess. And who would have thought that New York taxes would be cheaper than Pennsylvania, but I guess they must be. So now, you can't compete with their pricing. They're selling flats of heirloom tomatoes for $20. Wow. I can't throw them for that. I can't do anything with that.
18:42So if you're looking to grow for yourself and or if you're looking to grow to sell I think are two different Things too. I mean even to grow for yourself. I don't think I'd $20 a flat I would go two doors down and Pick up a flat some Peter but you know, it's it's a factor to consider too When you say flat like the actual tomatoes not the plants. Yeah
19:12Oh my god, that is I'm coming to visit them because we can't grow tomatoes that cheap. No, I don't know like how I maybe I don't want to know how. But I mean, if you they don't have the overhead that we you know, that we have. And I mean, I know when I'm pricing things, I'm guilty of undercharging, I'm sure, too. But I'm not taking into effect my weight costs or, you know, whatever. And I, you know, I don't.
19:39pay myself because my time is free here. But there's a lot of things to consider. If you're going to price appropriately, I'd have to charge $120 a flat for tomatoes where they're charging $20. It's interesting to see the price fluctuations. I think that has helped me a lot in my direction planning too.
20:08Do I want to compete with this guy two doors down for me? No, because it's not worth my time. I'm out here picking bugs off of tomato plants and it doesn't make sense. So I think that was an important part of how we got to where we're at now. And really, I mean, we started in 2017 originally, but I didn't open any of this and we didn't even move here till 2020.
20:37So I'm really going on year four and I've pivoted significantly multiple times over the last four years over things that work, things that don't work, things that are gonna be cost effective and things that are not gonna be cost effective. For sure, yep. Okay, so I saw that you do farm camp or day camp. Yes. And tell me about that, is that super fun? Yes, in small doses.
21:06So we did it last year for the first time and we ran two sessions. I did a session for five to 12 year olds and then I did another session for like 12 to 15 year olds. So I could really tailor it because when you combine them, like you're so busy with the little kids, the older ones get overlooked a little bit. So we do a ton of stuff. So we do like, I do like a mini bouquet making class.
21:35They get to spend time with the farm animals. They'll collect eggs from the chickens. They spend time with the horses. And then we have this big steer. His name's Oscar. And he comes out and the kids can pet him and spend some time with him. We go over nutrition for livestock, how to properly handle livestock.
22:01This year we're doing a pottery, a friend of mine from another farm around the way here has pottery classes. So she's going to come over and they're going to make a little farm themed mug with her pottery wheel. So I try to keep them super busy. Mostly our kids that have second homes up here and they're not necessarily exposed to livestock.
22:30those of us who live on farms are and it's they seem to really enjoy it and I have a lot of the same kids Come back every year. So I try to spin it a little bit different and add new activities or new lessons Like this year. I ordered a ton of predatory insects and even though you're supposed to release them at nighttime I'm gonna just let them release them during the daytime and they'll probably fly to another farm, but whatever, you know
22:58So I'm trying to like teach them about not spraying your flowers and vegetables if you don't have to, but I do it in a roundabout way with like cool bugs. Neat. So I have talked to a couple other people that have a farm school or a farm camp or whatever in the last couple of months because it's that time of year. And I've asked both of them and the answers were the same. So I'm going to ask you two.
23:25Does it just warm your heart when the kids that haven't really been exposed to this particular lifestyle come out and they're just like, wow, I didn't even know any of this. Does it just make your heart sing? Oh yeah, because it's, you know, I think I grew up on Long Island and people are like amazed to hear that. But where I grew up on Long Island...
23:52was farm country. No one thinks of Long Island as farm country, but where I grew up was all wineries, potato farms, vegetable farms. I grew up doing that. I was never really around livestock because there's no cows on Long Island. If you wanted to ride horses, you had to be a millionaire. I guess that hasn't really changed too much.
24:17So I remember when I first was around livestock, I was like, oh wow, this is so cool. And I'm sure I asked a million ridiculous questions too and people probably thought they were funny. So I remember what it's like firsthand to have that experience. And I think that I'm guilty of it too though because I'm doing this every day. So I can remember a time when I was a little kid and all I wanted was a pony and we couldn't have a pony.
24:46And now I have horses and sometimes in the wintertime I'm walking them up to pasture and I'm like, oh my God, this sucks, why did I do this? And then I have to step back and think back to that time. Remember, when you were a little kid and this was all that you could think about and this is all that you wanted and now you have it. So I try to relate back to that time when I'm interacting with kids who might not be exposed to the animals and might not be so accustomed to them as I am.
25:15And I think that it's good for me too, right? Because it takes me back to the point of appreciation. Because sometimes things just become a chore and you're like, ugh, you know, I'd rather eat lunch than be doing this. But I think that's a good reality check for me. Like, hey, this isn't just all work and you can enjoy these animals. And there was a time where this was all you wanted and now you have it, so be grateful. So I think it's humbling for everybody. Yeah.
25:43I have a couple things. One is about my dad and about me growing up as a kid with my dad and my mom. And one is about friends that visited this weekend. Don't let me forget the friends part because that's a fun story too. I grew up in Maine and my dad's dad, so my grandpa, lived in mid-state Maine, so like an hour and a half from where I grew up. And he had a farm.
26:11He didn't actually do a farm. He had a barn and an old farmhouse, and he had a big vegetable garden. Down the road from him, family friends had a dairy farm. And so I grew up being around barn kittens and calves and cows and steers because we would go up to visit grandpa and we would stop in and see the tibets while we were there. So the idea of not being exposed to a farmish life
26:41foreign concept to me because I was introduced to it from the time I was very little. Right. And then I moved from Steep Falls, Maine, where I grew up, to Portland, Maine with my future husband. And I had never really explored a city before. And Portland, Maine is not a big, it wasn't a big city at the time. It was a big city for the state of Maine. And it was so weird to me.
27:08wandering around that city and learning the landscape and the layout of the city I then lived in. And I can remember telling my dad when I visited him back at the house that I grew up in that I thought that everyone should live, if they grew up in the country or the woods as I did, they should spend time living in a city. And if they grew up in the city, they should have the chance to live in nature.
27:34And he looked at me and scoffed and said, I don't think anybody who grew up in nature should live in the city. And I said, I think you're wrong. I think that if you are brought up in one environment, it is not bad to try out another. And he said, I don't want to. I said, well, you don't have to. And that was the end of that. It was fine. And then, it has nothing to do with that story. We had friends down to visit this weekend to pick up a...
28:04couple barn kittens for their pole barn and they hadn't been here in a couple of years and I hadn't really talked to my friend in over a year because she got a job she's she's a lawyer so she's very busy and so they showed up she gave me big hug we sat down she's like so what's going on we haven't talked and I said well I have barn kittens for you and she said one and I said you want to and she was like yes so she took two of the
28:33the three that were left. So we have no, the four that were left. So we have two kiddies still here. And I said, I started a podcast. She had no idea. Started a podcast and I explained what I was doing. And she said, I see you guys are doing the farm stand and the farmers market down in Lesor in the summer. So I saw that on Facebook and I was like, yeah. And she welled up, her eyes filled up with tears and she was like, Mary.
28:59I am so proud of you. You guys are doing exactly what you said you wanted to do five years ago. Right. And I said, well, yes, did you think we were gonna buy 3.1 acres with a farmhouse and a pole barn on it and not do anything with it? Yeah. And she said, well, no, she said, but you guys, it's only been, you've only been here four years in August and look at everything you've accomplished.
29:28And I hadn't really thought about it because we've been doing the things. You know, when you're in the middle of it, you're not really stepping back and going, oh, I'm so proud of myself. We did that thing. Right. And she didn't know about the grant funding the greenhouse that wasn't here the last time she was visiting. And she said, really nice greenhouse. And I said, yes, and it's a damn good thing I got a grant or it wouldn't be there. And she said, what?
29:54I said, we got a grant for that. I said, not a penny of that came out of our pocket. And then she had a huge grin on her face and she was like, I'm so proud of you. It's so weird being 54 years old and having someone who's only a year or two older than me saying that to me, you know? Right. Yeah. So it plays into the taking it for granted or the not being aware of what is going on. Right.
30:22Yeah, I mean, and it's easy to do that, right? Because you're so caught up in scrambling, like, oh, I'm behind for planting season. Oh, I gotta get this, and oh, I gotta get that done. But I think it's so easy for us to just overlook and look at what you have accomplished instead of what you haven't or just being so focused on things that need to get done and not maybe looking at the...
30:48the big picture of things and that kind of thing. So I think it's important to do that too. It's nice when other people...and that happens to me too because this farm was empty for I think it was like nine years before we moved in. And I mean it was a mess. I remember driving by this place all the time and I'm like, oh, that farm is so cool. Why are they letting it...everything was overgrown and just destroyed.
31:16And when we moved in, we were just so like, OK, let's get this done. And weed whacking fence line for miles just to be able to get the livestock out because the brush was so overgrown. And people will stop in and be like, oh, it's so nice to see this place become a farm again. And it looks so great. And I'm like, it looks great. I'm like, oh. Thank you, but yes. Yeah.
31:45All I see is work when I look at this place and this needs to be done and that needs to be done. And I wish I had taken pictures of when we first moved in and I don't know why I didn't probably because I was so focused on fixing everything right away. But it would be nice for me to even just like look at what it was and then look at what we've done and be like, oh, you know, we have come a long way. And I think it's important sometimes to pat yourself on the back because Lord knows we all need it.
32:14Yes, absolutely. And honestly, I'm going to say congratulations for building up something that needs so much work. I'm proud of you because I know what it takes. My husband, when he's at the farmer's market, he has people come up to him and say, wow, you're doing so many things at your farm. And I don't really consider it a farm, but I guess it's a farm.
32:41because people drive by our place all the time because it's on a connector road from LaSore to the next town over. And we don't even think about the fact that people notice what we're doing because we feel like we're in a bubble here, you know? Right, yeah. And so he comes home from the farmer's market and he was like, some complete stranger walked up to me at the farmer's market today and said, your place looks great. I'm so glad that someone bought it and is doing something with it.
33:10Isn't it wild how people like pay attention to that kind of stuff? It honestly kind of creeps me out because I feel like no one's really paying attention and I realized they are. Yeah. That's how like we're on a main road here in town, but we're in a like my it's a 55 mile per hour road. So oftentimes people will like slow down and start creeping by and I'm like, oh no, there's an animal out, right? Because what other reason would they be?
33:40creeping by or stopping or whatever. And sometimes it's just for that, like for people to look and see what we've done. And it's kind of cool, yet a little creepy, but also cool. Yeah, I've really had to get over my being an a fishbowl thing that bugs me. Because when we lived in town almost four years ago now, we were very close with neighbors and we were on a road that
34:10was very close to the main street in town and I hated every second of it. I felt like I was constantly being asked, what are you doing now? You know? Right. Right. And so I don't like that feeling. I want to be the fish in the bowl looking out. I don't want to be on the receiving end of the people looking at the fish in the bowl. Right. And
34:33When I started the podcast, my husband said, you realize that you're going to be talking to people and people are going to hear you talk about things. And I was like, yes. He said, that doesn't freak you out. And I said, no. He said, you are the strangest woman I've ever known. He said, and I love you. I was like, okay, good. I said really, to see them, right? Like they're not in your house. They're not in your backyard, you know. So I think it's a different, it's like a different.
35:02But it still does freak me out when my husband comes home from the farmers market and says somebody came up to me today and said they love the podcast. I'm like, oh my God, people actually listen to it. This is so strange. It's a good problem to have though, isn't it? Yeah, it's just I forget. I don't forget, but it doesn't register in the front of my brain when I release episodes that people are actually going to listen to them and pay attention and learn stuff.
35:29I don't know. It's this weird disconnect for me that I want people to listen, I want people to learn, but I can't think about it too hard if that makes any sense at all. Yeah, right, because you're having a conversation really. You know, it's like a free-flowing conversation with your people. Yeah. You know, and I think that's interesting and I think it's important for a lot of people who, you know, want to get into it or
35:59are thinking about getting into it or are not sure. But we saw all these cool pictures on Instagram, and it's kind of like, eh, it's not all Instagram pictures. You know? Like so. No. No, it's not. And the other thing that's tough sometimes is I don't want to be an evangelist for.
36:25for homesteading and cottage food producing and crafting. I mean, if you wanna do it, here's the stuff that people do and here's the way they do it. And maybe this will help you get started. If you don't wanna do it, I don't expect you to do it. This is not homesteading, cottage food producing and crafting church. This is...
36:51This is come sit by the campfire and listen to stories about people who are doing things. Yeah. And it's funny because I hate public speaking. It's something I've struggled with my entire life. Me too. Lately, people have asked me to do all these guest speaker spots and I'm like, ugh, ugh, ugh. You know, and I don't want to say no.
37:17because like I know some things right and if some things that I happen to know can help somebody then I would like to help people. So I've been doing a lot more of them and a lot of it is with the livestock guardian dogs because that whole thing has just become a disaster in itself. And the way I start every single one of these like guest speaker spots is let me tell you why you.
37:45don't need a livestock party and dog. And people look at me like I'm nuts and I'm like, you know, I'm honest to a fault sometimes, right? But I want to set up everyone to succeed. And these dogs are not for everyone. And somehow they've become the face of the farm here. Like everyone knows my dogs.
38:12Mostly because they chase people along the side of the question. So it's interesting, you know, like how the dynamic works where sometimes you're honest, but people don't want to hear that honesty either, you know. So I kind of say what I have to say and then people are going to choose to do what they're going to choose to do.
38:42Regardless. Yes. And you're an East Coast girl. Of course you're honest to a fault. I get that all the time. You don't lie. I'm like, nope. If you ask me if that dress looks good on you and it doesn't, I'm going to say I really like the pattern. I really liked the design. I really liked the way it's cut. I'm never going to tell you. It makes you look terrible, but I'm also not going to, I'm not going to lie, but I'm not going to not lie. So.
39:10And that, you know, like the main reason I don't lie is because one, I'm not good at it. And I forget. So, so like, I'll tell my kids something sometimes because they're like annoying me. Say something. And then later I forgot that I said it and then they'll catch me in it. And then I'm like, oh, okay. So I just like, don't I don't even bother to try to.
39:39This is what it is. Like, I'm just saying, you know? Get a dog and don't get a dog. I don't know anymore. Yes, I just don't have the energy to deal with it. No. And honestly, there's a joke about does this, do these jeans make my ass look fat? And the punch line is no, your ass makes your ass look fat? I can't be that blunt, but I am darn close sometimes. Yeah.
40:09Speaking of the guardian livestock dogs, I really would have loved to have gotten a great Pyrenees because I think that they are big loves and they're beautiful and a great Pyrenees puppy would have been amazing. However, I am not in any way shape or form prepared to raise that dog to 120 pounds. So we ended up getting a mini Australian Shepherd instead.
40:38She's a herding dog. She doesn't actually have a job because we don't have anything for her to herd. But smartest freaking thing we ever did because she's only 35 pounds. She is very calm when she's in the house. And when she gets outside, she loves to run and play. Smartest choice ever made regarding an animal for us. Yes, yes. But that having been said, I do love the Greeks.
41:04Pyrenees, I love the Anatolian, whatever they are. Yep. Yeah. So I have the livestock guardian dogs. I don't know if you can hear this dog barking in the background. It's my neighbor's dog over a mile away. He's got a bunch of healers and the dog has been barking the entire time. But I have like herding dogs. And then I have...
41:33the working livestock dogs and they don't ever intermingle because the livestock dogs will kill the herding dogs like hands down. Really? Oh yeah, yeah because they're not going, they know who they are but the herding dogs are not allowed to actually herd anything. If I were to put a collie or I have an Australian shepherd as well, if I were to put them in there and they were to start moving my sheep, that's a threat.
42:02to the flock. Oh, yeah. So they would expel the dog immediately. Wow. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot to having the dogs and even I had a real scary incident last about two weeks ago with a customer that was here. And my guard dogs, they're they're into separate
42:32The gate is right down by the farm store, but it's all electric fenced. Like they're hot wired in like Jurassic Park. They're not getting out. And sometimes customers pull up to the store and they have their pet dogs waiting in the car or whatever. And this always starts an issue, right? Because the pet dogs are tough from inside the car. They start barking. Then my guys come down and it's war of the barks and whatever.
43:01never really thought too much about it. Two weeks ago, I had a customer come in and she was chit chatting with me inside the store for a bit. I didn't realize she had her husky and her son in the car. So she left or I thought she left and I was checking out another customer and I hear like horrific screaming from outside. It was the kind of screaming where you just drop everything and run because you know it's something bad, right? So I charge out of the
43:31Her husky is in my pasture and has one of my sheep by the throat. I guess when she had gotten into the car, the dog had slipped out. I've had huskies growing up, they're super prey drive-y. If you have a small animal or something, they're going to probably try to kill it. All of mine were like that. It took the blast from my electric fence, went underneath, was chasing the sheep.
43:58grabbed one by the throat and my guys were up top. So I saw them, there's five of them in there. I'm like, oh God, they're charging down and we've clocked my lead female at 32 miles an hour alongside the road. So the dog sees that my guard dogs are coming and now the dog's like, oh God. So he runs into my barn. I can't run fast, you know?
44:23So my dogs get into the barn, they have the dogs surrounded, and they were just gonna rip this dog to pieces. I hopped in the middle, and that was, I probably could have gotten myself ripped up pretty good. And I picked up this dog, I don't know how I did it. I'm 5'2", like I'm not. I lifted this husky up over my head, and my husband had come running in behind me. I threw this dog, I don't know how I did it.
44:50Maybe it was the adrenaline or whatever. And I threw the dog to my husband. I was like, get this thing out of here. So I checked, you know, I went right to checking my sheep and thankfully they hadn't been shorn yet. And I was late this year, maybe for a reason. So there was damage to the sheep or anything like that. But it really, that was the first incident I've had like that and I've had these dogs for almost nine years. And that was the first.
45:17like security breach that we've really ever had where the dogs were put to the test, you know? I mean, they talk a good game behind the fence, but I've never had something come in like that and attack, like blatantly attack my sheep. So it was nice to see that push come to shove. All this dog food isn't wasted and they're going to actually... Yup. They're actually going to do the job that they're supposed to do, yes. How long did it take you to stop shaking that day?
45:47Oh God, it was like, it was like at least an hour and a half. And then I was like, that's it. You know, I used to allow people to come to the festivals. We'd walk the dogs up into horse stalls and stuff like that. So I would allow people to bring leash dogs here and stuff like that. And now I'm like, that's stupid idea. You know, just because you don't know what's going to happen or what can happen or somebody's dog gets loose. So now I'm like, strict no dog policy on the farm.
46:16Which stinks because, you know, I am a dog person, but it's not fair to my dogs, right, to have them riled up all the time from people bringing dogs here. And then, you know, if something were to happen, if they had killed that dog, can you imagine the face of like propaganda against me? My dogs would probably all be euthanized. They'd be deemed dangerous. And can you believe, you know, that kind of thing. So I feel like I have to do with right to protect my own dogs.
46:46even though they're doing the job they're supposed to be doing. It's wild. Yes, it's a liability issue. And honestly, every place like yours and like mine has liability issues. We ended up getting farm insurance and made our place an LLC so that we have protections and so that we can make sure that the people who come on the farm are protected too. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like I would not sell my mother a tomato.
47:16insurance because you just don't know, you know, and let's say people did something and get sick from something else but they also got a tomato from you that day, like they're coming for you, you know, it's a it's a different time where people are just looking for the quick buck, you know, type thing, so I think it's very smart to be protected but there's a lot of great areas.
47:48There sure is. The other part is that I want people to feel safe in coming into our property to the farm stand. Right. And so that LLC on the end of the business name implies that we take it seriously. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So that helps. You have to protect yourself. You have to. Because anytime you're open to the public, like I'm letting people cut their own flowers for God's sake.
48:18They're up here with sharp objects. You know what I mean? So it's like so many things could potentially go wrong that you have to, you really have to. So. Yep. I'm sitting here listening to you and thinking about everything we talked about. And I think that the tag on this one's going to be the realities of farming and homesteading.
48:46Yes, exactly. Because it's true. There's a lot going on all the time. Yes. The reality is, it can be the most wonderful thing ever, but it can also be a lot. Yes. All right, Lori, thank you so much for your time and your thoughts and your stories. I loved your stories. Thank you so much. Have a great day. All right.