A Tiny Homestead

The Giving Garden Farm Stand

Today I'm talking with Tamber at The Giving Garden Farm Stand.
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00:00Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Tamber at the Giving Garden Farm stand. Good morning, Tamber. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Colorado? You're going to be surprised. It's actually quite sunny today.  So we're very excited for this nice weather.
01:23Yeah, is Colorado rainy? I don't know anything about Colorado. Yesterday we woke up to a complete fog storm and it was misty and nasty out. So  you just never know what it's going to be. It's super bipolar.  Okay. All right. Well,  Minnesota's been a little bipolar lately too, as we were saying before I hit record.  It's not raining right now, but we had a thunderstorm roll through around 7, 7.30.
01:51and it's supposed to clear out and get hot and then we're supposed to have really nasty storms later today. So I'm like, okay.  Bracing yourself.  I'm just keeping everything crossed that it doesn't do anything bad because  our high tunnel is full of seedlings, our greenhouse is full of plants,  and my husband actually planted cabbage and lettuces and stuff this weekend in the garden.
02:17Keep everything you got crossed so we don't get hail because that will ruin what's in the garden. We got a little hail storm this last week as well. We got about, I would say, eight minutes of pea-sized hail.  it's unfortunate, you know, to watch it come through. It always makes your heart sink a little bit, especially growing up on the farm. But hopefully  our first cutting of hay will bounce back and we'll see what the good Lord does for us.
02:44Yeah, exactly. You just never know. And I said to my husband after he planted the stuff  on,  I think it was Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I said, did you happen to notice that we have rough weather coming in on Monday? And he was like, no.  Yeah, we do. And he said, well, they're all little tiny plants. Maybe they'll be able to be in between the hail. I'm like, okay, we'll go with that.
03:11Well, hope for the best. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do at the Giving Garden Farm Stand. Yeah. So my name is Tambor, as we already went over.  My family and I  run the Giving Garden Farm Stand, and we just recently opened.  So in our little 7 by 7, 10 shed that we bought off of Facebook and revamped,  you can find our Fresh Farm Eggs.
03:39You can find always a bread product, whether it be a flat bread, a sourdough loaf, a regular loaf of bread, bread crumbs, something like that. And then always something to satisfy the sweet tooth. So this morning I made fresh raspberry crumble bars and they are to die for. I hate to do my own harm, but they're really good. I do too, it's fine. Yeah. This weekend we did a lot of cookies and that went very well too. So.
04:09Just testing it out, seeing what people are liking, and that's been a lot of fun, meeting people, hearing what they like as well. And then alongside with all that, I always have my canning items. So I do some food preservation and have my pickled vegetables and pickles out there along with some fresh jams. We have actually quite a big variety of those.
04:35It seems to all be going well. There's a lot of interest and  it's been a lot of fun.  Okay. I want to know how you came to do this, but first I want to know about the, we call them cottage food laws here in Minnesota. Is that what they're called in Colorado? Yes, that is correct.  So what's,  what are your parameters for that? So the biggest one that causes a lot of heartache for me is we love our chickens.
05:05But I have to buy brand new egg cartons to be able to put them out on the stand and sell them. And they cost me about a dollar a piece. So it's a little frustrating because we only charge $5 a dozen. And so then I had to my prices because it cost me a lot of money to put them in a fresh egg carton as one of the cottage food laws. Yeah.
05:30I'm like, don't understand why, but you know, I'm going to follow it because we want it to be open. Yeah. And I'm trying to figure out why  egg cartons are so expensive because  all they are is paper. I  would love to know that as well. I have no idea. I've done a lot of research trying to find a better price and unfortunately that's just what it is. And so.
05:59I don't know. We're going to stick with it for now.  And I hate to be a smart ass, but I really hope that egg cartons are made in America. I really do. I would totally agree with you on that one.  Yeah. I think we're under the same requirement that we have to have clean egg cartons, like brand new egg cartons if we're going to sell them out of the farm standard at the farmer's market.
06:23And then another one  that I learned,  I do fresh cinnamon rolls and I can make a really good cream cheese frosting, but we cannot have  dairy products as such out on the farm stand, unfortunately.  But I can  go to our local food store and I can purchase it and I can resell it because it's made in a commercial kitchen, but I cannot make my own frosting and sell it.  So.
06:52That's been kind of a hurdle because if you're purchasing, a lot of people want the homemade aspect of food. So it's also been educating a lot of people on that as well as I'm doing the best I can, but I also have to abide by these cottage food acts.  Yeah, here it's anything that's not shelf stable. We're not allowed to sell under the cottage food. Yeah, we could do fruit pies. We cannot do dairy, like  cream pies at all.
07:22trying to think what else  comes to mind quickly. are the main.  no buttercream. No butter, no homemade butter.  My husband's family makes a really good cheese.  Unfortunately, although we enjoy it, we cannot  sell it. It's a little unfortunate as well. Because a lot of people want that. A lot of people want the  freshness, but I can only offer
07:50what I can offer by the state. Yup. We're under the same kind of rules here. But having said all that, you having said all that and me chiming in, I'm really thankful for the cottage food laws because otherwise we be able to sell anything. I would totally agree. And to be honest, sometimes they're okay. know, rules are rules for a reason because you would not want to eat out of everybody's kitchen. So I also am thankful for laws as well.
08:20Me too, and right now I wouldn't want to eat out of my kitchen. It needs a really good deep cleaning.  I love the honesty.  Well, it's been real busy here with the gardening season starting and  my kitchen table and the card table we put up in front of my kitchen table were covered with plants until yesterday.  Yes. So I have to get that straightened out today and  the card table put away and the table washed off and swept  over there.
08:50And then I might feel safe cooking in my kitchen again. And then we'll bring back the cooking. Yeah. I mean, I'll cook for us. We're fine. I wouldn't want anybody to walk into my kitchen right now and have cookies sitting out on the island across from the table that is covered in potting soil from the plants.
09:12It's only a sight for your eyes.  Yes, exactly. Let's just pretend it's gorgeous and pristine and shiny like it was the first time I saw it four and a five years ago.  Okay, so how  did you get to where you are? It's an interesting question.  It's a loaded question. Okay. I have been very active in the 4-H and FFA community since I could remember  my parents.
09:41ran our local 4-H club for many many years. And so of course I got to join at a young age and grow up in that. So we always raised our own pork. I got to show all of the swine and I even did lambs one year. I did goats one year. And I also did some of the home ec projects which included shotgun. I did
10:09food preservation and quilting to name a couple.  But I fell in love with food preservation.  There's many different levels if you don't know anything about 4-H. So as you do it year by year, it's a different challenge. So  I competed every year and you age out when you turn 18.  So  as I aged out when I turned 18, I won Wilde County, which is our local county fair.
10:38And then when you win your county fair, you get to compete at state. So I got to take my food preservation up there. got to compete up to state. I won the state of Colorado.  And then I  got asked to go to nationals.  You don't compete with your project up there. You just get to say hello to a lot of people. So that was fun.  But I didn't know that that was a skill that not a lot of people know.  So it sparked a lot of interest.
11:08Although I was only 16, 18 at the time, a lot of people wanted to learn from me, my skills that I had for food preservation. So I started to teach people what I had learned from the people that I loved the most on how to do that. And as I got older and had my own family, we have our own garden. And last year, we just had a garden that kept giving.
11:35Like it would not stop giving us stuff. could not, I couldn't can it fast enough. We couldn't consume it fast enough.  And so I have this huge basket  and I would send it with my mom that owns a local consignment store in town. And I'd fill it every single day.  And  I  would put  anything fresh in there or if we had leftover baked goods, I'd throw a couple in there too to give to our friends and we would just give it away. And people just loved it.
12:05But  I thought, hmm, I could do a little farm stand and I could do maybe something that I love. I could grow a bigger garden.  I could open a farm stand and my mom wouldn't have to haul my fresh vegetables to her store every day.  So  here came the giving garden.  We named it the giving garden because the garden that just kept giving last year.  So that was really fun.
12:34We have a two and a half year old little baby and he just is the coop manager. He runs the chickens. He makes sure everything's good. He collects the eggs and counts them every day. So that's his little project that  as we sell the eggs, it goes into his savings. So that's kind of the story on where it all begun.
13:00That is so sweet and congratulations on being a 4-H superstar. Well, thank you. It's  something that I'm very proud of and it truly made me who I am today.  Yeah, I hear wonderful, phenomenal, fantastic, I could go on  things about 4-H and what it does for kids and I didn't have the opportunity to be in it when I was a kid because it just wasn't offered where I lived.
13:26Yeah, and  it's just incredible. A lot of people see it as you have to show livestock because  that's what a lot of us kids out here do.  And it's a great opportunity to show livestock.  But there's a lot of things that you can do in the home ecside too. Here in Colorado, they even offer a program called the horseless horse.  So you can still learn about horses, you can still fill out a record book.
13:51You can still submit it to the state and compete even if you don't have a horse. You could do robotics. There's so many  opportunities in 4-H.  It's phenomenal. I cannot  applaud it more.  You know, I have been trying to find somebody from 4-H to talk to me on the podcast and since you did it, I'm just going to ask you the questions I would have asked them. Yeah. Does it cost money to be part of 4-H?  There is a small  like county fee that they do charge.
14:21I think it's under $100. I don't think it's too expensive. It's been a little while since I've done the registration side of things, unfortunately. But yes, it's a very small fee to be able to compete. I also think that they charge that fee to hold people accountable because a lot of it is ran off of volunteers. So to get a bunch of volunteers together, it also takes a little bit of accountability for the people that are signing up.
14:51Yeah, and with all the things that the kids get to do,  that must cost money too. And the building,  and the ribbons, and  there's truly a lot that goes on behind the scenes that not a lot of people see. And that's the point, right? It's supposed to be fun for the kids, and it's supposed to be learning, and  that's what I love about the program. Okay, and  is 4-H a nonprofit organization?
15:22Hmm. If you don't know, it's fine. I can always go dig. I am not 100 % sure what it would be classified as. I know that there is some profit made, but I know that it is nonprofit to an extent. I just don't know what it's technically classified. Well, I'm typing into Google right now because I brought it up, so I should probably find out.
15:49I'm like, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. I was just wondering how 4-H is funded. a lot of love, a lot of love and a lot of volunteers that put a lot of time and years and effort into growing such a strong community. Okay. Yep.
16:10What I'm seeing really quick is I see about National 4-H Council, 4-H is the youth development program of our nation's Cooperative Extension System and USDA.  So that doesn't tell me if it's nonprofit, but it does tell me that it's through the USDA.  that helps.  Yes. I'm like, I don't know, but I could ask my mom and Shirley get back to you.  She's a really good resource for that.  Okay, cool.  So  I
16:38I think I talked to somebody from Colorado a week or so ago and I think I asked them about their growing season, but I don't remember what I asked or what I got for an answer. So I asked you again, when can you guys get plants in the ground safely after the last frost date? I live by the farmer's almanac or Mother's Day. I never plant before Mother's Day just because one year we got really excited, planted
17:08And right  before Mother's Day, there was a huge frost. And so that's the rule of thumb that I go by.  And I truly just watch our bigger farmers in the community  see when they're starting to plant corn. I really try and watch and watch their example and try and follow to that extent as well. Okay.  Yeah. When my husband put stuff in this weekend.
17:35or he said Friday night, he told me he was going to start putting stuff in the garden this weekend. And I said, it's not May 15th.  And he said, I know. Yes. Got a little excited. And I said, what are you putting in? And he said the cold hardy stuff. And I said, OK, fine.  I said, please, please, please don't put the tomatoes in the basil end because you know sure as hell  if you do, it's going to frost. Every time.  He was like, he said, you always say I'm in the gardener. And I said, you are the gardener.
18:05I said, but you're also impulsive and excited and you want to get the garden going because last year sucked.  So  please trust me, don't put tomatoes and basil in. He said, I will not. That was a good one.  Yeah. The other reason that I, he's so  bent on getting things into the garden right now is because our both of our greenhouses, we have a hard sided greenhouse and we have a high tunnel.  They are to the point of bursting with plants and need to go out.
18:34I love that for you. It's so exciting. It just makes your heart happy when you see it.  Oh my god.  If you had seen the craziness we went through last year, you would know why he's so excited.  Our garden was terrible last year because we had six weeks of rain and so  it took forever for the garden to dry out.  And  in that, we had put up a hard-sided greenhouse that can be heated.
19:03So he had that going on to distract him from his misery of not being able to get stuff in the garden.  And that hard-sided greenhouse, what a freaking godsend.  Yes,  yes. My son brought in a handful of strawberries from the strawberry plants that wintered over in the greenhouse this year. Oh my gosh. Uh-huh.  Yep. And they weren't quite ripe enough yet, so they were kind of neutral, but they were strawberries in April.  Hey.
19:32I'll take it any day of the week. That's awesome.  Yep. I took pictures and posted them on Facebook to memorialize the moment.  Absolutely.  I would too.  Uh-huh.  And the  greenhouse is heated with IBC totes filled with water and the IBC totes are painted black so they absorb the sun.  I like it.  And it did pretty well. We had a week in January where it was
20:01super cold and it barely maintained but it maintained just enough so that the stuff that was cold hardy survived and We were so excited tamber. I I'm  You would have thought we were five years old being handed our first lollipop.  Yes I know the feeling though like it's so satisfying when you finally did it, you
20:27Yeah, and we didn't know if those IBC totes full of water would work. was just something we'd seen and we were like, well, it's the least expensive option right now. Let's try that first.  love it. I love those little, I don't know, like little nooks, know, that work that might be the cheaper option, but it worked. And I'm here for the cheaper option  anytime.
20:52Well, I was excited about the strawberries, but what I was more excited about is the fact that our rosemary plant that we put in there last fall overwintered.  my husband says it's huge.  I would totally love it. Rosemary is so in right now, whether you're decorating with it or cooking with it or drying it, it's huge, especially here in Colorado.  Rosemary, I love it.
21:19Yeah, and it will not overwinter outside here in Minnesota. No. Nope.  So that was that was the thing I was more excited about because every every spring we either plant rosemary seeds, which you can actually do. We did it a couple of years ago. You can plant rosemary from seed and it will become  a beautiful plant by fall.  Nice. Or we buy seedlings because I love how it smells. I don't necessarily love to cook with it. I have some on hand for like, you know, putting in a  roast or something. Yes.
21:49but I just love how the plant itself smells when you run your hands through it. Yes, I agree. it's like, sometimes I'll wrap my sourdough bread in it and then I'll put like a little sprig on it to kind of give it, I don't know, more like a natural look. Then when you buy the bread, you can smell it and you can see the rosemary and you can use it again. I love rosemary for so many reasons.
22:16I also love thyme and thyme is a cold hardy plant so it will grow underneath the snow. I did not know that. If you don't have six feet of snow, I mean if you have like a couple feet of snow, there's probably some little green sprigs trying to hang on underneath the snow. But we have a whole bunch of thyme in the heated greenhouse right now. And would you believe four days ago my husband said if I cut thyme and bring it in, will you dry it? And I was like absolutely.
22:44And he never cut it because he got sidetracked by everything else this weekend.  That's how it goes.  I love dill.  I absolutely love dill. If I could have one thing in my garden forever, it would be dill.  I love dill.  The dill weed, not the actual flowers of the seeds, but the leaves of the dill plant. And they're not really leaves, they're like little spikes.  But anyway, I love drying that.
23:14and putting it in sour cream with some onion powder and some garlic powder. Perfect. a little bit of buttermilk or buttermilk powder, dried buttermilk.  And  some salt. And a little bit black pepper. And that is the most fabulous dip I've ever made in my life. Oh yeah. Fresh dill and anything with cream cheese, count me in.  Yep.
23:38Yes.  Hey, I picked the right person to talk to you this morning because we're talking plants and I really needed to talk plants because it is so gray outside.  So you have chickens. Do you have other animals?  As of right now, we do have a couple of other animals.  We of course have two dogs. We have two cats. My husband has a horse named Bellagio. He is a team roper  and we just love him  and so does our little son.
24:08We just got some guenies.  We have 20 of those little birds out in the broiler right now.  They are little and so they're different than baby chicks because they require a higher protein and they're very fast.  So  we got those because actually the ticks are really bad this year.
24:36We've already been pulling them off of our dogs, unfortunately. And guineas,  they obviously keep away snakes, but they also love to eat ticks. So I ordered a bunch of them and I'm like, please take care of our tick problem. So we have that going  for us.  It's actual, we just got rid of our goats, but my parents have two alpacas that are pretty cool too. Okay. Yep.
25:06Awesome. Well,  I'm gonna do the thing I shouldn't do. What kind of dogs do you have?  Oh We have a miniature dachshund. Her name is Ro. She's a dapple She  is full of energy sass and whatever else you want to call her.  She rules the roost Then we have a little miniature schnauzer. His name is Dexter He's the quieter one, but he  They both just roam and love the farm
25:36Nice.  I was hoping you weren't going to say like a Pyrenees or an Australian Shepherd because  we have an Australian Shepherd and some of our friends who live nearby have two Pyrenees.  And I shouldn't say this. I talk about our dog all the time on the podcast and I always feel we're doing it again. But  Maggie is our Australian Shepherd and  she was not feeling great last week. She was kind of...
26:03loafing around, she wasn't eating her food, and I was like,  this is not good. And come to find out, my husband has been giving her extra food  at night after I go to bed because she's being a brat.  And  I had noticed she was getting chunky again. And I've had this conversation a bunch of times and I finally looked at him and I said,  do you want this dog to live a long happy life? Yes.
26:29And he said,  said, yeah, I love her. I said, then stop overfeeding her.  Yes, I know. I know. But treats are good. Treats are great. Let's give her some green beans. Yes, or carrots. are huge carrots. Ice cubes are a really good one too.  She is a fiend for ice in the wintertime.  The icicles fall off the side of the house and she,  she steps on them to break them and then she eats them.
26:59She's smart. She's very smart. She's scary.  anyway, I basically put my foot down and said, you've got to stop eating her because if she dies, I will be a disaster. Oh, yeah.  And he was like, OK.  And so he started putting her food bowl up where she can't see it as soon as she finishes her dinner.
27:22Uh-huh. And has not been giving her food. And amazingly, she's already starting to slim back down and her energy level is back up and she's been eating her breakfast right away in the morning. And she's rocking and rolling. I love it.  So yeah, it's hard when you have pets because you want to give your pets everything including freaking chocolate cake and don't do that with a dog. It will kill them. Right.  But you want to show them that you love them in the way that you would show your child that you love them.
27:52Oh, 100%. And I love that you use the dogs, but we have the chickens and we have we have 32 Lang hens right now and then we have probably 40 that are about 12 weeks. And so my little son takes mealworms, the dried mealworms, scatters them out so that he can walk to the car because now that they
28:20know that he has treats, they come up to him every single time like, come on, come on, we need more treats. So he, he's the king of treat giving.  I love that. That's adorable.  The worst part about having chickens is that chickens do not know how to self regulate when they eat.  A hundred percent.  We go through feed like it's water.  Uh huh. Yeah.
28:49Yeah, if we fill our chicken feeder, they will eat and eat and eat all day. Yes. It's ridiculous. And we let them free range in the spring and the fall before the garden goes in and once the garden is put to bed so that we're not going through so much chicken feed because otherwise we would be broke. Yes, we actually just bought a huge tote that is 2000 pounds of
29:17like a mixed feed with their layer and crumble and all that stuff because we were going to the feed store every week and like we've got to figure out how we can cut the cost a little bit.  So, God bless my husband, he went and got totes for us and it's cut down cost quite a bit luckily.  Good because  eggs from your own chickens should not cost $20 an egg. I totally agree with that. They'd be golden, which they are. They're very good.
29:47Yeah, especially right now.  Yes,  yes. You are not wrong. Supposedly egg prices are coming down, but I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, I have not seen it yet. I know that there was supposed to be a huge import  coming in on them, but  I don't want to eat eggs from another country that have been on a plane for...
30:13three days and you don't know what the temperature was. So we'll just stick to our own.  yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We had gotten rid of our chickens last fall because they were old and not giving us any more eggs.  And we were going to get eggs in May, like this coming three days from now May. And a couple of months ago, I said to my husband, said,  we have got to get chickens again. I said, cannot.
30:40I cannot believe how much they're selling eggs for at the store.  No.  And they're terrible. I want our own chickens again. And he was like, but we weren't going to do it till May.  I said, I said, I will charge it on my credit card if you will go pick them up.  Yes, please. Right now.  I'm starting to a hold of our chicken dealer, as I call her, chicken broker.
31:04And she had some and I was like, we need 12 and she's like, I will get you hooked up. And I said, why does this sound like a drug deal? And she said, well, right now it might be. I'm like, uh-huh. It is. Depends how you look at it.  Yep. So we were very happy to get 20, I think they were 18 or 20 week old chickens when we picked them up.  So we got the first eggs from those chickens ever laid. I love it. I absolutely love it. It's so satisfying.
31:30It's so fun  when you get that first little egg.  Yes. You're like, thank you. Thank you so much.  Oh, it was a lot bigger and louder. Thank you this time than it's ever been.  Yes. So they're  very loved chickens right now.  I could only imagine. That's how ours are every day. We just, love them so much  and they're great.  We actually have some Brahmas and that's our preferred ones.
32:00They're pretty big. I don't know if you know about Brahmas, but they're really  docile  and we had a couple and then that's what we actually grew or flock with  as I ordered  a bunch of them.  they are just the most docile, kind, loving. They follow you. They talk to you. I'm like, I never thought I would be a crazy chicken lady, but here I am and I'm fine with it. I'm totally fine with it.
32:29Yeah, somebody else referred to themselves as a crazy something late either day regarding livestock.  I made a big stink on the podcast talking to her saying, I really want to get rid of that crazy word in front of this because it's not crazy. It's smart.  Yeah. Well, I would totally agree with you, but  a lot of people don't.  Yes, exactly. people think that we are totally crazy and I'm fine with it. I'm totally fine with it.
32:57Yeah, I'm trying to change it to smart chicken lady, but I don't think it's going to work.  We'll do our best. Yes, exactly. I figure if I say it enough, people will do it just to make me happy. I doubt it. I  doubt it, but I'm going to try.  And I also have been trying to work into every single episode of the podcast for the last month and a half at least.  If you live in America today, get to know your local growers, your local producers. And as my son pointed out yesterday,  you're a local crafters and repair people.
33:27Because number one, you're supporting your community of people who do the work. And number two, you're getting less expensive, better services. I could not agree more. There's been a couple of instances just lately that we've realized that.  being the local egg dealer, it's been really cool because a lot of people, when egg prices spiked, they started to rely on us. And I was talking to my dad  the other day about it.
33:57I told them, you know what, I'm actually kind of thankful because if things ever took a turn, we could have neighbors that we could rely on for other things as well. You know, so people can rely on us for eggs and, you know, some garden stuff. But we also have friends that offer different services to us. And so maybe the whole egg price thing in the grand scheme of things happened for a reason so that we start to rely on our local capabilities  again.
34:24Yes, and the tariff situation too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it'd be really nice if we get back to a smaller, closer economy. Yeah, we'll have to see what happens. We will see. Yeah, and then the other thing I did. Oh, do you have something else to add? Oh, no, I was just thinking of other instances. Like yesterday, I put on a huge preservation food class.
34:51And  one of the gals that was in there is,  she works right next to my mom and we didn't even know that she owned an upholstery business.  And she was right next to my mom and upholstery is huge and finding a good upholstery person is very hard in the community. And so it's not what you know all the time, it's who you know. And so how funny that we put on this food preservation class, we meet our neighbors and we find out that
35:19I cannot wait for her to redo our tractor seats, you know?  Yeah. Yeah. So  it's just wild. Yeah. I say all the time, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Yep. It totally is. Yep. And  I meant to ask you about your classes, but we're going to run out of time. So  for anybody in Tambor's area, she does classes on food preservation and I'm guessing probably some other stuff too. So  the list goes on, huh?  Okay, good.
35:49And I wanted to add in because I need to start marketing myself too, besides marketing you guys.  Our farm stand and our high tunnel are going to be open on Mother's Day weekend for people to come buy bedding plants for their own gardens.  And we're going to have some of our homemade soaps and lip balms and candles out in the farm stand itself. So congratulations. That's so awesome. I hope it goes fantastic.
36:15Well, we'll see, but I know that we have way, way too many plants to plant in our garden. So I would love it if people would come and buy plants from us to put in their gardens, because that's the other thing.  If you have room in your yard for a raised bed, or if you have room  to dig a spot in  the actual ground to put in plants, you should probably be doing that right now too. Not right now,  but in this growing season. A couple of weeks. Yes.  I totally agree with that.
36:44Yep. And that's not just to sell my plants. mean, if you want to buy plants from somebody else,  go ahead. I just think that everybody should have some kind of a little kitchen garden going this year. I totally agree. And it gets a huge reward.  Oh,  absolutely. It does.  Nothing better than fresh herbs to use in your cooking or a sun warmed garden  ripe tomato.
37:11that you eat right off the vine. I'm telling you, if you don't like them, you don't like tomatoes. I  did not agree more with that statement.  All right, Tamber, I'm going to let you go because I try to keep this to half an hour. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Sounds great. Thank you.  Have a great day. You too.
 

Wild Ones Homestead

Today I'm talking with Michelle at Wild Ones Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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00:00Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Michelle at Wild Ones Homestead and Michelle is in Wisconsin. Good afternoon, Michelle. How are you? I'm good. How are you?  I'm good. Has the sun come out there yet? A little bit. We had thunderstorms earlier, but the sun peaked out and I was able to clean up some of my garden beds with the kiddos, which was nice. They don't have school today, so.  Uh-huh.
01:25Yeah, the sun just came out  maybe 45 minutes ago here in Minnesota where I live. And  I didn't think my husband had any time off because of Easter. And he texted when I was doing an interview at 10 o'clock this morning  and it said, I'll I'll be home. I'll be leaving at noon. And I was like, Oh no, did you get fired? And,  and I said, Oh, question mark. And went on to do other stuff. And he texted me back and he was like, it's good Friday.
01:54the company closes at noon.  was like,  Oh, okay. So of course I was busy with stuff, not thinking and didn't tell him I had an interview at one.  And he got home and he was like, so do you want to do lunch or you just want to wait till dinner? And I said, I have an interview at one. He was like,  Oh yeah, no, we're not doing food right now. said, no, I mean you can make food, but I can't, I can't eat right now.  So, so big surprises around here today after 10 30 in the morning. That was very weird.  Um,
02:23Okay. So tell me about yourself and what you do at Wild Wands Homestead.  Oh gosh. It might be more of a question of what don't we do.  But so we have,  it's about 63 acres here  and we raise beef cows. I actually just started  milking one of them. They're  Angus Holstein Cross. So they do have a little bit of that dairy genetics in them. And I really wanted to attempt to milk a cow. I'm actually not.
02:52a cow person. My background is in horses. But it's like, we have cows here. We have bred them to have babies. Why would I not milk the cow? Like this? Well, yes. So my husband thought I was crazy. He grew up with cows and he worked on dairy farms a lot when he was younger. But he was like, you're nuts. That cow's never going to let you milk her. And ha ha.
03:16I actually got almost a full gallon today and her calf has 24 seven access to her and I'm doing it loose in the pasture, which is really fun. But so on top of the cows, we also raise chickens, which I always joke that I have a chicken retirement farm because we have about 50 chickens, but  probably 20 of them are really old hens that are pushing 10 and don't even really lay anymore, but I get attached. they just kind of out.
03:44We do multiple gardens.  We do a really big garden where we plant like corn and hot peppers and  potatoes and melons and squashes and anything that we want on term. We actually did two years ago, we had so much corn. We had a bunch of friends come over and help us process it all. And we had enough corn for us and three other families to last two years. So  we do a lot of corn.
04:13And then I've got my smaller like potage style garden behind the house where I've got, you know, like my tomatoes  and  my garlic is my favorite thing to grow.  And, you know, asparagus and strawberries and zucchini and my herbs, the things I like closer. We planted an orchard a couple years ago, but those trees are not big enough to start producing yet. We collect maple syrup and I turn a lot of that into sugar. So I almost exclusively use maple sugar in my baking.
04:43Um, what else do we do? We forage and we love mushroom hunting and wild berries and any of that.  We do hunt and fish  and we both have our trapping license. I don't  use mine.  Mine is mostly so that I can legally check my husband's traps if he were to get injured or something,  but he does all like trapping of nuisance critters. And then I tan the hides, which is really fun. So  we just kind of stay busy year round jumping from.
05:12One thing to the next, you know, he grows and harvests most of the hay for he feeding the animals. And obviously we've got the horses here too.  That was my lifelong passion. Even when I was in  high school and riding and training horses, I said, you know, one day I want to move out West to like Montana and just have a little homestead where I have my horse and some chickens and a cow and raise as much food as I can.
05:39I kind of took a roundabout way to get here and obviously I'm in Wisconsin still, not Montana, but I did live out West in Washington for 10 years. So  I had my out West experience and I'm kind of doing what I always wanted to do, which is fun. And my husband definitely is more of the farmer side where he wants, you know, let's make a profit on it. And I'm like, I don't care about money. I just want to do it cause it's fun.
06:05I kind of wish that we could not care about money. Wouldn't that be wonderful to really not care about money? We,  you know, we barter a lot, which is handy. We've got the sawmill here too. So he's a logger by trade and then people know that. So they'll be like, oh, we have this tree or this, you know, giant log. Do you want it? And he's like, oh, of course. So he'll bring it here. And then if we're having a slow day of something else, we're spending it in the sawmill.
06:32milling all this lumber and we trade it for people or we use it in our various projects like with the house we're building right now.  And  it's great to trade off to people if they need lumber for projects and be like, Hey, you want to come help us fence  or you want to help us rake hay in the summer or harvest this giant  field of corn by hand. So that, that definitely works out knowing the right people. And he's lived here in this area his whole life. So he knows.
07:02Literally everyone and they're all the same kind of balloon collar tradesmen that all have different skills that are all really handy. So it's like, it takes a village to do it all and we all love helping each other and it's great.  We, just have a lot of fun. mean, it's not all fun all the time, but I'd say overall, I couldn't imagine doing anything else really. Yeah. There's a lot of truth to the saying about it's not what you know, it's who you know.  Yes, absolutely.
07:32I hang on that a lot because  I definitely don't know everything. I know just enough to be dangerous,  but I always say I know a lot about a little and a little about a lot. And that way if I can help, I do. And if I need help, I can reach out and ask. Right. Anytime I'm sharing like what I'm doing  online on all the platforms, I'm always like, this is how I'm doing it because it works for me. It might not be the correct way to do it, but you know what?
08:00This is how I'm doing it and it works. And I really like winging it and just seeing, and if it doesn't work, oh well, try something new next year. Uh-huh. Your mileage may vary is the other one that I say a lot.  Um, so I saw that you just had a new calf like six days ago.  Yes. So we've got three that were all born within the last two weeks. These are our first babies born here. We've done bottle calves for several years, but.
08:30I don't know if you've seen the price of bottle caps right now.  I hear they're really spendy. It is so high. And then by the time you get them off of the milk replacer, and we always also give ours  grain while they're little,  at least the bottle caps that we're buying just to help, you know, supplement, make sure they're growing strong and everything. By the time they're done with that, and then let alone feeding them and caring for them for two years, the profit is just,  it's not there.  So.
08:58It was like, we've got these heifers. We might as well try to breed them because we are going to end up getting priced out of buying bottle caps was what was going to happen. So  yeah, the first babies that were actually born here. So I'm not having to bottle feed them, which Dan's like, that must be nice. You don't have to bottle feed. I'm like, well, I actually really like bottle feeding the babies. Even when we had like 12 at once, I thought it was great because they're just so cute.  But.
09:24Now I have less to do in terms of taking care of them, but that also means they're not as friendly. So I'm trying to like butter them up and be like, look, this one like scratches and this one lets me milk her and she gets cookies. Don't you guys want that too? But there's still a little squirrely about everything at this point.  Well, keep trying. They'll probably love you eventually. I hope so. One, of course we have one cow that's just not friendly  and she's
09:52one that dropped a heifer this year, the other two are bull calves. So I'm like, I really need to try and make her baby friendly because I do not need two crazy fence jumping cows. Yeah, no, no, that would not be great.  So I have a question about this because  I have never owned  a cow and I certainly have never been part of the breeding process or the birthing process or anything else.  When
10:20When I was watching the video of the baby be born, vicariously through you, I'm watching this beautiful animal give birth to a beautiful baby. And in my brain, I'm like, it's all going to be good. Mama's going to what she's supposed to do. Baby's going to be healthy. It's all going to go fine. In my little nervous system and in my heart, I'm like, God, I hope everything goes okay. So when you're in the middle of that,
10:50Do you have like  opposite emotions warring in you because number one, it's exciting, but number two, it's scary? Absolutely. Especially when it was my favorite cow giving birth, because I'm like,  I don't want anything to go wrong. if it would go wrong, it's always the favorite that something goes wrong with. And it's her first time calving. So you really have no idea.  But  you know, they all did such a good job. I was really impressed. And we do have like the chain.
11:19the chains on hand that you wrap around their legs to help pull if something goes wrong. And again, we have all those friends that have cow experience as well and live close. So Dan was actually at work when my favorite cow was giving birth and he was like, you got it under control? And I was like, I think so, because she's so friendly. If something were to happen, I'm pretty sure I could. She'd let me pull it on my own. No problem. But we also have all of these wonderful, knowledgeable neighbors and friends that live close by that could have helped. But yeah, it's.
11:49It's nerve wracking. want, you know, healthy mama and healthy baby at the end of the day. as everybody that has livestock knows, if you have livestock, you have dead stock. it's,  it's gone good so far, but it's always, you're waiting for when your time to experience that is going to come. Yeah, exactly.  And the reason I even ask is because there's a lot of people who are starting to get into homesteading. They're starting to lean toward the idea of it.
12:18And I never want people to think that it's all sunshine and roses and candy. It's not, it's work.  And I don't want to discourage anybody, but I also don't want to be like,  oh, if you do it, your life is going to be perfect for the rest of the time you're on the earth, because it's not. There's things that you have to learn. There's  experiences you have to have.  Right. And I say, if anybody is really wanting to get into homesetting, start with plants.
12:47start with something that if you kill it accidentally, it's not a creature that's suffering for lack of knowledge or experience. A plant is easy to restart and you really don't have to feel bad about it. Is it a bummer still? Absolutely. But an animal is a lot bigger deal to lose whether it was just to lack of knowledge or just fate made it happen that way. That's, it's a big deal. And I've always been really anal about
13:16any animal that I want to bring in. I do so much research online and really make sure that we have the good facility set up for them. I know a lot of the home setting way is to kind of work with things where you're at, but in terms of animals, you really have to have the proper setup. Do you need 20 acres to have a cow?  No, but you also shouldn't be putting them in a 20 by 20 pen and thinking they're going to live in it under a tarp shelter for five years.
13:46There needs to be a little bit of preparedness when it comes into taking care of another living creature.  There sure does.  We have, we have 12 chickens here. They're like,  I don't know, they're like 30 weeks old now. So they're new laying hens.  And yesterday it poured. And of course the chickens were out in the run and some of them were actually out in the yard because they figured out how to fly out of the run. Cause that's what chickens do.
14:16And my son went out to put them back in the coop because it was really windy after it rained. And he said, I could only find 11 of the 12. And my son's an adult. It's not like he's a five-year-old going to camp, find a chicken.  And I said, well, she's probably sheltering in  the tree line because it was really raining. And he's like, well, okay. I said, look, I said, she's either sheltering in the tree line or something picked her off. We know this is how it goes.
14:45Last night when my husband went out  to try to find her,  she was over by the shed. And I asked him this morning, said, was she soaked? And he said, oh yeah. And so I'm waiting to see if she gets sick because chickens can actually get sick from being wet and cold. So we'll see if that one survives. They're pretty hardy. know, as fragile as chickens are, I've seen them survive some  absolutely.
15:14gnarly things. I've actually got one I'm nursing back to health right now.  She's I could probably turn her back out. I'm just babying her because she's old. were babysitting my in-laws dog who's been here all the time.  And for some reason she decided she wanted to attack some of my chickens. And I thought it was dead when I found it. But she like blinked at me and I was like, Oh, you're alive. Okay, now we get to do chicken emergency care. But
15:43It's been three weeks since that happened and she's doing good. just got her hanging out in what I call my baby coop. It's where I put any broody hens to hatch out the babies.  Mostly so that the roosters are not harassing her  while she heals. But  I really didn't think she was going to make it, but here we are. She's not laying eggs, but like I said, chicken retirement farm.  I love it.
16:09Okay, so do you do like baking or any of that stuff too?  Oh yeah, I mean I have a huge sweet tooth especially and the kids love  any type of homemade bread that I make. I don't do like a ton of sour bread. I know a lot of homestead people like sour bread, sour dough bread. We're just not, it's kind of hit or miss. Sometimes we like it and we'll eat a bunch of it and then we'll go for you know, six to eight months without eating sour dough. So my starter is currently in the freezer.
16:38for whenever I feel like it's a good sourdough time again. But yeah, we love to do as much homemade cooking as we can.  And  all the snacks and stuff are things that I make. I don't like buying junk food from the stores. One, because I'll eat it all. Like  there's no stopping me. If I get Oreos, I'm gonna eat all the Oreos. So it's better to just not buy them.  And then I think homemade stuff tastes better too. we really, we like.
17:07snacking on all the homemade things. I made some cheddar biscuits to go with our eggs for breakfast this morning and the kids devoured those.  how many kids? Two. Okay.
17:20All right, and how old are they? My daughter will be 10 this summer and my son will be eight. Oh, so they're the perfect age to be learning all this stuff and helping out. Yes, and the school that they go to is really fun because they do a lot of hands-on like gardening and they've got farm animals and stuff there and they've actually tapped trees and done syrup at the school and the teachers are always talking to me. They're like, your kids know so much of this stuff already. And I'm like, yes, because we do it at home. you're just
17:49Engraining it in them even more because it's stuff they already do which is fun  I bet that when they when when the school introduces a new thing to the kids your kids are like  hold my beer I got this  pretty much  there's not there's not too much that they haven't tried They're really excited to try and milk the cow with me this weekend They wanted to try it this morning, but I was like I need to run out there between thunderstorms So why don't we pick a different day  for you guys?
18:18because I just need to hustle today. Yeah. Isn't it amazing how the weather predicts what you can and can't do on a homestead? Oh, absolutely.  With the animals, you're doing it  no matter what the weather is. So that's again why plants are easier. Cause if it's now, Oh, I don't have to go out and take care of that plant today. You do with the cow.  Yeah. Cause they get really cranky when they don't get milked.
18:47and loud, they get really loud. Today  was day five and she already sees me coming with my bucket and I just have, I put little horse cookie treats in my pocket and that's how I'm getting her to stay still. I give her a cookie to start and then halfway through I give her another cookie and then when we're done she gets her third cookie and then she just wanders off. She wiggles a little bit because we're doing it loose so the other cows will distract her and she'll get up and walk a few feet and I'm following her on like, come on Tula.
19:15sit in one spot so I can finish, but she's actually just a really, really sweet cow, so it's gone well. That helps a lot.  The reason I was being kind of snarky about the weather, my husband is trying to get our high tunnel ready to go to move  seedlings from our greenhouse into the high tunnel, because  our greenhouse is an actual hard-sided greenhouse.  And he and my kid have been, our kid, I keep saying my kid, our kid, have been getting all the framing in and all the
19:46the cattle panel arches on it and all that. And the next step is to get the plastic on it. And every time he's like, I want to get the plastic on it at this point in time, it's raining or it's really windy. And so he was looking at the weather for this weekend. He's like, keep everything you have crossed that it's not windy Saturday.  Yeah, I've got all of my plants are actually up in the office where I'm sitting right now  because
20:16It's easier to keep this heated. It's inside of our shop than my greenhouse. So, but I'm looking at how the weather is going to be at night over the next week. And I'm like, Ooh, maybe it's going to be warm enough that I'm not spending a million dollars on electricity, keeping my greenhouse warm because my tomatoes really need to be up potted. I'm like, this is a ticking time bomb. don't have space  in the office for this stuff anymore.  Yep.  I'm right there with you. The greenhouse is packed.
20:45full. Like he sent me photos and I thought,  um, you are  out of room.  And he said, yeah, he said, that's why I need to get  the plastic on the high tunnel so I can move stuff over. And I said, is it going to be warm enough? And he said, I think so.  Okay, good.  But, uh, did you plant extra plants this year so that you can sell seedlings? Cause that's what we did.  I did  last year and I did.
21:14Pretty good, I ended up making like 600 bucks, which basically paid for what I put into the garden for the year.  But we're so busy with trying to get the new house,  I call it a cabin or a new house depending on the moment. It's going to be our new house, but we're making it look like a cabin, so either one. But we're just a busy with that right now. I'm like, I don't know that I want to take the extra time  to.
21:41do extra plants. I've got a bunch of like dahlias because those sold really well last year and you know, the tubers multiply every year. So I'll go off my extra tubers. And then I took some elderberry clippings because people love to buy elderberry and those are so easy to take a clipping and root them and sell them for five bucks at a pop. Yeah. Okay, I'll do dahlias and I'll do my elderberry and then everything else I'll just do for myself. So. Yep. That's a really good idea.
22:11And this is one of the things that I love about homesteaders and gardeners and farmers and people who raise animals and they all kind of fall under that homesteading umbrella.  We are, if nothing else,  ingenious because we will find stuff that's that's easier, not easy, but easier to make our lives easier. Yep.  And  he was planting.
22:38basil seeds like a month and a half ago in the kitchen in the little tiny cells that you start seeds in on my kitchen table. And I said, how many seeds are you planting? Cause it was a lot. And he said, Oh, there will probably be at least 150 basil plants. Nice.  And I said,  um,  what are we going to do if people don't buy them? He said, we're going to plant them.
23:04and we're going to sell cut basil at the farmer's market. He said, and we will be drying basil every day from the point that we can cut it until it's time to put it to bed.  So and stick it in the freezer. I do with mine. If I get hordes of it, I just make pesto and pop it in the freezer. And then I've got an easy pesto for  whatever when I need it. And I have some in there that's like three years old and it still takes. Yeah.
23:32Yep. I just didn't realize he was going to plant that many. mean, the tomato plants will sell, the squash plants will sell, the cucumber plants will sell. But most people think that basil is just for spaghetti sauce and it's not. I love basil. That's one of my favorite things to grow. And I end up with a lot of pesto because I grow a lot of garlic. I think that's probably my very favorite thing to grow. Last year I planted
24:03600 and some garlic cloves in the fall. So I will have a lot of garlic to play with here. I do all the hardneck varieties. So they should up the garlic scapes, which are edible. Yeah. Do you find the right market? You can sell those for like $16 a pound. Wow. Yeah. So I'm like, I think I might have to sell some garlic scapes this year. Usually I keep them all for myself because they're so delicious. But I'm like,
24:29You know, 600 plants, I can probably  sell some of them. I'm glad you brought up the scapes because I've never eaten them. Are they a milder flavor of garlic than the actual garlic bulb? Yes. So it's like a slightly garlicky, maybe a little bit oniony flavored,  kind of crunchy, like a raw green bean. I like to just saute them with like
24:55some butter and salt and pepper or put them on like an Alfredo pizza. But I've seen people make pesto with them. I've done garlic  scape butter. You can do salt. Like there's a million uses for it. it's  basically you're getting a bonus crop from the same plant. So why not? I may have to pick up some from the co-op because they sell it. They sell scapes when it's that time of year.
25:23I want to dice it up or slice it up and put it in Alfredo sauce. Yep.  Do it. I think that would be great.  I really love to cook, but I really love to cook things that are like half an hour from beginning  to eating  because my husband has a half an hour commute home and that way I just have to start cooking the minute he calls me and then food's ready when he gets here.  Right. That's what I try to make sure dinner's done about when my husband gets home from work.
25:49because that's nice we can eat and then we can go do whatever projects we're doing because he does not sit still ever.  So it's like, okay, we can eat quick and then go do whatever we need to do next. So it worked. Are you a fan of the one pot meal because then you're not busy trying to do dishes after dinner?  It depends because sometimes my husband can be a picky eater. He says he's not,  but he can be.
26:18I'd say the biggest thing we run into is, we've got a freezer full of beef and then we butcher hogs. We've got, he's got a buddy that raises pigs and we can buy them from him for, I think last year we got them for like $180 a hog and then butcher them here at home. So when you have a freezer full of beef and pork, you're mainly just eating beef and pork because why would you buy meat from the store? So.
26:41Things get a little old sometimes of eating the same thing over and over and over again. But yeah, if I can get away with one pot meals, definitely, especially  when the kids are here, it's like pot roast, casserole, perfect.  Yep. My husband  is like meat and potatoes dude.  And I am not meat and potatoes girl.  I really am kind of over the meat with every meal thing.
27:09Oh yeah, I take a for a week without eating meat and it wouldn't bother me at all. Uh huh. And I was going to make spaghetti sauce last week for having spaghetti. And he was like, do you want to pull out some burger to cook up and throw in there? And I was like, no, I do not. And he looked at me and I said, I need a meal without meat in it tonight. I said, can you just have marinara sauce?
27:35He was like, wow, you are really over it. said, I am really over it. said, I am so sick of meat and starch that I could just die.  I said, so can we just have marinara sauce and pasta? And he's like, yes, we can. And I said, oh, you caught the tone of voice. He's like, yes, I did. I said, I'm sorry. said, me too.  So  resolved. Right. Yeah. There was definitely nights where I'll just have like a bite of meat or whatever. And I'm like, eh.
28:02I love that about having the garden right behind the house in the summer. I'm out there snacking on fresh putties all day. like,  don't need to eat anything else. I'm just going to snack on whatever is growing right now.  I do not want to wish away May, June, and July, but I'm not kidding you. am so  looking forward to having a cucumber a day with my dinner because we don't let the cucumbers get huge if we're just going to eat them.
28:31I can't wait. That too. My husband gets so sick of it because we'll eat zucchini and like a garlic scapes every meal for so long that he's just like, I don't want to see another one. But it's so good. It is. And honest to God, I didn't even know that you could saute zucchini until maybe 15 years ago. And every summer, as soon as that first perfect zucchini comes in,
29:00And it's usually like when the husband is at work and he won't eat zucchini. He does not love green veggies, which is crazy because he loves to grow them. But every summer that first really nice zucchini comes in the house and my son and I chop it up in really thin slices and we put olive oil in the pan, a little bit of garlic powder or actual garlic diced up and just fry it up. And it does that caramelization thing. And that is our lunch. And it is the most lovely
29:30zucchini we will eat the whole summer, the first one. Yep, I like to do that. And I put a little bit of red pepper flakes on mine too to give them like a little bit of a spicy pop. So good. A little bit of a zing. Yep. I really want it to be gardening season and we still have a month and a half. Well, we have a month before we can get anything in the garden. Right. I normally like my tomatoes and peppers and I not until June.
29:57And sometimes it's a week or two into June, depending on how the forecast looks, because I've done it where I'm running out there trying to find buckets or pots to cover everything. Cause there's a frost warning and that's just not fun. So I'd rather wait a little bit longer.  Where are you in Wisconsin? Like mid state, like the driftless region, I guess.  Oh, okay. Cause we plant  basically we don't plant before May 15th because of the frost risk. Okay.
30:27And then we do, and if they die, we just replant them. We just put more in.  Yeah, know June has been pretty consistent for me forever,  and that's what my mom does as well. She's like,  she lives like an hour from me, but she's like, yeah, no, just wait.  Yeah, give it time.  And this year we probably could get away with waiting until June 1st because of the greenhouse, because the tomatoes are already growing and they're going to continue to grow, whether they go out.
30:55gardener this day in the greenhouse.  Right, yeah, we just got my greenhouse last year. That was the new addition. So that was really nice. And filled it up and was like, okay, now I need one twice as big.  Yeah, that's the problem with this stuff. You get the thing you want and then you're like, oh, I could have gone a size up or I could have gotten two, you know.  We  go through that every year. There's always something or like,
31:24Wonder how we could make this new idea happen. Right. It's all about figuring out what's going to make your time management better and everything run more efficiently. And what can you, how do you get more of this or the other thing? And like, we're in the middle of building this new house. And once that's done and we're moved out, we're like, okay, once that's done, we want to tear out the trailer house and build a summer kitchen there because  why not? We need another project immediately.
31:53One thing after another, projects never end, but it keeps us busy, I guess. I'd rather be all these random physical labor projects than watching TV all day. So. Yeah, I'm always saying on the podcast that it takes a special kind of person to be a homesteader.  And I don't mean that in a negative way, but it really does. It takes a very specific kind of personality to handle  this, this life.
32:22of,  so we got this project done and you take a breath and you're like, okay, what's the next thing? Yep. Always looking ahead.  How many more things can we accomplish this year before winter is back?  Yeah, I just got my renewal form in the mail for the cottage food registration here in Minnesota. And I have to sit down and get that started because this is the year.
32:48Michelle that I'm actually going to bake cookies and things for the farmers market and  I have to have that registration or I can't sell them. See, I would bake them and eat them all because  I love my sweets.  Yeah, I'm  I'm at the point in my life where I eat a cookie and I'm like, that's good because sugar really does kind of make me feel yucky. Try it with the maple sugar. Get your hands on some maple sugar. That's why I if I eat any sweets with like a
33:18white cane sugar, I almost instantly get a headache. I love maple sugar. I do not get that problem. And I seriously cut back the sugar amount from any traditional recipe. We are so ingrained to eat so much sugar. It's insane.  And if you just slowly cut back over time, you'll realize, oh, this is still really good without two cups of sugar. Like I can have a cup or half a cup, but it's still sweet.  Yeah.
33:45I don't know, like a year ago, I started just putting a tablespoon of sugar in my coffee to start my day because at that point in the day, I don't care. I don't care if it gives me the buzz. I need the buzz.  And then I don't put any more sugar as I keep adding coffee to my cup over the next two hours. And by the time I'm done with that first cup of coffee, quote unquote, cup of coffee,  it's just black coffee. So that's, that's my sugar.
34:12Basically for the day, I figure a tablespoon of sugar is probably not going to kill me. It's okay. And I mean, you're buying stuff from the grocery store, which I mean, we all have to they put sugar in everything. So  another tablespoon is not going to hurt you whatsoever. Yeah, I wish I could drink it black, but I just I don't love it enough to drink it black. It's got to be really expensive, really fancy coffee for me to drink it black. Yeah. When I was drinking coffee as maple sugar,
34:42and cream, but in like the last six months, my body has decided that it really does not like caffeine anymore. Oh no. I will get like nauseous and dizzy and be down feeling sick for half the day. So no more coffee for me.  Oh, sad. I'm sorry.  And I love the taste  to drink it in the morning and come and give me a kiss. And I'm like, my taste of coffee on you and I smell it and I want it and I can't have it.
35:13Yeah, you're probably going to laugh, but I don't drink alcohol because I don't love it. It's not because I can't. It's not like I have a problem with it. I just don't love it. But I love the smell of whiskey. I hate the taste of whiskey, but I love the smell of it. And my husband will have a snort on the weekend, you know, just a little bit. And he'll kiss me and I'm like, Oh my God, you smell like booze. And he's like, I'm sorry. I'm like, no, no, no, don't be sorry. It's That's same thing how I am with the coffee. So I get it.
35:44Yeah, it's weird. I don't want to drink it, but just the smell of it. like, oh, that's so,  I think there's something comforting about it, which is weird. I don't know.  I'm not a big  beer drinker  or really any alcohol drinker. just, if I can taste the alcohol in it, I don't like it. So if I drink anything with alcohol, it's gotta be sweet. Cause otherwise I'm like, Yeah.
36:12But one of the people that really likes to be like in control and aware at all times so like alcohol that's just not my jam. It was doing the exact opposite of what I want.  Yeah, I think what happened is the last time I had anything to drink that had alcohol in it.  I thought I was being smart and I was drinking some  bourbon,  real sweet bourbon, and I would have like a little bit and then I would drink a 12 ounce glass of water  and then I would drink a little bit more bourbon and drink a little
36:41to drink a glass of water because supposedly the dehydration is the thing that kicks your ass.  And I was trying to be so careful because I hadn't had any alcohol in a couple of years.  And I woke up the next morning with the most horrible headache and I was so angry about it because I was like, I was being smart. What happened here?  And I just haven't had any inclination to want to have any alcohol since. So I'm over it. I'm done.
37:11Also, when you live on a homestead, you probably don't want to be snuckered because, know, if an emergency happens, you got to be on it. Exactly. There's no time to be hungover. You know, you've got stuff to do. I lived in Washington. I used to joke to all my friends out there that I got kicked out of Wisconsin because I was like, well, I don't drink beer and I don't really like cheese. So they actually kicked me out.
37:37Yeah, I don't drink alcohol, but I definitely like cheese. So I guess I would be okay in Wisconsin. I got older, I think I appreciate cheese more, but I'm not one of those people who can just sit down and slice a piece of cheese and eat it and be like, this is delicious. I'm like, no, I'll pass on. So maybe charcuterie? Charcuterie? How ever you say that, boards are not your jam? No, I would go for like the sausage and crackers.
38:06Yeah, me too.  All right. So now we have we have  devolved into small talk and silliness because it's past 30 minutes and I try to keep you to half an hour.  Michelle, I really did enjoy this conversation. Thank you for your time.  And  I really wish you luck in getting your calves to love you because  that one who's a heifer is going to need to be milked.  Oh, I know.
38:33I will keep everything. I've got a lot cross for a lot of people right now. I'm amazed I can walk straight.  All right. So you have a wonderful day and a wonderful weekend.  right. You too. Thank you.  Bye. Bye. If you like this podcast, you would probably love Amy Fagan's grounded in Maine podcast.  You can find her on  all the platforms grounded in maine.com.
 

Still Farms VA

Today I'm talking with Sofia at Still Farms VA.
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00:00Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Sofia at Still Farms VA, which I assume stands for Virginia. Is that right, Sofia? That's right. All right. Where are you in Virginia? I am in Wakefield, Virginia. It's this itty bitty town right between Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia Beach area.
01:23Okay, awesome. I can find you on a map now. That's good.  How's the weather there?  Beautiful, sunny,  80s, lovely. I'm so happy.  Oh my god, it is gray and it's actually muggy here. I think it's 69 degrees in Minnesota right now. Yeah, no, we are finally with the sun out and my seasonal depression has lifted and it is lovely.
01:48It is spring and you, I assume, grow things. So you have to be beside yourself.  I do. I try to grow things more than I actually grow things. But yeah,  we are very happy to have the sun out again. All right. Well, tell me about yourself and what you guys do at Still Farms Virginia.  Sure. So I am very new to homesteading, farming, agriculture,  any of this sort of life. I grew up in Boston.
02:17I was actually a makeup artist for most of my life.  I wore red bottom shoes and that's all that mattered to me.  And  then COVID happened and I was bored and I tried to think of a hobby and  I went to Home Depot and I bought some tomato plants and killed them.  And I bought one bean plant and realized that I couldn't feed my family off of one bean plant  and became addicted. So  we started doing a small garden when I was living in Norfolk at the time.
02:44We started doing a small garden and year after year, I really started to just love the connection to the earth, connection to my food, learning how broken our food system is,  trying to make small changes in my life that I can feel really good about inspiring the people around me.  Then about, just about a year and a half ago, my husband and I decided to take the plunge. sold our business and we bought 11 acres here and have slowly  been trying to
03:14grow food and become the people, do the things that the people we want to be do. So we've got some chickens, we just got some dairy goats, we've got some livestock dogs and we're building high tunnels and greenhouses and really trying to do the thing.  That sounds very familiar except we have three acres not 11.  And my husband and son just,  I hesitate to say the word
03:41finished our high tunnel because the door needs to be hung. Okay.  other than the door being hung correctly because the  hinges that we had were too flimsy and they bent.  as soon as he gets the correct hinges, it will be finished this weekend. Well, you're a little more ahead than me. I've still got to the whole top on.  we're waiting for a not windy day to be able to tackle that project. We get horrible wind here.
04:07I understand they had to wait two weeks to get the plastic on because every time they were ready to go out and do it, the wind was picking up. Yeah. And like I said, I hesitated to say the word finished because God only knows if it's actually finished. He might have another idea for it. That's what I'm learning. Things are never finished. They're just, you hit one stepping stone and then you get to the next one. Yes. And you're not alone, Sophia. Does that make you feel better? It does. It makes me feel so much better. Good.
04:37Good. It's so funny because I mean, I've been talking to people for over a year and a half in the homesteading realm and  the song or the tune is the same, but the words are different  because not everybody's doing the same things, but they're definitely humming the same tune. Sure. We're all feeling each other's pain. And joy. And joy. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.
05:03Yeah, we have to make sure this sounds like fun because we people to be interested in it. It's fun and it is so rewarding and it's honestly the best thing that I do every day that I question  every day, but it is the best thing I've done every day. Oh, we've had moments of saying, I'm questioning my life choices. Yep.  Every week, I think it's said at least three times.  You know, I look in the mirror and it's almost like five years ago, Sophia would not
05:32recognize who I am today and I'm so  grateful for that but also  it's shocking. know, like just before you called my cat, dropped a skink at my feet and I'm like, oh, thank you.  Thank you for that gift. Where, you know, years ago I would have cried and screamed running away. So  it's definitely been such a  transforming thing in my life, which has just been really wonderful. I am so glad and
06:01your story about the, the, what was it? A sphynx? sphynx? A sphynx. So it's like a little lizard. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I said it wrong.  Um, that reminds me of the saying that, uh, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.  Um,  20 years ago, that was funny. Now it's true. Yes. Yes.  For sure. Yep.
06:26My  husband and my son have both managed to injure themselves here and it hasn't killed them. So it has made them stronger.
06:38Well,  thank goodness for that blessing.
06:42Uh-huh. Absolutely.  they come in the house and I say is everything good every time they come in the house.  That's right. Cause how many fingers do we all have? Yeah. The one time I don't ask, I'm going to hear, I need a bandage or I need you to call 911  or so. Right. So I'm always, I'm always asking and checking in with them. Cause I'm like, um, you guys are doing the hard work out there. Did anybody get hurt?  So, so you said you have chickens and you have goats.
07:12Right. Okay.  How many how many chickens do you have? Sure. So when we bought the property, it came with 21 hens.  We lost a few and then last spring I introduced another 14. So I think we're down to I think we're at 32 right now, including two roosters.  And then for goats, I got two mama goats last
07:41March, I believe it was, March of 24. And then we just had babies in January and I retained five of them. So we're up to seven goats now.  Nice.  Very nice. Do you have babies now this spring?  They were just born this past January. So they're about four months old now.  Oh, okay. All right. Cool.  how did that go? Was that a new experience for you? Totally new experience.  I was really
08:11lucky.  I found myself  along the way just these incredible blessings where things just fall into place amazingly.  And I'm so grateful for that. And I was posting online  in one of the homesteading groups and I just mentioned that I was looking for some opinions on which breed of goat, if anyone had any ideas for beginners because I like to overthink and overthink and overthink before I jump into things.  And someone had commented mentioning how
08:40they breed goats and that,  you know, one of the things to look for in a breeder is to make sure there's somebody that wants to mentor and really be a part of helping you be the best goat owner you can be. And it turns out she's only an hour from me.  So I went and I visited her  and  she's absolutely amazing. She's from Rockville Ridge Farms, if anyone's  interested. Her name's Tara and she's such a wealth of knowledge and she answers my questions at 2 a.m. when I'm like, why is my goat making the sound?
09:09Really, she's great.  But so she, I went out there a few times and I actually got two of her,  we were discussing if I was gonna get babies or adults.  So I got one of her does that was already had been milked before and  had done the whole mom thing. And then one that was a yearling. So that'll be her first time kidding. And  I had them about a year. We got them pregnant in August and then they kidded in January and.
09:37We almost lost one of the babies. My very good friend was here with me and she's living the farm life with me. She's still in Norfolk in the city, but she's here every weekend. She's  mucking the stalls with me. She's raising these babies and  she actually brought that baby back to life. He was born less than two pounds. He was itty bitty, so cold. It was the coldest night in January.  And now he, his name's Francis and now he's everybody's favorite.
10:04He goes to school, if he was a kindergarten teacher, she'd bring him to school to bottle feed him and all the kids were taking care of him and it was just such an amazing thing. Sanefrancisco is famous and he's everyone's favorite.  Less than two pounds. Oh my God. He must have been about the size of your hand. He was like a brand new kitten.  was, he was so small.  Wow. You are really lucky that he survived. That's amazing. We really are. And,
10:33He is definitely just such a joy and he's so sweet and I'm looking at him right now eating dandelions and letting the puff go out in the air.  He's just such a good boy. Do you know how much he weighs now? I don't. I would estimate probably  maybe 20 pounds give or take. I'm really bad at estimating so that may be way off but I think about 20 pounds. Do you think he'll always be small?  I definitely think he'll be smaller when I look at him compared to the other.
11:02babies in that  that kidding.  His mom had four, so he was the littlest of the four.  And he still is he's still much smaller than his siblings. The one  the other mama only had two and her babies are  almost the size of her now they're enormous. Yeah. Well, congratulations on saving the very runt of the lid  of the litter litter.  Yeah, yeah, kidding litter. I'm not sure.
11:30I'm not good with terminology. you know, just say the words that sound right at the moment. Yeah. I don't know what a group of baby goats is called. I have no idea. know cats and dogs, but beyond that, I don't know. We can go with litter. I'll go with that. Yeah. And did you know actually that it's not a litter of kittens. It's a kindle of kittens. I did not know that, but that sounds adorable. Isn't that cute? Yeah. I learned that like a couple years ago. But it is a litter of puppies for sure. So. Okay.
12:00Well, good, then we're good on that. Uh-huh, I love Kindle of Kittens. It's so perfect. The one thing that I haven't brought up yet on the podcast with anybody about research and stuff is that it's really great to have all this stuff available to us online to research and study, but it's also really good to have real books in your home. 100%.
12:26We have probably six or seven books on farming, homesteading, gardening. And that way, if God forbid the internet goes out like it did here yesterday, all day, we still have our books if we need to refresh our memory on how to do something. I 100 % agree. I print out every recipe I can think of. I've got binders for any medical information I need, how to, you know, which mushrooms are edible. And, you know, I think you're absolutely right. Having those tangible items.
12:56You know, God forbid if anything happens that you're able to access is so important Yeah, and actually learning the skills and practicing them for real is really important too because  you can watch somebody on a YouTube video Whittle the most adorable gnome out of a piece of wood. That doesn't mean you can do it Yes,  I 100 % agree with that. Absolutely do do as much as you can  with whatever you can, you know, even if
13:24you're living in an apartment building, there's no reason you can't grow a tomato plant. There's no reason you can't can that tomato, make some sauce,  learn to bake bread, grow from seed. There's no reason you can't do  what you can do in the place that you're at. I 100 % agree. Yes, just do it to scale.  Absolutely. And I love that you said that because part of the reason I started the podcast is because I wanted people to know that you can do this stuff.  Whether you live in a
13:53I don't know, 100 square foot tiny home in  somebody's backyard  or if you live on  250 acres.  doesn't really matter.  could just, ugh, can't talk.  You just have to do it to the size that you're at. The size that you're at and also building that community also.  Everyone doesn't have to be great at everything and building  actual tangible resources  with people that are like-minded and have the same similar goals and have...
14:22understanding of your area or your culture or whatever it is,  it's so important to have those people because this is a hard life  and you know things do get tricky and you know when you've got a chicken that's dying in your arms or if you're trying to deliver the scope baby and you don't know what you're doing it's so important to be able to  really reach out to somebody that's a real person and not a YouTube video that isn't able to interact with you. Right, because the YouTube channel can't.
14:51can't hug you when you're crying. Sure. And that's really important too because if that baby goat had died you would have been crying.  I was crying when he was living.  We were crying no matter what. We were crying  from the sun up to sun down that night. was a night filled with tears and  it was stop and go for a while, know, touch and go for a while. were  worried about it but luckily we had Tara. We were Skyping with her. I think it was about two in the morning.
15:19And she was walking us through all the different options, what to look out for, what to know, what's viable, what needs more  attention to address.  it's so amazing to have those sort of mentors and people that have been there and done that in your life.  I agree. And I  have tried to be a mentor to people when they ask me things about what we're doing here.
15:46And some of them appreciate it and some of them their eyes glaze over and they go,  oh, okay.  I get a lot of that too. A lot of my family gets the glazed over eyes when I talk and just, oh, that is lovely. I'm so glad that that excites you so much. I am excited, know, type of thing.  Yeah, it's actually really amusing to me. My parents own 14 acres in Maine. Okay. And they have chickens and they have a backyard garden there in their, well.
16:14My mom is 78, my dad is 81,  and my dad is talking about not doing a garden this year for the first time in forever. And my  mom is really hoping that he changes his mind. And I'm like,  give the dude a break. He's getting older. But when we bought our place, they were thrilled for us that we were getting off the 10th of an acre lot in town and moving to the three acre lot out in the cornfields. They were thrilled for us.
16:42And then we started talking about our plans for it  and all the things we were going to do.  I swear I could hear their eyes glazing over over the phone. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's not what they're doing with their place. Their place is just their home. It just happens to be 14 acres. Right.  So even your parents will get like,  duh about what you're telling them if you tell them too much.  Of course. mean, I think anyone,  you know, I  think it's that way with any sort of
17:13passionate thing. My niece is a ballerina and as much as I love hearing her talk, there's times that she's saying words that I'm just like, don't know what any of this means or how this relates to anything.  I think that that's just kind of the nature  of conversation. But  yeah, most of the people in my life are pretty good sports.
17:33Although there are some people that are like, just don't need to hear about how, know, grass fed beef is so much better for the world. And I'm like, no, you do need to hear it. It's important. We all need to know it. It's very important. There is a video out right now. I have not had a chance to look at it with somebody and Joel Salatin talking about how cows aren't bad for the earth. And they're not wrong. Cows aren't bad for the earth. It's okay. Really. It's fine.
18:02Right. But I'm really curious to see what that's going to be. I have to sit down and watch it tomorrow. I did not have time today, but I'm so curious to see what they have to say about this. Okay. what's... I don't even know how to ask the question. Do you have plans for your little piece of heaven? I do. So my main goal was I really wanted to...
18:31farm and grow food in a regenerative way. can never say that word right.  I really wanted to make sure that my husband and I, don't have children. So my contribution to this world, that my legacy that I'm leaving behind is that the land that I'm on is going to be better when I'm gone than it was when  I got here.  So where I am, I'm in a very, you know, conventionally farmed spray.
18:59pesticides and actually they just sprayed the fields next to my house two days ago and so all the beautiful hay that was  growing and looked nice and lush and green everything's dead now.  And so there's been a lot of spray there's been a lot of chemicals here and I really wanted to do what I can to build the land back  and grow food and support my family and do it in a way that the earth is is better off for doing it this way.
19:26So we started with the chickens and really starting to get them in place and we've got the goats and goat manure is just super good for gardens and everything.  And then our goal  is probably two years from now because I like to overestimate so then I can surprise myself if we get done earlier.  I'd love to get some beef cows. That's my long-term goal is to get a couple beef cows,  maybe raise one or two calves a year  for meat.
19:56use the rest of them  to rotationally graze and build the pasture back up.  Nice. That's a wonderful plan.  Are you thinking like full-size cows or are you thinking mini cows? That I have to see. We  seeded our pasture. We've only got about maybe seven and a half acres that would be available to the cow. So depending on what we can get  on pasture, how
20:26good we can get the grass because I would like them to be grass-fed as much as possible and only supplement hay in the real cold season.  So because of that, I've just got to kind of see what our land will be able to support. I don't want to put too many animals on it where it just has the opposite effect of what I'm looking for. So there's a scientific balance that I don't fully understand. So I've got to read a few more books and talk to a few more people and get things in place before I really know. But I would love a full size.
20:55That's just what's in my mind, but I don't know yet what that would be. Okay.  Cool.  just,  I know that you can have, I think it's two mini cows,  might be three mini cows per acre.  But the bigger ones, the bigger cows are a little bit more. we've got a pretty long growing season. So we do get grass most of the year.
21:23our pasture is really trying to get any grass.  We can grow it, I should say as a caveat, we should be able to grow it, but to grow it organically without spraying  has proven to be a little difficult without tilling and all that.  So depending on what we can get going and when, will depend on what we'll be able to support, you know,  off the pasture.  Uh huh, okay.
21:46And I'm looking at your Instagram page right now  and you have the most beautiful cat or you did the white one with the gold and black.  Oh yeah.  So she's a story of a friend of ours. So it's a long story. we, when we first moved here, I'm not a cat person. I am a dog person. When we first moved here,  we got two puppies. I got my great Pyrenees Gus  and a great Pyrenees German Shepherd, McSam.  And one day I was in the yard.
22:14and Gus jumped the fence, which was completely unlike him. He's a good boy and he stays in the yard. And he, sorry, we've got helicopters overhead.  And he jumped the fence and found a clutch, or no, was it? Kindle? Kindle. A Kindle of three baby kittens. So he nursed them. They ended up being his babies. He was raising them as his own. He loved them every day. They'd come out and see him in the yard and he'd play with them. Sam adopted one of them. Gus adopted the other.
22:44We got, we had, we ended up getting a home for one. We kept a boy and a girl. We got the boy neutered, I don't know, a few months ago.  He came back and then we had scheduled the female to get spayed about a month ago. And it was at one of the mobile clinics. Long story short, she got out of the cage. She got lost. We caught her. We brought her back, but then she got scared and ran away. And I was devastated. So that cat is my husband's friend  knew that story, heard that story.
23:13and said, well, I've got a cat for you and brought us her,  brought us their cat,  which was an indoor cat, which of course wouldn't work out because we needed an outdoor barn cat. So we found her a lovely home. She's not with us anymore.  Her name's Pepper and she's with a lovely family with a little boy and two other cats and she's very happy. But we had her for about a week.  okay. Well, she's really pretty. I love cats.  I love cats. We have two right now that are barn cats. Okay.  And we have
23:42to at my friend's house that were just born on  Easter day, think. Oh, brand new, okay.  And she's gonna, she doesn't know whether they're boys or girls yet because they're tiny.  And so once she knows, she's gonna bring us a male and a female when they're eight weeks old, because we need more barn cats because we have,  have  foals, V-O-L-E-S-es. Oh yeah, uh-huh. Here and we have mice.
24:09And we have a big old pole barn and the two cats are barely keeping up with the mice. we,  shortage of feral cats is not  an issue that I experienced here. We've seems like every other day I'm like, who are you now at my yard? another cat. really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a lot in the area.  Um,  as we're saying this, my,  the one kitten that stays, that is still here, Nacho, he's rubbing up on me and he's just the world's best cat. And even my husband who's severely allergic and
24:38never liked cats is obsessed with him and he follows us around to do chores and  he's a good boy. He's the one that dropped the skink at my foot. Oh, nice. Very good job kitty cat.  Yeah. It'll be fun to have kittens on the farm again because we had,  we had three litters of kittens over a year and a half from our mama cat and then she flaked off. We don't know if she  got taken by a coyote or she got hit by a car,  but her kittens were luckily eight weeks old when she disappeared. So.
25:08She just had enough and said, I'm done.  I actually said that to my husband. was like, I wonder if she was just finished. Three litters was enough. She's on her next adventure. Yeah, yeah. She's retiring.  But she was so pretty. She was a calico and she was friendly and she was the longest haired cat I've ever seen. She was gorgeous. goodness.  Oh, nice. So we kind of miss her. So having  a new couple of kittens on the farm for the year will be nice because I've...
25:36Our dog actually loves the kittens. Yeah.  And she's been kind of looking at the pole barn like, why are no kittens coming out of the pole barn? It's April.  yeah, we'll have new kittens I think in about seven and a half weeks at this point.  kittens are always fun. Yeah. And I had asked my husband, you know, he was saying we needed more barn cats. And I said, well, do you want two more males? And he said, no. He said, I actually want an unfixed female.
26:06And I said, why? said, because we can find homes for the kittens.  But if we have to buy cats to be barn cats, that's a lot of money.  Yeah. Get the cats working for you. Yeah. I was like, are you sure? He's like, yep.  I said, you know that every time the mom and cat has babies, I spend eight weeks worrying about them, right? And he's like, yes. And it always works out. like, okay,  Fine. We can do that.
26:36So how happy are you that you had chickens when Alice Craisen has started with the cost of eggs? It's one of those things that I'm swimming in eggs. And when we first moved here, I was so psyched because I was getting a dozen, a dozen and a half a day. Now I'm getting two dozen a day. My husband doesn't eat eggs. My dogs are now allergic to eggs. So I am swimming in eggs. I can't sell them and give them away fast enough, it seems. I'm just...
27:03So I eat quiche every day and we're just doing everything we can trying to make pasta and doing everything we can to go through these eggs because I'm the only one in the house that seems to. The cats can get an egg, the chickens get eggs. I feed them back to the chickens a lot. But yeah, so we've just been absolutely swimming and a few of my friends, this is the first year that I've had people hatch out any of my eggs. So we had, I think we've had five clutches that have hatched so far.
27:32So that's been exciting to see. I'm like, I'm a grandma now. Yeah, exactly. You said you're fairly new to this. So did you know that you can actually crack the eggs into the bigger size ice cube trays and freeze them and they're perfectly fine for baking with? I have done that and I've tried that, but I have so many fresh that I end up never even using them. So I find that if I just feed them back to the chickens, I just use less feed that day.
28:01Okay. Yeah, I've tried storing them a few times then they just sit in the freezer because then I just use whatever's fresh so true. Yeah, yeah Yeah, was a better one. realized my dogs couldn't eat it because I'm like come on guys They eat so much that you know an egg or two a day was a a nice dip in the grocery bill, but not anymore Yep You this is the other thing about this lifestyle. You think you figure out a solution and then something new pops up
28:30100 % 100 % now we've been getting the goat milk. So I've at least been able to give them some of that nice  So are you just using the goat milk for drinking it or do you make soaps or anything out of it?  I've made cheese with it. So I've only started milking  pretty consistently  Maybe the last month or so because prior to that any milk that I was getting was going straight back to the babies So we've made butter a few times  We've made cheese
29:00I do use it  in my coffee and I'm not a big milk drinker, but any place I would use milk, I use it. And then I'm excited to try some ice cream this weekend. We're actually gonna try to make some goat milk ice cream. So that'll be fun. Is the goat milk butter, does it taste different than cow's milk butter?  It definitely,  I find goat milk actually tastes better. I have  Nigerian dwarfs  and  I know when I've gotten goat milk at the grocery store, it's been quite goaty and I'm not a fan of it.
29:30Yeah. And I think there's a few reasons to it. One is that Nigerian dwarfs, even though they produce less  milk than, you know, a full-sized goat, its butter fat is way higher. So it's a much sweeter milk. It does on day five, six and seven,  it can start tasting a bit goaty,  but fresh.  It's so sweet and it's so creamy. And it's really,  there's no,  there's no  aftertaste or anything until, until it's, you know, aged a few days.
30:00Okay, I was just wondering because they're different animals.  they are different. Yeah, for sure. Okay, cool.  Um, so we're at 29 minutes and six seconds. I try to keep these 30 minutes and honestly, I'm sleepy. So I'm going to cut you loose. I'm so glad you came to talk to me, Sophia. I appreciate it. for having me. I really appreciate it as well. Thank you for teaching me some stuff. didn't know.  Well, you have an awesome day and thank you again for having me. I hope that, uh, that somebody got some value out of this.
30:28I think they probably will.  All right. Thank you, Sofia. Have a good night. You as well.
 

Wisconsin Mineral Solutions

Today I'm talking with Gregg at Wisconsin Mineral Solutions. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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00:00Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I needed something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Greg Forster  at Wisconsin Mineral Solutions and he's in Wisconsin. Good morning, Greg. How are you? Good morning. How about you, Mary?  I'm good.  I am your neighbor in Minnesota and the weather here is relatively warm for April and sunny. What is it like in Wisconsin this morning? Right, about 37 degrees and  bright and sunny.
01:26Mm-hmm.  Yeah, we're moving slowly incrementally towards spring. I'm very excited about this and I'm sure you are too. Yes. So tell me about yourself and what you do because I know that you are a genius.  Yeah, like  beauty is in the eye of the beholder so is genius.  Oh, yeah. Well,  over here in Wisconsin I have
01:55on a 19 acre hobby farm, Homestead, where we've got probably about 30 baby goats born this spring. So that's, that's exciting. And most of those are twins, I guess. Yeah, twins and a fair number of triplets born this year. So that's always fun. And kind of kicks off the spring season with a lot of excitement here around the Homestead.
02:24And, um, well, we raise  quite a, I guess you could say kind of like a rainbow of fruits and vegetables here. We've got,  um,  a couple of acres actually of elderberries, and then we grow Aronia and blackcurrant and some red, white and pink currants.  And have a small greenhouse that, um, helps us kind of keep things going a little later into the season and also a little bit early.
02:53So yeah, home setting has been good. We've been  working with Dairy Goats for about 30 years now  and learning a lot.  And my personal background is  I have a degree in physics  and I utilized that for about 20 years  in the world of software engineering and it wasn't until
03:212012 that I turned  that education towards the world of agriculture. And now  I have a business called Wisconsin Mineral Solutions, as you mentioned. And I help  produce growers and dairy farmers  more profitably produce  and more sustainably produce nutritious foods. Okay. And that's where the genius part comes in.
03:46I listened to your podcast with Jill Winger today. I think her podcast is amazing. Like I want to be Jill Winger when I grow up  and I'm trying really hard to grow up fast because that would be great.  Yeah, she does. Awesome.  She's great. She's a lovely human being.  But what I found really interesting is all the science behind  the  making soil work better for you to grow better plants. And
04:13So  did you go back to school to learn this stuff or what, how did that happen? Well, I did not go back to school.  Um, but a lot of the principles that I've been learning and research that I've  come across,  um, my physics background kind of helps evaluate that and understand more how it,  when the rubber hits the road, what's actually happening down there in the soil and then what's happening in the plants themselves. And
04:42I've  encountered quite a few really, really knowledgeable people  over the last decade or so that have been instrumental in my learning and growing. And then of course, there are plenty of good opportunities like Acres USA and the Moses Conference and La Crosse, not too far from here.  So yeah, there are lots of ways to increase your knowledge and become more proficient in
05:12your understanding of how the natural environment works. Okay. I think that you suffer from the same thing that my dad and I suffer from. My dad calls it got to know it is  because for you to learn all of that stuff on your own, to be self-taught  using your physics background, that's got to know it is on a large scale.  Well, I liked the old adage when you're done learning, you're done.
05:42Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think I've heard that out of my dad too. He's 81. I'm pretty sure I've heard every old adage out of my dad at this point. But either way, so Jill was asking you all kinds of questions and she's far more educated than I am on how to ask questions about this because I'm not really the gardener my husband is and he has by hook and by crook been teaching himself how to garden and not use
06:11pesticides or man-made fertilizers and how to till in a smart way and how to add things to the garden because of what he sees happening with the plants. But it's not a science-based thing for him.  So  for those of us who don't know anything about the science behind good soil, is there an ABC to it or is it far more complex than that?  Well,  it is complex.
06:41but it doesn't have to be complicated.  We can approach things with kind of common sense and  I think it does help to get a little bit of science going on  our behalf, like doing soil testing and understanding what's going on there.  But you don't have to exactly understand the nuances that the soil test may imply.
07:09You just have to have some guidance on how to take what shows up in the test and do something  good with that data. So  a large part of my business is working with produce growers  and  quite a few of them market their produce.  Some do directly to grocery stores and  things like that, but  ones that are going through  auctions,
07:38produce auctions  are able to really see the difference if they change their behavior on their farms, the behavior of the buyers at the auctions changes.  we're able to help produce growers to have,  well, from the buyer's perspective, they just notice that the shelf life is longer and that the flavor is better and that the aroma is better. But what's actually happening is we're helping those
08:08vegetables become more nutrient dense  and when they're more nutrient dense all of those minerals and flavonoids and everything are just  Allowing the produce to be more sellable and the buyers like them better so we can definitely affect what's going on in the plants by Managing better what's going on in the soil?  Mm-hmm,  okay
08:34Here in Minnesota, we have a water and soil conservation district thing. And  I interviewed the lady for the county next to ours. I couldn't get hold of somebody in my county. And she was saying that they do soil testing and they will come out and kind of direct you on what the results mean and what you should do.  Does Wisconsin have something like that or are you that?  Wisconsin has that too.
09:04In my experience,  a lot of that,  and this isn't necessarily true for  Minnesota,  but a lot of that is based on or is focused on how to manage manure. And so it's looking at  how much manure can you put on the land before you end up with runoff problems and things like that.
09:31To do that, you don't really need a whole lot of detail in a soil test. But when I look at a soil test, I want to see where the trace minerals are at and how they're balanced relative to each other. So you can get a really cheap soil test that gives you some guidance, or you can get a medium-priced soil test, like around, let's say, $30 to $40.
09:59That gives you a lot more information and can help you  take more strategic action  with your soil.  All right. So I'm trying to drill down to the same thing Jill was trying to drill down with you on.  For those of us who know  nothing, we're just trying to grow a decent tomato that has some nutrient value in our garden.
10:28The first thing you think that we should do is get a soil test and find out what the soil needs.  Is that kind of step one? That is correct. Yes, that would be the first step. Okay.  And then  once you do that test and you get the results,  is there anywhere online that  will help you figure out what those test results actually mean?
10:55I don't know of any place online that would give you any kind of personalized help in doing that, but whoever you do your test through, they probably would have the skills and knowledge to get you in the right direction. Okay. Yep. That's what I was wondering because I can, we did a soil test the day after we moved into our place four and a half years ago, cause we bought a 3.1 acre lot and we had high hopes of growing a garden.
11:24And we did  the soil test for like pH and that stuff but not necessarily I think more in depth like you're talking about and We bought the place without testing the soil. We were kind of dumb. We could have brought the test with us  But we just wanted to make sure that it was a seven point zero because we knew what we wanted to grow which is you know, the usual suspects cucumbers and tomatoes and  onions and things And we were really lucky
11:53because it's perfect. have grown a gorgeous garden three out of the four summers we've been here. Last summer sucked because it rained and rained and rained. And as you know, wet soil is not plantable  and it's not walkable either because then you squish all the air pockets and everything doesn't work under there right.  So last year was not great and  we've got everything crossed this year that it's not going to rain for six weeks straight and that we will have a beautiful garden again.
12:22So,  what else can I ask you?
12:30What really prompted you to get into this? Because I mean you gave me  the rundown before, but what really pushed you on learning about this? Right, well,  in my neighborhood, let's see, this would be probably about 20 years ago  now,  a few of the farmers got together  and were started
12:58started thinking about how they could do a little more like collaborative type of work  and not have to have all the equipment to do everything, able to share some equipment. And we  formed a little sustainability group together.  And  one of the men that  started that, he  happened to be very, very knowledgeable about soil health and  human health and a lot of correlations between the two. And
13:27Um, he told me at one point that if I was going to get,  um, the same amount of nutrition as my great, great grandparents did from eating broccoli, that I would have to eat about 12 servings to their one serving.  And so that was kind of like one of the things that triggered my thinking about this and wondering,  um, you know, how could that be that drastic?  And.
13:53I mentioned just a few statistics when I talked to Jill about a few different things. think I might have mentioned  snap beans,  like tomatoes is one thing that when we look at tests  of tomatoes that are grown,  the most common way like that maybe a university would recommend. And then we look at how Dr. William Albrecht recommended that people manage the soil.  And in his testing,
14:23You know, he went out, he sent students out all over the world collecting soil samples, and then they spun out the humus and they looked at how the trace minerals were balanced in that humus.  And it turns out it's balanced an awful lot like in a  human body is.  And  we're always trying to improve organic matter in the soil. We know that that helps the soil hold its nutrients and everything.
14:54Dr. Albrecht thought, well, what if we  tried to balance soil so that it's mineral-wise balanced like the humus is?  And so he started doing some tests and other people have done some experiments too and looked at what impact does that have on the vegetables that are being produced?  it's just staggering.  for like iron is one that we notice a huge difference in.
15:23tomatoes grown the way Dr. Albrecht recommend have a iron unit of 1,938. If you grow it to a conventional way, you get one. 1,938 to one. That's like crazy difference. also looking at tomatoes, the amount of potassium goes from 148 down to 58.
15:53and magnesium goes from 59 to  about four and half. So these aren't just like a little bit worse today.  It's like off the charts  crazy.  And in some of the,  so some of these things are like a thousand times worse today. And so when I started noticing that,  that just really piqued my interest that we're
16:21We're doing a huge disservice to the whole world when we produce food that just can't really support life like it's designed to.  And  that just kind of fueled my interest and my excitement in learning more about the soil and how all of that works.  Because usually if somebody's this deep into something, something really kicked them into it. And I just was curious what it was. So thank you for telling me all that.
16:50So I, when you say that tomatoes are far less nutrient than they used to be, and sounds like they are, is part of that also that we have created hybrid kinds of tomatoes, they're not heirloom tomatoes, they're not exactly the same as they were in your great grandpa's day? Yes, that is partly true, yes.
17:19I don't know to what extent it is, but I do know when we look at  tomato greenhouses, some produce growers in the same greenhouse are growing heirloom tomatoes and they're also growing some hybrid tomatoes.  you know, the heirloom tomatoes have a much more gnarly kind of look, know, knobby and  they split a little bit more easily and things like that.
17:49Um,  we noticed that the  modern heirloom or not  the modern  hybrid types of tomatoes will grow pretty well  on not very good soil, but the heirloom tomatoes, they need you to do a really good job in managing the soil for them to turn out well. And the reason is because they need more nutrients. They're pulling more nutrients up into them. And so just naturally you're going to have.
18:18a much  richer  product than  with the  hybrids.  Flavor even. Like if you just grab a tomato that's been bred in order to be able to  be transported all across the country and banged around  and still look pretty good.  It doesn't taste the same as a fresh tomato that's  of an heirloom variety.
18:47No, no, it does not taste the same.  It's really interesting. talk a lot about tomatoes with a lot of people on this podcast, Greg. No, no joke.  But when we grow tomatoes here,  we will grow a couple heirloom varieties and we will grow early girls because early girls grow really well and people want to eat them because that's what they think they're supposed to taste like. Okay.  We grew Brandywine, heirloom Brandywine tomatoes one year.
19:16and they were as big as a softball and they were really pulpy but they were also really juicy and they were sweet. I don't think that people realize that tomatoes can have a sweetness to them.  The early girls  never have a sweetness to them and I'm assuming that's because they're a hybrid.
19:36Right. Yeah. The sweetness is,  um, pretty reflective  of the mineral content in them.  And,  um, have you ever eaten a, um,  a black currant before? Yes. I don't love them actually.  No,  you, a lot of people don't, but as soon as you put it in your mouth,
20:00There's just all kinds of things going on.  And your body is like, whoa, what is this?  And there are so many nutrients in there and complex,  uh, complex flavors there.  And  I think you're going to find that  there are some varieties of plants that, uh,  just  are much better at pulling up nutrients and need really rich soil and others you can kind of get away with, uh, less good soil,  but.
20:29what you're going to eat is also less good,  less tasty  and less healthy for you too.  had  a tomato grower  that had some friend from the city come out and visit,  a  young teenage kid,  and he was offered some tomatoes, cherry tomatoes by the farmer and the kid said, oh no, I don't like tomatoes.  And the farmer was like, what? You don't like tomatoes?
20:59No, we'll just try one. And so  the kid just ate one and didn't really say anything. And then a little bit later he reached in and grabbed another one and  pretty soon the whole bowl was gone.  And the farmer was really shocked at how much this person that had only had, I won't call them garbage tomatoes, but you know,  tomatoes that don't really taste like they're designed to.  And once he actually got to taste what a real tomato tastes like,
21:29Wow, he just loved them.
21:33Yep, that sounds about right.  We grew kohlrabis. You know what kohlrabis are? Yes.  Yeah, we grew those at our old house in our crappy backyard that was maybe, the garden was maybe 50 by 60 feet.  And it was not great soil. We had to bring in a whole bunch of dirt. We'll call it dirt because I don't know where we got it from.  you know, the stuff you plant plants in.
21:58And we grew kohlrabi and the neighbor girl had never had a kohlrabi before. And she saw them growing and she said, what's that? And my husband said, that's a kohlrabi. And she said, a kohlrabi It's a kohlrabi. It tastes sort of like a cabbage and a radish had a baby. And she's like, I like cabbage and I like radishes. And he said, well, here, take it. And she, you know, he broke the bulb off for her. He the roots off and the stems off.
22:28or the leaves off. And she looked at it and she said, how do I eat it? And he said, well, if you want to, you can just bite into it. He said, but how we eat it is we take it in and we cut it in slices like you would a radish. And we just eat it like that with a little bit of salt and pepper, very little salt. And she was like, okay. And she ran in the house. I she was like 10 at the time. And she didn't come out for five minutes and she came back out and she said, how many did you plant? My husband's at 20. She said,
22:58She said, if I give you 50 cents, can I get another one?  And kohlrabis are really weird. You know, they're not, they don't look like they should be edible. They're a weird looking  vegetable.  And so we converted her on the spot to that. And she asked us the following year if we were going to grow any. And my husband had already planned for this.  And he said, yes, but it's surprise. Come back in a month. I have a surprise for you.  So she came back in a month and there were purple kohlrabis.
23:28And she said, why are they purple? And he said, I don't know. He said, I just saw purple colorado and thought you might like them. And she took that one home, came back like 10 minutes later  and she said, they don't taste the same.  And I said,  hang on. And we still had the package of seeds in the house. And I looked at it and it's a hybrid.  So I think that she could tell that it was not the original plant.
23:56just from the way it tastes. She didn't hate it. She was like, the green one's better.  so yeah, humans are capable of discerning things without even knowing that they're doing it.  Yeah. And the animals  are, seem to be even more attuned to that.  We have  done experiments where we set out  GMO corn  and you set out  just conventional non GMO corn and even organic corn.  That's
24:26grown  with different practices. And you'll see the  pigs or goats  mostly  come up and kind of check out the different piles and they'll eat the good ones. They will leave the GMO stuff unless they're just really hungry and they've eaten up all of the good  organic corn. yeah, sometimes animals are a little more smart than we are, but
24:54we can  take  these nice brains that we have  and  apply them to our situation and make wise choices. So  I do  really encourage people to do the soil testing.  And sometimes there are just like little nuances going on in the soil that if you can get those turned around,  a  lot of things just start working well in the soil because there is kind of a classic
25:22tool, well not tool I guess,  an image that people use in the world of agronomy that show the interdependencies of the different minerals in the soil  and it's very, very rich.  And  if you have like just a little bit too little of copper in your soil, sometimes you can have potassium deficiencies in the plant.  And if you don't have enough zinc,
25:50Maybe you're going to have phosphorus deficiencies in the plant. Or if you don't have enough boron, then all of a sudden the calcium can't do the job that it's supposed to do. And so we just tweak a few things to get them in the right balance. And all of a sudden things start to change. and I've told quite a few people in the past that I really respect homesteaders for getting out there and doing the best they can to produce at least some amount of their own food.
26:20But I also want them to realize that sometimes they can produce stuff that's not a whole lot better than what they could buy  in the grocery store. And it doesn't have to be that way. They can make changes. Like you were saying, not getting out in the garden when it's too wet and you're squishing out all the air space for the good microbes and getting that soil in balance. And then the food that we're producing is food that's going to be supporting our physical and emotional
26:49and even spiritual well-being too.
26:53Yes, exactly. And that's why junk food is so bad for us. Junk food will actually make you depressed, make you not be able to sleep.  And if you're depressed and you can't sleep,  you're cranky and you're mean.  And so I am a big believer in good, healthy, nutritious food because it literally helps you be a better human being. Not that it makes you a healthy, I mean, it does. It makes you a healthier human being.
27:23But because you're healthier,  you act nicer, you act better, you make better choices because your brain is working better. Right. Right.  So I'm a big believer in growing your own stuff and the more you learn about how to pack it full of the nutrients your body needs because you're taking care of the soil, the better off we're all going to be. Right.  Absolutely.
27:46All right. So tell me, tell me about your goats. Cause if you've listened to the podcast at all, which I'm guessing you probably haven't, I freaking love baby goats. said you have 30 baby goats this spring.  Yeah. We have miniature Nubians  and so they have the big long floppy ears and the Roman nose  and they bounce around so energetically. It's it just gets you in the mood for spring.
28:14I've been in the mood for spring since October.  I'm ready. It's time.  So do you,  are you a goat dairy? Do you sell the goat milk? No, we don't.  Most of what we do with the goats, mean, obviously we use the milk ourselves and we're making yogurt and  a lot  of the summer. We pretty much just eat goat milk blended with berries and
28:43A little bit of maple syrup or honey. We call it utter delight. But the baby goats are used for breeding stock. there's a lot of demand for third, fourth, fifth generation miniature Nubians with strong milking traits. Nice. And they're fun. Admit it, they're fun. They are.
29:12Mm-hmm.  Yep.  I always try to get the fact that raising animals or growing produce is fun in because for people who  aren't doing this yet, there's a lot of hard work in homesteading and growing things, but there's such fun in it  at points in time. I don't want to say it's fun all the time because it's not,  but those moments of joy when you see those baby goats being crazy.
29:41or the moments of joy when you bite into that perfectly grown tomato are so worth it.  all  right, Greg, I tried to keep these for half an hour and we're at like almost 29 minutes and I'm not going to lie, I've been up since 3 a.m. and it is now 1029.  So I'm going to let you go because I'm going to really try hard to get some sleep recouped here shortly.  But  thank you for your time. I really appreciate it and keep doing the good work.
30:11All right. Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Thank you, Mary. If you like this podcast, you would probably love Amy Fagan's Grounded in Maine podcast.  You can find her on  all the platforms, groundedinmaine.com.
 

Harvest Of Joy Homestead

Today I'm talking with Joy at Harvest Of Joy Homestead.
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00:00Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Joy at Harvest of Joy Homestead. Good morning, Joy. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. You said you're in Mississippi when we were talking before I hit record. So  what's the weather like there today? It's very cold today. Really?  Yes.
01:23Like how cold? Because like I said, I'm in Minnesota. I know what cold is. See,  we don't really know what cold is. Like y'all, it's like 60 here. So it's cold to us.  Oh, you would not be enjoying this morning.  I don't think it's freezing yet. I think we're still below freezing here. Oh, wow. Yeah, we don't know what cold is here.  Yeah, I absolutely know what cold is here.
01:48People assume that I don't know what really hot is, but I can tell you from first-hand experience, two summers ago, we had a day that hit 101 degrees and the humidity was at the tropical level. So I do understand heat too. Yeah. we can be anywhere from minus 30 real temperature in January to 101 and tropical humidity in July. So. Wow. That's insane.
02:18It kind of is. That's why we all have lots of clothes here.  We have, I don't do this. My mom lives in Maine. I grew up in Maine and it's cold there too in the winter.  She actually has summer clothes and winter clothes and she packs away the summer clothes  in  November and she pulls out the winter clothes and then she packs away the winter clothes in April and she pulls out the summer clothes. I don't even bother. I just have all my clothes available and that way if I need 17 layers, I have them. Yeah.
02:49So,  I always start the podcast with the weather, well, almost always because it's just a good way to break the ice and it's nice to know what's going on in the world on the day I talk to people.  tell me about yourself and your homestead, please. Okay. So, my name is Joy. I go by Joy. I'm a homeschooling mom  and  I'm an  urban homesteader in...
03:13I run a Facebook of  Harvest of Joy Homestead for our homestead that we just started this year.  And I also run a Facebook group for Journey to Joy, Faith Family and Life Lessons for moms out there like me that has kids and just started homeschooling. And we just need a little compassion and upliftment and encouragement from each other. That's awesome. I love that.
03:40And I'm so glad that you just started your homestead this year because I don't usually talk to brand new homesteaders who are just building it. So tell me about that. I actually have a license in veterinary technology and so I've always loved animals. Well, I have four kids. I had twins in 2021. One of them ended up having Dandy Walker and they thought I was going to lose both of them. So I ended up having to quit my job to
04:10care for them. And so  the journey kind of started then where God was putting it on my heart to, you know, get your chickens, get what you can. Even though you live in city limits, you can do what you can.  And I kind of just like brushed it off, brushed it off. And last year  I started just getting little things and putting it as a hobby and part of our home school. So now we have  Brahma chickens.
04:38We have  just regular egg layer, barnyard mixes. We have rabbits for meat.  And we also have quail and just got into ducks.  Oh, I have a question real quick about all of that.  If you're in city limits, are there regulations about what you can and can't have, or is it just a complaint-based thing where if somebody complains, then they're like, what are you doing? So for here, it's a complaint thing.  But  we have a fenced-in backyard.
05:08And also  we are very kind with our eggs, so I think that helps.  Yes, yes. Kindness goes a long way. Yes.  Okay. So the Brahma chickens, are those the ones that are small? No, those are bantams that are small, which we also have those. I forgot to add them. But Brahmas are kind of like an uppity breed around here. They have the feathered feet and kind of grow big.
05:35Okay, I'm not familiar with the breeds, I thought I would ask.  So you said you have a fenced in backyard, so I'm guessing your chickens don't fly the coop as it were, or maybe they do and people bring them back to you.  I've actually  ordered like a metal coop off  of Amazon and I just use it. I secured it with hardwood cloth and I put
06:02wood on the bottom and use it as tractor so they never get out but they move daily. Nice.  Awesome.  How big is  your lot? It's about an acre.  Oh, so it's a good size city lot. Yes, ma'am.  Nice.  The reason I ask is we  now live on three acres. We used to live on a tenth of an acre in town, in a small town in Jordan. And we had four chickens and we had a coop for them.
06:32And they never got to get out because there was just no place for them to get out.  So we put in like a screen door and  like screen windows for the chickens. So we'd open the coop doors and then the light would pour in so they would have some fresh air and some sunlight. Because I felt terrible at the idea of just having them be in a big box,  know, with no fresh air and no sunlight. Because I wouldn't want to live like that. Yeah. Okay.  And you said you have rabbits for meat.
07:02And I know you have baby rabbits, because I looked at your Facebook page yesterday. I was like, oh, I'm so jealous she has baby rabbits.  Yes, ma'am. And I'm loving it. I'm loving it so much.  Aren't they the sweetest thing ever? are. They run to the gate.  When they see me coming, all of them run to the gate, because I always have some treat for the day. Yeah, they're very food motivated.  think all baby things are food motivated. They're like, hey, that's new. Let's go try that.
07:31Couple, well maybe three summers ago, we had gotten rabbits with the plan of  having them for meat.  And  I've told the story a billion times on the podcast, but I haven't told it to you. They did not get the memo that they were supposed to make more rabbits.  And we got  one  litter out  of a year of having meat rabbits, and I was like, I'm done, this is dumb. We're feeding these guys and they're not earning their keep.  But the one litter,
08:01ended up coming into my house in  a clear bin with mama because it got so hot for about four days in June that we lost some of the babies to heat. And  I was not going to let the other six die, you know, from being outside  in the hut. So I got to have baby rabbits in my house for like three weeks on my table in this bin and it had holes drilled in it so they had good air.
08:30And every morning I got to go and say hello to these baby rabbits and pick them up and hold them and talk to them. And it was so fun. Yeah.  My dog really wanted to be friends with them. But  what I discovered is  obviously rabbits are a prey  animal. Yes. And my dog, who's an Australian shepherd, is a predator animal.
08:55And I didn't think anything about it until I was holding one of the babies and my dog wanted to see it. And I put my hand down and my dog was just very gentle and trying to sniff the bunny. The bunny screeched like, oh, that's a bad thing. Get that away from me. Yeah. So you don't want to introduce baby rabbits to predator animals because they just know. Yeah, it definitely has to be slow. Like my dog is always around, so they kind of know him. But at first they was like, oh,
09:25Yeah, it's crazy how they know what's a danger to them and what isn't. Because they didn't scream when we would pick them up. They were fine. But the minute that baby rabbit smelled my dog on the air, she was like, no, they know. Yeah, it's crazy.  I'm so impressed with the way that Mother Nature designed everything because  it's it's literally  a dog eat dog world.
09:53And the animals that are not capable of defending themselves  know how to keep themselves safe. Yes, ma'am, you're right.  So it's just amazing.  OK, so you said you have chickens, have rabbits, you have kids. Yes, ma'am, I do. Yeah, twins and then two more. Yes, ma'am, have an  older son, the twins, and then I have a daughter.  OK, cool.
10:22And you said that one of your twins had something and I didn't catch what it was when they were babies. He was born with dandewalking and hydrocephalus. Oh, okay. I don't know what that first thing is. It's actually something that you really don't hear. we had to go to a specialist because doctors didn't even, like half of them didn't even know what it was.
10:43It's something like a missing part of the brain. And so it's a part where fluid's supposed to pump through, like your brain pumps the fluid through and out.  And here's this missing,  and just a little side note here. They actually told me that he wasn't gonna make it and that if he did, he would be a vegetable. He went to the doctor last year and they said if they didn't have his chart, they would never even know anything was wrong.
11:13I am so glad. That's amazing. Wow. anybody I talk to and they ask me about him, I always tell his testimony.  Uh huh. Yeah. And that's a good thing because you're giving hope to other parents who might be going through the same thing. Yes, ma'am. Wow. Okay. So do your kids, are your kids in on the raising the animals too? Or is it just your, your bag mom?
11:38Um, my daughter isn't cause she's just too young right now, but the boys they love it and they actually just got some chicks the other day that they're, um, that they're helping raise up.  Nice. Nice. And they know all about being gentle and sweet with the babies. Yes, ma'am.  Uh huh. Yeah. It always scares me when I see a toddler grab a baby animal because I'm like, either it's going to bite it  or
12:05the toddler is gonna squeeze too hard and it's gonna hurt the baby animal. And honestly, toddlers understand gentle. We have been gentle with our babies all along, so they do know what it means. It's just about teaching them. Yeah, yep, exactly. I can remember when my youngest son was probably two. He was outside and I went out to check on him and he had a toad, know, not a frog, a toad, in his hands.
12:35And I was like, be careful, because he was holding it real tight.  And apparently he had just started holding it really tight because it peed on his hand and he dropped the toe.  And I said, OK.  I said, from now on, if you're going to pick up something smaller than your hand, you have to be soft. And I took his hand and I put it in my hand and I pressed on his hand and I said, does that hurt? And he said, no.
12:59and I squeezed a little harder and I said, does that hurt? And he said, no, but it's not as good as the first one. I said, the first one is gentle touch. And from then on, he's been  so gentle with every little tiny thing  and he's 23 now. So. Wow. That  was a pretty good lesson. I could use that.  Yeah. He did not appreciate a frog or a toad peeing on his hand though.  He jumped as it did it and dropped the toad. I was like, oh no, here we go.
13:28So yeah, you can teach your kids all kinds of things like that that seem really  abstract, but there are ways to illustrate it for them so they can understand what you're saying.
13:41So,  okay, so do you grow a garden on your acre or not?  This is my first year actually trying.  So I pretty much just only growing what the rabbits like,  like radish and  I did do spinach for us and the rabbits kale. Yeah. And I also dabbled in  onions this year and they're growing pretty good. So I'm surprised.  I'm not.
14:08Onions really, really don't like having their feet wet. And I'm assuming that Mississippi  is warm all year round. I mean, you said it's cold there, but 60 degrees.  So I'm not surprised that they're doing well. Good job. Thank you.  Yeah. I don't know. Do you like tomatoes or cucumbers?  I do. I plan on... So  we're doing buckets right now because...
14:35We're planning on expanding and growing from here. Yeah. So we're not really digging in the ground or tilling anything. So I'm doing a bucket method. And so I'm planning on doing tomatoes and  cucumbers and the bush beans. Yep. Okay. Good. Cause really if you're going to be a homesteader, ma'am,  gardening is really important. Plus  not only are you feeding the chickens, you're feeding you  and you need to be fed too.
15:05Yeah. So, okay.  So, you sort of touched on why you started doing this at the beginning, but  can you tell me whether you were brought up around people who did this or if it was just something you got interested in?  I wouldn't say I really grew up around it.  My granddad had cows and things, but I was never old enough to
15:33By the time I got old enough to know about farming and stuff, they didn't do it anymore.  My daddy would raise pigs and butcher them, but it was never like we had our own pigs. He would go buy a pig, raise it a little bit more. So it was kind of, for my family, it was kind of unheard of. So I'm kind of like the crazy chicken and animal lady in my family. No, you're the smart chicken and animal lady in your family. Yeah.
16:01I want to take that crazy word off the front of things like that because  it's not crazy. It's smart. Yeah. It's not crazy, but it seems like around here, everybody is like, wow, you're doing that. Like, yeah, it's feeding my family and we know our food, their love. I know it sounds weird to other people, but their love, we take care of them, but we know where they're coming from. We know what they're eating. Yeah.
16:29Yep. And that's why I want to take that crazy word off the front because I want people to understand that just because they don't raise their own food doesn't mean it's crazy to raise your own food.  It bothers me, you know, I've heard it forever. I've heard it mostly with crazy cat lady or for people who have lots of cats. And yes, there can be mental illness associated with people who have too many cats or dogs or I don't know, whatever pets, but
16:58When you are doing something that is positive and it is improving your life, I don't think it's crazy in the least.  So that's what I'm saying. I don't want crazy associated with Homestead anymore. I want it to be smart because I think it's smart to Homestead. And you know what? I really needed to hear that. I really did.  Yeah. It's really hard when people don't, they don't understand or they don't appreciate what you're doing. And
17:26Like you said, you said you're giving your neighbors eggs  and so people are okay with you having the chickens. And it  takes people like us to do what we're doing.  Share the rewards of what we're doing with the people who aren't doing it for them to realize that it's a good thing. Yeah, I agree. We did that back when we lived in town.  We dug up our whole backyard and put in food we could eat. We grew food we could eat.
17:55And of course we grew more than we needed. So we took bags of tomatoes and cucumbers around the neighborhood and asked our neighbors if they would like some. And then we didn't seem quite so quote unquote crazy because everybody loved it. So  if you can, if you can share the bounty,  it really does bring people on board with what you're doing and they don't think that you're nuts anymore. Yeah, I call it abundance of blessings. That's what I call it. Yes, exactly.
18:24When we have an abundance of blessings here now on our three acres, we take lots of stuff to the local food shelf because  we want people who can't buy good stuff at the grocery store and can't find it sometimes to be able to have  good homegrown produce from our garden.
18:44And the guy that runs it is a friend of ours. And  when we asked him if he wanted tomatoes for the food shelf, he said, sure, how many you got? And my husband said,  boxes  of them. Wow. His face lit up. He was like, bring all you got. Everybody wants tomatoes right now. And it was so fun, Joy. Like, your name is Joy. There was so much joy in bringing this stuff to the food shelf because we were like, we have had to use food from the food shelf before we know.
19:14that when you're in a hard place, it's important to be able to get good food at the food shelf, not just macaroni and cheese from a box.  It is.  I believe everybody's been there.  And I think it takes having to be there to know how to help others and like what's needed. So that the end of the day, money is not important. It's the help and the love and the brother and sisterhood that's important in that.
19:44pushes you through.  Yeah, um, speaking of that,  one of the times, well, my husband volunteered at the food shelf in the town that we used to live in.  And there were times when we needed help too, cause people go through that.  And some of the ladies who were part of the board for the, the food shelf had put together the blankets that are like fleece and you just put two pieces together and tie them, you know, they have like a fringe all around the edge.
20:13When I went down to pick up my husband from the food shelf when he was volunteering,  one of the ladies who happens to be our neighbor said, do you want one these blankets?  We made too many. We have like a hundred of them. And she had one that no one wanted and it was sage green on one side. And it had like these button designs on the other side against a black background.  And I said, I would love to take that one if nobody's, you know, said anything about wanting it.
20:40She said, it's so funny. Nobody wants that one. They think it's ugly. And I was like, I think it's beautiful. I'm gonna take it home with me. I still have that blanket. I use it every winter here. Wow. Yeah. And just because nobody liked it, nobody wanted it. So I guess the point of my story, cause we're talking about food shelf stuff, is sometimes you find things that you don't expect and it really is a gift that you did not know you were going to get. Yes. Yes.
21:10So,  okay, so are you enjoying your foray into urban home setting? I'm loving it. I'm really loving it. It's like my quiet place, like  life getting too hectic or it's a hard homeschool day. It's just good to know I have my own oasis to go to. Yeah, yep, exactly.  And  when you do...
21:39when you go to that oasis after a hard homeschool day,  do you just like stand and look around and think, wow, look what I'm building? Or do you just listen to the chickens talk to each other and just breathe in and out?  It depends on the day. Some days I'm out there and I'm like, wow, like  I  see growth, even though we just started, I'm already seeing growth of what we didn't have and where we at. then some days it is like,
22:07Let me go hold a rabbit and breathe.  huh. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure that you have days where you enjoy homeschooling your kids, but I'm also positive you have days where you're like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Anybody with kids on the stage.  Uh huh. Yeah. I, I have a lot of respect for moms who homeschool their kids because I did it with my two youngest boys.
22:33And I was lucky I used the online platform so I didn't have to develop curriculum.  And even that was hard because my oldest was a senior in high school of the two. And he was doing pre-calculus.  Wow, yes.  I took pre-calculus in high school. Do you think I remember any of it? No, I do not.  I also think it's a useless math.
22:58class to teach a senior in high school who's not going to go on to become a mathematician, but that's just my opinion. And he would get so frustrated and I would look at what he was doing and I didn't know how to do it. Like I did not have the background to help him.  One of the most frustrating things of my life was that class with him. And so when  we moms take on the education of our kids, even if it's through an  online platform for homeschooling,
23:26It's a lot of time and it's a lot of patience trying to help your kids through it. Yes, you definitely have to pray and grow in patience.  Yes, you do.  And the  mantra in my house was, your grades do not define you.  Amen.  That's what I tell my son. Because in public school, I've been there. That's where I went. It's kind of like you get it or you don't.
23:54and we don't have time to stop on you.  At home school, it's tough and you might not remember how to do it, but it's always some way,  some always shows that whether that's a person or a YouTube video or something that helps you help your child.  Yep, exactly. And  like I said, my oldest with the pre-cal, he was really getting depressed about it. Yeah. And I emailed the advisor or whoever it was that was
24:24you know, the boss or whatever of the class.  And I said, he's really struggling, like he's not sleeping. And the guy was like, I don't know what to tell you.  I can't  give him a pass. And I was like, I'm not saying give him a pass. I'm saying help him.  He says, I need to talk to you during office hours.  Don't just be like, read the book. He needs help.  And he never got it. He never got help with that.
24:54And it made me crazy.  anyway, I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole on homeschooling, but I respect what you're doing, Joy, because I've done it and it is hard work.  so  are you going to continue doing the urban home setting or do you have hopes of getting out of the urban setting and more into the rural setting? I'm hoping to get more into the rural because I just, I want a lot of things.  I want goats. want
25:24Maybe. So I want our own little beef cow, maybe even a beef and milk cross. Nice. That would be great. Is there, this doesn't sound like a stupid question, but here in Minnesota right now, well for the last couple of years, there haven't been a lot of small acreages available for sale because during COVID everybody moved to the country who could.
25:52And so a lot of the small acreages got bought up and everybody is kind of sticking there. So is, is there, are there small acreages around you at all? What do you count as small?  Like under 10 acres. Oh, so it is a lot of like,  um, country, we call it country land around here.  It is a lot of country land for sale, but it's kind of like the prices are like crazy. Cause I guess they know people are looking for that.
26:21So we're just trying to wait it out and build and we're telling and speaking into each other that God gonna give us exactly what we need when we need it.  Speaking it into existence, yes. Yep, exactly.  And in the meantime, you can be honing your home setting skills where you are and then you're ready when you make the jump. Yes, ma'am. And  one of the things I would suggest if you don't already do it, I'm making an assumption here.
26:50is if you don't cook from scratch, learn how to. I've actually started baking. Good. it's pretty fun. It depends on how the kids are feeling,  if it's fun or not, because I try to incorporate them on things like that. So they're already learning without realizing they're even learning.  And so that's also one of reasons I got the duck eggs, like the ducks for eggs, because I heard with bacon, it's amazing. Yeah.
27:20I keep hearing that too. I haven't done it. But I keep hearing that duck eggs are richer and they're better for baked goods.  A friend of mine has ducks and she keeps saying next time she comes over and we haven't set up a time yet that she's going to bring me some duck eggs so I can bake with duck eggs and see what everybody's talking about.  It's good to have friends who have things that I haven't done before who want to help. is. It is because it's like I have  a friend that
27:48I actually got my first rabbits from her and  she has chickens and pretty much everything that we want to one day have, she's already had.  We had a fox attack  last week, like literally last week. And I was just, I was battling flies and maggots and trying to figure out what is going on. And she really helped me. So it's always good to have a friend that's an elder in the game of homesteading.
28:18I'm so glad you said that. I'm glad you shared that story because it really is good to have people who are doing it, who are willing to help. And I call them Homestead mentors. You know how you would have a mentor in school?  I didn't really have a Homestead mentor when  my husband and I started this back 20 years ago, learning about this stuff. I just watched YouTube videos or  went to blogs and read things. And I was like, I can try that and I can probably do it. And then I would do the one thing.
28:48and I would figure it out and I would master it and I'd be like, what's next? What else can I learn? So there are ways to do it, but having a person to show you the ropes really is  fantastic in a way that  reading about it or watching a video is not. It's very different. Yep, I agree. I'm so excited for you. You're at the very beginning, Joy. You have so many cool things coming down the road for you.
29:15Yes, ma'am. And it's just fun. The reason I created the Facebook for the homestead is not even to like  make money or anything, but it's just to show like you don't need what you see on a lot on YouTube. It's like the big beauty and everything. It doesn't have to be perfect. You do what you can with what you have. I love it. I say that all the time. Do what you can with what you have where you are.
29:42I am so glad you came to talk to me today, Joy. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for inviting me. I was so nervous, but you are very welcoming. I really have enjoyed myself.  I'm glad. you have, you have absolutely illustrated my point that you can do this,  even if you live on a little tiny lot of property. If you can put in raised beds or bucket gardens or  have a space for a chicken coop, you can do it and you're doing it. So thank you for sharing.
30:13Thank you. All right. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

The Punk Rock Farmer - Part 2

Today I'm talking with Jonathan Lawler at The Punk Rock Farmer. You can follow on Facebook as well.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
 
Muck Boots 
Calendars.Com
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00:00Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. That doesn't work here. mean, I said number one, said, when you have 12,000 tomato plants planted per acre, the pheromones that we're releasing to the hawk moths and the gypsy moths, everything that wants to come a beat on these, that's going out. Huge, huge signals.
01:26And I said, we try to use, I mean,  I do integrated pest management where I try to incorporate insect predators and,  I encourage hawks here.  love the fact that I have hawks. My wife doesn't like it because of her chickens, but I like having hawks here because mice are such a problem for us as produce farmers. They are just the bane of our existence.
01:54we're getting ready to install 27 miles of drip irrigation just here at this location. And when we install that, the mice in the middle of summer when it's dry will actually chew on that drip irrigation. To get to the water. To get to the water. so,  you know,  I've always told people, like, I'll have guys who work for me and they'll see a snake and they'll go to kill it. said, that's fine. But you kill a snake, you got to do his job for two weeks for free.
02:22You know, because he's eaten the things I don't want him. We have bees and we're able to educate people. They're like, well, how can you use chemicals  and have bees? Well, because number one, the stuff I'm using, bees aren't chewing on the plants.  And these insects have to chew on the plants in order to ingest it. Number two,  we also spray in accordance with how the bees
02:52Whether they're, you know, we don't like to, we really don't like to spray plants late in the evening, but, uh, we will, we won't spray before a big bloom, like a big bloom of watermelons. We don't spray. mean, there's, there's things that we actively do that there's nuanced conversations that we can have with the people that are all or nothing. When it comes to there's people that are like, no chemicals all the way. That's the way we should do it. And then there's people like, absolutely don't use chemicals. And I see myself as.
03:22I'm the dude in the middle saying if I don't have to spray, I'm not going to. But at the same time, don't take the tool tools away from me that I need to help feed people.  And that's that's  that's  that's a hard part for me sometimes  is  what people tell me now.  The funny part about those those ladies that came, they were awesome.  They were like you guys, you know, she said she wanted to know how we  manage rabbits. And I said, Well, we throw lead at him.
03:511300 feet per second. Us too. Yes. And I could tell it took her a second to understand what I was saying. And I was like, all these, all these cute German shepherds that are your best friends right now that are, are, you know, circling you for, for their next pet. These guys also do it. They see a rabbit, they kill it, you know, and that's kind of, kind of how we've trained them to be. And they're like, yeah, we,
04:18But I'm like, you guys are also in urban environments. So discharging a firearm would probably be frowned upon. you  know, the things that you can do, I mean, I didn't really have an answer for him because I've always been able to manage pests the way we saw fit. Yeah.
04:40Yeah, I'm going to jump in for a second.  I think that what  everybody needs  regarding  these stories you're telling is number one,  listening. Number two, critical thinking. And number three, understanding what you heard and realizing that  it doesn't have to be  one way or another. It can be a blend of a bunch of things. Correct. I mean, I've always said in my mind,
05:07I've always said that the, the pinnacle of agriculture at some point is we're going to take the best of conventional and the best of organic. And we're going to be able to, to kind of merge them together, which I already kind of do on my farm. There's organic products.  I, I,  I, I, some of the truth telling that I, that I think has gotten me in trouble before is I was an organic farm. We were conventional. I switched to organic. I switched back.
05:37And so there were certain crops I just I could not grow them well organically.  Not without  a  huge reduction in yield as well as a lot of loss. Other crops though, especially now with the organic inputs that are out there. I don't know why an organic tomato cost more. Than a conventionally grown tomato.  I don't know why an organically grown bell pepper.
06:07cost more because the only difference in the growing methods, at least from what I can tell is the inputs and the inputs really aren't that much more expensive anymore, especially when you're buying them. If you're growing at scale, that you know, you're you're you're buying them in bulk. So the cost isn't really that much more. I think that like the Corteva product, I think it's $30 more a pint if it's organic.
06:37But that pint mind you is 700 bucks conventional,  but it makes a lot of product. I mean it makes a ton of product. So  yeah,  I see a lot of things in food that that I'm super critical of that nobody wants to talk about.  You know we could be growing organically or people can be growing organically. They have the tools now to to  to.  Really?
07:06Be able to compete with it, compete with a conventional farmer. But if I go to a farmer's market, I still see $7 pound tomatoes  and people  say, there's $7 a pound because you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. They have a checklist of things. Well, no, there's $7 a pound because you can't take advantage of economy of scale. That's why.
07:35And I don't have a problem with that. buy those seven dollar tomatoes sometimes just see what they taste like or if they grow a variety that I don't.  I'm happy to pay that to the farmer. Where I get up where I have a problem is is when farmers markets are utilized as things that can address food access, especially if we're talking about affordable food access here in Indianapolis, they put a farmers market in the city's largest food desert.
08:04And I went to it  and they had number one, had stuff that nobody wanted.  Um, you know, the, the, it was the kale or the, you know, these, these different, you know, the varieties weren't great. And  what they did have that the community looked at was  not affordable to them. They, they, you know, they did that. The tomatoes were  not one vendor was selling them for less than $5.
08:34They were all organic. The requirement of this particular market and this deal that they had made with this, with the center they were doing it with was that everything had to be organic and everything. And I remember I was speaking to the person that had put it together  and she was basically, I was there, we had some of the kids there and she's like, the very fact that none of you have tasted.
09:05and organic strawberry picked  right from the field is just, I just can't believe it. You guys have no idea what you're missing out on. And that's why this is important. And I just, wanted to like, just get in her face and be like, listen, you know, these kids, they're going to school with no food. They didn't eat breakfast. They're, they're, they're on the lunch programs.  And on top of that,
09:34They have no idea  where to go to get those organic strawberries that you're talking about pick straight from the field. They're lucky if they get a conventional strawberry from plant city, Florida, let alone what you're talking about. And your strawberries are very expensive. They're out of their price range. Even their snap dollars that they're all given to spend there. Just do not go very far when the prices of the food is so expensive. And we kind of looked at that.
10:02We started doing farmers markets just to address food insecurity. And we had this lofty goal of, well, if we're going into an area where there's a poverty level, everybody's on SNAP, everybody's on this or that, we're just going to provide, we're subsidized basically by our private funders. So we're going to just give the food away for free. You know, we hear something crazy. Nobody take it. Really?
10:30Nobody, they all insisted on purchasing it. So we made the tomatoes a dollar a pound. And when we made them a dollar a pound, they loaded up  on them. They, know, cucumbers, you know, our cucumbers were a quarter or you, or you could get, you could get five for a dollar, you know? And,  and so, I mean, we had, we had, you know, especially a lot of grandmothers.
10:59a lot of African American grandmothers that were saying they're going to show their granddaughters how to make pickles.  And what surprised me was as, you know, some people go out and look for pickling cucumbers. My grandmother never used pickling cucumbers. She always used a different type of cucumber.  never  I I always preferred those over the pickling ones.  And I think so today. But.
11:26I realized then that it was also about dignity that they could, they could buy this fresh produce. They could go home, make a meal for their family and be able to say, look what I got for you. you know, not every farm can do that. And that, wasn't an expectation, but that's why when people say small local only small local only like, okay, fine. But how do we feed people?
11:56You know,  the demographic that you're thinking of in your mind of that suburban soccer mom or suburban baseball dad that will come and drop a hundred bucks at your farmer's market without blinking an eye. That is only a percentage of what the American public is. The  folks in the urban areas and even rural areas that are living at the poverty line. There needs to be a place for them. Number one, to participate.
12:27And that means being able to buy. They should be able to buy it. But participate in such a way that.
12:35they can afford it and it doesn't like, doesn't like rock their bank account or they don't feel guilty.  I  had the pleasure of being at a dinner with Joel Salatin  and  Joel Salatin said, I don't want the single mom living in a food desert to be my client. That's low hanging fruit. That's what he said, it low hanging fruit. And I just thought, wow.
13:04Any respect that I had for that dude went out the window when he said that because as a farmer, my job's to. My civil  service is to make sure that my community is fed. That's my job.  And.  The greed and there's nothing wrong with somebody making money. You should be able to. Sustainability is also financial. But to kind of throw my clients.
13:32under the bus as if they're not important or they shouldn't be what somebody is striving to have as clientele, that just rubbed me the wrong way. And I was just like, okay, well, I'm going to try to do even more now. I outproduced his farm big time. Granted, he's only meat. I'm 99 % produce, but pound for pound, we
14:01What I do  is,  is I care more about making sure that people have this access.  Um, and if I want, if I wanted the money, I could have, I even as running the nonprofit, I could have just,  I know so many nonprofit leaders that,  know, they're rolling in cash. You know, they take these gigantic grants and they use them for everything other than the service that they're supposed to provide.
14:3010 % of it  is used for the service and everything else goes over. We actually got to where we were providing  one pound of food and that pound would, a serving,  to where it had the servings of three vegetables and protein for  almost  right at a dollar.  Now we were non-profit, so what I always tell people is you can't, because we were non-profit, we're subsidized by private.
15:00Private entities we actually never took any taxpayer dollars.  Subsidized by. By private entities we were able to do that.  So now that I've kind of closed my nonprofit we we we've we've you know we've got with the board and we said we don't want to do this anymore.  We feel like there's other ways to be more impactful.
15:28I can still, can't get close to that number, but I can still get to where it's affordable and my farm makes money.  You know, and that's because then that's how I feel. Everybody has a different path.  I do get a little bit hung up and that's what I'll call it. know, niche growers,  the pasture raise folks, those folks, the holistic farmers. When they,
15:57go as far  as saying things like,  isn't,  know,  if you're not buying this chicken, or if you're not buying this beef, or if it's not grass fed, or whatever it might be, you know,  it's almost a form of food bullying. And I don't like it, you know, because I know plenty of holistic growers,  holistic producers, they don't do that. They're like, this is what I have.
16:27This is what I, this is what I produce. If you want it, I have it. And they are providing such a valuable service for, for those folks that seek out that type of food. It's just when I,  when I see some farms and I just, there's one, I just talked about this. There's a farm on Facebook I used to follow. I had to stop following them because they're, they're number one, crashing farmers like me, you know, that, that, that, that's.
16:57here and over there, I can see that a lot. But they were trashing anyone who was making a decision based on the price  of the food. again, that's because I've worked in this, I've worked in this sector  of the hunger. I know  the sacrifices people make on food.  We're not  talking about people that are sitting on welfare at home. We're talking about
17:26People that some of them have two jobs and they're still in the poverty level.  mean,  it's just a very odd thing or there's a mental health issue.  Um, lot of, a lot of addiction issues that, that lead to hunger. But we always used our food as kind of a bridge to say, Hey, we can help you with if it's the mental health thing or it's the addiction thing, we can help you. You know, here's the, here's the bridge that we're building the food come across.
17:57And then with other people, was just about things. Healthy eating was not affordable to them.  And,  uh, you know, I, I met him,  uh, uh, a mother who we actually owned a grocery store in Indianapolis that our farm provided stuff for and multiple other farms did.  And,  uh, she was, she could not afford the organic eggs that were in the store.  And.
18:26There were some, couple other things, cause we offer both organic and conventional. And I told her the conventional stuff actually, I showed her the stuff that we were talking about. And she had three boxes of Annie's organic macaroni and cheese in her cart. And I was like, do you really think because that says organic on it, that processed cheese junk, whatever it is, is better than a conventional tomato?
18:54or a salad that you can make for your kids  or  that conventional watermelon that your kids would absolutely love. Do you think that's better?  And she said, I don't know.  said,  I kind of went through, she asked me a lot of questions about how we farm and I was able to answer. She loaded her cart up with my produce,  which I was happy about.  those are the nuanced conversations.
19:23And I do, I see that right now. I see a lot of barbs being thrown from like the holistic grower side of, you know, cattle that never, that never, uh, never are on pasture. I don't know. I mean, I raised cattle for market. I've never had them a hundred percent on a feedlot. They're two thirds of their life was spent on my pastures. And then, you know, when they go to finish, that's somebody else doing it, but
19:52That's where they're going. I don't know that. I don't know.
20:01why that's happening right now, why it's such a push  to trash every type of farming operation without actually knowing how it works.  I do think it's not understanding the complexities of the American food system that, you know, I don't believe that a whole list, if we went back to a holistic method, like say how Salatin is maybe telling us to grow or these other people are telling us to grow.
20:31I don't see that being able to feed our population. just don't know how it could. Not without like every fourth person having to go back to an agrarian lifestyle. And I also don't see the American public wanting to do that. I don't think it would be a bad thing. just don't see them wanting to do it.
20:56Yeah, I mean, it's work. It's hard work. It's good work. I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump in real quick cause we're coming up on like 55 minutes now.  You are a storyteller. I love that. I love everything that you're doing and keep doing it.  But I think that part of the reason that people are so quick to jump on each other, whether it's  egg  or I don't know anything right now is right now people are so stressed.
21:24And so worried and so  unsure of what tomorrow looks like that everyone is kind of on edge and it's coming out sideways. Now, I don't know how long you've been seeing this behavior that you're talking about. I I'll be honest. I think you're right because you know, Joel Salatin and folks like him have been around for a long time.  Um, it becoming mainstream in the sense of and again,
21:55Joel Salatin is one of those guys that I love that he gets people interested in agriculture. I just don't love how people will hang on to a sound bite, he said, and think that that's the gospel truth.  Or that what he just said will apply across the board, because it just doesn't. But  I think what you're saying is absolutely right, because it's just been recently where I've seen so many...
22:24And again, I've seen in the past where farmers like me or a skilled farmer will throw barbs at a small farm  or a conventional farmer will throw barbs at the organic folks.
22:39But the amount  of people just saying, know,  if it's not grass fed, if it's not pasture raised, if it's not X, Y, and Z, if it's not organic, if it's not, you know, it's It's bad. bad.  And that is to me probably what you're saying.  think, you know, a lot of these small farm operations, operate from
23:09Market to market.  It's, you know, almost like a paycheck to paycheck kind of thing. So I'm sure it's stressful. And if they can try to convince somebody to buy their product, you know, because they're worried about the economy or worried about whatever. And also, I mean, the political climate, everybody needs a bandwagon chip on right now. I mean, that's that's  something I see. You know, I'm not a fan of RFK. I'm not.
23:35You know,  and I'm in very red Indiana  and you say you're not a fan of RFK, then they're like, well, you must be like a Pico liberal. And I'm just like,  I have very cruel values, but I also understand what RFK  is and what he has done to farmers in the past.  And,  you know, that doesn't mean that I disagree with everything, you know, that he says, but there are some things that I just, I'm not.
24:06It's kind of a weird thing that people will take what their political party, somebody from a political party is saying about agriculture and then the accountant that lives in the suburbs all of a sudden becomes an ag expert and is going to tell me what I'm doing wrong because he just happens to be in line with that party. That's not quite how that's supposed to work. Right. You know, I mean,
24:33So yeah, but you're absolutely right. think it's just everybody is so uncertain of everything. Yeah,  it puts people on edge. And that's why I think it's better than ever right now is if you have  like these holistic farms and then like conventional farmers kind of locking arms, because ag's a big tent and there's room for everybody. Everybody has a place at the table. If we did that, it would just be such a better
25:03a better outcome, understanding that, you know, I'm not going to grow all the tomatoes for the city of Indianapolis, even though I grow a lot of tomatoes, you know, I'm not going,  you and, and, and same thing for this pasture raise operation over here. They're not going to be able to grow  all the pasture raise stuff that somebody needs, but if it's marketed correctly, they'll do well. This farm over here will do well. And if everybody's kind of working together  and
25:32And we're a unified front. It'll, it'll bring the Americans public's trust back to  agriculture  and it'll make us all stronger for it.  A, a rising tide raises all ships, so to speak. use that phrase all the time, Jonathan. Yes, it does.  Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wrap this up because I try to keep my podcast to half an hour, but this one I'm just going to put on the show notes. It's a long one guys, but it's worth it.  Um,
26:01Thank you so much for your time and thank you for ending on that note because  if we all just take a collective breath, step back, look at what we're doing and maybe try to build community around us,  things could be better. Oh, absolutely. So thank you so much for your time. appreciate it. Perfectly. I was I'm glad you had me on.  Oh, I'm glad you could be here. Have a great day. Yep.
26:26Thank you.
 

The Punk Rock Farmer - Part 1

Today I'm talking with Jonathan Lawler at The Punk Rock Farmer. You can follow on Facebook as well.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Homegrowncollective.org.
 
Muck Boots 
Calendars.Com
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jonathan Lawler,  also known as the punk rock farmer in Indiana. I think you're in Indiana, yes? Yes, that's correct.  All right. Welcome, Jonathan. How are you? I'm good. How did you fare with the weather in Indiana last night?  It was a little bit rough. We're kind of used to it.
01:25My farm's been hit by a tornado. I don't know twice. I lost a packing shed to a tornado a few years ago. Weirdly enough, last night, you know, we thought we were kind of ahead of the storm. So we decided to run to Walmart together. Well, which was weird. We usually don't go to Walmart as a family. my wife wanted to stop at another place up to town. So she came with us.
01:56And  she actually came in because she said it was getting so bad. And as we were in there, the Walmart basically shut down and made everybody go back to their like, uh, receiving and storage area where it's designated as a storm shelter.  Well, I'm glad you're safe because I saw that there were bad storms in Indiana last night and I was like, Oh no, I think the guy I'm talking to today is in Indiana crap.  So glad you're good. Glad your family is safe.
02:26Um, so tell me about yourself and tell me how come you're called The Punk Rock Farmer.  So  I actually didn't come up with that name.  Um, I didn't like the name when people started calling me that,  uh, you know, because when you get a label put on you, that's as wide as something representing an entire subculture in a music scene,  it's kinda, you know,
02:54You feel like there's a lot of pressure there. You might not align with everything that that subculture represents.  But  I was  so we were working.  We were doing urban farm projects in Indianapolis  and a wonderful organization  known as the Flannery House  had been trying to put in an urban farm for like four years. They were working with a university and the university had them on like their ninth
03:24feasibility study  and the executive director was getting super frustrated and I was actually providing produce to this  this community center  and he took me out to where he wanted to do it and he said you know what is the feasibility of doing this because you know we we keep having you know  the university we're working with says we got to make sure we're doing this this and this and I said do you have soil Sam?
03:53And he's like, yeah, I said, okay, well, let's look at them. I looked at the soil samples and I'm like, well, we can put a plow on the ground  and, you know, start planting. I mean, I don't, you know, the spring, I don't know  what their holdup is.  And he said, okay, you know,  I'm all for that. So we actually put in a two acre urban farm there and they have a center for children.
04:22that  the center has a  after school, it's for after school for their working parents. And they have a lot of young kids there.  And Brandon, the executive director told me, he said, make sure, if you can,  bring a cool tractor or, so I was like, I can bring two tractors.  That way we get it done twice as fast  and the kids can see them. So we brought two,  one good size utility tractor than a smaller utility tractor.
04:53The kids had just never seen anything like that. And of course we used two big  F-350 farm trucks to pull those up there. I was wearing jeans, boots,  but I had a Misfits shirt on and my hair was really long and tattoos. And so the kids all started calling me the punk rock farmer.  You know, they're like, he's a punk rock farmer. And  a reporter heard it.
05:20You know, reporter that was actually covering us doing that.  And funny enough, that  actual project made it to the, she was a reporter with USA Today.  And I believe it was 2017. It was on the cover of USA Today during Thanksgiving weekend.  That we,  what we were doing there.
05:46Some other people heard about it. So a young woman actually created a Facebook fan page called the punk rock farmer.  She was a volunteer at our farm. She was constantly, you know, she did a lot of stuff for us and I liked it. I thought it was cool. You know, I still kind of cringed a little bit at being called the punk rock farmer.  I was also running the largest  nonprofit farm in the United States at the time.
06:15that because that's what we did in urban farms. We we injected community centers, food banks, food pantries,  you know,  assisted living homes that were income based with fresh produce and protein. So.  As the executive director of that nonprofit, there were a lot of things I couldn't say because of the politics around nonprofit and the politics around, you know, working with the city.
06:44But I realized, you know, cause she came to me, she said, this has like 8,000 followers now. You should probably, you guys should probably take it over.  And I kind of realized, well, I can say things as the punk rock farmer that I can't say as the executive director of Brandywine Creek Farms. So I took it over and  from there, it just kind of,  it kind of took off.  grew on you as things do, they get planted.
07:12I mean, it grew not just social media wise, but our earned media, the opportunities that we got. mean, we, we, we, since then we've worked with, of course we've been on RFD TV,  CMT, country music television, but then we actually had the opportunity to work with Mike Rowe.  Uh, we've had the opportunity to work with Disney,  um, Tyson foods,  uh, Culver's restaurants named us the one of their.
07:40There are farmers making an impact.  So yeah, we've had a lot of great opportunities with it.  So  do you think that that because the kids named you the punk rock farmer, it just brought more attention and that's how this all kind of got so big?  I do. I mean, I think people expect, you know,  when I go and speak publicly or wherever, I think  I think people are like, what, what are we going to get? You know,
08:10Are you going to set the stage on fire? You know,  people expect their expectations versus what I am.  think  our local Farm Bureau  person summed it up best. He said, you know, because  I'm starting to work with my state Farm Bureau a little bit and he said, you know, we're a big ship. We're old. Takes a while for us to
08:39to turn.  And he goes, I think a lot of people like in that farm bureau space, not just, and I don't mean specifically farm bureau, but the kind of that culture. He said, you know,  it's, taking a little bit of time for them to get used to your brashness. And he goes in and he goes in all fairness to your honesty, which is kind of not good, but you're very honest about how you see things. And that's the reason why I think a lot of our membership.
09:09likes you, but some people, you know, in our leadership are a little bit like, Oh man, he just came out and said that, you know, which I do. mean, I'm not, I, I, I've been known to, to say exactly how I feel. Um, especially I, if I think that, uh, you know, a farmer, any farmer is being taken advantage of or is getting the short end of the stick. I feel like that's who I I'm trying to stick up for the most is other farmers.
09:38And I think that's great. think you should keep doing that.  So  did you grow up farming or or did you get into farming later or what? What's your story?  It's kind of funny.  We I grew up on a farm until I was on a farm until I was 11.  My grandparents actually had a truck farm and my dad actually  farmed as well and just helped supply them. And we always had like.
10:07I don't want to call it hobby farm because it was bigger than that, but my dad worked a full-time job in trucking. He actually owned a trucking company. so he spent, the farm was almost a place for, think for him to get relaxation is what I'd call it.  Uh, you know,  I'll tell people I've worked in two industries heavily. That's agriculture  and logistics or transportation.
10:36both of which can be extremely high stressed.  you know, I think for my dad being able to help his parents  and, you know, us being able to grow up that way  was great. Funny enough,  my dad's trucking company grew enough to where it was kind of time to move closer to Indianapolis, which is where his trucking company was. We did, and so I went from being out in the country
11:05to a suburb  of Indianapolis and  it wasn't great, it wasn't fun.  I made sure I went to my grandparents farm as much as I could. But also my dad kinda kept our rural roots going,  know, hunting and fishing and that kinda thing, even though we were there so he could be close.
11:32And as I grew up, I didn't know if I was going to, if I wanted to go into agriculture  or if I wanted to go into the logistics side of our,  of our family, because we had people doing both. And I chose logistics. And I, at some point, me and my wife and my wife, just so you know, she actually, she's like the quintessential farmer's daughter. She grew up on a massive farm in.
12:01Mary in Ohio,  at one time her dad was farming 9,000 acres and his family anyway.  so she grew up in that and she  and I both thought, you know, we want to get our kids back on a farm. So we actually  started farming again,  but with no home out in the country. were looking for, we had some land, we weren't.
12:29particularly fond about building on it or, uh, or utilizing it was just where we went to the farm.  And, um, we started looking for a place and we found a, uh, old horse farm that,  uh, that's actually, it was a race horse farm. Uh, and it was beautiful. It had everything that I felt like we wanted it have the appropriate acreage for us to go, go to scale up  in our produce production. So that's what we did.
13:00We purchased it and that was in 2012. So I went back to full-time farming in 2012. Okay. So that, leads me to another question. Are you,  do you consider yourself a, a crop farmer or are you a farm to market farmer or what? I am a vegetable producer that sells to a local market and intermediate market, meaning brokers.
13:29And I also do direct to grocery sales. Okay. All right. So you're not just growing  one crop. You're not just growing corn and that's it for the year. Okay. Good.  Cause I know people do that and that's fine. Cause people need row crops, but I also know it's really hard on the earth to do it that way.  So. Yeah. I grow, our main crop  is.
13:59It switches back and forth depending on the year, but it's typically either tomatoes, fresh market tomatoes or melons. or the other. Love both.
14:13But I have had, I had one year, we got a giant,  we had a jalapeno contract that was really good. we, our primary crop that year was jalapenos.  And then after that,  we also got a bell pepper contract. And it was  actually  through a broker, which it's the first time I had ever gotten a contract through a broker.  And he wanted,
14:42He wanted the red and the yellow bell peppers as well as he wanted a supply of green bell peppers. So Mm-hmm Okay, so that I actually do have a really weird question about that we grow yellow and red sweet peppers here  and  When we when we grow them they start out green  And then as they ripen they turn yellow or orange or red. So how do you manage to time that?
15:11for a broker  so people get what they're buying. So we do a heavy nitrogen feed and then a heavy,  I don't know the exact numbers, actually my middle son is the one who does that.  I mean could get close on those numbers but it's just to really get the fruit to pop and then as soon as they've  gotten to a size that we feel like
15:41Um, especially with the varieties we grow up that we feel like they're, they're, they're ready. We'll pick them.  The worst part about it is if you wait too long, you know, they've ordered green bell peppers, but you're giving them bell peppers that are blushing  and,  know, they, they don't, mean, I've never had anything rejected because they were blushing, but at the same time, by the time, you know, if they come and pick it up from the farm or we actually deliver it.
16:09this particular companies in Indianapolis, we deliver it and then who knows where it's going from there. might be going to Cincinnati, might be going to Louisville, might be going to Chicago. Depending on how long it fits in their storage,  which is not long, usually it might be a day or two before those bell peppers are shipped out.  They can blush quite a bit. they almost, I've never actually,  I heard of it, but I've never seen it with my bell peppers. I've never seen a full
16:40like a green bell pepper after it's been picked turned completely red.  I've never seen one turn completely yellow. I was just curious because my husband will bring in the peppers that are supposed to be red in at the end of September when we have to pick them or they're going to get frosted. Right. I'm in Minnesota and they'll have like red spots on them, but they're not red yet. And it doesn't matter. They still taste good.
17:09They're lovely. yeah. mean, and the thing about a green bell pepper is a lot of people don't know it has more vitamin C in it than orange does. like, I know that the orange people have better lobbyists because you know, everybody's like eating an orange if you have a cold. Well, actually eat a green bell pepper, you'll get a lot more vitamin C. Yeah. And I, I don't love oranges, but I don't love oranges to the point where I want to eat one a day. Whereas I would eat, I would eat
17:38sweet peppers in everything.  They add something to every recipe.  It's definitely one of my favorite. It's one of my, I'm very picky. I grow things that I would never eat myself. I mean, I'm terrible.  I was like a health food ambassador for when I was doing a lot of  our hunger stuff and telling people to eat stuff that I personally  would never, like I won't eat zucchini.  I won't eat an onion.
18:07I don't eat broccoli. don't eat anything like that. And it's not because I have anything against them. I just don't like how they taste. just don't.  I don't like the taste of my kale is one of those things that I think is one of the grossest plants on the planet, but we grow it. I mean, we grow a lot of kale.  So do we, and I don't eat it.  It's one of the few leafy greens I cannot eat. I just hate the texture of it. Yeah, it's, it's definitely not a
18:37I don't know what it is, you know, and people are like, well, you collard greens. Well, I eat collard greens after they've been prepared as collard greens. don't eat them. You know, I don't know if you've ever tasted a collard green raw, but it is quite different than when it's been like cooked the way, at least the way I grew up eating. Aren't collard greens like rough on your tongue if they're just picked out of the garden and washed off? Yeah, it's like it was designed not to be.
19:07You gotta you gotta boil them and like my wife, she's so she's from northern Ohio.  But like where I'm like a lot of my family's from the south. So I mean, collard greens are  usually cooked for the number one. They're cooked either bacon or  or even a hog jaw or something. And then they're cooked for hours.  And there's vinegar added to them. There's all kinds of stuff or.
19:36pieces of bacon.  And I think it's almost like you're disguising  the collard green itself in order to be able to eat it. Yep, that makes sense.  Yeah, I don't do collard greens either, so we're of a like mind there.  So we've talked for like 18 minutes and I would love to know what it is that you're, what you're trying to do  with your
20:03You're a fairly new found notoriety as the punk rock farmer for ag. Well, so we because I've had. So because I've had so much earned media, which is something that people on social media don't typically get, I actually got the earned media first and I cultivated those relationships. So an understanding media, I mean, I got.
20:31In 2016, I started getting stuck in front of cameras to the point that one of the benefactors that  actually wanted us to become a nonprofit farm,  um, came to me and said, Hey, we need to get you some coaching. So, mean, there's a lot of reporters that want to talk to you. So  I got some PR coaching there and then I just kind of took it  and put my own style to it  of.
21:00You know, how do I, how do I motivate people?  Um, how do I get them to, to, how do, how do I,  make calls to action for agriculture? I can tell you it's a rough road. Agriculture is very much set in its ways.  just is.  and somebody like me, even though I probably share the same values,  uh,  I,  I live the same lifestyle. I just happened to be, you know, bit a little funny because,  know,
21:29I did  as a young person,  I was drawn to that punk  and both heavy metal scene kind of thing and that's what I liked. And so I put my style of that on everything.
21:47Now I feel like this is something that can make the average person. I hope the average person they can go, well, he's not, he's not from a big advocacy organization representing, you know, the 1 % of the big corporations and he actually, you know, is looking out for the farmers. hopefully like, when I tell people, Hey, this is okay. And this isn't okay that they could take.
22:15confidence in it that I'm not trained to You know, I'm not trying to get clout. I'm not trying to do anything other than look out for the farm
22:25So we actually started a media company, a media and marketing company,  and we're a little bit different. So we concentrate heavily on animal enterprise and livestock. Well, I we do anything ag, but we concentrate on them. We've done crisis management. We've actually done crisis management for a zoo. A zoo was being attacked by animal rights activists, and we came in and helped them navigate the media. We helped them.
22:53navigate the actual activists that were flying drones at their place that were, you know,  going on to social media and trying to trash them.  That's where I found the most fulfillment.  And I'm naturally a storyteller. You know, if you ever read my writings, was actually,  I did that April Fool's thing. I wrote like three or four years ago, actually, but I  saw that.
23:23And I actually had a gentleman that runs another marketing company.  Um, he,  he said that he's like shared it around his,  uh, around his office.  And I was just like, that's, that's great. mean, that you guys think that that's very, very cool. And he was just like, he goes, I feel like you're like the gene shepherd of agriculture.
23:51You can get people,  you're very descriptive in how you write or describe things. And sometimes like, well, I mean,  there's worse people to be compared to, I guess.  So.
24:07My whole point purpose now is I want to tell Ag's story, but I don't want to tell it to farmers. I want to tell it to everybody else. And I feel like 99 % of the things that we see today are echo chamber things. mean, if I attend a conference, you know,
24:33people sit around and talk about these issues and they all kind of pat themselves on the back. And I'm like, you realize the average person thinks that we're trying to poison them. The average person does not believe you that you treat your animals well.  They just don't.  And it's getting more, it's getting worse. Every day it's getting, or I see it, it's getting worse. So.
24:59That's what we decided to do. That's been, that's been kind of a rough one. Uh, we, we've shot one documentary  around animal enterprise and that was  unbelievably hard to get done. Uh, number one, because it is kind of a odd industry, that industry that we, it was a dog breeding industry actually.  And so you have, it's the weirdest thing. You don't have this in there.
25:26In this industry, you have like really, really, really good players, people that actually give a rip about dog welfare and want things to be the best. And then you have these really unethical bad players that at the end of the day, all they care about is making money. The problem is, is that these really bad players are the ones in control of the industry. Yeah. And that's just the way it is. Um, I mean, you, you have a.
25:55without naming the university, there's a professor that's doing a thing with dogs and they are supposedly an ethics professor as well. And the unethical actions of just this professor is unbelievable. The bullying that takes place in this industry is unbelievable. And a lot of these folks are members of the plane community, whether it be Amish or Mennonite.
26:25And they, they folks,  folks that are kind of top of it,  use people within that industry to bully the bad, to bully the good players. There are Amish people right now. Nobody believes me. I've been in their kennels. There are Amish people in this country that are breeding dogs and doing it better than anyone else. And their story will never be told because there are so many bad players also in that.
26:55in the playing community and the bad players get a pass. They really do. And so when we went to release our documentary, all this kind of stuff came to light. I'm just going, holy cow. Now we have to reshoot the, or well, we don't have to reshoot the entire documentary. We had to reshoot parts of it. had so that we could still tell the truth. And, but  at the end of the day, it was made to help.
27:21the good players in the industry. And I had so many people pushing back saying, well, we did a documentary like this two years ago. We don't need another one. Why does there need to be a documentary? I was like, well, because your opposition, which would be the ASPCA and the Humane Society and PETA, they're releasing 10 to 15 of these things a year. And they're well produced, they're well done, and they're changing minds.
27:49And so you're allowing them to tell your story. And I see that, and where I see that, as I see that nag too, nobody in ag, like when, like I'll go to somebody and I'll pitch something. I'll be like, this story needs to be told. And they're like, but why? We did this, you know, two years ago. I'm just like, do you not understand that these NGOs,
28:15This is how they're winning. You guys are sitting around scratching your heads going, how are they doing this? Well, they're doing it through social media and they're doing it through  these emotional  films, this emotional story telling. I said, and here we are, we have the best advantage because we can also tell an emotional story, but it has the truth behind it.  And that's why I guess I approach it different.
28:44Like when I do something, when we do one of our films, very, it's very gritty. It's very real life. And it's very emotional. And that's what we want because emotion is what calls people to action. You know, uh,
29:01And that has been one of the more frustrating parts in working with folks in HANAG.  I have  had multiple speaking engagements where, you know, somebody really likes what I say or talk about  and they book me and then somebody higher up than them will be like,  eh, that guy, he's a little bit,  he's too controversial.  Which is weird because I don't consider myself controversial at all.
29:27haven't heard anything terribly out there from you yet and you've been talking to me for almost half an hour so I don't know what the problem is. Yep, thank you. If you like this podcast you would probably love Amy Fagan's Grounded in Maine podcast.  You can find her on  all the platforms  and I think her website is groundedinmaine.com.
 
 

Langton Green Community Farm

Today I'm talking with John at Langton Green Community Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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00:00Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with John at Langton Green Community Farm  in Maryland. Is that right, John? Yes, ma'am. We're in Millersville, Maryland outside of Annapolis.  Okay, cool. Good morning. How are you? I'm doing well. Good. I am so excited to have you on the show because
01:22This community farm thing you've got going on is huge. So tell me about it. Well, Lankton Green has been primarily providing residential services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities since the early eighties.  About 15 years ago, we started also doing day services, which tends to be vocational or activities based for a small number of our consumers.  But we're always
01:50looking for more to do on an ongoing basis. So after a couple of years of doing a lot of landscaping and commercial and residential cleaning contracts,  our former executive director went to a conference and met some people who operated a small residential program on a farm in California  and said, hey, could we do something like this?  Which was exactly the kind of thing that I was already engaged in personally.
02:18doing a lot of  suburban homesteading kind of stuff, a lot of  gardening and canning. So it definitely matched a lot of my personal interests.  A lot of my job coaches and staff also had experience working in horticulture and landscaping. So there was a natural tie in there.  So I spent the next couple of years working with our board of directors,  going through some mentorships with local agricultural organizations  and
02:48looking at properties locally to actually develop an expansion of our existing day services program to be focused on an agricultural property. The spot that we found was perfect. It's right in the middle of a really very populated suburban area and to be able to provide 13 acres of
03:12animals  and  sustainable produce and flowers. We've incorporated a lot of artwork on the property over the past 10 years. It has just been a really great thing. It's benefited our consumer population tremendously. And I think we're increasingly a benefit to the public as we provide a space for them to come out and have those experiences  and to kind of get a sense of where food comes from. Because I think a lot of people have lost that.
03:42If you ask  a group of kids where does food come from, the number one answer is going to be the grocery store.  So to be able to give back  a little bit of opportunities to experience  the basis of that food  industry and where it all starts in a setting that's also focused on  providing therapeutic care for everybody,  but most primarily for our consumer population.
04:10That's phenomenal. I'm so impressed.  Okay. So my first question is how is the public interacting with the farm?  Initially our biggest, you know, we, we wanted to draw volunteers, so we needed the additional help with some of the work processes. Um, everybody that comes out here is just floored and really enjoys being on the property. So initially we started with a lot of
04:37group activities with local churches, local community organizations.  When we first got  our property in Millersville, it basically was a 13 acre, some of it was in agricultural production with one of our neighbors.  Part of it had been horse pastures with a collapsed very large barn  and two houses that hadn't been inhabited for probably decades, one of which was actually.
05:04Condemned it wasn't suitable for habitation.  There were a lot of big projects to tear down the barn to actually just get the property at the point where we could utilize it. So we had a lot of volunteers coming in  to assist with those things.  And over time, we've continued to bring in and recruit volunteers.
05:26Our kind of gold ticket volunteer is somebody that's available a couple times a week at their convenience, know, based on what works for them schedule wise to actually come out and assist on a regular basis with the agricultural processes, along  side our staff and our growers. So we've, you know, we've been really fortunate in look and finding and maintaining connections with a handful of people like that.  But we also continue to bring in groups.
05:55We have a local church and school groups that come out on a regular basis every year a couple of times. And this last year we did our first  CSA that was open to the public. We're expanding that this year.  So we'll have distributions for CSA and something we're calling kind of click and pick. It's  kind of an electronic farmers market where you can go onto our website. And each week we load up what produce we have available for the week.
06:24You can fill your basket, pay for it, and then come out on Saturday to pick it up. And we're also trying to incorporate things like yoga and some storytelling for children and additional activities on those Saturdays so that people can actually spend a little bit more time, get around, walk around, see the animals, pet a chicken, look at the, you we're doing  a goat yoga. One of our staff is a yoga instructor.
06:50So we're just trying to find opportunities to bring people out more and more often.  A lot of times during the summer we also have pick your own opportunities for blackberries and strawberries. We've just invested a lot of time in our orchard,  so we're hoping to have more  fruit and blueberries available as well as some cut flowers to augment  our vegetable and produce sales.
07:15This sounds like my idea of heaven.  You're doing a beautiful thing there.  So you said chickens and goats. Do you have other animals too? We have  some small herd of pot-bellied pigs.  Someone had a female pot-bellied pig that needed a home and we agreed to take her and of course she was pregnant.  So we got to go through all of those processes.  A couple of the babies were adopted out but we still have six.
07:43Hot-bellied pigs, we have four goats currently.  I think our laying flock right now is about 36 birds. We're about to add about 18 more.  And Atticus, the farm cat who kind of keeps us all on our toes and  is pretty much the boss around here. Is Atticus friendly? Atticus is extremely friendly. There's almost no tour or group that shows up.
08:10that he doesn't at some point join us and walk the property with us and have you give his input.  Yeah, he is definitely definitely our mascot. So Attic is the ambassador for the farm. Absolutely. Yes, ma'am.  Mm OK.  We have a black  neutered  male cat here that's our barn cat. He's like five or six years old now.
08:35And he's terribly friendly with us, but he doesn't like strangers. The minute somebody comes on the property, he takes off into the barn and hides. So  he is not like Atticus in that way. There's a wisdom in that, but Atticus is also a neutered black male,  but he's a love bug.  Yeah. It's crazy how  they either are really friendly or they are really not friendly.  When we got him from the Humane Society, they thought he was about two.
09:05When we went to pick him up, he was billed as part of their barn cat program where you pay like, I think it's like $25 or $50 for a barn cat as it were. And we went to pick him up and they said, you will never be able to pet him or hold him. is feral. He is mean. He is nasty. And we ended up naming him Satan thinking that we would never be able to touch him.
09:28He is the friendliest cat with us. mean, my son picks him up all the time and this cat just sits there and purrs and drools on his shoulder.  It's just nuts. We have a couple of feral cats at home that are also extraordinarily affectionate than you wouldn't think. But yeah,  you never can tell.  Yeah, I posted a video of Satan on our YouTube channel.
09:52and my son is holding him and he's growling his head off but he's not actually mad. He's just like, I don't really want you to hold me but keep holding me.  And I got so many comments about why would you name a cat Satan? That's terrible. And I'm like, cause he's the devil. He was supposed to be as built as the devil himself.  So anyway,  um.
10:14All right. So  how long have you guys been doing the farm part? you tell me to begin with? I forget. we, um, July of last year was our 10 year anniversary. So  our 11th season now.  Okay, cool.  And tell me the reaction of, let's start with little kids who come out to visit. It's amazing. And again,
10:35You know, I think there's just  a disconnect between these kind of processes in most people's lives, especially people that live in a primarily urban area. You know, we do have a lot of families who  commute  out to Western Maryland or Southern Maryland to go apple picking or to do farm kind of tours.  And people are  absolutely thrilled to have  this right in their backyard. I mean, we're literally,  it feels like we're a couple hundred miles away, right in the middle of  this kind of
11:05urban Metroplex. So it's been a real blessing. And when people come out, they're just amazed.  The property itself has kind of been a strange  zigzag pattern. So as you walk through the property, every time you turn a corner, there's something new that jumps out at you.  The animals tend to be at the right at the beginning of the property where most of our houses and activity is situated.
11:33The kids just are, it's wild to watch just the looks of amazement as they are able to not only see, but interact with the majority of the animals. You know, to pet the goats, had a young lady came out and did a storytelling last summer and read three billy goats gruff with our billy goats wandering around nibbling on people's clothing and sitting in and listening and being petted while we were doing the story.
12:03And it was just amazing to watch the kids did not only have the relationship of the story, but while they're doing it to have these animals accessible to them.  it's  just, again, something that I think a lot of kids in this area don't necessarily get an opportunity to experience.  And if they do, it's once or twice at a field trip in school, not on an ongoing basis where  we're here every day. And we encourage people to come out and to  have those experiences.
12:32That's awesome.  Okay, so do you guys offer classes as well or is that not on the agenda? We're not at the moment. We've transitioned a couple of times since COVID for different bar managers. We do have a virtual learning platform where we're doing some of our, we developed a lot of virtual content during COVID to remain connected with the community and with our service population. So we still have that platform. We really want to get back to it.
13:01because we have developed some cooking classes, we need to polish some of that a little bit more, but we definitely would like to be able to do those things in an online format where we can continually, people can continually access it after the fact.  So we're really, leaning into the virtual world. We had a poetry reading here last year that was virtual with Marilyn's poet laureate, a couple of poets from Europe and  the DC area.
13:31So that was really, it was kind of a strange sideline,  but we're kind of about strange sidelines. So that's actually still up on YouTube. And I think the video and the sound quality wasn't phenomenal, but it was really an incredible thing to be involved in. Yeah, this technology thing we've got going on in 2025 is pretty freaking amazing. yeah. It's opened a lot of doors that we wouldn't have even considered.  Yep.
13:58Honestly, I think it's great that you have the poetry readings on YouTube or yeah, you said YouTube That's great. But  I would recommend that if people  want to to be Want to be exposed to the events you have go to them, you know If you can't make it to it, then yeah catch it if you guys upload it But  there's something really amazing about being at an event in person in real time
14:25Yeah, we did our last farm manager did a couple of kind of instructional talks on starting a home garden and kind of those processes that were open to the public. And we also recorded to stream later. So probably a combination would be  something that we lean toward a lot. Yeah.  Do you get a lot of people like coming  and  spending time at the farm and  asking questions about how could I start a little garden in  my home?
14:56Not a tremendous amount because the area we're in is a little bit more rural for this space,  but we do,  about a year ago, opened our community garden plots on the front of our property. So we have offered 20 by 20 plots with some raised beds in that space. And we've got, we probably are about half full at this point.
15:20So,  me, a lot of people that are interested in gardening and that has become a whole separate community. Do we opened it up with the expectation that rather than charging people for access that we would ask for some service hours monthly and that's worked out really well and has certainly become its own little community within  our larger program.  And again, something we'd certainly like to build on and kind of have our own garden club, you know,
15:50kind of built around that. also doing a plant sale with a lot of vegetable seedlings and flower starts for the spring. So we're working to make increasing inroads with kind of that local gardening community because  again, that's the word of mouth to kind  of increase sales and just drive awareness that we're here.
16:13Minnesota has  a thing,  that thing is a really bad descriptor, but  we have Master Gardeners through our university. Yes. And basically they go and take the courses and become certified as Master Gardeners. Does Maryland have that too? We do and we have that locally. We've met with our local Master Gardeners program and talked about, you know, doing potential because of course they do service  projects and training as part of their curriculum and we've offered that here as well. It's never
16:42quite come to pass,  we're certainly open to  the Master Gardeners, Boy Scout troops, church and civic organizations.  But the Master Gardeners is a phenomenal program. It's pretty active around here and they're already awfully busy. Yeah.  Yep. The ones here are too. I  was actually going to start a second podcast called Mary and the Master Gardener with a lady that I had made contact with.
17:08We did three episodes and she got super, super busy and it hasn't gone anywhere. And I'm very sad about this. So I'm going to look, I'm on the lookout for a new master gardener person to keep going on it with me. I would tune into that. Yeah. I got to get on it. I've just been so focused on this one that I'm like, I can't, I can't allocate the time right now to go find somebody new, but I'm to work on it this week because I only have like four episodes scheduled to record. So I'm going to work on that one guys too.
17:38Um, okay. What else can I ask you?  Um, how many acres is the farm? It's just short of 13 acres.  Um, oh, so it's not huge. No, no. And we're probably working on about two and a half or three at the moment.  Um, the,  again, the bulk of the acreage had been maintained in agricultural use by one of our neighbors,  um, who operates a vegetable stand up on the, up on the highway where we're located and
18:07The soil was pretty played out. was very much a conventional guy who would dump a bunch of, you know, fertilizers and hope for the best. So we started utilizing what had been horse pasture on the front of the property. And they're doing really well with that in a raised bed system that we're rotating and doing cover cropping and trying to maintain really intensively.
18:32But we're starting to lean into that rear of the property. So we've been cover cropping that over the past couple seasons. We just did a small planting of Christmas trees  and are establishing some more formal garden spaces back there. It leads to about a four acre wood lot that we're also in the process of clearing out to do  some mushroom cultivation maybe and to set up.
18:57an outdoor classroom and kind of utilize that shady space as a break area and kind of another multipurpose space.  Lankton Green Community Farm is a fabulous resource, it sounds like.  We certainly try to be.  I think most of the folks that are here  are just tickled to death that we get to come in here and do this every day.  If you get the right kind of person who enjoys
19:24Being outdoors, you know, no matter how miserable the conditions are,  it's really a great thing. And the professional staff that have been here,  they literally talk about where on the property they want to be buried.  it's a pretty good work environment. I still count myself incredibly fortunate  when I come in here to think that, you know, I get to do this professionally every day. Yeah, it's like playing.
19:53Absolutely. If you enjoy, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, that kind of a thing. this is just that in spades. Yep. So  I have been to Maryland once  and I grew up in Maine. So it was a very easy road trip with my folks to go visit friends in Maryland. Maryland is beautiful.  Yeah. What are the, what's the growing like there? mean,  you guys can't grow year round unless you have a greenhouse. Yes.
20:23That's correct.  And we have a couple of poop houses,  30 by 60 foot poop houses. So we work on, you know, trying to do cool weather stuff year round there  and in our greenhouses and in indoor spaces.  And some, we play around with things like micro greens. You know, the idea is to always be cultivating something  even if it's on really small, you know, on a small scale.
20:48New farm integers vary into  aquaculture and aquatic systems. So we're looking to incorporate more of that  and hydroponics, especially in the off the traditional growing season.  We've been doing fall or I'm sorry, cool weather crops for about a month now. We're getting ready. We're starting to do some small levels of harvesting of pak choy  and kale that was over winter and those kinds of things.
21:15But we'll be harvesting summer produce into September, sometimes October, and then again typically we'll have a pretty good fall season as well into about the end of the year.
21:30Okay,  when's your last scary frost date in the spring?  Oh, I believe it's October 15th or at least that's, I kind of have locked into my head May 15th, October 15th. Okay, yep.  That's what it's like here in Minnesota for us. We don't plant anything in the garden until May 15th because  we've done it and we don't want to lose any plants again. Yep.  Yeah, I'm sitting on at home, I'm sitting on...
21:55two and a half foot tomato plants that I'm thinking about gambling on this weekend because the weather looks like it's going to be pretty consistently good. You better pray and keep everything crossed because the minute you think it's safe, it's not. Okay, so I try not to ask nosy intrusive questions, but you keep talking about new ideas and new things because of the new farm manager. How are you funded?
22:25We receive funding from the state and federal government to provide services for our consumers.  So that funding pays for staffing and vehicles and keeps the lights on.  All of the farm stuff that we've gotten, I've become a development person in kind of as a sideline. So we've written grants and dealt with foundations and gone out and found a lot of the funding for.
22:52our gators and tractors, our hoop houses.  There are lot of existing governmental programs. The USDA paid for both of our hoop houses. We're working on at least one more of those  fairly soon.  So yeah, but that's been a big sideline is to go out and find opportunities to match up with foundations and grants and governmental organizations that will provide some of that income.  And again, I...
23:20really like to get to the point where we're doing enough  sales that we can maintain a little bit of self-sufficiency.  We're trying to  ensure that we're able to  donate about two-thirds of our produce every season, which leaves about a third of it  available for sale. And the goal would be to allow the commercial sale end of things to support the donations.
23:48which go to local food banks, a lot of which are starting to accept perishables,  as well as the  34 homes that we operate in the county at the moment  that serve our residents. Okay. Is the farm nonprofit?  Yes, Langton Green is a nonprofit organization. Okay. That sort of kind of helps when you're looking for grants and things.
24:15Has the crackdown on grants from the federal government that's happened since November, has that affected you guys? Not yet, but everybody is  definitely talking about it.  I suspect there will be a trickle down  as some organizations funding is affected.  A lot of what we're leaning more into,  there's a local service club that has been really, really good to us.  We actually
24:41We won a couple of years ago, the Kubota Corporation's Hometown Proud competition, which provided a really nice amount of cash prize. So we're definitely diverse in what we are, where we go for grants and financial support. Congratulations on that. That's amazing. We had, I think we applied for $10,000 for material for our community garden.
25:11And they contacted us and said, Hey, this is really great. Could you give us a budget for a hundred thousand dollars  tomorrow?  Well, yes, certainly can do that.  And then, I think we were the Southeast  winter. were five, think regionally and we won for the Southeast. was  kind of out of the blue, but I mean, really, really fantastic people to deal with. And we've appreciated their support.  Oh, absolutely.
25:40You and your people should be so proud of what you have built with this community farm.  I'm listening to you talk and I'm just like, my God, this is amazing.  Yeah. I mean, again, it's, it's, it's a joy. I mean, half of the time that we feel like we're, you know, we're, we're getting the better of the deal.  Um, but, but again, to be able to share it with people is,  has been phenomenal. And during COVID.
26:05We closed for programming and it was just the staff here, just the core group of staff here. And those were actually really good years to just have it all to ourselves. But it's been a lot of fun to open back up and to be able to get even more involved with the clinical community. Sorry, I didn't mean to cough in your ear. So who's, I mean, this is a weird question. Whose brainchild was this?
26:35Who came up with this idea to start with?  Well, again, our executive director kind of came in with this idea based on  this organization in California that he had encountered. And it was just  a really magical fit because, again, it tied into exactly what I had been doing personally and was thinking about doing at a larger scale. You my wife and I were thinking, you know, maybe we should get some a couple acres and do something.
27:01when he suggested this and it just seemed like such an automatic win for our consumer population and our staff.  Because again, we were bouncing or we had a retail site that we worked out of  just  near our  main office area.  And it just wasn't enough consistently to do and we were sort of bounced around from one place to another all the time.  This gave us a home and my assumption
27:29was that there would pretty much always be something to do. And there absolutely has been. mean, everybody will ask, what do you do in the winter time? We've never slowed down in the winter time. By the time we're, you we come up for air at the end of the summer season, it's, you know, kind of operate a little bit less intensely for a couple of months, but it seems like every year it's time to start planting again. By the time we've cleared our wood lot,
27:58to prepare some other garden spaces, gotten all of our equipment and materials  recovered and cleaned up for the next season,  inventoried and developed a planting schedule, looked back on the previous season to determine what did well, what should we do more of, what do we need to cut.  So there's definitely  many, many, many opportunities.  And again,
28:23the agricultural processes themselves lend themselves to our consumer population because they think each task can be broken into smaller components. So somebody that might not be out working in the field four or five hours at a time can sit and seed or can assist with harvesting and packaging or produce. So the idea of it just developing a more engaged agricultural program made sense for our
28:52specific consumer population.  Being outdoors rather than  sheltered workshops is kind of was at that point more of the typical environment. And a lot of people  would definitely prefer to be outside and active than sitting at a table.  So it just made a tremendous amount of sense  in all of those ways.  And again, our board of directors was hesitant about it.  They saw it as  something that
29:20would potentially  cause some safety issues.  was told that I think farming was one of the most dangerous occupations  in the whatever the I'm sorry,  it was basically one of the  most consistently dangerous occupations. So I had to research that and it turns out that it is, but it's because it's lumped in with ranching and livestock and
29:49being run over by combines, we couldn't turn a combine around on our property. So  we're doing much more hand processes.  it all made a lot of sense. And over time, we were able to develop a business plan to demonstrate that  it was also a viable programming option. So I've got to give our former executive director, Arne Dordek, a lot of credit for coming up with the core of the idea. But once he kind of lit that fuse, myself and the staff that were working at the time,
30:19really ran with it and  everybody got excited about it really, really quickly. Fantastic.  Do you happen to know the population of the county that your  farm is in? I do not, but it's Anne Arundel County, Maryland. It's not as populous as the Baltimore, D.C. immediate suburbs, but a lot of the people, yeah, it's definitely one of the more populous regions in Maryland. Yeah, I was wondering because
30:49you are serving a fairly large community of people because I'm assuming people come from all over Maryland. Yeah, the majority of the folks are coming from like the Annapolis area. And again, the Anne Arundel County people that live here tend to work in either D.C. or Baltimore. So it's  definitely  a  large there. There's mixed  residential development of  single family home communities and apartments and town homes.
31:17So it's definitely a fairly dense population and growing. I freaking  love it, John. I'm so glad that you would come talk to me today.  We are at 30 minutes and 27 seconds and I try to keep these to half an hour. So I, you have no idea how much I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today. Absolutely. I really appreciate you reaching out and I'm glad we made the connection.  This was so fun. I'm going to be on a high for the next six hours because I love what you're doing.
31:47Thanks so much. Have a great day. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. All right. Bye. If you like this podcast, you would probably love Amy Fagan's Grounded in Maine podcast. You can find her on all the platforms, groundedinmaine.com.
 

𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗦𝗘𝗔 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗠𝗔𝗡 | homesteading + holistic wellness + growing

Today I'm talking with Chelsea Chapman.
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00:00Did you know that Muck Boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out Muck Boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Chelsea at It's Chelsea Chapy in Saskatchewan, Canada. Yay. Good morning, Chelsea. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing really well. It's nice and sunny here. Finally.  Oh, well, it's not nice and sunny here in Minnesota. It's kind of gray and it snowed yesterday. We got about an inch of snow on the ground.
01:26Oh man, well you're doing better.  I guess you're not doing as good as us. Our snow's almost gone. Yeah, ours was. Friday was 80 degrees here and then it got cold and rained on Saturday, thunderstorm Saturday night and then snowed yesterday. I was like, Mother Nature, what are you doing?  That's funny. It always  catches me off guard when it's it's 80 degrees and it's literally like a warm day here for us right now is like minus four. So it sounds so different. Yeah. And it's celsius.
01:56Yeah, and it's really different for here too. We don't get 80 degree days in March. So it was very weird. I did not love it. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do, So my husband and I, we raise cattle and we recently just bought our own  quarter section here. Was it six months ago? And so we've moved in into like a little sixties farmhouse that we're currently renovating and we
02:25Finally, can have our, you're okay. I just have my son here with me.  We're finally  getting our own chickens and doing all the homesteading and things that I've been dreaming about for so long.  And then I also do social media and that's just like such a fun, creative outlet for me. And it kind of started during COVID, I got laid off my job and  I love doing photography and writing and things like that. And so it was just a really cool outlet for me. And then it started to gain traction and
02:54Here I am  like five years later doing what I do now.  Nice, very nice.  And it's so funny for you to say you've wanted to do for so long because you're not very old. What are you in your late twenties if that?  I'm 25. But yeah, when my husband and got married, we were renting and we've been married almost three years. And so when I got married is when I really started to, my interest and passion in these things started to grow. And because we were renting, we weren't able to do that.
03:23And so I just spent the last three years really trying to  just learn and learn and learn so that when I am in the position that I am ready to go. So here I am now just waiting for the ground to defrost and everything like that. Yep, exactly.  I'm so excited that you're 25 years old because I usually talk to people in their 30s and up because it usually takes us that long to get to where we can homestead on any kind of land.
03:52So I love that you're 25, you're young, you're raising a family and you're getting into this and that's amazing. Cause you are the future Chelsea. Yeah, it's when I look around at the world and I just think, man, how are we raising our kids? And I just take it so much more seriously when I look at my son, especially be like, he is the future. And if we are not putting everything into our children, then our future is going to look weak.
04:20And I really try and show that on my page, the way that we're raising our children spiritually, but also how much more effort we're putting into looking at their health, you know? I do. I have four grown kids  and my daughter was the first and she's 35 now. And she was what changed my perspective on the world too.  having a child can't help but change your perspective. It's just how it happens.
04:51Oh yeah, I've had such a perspective change. He's going to be  one in a month. And so it's just been so fun seeing myself change and grow from the person that I was into the person that I am now, even in the short 11 months that he's been with us already. Yeah, exactly. It's amazing that it's almost an instantaneous  mindset change,  but then you have to learn all the things to go with that mindset change.
05:20Oh yes, yeah, it's been a  big learning curve for sure.  Okay, so you said you have cattle. Do you have beef cattle or dairy cattle or what? We raise beef cattle, black angus, so that's kind of our niche.  I grew up on a farm just raising commercial cattle and then my husband, him and his family raised purebred  black angus and then they also sell like breeding bulls as well and we kind of
05:48got our feet into the water of that now and we've sold a few of our own purebred bulls as well. Nice. Is it sad for you when you have to sell them off or is it okay? We don't really  create much of an attachment with the cattle because they're mostly out in the field. don't know, growing up on a farm, it's  such a feeling I can't describe of  knowing that we love our animals so much and we take such good care of them but also knowing
06:17that they feed so many people  and it's just a beautiful circle of life really. Yeah,  it really is and  I  am a really soft heart Chelsea, I'm not gonna lie.  When we put all our chickens down last fall because they were getting old and lazy,  our egg laying hens.  Oh yes.  I had a pang. I had that little thing in my heart of this is  terrible, I hate this.
06:43But every animal that you have on a homestead or a farm has a purpose. And when they've outlived that purpose, that's the end for them. Exactly. And I definitely, we have a dog and we have a few horses.  And I definitely do have a soft spot for them because they are my pets.  And I know when I get  my chickens here in two weeks, so we've been working hard to set up our chicken coop, I think I'm definitely going to have an attachment to my laying hens for sure.
07:12Yeah, speaking of that, are eggs really expensive in Canada because they're ungodly expensive in Minnesota at the grocery store? Yeah, I think to get like an 18 pack in the grocery store is around $7, which for us is like that's pretty expensive. But I actually have a friend who has eggs, so I've just been getting from her until I...
07:38I'm able to get my own and I think I pay her $6 for like an 18 pack. So it's worth it to me. Yeah, absolutely.  I'm not, I am not going to tell you you're wrong. Eggs  from somebody else's chickens or your own chickens that live in a coop, you know, and they get outside and they get to eat bugs and seeds and fresh air. Yeah. Way better than grocery store eggs. had to buy. You can really tell.
08:07Like I can tell the difference between farm raised or store bought eggs. The yolks are just so much more rich colored and they just are so much better tasting. Like they taste way better. hmm. Yep. I didn't think it was just an America thing. I figured it was a world thing, but I wanted to check and see what was going on in your neck of the woods too. Yep. Okay.  What else?  Do you grow a garden at all?  I do. So last year,
08:36Like I mentioned before, our renting situation, I was unable to have one at our house, but between my parents and my in-laws, I was able to grow a garden. And at my parents' house, I grew lots of things. I grew a ton of cucumbers, like  massive rows of corn and a lot of potatoes, which my  family and I, we kind of shared the responsibility between watering and weeding and things like that.
09:01I was able to make a ton of salsa, a ton of  spaghetti sauce, canned a bunch of carrots and pickles. I made about 30 jars of carrots and pickles. And then I was able to freeze a bunch of corn so that we can have corn throughout the wintertime and things like that. And I froze a bunch of beets, so  I really love trying to get in the garden and harvest a bunch and fill our freezers.
09:30our canning room with goods for the winter time. Isn't it fun?  It is fun. I love it. Okay. I had to, I'm not going to lie to you. had to look up Saskatchewan to remember where it is because  my geography stuff in school was not real in depth for any country except for America. Go figure.
09:53So I looked it up and I was like Saskatoon is coming to mind and I looked up Saskatoon and found service berries. Do you have service berries around US?  Are you meaning  like Saskatoon berries or the service berries? Yeah, we have Saskatoon berries. There's a few local places that I actually went and picked last year as well. That's another thing that I went and did and I was able to make Saskatoon jam and I made some Saskatoon juice and then I froze some so that we can have some Saskatoon pies as well.
10:22Yes, there is lots and just about 30 minutes north of where my husband and live, there's  up in the hills, there's wild Saskatoons too. Okay, when I read up on the Saskatoon berries or service berries as they're also called,  it said that they have like an almond flavor. Is that right?  I really want to describe them is that  it's almost like eating a blueberry, except they're not as tart.
10:51they're more sweet. Okay. And the wild Saskatoon berries are a lot smaller. They're almost like a, I can't remember if it's like a juniper berry or something like that. They're a lot smaller, but the tame Saskatoon berries, like if you were to go to a farm, they're a lot bigger. They look pretty much exactly like a blueberry, but they're a lot sweeter tasting. Some of them have a bit of a tartness, but they,  they remind me more of a blueberry. Okay. All right. Cool.
11:18Yeah, I was reading about it and I'm like, no one has ever told me that a Saskatoon berry has an almond flavor to it. you're wrong. I would never describe it. I would never describe them as that. Yeah, Google was wrong. Yep. First time ever. Hmm, weird. Yeah. Okay. So how long is your growing season there? Because ours is basically here in LaSore, Minnesota, where I live.
11:46It's May, we plant in the garden in May 15th and everything's pretty much done by first of October. So what's your growing season? So we can,  Saskatchewan, we can get some late frosts. And so usually I don't get things in the garden until like  May 27th at best, you know, or even the first week of June. And then typically depending on when the first frost  hit.
12:16It can go into that first week, second week of October as well. Okay. So, so we have maybe another week and a half compared to you. Yeah. Yeah. You're actually not too much different than us. Yep. And we're actually Southern Minnesota.  Um, I'm guessing if we lived in Northern Minnesota, our growing season would be shorter.  So how far south are you?  Um,  Iowa is maybe an hour and a half south of us.  Okay. Okay.
12:46So we're not far from the Iowa border. And  we're about four and a half hours from the South Dakota border.  And we're about an hour and a half from the Wisconsin border.  we're kind of, we're not central. We're like West central Minnesota. Yeah. Yeah. We actually live really close to the U S border as well. Like we are about an hour.
13:15straight south of us and you would  be going to Minot. Yep.  Okay, cool.  So I don't,  I'm really walking up to a line here.  I  don't talk politics on my podcast. I try really hard not to.  Yep. But  you're in Canada, I'm in America.
13:40How are things doing in Canada regarding the American government right now? Just be careful of what you say.  Yes, I will.  Well, as you  may or may not know, Canada is actually gearing up for an election in about 30 days, the shortest time for an election to be held ever due to our previous Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  not handling things well. So between that and then the tariff wars going on,
14:10Um, I don't know, it's been a little bit disappointing as a Canadian.  Um, just say, don't say this if I can't say this, but it's been a little bit disappointing as a Canadian just because  so many of us were rooting for Trump to get in. We've seen kind of what you guys have been going through with the Biden administration. And then  to see Trump get in and just turn his back so,  so quickly on a neighboring nation that, you know, we have been.
14:39friends since the beginning. And so it has been a little bit of feel like a stab in the back. And I know that maybe lots of the American people don't feel that way, but Trump does represent you guys. And so that's kind of how it's felt for us.  we're really hoping  and praying that  Pierre, the conservative leader that he can get in. And so in a month, we'll really be able to see it. Maybe we might be doing a little bit better, a little bit worse.
15:07Uh huh. I feel like we're all in a holding pattern right now. And I don't know about you, Chelsea, but I do not like holding patterns.  No. Oh no. Me neither. I hate that waiting area. You know, like I just, I struggle there. Yeah.  Yep. And the other thing that's been really hard here in America is the, a lot of the federal grants were stopped.
15:31And a lot of people in agriculture rely on those grants every year at this time.  So yeah, it's been, I'm going to be really careful because I don't want to say things that I'm not educated on, but it's been chaos here.  not like in my little part of the world here, my home, my land, everything's okay. But
15:58When I look at all the things that are affecting so many people in my country, it's really hard to not be, I don't know, sick at heart a little bit over it.  Oh, I feel you. it  kind of seems like just being so secluded out in the country, you're kind of secluded from it all. But it seems to be touching the small towns and just encroaching more and more to affecting our day-to-day life. Yeah. And  I don't know, it just seems like our
16:27current government, are so against like farming and the oil industry and things like that. And it just feels like every day you're waking up and you're trying to swim against the stream every single day. Yep. Is kind of how I describe it. Yeah. And, and I don't know what Canadian government is like, but here in the States, if you have a problem with the way things are going,
16:53our representatives and senators and all those people who are part of the bigger government, it's not just the president, the government part is who gets things done.  We can contact those people and say,  this is what I think about this particular thing that's going on, but you kind of have to tell them  what and why you think that way.  Not just the emotional part, but the actual how it's affecting you.  Yes, the actual reasoning.
17:23Yeah, in Canada, is that a thing that you guys can do? Yes.  Yeah, we do have representatives and then they take it to the next and then the next. And like, in each state, you guys have a governor, right? Yeah. Yeah. So here we have a premier. And so that's who we would, we would take our problems to him and then he would take them to more of a national level if need be. Okay, good. So you have a way to get your opinions and thoughts  to the powers that be, as I call them.
17:52That's correct. Good, because government in America is supposed to be for the people and by the people, and I'm assuming Canada is not that different. No,  it's really not that different. And I always like to say the government works for the people. We don't work for the government. And I feel like we have really lost touch with that saying, because that's way it should be. Yeah, it should be here in America, too. And I think
18:20I think that's all I really want to get into because I really, I don't want to make people angry. I want people to feel empowered. And that's why I said what I said about if you have a problem, these people are here to help you get that out there and dealt with. So anyway, that's the closest I've ever come to talking politics on the podcast with you, Chelsea.
18:46I'm literally sitting here buzzing like do I really want to talk about this? Have you ever had a Canadian on the podcast before? Yes, actually. There was a young woman. Her name was Becca Bia. She changed her last name to Hammond and she has many horses. I invited her to be on the show. Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember what province she's from.
19:15But she was great, she was adorable and she's so, so bubbly and is just mad about these mini horses. It was a really fun episode, it's already out. It's so funny. Yeah. That is so funny. So, and she just actually bought a mini horse from another person I follow on Facebook. And I didn't even know she was buying the mini horse from the first person that I follow on Facebook. I messaged her, I said, are you buying Katie's George? She was like, I am. I went, oh my God, it is such a small world.
19:44That's hilarious. Yeah. So, but we didn't get into politics, although she did mention that she wanted to get down to America to pick up George before April 2nd, before the tariffs hit. I don't think. right. Yeah. And something about she had to have a  broker because she was bringing another horse to America to drop off because she had an empty trailer. Why not?
20:12and she had to have the right paperwork to bring the mini horse back with her, George.  So yeah, there are definitely rules and regs to travel across the border right now and always have been, but there's just specific things when it comes to  livestock. Oh yeah, there's a lot of paperwork that goes into  transporting livestock to different countries.  Now, I am assuming that with your beef cattle, you are not...
20:40exporting that beef it's staying in Canada? Well,  we're not exporting it but I know that  once the beef is bought like by one of the bigger buyers then they often will export it.  Yeah. All right. Well, I'm going to throw this in in the middle of this because I've been trying to get it in on every episode for like the last three weeks. Whether you're in Canada or America,
21:07You really should know your local growers, your local producers,  and you should have a relationship with them because sometimes  things happen and supply chains go down. So get to know people like Chelsea and me who has eggs for sale right now at $5 a dozen.  just, you know, support your local people who are producing food because it's really good to eat local.  Amen.
21:34I could not have said that any better. really, people think they go into the grocery store and they think that  one stop shop, that's where their food comes from, but they do not see all the other hands and all the other processes that are involved. you know, if, if things go bad at some point on the world stage, getting food at the grocery stores is going to be everyone's last problem, except the people that are walking into the grocery store needing food for their family.
22:03And so even if you live in town, like there's so many things that you can grow. And there are so many people that live outside of town, like myself, that plan on growing a very massive garden that I want to feed other people. That is like a passion of mine is having a garden where you can come and pick for yourself  and,  buy it at an affordable price. Yeah,  absolutely.  Do you have people, you know, who are also doing this kind of thing, or is it, are you kind of in a
22:32a vacuum right now?  I know  quite a few people that like grow their own gardens but I don't know that I know any that really want to  get that food into other people's hands.  For myself it's just kind of a newer passion as I've just you know started to grow up and look at things and I love love love gardening and I really want to share that passion with others and share good wholesome organic food with others.
23:00Well, you would love my kitchen right now, Chelsea.  have baby basil  plants on my kitchen table.  think there's still some pepper seedlings. think there's still some tomato seedlings.  And out in our greenhouse right now, it is packed. My husband came in yesterday from  planting lettuce seeds  and he says,  we have a problem. And I said, oh, and he said, I'm running out of room in the greenhouse. I said, uh-oh.
23:28And he said, yeah, he said, it's going to be good when we can get the high tunnel plastic on the high tunnel greenhouse,  get the tables set up and start selling the bedding plants. So I have room to grow more things. And I was like, it's a never ending cycle, isn't it? He's like, yeah. No kidding. That is so funny. Yeah. I'm waiting for a nice warm day here so I can get out and start some of my tomatoes and basil and peppers and things like that, just to give them a head start.  Yep.
23:57Because it takes like six to eight weeks for the tomatoes to be ready to go in the ground. Plus, I'm guessing it's still too cold where you are to even get them in the ground. Oh yeah, it's really cold still. Yeah. So, but he sent me photos from the greenhouse and I'm  not kidding. It is packed. Like,  I can't, I don't even know how he's got a Tetris in there to have everything in there he's got right now. I'm so excited. I can't.
24:25I can't tell you how thrilled I am that we're going to be selling bedding plants for the first time this year. That is exciting.  Yeah, the last few years we've actually just sold produce. when we got the greenhouse up last May, said,  how do feel about growing extra seedlings? And he was like,  I feel fine about that. For what? And I said,  to sell to people who want to try growing their own backyard garden? And he went, oh, yes, absolutely.
24:56I love that. I love that your husband loves gardening too. That is so fun. He loves it. It is his therapy. He, it's so funny. He, um, his job is taking care of repairing printers and fax machines and things like that.  Oh, cool. So he's very much  a  tech at his job job. And so  he absolutely loves it when he gets home and it's staying lighter later now.
25:26So he gets home, he eats dinner and then he's like, I'm out to the greenhouse and here soon it'll be, I'm out to the garden. And  he just putters and plants and checks on things and just like gazes over his creation and just grins. And I'm like, God, you need this.  I love that. Yep. That's how I am. That is, I take my shoes off, I get out there and I just want to absorb everything, you know?  Yeah. You should have seen him last fall when he brought six peaches in.
25:56from the two peach trees he bought  the previous fall. He came in with six softball sized peaches from these trees he had just put in the year before. That's impressive. And he walked in and showed me and I was like, where did you get peaches? He said from our tree. Probably proud as a peacock, hey?  Oh my God, his face was just lit up like a light bulb. He was so excited.
26:23And I said, are they buggy? And he said, no, he said, look at these. And they were beautiful and they tasted amazing.  I bet. I don't know what variety they are. I wish I could remember because I wanted to write it down and the tag got thrown away before I could. But I bet you you could grow them in Canada because I think they're a Canadian variety.  Oh, are they? Yeah. Because I really, that's the other thing I want to.
26:47I want to plant an orchard so my husband and I, we've been, you know, looking at all the different kinds of trees that we want and  discussing like that. And there are some  cold hardy peach varieties that are available. So we're definitely going to have to add those to our orchard.  Yeah. Are you going to do apples too?
27:06Oh yeah, apples. I like to do plums, apples, cherries, grapes,  then peaches if I can find  a cold hardy variety for sure. Well, I I know the variety that we put in is cold hardy. So I will have to ask him if he remembers what it was and I can message it to you.  Oh, that would be amazing. Yeah.  Unbelievable peaches. I mean, I have had peaches shipped to me from Georgia and these were right up there with Georgia peaches. I'm not kidding.
27:38that oh man a few years ago my family and I we went to British Columbia and they are known for peaches  and oh my goodness their peaches were amazing I haven't had peaches like that since.  Yeah and it's so funny because you get you get fruit at the store you know the grocery store and it's fruit like  an apple tastes like an apple  but it's not the same as when you go to the orchard and pick an apple off the tree.
28:06rub it on your shirt and then bite into it. And I don't know  why, why it's so different. You would think that an apple is an apple is an apple, but it's not.  This is really interesting. Um, so all the fruit that we get in our grocery stores, like it has to be picked weeks before it's actually raped. they give it, I cannot remember what it's called, but it's a hormone  and
28:32You can Google it as soon as we're done. can't remember what it's called though. They give it a ripening hormone right before they're going to like put it into the grocery store. And that's probably why it's not the same is because they're picked so prematurely and then they're given a hormone to ripen quickly to look good, but it's actually not the same.  Yeah. And I mean, I knew, I knew there was a reason. I'm glad you mentioned that, but it's just, it's so funny to me that, that
29:02Yeah, grocery stores have a purpose.  know, not everyone can get 20 miles away to pick apples at the apple orchard.  it would be so much cooler if people understood that when they eat in season and maybe like gather a couple friends and somebody has a car and they can go pick  apples in season. And I would love to have somebody there take a  video of someone who's never eaten an apple right off the tree.
29:32biting into that apple. Wouldn't that be amazing?  Oh, it would be. You'd probably be shocked. This is what an apple tastes like. Yeah. And I choose apple because everybody knows what an apple is  in North America. And we all know that an apple tastes like an apple, but there are varying flavors and textures on apples. And there's this one apple that the University of Minnesota  developed.
30:01and it was called MN 1661 was the original name, because that's how they do it. They name it Minnesota and then a number. And it eventually became the Renaissance apple. And it's a really early apple. It ripens up like at the end of August. And I am in love with this apple. I did not get any this year because we weren't up to get them, but it tastes different than any apple I've ever had.
30:29It's nuts to me that  all these fruits have different flavors and different textures and different colors, you know? Yeah, it is amazing. So many different variations of the same fruit. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And  as humans, we love variety. We love a different color or a different feel or a different smell.
30:58I understand that apples  basically give you vitamin C. I think there might be a little vitamin A and it's good for you to eat an apple. But I don't think apples are about eating for nutrition. think apples are  for eating because they make you feel good, like  psychically, not biologically good. Yeah, that's interesting that you say that I can really...
31:27That describes a lot more how I feel eating an apple now, especially when you eat it like outside. Like there's just something about picking an apple from a tree and eating it. It just makes you feel connected. Yeah. You know, like, it's so that's so interesting. Yeah. And we're so, I mean, so many of us are so disconnected from where our food comes from, which is part of the reason I started the podcast, because I was like, there's a lot of people who don't know that milk comes from cows.
31:57Yeah,  think brown milk comes from brown cows. Yeah, no chocolate milk does not come from brown cows. Last I checked.  Yeah.  So  anyway, I'm mostly we're just yapping here because we're past 30 minutes, Chelsea. I try to keep us to 30 minutes. So  thank you so much for your time and please keep doing what you're doing and try to pull your friends in to do it too. Okay.  Oh, trust me. I will be trying my hardest.  Good.
32:27Keep doing the good work. Okay. Thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you. Have a good day. You too. Bye bye. If you like this podcast, you would probably love Amy Fagan's Grounded In Maine podcast.  You can find her on  all the platforms grounded in maine.com.
 

High Prairie Press - if you have wanted to write a book, this is for you

Today I'm talking with Annie at High Prairie Press. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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00:00Did you know that Muck Boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out Muck Boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a Calendars.com  Lang calendar.
00:26because I needed something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.
00:56You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Annie Toro Lopez again. I just put out the episode with Annie from a week or two ago,  sometime in the last six days. can't remember when.  And  Annie talked to me about her Seeds to Savor page and stuff on the last episode.
01:25And today she's going to walk us through her process  of how she publishes books at High Prairie Press. So welcome back, Annie. How are you? Wonderful. I am well. Thank you so much, Mary, for having me back.  I'm very excited about this conversation. I am too, because that got to me like this bug has been kicking me for a week since we talked about doing this episode.  You're in Colorado, right?
01:53That's correct. I'm in  Elizabeth, Colorado, and we are  at 6,300 feet. That's  High Prairie. We're on the Colorado High Prairie, and that was the name for my publishing company, High Prairie Press. Beautiful.  the weather nice in Colorado today? Oh my goodness, not today. Everything's covered in ice. How about you up there?  It's gray.
02:22It's gray, it's probably 45 degrees and  we actually had kind of nasty thunderstorms yesterday. I believe it. There were tornadoes all across the country. saw,  I'm originally from Nebraska. I was born in New Jersey, raised in Nebraska  and in  an agricultural land,  lots of tornadoes across Nebraska. saw a video of someone in their house and all of their windows all the way around them were breaking with hail. Yeah.
02:50So it was, yeah, it was a rough day yesterday. I'm glad you guys are all okay. Yep. We're fine here. No broken windows. No, no cars got ding. No, no dogs got clunked in the head with hail. We're good. Um, and we're making a very small talk here, but I was, I was also born in New Jersey. I was also born in New Jersey. Where? Fort Dix. Wow. I was born in Plainfield.
03:19Yeah, I think Fort Dix is in New Jersey. So yeah, we have that in common too. Really weird. Yes, Wonderful. Okay. So what I want to ask you first is you had said back in the other interview,
03:39that it's always been your dream to be a publisher, but you have also written a cookbook. So were you a publisher before you wrote the cookbook or were you an author before you were a publisher?  So  I had published three books.  I published before my most recent cookbook. So I published four different books. One is a writer's handbook.  That was the first book I wrote. It taught me a lot about the process of publishing
04:09Um,  it was something just, just did.  I taught my degree is in English and I taught literacy, reading and writing for about 15 years. So  professionally and more before that, but  I,  um,  wanted to capture what  I had taught  as a literacy instructor.  so I made,  I spent like, I don't know.
04:39days, just listing words, like words that would come like metaphor and simile and antagonist and protagonist and  plot and resolution and  just words.  so this book is the death,  the writer's handbook defines those words and it's, it's  people who have it, I think find it valuable. It hasn't sold to many people, but writers, especially for  fiction,  memoir,
05:08anything you would have learned in like English 101 is all there and just really concise. So that's that book. Then I did a project in Southern Colorado around green chili because it's an iconic native indigenous, my husband is indigenous and so green chili was just always a part of his life. And so this was a way to capture stories and recipes.
05:38So that was the second real book that I published. And then I also published a small journal that's like available on Amazon.
05:51Journal of Memories and Food Connections and Traditions. And I used it to write the Green Chili Cookbook. And it ended up being kind of its own little thing. And it's a nice little thing. It's nice on people like it. But it's, again, it was never commercial, for commercial, really. So the Green Chili Cookbook is called Wharf and I was happy hard. it was a...
06:18kind of a passion project and I did it with a grant through  the age friendly initiative, which is something that Colorado has put money into.  and then I, so about a year after I published that cookbook,  uh,  my life changed a lot and I lost my best friend and my sister like six days apart.  And then three weeks later when I was in first place in a
06:48Cookie competition, was diagnosed with celiac disease and that really just derailed my life  at that point. So I did publish  the Simply Gluten Free,  Real Ingredients for Everyday Life almost by accident.  Because at that point I was really ready to go off  on a more published,  to be a publisher. That's what I wanted to do. I had published three books and I was like, okay, I kind of know that.
07:16You know, I know, and I'm going to learn more and  attending conferences and  workshops and professional development things. And I learned a lot  and was ready to write that I was actually approached by a chef here in Denver who wanted me to publish his cookbook. And literally on the way to that meeting, my brother-in-law called and said, you need to come home now. Yeah. Because my sister was dying. So,  um,
07:45But I didn't lose that. And then I published my gluten-free cookbook because I really felt like it could benefit the Celiac community. And I just received a review on Amazon that just so nailed what I was trying to do, what I was trying to accomplish, and that it felt really good. Because I want to help people who live a gluten-free lifestyle, or their family does, or they cook for someone.
08:15to navigate that world because it's rough.  But I didn't lose that. And so what I realized, I think, just even a couple of months ago, a few months ago at a big, there's a huge publishing conference that takes place in March. And in talking to colleagues,  I felt like I was kind of having an identity crisis because  I really want to be a publisher, but I'm out there marketing a book. So you have just doing both the...
08:44Marketing is ongoing, so it's always going to be there and that's part of the world.  So,  yes, that's the long answer. Publishing  is  truly my passion. love  getting other people's voice out there  to support them and have them have that voice. Okay, cool.
09:11So the reason that I wanted Annie to come back and talk to me is because she had said that she was interested in publishing books by people who are homesteaders and who are doing the homesteading things. And most homesteaders don't know how to approach a publisher. They don't know how it works. And Annie was kind enough to come back and she's going to tell us kind of the ins and outs, nuts and bolts of her process on how this works. we're going to use
09:41We're going to use me as an example because I have an idea for a book and I probably will never do it. But I figure  I'm here. I might as well tell you the idea. Yeah. Yeah. So the idea for my book that I keep talking about and I keep saying, I'm going to write a cookbook too, but I just haven't gotten there. That's not the same as writing a book book. My book book idea  is basically a simple book about how to get started learning.
10:10to cook because I've had so many people tell me I don't cook or I don't know how to cook or I don't have time to learn how to cook. And  I didn't either. And then in my  20s,  I was like, I need to make food at home. I don't want to keep eating out. I'm to be as big as a house. This is ridiculous.  And so I learned how to make a few things that come from a box, you know, add water, add butter, whatever.
10:36And then I was like, there's gotta be a better way. And I learned how to cook, you know, things from actual ingredients. And it's not hard. It takes, it takes the, the want to do it. And it takes being able to follow directions and it takes having the right tools. So basically in my book would, would be about introducing the idea of you can do this and the right tools, like how to, how to kit out your kitchen simply to start with.
11:05You know, do you need plastic measuring cups that are a quarter, a third, a half, and a one cup? Or do you need like fancy measuring cups? That kind of stuff. So if I was gonna come to you and be like, Annie, I have this idea for a book. And I run the idea by you and you go, that's a great idea, let's talk. What's the next step? Well, awesome. That was perfect, Mary, because
11:35The first step is to pitch your idea and that's what you just did. So you gave me the perfect pitch, right? This is  my idea, this is what I wanna do, this is what I wanna look like  and  that's the first step. So you would pitch your idea. If you have a manuscript already, that's fine and you  can accompany your pitch with your manuscript. But not having a manuscript
12:03is fine and  sometimes preferred.  So don't be afraid that, oh, well, I don't have anything  to show.  Just pitch your idea, just like you just did. Then the next step  is going to be  to,  so  if we accept it, if we say, you know, this is, we like this, I would want to see a copy of your writing, so a sample of your writing.
12:32and a sample of photos  where, you know, we, I would like, we  focus on beautiful books.  make beautiful books. Then if we would talk about, so what's your vision for the book? Do you want it to be fully illustrated? Do you want to have little stories in there in between?
12:59Do you want some full page illustrations or do you would you like to keep it? You know, so we talk about that.  Then we would talk about your goals for publication. So are you looking  to to have a bestseller? Are you? Do you want something that's just regional like a,  know, something just for your area? How to grow?  Crops that  are for your area.
13:29Um,  we were talking the other day about peony farms in Alaska and, uh, you know, like regional, that kind of thing.  Or are you looking for like a family keepsake? You know, you don't necessarily want to even  market it. So we would talk about that and your goals because that would inform. And then a timeline for the project. We would talk about  what's realistic, where you are in the  process.
13:59Uh, what your writing style, what we would, you know, if how much work we need to do there. Um, sometimes none at all, sometimes a lot.  And  so, uh, that we can  obviously make a plan and then we would talk about your budget because there are different  ways to publish  and  publishing is expensive. Like there's just.
14:29around it  and we would talk about the different types of publishing available. So I kind of want to talk a little bit about that because I think there's a lot of confusion.
14:47about  the difference between  a vanity press, a hybrid press, a traditional press,  and  self-publishing. So those are all different things.  And then there's even just like coaching, right? That isn't necessarily gonna take you, they're not gonna publish you, but they'll get you to the door.
15:16Then so a vanity press, vanity presses get a lot of bad  press and there's part  of that is because they deserve it in a way. Some do,  not all. A vanity press could be as simple as going to your local
15:39you know,  Minute Man, I don't know what you might have in your region, we have Minute Man press and they just publish whatever. They don't have any  criticism. There's no, you know, it's just I'm going to bring here and I'm going to get it published.  I'm going to print it basically.  And you know, they serve a purpose. So vanity presses get a lot of,  sometimes they miss the problem with vanity presses is they can misrepresent.
16:13They are something to be cautious of if you're really looking to publish a book and you want, know, okay, we're going to put that they don't offer any support. They don't offer any marketing. They don't offer any editing. They don't offer. So  it's literally just whatever you have, you can get printed.  Um,
16:35hybrid press is more  where is hybrid between,  me explain a traditional press first because then we could talk about hybrid. A traditional press would be  like one of the big five or a big publishing company that they're going to do  all of the work. They're going to own the rights to the book. They're going to do everything in house.
17:03you have less control, you have input for sure, but less control over things like cover design or  paperweight or whatever.  A lot of people get confused with traditional press because they get excited because you get an advance, right? So for one, those are going away. Like you just don't see that much anymore, other than the big five, obviously the big huge houses.
17:33But the royalty split generally with a traditional press is going to be 10 % to the author and 90 % to the house.  They do all the work.  get, you know, on the back end, they get  a bigger royalty split.
18:01hybrid press. Usually there's a  more  equitable royalty split is one of the things.
18:15but they're not also not they're not going to do all of that all of the
18:27upfront work and you're not going to get anything like a
18:36advanced because it comes out of that royalty later. it's  writing a book is always an investment, right? Like you're always investing in the future.
18:48With  an advance, what some people don't realize is that it's kind of like a loan. If your book  doesn't sell enough to cover the advance, you are responsible to pay back to that house. And most people don't realize that.  So that's  kind of the, you know,
19:13different, so those are sort of different paths to publishing  or the, then they're self publishing. So you do all, you know, you do the legwork, you do that. So it's always kind of up to the author how you want to approach it. But there's a lot of confusion, I think, out there about what those different entities  are. Yeah. far as paths to publishing. So what would you call your publishing house?  Hybrid.
19:42Yeah, hybrid press. Yeah, yeah. And so, so yeah, so then what we would, what we offer  and,  is,  once we, we agree that on, you know,  we want to work together and we can fit your budget and all of the things,  um, then we'll, we're going, we'd create a general, if you have a, so for, for your cookbook, we would create like a general outline for,
20:12you know, what topics do you want to cover? Like you were talking about the different, you know, like kitchen equipment, right? Like basic kitchen equipment, do you really need? So that would be one of our, that would be one section.  And so we would really, you know, create a skeleton of whatever you want to cover.  And then the next step would be, you know, let's put, put meat on the bones. So we would meet about,
20:41once a week  and  or if that doesn't fit in your budget we could meet every other week so we can work on whatever whatever works for you as the author.  About halfway through a book it is time to start applying for awards,  submitting for reviews,
21:11We would hire our cover designer  and  shout out to Tammy and Wood who's an amazing cover designer.  And work on  those sorts of things like starting to create buzz, get the word out there, do this, like podcast interviews, right?  And all of that, you want to do that early.  When you're about halfway through.
21:41A lot of awards have publication  deadlines, so you want to get that in. And  they open and close, so you want to get that in  pretty early. we're always,  of course, striving for excellence here, absolutely.  Then we would be working on things like  the
22:09basic metadata for the book, which are things like your ISBN number and those we get through Boker. Boker is the only official distributor of ISBN in the United States. Their website is my identifiers.com. are a lot, there are a lot of
22:41Predatory websites. don't know if predatory is the right word. That's probably not the right word. Third party. Let's just say that's a better word. There are a lot of third party websites that are that are.
22:58It's confusing because Boker is the name of  the company or the entity and their website is My Identifier. So there are like My Boker and you'll see things, but they're not official. Okay. So if you are self-publishing, if you do want to self-publish, you have to get your own  ISBN number.
23:25Amazon will give you an ISBN and so will Barnes & Noble.
23:31They, if your ISBN is through Amazon or Barnes and Noble, that is the only distributor. You cannot have global distribution. I highly recommend you buy and own your own ISBN.  Yep. Yeah. I learned about this back many years ago when I was doing, a friend wanted to write a book and she didn't know how to do it. She wanted to self-publish and I was like,  I can help you.
24:01I can learn this really quick and we can get it done. But do you want  an actual ISBN  number for your book?"  And she was like, I don't know. So we had to learn all that too.  And what I discovered is you can actually buy like 50 ISBN numbers or a hundred at a shot and it actually makes them less expensive. And I was like, I'm not going to be in this long enough to do that. So.  Yeah. Yeah.
24:30Yeah, I understand.  And you do want though.
24:36It's depending on how so each  each version of your book requires its own.  Is being  or is been, which is in the industry, what we call it.  If your ebook. Your paperback, your hardback, an audio book,  all those require so it is good to buy like five at a time. If that, especially if that I think they offer.
25:06And they don't expire. Right. So if you do want to, if you think you want to write another book, you know, that's like five Isbans a shot. I want to say, and I could be wrong here, but I want to say that the price break starts at 10. So like 10, 25, 50, a hundred. So buying 10, if you want to write more than one book, buying 10 isn't an under the question.
25:36And you do save a lot of money. And how much are they going for these days? Ma'am? Oh, was afraid you were going to ask that. I want to say $120, but I could be wrong. can look it up here. Per number? Mm-hmm. Well, but unless you bundle them and then they really are cheaper. And then you don't have to pay. Don't pay for your barcodes. I'm just going to look it up. Huh?
26:07Barcodes  are not are free you you can get a free barcode  when I bought a bundle from
26:20my identifiers at that time, they gave like five free barcodes. So that's fine if they want to. Let's see.
26:35So yeah, that's.
26:39I'm just looking here. I want to tell you, so  I'll try to get that for you. Okay. And we can even put, yeah, put it up later or whatever.  the other,  you're also, so at that point, we're also going to apply for your Library of Congress identifier.  You want to be in the Library of Congress, right?  And we'll also start.
27:08the  copyright process at that point.  when you're, again, so we're talking about halfway to,  you know, three quarters of the way through the book.
27:21was starting to do all of that paperwork and all of that legwork. You want it?  Go ahead.  All right. So we're getting into a lot of the nitty gritty and I wanted to do that. I think that anyone who's not really committed to the idea of writing a book at this point has just enough to know that it's going to be a process and that you need to have  your ducks in order to get it started.
27:51So I would love to spend the next 10 or so minutes if you have that to spend with me.  Talking about what kind of books you're looking for that you would like to publish from people.  Oh, absolutely.
28:07I would like to see manuscripts and ideas  around  homesteading in general.
28:19specifically all  food production  so  Can't  and food preservation cookbooks  seed preservation  Maybe you make pressed oils  People do like lati. I in our neighborhood. There's someone who has a lavender farm and she makes pressed oils  So  anything that  really has to do with
28:49food security,  your ideas.  I also am open to memoir. Memoirs are very, very different process. Memoir is its own  special genre.  But a lot of people like to write,  want to write a memoir. think a lot of it's one of the fastest growing  genres.  So I'm definitely open to that.
29:16Just so you know, if you do want to write a memoir,  like again, it has its own, it's its very own genre. There are very, very much rules  that you need to follow.  It  should read like fiction.  So if you have,  if you have a farm or a backyard farm or you...
29:41you know, grow certain vegetables. I mean, that's really,  really where  I would love to see submissions from  your homesteaders and the tattoos and beautiful, like illustrated.  We can work, if you're not a photographer,  there are,  we can work with what you have.  you know, and today's cameras really are high definition photos. So,
30:11You don't have to like have any kind of fancy equipment or anything like that. And Canva is amazing.  It's amazing. And we can  actually.
30:24One of the issues with photographs has been  for me anyway, for years, is always, you you can't scale up.  You can, yeah, you can scale down, but you can never scale up. Well, that's not true anymore, because, partly because of AI.  But you can, and you can also  convert files into like PNGs or whatever that translate better when we print. So it's,
30:53Don't worry if you're like, oh, I don't know if I have photos. It does help if you're a picture taker though. It does help if you like to take pictures of your process. That will help. Yeah. And it doesn't matter whether you have an iPhone or an Android because my husband has like the three generations back from new Samsung something.
31:19And  he took the most beautiful sunrise picture a week ago.  I swear to you, Annie, it looks like a painting. is so  gorgeous. it doesn't matter what kind of cell phone you have, whether it's Android or iPhone, you can do pretty much anything. Yeah, absolutely. And nowadays cameras, I just got a new Samsung because I  had a five year old phone and I think I dropped it to one too many times. So
31:47I had to get a new phone, which is just a whole like switch over, right? But anyways, but the camera is amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, absolutely.  Absolutely. Yeah.  And if you,  we would work, you know, for in design together. So with all your photos  that you want.  Very nice.
32:13The other thing that I want to throw in here really quick is that lots of people think that they're not writers. And  this may be true. There are a lot of people out there who cannot string words together and make it a good sentence. I understand that they weren't born with the talent to do it and  they haven't taken a class to learn how to do it. That's fine. Not everyone has to be a writer. Not everyone has to be a singer. I'm all good with that.  But  what is really nice these days  is
32:40There are all kinds of transcription services available online and you can literally tell your story out loud. The transcription  software  will put it into words for you and then you can edit it from there. So you don't even have to sit at the  keyboard for hours typing. can just talk into your phone, record your ideas.
33:08get it transcribed and then sit down and edit it from there. And  I learned this because of my podcast, because  the platform I use has a transcription function so that I can have the transcriptions in the show notes.  And I was like,  oh my God, I could be doing dishes, have my earbuds in, get ideas down, recorded, know, audially, and then have them transcribed and literally be able to sit down for four hours and edit them.
33:37I was so excited to discover this. So  even if you're not technically a sit down and type the words person, if you're a storyteller, you can jump on that and go from there. Yeah, absolutely.  Absolutely. That's a great point.  Isn't that amazing? Oh, I'm so glad because  I'm getting older  and I'm starting to get a little bit of arthritis in my joints and my fingers.
34:06So sitting and typing for hours is really not comfy, you know? That's excellent point. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, absolutely. I guess I'm thinking of the work that I did too, like, you know, through  our age-friendly initiative in a senior center, right? Like that was some, you know, I heard that as a concern. I don't, can't, you know, it's hard to write now. Yeah. Yeah,  yeah. And I'm so out of practice writing actual.
34:33actual longhand like with a pen or a pencil on paper because I never do it.  Who in the world actually writes on paper these days with a manual word processor?  do.  do.  I keep my notebooks. I have notebooks everywhere and I keep my notebooks. I was so proud of myself last year. had my notebook. I had my notebook from my business and I started it in January, I edited it in December and I had one page left.  Wow. I was very proud.
35:01Yeah, I write in notebooks. I write longhand a lot. helps  my brain to process what I'm writing. So  it's just something I prefer. I transcribe a lot from longhand, but I do write longhand, especially plans and that kind of thing. So yeah,  I do.  My husband brought me a box of pencils yesterday.  And can I just say it was like the sweetest thing ever.
35:30Uh-huh. He brought me my favorite Thai Khandro-Roga pencils. I was very touched.  That is really sweet. And I get it.  Back  when I wasn't so computer driven, I used to love a store called St. Paul Book and Stationery in Minnesota. And they had  every freaking thing under the sun for writing. And it had this, this smell.
36:00of paper and ink and  I don't know what it was but every time I went there I'd be here. Yes, Dixon Paper Company here in Denver. was the equivalent I think of what you're talking about. I know I was, oh I'd forgotten about Dixon until just now.  yes, that smell.  I understand your excitement about getting your favorite pencils because
36:25Um, years ago, um, one of the locations that my husband worked at, they were closing out one of their buildings and  he, he came across, he was helping clean it up and get stuff out and he came across a,  box and he opened the box, which is a really pretty little blue box and it had a gorgeous fountain pen  and,  a container of ink that went with it. And it was supposed to be like a gift to someone that just never got given out.
36:53And he asked the person in charge  if he could have it. And the guy was like, yeah, all this is going to the trash. Whatever you think is saveable and you have used for, have at it. He brought this home to me. I used that pen for five years. That's awesome. I love that pen. awesome.  Oh, that's, yeah, they're beautiful to write with, aren't they? Yeah. My favorite pen is the Uniball Vision. Just saying. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
37:22I wish I knew what I need to do is I need to start keeping a journal a small journal again and actually writing it longhand because my handwriting used to be beautiful and I used to really enjoy the act of writing, you know, actual physical act. And then I got busy with other stuff and I just don't write anything on paper anymore. So I need I'm going to make a resolution right now. I'm going to find a book I'm going to start just writing the weather every day like
37:49like three or four sentences about the weather every morning.  that's a great start. I love the weather. I can be very weather obsessed. used to be a storm chaser in one of my previous lifetimes. It was a lot of fun, but I have to tell you that I posted a picture on Facebook in fact in January because  I bought two notebooks and  a package of pencils and for my business  notebooks for the year. And one was purple and the other one has  purple and pink unicorns and, and
38:19and my pencils were sparkles and I said, yes, they match and yes, they sparkle.  Yes, it helps when your tools make you happy. Right,  yes.  And it's sitting right here.  that's very, very, very nice.  We could geek out for days,  Definitely. I enjoy you, Mary. This was  so much fun. I really thank you so much for this because it really
38:48gives me an opportunity  to describe to your listeners  what we offer and  I really appreciate it.  I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about this because  most people do not know the steps. There's so much.  Yeah. It's a deep topic. It's a wide topic. It has a lot of moving parts, a lot of cogs, a lot of wheels. It's a huge topic.
39:17And we just  basically touched on the top of the ice or the tip of the iceberg today. Yeah. So  for the listeners, if anyone has a book idea percolating and they want to talk to  Annie,  how to contact her, be in the show notes, but it's, it's it's high prairie press.org, right? Correct. And my email is editor  at high prairie press.org. So feel free to reach out.
39:44Yes, because Annie needs books. She needs book ideas so she can publish them.  Yes.  All right. Awesome.  Thank you. All  right. Have a great afternoon. Thanks. You too. Bye. If you like this podcast, you would probably love Amy Fagan's Grounded in Maine podcast.  You can find her on  all the platforms, groundedinmaine.com.