A Tiny Homestead

Groovy Grazers - Ch-ch-ch Changes!

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers. 
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15,  you'll get 15 % off your registration costs.
00:29and that price is valid through the end of November. So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com. A tiny homestead is sponsored by cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers in Montana. Good morning, my friend. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. It's a wonderful morning after getting to see the Northern Lights. Did you get to see them? It was so weird. I got up at like...
00:571130 when my husband came to bed last night because I had to go potty  and uh I  went outside on my porch for some reason. I don't usually usually just come back to bed and I was looking out the window. I could see this red orangey color off in the distance. I did not have my glasses on and I was like, oh no, what's on fire over there? Yeah. And I was going to put my glasses on when I came upstairs and look out the bedroom window and I was like, if it's on fire, it's too far away to impact us. And I went to bed. I went to sleep.
01:27Got up this morning and looked at the local Facebook page for our town and somebody had posted, what's the red glow on the west side of town? And people were posting so many pictures in the comments and I was like,  I missed it. Well, I mean, you kind of  saw it. I saw the red, my husband got pictures and he got the blues and greens. Wow. So up here it was red and green. Yeah.
01:55And it was bright.  And  you know, I always wanted to see the Northern Lights. I was on my bucket list. I thought I was going to have to go to Alaska.  I mean, I really wouldn't have had to move up to Montana to even see them at this point. But they were  red and green last night and dancing. They'll dance too. It looks like almost like glitter in the sky to the naked eye. But the fact that you're able to see the actual red and green without the camera lens is pretty crazy because that's like
02:24Alaska, you know, style Northern Lights where you can see them dance in the sky. So we,  guess you're supposed to again see them tonight. So we're really excited. We'll go out again. Last night we had cloud cover and that ruins all of it.  course. And  you'll be surprised people in Minneapolis and St. Paul here in Minnesota actually could see them even with all the light pollution. Yeah, that is wild to me. I had friends that were in,  you know, Billings because we're kind of on the outskirts.
02:54And they were posting pictures of a two full blown light pollution.  And normally it has to be pretty pitch, you know, pitch  outside to be able to capture it in a long exposure. was capturing it without a long exposure. I mean, cool, but also scary tinfoil hat, you know, style thing where I'm like,  my husband jokes around. He's like, should we be putting tinfoil hats on now when we go outside to look at these? And we couldn't help but really laugh at that because it is.
03:23It is from the sun having solar flares that we're able to see these. Yeah, exactly. And  it's really cool and it's really pretty. But yes, it's concerning.  So I'm assuming the weather is pretty good there. If you were met, you managed to see it last night. Yeah, it's you know, it's a weird year this year. There's we haven't knock on wood, like really just everyone should knock on wood for me right now. We haven't had any serious snowfall. We have like a real light dusting one day.
03:52and it stayed for like a few hours. But to see like other parts of the country that normally don't get snow before us are getting snow  is a little strange. We always joke that Montana is going to be the banana belt, but weather's been really good here, which has been nice because we've been really productive since we last talked. Like a lot of building has gone on. We've done  miles of electric fence. mean, so I, I'm enjoying the nice weather and that it's not harsh yet because
04:21It's going to be, guess, according to the farmer's almanac, um a pretty cold but not snowy year. And I'll take that because last year was the opposite. It was extremely snowy  and not as cold, if that makes sense. yeah. Yeah. It's so weird here in Minnesota because uh supposedly the weather people will tell you that if it's super cold,  it won't snow.  But if it's super warm, it will snow. And it was really cold here.
04:50last year and last winter and we did get snow when it was like minus 20 out and I was like mother nature what are you doing? Yeah the negative 20 and then snowfall is what like that's when I'm like okay why did I move here that that's the one moment everyone told me when I moved here from Arizona that I was going to absolutely hate it the snow was going to send me back and I'm like
05:15I'm fine with the snow. I'm cool with everything. But when you, I was telling my husband, once you hit like negative 10 and below and it snows, that should be illegal. It should be a crime. Yes, absolutely.  And just for the update for Minnesota, it's very sunny. It's breezy. And I think it's about 40 degrees outside this morning. Well, then we're about the same temperature. Yesterday was 70 degrees. I got to wash my horse yesterday. I cannot believe that in the middle of November. I was like, okay, I'll take it. guess.
05:43Very nice. And for anyone keeping score who's listening in last month,  I'm  almost over this freaking respiratory, upper respiratory crap. Finally.
05:54It's been crazy. mean, I have a little bit of it too, but that's partially probably because I got kicked in the ribs by an auction horse that I bought first time at 31 never been kicked. So she cracked some ribs and you know, when you crack ribs or break ribs, you're really susceptible to like getting a lung infection. So I can understand that it's horrible. The upper respiratory is I've seen going around to.
06:19Yeah, I don't know what it is and I didn't test for COVID because  it doesn't matter. I'm sick. You know, I don't see anybody so it's fine.  It's the same, same treatment. Just high vitamin C. Look up a vitamin C cleanse. Vitamin C is a radical free remover. So it like removes radicals to include metal and heavy toxins and parasites and stuff like that. uh It's supposedly what it's supposed to do, you know, of course, because nothing's backed by anything that's natural. And it really did help.
06:49Um, cut down on the amount of stuff that I've had. So I, I've been really big about pushing vitamin C this year to everyone telling them to take a ton of it. Yeah. I've been saying on the podcast, if you're comfortable wearing a mask, wear a mask when you go out in public, if you're sick or if you don't want to get sick and wash your hands because that helps. Yeah. Don't touch your nose. I've had to teach my kids that. Yeah. I think hygiene is something that we could all use a little bit of scrubbing up on because that, you know,
07:19good practices  for not getting sick, the same as biosecurity with your own animals. So we gotta take care of ourselves as good as we take care of our animals, and I know that's pretty hard for some farmers, including myself.  For sure.  Okay, so I've had Morgan as a guest on the show three times over the last two years. Last time you were on was in September,  and  I wasn't gonna ask you back on until spring, but you've got some exciting things happening, and don't jump in yet.
07:48because I know you're ready. I know you're ready to like woohoo about things. um Also Morgan was in the service, what branch? I was in the United States Air Force. Yeah, so thank you for your service  and happy belated Veterans Day. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. We had a good day yesterday. We got to see the Northern Lights. We carved pumpkins. We ate T-bone steak. You you just try and reflect on Veterans Day.
08:13to remember like what you did with your family because your family stands behind you while you serve. So I appreciate that. And I know all the service men and women, past and present, are very thankful that uh the American people thank us. Well, you guys put your lives on the line for us.  I, you know, I don't say that lightly. My father-in-law was in Vietnam and he was  one of the people,  as far as I know, that would go into the tunnels. Oh, wow.
08:43Yeah, and he doesn't talk about it and he says that he basically worked on radios and that's probably true but I've heard some other things through family that there was a little more to it and that was a really dangerous thing. So, so I don't take it lightly but my my dad was in the Air Force Air Force then and he did not go overseas because my mom was pregnant with me. So I kept my dad from
09:13from going, even though I was not even born yet. But he also was in the electronics and radio stuff and he helped over here with the Vietnam effort. And so he didn't really have to put his life on the line, but with what he did, he saved lives. you know, it's, it's, it's six, one and a half dozen of another. You're, doing your job. You are helping our country. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, looking back, it was a huge decision to make. I
09:42I mean, sometimes we all have regrets, right? Like the VA doesn't take as great of care of us or sometimes we get frustrated because some of the freedoms we may be served for maybe aren't still in place, you know, there's various things. And so I think the biggest thing is just remembering that like each generation sacrificed  and, just reflecting on it. My dad was a radio guy in the Marine. So that's really interesting that your family was a part of that. My dad was back in.
10:08way before I was born, 1994 was when I was born to kind of age myself. So it was quite a few years before then, but yeah, that generation, I was in Okinawa, Japan. So I learned a lot about that era because we were in one of the areas that it was highly affected by. so  that's one of the things. It's also why I'm so sick, I believe too, because where I was stationed and the chemicals that I was exposed to. ah
10:36you know, they've affected my health. But one of the benefits to it is I get to farm with my family.  And this life is a blessing. I know a lot of people say that, but to not have to  have two  adults that are working continuously and then coming home and farming on top of it, like our whole job is farming.  And yeah, I've been on the show quite a few times. It's been really cool because I can listen back to some of the episodes and see kind of how we pivoted because that was a huge talk pivoting.
11:05Yes, yeah. Oh my goodness. Have we pivoted so much? So we'll kind of jump into what's changed because I think what we found in Montana may not work for other states, but I think it might work definitely in other states. know, so  Andy and I live on 20 acres. We're in Montana for some of the people that haven't maybe caught some of these details.  Last time we talked about the hay issues that we might be looking to move. Well, pivot.
11:35Of course, we're staying. So we're just going to end up refinancing. We're going to try for a while. That's one of the things is we haul every drop of water out to the house and that causes a lot of burden when you're trying to be self-sustainable. You're trying to live eventually off grid and honestly just trying to farm because then you're stuck with dry land and dry land doesn't produce. You maybe get one cutting out here of dry land hay.
12:04um And  that's really it. And that's with like, you know, fertilizing, weed control, all of that stuff. So since last time, we've kind of had to get back into the thought process of how can we make this more sustainable for us where we're at? So we live on  10 acres  of flat farmland and the other 10 acres are between a gulch and kind of like mountainous because we're on the top of a flat rim.
12:33Um, just to kind of paint the picture, you know? So our grass out here is terrible. So Andy and I, that was one of the things last year or yeah, September that we were talking about actually. not even that long ago, we were talking about how can we resolve this? Cause I had to order 51 round bales. It's like 21 tons of hay. If I'm paying 150 a ton, which is way less than most people do in America. yeah.
13:01I mean, you're still talking about four or $5,000  by the time I haul it, I pay for it, I get it home, I get it loaded up, like all that stuff, right? So that's been one of the biggest challenges that we've kind of had to think about long-term resolution. And also  now that we know that we're going to stay here, the market's just not great. You know, we did look. The last...
13:27two, three months we've been looking on the market, but either we're going to get into something Montana's prices are extremely high. ah You know, a million dollars plus for what we need. And we just don't have that kind of money. It's not sustainable anyways for a working farm to have that kind of overhead. So we had kind of talked about previously, I think em Andy was working with the Hay Guy. I don't know if we covered that actually. did. Yeah. Yeah, we did actually. So Andy, because we talked about potentially a land share.
13:58So we were hoping that was gonna drop into our lap. So here's the big update. So yes, we are here. There is a land share potential that we could work on  with a farmer and take home 50, 50 of the profit that comes from it. And I just wanna talk about what is a land share because that was all kind of new to me a few months ago and trying to understand it and grasp it and learn about it. I think this land share might solve a lot of people's problems.
14:27um, that need hay like we do. So if you're needing hay, you're needing, um, barter work, maybe there's a farmer that has grain that you could, you know, barter with them, but they need work. So I'm talking about the older generation of farmers. As we all know, it's an epidemic, right? The old generation of farmers are retiring. They're in their seventies, if not older. Yep. And they're done farming, but here's the crux. Nobody in their family wants to farm.
14:55They all went off to the big city and they became doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, whatever, right?  It's a tale old tale. And now it's coming to like a head, you could say, like the farm industry is feeling this now. We're feeling that nobody knew Cayman, right? So you have these older farmers and they're not able to do the labor, but they can't afford payment to laborers.
15:22That's why people don't, you know, they're like, well, we don't want to work for $15 an hour for the farmer. Yeah, I get that. That's not a sustainable income for you or the farmer because the farmer can't really afford that. If they're selling hay and they're selling them for $8 a bale, it's $6 their cost to put that bale up from the time they grow it, weed it, you know, get it into a bale and then get it onto your truck. That's not sustainable for farmers.
15:51So we have to find a way to make it sustainable for everyone and scratching everyone's back. So Andy met Dave. Dave's been haying for a long time. He used to do grain. He's in his seventies. He started out with nothing. So he had no land. He had no equipment, but he wanted to get into farming.  And that literally is Andy and I's story. We don't have a lot of money. We have a little land, but it's not good for hay.
16:19But we got a lot of tenacity, right? Yes. We're wild, wild children. So I met, hey, know, hey, Dave is what I call him. I met Dave, I went bought hay from him and we got to talking like farmers do for three hours and Andy didn't know where I was. Well, Andy's been going out there quite often. He was out there last week. They were burning  weeds because that's a better alternate to round up, but that takes a lot of hours. So Dave's been walking Andy through all these struggles that he has as a farmer.
16:47So then we also understand what we're getting ourselves into. So Dave said, hey, I've got some land down here and he took us to it and it's 160 acres. But what he pointed out, which I did not know that if a hundred and it's technically a hundred acres. So on the map, it says a hundred acres. But when you actually map it out because of all the, you know, gulches and the mountains and dips and hills.
17:15It's like 160 acres of actual land. Yeah. Which I thought that was interesting. I didn't know that. So some of these people that are only thinking, I have a hundred acres, you may have more if it's not just flat. That's hard to measure. So that was, that was something that was very interesting to me because we might be sitting on more than 20 acres with how our land is set up. So that, that led me to think, okay, I want to learn more of that. So that was something he brought up. Then he brought up.
17:44the cost. So he used to actually pair up with the government and he talks about the wheat bushels. So he said that before if you just did grain on your own, you made  nothing. You would break  negative at the end of the day. But if you got with the USDA, you would make a guaranteed amount because they were paying per bushel versus just by tonnage.
18:11So I didn't know that either. That was something that was really interesting to me because I've trying to figure out what is the cause of farms breaking down? What towards the end, know, I'm not looking 20 years down the road. I'm looking 30, 40, 50 years. Why are they hitting a point and it all seems to be about 30, 50 years and then they can't sustain anymore. So he brought up, you know, market changing, the USDA changing their pricing.
18:42He also brought up equipment. John Deere's didn't use to cost a million dollars plus, you know, for a whole setup.  No, they did not. I didn't know that.  I did not know that tractors cost and I would love to find the percentage and post it someday.  But the cost from what they used to be to what they are now is so insanely gross. It makes me really upset that these
19:09big name corporations that make our tractors are nickel and diamond the farmer. Even these cattle farmers, they're not coming out. It's not the cattle farmers that are making the money right now. It is the processing and packaging plants. But people don't realize that. Same thing with farming grain. So, you know, a lot of people may have that knowledge, apply the knowledge that you have to the meat industry to the corn, wheat, grain industry. And it's the same thing.
19:40And they're going through their machines breaking down. John Deere is no longer making parts. Kubota is not making parts for certain things. They don't have technicians anymore. You used to have mechanics, right? That could actually find a problem, fix it, diagnose. Now you just have technicians that just pull and replace. Everything's a plug and play now. And all of this has literally pushed farming to this corner where it's dead end.
20:09because they can't make their tractor bills after paying for their chemicals, their seeds, workers, that's something else, but you can barter. So why I kind of brought this up was because we listened to this farmer. Just tell us, he's not like complaining to us to make us feel sorry for him.  I asked him, why is farming dying? And this is what he gave me. And I was like, wow, this is a lot, it's a big plate.
20:39But there are outs. said barter. We need to go back to bartering. So we were like, you know what? We need goat hay. He's got a lot of bales that don't meet  horse quality, but they are horse quality compared to what I've seen. When I lived in Arizona, this hay would have been horse quality. But today he's very, very um picky and very, everything is uh a science to him with hay, which is great. You need those kinds of people. And so
21:08We traded him, we bartered hours. He was like, I'm gonna give you 20 an hour and I'll barter you these bales for eight a bail, right? So you do the math, that's two bales an hour. Okay, we're talking now. A little bit of time to learn stuff, to barter. So then that kind of progressed. You gotta start a relationship with a farm before you can do business with them.
21:36So we did the little bit of a friendship buying hay from him. And then we asked him, can we barter with you? Is there something we can help you with? Because it's a one man operation. It's just Dave out there. And he goes, yeah, I need help. But I, he looked at my husband and he said, real honestly, I can't afford to give you 20 an hour though cash. He goes, I can't give you the cash, but I got hay. And Andy looked at me and he goes, well, I don't have cash, but I got time. So you can fill the void in what.
22:05you need in your farm by looking at how you can help other farmers. And I think that's something we've moved away from. And I wanted to talk about that today because it led us to a really great spot where we pivoted again. And now it's sustainable for us to stay on this farm. Okay. So let me jump in here for a minute because that's a lot.  It is. Congratulations on being able to stay.
22:35Being able to get a well dug because I know that was a big thing for you. We talked about that in September. And you're right. If you can barter services with anybody, I mean, in your case with a farmer, that's freaking awesome. But you can barter services with anybody who needs what you're doing. need what they're doing. Correct. And people forget that. Yeah. I mean, we are
23:05really lucky we have friends that have goats and goats poop a lot. um And we have a farm stand and our friends also have ducks and they have duck eggs in the summer. So my friend messaged me back in the spring and said,  can I sell my duck eggs in your farm stand because we don't really have a good place for a farm stand.  And I was like, of course you can.  And then my husband texted her husband  a month or so ago and said,  hey, do you have any goat manure? Cause I want to put it in my gardens.
23:34And so basically we let them sell duck eggs in our farm stand and we get goat manure at the end of the season. And  it's great because we're trying to grow produce and they're trying to get their duck eggs moved. Yeah. Cause you got all those trees. I remember we talked about your awesome trees um and, and, that's the thing seeing them, then it's more sustainable for you and her. She gets her duck eggs out. She gets their, their feed paid for, um, or is trying to work towards breaking even.
24:03and then you guys get manure and that's going to save you guys, I guarantee if you added up hundreds of dollars by the end of next year. Oh, absolutely. On fertilizer. Yeah, definitely. And  I don't want to go buy bagged manure at Home Depot or Menards or Fleet Farm or whatever store has it  because it's not just bagged manure. It's other stuff in it. I want,  I want straight from the goats butt manure. How's that for saying something crazy?
24:33Right here. Like I wanted to fall hot and fresh right on the plant. Yeah, I mean, I don't because it would burn the plant, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, no, for sure.  Actually, go poop just so you're aware it's not a hot manure. Oh, OK. Well, then sure, we can do that, too. Yeah, yeah. That was why we got goats. Ducks also. didn't know that we have call ducks now  and  that they also don't have hot poop. Neither do sheep,  but horses and cows.
25:02I don't know about pigs. We have pigs now. We've gotten quite a few animals because we solved our great dilemma of hay, right? Yes. Once you solve one of the things that you work for, which is hay, then it's like, okay, well now we can expand. And that's one of the things now that you've got fertilizer, which I encourage you to add up or look at previous years and see how much you paid for fertilizer versus whatever.
25:30Um, anytime you do something like that, because it does help like this year alone, we have saved over a thousand 500 on hay, just in partnering.  That's a lot. mean, if you think about it, that is a lot and the knowledge that my husband has, because now Dave's like, Hey, go get a tractor. Cause his tractor, like I said, all the tractor companies have made it unaffordable to fix these older tractors is like my track. Once my tractor goes out, we're out of business. I can't pull hay.
26:00And you need hay and I'm like, yeah, I really need hay. But if we go that route, we can split it 50 50. Now it's not always a 50 50 share. So that's something you have to take into account too. So like he's just saying we have a really smoking good deal. He's got the land. If we get the tractor, then we can go ahead and do business together and then split a 50 50. So like always look into deals. Some deals aren't worth it. Not all the farmers are nice, but Dave is willing to help us because of that.
26:30little bit of extra money that we're saving, I went and bought two horses and three pigs.  And what else did I get? Oh, and I got my ram for my sheep.  You know, so we expanded because I was like, well, if I'm going to save all this money on hay every year, I can actually put that in towards animals. And we did a bunch of fencing, right? Like I got electricity up. I was kind of anti-electricity with animals  before.
27:00with having like, you know, a jeweled system. And I absolutely love it. My goats no longer tear at my fence. I'm not having to constantly repair them. But because we traded hay, I was able to do that. And I wouldn't have if we didn't trade the hay. And that's something that like, I would have never thought to barter time for hay or even barter time um with a mechanic that we had working on our truck, right?
27:26or bartering goat milk. I've bartered goat milk before, but time is a little different. I think people forget that time is valuable. I mean, we know that it's valuable for us, but we forget that time from other people is really valuable. So if someone's willing to give you a few hours and trade for something, it's probably gonna make your life a lot easier. Yeah, and honestly, that's how I see the podcast sometimes because I know that you and a lot of the people I talk to are very busy with your homesteads and your
27:56businesses and what you're doing. And  I absolutely love the fact that you guys take the time to come talk with me and put information out there that other people can learn from. Yeah, and not dead internet stuff. We're not talking AI generated stuff. No, we're talking  actual accounts of people. And I and I love that. And I love your podcast because there have been things that I've even learned. Right. And I'm sure people have art. I've connected with people from your podcast.
28:25Um, and I think that's the greatest thing is you give a platform where we can all share time, but it's mutually benefiting. And that's what I think people forget is that bartering is also mutual benefiting. So it has to scratch both people's backs. can't just scratch yours. Right. You know, it can't be so such a smoke and great deal for you that it,  puts them out  and getting back to that thought process brings you more back to the old school way that all of the farmers act.
28:53You know, I remember in Texas, they all would be at McDonald's drinking coffee. It's like 11 o'clock in the morning, but they're all drinking coffee like they just woke up. But I have to remember they've already done all their morning chores.  This is like their free time, but that's how they all learned was from each other vocally. And I think just talking about the reality of what's going on with farming, you know,  I didn't know that tractors were so unattainable. I don't want a brand new tractor anymore.
29:21I'm going to go on the auction site and go buy a used tractor. Yeah. Because it makes more sense if we're able to fix it compared to these new John Deere's or Kubota's or whatever, where the technician has to come out. That's something else I also learned. If your tractor stops, your combine stops in the middle of working, they have these like systems that shut it down. So it may not be like broken to where you can't turn the engine on, but the system is shut it down because the computer says it's not safe to run. Yeah.
29:49Only way you can do that is having a technician come out that has their specific brand little iPad plugin. And then they plug it in and then they tell you what it is. And then they tell you it's going to be thousands of dollars to fix that part. Plus now you have a technician call. I don't agree with that. That's nickel and diming the farmer.  Yeah. And I'm going to, I'm going to jump in with something else.  Computers are amazing, but not when it comes to vehicles or tractors.
30:18or snowblowers or anything that has a motor because it doesn't work well.  mean, we had our internet go out a couple weeks ago for a day. I don't know what happened. It was our internet provider and I couldn't do anything that I needed to do regarding the podcast. And I was like, huh, I'm going to get a lot done today because the dishes are going to be done in five minutes and the laundry is going to be moved through all day because I can't work.
30:46It scares me to death, Morgan. If the internet actually went out for more than a day, we would all be screwed. No, we would. And that's what we were joking about last night. Because when you have these solar flares that cause everyone and their mother to see with the naked eye the Northern Lights, it's like, huh, hmm, wonder when the grid's going to go out. We joked about calling our farm the tin foil ranch. Yeah. foil.
31:15It's a thing, you know, and so we do and that's what drives our lifestyle. That's why I was so against electricity on my fence. Yeah. Because what happens when I don't have this, right? I don't have this luxury. And that's something that we build our whole farm off of is not having luxuries. Because if something were to happen now again, do I think that you and I will see?
31:40The end of the grid may be. Do I think my son will? Yes, absolutely. I do. And when people say that I'm like, he's 11, he will.  Um, you know, and, and that's scary to think about. That's part of our drive is like, how can we, so we got horses like that's so funny because that literally leads us into the next day and what we got. So we went and got two little baby horses, which I have a horse and we've talked about it I have a pony and we bred her and she is  99.9 % sure that she's bred. So we'll have a mini Shetland next year.
32:10a baby, which is super cute, but we have two babies. old are the baby  horses? They're young.  Liberty, which is Betty. We call her Betty. uh Liberty is from South or North Dakota. can't remember, but she was born July 4th of this year. Okay. So you're talking like Weenling age, right?  And then we have  another one. So we bought Liberty last auction at the BLS,  which is Billings. uh
32:40And they have one of the country's largest auctions in October. I highly, you can buy online, not the loose guys, but you can buy the, the horses that go through on the online auction. It's super easy. I've done it. So I encourage people Montana's horses are cheap. Come look like really cheap. So I took home a hundred dollar in October, a hundred dollar Philly. She's this little, little.
33:04Bay Dapple, maybe a buckskin, I don't know, because she's a baby, right? She's young. She's just now getting in her six month incisor. So that tells me she's probably about the same age as Betty.  And Bambi, Bambi is her name, the new baby. And she has a hawk injury, right? So she's got the typical barbed wire cut. But we got these young babies because I was like, well, if the grid goes out, then we've got, we've got, you know,
33:33a vehicle essentially, a horse is a vehicle at that point. um And we have a lot of Amish around here and they ride their horses and stuff and they have beautiful horses that go through the auction. And I was like, you know, maybe the  Amish are onto something because they live off grid essentially, not fully, right? Like some of them have cell phones now and get to talk to the outside world. They're changing with times. But for the most part, they live in a very, if the grid went down type way.
34:01So we ended up picking up the two young babies and they are amazing. They're also good therapy animals, because a lot of people know we're going through a bunch of legal stuff. That's why we're refinancing. um And they're a good escape. They also eat a lot of hay though. So that was why we expanded. We had some of our hay issues um fixed and therefore we were able to move forward with that.
34:28having the horses because it's less of a worry, less money going in, you know, to feeding them hay as often. it's transportation. So it's actually beneficial. You can have horses that plow your field, that take a disc through the field. I mean, the Amish do everything with horses still.  and there's a lot of equipment floating around here. So instead of paying a big name commercial company, I'm gonna feed my horse hay.
34:56I'm not paying for the technician to come out. I'll pay for the chiropractor to come out for the horse instead. Yeah. The vet bills instead of the technician bills. Right. I think they're a little bit cheaper when it ends up being a  vet bill compared to a technician bill. I'm a knock on wood, but I think I have a  theory that running a horse is a lot cheaper than running a tractor.  Yeah. And I'm gonna, I'm going to play devil's advocate for just a second on that.  I think that it all comes out in the wash regarding these two different things.
35:26Because God forbid your horse colics,  you're gonna have a big vet bill Yeah, oh for sure because we're getting insurance on the horses Something I already looked into it's 250 a year Yeah for my little babies, but they're babies and it covers up to $5,000 in  colic surgery, but that's something you have to worry about right also another devil's advocate Horses are not fun to deal with in the snow sometimes
35:56So if you're walking, you're not in a heated cab, you're on the ground walking behind them. There's a lot of give and take. So when we do anything on the farm, we do devil's advocate because that's our biggest thing. Also, my husband got to see how some of these horses that were ridden were selling and he was like, doesn't make any sense to me if we have the knowledge. And I'm not a horse trainer, I tell people that. I'm not a horse trainer, I've ridden horses since I was nine years old though.
36:25On and off, I've done exercise riding. I've worked with really green, young, unexperienced horses, but I'm not a horse trainer. But if I can get a horse that I can  ride into a sale barn, they'll go for 4,000, 5,000 plus. So it's  an item that I guess you could say in a hurry is a lot easier than to sell with a tractor. Like a tractor can take longer. It's a bigger bill. So yeah, there is a lot of give and take. And I think that's what
36:55I've learned in the last few months is pivoting and being excited to pivot because sometimes if you get in that mode of like,  I don't want to pivot anymore. And I've been there. I've been there. I've been in tears saying like, I don't want to do the damn thing anymore. Cause those that have listened know that that's my saying, just do the damn thing.  Um, and it's okay sometimes to be really excited about pivoting and to find the positivity is in it, you know?
37:23and then to move forward with it. And we may have to pivot again. That's just the reality of life. But knowing some of the things that I've learned, that the death of farming happens because equipment starts to break down  and the companies no longer service that, or you can't find anyone that will service it, or the parts, or whatever, be it, right? That's a huge crux. The other crux is nobody to replace the old farmers, okay? So that's two cruxes. The third crux is...
37:50is that there's just not enough money flow through the system if you're doing it outside of the USDA. Because they have grants, they have subsidies. People forget that farming is built on subsidies  because the government keeps them that way. The private buyers won't buy directly from the farmers because after so many acres you become a commercial farm.  There's so many rules and regulations.
38:15Yep. And right now, I think we're still kind of screwed on the grants from the government because I think a lot of them have been put on hold. I would have to look into that. No, they are.  So if you're looking for grants, you want to look regionally or locally right now. Yep. In your state for grants.  there's grants everywhere, guys. Like, seriously, please go look. There are grants to help offset new equipment. There are special loans.
38:45um that are offset by grants to help with interest on equipment.  know, like there are so much and maybe Montana is a little more gracious than other states. But I encourage you to look and see even though the government is in shambles,  look for those grants now because they may not be there in 10 years. Yeah. I thought we were done with the world being a dumpster fire when COVID eased eased up, but no surprise it's a dumpster fire again.
39:15Um, it's just, mean, we're a, we're a landfill on fire. Now is what I joke. Uh huh. I just, no longer dumpster. I am so thankful that my husband and I moved when we did back in 2020, because it's a lot easier to feel okay when you live on three acres and you live like a homesteader lives because you're prepared for a lot of things that most people aren't so incredibly thankful that we did this. Yeah.
39:45Oh yeah, can't. I'm, I could, if I could go back and pat, uh, my husband's back in 2019, way before I met him when he bought this, I would, because got 20 acres for under a hundred thousand. I can't, yeah, we don't have water. Yeah, we have, we have no trash. Our internet is barely working, but you know what? I got land and we got land more than anything. He did nothing with this before I moved in with him. It just sat vacant, which was fine. It was a clean slate.
40:15You know, and that and it has been a blessing to us. It's  it has kept us afloat wonderfully. And I won't say afloat even in the sense that we're in the green and profiting.  It has kept us from losing gobs of money with no return.  Or no nothing back, I should say, like pigs send them off to slaughter. You get bacon back. That's a return. Yeah.
40:42And the peace and the happiness that it has brought you and the sanity that it has brought you, that is worth everything. That is definitely a double-edged sword. Sometimes this property has not brought me sanity, but that is because of family issues that we have going on. It's a headache sometimes, but it has brought me so much peace in the sense that I'm able to walk outside with my husband and  my son and say, okay, we're okay. We have items to barter.
41:10We're going to be okay if something happens. We've got horses to ride in the future. You know, we got babies on the way. got goats, we have sheep, have pigs, we have ducks, we have a turkey, we have a rabbit. we have, we're there. We're at that point, we're starting to build and we're about three years then. I think this is my third. Yeah. Our third fall going into this building. Um, we started in the fall building, which was rough, but you know, I, I look back and.
41:40And it is truly amazing. I tell people,  even if you can't do this on a large scale, you have people on your podcast all the time uh that have different varieties of acres, but you can do it on less than an acre. There's a girl in my town that you've interviewed,  with Roseland uh Urban Farm, believe is the name, but  she does it on very little land. And so I think when people listen, don't, this shouldn't just be a dream in the, in the far future, like, oh, one day.
42:10Maybe I'll get to own three acres of land like Mary, right? And be able to farm. If I lived in the city, right? And was listening to this.  No, you can start now. There's a way to start now. And the sooner you adapt now, the better it is long-term. Even if it's just you growing your own tomatoes on your apartment patio. Like that's going to offset your bill by a little bit each year. And that little bit can go to something else that will help offset.
42:38And so if we just all got in this mindset of we need to start building to sustainability, then it does naturally ease your anxiety about what's going on in America because you know that you have yourself covered. You're not relying on somebody else. So the sustainability, the soothing, right, that it brings to know that we're OK and we would be OK in that situation helps you enjoy what you do more. And that's that's the biggest thing. Enjoy what you do.
43:09Don't make your hobbies into money making things. It'll make it where it's less fun.  And find a way that you don't rely on a single person from the government to provide for your family. That doesn't mean not relying on anyone. That just means not relying on the government entity. You gotta rely on each other. And so like that's been a lot in the last two months learning and digging this apart to get to this point.
43:35But I'm glad that I got to come back on your show and we got to talk about from September to now the changes. mean, that's a lot of change in just a few months, but it's okay to pivot and it's okay to step back and say, how can I make this more sustainable? And then figure out how you can barter that. Yep, absolutely. And you were saying that you can start now.  The thing that I keep saying is learn to cook.
44:02Cooking is a homesteading skill. It has been a homesteading skill since people showed up on the planet and learned to cook.  You know, when we stopped being nomads.  And uh honestly, if you learn to cook, even basic cooking skills,  you will save yourself a lot of money. You won't save yourself time because cooking takes time, but you will save yourself money.
44:29Correct. Yeah, we cook a lot. I mean, it's fun when we get to go out to eat. But if you eat out even once a week, that's 400, if it's a family of three, with, you know, we have gluten allergies. So you're talking four or $500 for us to eat comfortably, like good food, not just junk food, right? Because if I'm going eat out, it better be better than my cooking. But it's not really. Everything is just, we make jokes that this will probably turn a lot of people off from food.
44:57Even your mom and pop restaurants sometimes, if they're not cooking stuff in house, it's Cisco. Cisco Foods,  we joke about who can reheat Cisco Foods the best. So I would rather go cook and buy whole ingredients. We're 2026, I wanna encourage a lot of people to do this, because this is something I'm gonna try and do. We're gonna try and buy nothing brand new, other than the absolute necessities. A coffee pot does not mean brand new. That means used.
45:26There's no tariffs on that, which is going to save us gobs of money. So  I'm encouraging everyone, just non-consumer. Look up, even if you can't, if you're cooking and you're like, I can't grow anything, look up just non-consumerism. That's what started me down this whole homesteading, off-grid journey, was just trying to learn how to be a non-consumer because we live in such a consumerism world. Yeah, absolutely.
45:54Again, double-edged sword, devil's advocate. um If  everybody starts buying stuff  used and it still works, that's great. But we also have to consider that we don't want the economy to tank. Correct. Yeah. So it's a slippery slope and there's a real balance there. But I get what you're saying. We  have a percolator. Okay. You know what a percolator is for coffee, right? Oh Yeah, yeah.
46:21The kind that you actually put on an open flame. It doesn't plug into the wall. And I love that thing. Now, I'm not going to lie. I love the fact that we have a drip coffee maker that is programmable and the coffee is made when I get up. I love that. But I also love that if the power is out and our generator doesn't kick in, which hasn't happened yet, thank God, I know how to use that percolator. So even if we have no power,  there will be coffee. And without coffee,
46:51People will die with coffee.  People stay alive. That's how this works in my house. That's what my son says. He goes, I don't tell you bad news before you have coffee.  Yeah, we're all addicts to coffee in this house and it's the only thing we're really addicted to. So I guess it's okay. But it be worse.  Could be way worse in the grand scheme of things. Yes. But knowing how to use a percolator, I didn't know how to set one up until maybe 15 years ago because I'd never used one. Yeah.
47:21Yeah, and it is. You got to find balance in it, right? Like, I'm probably not going to go buy horse panels brand new when I can find some bent ones, right? Because those are being shipped from China. But there is  such a given a take on our economy because it's based on the consumerism. And  I highly believe that is what makes people believe that they'll never own a house.
47:47Well, I got to go buy this thing. Well, this thing broke. like, yeah, the new stuff is not built the same way. But in that the same thing tractors, right? We talked about that on the all morning was tractors not being built the same. But I think there's items that you can be non-consumerism that that are smart. And there is it's always a fine line. I want to remind everyone that in life, everything is delicate. There's a balance, a yin and yang, right?  Homeostasis is the word.
48:15for when your body tries to do it.  When you go from really low lows to really high highs,  emotionally is homeostasis and that's with everything. Everything tries to find a neutralness world. And so if you can just do some of  on one side and some on the other, then it's helpful. And that's with your farm too, right? Like I'm buying some of my hay, but some of them I'm bartering for.  So  it makes it worth it. Cause when my husband goes out there, he gets a load of hay.
48:44He does some of his barter hours and then comes home. And so that yin and yang with getting the hay, buying it, making sure that we're set up  is important, but it applies. If I look anywhere in my life, that is a major thing. And so just yin and yang as we say sometimes and do the damn thing with the homesteading and five years from now, you're going to look back and be like, oh yeah, I do remember. Yeah, there was nothing there. That's crazy. Now look, there's something everywhere.
49:13that's built the way I need it. And that's how we're getting to year three, finally, we're seeing it. So don't let the first two years get you down, because it'll come back up. Yeah. And honestly, this lifestyle requires a lot of patience and a lot of planning. And we're five years in, Morgan. Yeah. And I looked outside this fall and went,  wow, cannot believe what this place looks like now.
49:41Yeah, oh yeah, with the trees that you're off, man. Yeah, year five, if you're still struggling at year five, then you might need to look at your business plan again. But if you're finally starting to lift, then that's when it's good. I worked for into, I sold accounting software  and I've talked to hundreds, if not thousands of business on the phone and I was having to pick apart their business in five years is the golden year. And that's when you should be able to reap the benefits, you know, and so it's.
50:08It's a lot of tenacity and people don't realize that there's a lot of heartbreak. There's a lot of ups and downs. There is good and bad and there is frustration  and exciting things that happen on the farm. But just keep pushing through. Like I think people are so used to,  what do they call it? uh Quick instant gratification, instant gratification. Thank you. Exactly that my generation, especially we love instant gratification. ah
50:38And farming and this lifestyle that we're living of being sustainable, it's not instant gratification. There's nothing instant about it actually,  to be really truthful, but there's gratification, it's just not instant.  And I think that that also is a big crux in farming too. We all just want instant gratification, but like Dave said, he puts up for the next year. You have to be one year in crop ahead.
51:05People don't realize that. They think, oh, you should just make all the money and be a big, bad, hey, bajillionaire the first year doing it. That's not true. You got to put up a full year before you can really feel that way. And it's so interesting because nobody online wants to talk about these dark things. Not dark, but just hard things. But if we can be comfortable talking about it and it's not just on the dead internet where everything is positive and everything's dandy and everyone's making millions of dollars when they're really not,
51:34then we actually get to learn and we actually get to move forward in what we're doing. Yep. The last major, what felt like instant gratification, it was not, but it felt like it  was when we learned that the offer for our place had been accepted by the seller. And it wasn't instant gratification. took like 20 years from  wanting to do this to getting here. But that moment of
52:02they accepted your offer was  amazing. And then the second one, which again, wasn't really instant gratification, but it felt like it was when I found out that we got the grant for our greenhouse that we talked about last time. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're looking at grants for greenhouses too, by the way, because of your idea. Yeah. And it wasn't instant because I had to actually apply for the grant and I didn't find out until six months after I'd applied for it. So that's definitely not instant gratification.
52:30But the highs, those have been the two biggest highs in the last five and a half years. There have been smaller highs, you know, and there have been really great things. There have also been some  lows. And there have been moments where I'm like, why are we doing this, really? And then there have been moments of, I know exactly why we do this. Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's a roller coaster ride doing this sometimes, but it's not a ride that I would want to get off of.
53:00No, I, every time we drive back through the town that we lived in before, the houses are really, really close together. It's a little tiny town. Yeah. And I get tense. I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe we lived in this way for 20 years before we live the way that we live now. get anxious. Oh, I couldn't live in the city. would, I lived in the city a lot. I can't.
53:28I can't handle it. I don't even like driving now. I can't tell you the last time I've had a drive at night. Like I just, don't, I have no desire to go back. And there are moments where something really bad happens and I'm like, I want to go back. I could live an easier life. I could go play sports on the weekends and go to the bar and do all this stuff, but it's not worth it. I mean, I would, I would have so much anxiety from this world that we live in that I wouldn't be able to enjoy my life.
53:56Yeah, and don't get me wrong. I still do like to socialize now and then, very rarely, but now and then I do like to see my friends.  And I do love it when my kids come to visit because that socializing with an extra. Yeah. To it. It's great. But I really do enjoy just being in my own home, not having to put on the show.  And when people come to visit, it's wonderful, but that happens rarely.
54:26Yeah, we're like, I mean, we have more visitors just because of the goats, but it's still pretty rare. Not going to lie, like one or two visitors a month, maybe. Yeah, we go mostly to people, but yeah, no, my, home is my sanctuary. It's my peace.  Um, it's where we feel most secure. It's where we have the most happiness.  Um, we have all the animals that we love  and that love us and that need us. And so.
54:53It's one of those things where when people are even like, do you want to come play trivia on Wednesday? And I'm like, no, I'd rather go pet the babies under the stars and look at the stars. Like I don't, I don't find any use in that, you know, because it's more stressful. got to drive into town. It takes up gas then, you know, the entry fees and stuff. I, and I think that when you find that kind of piece, does change your life.
55:20But like we've said, there's a lot of ups and downs. And I think sometimes just talking about that and normalizing that helps other people that are maybe in that low spot that are wanting to give up. Like just keep pushing, keep going. Yeah. If you're still alive, there's still hope and potential. Correct. Yeah. Oh yeah. Every day you wake up, you know, six feet above, there is potential. I would have never thought my life would have landed me here as a single broke mom in Tucson, Arizona in the ghetto. I lived in the hood.
55:49You know, and never did I think I'd be in Montana living this life. But I did it because of my tenacity. I kept pushing forward. Even in the lows, I was like, this is my goal. This is my goal. And being single, I was able to find someone that shared the same goal as me. Now, if you're married, hopefully you and your partner have the same goal or you can get on the same page and compromise. A lot of farming is compromising with your partner, compromising with your bank account  and compromising with where you live.
56:19Mm-hmm. Absolutely.  Morgan, I'm going to sound like your mom. I'm really proud of you.  Thanks. I'm super proud of you. Just in two short months, we've all accomplished a lot. Like hearing somebody else is in your farm stand, you're getting fertilizer and trade and bartering and using the system that's going to help farming. I am so glad that we got to talk about this because you were already putting this in place also.  Oh, yeah.
56:43We are always trying to figure out the smartest, most economical way to get things done here, doing the damn thing. Yeah. Oh, always. You got to do the damn thing.  I can't even talk. Do the damn thing. Get up,  get out of bed. If you're listening to this podcast, go do the damn thing. Do the thing that lights your heart on fire and never stop, no matter what gets in your way. can't. I mean, it brings tears to my eyes.
57:12to say that because we have gone through the ups and downs, but do the damn thing. No matter how upset other people are at maybe what you're doing, if you're doing the right thing and you're leading with a good heart and from a kind place, you're gonna succeed, even when you feel like you're failing. And sometimes you don't succeed at the thing that you were trying to succeed at. Sometimes life throws you a little curve ball in there and you become successful at the thing past that. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. And like,
57:42Just go with the ride. You're  here to experience. That's what humans are here to do. We're here to experience the world. Experience it to its fullest. Yep.  Absolutely.  Morgan, where can people find you online? Groovy Grazers. There's one with an MT and one without.  The one with the MT is more professional. That's going to be about the goats. Groovy Grazers for right now until we figure out a farm name is going to be where you can see everything going on at the farm.
58:12We own www.grooviegrazors.com. You can message me on there. The phone number that uh is on there is textable. Please feel free to reach out to me or give me a call. We like to talk to other people that are farming or have questions or bouncing ideas. um And you can find me on Instagram. I'm not as active on Instagram, but those are the two main places. Okay, awesome. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  And if you've gotten any kind of
58:41I don't know joy out of listening to my podcast or learn something  or had a good laugh or had a good cry.  You can support my podcast by going into the show notes and there's a link that says buy me a coffee  and that will allow you to kick a couple bucks at the podcast so I can keep it going. Yeah. And you have a Patreon too. You've got to talk about that.  I do have Patreon. It's patreon.com slash atinyhomestead. I am so proud of you. Good job.
59:10Thank you, proud of you too.  All right, Morgan, thanks for coming back. Me too, thanks for having us and we'll talk to you guys again. All right, thanks, bye.
 

Mother Clucking Eggs

Today I'm talking with Kristin at Mother Clucking Eggs.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Food Econ is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodecon.com and if you use the code HOME15,  you'll get 15 % off your registration costs.
00:29and that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefoodiecon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Kristen at Mother Clucking Eggs in Duluth, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Kristen. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. Is it gray up in the north there? It is a very gloomy day. Yeah. Typical November in the Northern tier states.  It is.
00:59Yeah, we're gray and it rained a little bit and it's breezy and it's cold. We just got the wood boiler going. Yes, I know. This weekend looks like it's going get down to the 20s. So I'm not quite ready for that, but yes. Yeah, we might get snowflakes. I know. Ready or not.
01:21Well, it is November what, ninth today?  Yes, seventh. Seventh, sorry. I'm way ahead of myself. um The  running joke in my family is that my birthday is November 4th and my daughter's is November 14th. And so we have a running bet as to whether it will snow by my birthday, in between my birthday and her birthday, or after her birthday.  And we're going to get snow here before her birthday. You think so?
01:51Yeah, I think so.  And she lives in Florida, so she won't see any snow, most likely. Oh my gosh. Lucky.  Yup. It's really weird having a kid who lives in the South  because she grew up, she grew up partly in Maine and partly here in Minnesota. And then she ended up in Florida. So, right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and mother clucking eggs, which is mother clucking fun to say.  My mom did not like  when I named it that.
02:21Um, she did not appreciate, but I think it's kind of funny.  is funny. So we moved out to the country,  um, six years ago and  I was obsessed with goats, specifically Nigerian dwarf goats. So,  um,  that was my first order of business was to get some goats. So I have two of those.  And,  um, then the next spring I.
02:48decided to get some chickens and I started with six and now I don't know what happened but I'm up to 44. Oh chicken math got you. It got me good. Okay so what else do you have anything? Two dogs, two kids and a husband. That is a good way to round it out I think. Yeah yes. Okay I have to ask what kind of dogs do you have? A golden retriever and a silver lab.
03:16So they're not necessarily livestock guardian dogs, although you may be using them that way. Yes, I do want a Great Pyrenees very badly, but my husband says that we cannot have a third dog. So I said um then we could maybe get a donkey, but he said no.  A dog would be easier than a donkey.
03:36I know. I know. I agree.
03:41Well, anyone who's listened to my podcast for over two years now knows we have a dog and I talk about her a lot. I really talked about her a lot in the beginning, but I try not to talk about her as much now.  Her name is Maggie. She's an  Australian shepherd and she only weighs 36 pounds. Oh my gosh. Little. She's a little Australian shepherd.  She was billed as a mini Australian shepherd, but having talked to people who raise Australian shepherds,
04:09I have been corrected. There is no such thing as a mini or a toy. They're just all Australian shepherds of varying sizes. Oh, I didn't know that either. So there's some, some dispute going on in the Australian shepherd world about  what they're called.  love her to pieces and she is definitely not a livestock guardian dog. She loves every critter that comes on the property  except for possums.  Oh.
04:38Okay. She thinks possums are cats until she realizes that they're possums and then she's like, oh, and she does this really deep in her throat growl. And that's when I know there's a possum outside because she sees them outside the window. Does she kill them?  No, because she's never she's never been up close with one.  Okay. There was one in the doghouse and she saw it and she thought it was one of our cats who she loves. And she went
05:07tail wagging up to the doghouse realized it was not one of our cats  and her hackles went up and she was just barking at it. My husband had to drag her in the house. Oh my gosh. And then he killed it instead of her killing it. So well job got done. Yep. She's not a livestock guardian dog, but she thinks she's a big dog. So  that's funny. Okay. So tell me, tell me why you moved to land and what prompted all this five years ago.
05:39So I was living in more in the city of Duluth and I grew up in Lakeside, so kind of close to Lake Superior.  But I've always liked um nature and being outdoors and  I loved my neighbors, but I was looking to not have neighbors so close  and land  and um we like to hunt. So we have some hunting stands on our land  and I was wanting.
06:08animals  and just the peace and quiet of the country. So we made the move out here. Okay, was this during COVID? It was right before. Okay. Bet you were glad you moved before COVID because I bet you got a really good price on your land compared to after COVID.  We did. We got lucky for sure. Yeah, us too.  moved in  in August of  2020. um
06:35So we've been here five years as well. eh And ah really glad my husband was ready to make the leap because if we waited even another year,  we wouldn't have been able to do it.
06:48Yeah, so understand not wanting to have neighbors really close. We are nearest neighbors a quarter mile away. Yeah. That's great. And we ended up becoming really close with our neighbors and now we have a trail going to each other's houses.  Oh, funny. uh Crazy. Yeah. Okay. So I know your place is called Mother Clucking Eggs, but you have goats. So,  so you have two goats.  We have two goats. Yep. Sullivan and Sebastian.
07:15Okay, and you just have them because they're fun?  literally just for fun. They serve no purpose. Okay, I'm assuming their weathers that they're not they don't they're not able to reproduce.
07:31They just rearrange  in the yard. The dogs are all out loose and the goats and the chickens and they all are just, they get along great and they all just walk around the yard together all day.  love it. They're friends.  They're friends. um The thing that a lot of people don't know is if you have male goats that are not um neutered, male goats are stinky and they're gross.  Yes, I am very glad that I do not have that.
07:58Yeah. So most people don't keep male, unneutered goats for fun.  No. Yeah. mean, male goats that are not fixed can be wonderful animals, but, um, you don't want to be hugging on them.  Nope. Nope. Yeah. They, they are, no spatial awareness. They will come right up on your lap and, um, jump up on the patio table and.
08:26play with the kids, the kids will be on the swings and they'll be headbutting the swing and pushing them on the swing actually. It's pretty funny.
08:35Oh, silly.  All right. So, um tell me about the chicken situation. um I know you sell your eggs for $6 a dozen because I saw it on your Instagram page. Yeah. But do you sell like hatching eggs? Do you sell chicks? Do you do any of that? Not yet.  I'm hoping to get more into that next year. I have five roosters right now.  And I actually got some hatching eggs from a lady.
09:03this past spring and I put them in my incubator and hatched them. So that was pretty fun. Um, so they are a little better quality of a chicken and they lay a really cool, like deep green brown color. um and those colors are hard to find in chickens that you buy from hatcheries. So I'm kind of making the shift now from buying chicks  at, from hatcheries online or,  um, the local feed store and getting more into breeding and, um
09:32hatching on my own. that's been kind of fun. is my last, this past spring was my first time doing that.  Okay. So this, this brings up a couple of questions for me because we have chickens too, but we have them basically for eggs. We sell eggs from our our farm stand to our community.  And that's, that's pretty much it. And they're just the, uh, the ISA, they used to be reds, but now they're calling them Browns, ISA Browns.
09:58And they are friendly, they are calm, they don't attack you when you try to take their eggs. We love them. great.  And I don't ever see us branching into  getting chickens for different colored eggs because the purpose of ours is just  to keep people fed. is it just that you're interested in the breeding and the different colors and the different varieties of chickens or what is it about it that makes you want to go further?
10:28So when I first got chickens, I was getting all the frizzles and the silkies and the polish and all the funny, cool-looking chickens. And  they were decent layers, but they were all just like your typical light tan colored egg. And then  my first colored egg came from my Americana who lays light blue. And I was like, this is kind of fun. So  I started researching more on what chicken breeds lay different colors.
10:56That was a slippery slope, which is why I ended up with 44. Um, because I just started getting all these other different kinds. And it's fun because there might be a breed that lays greens or greens and blues, but you don't know exactly what shade or what it will look like, or if it's going to have a heavy bloom or be speckled. And I just think that it's so cool. The variety of eggs that you can get from one animal. And it's kind of like a game. Like I'm.
11:26Now trying to get more speckles in my eggs and which two can I breed to try to get that and just making my cartons a little prettier and more fun. And yeah, it's been fun. Okay. And I was not absolutely not giving you a hard time about it. It's just that my husband is the one that really handles the chickens and the garden. And if I said to him, Hey, we should get a whole bunch of different kinds of chickens so we can have a rainbow.
11:54carton to sell to people, he would look at me like I was cracked.  My husband probably would have too, but I more just come home with  more eggs and chickens.  there was actually a time this summer where he looks at me and he goes, um how many chickens do we have? And when I told him the number, think his jaw about hit the floor because I think he thought we were more in like  the 20 range.  Uh huh.
12:19Yup. I try so hard to keep out of  the gardening and the chicken stuff because  my husband is the gardener. He is obsessed with it. I have said it a billion times on the podcast in the last two years.  And he's not obsessed with the chickens. He thinks that it's very easy because basically we get our laying hens from a friend who raises them and we get them at about 18 to 20 weeks. And then a couple of weeks later, they start laying. So
12:46It's simple. get the chickens, we put them in their coop. There's a nice run for them. He feeds them, he waters them. We have eggs. works out  great.  That's all he wants. And that's all I want him to want. We're good.  However,  all that. Yeah. Well, we have talked about that. He has actually brought it up a couple of times  and I said to him, I said,
13:13I don't really have any problem with getting the incubator and the laying eggs and the whole bit. said, but where are we going to put the brooder?  I because if we're going to do it, we need to do it in like, it takes six, five to six months for them to be ready to lay. And that means that they're going to have to be in side. I don't want a stinky brooder in my kitchen and there's no other place to put it.  I get that. Yeah, that's fair.
13:43And he was like, well, maybe we could put it in the greenhouse because the greenhouse is warm through the winter. And I'm like, I am afraid of that because, and I'm always afraid of stuff. will, I will be honest. I was like, I'm afraid of that because what if  something goes wrong with the heat lamp  catches on fire and we lose our greenhouse.  And he was like, Oh, I hadn't thought of that. And I said, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. greenhouse was built with a grant.
14:12that we got that I applied for and it was $5,000 and we cannot replace that greenhouse if it goes up in flames. So probably not on the brooding, the brooding chickens, know, baby chickens, but we will always have chickens as long as we can. Yeah, they're so fun. I love them. Do you name yours?  No,  no, we do not because chickens are food.
14:43The first chickens we got, we got four and we named them A, B, C, and D. And my next door neighbor at the time said to me, why are they A, B, C, and D? And I said, because everybody keeps asking us if we name them. And if they're really pushing, I say, Anna, Bella, Kara, Dana. And she was like, oh, A, C, and D. And I said, uh-huh, any name that starts with A, B, C, or D.
15:10She was laughing so hard. thought she was going to pee her pants.  That's smart. But no, we don't name food.  It's just a bad plant and we try not to have favorite chickens. We did rabbits for a while and  oh, I don't want to do rabbits ever again because baby rabbits are the cutest thing ever.  Yeah, I would not be able to do that. Yeah, no, we did it  and we did it for a year and we got one litter out of two does and a buck and I was just like, we're not feeding rabbits to feed rabbits. Forget it.
15:40Yeah.  But those babies from that one litter, oh my sweet, ever loving Jesus, they were so sweet. Oh, that's so fun.  Yeah. And it's really funny because I've talked to a couple other people that raise chickens and they have some form of  cluck in name of their business. Yeah. And I'm always really careful about saying it because, you know, I don't want to get in trouble on a podcast. uh
16:08What I will tell you is that when the chickens are being stupid, my husband and I call them mother cluckers all the time.  Oh yes.  See, it's perfect. It's just fitting. Yep. And way before we ever got chickens, I have a friend who lives in Cloquet or Duluth. I don't know which it is.  And they're the ones that have the locally laid egg company. Oh yeah. Lucy and Jason. Yeah, I've seen them. um
16:37I had found her on Facebook  about something else. She writes, she writes books. And so I was talking to her about her books and she, she messaged me at some point and said, we're, we're, my husband is decided, has decided we're going to start a chicken business. And I said, oh, really?  And she said, yeah. And I said, how many? And she was like hundreds. I was like,  Oh,  okay. A business.  And she was like, yeah. And she said, she said, yeah. She said, and they're all going to be named Lola. Yep.
17:07And I said, Lola, and she said, yeah, for locally laid. And I was like, okay.  And as I watched her, as I watched her business grow,  way that they play on chicken language is ridiculous.  It's so fun.  is fun. That's awesome. And I think they're still in the business and they also ended up getting into like,  I want to say blueberries or strawberries or something. They're at, I think they do the, aren't they at the honey berry place?
17:40Yes, sorry. Yes, Honeybird. Okay, yeah. Yep, they're super nice people. I love Lucy so much. She's great.  That's awesome. And she's a neighbor too, to you, so. Yes,  yes she is. Have you met them?  No, just at like different events in Duluth. Okay, yeah. Not like actually.
18:04I have not met Lucy yet either because I'm never up in Duluth. I've been to Duluth once. It's beautiful. Duluth is a beautiful city. Anyone who's listening who wants to visit Minnesota,  do not go to Minneapolis. Go to Duluth. Duluth is way prettier.  Yes, we love it up here. Yep. And there's so many small businesses in Duluth that are just so amazing.  are.
18:32And we need to support small businesses. go, go to Duluth, go support a small business in Duluth. It'll be great.  Okay. So,  um,  when egg prices started to spike, what a year and a half ago now. Yeah.  Did you start selling more eggs? I did.  I did. That's about when I started selling eggs actually is when,  um, we saw the egg prices go up  and  I started, um,
19:01My counter was flooding with eggs and I was giving to family and friends and more just giving them away. And we still really couldn't keep up with how many eggs we had. And my husband was like, why aren't you selling these? And I was like, I don't know. It just seems like too much work. I guess I've never really thought about it. And then one of my childhood best friends is the one that really gave me the final push to start mother clucking eggs. And she helps me a lot with different designs and more the
19:30social media and tech part of it. I'm not really tech savvy, so she's been really helpful for that.  And I started selling  more to just like coworkers and people that I knew when I started the Instagram and it was pretty fun  to start having people that I didn't even know message me for orders and um meeting up with people in the community for.
19:56fresh eggs and it just kind of took off from there. So for a while I was um more like taking orders, like you would message me and ask for however many dozen that you wanted.  And I would message you when your order was laid, but the list was getting so long that people were waiting four or five weeks for their order. So um I stopped doing it that way. And um most recently I sold out of a outside of a
20:26local salad place down in Lakeside, um just right outside on the street. And that was a lot of fun.
20:34Nice. So you guys don't have a farm stand at your place? No, we don't. It wouldn't be a good road for that. We don't have a shoulder on our road  and we're kind of more tucked back. It's not a busy road at all.  And um also I watch too much true crime for strangers come to my house. Yeah. I don't, I don't watch or listen to true crime at all.
21:02I'm like, nah, I don't need to make myself more scared than I usually am.  I'm good. I'm going to believe that the world is full of good people.  And if I get murdered  at my house, then  it's suddenly not my problem anymore.
21:20Yes. I would like to live to a ripe old age of like  200. 200 would be great, but  I don't see that happening, but that would be cool.  I would, I would really like to just die in my sleep while I'm dreaming when I'm old. That would be great.  Yeah. like a great idea to me. um Okay. So let me think here.  What, what breeds of chickens do you have right now? Holy moly.
21:50All of them.  Yeah. Yeah. I have um maybe like seven silkies.  drove um like two hours one way to pick up four, um what are they called? Satin lace silkies. Those are really cool.  So those are more just like little fluffy fun.  I definitely do not have those for the eggs. More just cute little fuzzy cotton ball things.  And then we have um
22:19Americana is the ISA Brown speckled Sussex fired rocks. um Golden laced, silver laced, Rhode Island reds. um Some that just hatched in the barn sometimes without me even knowing that was happening. So maybe a dozen are just mixes that um usually the silky is hatched because they are broody quite often.
22:48And,  um,  we have buff Brahma's buff, Orphan Tins, Cochins,  um, a lot of Marins. um
23:05Yeah, a lot.  White leg corn. Are the marins the ones that lay the really dark brown eggs? Yes. The reddish brown eggs. Yep. So my favorite ones are crossed with um olive eggers.  So what happens there? What color do they end up being? So the bird itself is just jet black with a copper neck and then the eggs are um like a deep.
23:34green brown and actually one of mine are laying like a super, super dark chocolate brown, which I was not expecting. And I was so excited when I went out to the coop and saw that it was a couple of weeks ago and I still have the egg in my fridge because I just can't throw it away. I can't do it. Yeah. It's a jewel in  the refrigerator. Yes, it is. is. Somebody told me to poke a little needle hole and then like blow the yellow coat.  Yeah.
24:05Yeah. And that way you can keep it. Yeah. We'll see. Sounds kind of gross. It's not. I've done it for Easter eggs. Yeah. So you mentioned the Orpingtons or Orphingtons, however you pronounce it. Yeah. Yeah. We picked up some, some, uh, pullets from a guy 20 minutes away, two summers ago, and we didn't know what kind of breed, what, what breeds they were. We were just like, we need 12 chickens. And he was like, pick one, the ones you want. Yeah.
24:35And he had all these different little bullets running around in his barn. And there were two  that were sort of like silvery gray and they were really pretty. And I said to my husband, said, if you can catch at least one of those guys, I would love one of those.  And my husband walked over and had a net and scooped it up and put it in the box. We had the ones and we brought them home  and I didn't know what they were. And as it got older, it just got more and more  beautiful.  I
25:04Finally just took a picture of it and uploaded it to whatever the thing is on Google where it'll tell you what you have. Yeah. And it said something lavender, lavender orpington.  Ooh, that's on my wish list. And oh my God, what a beautiful chicken. Like I am not in love with chickens. They are a means to an end for me, but I was a little smitten with this one. What color egg did she lay?  I don't know. Okay. Because they all lay in the chicken.
25:34the laying boxes and we never know who lays what. So I don't know, but beautiful animal. It's hard when you find one that you want to know which egg they're laying and it's hard to figure it out. Yeah, unless you know the breed. mean, Americanas tend to lay green eggs. So if you've got a green egg, that's probably what laid it.  But uh that chicken killed over about six months after it got to be an adult.  Oh no.
26:02And my husband came in and he said, I don't want to tell you. And I'm like,  oh, no, what? Because I thought maybe one of the barn cats had died.  He said, you know your favorite chicken? And I was like, no. He said, yeah. He said, she's laying on the ground dead. And I'm like,  damn it.  Oh, that's always so hard.  He said, you don't even like chickens. I said, but I like that one.  What this one? He was like, you're so silly. said, yeah, That's why you can't pick favorites. I've learned the hard way many times.
26:31Yeah, and that's why we don't name them and that's why we try not to, you know, have a smi- try not to be smitten with any of them. But that one just had my heart. Yep. And in that same batch, there was another chicken that didn't have any kind of comb. Nothing. It had a round top to its head. Yeah. It was the only one in the whole group that we- that was like that and we named it oddball. We named that one because- because it was an oddball.
26:59I wonder if it had frostbite or something. It was like that from the very beginning, like a baby. yeah.  Never developed a comb. Just genetic, interesting. Yeah, and so um when Oddball died, um my husband came in and he said,  I don't know whether you're going to be sad or if you're going to laugh. And I was like, what?  He says, Oddball, unalive itself. Herself. What did she do? And I said, how? And he said,  she was.
27:27He said she was laying on the ground in front of the waterer, because it was on the base, uh on the floor of the chicken coop.  He said, and head under the water in the waterer.  was like, huh. Did it get stuck? He doesn't know. He didn't know what happened. Oh, those are so hard. Yeah. Yeah. And he said, are you sad? And I was like, I'm more perplexed than sad. Yeah, right.
27:52Yeah, we want to know what happened.  So we lost the  pretty one and we lost Oddball  and  the rest of them were all kind of the same looking chickens so there was no differentiation on them. Yeah. And when you have the same breed of chicken, you don't necessarily get smitten with any of them. Yeah. So that helps. But those are my two chicken stories that are of any importance, I guess is a good word to use. uh
28:21My favorite thing about chickens is that they give us eggs and they keep us fed and they have very nutritionally dense properties.
28:30That's my favorite thing.  So,  yeah.  Are you going to get more chickens or are you, have you capped out for a while?  Um, well, we usually lose a few a year to predators. We free range.  um, I'm guessing,  I guess we'll just see where we're at in the springtime. How many we're at. I do have a few that I,  um,
29:00I'm hoping to get so I'm  I'm guessing I'll get more. Hopefully my husband doesn't listen to this.
29:10I suspect he probably already knows you're gonna get more.
29:18Um, one of the things that I love so much about the topic of my podcast is that it's homesteaders and you're not necessarily a homesteader, but she's not necessarily not a homesteader. And what's great is when I talk to people, there's always some farm animal noise in the background. I can hear, I can hear your rooster crowing. uh Pancake, rooster. Yep. Yep.  There was a lady who was, uh, she was pruning her grape vines while we were talking.
29:47And I could hear  the pruners clicking in the background. That was funny. And there was a lady who had donkeys and they were out in the field. They weren't by the house. And they were braying and you could hear them. are loud. She's like, God, I love the background noises on my bog dance. Yeah, for sure.  So, all right. Well, Kristen, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about all your plans  and about your chickens.
30:16and about your goats for funsies, I think that's great.  Where can people find you?
30:24I have an Instagram. It's at mothercluckingeggs. um The goats also have an Instagram. It is linked on that page if you would like to follow them with their adventures.  didn't see it.  What's their name for Instagram? It is Sullivan.Sebastian.Ngd Nigerian  dwarf goat. Sullivan and Sebastian are their names. Oh, there will be people who want to go look at their page. know there will be.  They're pretty fun.
30:51All right, as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Check out my Patreon. It's patreon.com slash atinyhomestead.  Kristin, I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Thank you so much. You too. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Bye. Bye.
 

Stone Soup Farm - SNAP How to find help, and how to help

Today I'm talking with Megan McGovern at Stone Soup Farm.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Have you thought about being a cottage food producer?  Or if you're a cottage food producer, have you thought about expanding it into a small business?  Cottage Foodie Con is probably for you.  You can find more information at cottagefoodiecon.com and if you use the code HOME15,  you'll get 15 % off your registration costs.
00:29and that price is valid through the end of November.  So again, check out cottagefruitycon.com.  A tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Megan McGovern  at  Stone Soup Farm  in Oregon. Is that right?  No, I'm in a little town called Ferndale, Washington, which is about as far north  west in the United States you can get without being in the ocean or Canada.
00:59I was one state away. I screwed up. I'm sorry. uh Good um afternoon, Megan. How are you? Good. I'm doing great. Thanks. Good. um So how's the weather there? um You know, the nice thing about Washington, and we love it here, we are right on the, it's a beautiful place.  We're in between mountains on the East and they are just gorgeous mountains. And on the West, about eight miles of us, there is ocean.
01:27So we have everything we have. could literally if you were doing like a design theme, you could have, you know, Western house in a little log cabin or you could have a cabin in the woods or you could have beach house. It's really fantastic here. And the best part is that it never gets really cold and it never gets really hot. So in the winter never gets dips below freezing a few times, never gets a hard freeze or much snow, a couple inches here and there. Summer never gets above 75, 80 degrees.
01:57The winter is dark and gloomy and they call it the big dark. In the summer, you've got daylight till almost 10 o'clock at night. You can't even go watch fireworks, 4th of July, because it never gets dark. In the winter, it's dark at 430 and doesn't get light till 815 and we're right heading into that. And it rains every day all day long. And this weekend, this whole week has been dark and gloomy and overcast and sad. Makes me miss summer already and it's only November.
02:26As I sounds like November. We're kind of in the same boat today. It's drizzly and it's gray and I think it's like 45 degrees outside in Minnesota. Yeah, but it gets cold there. also not only cold, you have sunny days occasionally though, right? Oh, we have lots of beautiful, bright, crisp.
02:46Yeah, bright blue sunny days, you bright blue sky sunny days. Yes, absolutely. But today is not one of them. my  my husband happens to have a doctor's appointment here in an hour. So he's home today.  And he just got the wood burning boiler started for the first time this season.
03:05Yeah, yeah, we're about to start. Same thing. I love that thing. It saves us so much money in the wintertime, because as long as we're willing to do the work, the wood is paid for. Well, we have a very old not OK, not very old by Minnesota standards, but we have a farmhouse that's been a farm since the 1920s. And one of our little buildings outside was built as a place for farmhands to sleep in the 1940s. And my two adults
03:34sons are both ones in college and ones just graduated and they're both moving home for a while to save money and they want to live in this little outbuilding. It is not insulated. It is not warm. It is basically a barn and they're trying to keep warm with a little propane stove and it's not working. We might need to upgrade to wood for a while or something because it's or I could insulate but you know that's work. So we'll see.
03:59Whatever you're do you better get on it. No kidding the bar cats are sleeping on their beds right now to get everybody keep warm. yeah, exactly All right. So tell me a little bit about your farm we Honestly, we did not set out to be farmers Although I have always loved food and the food supply and figuring out where my food came from but we have
04:26three kids who are all gluten-free and dairy-free  for health reasons. And so we need to be very strict about what we eat.  And  my middle son, he's in college right now, but he needed room to roam. He could not be contained in a suburban household.  And he's the kid that when you go to the park, he's the one that all the other moms are pointing at the tallest tree and saying, whose kid is that?
04:54and it would be mine.  And so when we,  we had to move to Washington for my husband's job  and we decided that a farm, all he wanted was goats  and  we  have always homeschooled, but he in particular was the one who benefited the most from  homeschooling. We call it goat schooling. And so we needed a place where he could have goats and trees to climb and where he could just move and move and move. And this was perfect for him. It's an old dairy farm from the 1920s.
05:23And it had been neglected for the last 30, 40 years and was kind of falling apart. But we moved here and got that boy a goat and holy moly, he was happy. And within a couple of years we were in 4-H and all of a sudden we had cows and we were raising beef cows or steers. And we had a couple of cows to raise the steers. And it was a lot of fun. We've never done crops. I've just done extensive gardening. But Washington State is fantastic for food.
05:52Because this was an old farm stand or farmstead, we had apple trees that are 100 years old and there's blackberry bushes everywhere.  And if you spit out a cherry seed, a tree grows the next year. It's just incredibly fertile and beautiful. And with all this rain, you know, there's  never a drought. There's a pond, there's a creek. It's just kind of a lovely place. And we never really made much money on the farm, but we always made enough that we had a side of beef in the freezer and maybe uh half
06:21pig and you know tons of applesauce and apple cider and then we trade with neighbors and so it wasn't ever designed to make money but it was certainly designed to  you know keep a farming lifestyle  and  keeping up with our food and our family.  love it and I love that you called it goat schooling that is beautiful.  Well he always said he was not academic and he wasn't going to go to college and he wasn't interested in anything  and there was no way he was very interested he has his own
06:51you know, special interests, we'll call them,  and his was politics and he was very, very into politics. And I said, well, you can't do much with politics if you don't go to college. There's, you know, there's not much call for guys who graduated from high school but can name every senator. It's not really, you know, a niche market for that.  And with goat schooling, we never did any curriculum. We never did anything except
07:16you know, following his interests. And so he was in a program for politics in high school called Youth and Government. It's run by the YMCA and it teaches you how to write a bill and how to work with state legislature and what it means to be in politics. And so he was always very into that. And we did a lot of cool stuff homeschooling. And I'll tell you what, that kid got into every college he applied to and he got waitlisted at Harvard. so  goat schooling apparently works and that might be my new
07:43Big thing, maybe I'll make my first million dollars by teaching people how to goat school. I think you should. think the world would be a better place if you did.  So anyway, it's been a, we're slowing down now. My husband is 62 and he's always had an outside job to  feed the cows.  And since my sons are both  grown, my 15 year old daughter, for whatever reason, doesn't like slopping pigs and feeding cows. So. oh
08:10The animals are slowing down. know, funny, huh? But we still have the acreage and we still have my son's beloved goats.  And I'm still very uh heavily involved in the food community in  our town.  You are amazing at setting me up for the segue. Thank you.  Kind of figured. I really wanted to hear about your farm because that's kind of what the podcast is about. And I really love talking to people who are doing things like you're doing.
08:40But I saw a couple of your Facebook posts about this situation with Snap. And I was like,  I need to talk to this lady because I need to talk to somebody about my feelings about this Snap situation going on in America right now.  So I'm going to let, well, I  actually made notes. That's how focused I was on this. Okay, good.  So I'm going to share what I found and then you can jump in and tell me what you think about what I found.
09:08The thing is, a lot of people assume that SNAP is something that only people who are lazy and of color need. And this is not true.  I found statistics. Roughly one in eight people in the U.S. used SNAP benefits this year, with approximately 42 million Americans receiving aid to afford groceries each month.  That's a lot of people.
09:36Here's the thing, SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition, because what it is meant to do  is to keep children, especially,  but people who are disabled and people who need a little boost, is designed to help them get better nutrition.  Because the fundamental American system has always been set up since  the  1940s,  since we set up Social Security and  all the other  benefits we now take for granted, things like  weekends.
10:06and no more child labor,  we now have programs set up that in theory every American should have basic access to food.  That everybody should either be able to, if you have a disability and can't work, you are too aged to work, you have a back that won't allow you to do any of, and you had always worked in a factory line, that um you're supposed to get a basic supplemental
10:34need that would enable you to feed yourself. But what was happening was people weren't eating well enough. Children were not getting enough nutrition.  People were living on rice. And SNAP is set up to make sure that you get a little bit extra every month so that a mother with three kids, if her husband has passed away, the husband's not in the picture,  there's no child support, her kids can get apples, or they can get oranges, or once in a while they could get a birthday cake or ingredients for birthday cake from the store. So it's not meant to be something that
11:03is the only way that people live. That's why it's called the Supplemental Program. Right. But the way things have gone, and I don't care who you blame or how you think we got here, the way things have gone, many people are not getting even the basics for food. And there are a lot of families, I'm friends with a family, a homeschooling family, that had adopted three children from foster care because of severe neglect and
11:33One of the things that ah the kids had told me, they became very good friends with my friends, with my kids, that the hardest weeks of the year for them  were Easter break  and Thanksgiving break because the rest of the year, every day they ate at school, they ate breakfast and lunch every day,  five days a week. They struggled on weekends because their parents didn't feed them, but at least they knew they had those 10 meals a week.
11:58But during Easter week, there's no extra lunch program. The school doesn't set up an extra lunch program during that break. during Christmas, there's a break. And usually during Christmas, they would have relatives, they would have friends, they would have some leftover food somewhere. But that was all they got was what the school gave them. So something like that,  and this, mean, obviously the parents didn't even bother applying to SNAP where they kept the food for themselves. But kids like that, there are millions of kids like that in the United States.
12:27who don't have any food at all, and they don't have the basics. And I think people seem to misunderstand and think that there's people who are just applying for SNAP and eating it on their own. I have a sister who's homeless. She's mentally ill. She can't live on her own. We, as my family, have kind of plugged in to help her get an apartment because she was living on the streets. And she's applied for SNAP, and she gets $300 a month for food.
12:58And of course we could all pitch in and also give her 300 a month for food. But there are plenty of people who don't have families who could pitch in and get an apartment. There are people on the streets who have no food at all. And SNAP is just, I mean, if you're living in a tent and the only food you get is, you know, your $150 in SNAP benefits, that's about $35 a week, something like that, that you're trying to make last all month long. And
13:27$35 a week doesn't last long. You know, not for one person and not if you don't have a kitchen and you're trying to make sandwiches, it's literally just tuna fish and a thing of mayonnaise and bread from the dollar store.  And it's even worse now because of inflation.  Oh, it's worse now because of inflation and it's because of the restrictions and it's worse because you have to do all sorts of hoops to jump through to prove that you benefit for this. And I hear so many accusations and
13:56things like, oh, well, it's only going to illegal immigrants. If you look at the application, I'm not making this up. This isn't fake news. If you go look at the application for SNAP, the first thing it says is you have to be a legal citizen or you have to be legal resident or a citizen of the United States to get SNAP benefits. End of discussion. So it's not going to people who don't need it. No one is going to go apply for SNAP if they don't need it. And they're not going to get approved if they don't need it.
14:23I don't know. see a lot of people complaining and say, well, they buy soda and they buy pizza and how dare they, you know, they're buying steak. Well, you know what,  what's in your grocery cart people? How,  you know, how do you your business? Yeah. And the other thing is, is that I thought with SNAP benefits, you couldn't buy like, like candy or, Oh no, you can buy whatever you want. And that is, and I understand to some degree, I understand
14:50why people don't want other people buying candy or pop with their own,  with tax money. But on the other hand, it really is supplemental.  If the parents  of these kids are really just getting by, if they're buying stuff for a birthday cake, or they want to have a party for their kid because their kids never had one,  and they take $25 out of their SNAP benefits to buy some candy for a party, or they take $25 to buy some soda so that their kids have soda for the field trip like everybody else,
15:20I can't imagine judging somebody for that. And if they didn't do that, yeah.  I didn't know that. um When I had my first child, my only daughter,  I got WIC benefits, which is not the same thing.  And with WIC, I was not allowed to get anything except stuff that was nutritionally dense like peanut butter and milk and eggs.  WIC is set up. um
15:45for women and children, but it's also set up to help farmers. It's one of the ways that they get rid of excess cheese and milk is they know it's going to go into the WIC program. And it's one of ways they keep dairy prices stable. They know it's going to go into the WIC program. Okay. I don't want to get sidetracked, but that's why I would confuse. No, But this program is literally, they give you basically cash on a card. You can buy whatever you want, except what I think is interesting. You can't buy hot food. So you can't buy a rotisserie chicken. You can't buy a heated up lasagna. You can't buy a
16:14pizza from the window at the grocery store where they have hot pizzas set there.  Which I agree, if you are on WIC and you're using this money, you should be buying a chicken and cooking it. But there are so many people now who are living in a shelter, staying at their sister's house on the couch, and they can't cook a whole chicken. There are so many people who can't cook nowadays. At all.  I'm  a scout master for a scout troop here. And one of the things we're doing this month is
16:43We're going to go and volunteer at a place like a food pantry where they hand out meals and food to people. And I am very, very passionate about food rescue. And this is one of the places that rescues food that would be thrown away. And so this place always has carrots  and lettuce and onions to hand out to people. But a lot of the people who come through are living in a car. And if you're living in a car, you're living in an RV with a broken heater, handing somebody an onion isn't going to help anything.
17:13No. And giving someone carrots with the... So many people, this is the other thing that gets me besides food waste is the fact that our government and our healthcare system treats teeth as a luxury item. And so many people have no teeth that it makes it really hard to feed people because you can't feed anybody anything except soup if they're missing three teeth. Or rice. Or rye-lates or something. It's rice.
17:41It's rice, bread, soup, stew.  And so when you hand somebody carrots, onions, and  potatoes, and they're raw,  of course it's wonderful food that can go to somebody who's hungry. But there are a lot of people who can't benefit from  this kind of thing.  And so I just think people are missing the point when they say, oh, snap benefits go to lazy people who are buying junk. Of course there are people who are buying junk. Most of them are
18:09there are a lot of poor people who are really uneducated about food and about nutrition and there people who are super educated about food and nutrition but who can't do better  and they can't do better because they're living in their car or because their kids have eating disorders or the kids have anxiety or because that's what the other kids in their class want and they just want their kid to feel like they fit in. You know?  Absolutely. And  this situation with SNAP when I found out what three weeks ago?
18:38that people who receive SNAP benefits weren't going to receive them. I had a moment of just tears in my eyes because all I could think about was all these little kids who aren't going to eat well. Well, you know what's going to happen? I was really upset.
18:56Go ahead. No, go ahead. You go first. What did you say to your husband? I said to my husband, said, honey, I I thought things were bad. said, things just went from bad to abysmal. And he was like, what are you talking about? And I explained it to him and I had tears in my eyes.  And he said, you love our children more than life itself. said, I sure do. And they're adults.  He said, you love babies and toddlers.
19:21a lot. I said, do. said, and that's who this is really, really, really going to affect because  number one, those kids are not going to have food that's good for them. Number two, their parents are going to be so stressed out that that's going to affect them. said, this is just like a snowball effect. And I just talked for 20 minutes  and he was like, so what can you do? And I laughed and I said, I'm going to find somebody to chat with about on my podcast.
19:51He said, do that. He said, because you are one person, he said, but you have a voice. And I was like, yes, I do. So that's why we're talking. So  one of the things, what I was going say before is that one of the things is that in a lot of families, the kids won't go hungry because the mother won't eat. Yep.  And that's just a hundred percent fact that a lot of mothers, especially right now, they've always been eating light and telling the kids they're not hungry. But now the mother just won't eat and that's just the way it goes.
20:21And of course there are other people who won't eat, there's,  so a couple of things about SNAP. um 60 % of the families that use SNAP have children under 18  and the other 40%, almost all of them are um elderly  and  they cannot go get a job. They cannot go, you know, do better. They're, social security doesn't cover their basic expenses if they have social security  and
20:48So there's no way for them to supplement this. This is it. They just go without. But one of the interesting things is that 200,000 people that are on SNAP or using SNAP benefits are active duty military.  you're talking about a father who's deployed in the military and a mother with two kids who's left behind on base or in their hometown. And the father's pay doesn't stretch far enough to cover basic
21:17living because if it did, then the family wouldn't qualify for SNAP. So the father, I don't know what starting salary for the military is probably around $40,000 a year. It's probably minimum wage in a lot of uh cases if the  father gets deployed. And I may be way off military.  I'm terrible with numbers like that.  But it's low enough that it qualifies as below the standard for SNAP. So the father gets deployed. The mother stays behind with two kids. They don't have money for food. Should the mother go get a job?
21:45I  mean, who knows what her circumstances is? Maybe her mother's on hospice.  Maybe  her dad lives with them. Maybe one of her kids is disabled. It doesn't matter. We can't just tell everybody to go get a job. In the meantime, these people who are saying, they don't deserve it, who deserves it more?  A kid whose father is deployed doesn't deserve food? Is that really what you're saying when you say cut SNAP benefits?
22:12So I'm just frustrated by the whole thing. But yes, I do think there are things we can do to fix it. Okay. Well, I don't know. I don't know how to fix the government being shut down, but I do know that as a single person in the world, I'm married, but as a single human being, myself, entity, there are things that I can do. And I'm doing one of them by talking about this with you. The other thing that I can do.
22:40is I can go to our local food shelf, we are friends with the president,  and say,  what do you need? Do you need us to volunteer? Do you need money?  Do you need gift cards so that people can go buy their own groceries? What do you need?  And do  those things. The other thing is that churches, I don't know, when I was a kid, I'm 56, but when I was a kid, the local church, when somebody needed help,
23:09They jumped right to it.  I don't know churches are still like that. I hope that they are. And in Minnesota, there is a phone number that you can call. I think it's called the first call for help. And  they specifically help people, whether you're having a mental health crisis, whether you need food, whether you need housing, that's the place you call and they are the resource to help you. I don't know if every state has that, but Minnesota does. I'm sure most states have some kind of
23:38hotline or some kind of place where you can go and you can call  and they give you access to all of the state funding things. However, most state budgets are really in trouble right now. There's not a lot of food going to food banks. There's certainly not extra flowing anywhere. um I did read this morning that in some states, SNAP benefits are being turned back on again, even though there's a court order saying they shouldn't and they're going back and forth. um
24:06Even if SNAP benefits were turned back on today, there are so many cuts everywhere that this is an important conversation to have about how to help.  what we're trying to do is we can't, it's like when you show up to you know, an  accident scene and there's, you know, hundred bodies on the ground and you don't know who's  well and who's sick and who's,  you're playing triage, but you're a civilian. Say you have a...
24:31basic, basic first aid and you understand how to help a person in shock, but you're certainly not a trauma surgeon, your job isn't to go into surgery on this and your job isn't to say, whose fault was the accident? And your fault isn't to say, well, I'm going to blame this person or that person or talk about how the airplane's  gauge must've been faulty. Your job is to look at the first person next to you and say, what can I do to help you?
25:01And how, or how can I help the helpers? You go to the lead helper, the person who's running the trauma response and say, what do you need?  Your job isn't to go to each individual person and say, well, how do you feel about this? Can you prove to me that you need help more than the person over there? I need you to tell me that you deserve help before I go help anybody else. Cause I need to see who's in that  none of that matters. What matters is  going to the person who does know how to help, which would be here.
25:30the food pantries, the churches, the areas in our, our, every community that have been doing this for years. And here you are just showing up on the scene saying, I know how to do it better than you.  And I want to help, but it needs to feel good. Or I want to help, but I don't like the way you're doing it. And I don't like,  I know the church is handing out food, but it's not the same denomination I'm in. So maybe  none of that matters. No, don't make it about you. Make it about the people who need help. Right.  And
25:58So literally there are two ways to help. And one would be going to the person on the ground nearest to you and saying, what do you need right this second? Are you dying? Do you need a band-aid? Do you have a headache? How can I stabilize you until help can get here? The other thing you can do is go to the head of the place, the food bank, whatever it is, and say, what do you want me to do? And they might say, don't talk to the people on the ground. Go get me more bandages.
26:27Can you call 14 different people for me and get them to come help? Whatever it is they want, that's the way you can be most useful. And in the food banks case, so many people want to help by buying canned food or going to their grocery store and getting donations to give to the food bank. And that is 100 % a viable, useful way to give to the food bank and to give to people.
26:54The food banks are also inundated with boxes of canned mac and cheese or boxes of mac and cheese and canned green beans. And every single year at Thanksgiving, they have thousands of cans of green beans, but they don't have apples. Right. And they might not have rice and they might not have beans because nobody wants to give them that because that's not nearly as much fun as giving them mac and cheese. And if you give them 10 boxes of Kraft mac and cheese for a family that is living in a shelter and they don't have butter and they don't have milk.
27:23and they don't have a way to cook it, you're not actually helping. It's like going to one of the people on the ground who has a broken leg and putting a bandage on their arm. What you want to do is help, but the help isn't what they need. So you need to figure out a way that your help can better align with what the helpers want. And so if you call your local food bank or right now, probably in every community, there are Facebook posts from the food bank and there are, you know,
27:53articles in newspaper from the food bank saying, this is how you can help. And unfortunately, the number one thing they want is cash. Yeah.  not many people, a lot of people don't have the cash to donate. But  my suggestion, and some people have said this is not the best suggestion, and I'll tell you why, but I love the suggestion.  My suggestion is  everybody stop, if you have any discretionary income at all.
28:18If you can afford a coffee out, if you eat at a diner, if you go and get pie once in a while, if you go to McDonald's, stop doing that. Take that money and take it to the food bank. Because if we can afford to eat out right now and we're out eating anything, there are people and the food banks could use that money better. And this is what it means to love our neighbors is to  give up a meal out. I'm not saying skip a meal, eat it at home. ah But take that income  and
28:47give it to the food bank. And the reason I suggest that instead of taking that money and going and buying food for someone is because my oldest son, who is a sweet, kind young man, he's just wonderful. And he spent three months in Asia and Cambodia and Laos and China,  and really did a lot of great work with them.  he worked with, he lived with the family of farmers for a while in Cambodia. And he came home
29:17to our farm and said, why aren't we growing food for people? There are people hungry. What is wrong with us that we have land and we're not growing crops?  And he was about,  oh, I think 19 when he came home and he spent an entire summer growing an acres worth of potatoes. And it was all by himself and we don't have a tractor. He just did it all by hand and plowed and everything else.  And he grew a lot of potatoes and he donated them to the food bank and they were thrilled.
29:46But they said, this is about $30 worth of potatoes for us. Yeah.  And he said, what? And he said, yeah, we have grants and  we're tax free  and we can buy them in lots and we can buy them by the truckload. We can buy a truckload of potatoes for about $40.  So we appreciate the potatoes and we love that.  But if you're going to spend hundreds of hours on something,
30:11you could spend the hundred, because he asked how he could help better. And they were not being unkind. They were really as nice as they could be.  But they said, if you want to spend hundreds of hours on something, you could do a fundraiser. If you  raised $500 with a fundraiser, we could buy 10 truckloads of potatoes. And he was like, why does anybody grow potatoes? Like, well,  first, because they like the taste of potatoes and because it's good. But also, you know, when you give money to the food bank,
30:36It goes a lot further than anything you could do. Buying a 10 pound bag of potatoes and donating it to Food Bank is great. That cost of that 10 pound bag of potatoes might be able to buy them 70 pounds of potatoes. Yeah, the dollar goes further because of how it works.  And I'm glad you said that because I was going to bring that up too. um The other thing that I wanted to say is that
31:02A lot of things that people are doing right now are so super cool and I want to wrap it up here because I try to keep these at 30 minutes. I'm going to wrap it up with this. In Minnesota, a lot of our restaurants are basically telling people if you are hungry, come eat. You don't have to pay for it. Come eat. You don't have to prove that you have SNAP benefits. Just if you're hungry, come talk to us. And some of them
31:31have said no questions asked. Some of them have said no questions asked unless we feel like we're being taken advantage of and then we will ask questions.  I am so proud of these restaurants that are trying to help  and  I get that it's a good public relations thing  but they don't have to. course.  No and I've seen yeah I've seen a couple places saying we'll give you personal pan pizzas to all children no questions just bring your kids.  Yep and that's amazing.
32:00The other thing that I've seen is a lot of our libraries are setting up little food libraries inside the library. And yes, it's canned goods and it's macaroni and cheese, but at least it's something. They're trying to do something. Oh, and  I'm not dismissing canned goods and macaroni and cheese. If you're hungry, macaroni and cheese in a can of tomatoes goes a long way. And there are plenty of people  who live in houses and who have stable housing.  But if they spend their rent money on food,
32:30won't have housing. so mac and cheese goes a long way if you've got a kitchen.  The other thing that I would suggest if you want to bring food to a food pantry or a food shelf  is the instant oatmeal that you can get that you just put in hot water.  The flavored ones, the packets.  They're not  really good for you. They're not like steel-cut oats with raisins and all the good things. uh
32:57That's the kind of thing that people who can't cook could actually just get hot water from the sink. It doesn't have to be hot, hot. It just has to be warm. And they have some kind of food that they can just pour in. You can literally pour water into that bag.
33:14Yeah, mean flavor and also if you're  sleeping rough or if you're turning down your heating oil to save money, a hot meal or hot breakfast or hot dinner goes a long way to keeping warm. Yeah, exactly. And if you're going to get mac and cheese, get the mac and cheese that's already in the little cup and all you need is water. Yeah. There are ways around this to make it work. there are. I mean, that's what we're doing with my scout troop is we're trying to create ready to eat meals that somebody with
33:44Bad teeth can eat that somebody, you're living in a tent, you can just heat up. But also something that people in a family would like. If they could maybe add a potato or two, would even make it better. Yes, absolutely. And actually, I lied. I'm going to wrap it up with this. OK. If you don't know how to cook and you have a kitchen, if you live in a place where you have a kitchen and you could be cooking, learn to freaking cook. You're going to save yourself some money.
34:12Well, yeah, and you're going to eat a whole lot better too.  Yes.  This, this I don't cook thing.  It makes me crazy. I don't understand. And I'm talking about people who have a kitchen  with a stove and with an oven and with a microwave and with a refrigerator. You know, if you have the accessories to do it, cooking is fun.  So cooking is fun. Even, even just adding an egg to ramen makes a difference. You know? Yeah. So
34:40I just, there's so many things about food that are so important.  And then SNAP benefits get cut. And I was like, okay, it's time to talk about food.  Hey, I don't know if you and I are going to change the world by talking about it, but it's a good place to start because maybe somebody else, if we have enough people trying to change the world, eventually it will, it will make a difference. Yeah. I just want people to know where they can go to get help. And I want people who want to help  to know how they can offer their help.
35:09That's all I want right now. yeah, anything we can do. All right, Megan, thank you so much for going on a minor tear with me about this. I appreciate it. And where can people find you online? uh My, I'm  mostly on Facebook and it's Megan McGovern, M-E-A-G-A-N McGovern.  And I have a Facebook page where I about those children and homeschooling and all sorts of stuff.
35:35Yes. Go check out Megan's page. I was looking at the other day and I could have spent hours reading through it, but it didn't have hours. I was very disappointed in myself.  All right, Megan, as always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Check out my Patreon, patreon.com slash a tiny homestead. And a tiny homestead podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. Cause I just got another sponsor. I'm so excited.
36:03Thank you, Megan. I really You're welcome. Thank you. I appreciate being here. All right. Bye. Bye.
 

Home Sweet Home Baker

Today I'm talking with Michelle at Home Sweet Home Bakery. You can follow on Facebook as well.
A Tiny Homestead Podcast is sponsored by Cottage Foodie Con. The code HOME 15 will get you 15% off any ticket and is valid for the month of November
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Michelle Chesser  at Home Sweet Home Baker in Missouri. Good morning, Michelle. How are you? Good morning, Mary. How are you? I'm doing great.  I'm okay. I'm getting better. I've been sick for three weeks and I've mentioned it on the podcast and I actually feel  maybe 80%.
00:26from the zero I was at two, three Tuesdays ago. So I think I'm getting better.  How is the weather in Missouri today? We finally got fall  and  I love it. I love the changing of the season. So it's chilly. have our, we started a fire for the first time this weekend. So  bring it on.  I am right there with you because I am north of you in Minnesota  and I was listening to the weather for the week on our local news channel this morning  and the cutie patootie boy.
00:56who does the weather, said that we might get our first  mixed precipitation like sleet, snow flurries and rain on Saturday this weekend. And I was like,  yes, finally. Wow, that's early.  That's too early for me. Well, my birthday is tomorrow  and my daughter's is the 14th and we are 20 years and 10 days apart. And every year there's an unspoken bet as to whether we'll get snow before my birthday.
01:25or in between my birthday and her birthday or after her birthday. So I think we are going to get snow  in between. She's in Florida, so she won't be getting any snow. Well, happy birthday. Thank you. uh Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and about what you do.  Well, I've started my bakery about 17 years ago for young children.
01:50and  I wanted to find a way that they could grow up working, have a good work ethic. And so we started taking,  we grew a garden  and  started taking vegetables to the farmer's market. And  eventually we just started eating all our vegetables  and I've always loved baking.  So one year we took cupcakes to the farmer's market  and  we just grew from there and we added things and
02:19When we added cinnamon rolls, it got crazy. And eventually we built a home on our property and added a commercial kitchen in our home. So we have a home kitchen and then we have a commercial kitchen right next to it. And that was to bake for a coffee shop, a local coffee shop in town. So I baked for them for eight years and just finished doing that in March.
02:48So now I teach other home bakers  just how to grow and how to survive and balance everything.
02:59Wow. Okay. So you started out as a cottage food producer and now you teach. that  the beginning to where you are now? Yes. And I still bake. I still bake and sell not as much,  but I still  I'm in the trenches and I'm, you know, the holidays are coming up and I'm going to be full force baking. Awesome. I love stories like yours where you go from, we're going to try a thing and then it becomes a real thing, like a much bigger thing. uh
03:28Are you by any chance going to be coming to Minnesota for the cottage foodie con thing in April of 2026? absolutely am. And my husband is originally from Minnesota. He spent some of his childhood there. So when I told him it was in Minnesota, he's like, we're going, we're going. So I will be there. Yes.
03:51Awesome. I will not be there. However, cottage fruity con is the new sponsor from my podcast. Awesome Yes, I will actually have a little thing at the beginning of this episode when it comes out on Wednesday morning talking about what cottage foodie con is but Matt the guy that that started it is a fantastic person I don't know if you've met him. I don't if you talk to him, but if you get the chance to when you're there
04:16go say hi and tell him Mary sent you because he's super sweet. He's a really nice guy. Yes. I talked with him online and that was the first time I met him and I was blown away. He's really nice and really helpful and he knew his stuff. So I'm really excited about going and I'm looking forward to it. Good. I was hoping that you were going to say yes because I really wanted to break this news in
04:42conversation, not just with a little blurb at the beginning of the podcast. uh I'm so excited for him and I'm really excited that you're going because I think you're going to find out things that you didn't know and you've doing this for a while.  But there's always stuff to learn that you didn't even think of. oh So anyone who's listening, if you're interested in going and learning about being  what Michelle has been and is becoming,
05:11It's going to be great. It's the first year. It's called Cottage FoodieCon and the website is cottagefoodiecon.com,  which is harder to say out loud than I thought it would be.  Okay. So  have you gotten any clients for your teaching?  Yeah. And real quick about the Cottage FoodieCon, they are still running a special till the fifth. So you can get, think 25 % off.  If you go on their Instagram, you can see the code, but that'll be helpful.
05:40Have I gotten any clients for my teaching? So on Instagram, I try to put out like a reel every day with a little bit of advice  for home bakers, em you know, a recipe or just some tough love or  encouragement or inspiration.  And then  I have a baker's library  that people can join. It's a membership  and we're revamping it at the end of this month, but it is full of like  so many resources for home bakers.
06:10I wish I would have had it when I was starting. And we do a live session every month with a Q &A or a guest speaker.  And so it's been a real blessing to me. And I know  the members  really grow in there. And it's just nice knowing that there's other people going through the same things you are.  Absolutely. Community is everything when you are.
06:37When you were getting started in a hobby or if you turn the hobby into a business, having people around you who are doing,  who are further ahead of you, lets you learn, but having people who are behind you coming up lets you teach.  And I'm going to go backwards a step.  I have a code that will be in the show notes for people if they want to sign up for the Cottage Food Econ. I completely forgot to mention it.
07:01Okay.  So it will be in the show notes if people want to save some money on tickets. Yes. Okay.  you're not really like, see, the way that I read it, I thought that you were a coach, but you're not like a hands-on coach. You're an online coach. Yes, that's right.  Actually, this is funny.  The reason I started coaching other home bakers online,
07:28is because in my local town, I would have people reach out to me  all the time and say, hey, Michelle, eh I'm thinking about starting a home bakery or I'm thinking about starting to sell my sourdough bread. Can you meet with me and can  I just pick your brain for a little bit? And this happened a lot.  And so it started me thinking like, because I never thought of myself as someone who knew anything. Like I literally just learned as I went  and
07:56After talking with these women,  I realized that they, know, the things I thought were common sense, like, of course, everybody knows this. They didn't know because I didn't know either when I started. You know, I had forgotten what I didn't know. And so  it was like, wow, this could be something, you know, there's so many people out there that want to do a home bakery and there's just,  it would just be nice to be able to get out there, help them, encourage them and let them know.
08:26that what they're feeling is normal, that they're not weird, and that there's things that they can do to help their home bakeries grow.
08:35Yeah, it's so funny because people ask me questions about plants and I used to be way into gardening and I'm not anymore. I don't love it as much as I used to.  But the things that come up, like one of my friends  lived in a house where  her whole yard was shaded and she had a spot that was  open but shaded. And she was like, Mary, what can I plant in there that's pretty? And I was like, um do you want to be able to walk on it? And she said,
09:05Probably and I said wild violets wild violets like dappled sunlight and they do really well in shade and she was like really and she's a really wild violets and I said any Forested area in the state of Minnesota. There's wild violets I said just don't let the DNR people see you digging them up if it's it's state land because you will get in trouble  and She was like, okay, I'm put violence in there  and then she ended up selling her house
09:33So she didn't end up doing it. But it was funny because my first thought was hostas because hostas actually do love shade. And that was the first thing on my mouth. And she's like, I have hostas everywhere. I don't want any more hostas. I don't know.  I like I hadn't thought about this particular stuff in years because I just don't garden. My husband is the gardener.
09:58And as soon as she said, I hate hostas, I don't need any more hostas, I need something else, I was like, wow, violets will grow there.  So yeah, you forget that you know things until someone asks the question. And then you're like, oh yeah, I do have that back in the brain somewhere. Right, right. You forget that people  starting out in the beginning don't have that experience or that knowledge that you learned either the easy way or the hard way. And you know, now it's our like,
10:26I'm happy to share with them. I love sharing. And I love seeing people like a light bulb go off in their head. And I love hearing people say, thank you for letting me know that I am not the only one who feels this way. And thank you for letting me know that you still struggle and that you've had problems with this or that. And just being relatable and  letting people know that they're not alone is very helpful.
10:51Yes, and don't let fear paralyze you.  If you want to try something, find somebody who's already doing it or go to the library or go to Google,  do the research and  try on a small scale to start with. Because if you have success  in that small scale start, it's going to make you want to keep going.  That's right.  There's no better feeling than  doing your first event.
11:19I mean, you're scared to death. It is so terrifying to do your first event and putting yourself out there.  But the feeling you get when you're done,  there's no other feeling like it.  And  it's great sharing like  when I have guest speakers and they're talking about the first  time they did something. Other bakers who haven't done that yet realize that everybody has to do something that terrifies them and step out of their comfort zone. But if they did it, then that means you can do it too.
11:51for and the thing that's great about  if you're a cottage  food producer, you're just starting that process,  usually if you screw something up, you're the only one who knows you screwed it up.
12:05That's right.  That's right. And you don't have to sell your burnt cookies and you don't have to sell something that was, you know, that tastes terrible.  You're the only one who knows and you just keep doing it until you get it right. Yeah. And I've told this story before on the podcast, but I'll tell it again, because it's one of my favorite things about what I learned when I learned to cook.  I really wanted to learn how to do a roux. I saw Alton Brown do it on his show.
12:32And I was like, I'm going to burn the first one. I know I am. I know I'm going to burn it. And I just was totally fine with burning it.  I literally planned  on scorching a pan and throwing the roux in the trash. That was what I expected to happen.  I did not scorch the pan, but I definitely burned the roux and I threw it in the trash.  And I tried again the next day and it was a little dark, but it wasn't burned. And that one went in the trash.
12:57And I did it again the next day. And that one actually turned out the way I knew it was supposed to be. And I was like, oh, third time's a charm. OK, now I know how to make a root. Right. uh It's very helpful for other home bakers to hear that even experienced bakers mess up. mean,  Hold on. I'm sorry, Mary.  It's very helpful to other home bakers to hear experienced bakers still mess up.
13:25we still forget the baking powder. We still leave the cookies in the oven, you know, 20 minutes past their time  and we still mess up.  And it's not like you get to a point in your, in your business where you reach perfection.  That's impossible,  but you can learn, you learn and you grow and you build confidence.  And that's  what I like seeing other bakers do.  Yeah. And, um,
13:55I'm going to tell you a story from last night because it's relevant. I asked my husband if he could make a double batch of pancakes for dinner last night because I wanted to throw some in the freezer because you can freeze pancakes and microwave them and they're just as good the second time around. And I grabbed three, sat down with my butter and my syrup on my pancakes, took the first forkful and I looked at him and I said, what did you do differently?
14:20And he said, I don't know what. And I said, they're very, very dense. said, your pancakes are usually fluffy. I said, these are dense. They're really yummy, but they're heavy. And he said, think I didn't add enough baking soda. I was like, oh, okay. He said, they're not terrible, are they? I said, no, they're fine. They're pancakes. They are dinner. I asked you to make pancakes. You understood the assignment as it were, but yeah, they're just different.
14:45And he said, they're also not the kind I make when I make them the night before and let them sit in the fridge overnight. They're not buttermilk ones.  Those are very fluffy. And I said, okay. And I said, also, I said, did you put brown sugar in these instead of um white sugar? He's like, I usually do. And I was like, never told me. I said,  for some reason this time it tastes more buttery, which is usually a brown sugar thing. And he was like, you are obsessed with cooking. I was like, yep.
15:15sure am.  So  yeah, mean, even if something doesn't turn out the way you expect it to, sometimes it's better, sometimes it's edible, and sometimes it's not, and you just throw it away and start over. Yeah, yep, you do.  And that's kind of how it is with business too. You learn what works and what doesn't.
15:37Yeah, exactly. And I'm lucky enough to be married to a guy who loves to make pancakes and he makes the best yeast breads on the planet as far as I'm concerned. So I lucked out huge in the person that I found myself married to.
15:53So  anyway, ah what else can I ask you? Did you always love to cook like even as a kid or was it new? No,  I didn't love to cook when I was young. I don't remember ever cooking  when I was younger. I remember baking the chocolate chip cookies off the back of the Toll House bag or peanut butter cookies every now and then.
16:17ah But I never really baked until I was in my  20s and then I would dabble with  things if I could when I had time. I had four kids  in three years.  So that took over a lot. But then  as the kids got older,  I started, I was like, this is my chance. Like I love baking, I'm gonna try it. And it just grew and grew and grew. And it  kind of grew into a monster before I knew it.
16:46So then my bakery got too big for me.  And so I had to pull back  a lot  because it was just taking over everything, every aspect of my life.  So  that's another thing I teach, know, go  make sure you have boundaries  and don't overstep them, even though that's really hard not to do  because success feels good  and it's flattering and you want to be successful, but sometimes that's not good for your family.
17:17Yeah,  you have to.  I'm going to admit this. had to cut my podcast back to three episodes a week instead of five because I was having such a hard time keeping up with it.  And  I didn't feel like I was really listening when I was asking questions. And I was like, Oh, I can't remember what we talked about. I need to slow down. Right.  Right. And it's not just
17:43the, you your podcast, it's not just the 30 minute podcast. You have editing  and planning and scheduling and researching all of that in the background. So it's not just the baking when you own a cottage bakery, it's the cleaning and the organizing and the  taking orders and the grocery shopping  and the dishes. It's so much more than just baking and the packaging. Yeah, I don't know if you have a dishwasher, but I do not. And
18:12I  have been  really dragging my feet on doing any baking because when you're doing baking,  always seems like flour is the worst thing on earth to clean up once it's wet.  It sticks to everything. And I hate it.  When my husband made pancakes last night, he did it in the mixer,  the KitchenAid mixer, and he did not put water in the bowl right away. He just sat it on the counter and then came to eat.
18:40Half an hour later, was like glue in that mixing bowl and I was like, God, I would give anything for a dishwasher right now.  So yeah, baking is messy. Like it's really fun, but it's a messy job.
18:57Yeah, and it's really  owning a cottage bakery or a bakery business. I would say baking is  20%, 30 %  of your entire business. There's  so much more that when you are in the thick of it that you don't realize.  When I have young ladies come up to me or their parents and they say, my daughter wants to start a bakery. What's your advice? I always say, well, does she like doing dishes?  Because that's what she's going to be doing.
19:25And so it's not all sprinkles  and icing. It's just so much more. um But it's rewarding. I really, really enjoy it.  Yes. And I think that's true of any business. mean,  we made homemade cold-processed lye soaps every other week for an entire summer three years ago.
19:51My husband mentioned that he would like to make some soap again and I had a moment of, oh God. And I was like, why am I doing that? And it's because we made soaps every week  for an entire summer. And when you do it once in a while, it's exciting, it's fun, it's new, yay. When you make it into a job, it is no longer a treat or a novelty, it's your job. And if you love it, fantastic.
20:20do it. But if you don't love it, don't drive yourself crazy.  a lot of bakers, I would say  99.999 % of bakers experience burnout because  they don't realize that they need to take breaks.  And especially like I always say, try to take off the month of January if you can, because you just went through the busiest season of the year. Try to take off for a month in January or at least a week.  Give yourself breaks.
20:48you know, every now and then or else you're going to be so burned out and you're going to quit  when really what you just need is some breaks just to rest your body and your brain.  You need to rest your brain to not have to think about your business all the time because entrepreneurs  are creative souls and their brains never stop.  And so it's just good to take that step to take  and give your brain a little rest.  Absolutely, for sure.
21:16I mean, I wake up every morning and the first thought in my head is, who am I talking to today? And when I go to bed at night, it's, did I get everything set for the episode that's going out tomorrow or the one that's going to be released that was out a year ago to take the place of the one I don't have for today? that never used to be me. My first thought was my husband or my kids.
21:41And now that I have this podcast that I love so much, my first thought is the podcast and my last thought is the podcast. And I'm like, I think that's screwy, but I'm not sure. Yeah, I totally can relate.  And that's how my bakery was. It was just always on my mind. You know, what am going to do next? What's going to be the next big thing? How am going to grow? And I didn't want that to be number one. I really don't. And I still don't want it to be number one.
22:08And so I've really had to discipline myself and train myself and just really keep myself in check because I, like my husband says, when I do something, I do it 100%. And he always would warn me about that. And I have to really just watch it. Yeah, I'm like that too. And when I floated the idea for the podcast of my husband three summers ago.
22:33He was like, you should do that. You would be really good at that. He said, just don't let it eat you alive. He said, because you're one of these people where you get all excited at the beginning and you throw your whole self into it  and you run really fast with it. And then about a year later, you're like, eh, I did it. I don't care anymore. And I was like, you're not wrong.  Yeah, I would say that's me too. So I, your husband is a hundred percent right.
22:59Yup. And he caught me doing it like six months into it. He was like, you are stressing yourself out over a job you have created for yourself that you don't have to do. And he said, honey, hi, I'm your husband. My name is Kyle. It's nice to meet you. And I went, yeah, hi, I'm so sorry. I did it again.  And then I sat down and made a plan and figured it out so that I could take it in smaller bites and a little bit slower. So, so
23:28anything, any business like this,  you do have to have boundaries and you do have to know yourself and you have to have people in your life who will tell you that you're pushing too hard or ask you if you're okay. You're absolutely right. You were absolutely right.  And  it was a good slap in the face for me when I realized,  you know, my bakery had gotten too big. Um, and it wasn't like an immediate all out stop. took a couple of years to get it down to where I needed it to be.
23:58A lot of prayer, a lot of prayer and waiting on the Lord. So um it was just a journey. So I've just learned so much over 17 years and I love sharing it with other home bakers.  I love that you're doing that because  you are the person who  if somebody comes to you and says, it says, I'm thinking about starting this. Do you think I should? You're going to be honest with them. Yes,  I will be honest with them. I've
24:27I've counseled or coached  moms when they've got uh two toddlers and a newborn at home  and they're thinking, I think I want to start a sourdough micro bakery. And I'll say, I don't know that that would be, this is the right time for you to do that.  Like maybe  you could bake some loaves of bread,  maybe like 10 loaves of bread a week  and  have your husband take them to work or something like that.
24:54would just wait till the children are a little bit  older  because you're going to, um I think you're going to regret it. It's going to be too much.  And can we, can we talk about sourdough for just a second?
25:16Okay, I started a sourdough starter. It was doing great. Like I had opened up the jar, stuck a spoon in it and dragged the spoon through it and it did all that crackle noise that it does because the bubbles are perfect. And I was like, oh, awesome. I can make bread tomorrow and it's ready. Like I know it's ready. This is the first batch I'd ever started on my own.
25:40And  got up the next morning, opened the jar and it had the pink mold on it. And I was like, well, I guess I'm not making sourdough today.  I wanted to cry, Michelle. I worked a month to get that starter to where it was and it was done for.  How do you avoid that? The only thing I can think of is maybe the spoon that I stuck in there wasn't clean or something. How do you avoid that?
26:09That was a month worth of patience down the drain.  Well, you're talking to the wrong person because I don't do sourdough.  I've done it personally, but when people start talking sourdough and hydration and fermentation and starters, my eyes gloss over and I'm, you lose me.  So um that is not my level of expertise at all.  Well, damn, I was hoping you would know the answer. That's okay.
26:36I interviewed the lady who has  the sourdough for beginners Facebook page, so I'll have to message her and be like, what did I screw up this time?  But I haven't started anymore because I am still heartbroken about this.  And  September, August and September are fruit fly month in Minnesota. I'm out there in Missouri.  And fruit flies  love sourdough sardine. If they can find a way into it, they will live in there.
27:05And we have a garden. We have a garden. So we bring in tomatoes and cucumbers and stuff that whole time frame.  You bring in fruit or produce, there's going to be fruit flies. So  I have just let it go for now. I'm probably going to start up again in January and see if I can make it go. But that's probably the most heartbreaking moment in my cooking lifetime was opening that jar and seeing that it was bad. Like I had tears in my eyes and I don't do that about food.
27:40That's why don't do sourdough.
27:44Yeah, it's really finicky. I didn't realize it would be  as number one messy and number two as finicky as it is. I really don't know that I love it. I'm going to try again, but if next time fails, I'm just going to let other people make sourdough bread. That's what I choose to do, Mary.  Yeah. And I mean, I made two loaves of bread um from  two weeks after I started my sourdough starter.
28:11and they were yummy but they were dense and it was because it wasn't quite where it needed to be. And I was so excited.  I was so sure I was gonna have the best loaf of sourdough bread ever. And then,  nope, the universe said, uh-uh, not today.
28:30I am sorry. I've made sourdough before. I actually like making it. I just don't want to make it to sell. I will leave that to other people. Yeah. I figured the experts know what they're doing. I'll just buy it from them. It's just so much less hassle and heartbreak in my case. Anyway, did you end up actually doing a bakery, like a storefront bakery at all or not?
29:00No,  I never had a desire to do a storefront. I've always said I would have liked to have owned a storefront bakery for a week just to get it out of my system and know that it's not for me because if I had a storefront bakery, that would mean leaving my home every day  and I love to be home. I love to be home. I'd have to wear like real clothes every day,  you know, do my hair.
29:28And I just, as much as I think I would like it, I think I would like it for about a week.
29:36Yeah, again, it becomes a constriction. You know, you have to play by the societal rules to be out in public. And I don't know about you, but I'm not really into the societal rules. I would much rather make cookies and put them out in my farm stand and let people just come and get what they want. Yeah, I love that idea. Those things are super popular right now, little farm stands or porch pop-ups. I love those.
30:06I  love brick and mortar bakeries. I think people that do them are amazing.  It's not for me. You  would have to put a lot of money into something like that to start off, to make it how you want it to be.  And just the everyday opening.  One of the things that I did when I baked for the coffee shop  that I didn't think through was that they're open every day.
30:33know, or five, six days a week. So the day after Christmas, guess what? They're open and they need pastries. when I, the day I was baking on Christmas day for the coffee shop and my husband was like, you're baking on Christmas day for the coffee shop. And it, I will never forget that. And I was like, they're open tomorrow.  And just  that realization of like, what am I doing?
31:00Yeah. Whole nother set of rules.  So a lot of people will ask me about wholesale and I did wholesale for eight years and it was good for us.  But they'll say, should I, you know, what about wholesale? I'm trying to get into wholesale. And I'll say, well, just remember you'll be baking, you know, retail hours. They're open every day and you'll be making less money. Now some people like that because they can do it at home.  They have their deliveries. They don't have to mess with the general public and they, always have the orders.
31:29They don't have to go out and get business  and they like that. But for other people, you're getting less money and you're working  usually more.  So it's a trade off. Yes. And  while you were talking, it reminded me of something that not everyone knows about because it doesn't come up in regular conversation when you're starting a business. There is something called a margin.  as I understand it,  a margin is
31:58How much do you spend to produce the thing that you're going to sell? And how much do you get in profit for the thing that you sell? And whatever percentage there is between what you spent and what you made, that's the margin. Mm-hmm, right. I was talking to someone about this this morning. And when you're doing wholesale, you need, usually the rule of thumb is 20, 25 % less in retail that you're selling it to wholesale.
32:26So are you able to make money if you're selling your products for 25 % less? So think about that. Now, if you're selling a lot, if you're selling a lot, you can usually make it happen.  But if you're only selling  three dozen cookies to a bakery or a coffee shop every week  and you're taking 25 % less, it's usually not worth it.
32:51So people have to think of the pros and cons before they commit. Yes. And this goes back to my original statement about if you want to do something, do the research and try it on a small scale because then you're not really worried about margin. You're worried about whether you can do it. And you're learning what it takes to make the thing, what it takes to make it worth it to make the thing and whether you want to scale it up bigger. And that's kind of like a trial. See if you like it.
33:21and then you can commit.  Yep,  absolutely. Michelle, this has been fabulous.  I would love to know how people can find you.  I am on social media  as homesweethomebaker  and then I have a website  homesweethomebaker.com.  Think about that for a second.  So yeah, homesweethomebaker. can find me lots of places  online.
33:50Okay, awesome.  I appreciate your time and your expertise because you are an expert at this, whether you think so or not.  And as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Check out my Patreon. It's patreon.com slash atinyhomestead.  I hope you have a wonderful week, Michelle. Thank you again. Thank you, Mary, so much for having me on. You're welcome. Have a great day. Bye-bye. Bye.
 

Wholesome Meadow Farms

Today I'm talking with Mimi at Wholesome Meadow Farms.
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Mimi at Wholesome Meadow Farms in Florida. Good morning, Mimi. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Florida? It's nice. It's fall weather  and it's  not hot. It's really nice and cool.
00:27So we're really excited about the  new weather right now.  I'm in Minnesota and it is as gray as it can possibly be and it is cold and they're saying rain today. Well, it is still sunshine in Florida.  It's really nice at the farm with the nice cool weather coming in. It makes it much easier to work on the farm for sure. Oh, it always does. We love cool days in Minnesota in the summer because in the summer,
00:57It can get as hot as it gets in Florida and it can be just as muggy as it gets in Florida. So I understand what you're saying. um So when you say it's cool, like how cool is it there? 70,  65 to 70 right now. Okay. Well, we have had frost every morning for the last three mornings. So my definition of cool is a little bit colder than yours. Yes.  Yes.
01:23But I'm not mad about it. Fall is my favorite season. So I am tickled that we in mid fall. It's been beautiful.  All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and wholesome whatever the heck it is. I forget the name because I've been sick. I'm sorry. Tell me about your place.  No problem.  started the place. I grew up in a farm back home and I really wanted to go back into the farm. We started uh a little homestead.
01:52but the region in Vernon and it's about 11 acres  and we have a few animals. have goats, we have a lot of chickens and we do have  some pigs and we're growing, you know, steadily growing  our flock and we're excited about it because it's pretty flat uh area. It has different, um we kind of parsing in our four  areas region so we can move our flock.
02:22around ah and then we also putting  on a putting on one of the lot a house there so we're excited about that to be permanently at the farm and  operating so  it's uh that's overall uh the farm we also building a pond  so that we can have our ducks  and  other you know animals being able to enjoy a pond as well.
02:50Very nice. So what made you want to get into this? Because I grew up on a farm, I wanted to always go back to that root and being able to raise my own animals and being able to grow vegetables or food source in a natural way like it used to be, know, non-GMO, pasture-raised animals so that
03:19we have that wholesomeness and then being able to have more of um a source of food that  we love raising and being able to. uh
03:36offer that same type of uh experience to other people too and enjoy a natural made food source. oh so  I'm glad that you mentioned that because not everyone who has a homestead or a farm sells their products that they produce from the farm. But is that was that the plan when you started this?  Yes and no. We also have uh some of our people, the people I know in community
04:06They also expressed the want to have naturally, you know,  a  reliable food. So we started  selling  our uh products to some friends and family and then expanding now to the other market. So that's how it falls from,  you know,  being able to share the things that we oh
04:35we raise  and then trying to expand it to  a bigger market right now.  Okay. So that leads me to my next question. Do people come to your place to buy your produce and your other products or do you sell it like a farmer's market or are you looking to get into grocery stores?  Some people do come at the farm to pick up the  items. I also bring them to some farm swap.
05:03and we're trying to also  get them to farmers market. Okay, awesome.  Awesome. So how long have you been doing it? About a year now.  We've been  doing the farm.  We're  in our  second year going in. Okay, do you love it? Yes. Yes.
05:29It's  like, you know, it brings me back to my childhood where, you know, we do chores, we attend the land and we attend to the animals. So it's basically bringing back to our childhood. Yeah. And you're not the first person to tell me that. And the thing that comes up a lot on this podcast  is memories and childhood and play. And  I am not saying that homesteading is just playing.
05:59because it's not, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of work. But the reward is to be able to say, I pour my, you know,  all my energy into this and I'm able to have a food that I know where it came from. uh That's the reward. And then being able to just have something to do and enjoy uh building, enjoy attending to the animals, all that is part of the experience.
06:28It's not easy. It's a lot of work, but it's rewarding.  it's  okay. The way that I think about it is when we were kids, my sister and my brother and I,  my dad had a garden and we would go out and help weed and we would help harvest the food. And my mom would try to make it a game, you know, so we felt like we were playing. She'd be like, whoever picks the most green beans  gets a happy meal at McDonald's the next time we go shopping or something. And.
06:58I'm 56, so most people know that memory who are over 50.  And uh the other thing about the play part is that when we were little, we used to pretend to raise animals. We used to have the little play school farm with the little horse and the little cow.  And I feel like a lot of us who are older, because you're not, you're not as old as I am, but a lot of us over 40, we have taken the things that we were playing at when we were little and we have turned them into our life.
07:28Yes.  So that's where the play part comes in because you can have a job where it feels like you're playing. Corporate jobs don't allow for that, but homesteading sure does. Yes, it does. And that's the reason really is to, you know, carrying into retirement and have that mindset of you grew up in a farm and then you end up at the farm at the end of your life. So that's a really good circle, oh know, circle back to your childhood.
07:57It's a fantastic through line. Yes, it is.  Okay. So did I see that you guys do 3D printing too? Yes, we do 3D printing as well.  We're venturing in that we're  excited about it to be able to offer  trinkets for the kids and also little parts. You know, there's a lot of things on the farm that breaks  and it's really hard to get part replacements. So we're also trying to make sure that we can  make
08:27those items um and then other and then share it with others. So there are 3D printing um venture. It's both for being able to offer to kids and  little trinkets and have little farm animal. We're printing little farm animals right now and then uh at the same time being able to print little  parts for that you can use and replace in the farm and the different equipment.
08:55So you are doing something very old fashioned with your homestead and something very newfangled with your 3D printing business. Yes,  yes. Old fashioned mixed with the,  you know, new age technology. Do you find yourself just baffled by that sometimes?
09:14Yes. Yes, it is exciting to be able to do that.  yeah,  we like the mix. Yeah, it's like my husband is the gardener. um am not the gardener. I used to be. I don't love it as much as he does. So he's the gardener.  I'm the one that does the podcasts and the marketing, which is all computer-based stuff. And I said to him one time, said, isn't it amazing how we're using all this  new,  quote unquote, technology?
09:44to promote the old fashioned thing that we love to do.  And he said, well, that's how it's always been. And I said, I don't think it's ever been quite as stark a contrast as it is right now. And be able to, I mean, use technology and then you reach a lot more people as well. So  we're in Florida, in Vernon, a small town with Facebook and these media,  we're able to share what we're doing in a bigger uh
10:13you know,  forum and more people can enjoy what we  are doing. And that's where technology is really helpful to mix it with the old fashioned stuff. Yeah, for sure. And it's so much fun to see how it all knits together. I love it. I think it's great. um OK, so you said, tell me again what animals you have and then I will have questions. OK, we have boar goats.  We have
10:42some cuny cuny pigs  and a variety of chickens.  We also have  guineas and quail. So goats, pigs, guineas, quail and chickens. So let's start with the goats.  Do you raise the goats for meat? Do you raise them for milk? What do you use them for? uh Raise for uh meat. Okay.
11:09And is that just for your family or is there a demand for that where you live? There's a demand for that. uh It's both for us  and to be able to sell uh in our area or outside of our area. It depends on the distance of  where the people are coming to purchase the goat from us. Okay. And then my other question is I've never had goat meat. I've had venison, know, deer meat.  Is goat meat like venison or is it different?
11:40It's a bit different. Oh, well, I've never had venison, so I cannot compare it, right? Okay. But goat meat, it's like uh similar to lamb. I don't know if you had lamb. I love lamb,  Okay, awesome. Because I keep telling my husband we should find somebody who sells goat meat here in Minnesota.  And it's not as common as you would think it would be because we could raise a whole lot of goats if we had more land, but we don't.  So um I'm on the look-
12:09out for goat meat. And my friends raise goats, but they raise dairy goats. they love them. I mean, once we have, because we're starting to raise the flock, once we have, we process them, we definitely can touch base with you and you can buy some goat meat from us.
12:32Can you ship it from Florida to here? I have to double check that. We haven't reached that part of our journey yet. Okay. So we'll definitely look into it. Okay. Well, I was going to say my friend loves her goats as much as I love my dog. So the idea of being like,  Hey, could we buy some goat meat from you? Would not fly very well. I don't think. um Okay. And then you have pigs  and same thing just for meat. Yes.
13:01Yeah, and you sell that too? Yes, that's the plan. Right now the pigs are small.  We're raising  three of them  and  we're going to breed them and their babies are we're going to harvest. And how long from baby to harvest? I have to double check that. I don't remember.  I'll have to get back to you on that one.
13:28Okay,  I'm thinking it's at least a summer and a fall, but it might be a whole year. can't remember either. And then your  chickens, I'm assuming you're selling eggs? Yes, lots of eggs. And  we're trying to do  a  variety of egg colors, which is really fun to do the variety of egg colors. So  that's why we have uh quite a bit of different chicken breed in order to do uh
13:58the fun colors for our customers. The rainbow doesn't.  Yes.  Yes.  And do you sell eggs for hatching for people or not? Yes, we do that as well. You can buy hatching eggs  or, uh you know, regular eggs to consume.  Nice. So you've got the, the, the ladies are working hard for you is what you're telling me. Yes, they are. Yes, they are.
14:24Good. Our chickens  are still laying only because we put a  light in our coop for the winter because otherwise they would be on vacation until April.  Yeah, I understand that. And we have a lot of uh like  the biggest flock we have is Bart Rock. They lay really good eggs.  And then we have some some other variety with brown eggs laying and we're working on the other colors as well.
14:54Yes, and  I would bet you're probably getting the same response that we get. People love our eggs because they actually taste like eggs.  People come to buy eggs for most because they actually feel like they're eating eggs, not something that is very bland that they got at the grocery store. Yeah, we get the same feedback,  especially when they find a double yolk egg.  You know, some of our customers get really excited and they share that.
15:20And the brightness of the egg color, the yolk is so much,  you know,  the yellow color, the brightness,  they're really excited about that. So the  ones in the supermarket, they're a little bit more pale. So definitely the customers are excited about having the bright yellow eggs.  Yes,  I understand completely. We went without em our own chicken eggs all last winter.
15:51And I finally, we were going to get chickens in May and I finally looked at my husband in February. said, can we please get chickens again sooner? said, I can't handle this. store bought eggs are gross.  He  was like, you're so spoiled. And I was like, honey,  I said, I'm not spoiled. It's just that I know that the nutritional content of our chickens eggs has got to be better than what we're buying at the store. And he was like, yes, we can get chickens again. Yes. oh I totally agree. The taste is different as well.
16:21Yeah, and the texture too. It's so weird.  Okay, and then the guineas. Do you have the guineas to...  I know people use guineas to kind of keep predators at bay because they're really loud, but why do you have guineas? For that, it  keeps the predators at bay and  we call them the tick patrol.
16:48making sure that they keep the land all nice and neat for us. We also harvest them. Like I personally love meat uh to eat them. I know it's not really popular uh to do that, but we do harvest them for their meat. Is the meat like a dark meat or is it what's it like? It's a dark meat. It's more of a gamey  meat, but it tastes really good. Okay.
17:17Yeah, we do have some customers in Florida because a lot of people from Florida are from the island, you know, uh so they are used to eating guineas and  that's,  you know, the customer base. Awesome. So you already had a, you already had a demand for it, which is fantastic. um And what about Guinea eggs? I don't know anything about guineas. they lay an egg a day in the summertime too, or how does that work? Yes, they do lay eggs. uh Similar to
17:46The chickens, yes. You can also eat the Guinea eggs. Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask. I mean, the only eggs I've ever eaten are chicken eggs. I've had the opportunity to duck eggs and they keep saying I'm gonna do it and I don't. Is the texture on eggs from birds like guineas and ducks and chickens, is it kind of just the same thing or are they different? They're similar, but the duck eggs are more creamy.
18:16texture. Okay. It's a little bit more thick than the chicken. That's what my experience is. We do have some ducks as well. I forgot to mention that. Oh, that's okay. That's okay. So that's for the, you know, you did mention it because you said you're going to have a pond. You're putting in a pond. Yes, the pond is there and then we have some of the ducks. love it because we had a big rain event and now the pond, the water
18:46uh raised up. So the ducks are really enjoying the pond right now. Happy ducks is a good thing. Okay, so I was looking at your Facebook page and you said that you're having a house put on that land in December, is that right? Yes. Okay, so what happens to where you're living now?  Oh, it's still gonna be there. I just going back and forth. uh
19:12And we have a more permanent place to spend the weekend and spend more time at the farm. oh All right. So  is it, I don't want to be nosy, but I'm always curious. My parents put in a pre-fabricated home  on land that my dad had wanted forever in Maine.  And  it's a family lot of land. So he had first dibs and he was like, why yes, yes, I do want that.  And
19:41You would never know that this was a prefabricated house. mean, it came in in two halves and the people that brought it put it together. It is adorable. I love their house. So  how you're doing it, or is it going to be like a mobile home style or how are you doing it? No, like, like you just described,  you will not know if it's a,  it's a cute, it's a cute model. uh We're excited  to have it on the farm. I'm coming up soon.
20:12I bet in Florida you can do things like that in December. If we tried to do something like that here in Minnesota,  no one knows whether anyone's going to be able to drive a vehicle  in December on a road with a humongous half a house on it. Yeah. We don't have that problem in Florida. No,  no.  I can't even imagine. My parents had it brought in,  I think it was April and they were a little nervous about it because
20:40It was all scheduled and they were ready. They were ready to have it put together and get things moved into it.  And my mom said to me about two weeks beforehand, she says,  pray it doesn't snow.
20:54And it didn't  and they love it so much.  is, my dad is 83 and my mom is 80 and they've been living there for about 12 years and they love it so  much. Like every time my mom talks about her voice just rings. It's so fun.  That's fun.  So what do you have on your farm?
21:19We have chickens  and  a watchdog and two barn cats right now. But in the summertime, we have a 100 foot by 150 foot  farm to market garden. Okay. That's great. So we're more about produce than we are about animals.  And, that may change. We're, we're flirting with the idea and that's about as far as it's gone  of getting uh more chickens and, getting the, the dual.
21:48purpose chickens, the layers and the meat chickens,  and starting to focus a little bit more on that on top of the produce because it's been terrible growing weather here for the last two summers.  And we really do need to have a way to have this place kind of halfway support itself. So we've been  flirting real hard with chickens.
22:12Well, we do a lot. mean, we do meat chickens. We really enjoy doing the meat chicken. My partner and I, we raised like 30 to 60 at a time last year. But this coming year, he has a big chart of all the raising we're going to do in the harvesting of the meat chicken. So it's really nice plan put together for next year. And then we have
22:41There are two batches of turkeys as well planned for next year for harvesting. So meat, chicken and turkey we're going to be processing. We're targeting about a hundred meat, chickens and 50 turkeys for next year. So he has put a really nice plan together for us to be able to it next year. So we're excited.
23:08I'm excited for you. That is, that is awesome. And the other reason we're talking about chickens and I don't know how many yet we haven't gotten up far  is this whole situation with the government being shut down and snap benefits not being um available starting tomorrow.  We've been doing a lot of talking here about this because  that's really scary.  I  really worry for the people who depend on.
23:38those benefits. I  I was on WIC when my daughter was born back in 1989.  And  the peanut butter and the milk really helped because I was a nursing mom. And  nursing moms don't want to be making four course meals. They want to eat something quick and nurse their baby.  And  it's just, it's so concerning. And  I wish we had
24:06extra to give to people right now and we don't.  And if we were raising chickens and we had a good garden at least we could help more you know. Yes I understand yeah definitely I mean it is  it is it's not hard to do  if you want to do uh the meat chicken but you have to be very uh regimented and on a really good schedule.  Yeah because they can't wait.
24:33That's right.  They take about eight weeks to  grow  until harvest time. And if past that,  you're going to get in trouble. Some of them will die, but you have to be very attentive with them. Yeah. And the reason they'll die is because they grow so fast, they get too heavy and their feet can't support them. Isn't that right? That is correct.  Chunky chickens.  Chunky chickens. grow three times, eight weeks each and then you harvest.
25:03We did buy  some equipment to help us  with our harvest  to make it much easier. We have a really nice plucker now that can uh we can plug about five chickens at the time. And we have a scalder that can keep the temperature uh consistent throughout the. Throughout the slaughtering period, so uh this is going to make it much easier for us to.
25:32to harvest our chickens next year. Yeah, my dad used to say, if you take care of your tools, your tools will take care of you.  And then  he would put on the addendum that it's nice to have those tools to start with.  That's why we invested in  the upgrade to help us be more efficient.
25:57Yeah, because time is literally money. You know, when I was growing up, I would hear time is money and I didn't quite  understand it the way that I do now. um But it is the less time you spend working on something, the more money you make. Yes. And that's where technology helps, right? We had the discussion earlier about how we, how we get technology into our old school approach. So that's how we're mixing it up. Yup. But.
26:27The other thing that's really nice about this lifestyle is if you want to go out and just watch your chickens be chickens and enjoy it and listen to them talk to each other, that's a really good use of your time. While you drink a cup of coffee and walking the pasture, And planning next year's chicken business. Yeah, that's exciting, yeah.
26:51Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the first crappy weather weekend we get here because we've had really nice weekends this fall.  And if it is nice outside, my husband is outside. So I'm looking forward to the first really bitter cold,  maybe flurrying, maybe sleeting weekend where he really needs to be inside so we can sit down and start writing down plans because that's my favorite part of fall is that first terrible weekend.
27:18where it's nice and cozy in the house and you've got a loaf of bread baking and you're sitting there smelling the bread baking and drinking coffee. You got a notebook at the island and you're writing down plans.  And that's what my partner did. Literally when it's raining outside, he's starting to put the plan together for next year. So those are the bad weather days is to do planning.  Yeah, that's what winter is for in Minnesota. I swear. Make some good soup, have some good bread and dream.
27:48Yes, because when it's good outside and nice, you want to be outside and taking care of the animals and taking care of the land. Yes, and making sure the tomatoes are pruned so they don't get blight and they don't die. That's one of the things we have to do here. Okay, so Mimi, where can people find you online? Well, at our Wholesome Meadow Farm Facebook page.
28:13We're working on our website, but it's not there yet. As soon as it's available, we'll post it on our Facebook page so we can  have people  enjoy the farm even more through our website. Yes,  absolutely. Websites are so important for small businesses. So keep working on that and get that ready  and I'll be excited to see it. um As always, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com and please check out my Patreon, patreon.com.
28:43slash a tiny homestead. I'm so original. Everything is a tiny homestead.  All right, Mimi, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. was really,  the conversation was really great. I appreciate it.  Have a great rest of your day. You too. Bye. Bye.
 

AQuack AndaCluck Farm

Today I'm talking with Rebecca at AQuack AndaCluck Farm.
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Rebecca at a Quack and a Cluck farm in Illinois. Good morning, Rebecca. How are you?  Good morning. Doing good. Good. Well, how's the weather there? Because it's been raining since last night here in Minnesota. Well, we didn't get rain until this morning and now it's drizzling  and cold.
00:28Yeah, and I hate to sound like a farmer, but we need the rain, so I guess it's okay. Yeah, we definitely do.  Definitely. It's really dry. It's been dry. It's needed. um Okay, so the first question I have for you is how you came up with a quack and a cluck for the name.  You know, honestly,
00:51I sat and I thought about it for a very long time.  And one thing that  I did was, you know, kind of come up with some names and I Google search just to make sure, you know, nobody else had any of them. didn't want to, you know, take somebody else's name.  And it just kind of hit me. I'm like, well, we got chickens and we got ducks. They make noises. There we go.  And  so I just, it just kind of came together. It worked out great.
01:20I  love it. And the only thing that's hard for me as the podcast host is that I have to make sure I pronounce  cluck very carefully. Yeah. Yeah. There was another lady who had a name like yours and it was something it had clucking in it.  And I I practiced for a whole day in my head and out loud saying clucking. So I didn't screw it up. uh Yeah. You know, and it
01:50It only takes just a little bit of a tweak in there for it to sound like something completely different. Yeah. And that's the one word that I never ever say on the podcast because I don't want people to be alienated. So,  right. So every time I find somebody with a name that ends in UCK, I'm like, OK, Mary Evelyn, be careful of how you say this word. Right. Yes. Very enunciate.  Yes. So is that chicks that I hear in the background? It is. Yes.
02:20um This is our first year  of doing fall hatches. um I'm not so sure that I like doing it. uh Of course, it's partly because my chickens are like,  no, we're out. So  it's been kind of random on what's hatching and what we're able to hatch.  Okay.
02:45Well, it's a lovely sound. think that chick peeps are beautiful to hear. do not,  I'm gonna step off to the side for a second.  The peeps that they sell at Easter,  I hate them. I don't like them. Every year I try one and I go, God, those are gross.  But  baby chicken peeps, the sound are just beautiful. So. Yes, I agree. And  on that side note of yours,  I do not like those peeps.
03:15I want to like them and my son always ends up getting some because he loves them and he's like try again so I eat one and I'm like it's just straight sugar it's gross. They're cute they are cute I'll give them that it's just that texture is just I can't get past that.  either I don't like them and my husband just laughs at me he's like you love marshmallows.
03:42And I'm spoiled. I have had homemade marshmallows before. Homemade marshmallows are fantastic.  And Peeps got nothing on them.  No, no. And once you have the homemade marshmallows, you can't even look at it or even taste, you know, the store-bought marshmallows the same. They just don't taste the same to me. No, they absolutely do not. There is a place up in Duluth, I think it is. I interviewed the lady that owns it and she makes homemade marshmallows and she sent
04:12I actually ordered some from her. had to try them.  And she sent me a package and I opened them the day I got them and they were gone. There were like 12  in the bag. And I ate probably eight of them. I saved four.  Two for my husband, two for my son. Because I'm a good mom and I am a good wife.  I wish it was the same here. I make something like that  and  it doesn't even really have time to set up before the kids are reaching in and taking them out and eating them.
04:41It's like same day they're gone. yeah, absolutely.  OK, so let's let's bring it back in the line about homesteading. Tell me about yourself and what you do at a quack and a clog farm.  Well,  we  we are trying to be a little bit more self-sufficient. um So we have  lots of chickens, plenty of chickens. A lot of them, though, are also
05:11ones that we're trying to preserve, trying to bring back,  like the  Pavlovaskan chicken breed.  I have heard it pronounced,  you know,  a little bit different.  So I may not be saying it right to everybody, but I've heard it both ways. The Sebastopol geese.  We also have like Mandarin ducks  and Australian spotted. um
05:42We have, we milk our cow or I'm sorry, we are working on a milking cow. We're leaning towards that. But we are uh breeding goats. We milk the goats.  We make soap from the goats milk. We also have pigs  and we just had a litter a few weeks ago. uh
06:10Some of them didn't make it. She had a pretty good size litter. you um know, just we're just trying to become more self-sufficient and also, you know, share the love of our birds  and our animals  in general. Fantastic. So you have the special breeds is what you're telling me.  We do have some special breeds. um
06:37There are, you know, your more common  breeds, but are probably a little bit more harder to find in my area, like the cauldots, the black east indies.  Um, I mean, we do have turkeys and peacocks as well, which I do know there are a few people around us that have those, but I mean, even growing up as a kid, you didn't hear of anybody having any of those.
07:01birds on their farm. knew like turkeys were wild, but peacocks you just seen at the zoo. didn't realize, you know, people actually had them on their farms.
07:14So, I mean, you know,  but, you know, we also have like sulkes, I'm simani and simatras. We have, you know, we do have your standard regular breeds like your Rhode Island Reds and such, but yeah, we do, we do have a lot of,  um, you're more harder to find breeds at least for our area. You know, it might  differ in different places.
07:40Yeah. So are you on a good size piece of land and outside of city limits? We are outside of city limits. We are on about three and a half acres. That's a good size piece of land. Yes. It is. We are hoping to possibly expand soon, um, depending on how the farmer allows us, um, you know, or if he's looking to possibly sell part of his, his land. Um, so we'll see.
08:10We'll see how it goes. You know,  we're in the same boat. We live em surrounded by a big cornfield and we're smack dab in the middle of it right off the road that parallels the field. And uh we know the owners, they're super nice people. And we would love, love, love, love to be in a position to buy a couple more acres because our property is three acres. And five acres would be perfect. Like there would be just enough room to have all the things we want to have.
08:39like a milk cow, that would be great.  Yes. But three acres is just not quite enough for everything we have going on  already. So I don't know that we're ever going to be able to do that because in Minnesota there's a law for farmland that you cannot break up acreage that is smaller than 40 acres anymore that's being used for growing crops. And so  the idea
09:07of being able to get the two acres adjacent to our property. It probably will never happen because it's going to break that law to do that. Gotcha. Yeah.  That's something that we're hoping that we can do. You know, we're not real certain that  he's  going to go for it, but we're hopeful, you know. um But that's kind of what we're hoping to do is be able to purchase a little bit more or even property away from ours.
09:37So then we can expand because we do want to be able to have a milking cow and you know some sheep  things like that. um Just being able to like I said our  ultimate goal in general is just to be more self-sufficient.  Yeah and the thing that's hard is that when you want to be self-sufficient  it's really nice to have a milk cow. It's really nice to have a couple of steers fattening up for the following year for the freezers.
10:06It's nice to be able to have the things that would  make you capable of taking care of yourself.  And if you push it too hard on three acres, you end up having things on top of each other and that just doesn't work very well.  Exactly. Exactly.  We're learning that.  One of the things I said to my husband when we bought our place five years ago, and it was a blank slate. mean, there was a pole bar and a house and a garage  on three acres and a tree line.
10:34And I said, I do not want this to become a junkyard homestead, you know, because you see people who have land and it's filled with old  dead tractors and pickup trucks and boxes and things. And I was just like, no, has to stay nice.  And it is staying nice, but we are definitely adding infrastructure every couple of years. Right, right. So yeah, ours was pretty much a blank slate as well when we bought it.
11:04It originally had a really nice barn on it, but prior to us purchasing the place, they had torn it down. I don't really know why or anything like that. But having the blank slate kind of made it easier for us to be able to build what we needed to, where we wanted it, how we wanted it.
11:28And one of the things that I was just telling a friend of mine was, you know, you go to your tractor supplier, whatever you purchase, one of their little cute little coops or whatever, that would not survive out here because unfortunately we get direct wind hits. Yep. So my husband builds them and  last  two years ago, maybe we had  160 mile
11:57plus our winds coming through and not one of them moved. And it was nice. was, it kind of like was okay. If we ever do have a tornado get super close to us, we're going to be okay. I think, you know, I don't think that obviously if it runs through our property, you know, that's a little different story. Right.  But knowing that my animals, when they go up, they're secure. Wind isn't going to take them out. kind of, it's
12:26It's nice. you know, driving around out here, you do see those old buildings that are falling apart and it's like, how is that still standing? Because it's barely hanging on. But I also like seeing that.  Yeah, for sure. So  what's the nearest big city to you, Rebecca? um Well, defining big, I would say probably Peoria, Illinois, and that's about an hour and a half.
12:57Okay, yeah.  My grandparents lived in Illinois. They lived in Oakwood, Illinois.  Okay. So I know where Peoria is. I've driven by it many times to go visit my grandparents. Yes. Yeah. That I would say would probably be the nearest big city.  you're sort of  mid-west of Illinois, like in the middle on the west side? Yeah.
13:25Okay. Kind of like in that belly area. Yeah. Illinois is, it's so weird. I grew up in Maine and Maine is very forested and very hilly. And we would go out to see my grandparents and we'd get to Indiana, well, mid Ohio. And it would start to get flat.  And I would be like, Oh, we're getting closer because it's getting flatter. And my dad would just laugh and he would say,  yes, that's why Mainers call people from away,  flat landers, because the land gets flat.
13:54Yeah, the West you go and so I'm aware of how beautiful Illinois is but I'm also very aware of how flat it can be Yeah um Very flat like there's there's no ifs, ands, buts about it  Yes, and I mean Maine has some flat spots but not like the Midwest does  and uh I made a lateral move over 30 years ago to Minnesota and
14:22Minnesota is a very strange state because the southern part there are some very flat lands here and up north it's all forested like Maine where I grew up  and There's also just there's so much water here. I mean, they're not kidding when they call it the land of 10,000 lakes Right. Yeah, we took a I haven't been to Wisconsin, but I have been to Michigan and
14:47Oh my goodness is Michigan beautiful  just all the forestry alone. So I can only imagine. mean you're talking about one state over really how beautiful Wisconsin is.  Oh yeah. Minnesota and Wisconsin aren't a whole lot different in my opinion. I'm sure that other people might have a different opinion because everyone does.  But  Wisconsin is also interesting because it also has like  zones of different topography.
15:17topography, there we go, just like Minnesota does. So it's kind of neat.  Okay, so I have a question. I was looking at your latest post on your Facebook page. Yeah. And there's something about NPIP certified.  What is that? What does that mean? So basically, um my flock has been tested  for,  in layman's terms, basically just um
15:47A strain  of salmonella. Okay.  Um, so it's something required by like not every state.  Um, I know that there's a few that it just kind of a whatever thing they don't require it.  Um,  but  to ship birds  in or out of pretty much every state, you have to have it. Okay. Or eggs.  Um, okay. Cool.  It allows me to, be able to ship.
16:17um eggs and birds. I have not shipped birds. I don't feel comfortable doing it. um Or to even go to shows. It allows me to go to shows.  Or um even like the state of Illinois requires it for like swap meets. Okay. All right. Do know what it stands for? the what the letters stand for? um
16:44If I had it in front of my head face, I would be able to tell you I have a  really bad memory when it comes to that  I'm gonna Google it and P  I P Yeah, I have I
17:00I  am,  you know, to be all honest and serious here, I am dyslexic. So I do have a hard time recalling certain things when it comes to things like that. no, that's fine. And of course, I'm trying to get to it and it's telling me this site can't be reached. So um it doesn't really matter. I was just curious. I'd never seen the I'd never seen it before.  I know it's for the warrior.
17:27It's National Poultry Improvement Plan. That's what it is. Yes. There you go. Got it. So now I can put that in the show notes for people who don't know. Awesome. OK. So so do you you don't ship birds, you don't ship chicks, you just ship eggs? Yeah, I have worked with transports before.
17:52uh I just do not feel comfortable shipping live birds with the way the post office has been running. um I know a lot of people have good luck with them and things like that, but I've also seen a lot more where there's  delays. A lot of people are getting their birds,  you know, that have passed  due to shipping delays or just rough handling and.
18:21I just don't feel comfortable with it. would rather know that  if you're going to get a bird from me, that it's healthy, it's going to get to you okay.  Then ship something and just hope for the best.  You know, eggs are kind of one thing.  They're a little bit more sustainable, you know, if there is a slight delay.  Yes.  know, birds,  those are live  babies, know, live.
18:50Juveniles I just I Just have a really hard time getting past the idea of shipping something that may not make it to you alive  Yes, and I'm gonna say something that might be controversial, but I'm gonna say it anyway um I can't imagine being a day old or two day old chick Being popped into a box  put on a truck or a plane shipped across country
19:18and having to sit around in a box with 16 or 20 or 100 of my siblings  with a little bit of food and a little bit of water,  hoping that I stay alive. Yeah, and you know, that's, I feel like that's more of your hatcheries that ship your date olds. Most of the ones that, and I'm not saying  not every like farm does this or what have you, but I do know um a few farms that do ship  and
19:48They will not ship day olds.  They wait for a few, you know, even a week or so before they even ship because they do want them established. They do want them thriving, knowing that they're going to be okay before they do just put them in a box. Yeah. But yeah, I even, even being, you know, a week or two old and being sent out. Yeah. I definitely see your view and how you, how you look at that also. Yeah. Chicks are very fragile.
20:17They're very, very breakable. Yeah. And you know, then you have some that are even more so, you know, you get into your smaller breeds like your kiki rikis or your saramas. I mean, even call ducklings.  don't know  very many at  all  of, know, your individual small farms, hobby farms, homesteads, whatever,  um, that will ship even baby call ducks because of how even fragile they are.
20:47ah I do know that there is hatchery that  is shipping baby calls and I'm just like, can't even like that freaks me out a little bit. Like they're ultra sensitive  and you know, they do need that water. So it's, it's, you know, a very hot topic. Yeah. That's why I said, I'm going to say something controversial. And  honestly, if you're trying to get chips, chips, uh-huh.
21:16shipped to you, that's fine. Do whatever you're comfortable with. But I would rather find a local person  and get them from a local person where I can go pick them up  and gently take the box to my vehicle and then take the box from my vehicle to the brooder gently. And that way they're protected and they're safe. Oh, I agree. I agree. that's, you know, I can't speak for like every, every farm out there, but ones that I've talked to, even myself.
21:46Even when it comes to  eggs, I would rather be like, you know,  is there anybody closer to you? I, you know, I did ship some of my Turkey eggs to Oregon.  Um, and she said that, you know, she's, she was very insistent on, on these eggs. And I was like, okay, ah I will get them sent to you. And they did really, really well, but it is a long distance even for that, you know, um,
22:14And I do know that a lot of people will want eggs or, you know, like chicks or even eggs shipped to them, um, because they can't find them.  Um, you know, we'll go on back to like the Caldots. That is something that a lot of people are just like, I can't find them in my area. They're hard to come by. And they're, you know, even here,  they're becoming a little bit more popular. But when I started with them,  you couldn't really find them anywhere near you.
22:45Now, now you're seeing a lot more of them. um It's basically down to what colors even, you so it's kind of same with chicks as well. You know,  there are some chickens that are harder to come by. There are some that, you know, you see everywhere.
23:08Yep, absolutely.  So I'm going to ask a question I don't ask as often as I probably should. If someone wanted to get into raising ducks or raising chickens,  how do they get started? Because you've been doing this for a little while. So tell me how you get started.  So one thing that I do  even to this day, um especially if it's a new breed or anything like that, um
23:37I make sure to do the research.  Um, that will make or break you. It's when you  are like, oh my goodness, those cold ducks are so cute. I need them. want them. And then you go get them and you get them home  and you don't know how to care for them properly. You're going to end up with dead birds.  Um, unfortunately this last spring I sold some Sebastopol goslings  and some of them didn't make it because
24:06They were not brooded properly  and they got too hot because they were brooded as chicks and you can't, you can't do that. So one thing that I always suggest to people is,  um, you know, make sure that you know  what you're getting into. Um, dig around, ask questions. I'm always, always open to answering questions. anybody that has bought from me before, I, you know, it's always.
24:35If you got anything, reach out to me. Feel free. It's okay. um
24:43Talk to, talk to breeders, ask them questions. A lot of breeders,  you're really good breeders even,  will help you. They'll help you along the way, help you answer any questions, anything that you have. But the biggest thing is  knowing what you're getting into because not every  bird is the same.  You know, whether you're looking at chickens, not every chicken is the same. Some require different things.
25:13ducks, same thing. They're not all the same.  Like the sabbatical geese, you know, they're  the way they're feathering is  they get colder a little bit faster, you know, if the wind's blowing right on them. So they do need to be able to have wind block. These kinds of things are very important to know. And that's, you know, that is the very first thing that I tell anybody that, you know,
25:43hasn't owned ducks before. Do your research. Understand that you can't put like a call duck in  with your bigger ducks if you're going to have drakes.
25:56It won't work. mean, I know people do it and they have success, but most of the time it's because they've done the research and they're in a really big enclosure or they're free range. But then you have to look at those risks as well and understand that. So the deeper, the deeper you dive into it, the deeper you look into it and you ask all these questions, come up with all these scenarios.
26:26the better off you will be prepared for when you get your new chicks, your new ducks, your new breed. So basically educate yourself before you jump in.  Very much. You know, don't just look at pictures and be like, oh my goodness, they're so cute. Because they are. They are all adorable. Every chicken is adorable, except for I have a problem with naked. But that's okay.  But.
26:55You know, it really like if you're going to spend the money for the bird, know what you're getting. Yeah. And I'm going to add to that, know what it takes to take care of them of your time and your energy too. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because, know, just just like with the sabbaths of bulls and putting up wind blocks, that takes some time.
27:21You know, and they do need space. They do need to be able to graze even during winter.
27:28You know their main source of food is  basically, you know, your grass your dirt that kind of stuff  Mm-hmm. Not so much grain. You don't want to overpower them with grains Yes, there's so many things that go into having birds in general not I mean even if you were gonna have Pigeons, there's a lot that goes into bird care. Yes Absolutely
27:56And, you know, knowing, you know, what to do if a medical issue comes up, you know, like rhino or, you know, when they're hatching out of an egg, do they need help? You know, like, call ducks are notorious for needing help, but not every duck needs help, you know. So it's all a learning process. And one thing that, you know,
28:25I always tell everybody is we all started somewhere.  We all made mistakes and we all learned from it.
28:37So don't feel bad if you make a mistake. Just learn from it and keep going. Things happen and you learn. Yes, that is the joy of being alive and learning new things.  Yes, yes.  I'm going to pull this around to dogs because I have the best dog in the entire world. Fight me. She's the best. um
29:06We got her a and I thought that we would break her. We had never had a puppy before and she was eight weeks old.  And we know her former, we know the owners of our dog's parents, they're friends of ours. And their dogs have  at least one litter a year usually. And  the lady is always posting photos of the puppies when they arrive and then as they grow and then they go to their new homes.
29:33And every time she posts a new litter when they're about four weeks old,  I'm like, you can't just have one. I need another one. And my husband's like,  no,  our dog is the best dog  in the world. She's the only dog we need. And he reminds me of this. And I go, okay, fine. And so, so I just really try to enjoy those puppies vicariously. And if we have the chance to go visit them,  we go visit them and we help socialize them, but they do not come home with us.
30:02because  animals just like children need to be taken care of. Yeah. So it's all part of the homesteading and farming life, but  you got to know your limits and our limits are the best dog in the world.  One dog. That's it.  right. Yes. No, I,  I definitely hear that, but it's really hard to pass up more than one puppy because they're very cute.
30:30Oh my goodness, they are. have two little babies right now. They will be four weeks  old Wednesday.  And  they are the sweetest little things ever.  And I do know one is going to a fantastic farm in about two weeks.  Well, no, actually it's closer to three weeks.
30:59And I'm excited. I'm excited for them and I'm excited for the little guy. ah It's fun being able to have them, but also finding them a great home. And we do not breed very often um because of the breed of dogs that we do have. um The idea is to make sure that they do go to a good home. Purposeful breeding.  Yeah.
31:28Yes. uh Is it Rottweilers? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They are adorable as babies and they are scary looking when they're big grown up boys. And I love them. I think they're beautiful.  And I've known some very sweet Rottweiler dogs. They are big loveys, but they will definitely put the fear of God into you if you are where you're not supposed to be in their guard dogs.  And you know, that is one thing that we have out here.
31:57partly for that purpose um to be a guard dog, but they do know their limits. They do know, you know, okay, if we tell you to stop, means stop. They are great dogs. They are fantastic. um Our oldest, which I like to call grandma now,  she  is the sweetest little thing ever. And she,
32:26I mean, you put any kind of baby in front of her, baby chick, baby duck, whatever, she does not even care. And it's a beautiful thing.  It's a beautiful thing to be able to do that.  And, you know, that's one thing that we work on out here as well. You know, are they going to necessarily go to a farm home?  No, but we still introduce them to  the birds rather early, you know, once they get their vaccines going and stuff.  Sorry.
32:56Um, we start the introduction just in case they do go to a home with even chickens, for example, that way, you know, they understand they know that is started. Does that make them a livestock guardian dog?  No. So please don't get that confused and don't, you know, think that, oh, I can just take any dog and, and create a livestock guardian dog. That's  two different things.
33:24It definitely is. And I'm going to say our dog is  an Australian shepherd and she,  she was sold to us as a mini, but apparently that's not a thing. She is a small Australian shepherd  and  she would be a great show dog because she's very athletic. She would also be a great herding dog. That's what she was bred for. She is not a livestock guardian dog either  because she's only 35 or 36 pounds.
33:53And any predator here, a coyote would take her down in minutes, a pack of coyotes she'd be done for. Right. So her job is to let us know if something is on the property that's not supposed to be here. She's an excellent watchdog. Yes. Yeah. And that's, you know, and that's just kind of what these guys are too. You know, they're just here to watch and protect.  But I do know a lot of people, um you know, they get into
34:21the poultry and then they're like, well, you know, this dog's really good with the chickens. They're a livestock guardian dog or whatever, you know, they just kind of have that mindset and it's like, no, that's not what they are, but it's good that they're good with your chickens. Yeah, we call Maggie the farm dog because everybody refers to us, our place as the farm, but she may be a farm dog, but she's not a livestock guardian dog. we're good with Right.
34:49All right, this was wonderful, Rebecca. Thank you so much for talking with me today. Where can people find you?  You know, just on our web page on Facebook, we do have  a website that we're building, but  we're having issues with it. So hopefully that'll be coming soon.  Awesome. Let me know and I will add it to the show notes when you have it up. Okay. Okay.
35:16As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com, because I have a website, because I used to make them, so that's why I have one.  And please check out my Patreon, it's patreon.com slash atinyhomestead.  Rebecca, I hope you have a wonderful day. All right, thank you, you too. Thank you, bye. Bye.
 

Momma Dragon's Homestead

Today I'm talking with Susan at Momma Dragon's Homestead.
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Susan at Mama Dragon's Homestead in Maryland, of all places. Good morning, Susan, how are you?  Good morning, I'm doing well. How are you? Well, let's be honest, you and I are both coming off of a two-week sickness. And if I sound rough, it's because I have had the most
00:26ridiculously miserable head cold upper respiratory thing  since two Tuesdays ago. And  how long have you had it? It's been about the same. I'm on week three and  doing so much better than I was before.  My tonsils decided that they were going to  get huge on me. So  but it's something that my kids brought home for sure.  Yeah, my kid went to see his girlfriend and she had been sick and I didn't know she'd been sick.
00:54And I think he brought it home from her place. So I'm kind of  mildly displeased with him,  but I love him. And so I'm just like, eh, it could have been my husband bringing it home from work. can't find anybody to blame. I just have to be miserable.  So  if  Susan sounds snorky or I sound snorky, that's why.  And listener, if you are smart,
01:19try to make sure you wash your hands and if you feel okay about it wear a mask when you go out in public because it is going around. Yeah it is. It's gross you do not want this. It has been so bad.  Okay so first off I'm so happy that you're you're well enough to chat with me  and second off why is it mama dragons homestead? um I  really really love dragons. um
01:47I was definitely uh kind of a horse girl growing up.  But then like in middle school, was like, you know what? I'm going to just make these look like dragons now. dragons  have just been something that  I've  loved for most of my life.  And I'm an artist as well. So I draw a lot of dragons. uh I  didn't want uh my homestead to be uh
02:17a name that I already have online elsewhere or anything. I tried to make it kind of, well, I love dragons. So I'm a mama. Here's dragons. Mama dragon.  Well, it's attention getting because I saw it on Facebook and I was like, hmm, what is this? Does she raise dragons? Do they exist?  My kids, my kids are all grown. But if you had figured out a way to find dragon eggs, hatch them and raise dragons, they would have been all over that.  Oh, if I
02:46you'll be the first to know because I'm all about that.  Yeah, the book that got my youngest hooked on reading  was Aragon and he talked about dragon eggs incessantly for months after he read that book.  I actually have read that one too. think I was um in middle school as well when I read that one. ah But my first uh big dragon series book was Anna Caffrey's Dragon Riders of Fern.  Mine too.
03:14love that series. Absolutely love it.  Me too. And what I didn't know when I started, the first one I read, we're going to get into books for a minute, was The White Dragon because I didn't know there were other books before that one. And that's the one that got me sucked in. And then  as a young adult, I learned that there were so many more. And then I think she's died now. think  Emma Caffrey has passed. So there will be no more Pern books. And I'm kind of sad about it.
03:44She did collaborate with her son. So her son has, they've got books that they've done together and some that he's done. So there's still some Anne McCaffrey magic out there. I may have to dig into it. I haven't read one in a long time. Okay. Well, anyone who's a reader and loves dragons and loves words, go find the Pern series because it is fabulous. So I don't want to get into books too much because I am a word nerd and a
04:12book geek and we could spend two hours and that's not what this podcast is about. keep joking  that I need to start a book podcast and I just don't have the time right now to invest in a second podcast.  So maybe if I do do one in a year or so, I'll have to have you come back and we'll talk books.  But  what do you do at Mama Dragon's Homestead? What are you guys going on there? um So  we just started out. This is
04:40This is my first year homesteading and I literally took a nose dive into it. um And in February, me and my kids  started planting our little garden. had  pumpkins, corn, uh tomato, every tomato. planted way too many tomatoes. um Zucchini,  we got that all going and I felt like really hopeful for it.  I'm actually terrible at keeping any kind of plant thing alive. So the fact that uh
05:09it was working was really exciting and encouraging for me.  And then I was going to be getting into canning. um But  on Mother's Day, I got  four chicks,  four little chicks.  And um I'm sure you know how chicken math works.  Four just wasn't enough. And so after that, I got um four more from another local homestead.
05:37and then three more from a different homestead. So we were at 11 chickens and  my partner was like, all right,  maybe we should think about this. So  I put a hard stop there and we were just raising those ones up. We got the chickens before we got  the coop. So we built the coop while they were growing up.  And then the same lady that I had gotten four of the chicks from
06:06Um, she had posted that she was also, uh, selling rabbits. So  I jumped into the rabbitry side of things.  Um, I'm also a registered rabbitry as a mama dragon as well.  Oh, nice.  Um, we've got rabbits going,  um, which,  know, we use for every aspect for,  for compost, for food, for, um,  I'm looking into getting into the,  um,  the shows this next year.
06:36And yeah, uh that's,  I think that covers kind of where we are at at current with everything on the homestead, uh animal and food wise. Fun. So, so why did you dive in? um So I actually had a pretty traumatic uh last year.  I became a single mother last year and uh one of my best friends and my boss  passed away.
07:06And ah I was just kind of spiraling in this depression  and not sure  how to like pull myself back out of it. um And, you know, financially was also  struggling and I was like, what can I do to be more self-efficient for me and my family when  these times are getting rough like this? um So that's kind of what sparked it and why we started with Garden.
07:36Um,  and then,  you know, when we got the chicks and everything, I just  really saw a big change in my mood.  Um,  you know, I'm, wanting to  go outside. I'm wanting to help take care of things and tend to the garden and stuff like that. And my kids are excited about it. So it's something that we're  learning and doing together at the same time. It's not something that I already know that I'm teaching them. It's something that we're learning.
08:05together as, you know, home team family doing.  And I think that really brought out this different side of me  and  brought out a lot of motivation and encouragement during  me being in a really dark place in dark time.  You chose one of the healthiest ways to deal with depression there is.  Thank you. Good job. I'm proud of you. ah
08:33Here at our place, our last name is Louis, obviously. So when we accomplish something, we go, yay, Team Louis. I love that.  And it's usually outside and it's usually really loud. It's a good thing we have neighbors that are a quarter mile away at the  least.  But  one of our neighbors is actually a county sheriff.  And he has a homestead over that way himself. So I'm sure that he and his family probably have some version  of hell's yes, we did it. Yeah.
09:01But ours is, ours is, Team Lewis or go Team Lewis or whatever it We yell outside. And it's so nice to be able to yell outside. Our neighbors don't come running like what is wrong with you? Yeah. Okay. So I've talked about our experience with rabbits a couple of times on the podcast in the last two years, and we tried it. We were going to raise rabbits for meat and our bunnies were not very good at procreating. We got one, one litter.
09:31in a year. And we decided that was not a good use of our time or our money because you've got to feed those bunnies. And so we called them and stuck them in the freezer and that was the end of our rabbit raising experience. I saw on your Facebook page that you have had more than one litter of bunnies gifted to you. So how's it going? Oh my goodness. I absolutely love it. So there is kind of
09:59Interesting story with the bunnies. So  the first two that I got um were specifically for my kids  since we did so well with the chicks. But uh I then  suddenly had eight bunnies  because  bunny math apparently hits a whole lot harder than chicken math does.  But um I had come across this lady that had rabbits for sale and  I went to go check them out.  And it turned out that
10:26They were in really bad living conditions and she was  she kind of said, hey, you're here for these, but I need you to take all of these rabbits  or I'm just going to call them all. I put me in kind of a weird situation because it was like, this is my first time here. I'm still new to rabbits.  I don't know what to do. But I felt really bad because like their cages were falling apart and  awful. And  so I was like, OK, put them all in the van. And. um
10:54Taking care of them and kind of like nursing them back to health and trying to find homes for them, I found out how much I love and just appreciated it. Majority of them were bucks though. So I went through the rehoming of that and then adopt, not adopted, but bought two more does and I gave it a shot.
11:21And I had read everywhere, you know, make sure you're breeding too so that if something happens to the first one, another one can help foster and stuff like that. yeah, the first two, one of them had, I think seven was the first litter and then the other one was 10. And I'm like, oh, hi, lots of babies. And that was really exciting.
11:46They come, they're like little beans. I think that's one of the videos I even said, they're like little jumping beans. But like it was a very special moment. I'm helping to create more life that's going to sustain me, my family, or be in somebody else's life. And then the next two that I had,
12:11um It was only a few weeks later, they both had their babies. And I think we're up to 29 babies. um And they're all doing amazing.  They're all fantastic mothers. Two of them are first time moms. Two of them have had  litters previously. um all  of the babies have made it that were born live. We did have three stillborn,  but she had, I mean that was...
12:37She had a litter of 13 and three of them were stillborn. So it was very large litter for  rabbit.  Yeah. But yeah, it's been fantastic.  It's another thing that this is my first time doing something like this and the kids are present for it. uh Though my oldest, who's seven, was a little freaked out when they were born because he didn't realize that they were kind of born naked. um So  he was like, you know, let me know when they have fur.
13:07um But my youngest has been really supportive and  wanting to be there for every time I go out there really. Yes, little naked mole rat popcorn kernels is what I think of them as. Yes.  You try to like check on them if they feel a vibration at all, they all just start popping around in the nest.  Yeah, they are the most adorable baby animal I've ever dealt with and that's going some because I
13:35love kittens and I love puppies.  I love baby goats and I love calves. So for me to say that baby rabbits are the cutest, they really are.  Yes, they make cute little squeaks and oh my gosh, they're precious. Though I'm jealous because I would love to be around some baby calves.  I don't have baby calves. The only reason I say I love baby calves is my grandpa's friend down the road when I was growing up had a dairy farm and we got to go see the calves every spring.  And my
14:03grandpa's friend would let us go into the pen with like two or three calves at a time and just hang out with them because they were they were little they were only a week old. And baby calves love to suck because that's how they get the milk from mom and so if you stick your thumb out they're gonna suck on your thumb it's very funny. Yes I visited a farm that had a baby one and I it was trying to eat like I would to pet it it tried to eat my whole knuckles.
14:30They're like, Ooh, that seems like a teat. Let's see, let's see what's in there. And you find out, they find out right away that there's nothing there, but they will continue to suck. It's almost like a baby, you know, a human baby. don't. that's how they learn. Yeah. mean, pacifiers are not a fantastic thing. I don't recommend that moms give their babies pacifiers these days, cause it's really hard to get that toddler to give it up. But it's the same thing. It's comfort. So. Right.
15:00Um, okay. So,  and so how many chickens do you have now?  Um, so,  um, I don't know if it was one of the posts that you saw or not, but  the same time that we were having  baby bunnies,  I actually just incubated and hatched  our first,  um, home hatch  of chickens. So we were at 11. We unfortunately did lose one, um, which if you don't mind, I'm going to say like a little PSA to everybody. um
15:30Make sure,  you know, if you've built your coop or you're adding onto your coop,  get one of those magnetic sweepers just in case any screws or nails or anything fall off. Oh, yeah. That's unfortunately how we lost our one hen. um Everybody else is good, but she ended up  eating one.  yeah, so just make sure if you do any construction or anything, you clean it up with that because they see shiny and they want to eat it. Yes. And that is a
15:59Perfectly fine thing to let people know  and while we're at it I've got one to add to  my husband and my son target practice on our property  and uh They will use the the 22  Caliber well, it's I'm trying to think of all the right words here  and  they were actually shooting at a possum that had gotten into the the chicken coop  and My dad told my dad about this and he was like are they using lead shot or steel shot?
16:29And I said, I don't think we have any steel shot right now. And he said, um you might not want to let the chickens free range where they were shooting at the possum.  He said, because they will eat  the shot. And if it's lead, it will kill them.  And I had never thought of that. It never would have occurred to me. So  that's another PSA.  If you're going to target practice or if you're going to dispatch an animal on your property,
16:56Don't let your chickens free range of where you shot that gun or where you aimed  the gun at. Yeah.  Because chickens are stupid. They will eat anything. They will.  I give them  as much, you know, like I mix up my own scratch and stuff.  But if they see styrofoam, they're going for the styrofoam.  Oh, yeah. They they're indiscriminate  and they don't self-regulate when they eat. I mean, we feed
17:25We fill their feeder full and  they don't self-regulate. They will eat through that thing in two days. Yep.  There's eat, need, need. And I'm like, you are not meat birds. You are laying hens.  Right. So we have to make sure that we don't fill the feeder all the way full. We feed them a specific amount every day. Otherwise we're going to go broke feeding chickens. uh But to answer... uh
17:54Back to what you originally asked. um So 10 grown right now in Lang and we hatched 18 chicks. So we've got 18 chicks now. uh And they're all,  know, some of them are from our flock and some of them are  from like my sister farm. She's got a whole bunch of different chickens too. So we've got a cute little variety going on right now.  Nice. And what is the plan for all the chickens?
18:20So we are going to look at getting our numbers up to 24. So we have like two dozen eggs a day. And then I have a neighbor down the road. They just built a coop and they'll get the remainder of them to kind of start their flock. Nice. Awesome. So do you sell your chicken egg? Are you going to? Yeah, we just started. a couple of weekends ago, actually it was the first Saturday in October.
18:48me and my kids launched uh our first farm stand. Like we're doing everything this year. uh And so we've been putting eggs out there and the neighbors have been coming and buying them and stuff. uh yeah, it's been really neat. It's been really fun.  You weren't kidding when you said you dived in. I did. I did a huge nose dive.  But that's good. I mean, honestly, if you can afford it.
19:15If you are ingenious enough to do it on a shoestring budget,  and if it's helping your mental health, I applaud you. I think you're doing a great thing. Thank you. Definitely. I've been taking advantage of Facebook Market and everybody who um gives away palettes and stuff like that. We've been recycling so much stuff for what we have. Palettes are the homesteaders, godsend of building materials.  That's what our coupes made out of, is palettes.
19:44Yeah, there's a place almost to the next town over. It's  a dental  or veterinarian something supply place and they have stacks of really nice pallets all the time and they just let people take them. we,  we took at least 50 of them in the first two years we're here. Yeah. Cause they're great. mean, you can use them the way they are. You can break them apart to use them for other things. They're fantastic. And free is always good.
20:14Yep.  Okay. So,  um, I had a question about your farm stand. Did you build your farm stand or did you like retrofit a shed or something?  Um, so we got  an old,  um, not old, but, um, somebody was getting rid of, uh, like a entertainment center, a TV stand,  um, that had like cabinet doors on it.  Um, so we went and picked it up  and,  um, I did,  uh,  cause it had just like the
20:43kind of cardboardy background or  back of it.  So we took that off and I put um wood up on it and I put really cute wallpaper on it. I'm very partial to wallpaper. um And we just added a few more shelves and we have it standing because it wasn't tall enough on its own.  We have it on pallets to make it tall enough. um And  we wheel it out every weekend, at least until we can get a roof on it so that like when it rains, doesn't.
21:13mess it up.  Very nice.  That's really smart. um I'm sorry, I'm trying not to cough.  No, you're okay.  Goodness. um We have a farm stand too, but we actually spent a lot of money on it because we had money at the time.  And it looks like a little red barn and I'm so in love with  it. it makes our property look so
21:41You need to understand and the listeners need to understand. I've talked about it before. When we moved here, it was a blank slate. There wasn't a farm stand. There wasn't a greenhouse. There was a pole barn, a house, and a three-car garage or two-car garage that is useless. We can't open the doors on it because it's old and broken. And a big old field to put a beautiful garden in and we did that right away. But we have very slowly been putting buildings in to suit our purposes.
22:10And I'm telling you, when my husband and son got the uh permanent greenhouse built, I mean, I had wanted it from the beginning, but that didn't go up until May 2 until  two Mays ago. So May of 2023. We had our little farm stand, the greenhouse is behind it. The barn is at the end of the driveway.  And I look out my kitchen or my porch windows and I can see the whole layout.
22:40And I'm just like, man, this is what I thought it was going to look like when we got to it.
22:47Yeah, that's gotta be like a dream to look out and just see it. It's so exciting and  it sounds dumb. mean, the greenhouse has been up for a year and a half  and the farm stand's been up for at least three years  and it still just makes me giddy to look out there and see those structures  built and being used. No, I think that's fantastic. I mean, ours is still very fresh, but it is like
23:14That's one of my favorite things to do. I used to never use the backyard because there was nothing in it  and  my kids would mostly play in the front yard and um just being able to go into the backyard and I am a, an addicted coffee drinker to the max. So to just go out there and have my coffee and  hear the chickens and see them.  and like, I never thought,  never thought that would be something in my life. So it's, it is still very like, wow, I'm really,
23:45and I'm really, um I don't know, grateful that this is how things have turned out.  Yeah, it's funny how when bad things happen, if you can just feel the feelings and breathe through it and realize that you have to keep moving through the bad to get to the good,  when you get to the other side, it's like the lights go back on and color comes back into the world. Yes, that's very true. It's so weird. My daughter,  my daughter is my oldest child.
24:15I have four kids. And when she graduated high school and moved out, everybody was like, are you okay? Are you doing okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. And she moved, she graduated in the end of May, first of June, years ago, and she moved out like the same day  and she was  gone. I mean, gone, gone. Like I didn't see her for months because she needed to make that break too. And it took until October for me to realize that I
24:45hadn't been fine. Like I was doing okay. I was getting through life, but I was depressed and I didn't even know it.  October hit and the leaves had changed and I had noticed and fall is my favorite time of year.  And  just as the foliage season was coming to an end, I was like, oh my God, the maple tree across the street is gorgeous. And my husband said, yeah, it has been for the last week and a half. Where have you been?
25:13And I said, I don't know. He said, I don't think you've handled this as well as people think you've handled this. And I said, well, I don't think so either, but colors are back. He's like, oh, that's good. He said, that's usually a good sign. I said, yeah, no kidding. Yeah. That's one of the first things that got pointed out to me. And it was actually by my mom. She lives in Colorado, but she just kind of noticed
25:43my behavior, and this was like, not this last February, but the February before where she's like, are you okay? And I'm like,  I don't know what you mean. And she's like, it kind of seems like you're disassociating.  that's not something that I had thought about at all. But when I sat back and thought about it, I'm like,  oh, yes, I have been heavily disassociating  for a long time, been missing  all the signs of it thinking I was okay.
26:12That's the worst part of it is that you as the person experiencing it  don't really realize that it's happening. Yeah. Yeah. Until you come out of it. Yep. And I don't want to make this into psychology 101, but  it's really good to have family and friends who will notice those things and be like,  I don't think you're as okay as you're trying to be.  I think so many  aspects.
26:41are intertwined with each other that it's still  relevant to this, I think, because I think a lot of people,  in my opinion, at least,  who do homesteading, it is kind of the having a purpose, having a reason to go outside having because just being outside is healthy for you anyway. I know I was like, gremlin in my basement for way too long,  but just being outside and moving.
27:08helps your mental state and I do think that's a big part of homesteading, at least in my experience of it,  as it's been very rewarding for my mental health.  Sure. And if nothing else, the vitamin D from the sun that you're getting while you're outside helps a lot. I have never been so Tam.  Yeah, absolutely.  So how big is your piece of property? Is it just a city lot or are you outside of town?
27:35I am  on kind of the edge of city there. So it's  nice that there's not as much limitations. I've got just under an acre. there's a house next to us that it's actually been abandoned for 20 years.  So I don't have to worry about neighbors on that side. um And the neighbor on the other side of us um is totally cool with everything, loves our chickens, loves the rooster. And I give her some free eggs. like.
28:03no problem with us there. And then behind us um is just woods  for I don't know how long, but there's no one behind us. And  it's a really  nice, like there's only a couple trees. So I've planted a few fruit trees in hopes that maybe in a couple years  something will happen with them. And I've planted a couple willow trees just to add some more.
28:28shade in the back there, but it's a good chunk of land for the kids to run around. I do have dogs too, so there's all that. And there's still a good section for my garden and the chickens and rabbits without it feeling like we're cramped or building on top of ourselves. Awesome. You can do a lot with just under an acre. We had a 10th of an acre before we moved to our 3.1 acre place here.
28:55And we  fed our neighborhood veggies every summer from our tiny little garden. So you can do a lot. um If you want to make yourself feel really special,  how many  fruit trees did you plant?  Three.  OK. Add two more and  you can say that you have a small orchard. OK. Is that what an orchard's considered? Yep. Five or more. Very cool.
29:21I'll have do that.  Yeah. I didn't know this until  I sent the draft of my article. It's coming out in the November, December issue of Homestead Living.  Like, like next month it's coming out and the editor said, um, so do you have an orchard? And I didn't know the definition of orchard. So I had to look it up and it said five or more fruit trees. And I said to my husband when he got home, said, did you know that we have a small orchard?  That's really cool.
29:51He said, technically. I said, yes. I said, considering we have 20 trees and that's just apple trees. I said, doesn't count the plum trees or the peach trees. I said, we have a small orchard on our property. He was like, that is fabulous. And he used another word in front of fabulous that I don't sound like podcast. uh So if you want to make yourself feel special and unique, add two more trees and you will have a small orchard. Susan. Awesome.
30:18Actually, I do have four, but one of them is inside right now because it's uh it's a Mandarin and I'm like, that's going to freeze. So it's inside. So one more trick.  Yeah. What did you plant for trees outside? uh I have uh an apple tree, peach and a plum. And it was kind of  we're going to try each of these and see. I think the apple  might not have made it just because when we got it  and I didn't know when I got it at the time, it had that the rust.
30:48Yeah.  Yeah. So I'm a little worried about it,  but the peach and the the plum seem like they're doing  really good. uh But yeah, we'll see how they  how they turn out next year. Hopefully they should. eh There was there was already like two peaches growing on the peach tree when we bought it. So  I'm hoping that means that next year we'll have a little more.  Yeah, peaches are pretty quick turnaround. We have peach trees and we got
31:17We got peaches the fall after we put it in.  So like the year a year later, we got peaches. The other thing about apples and I'm gonna tell you this because I didn't know this until we got apples and um one of our orchard friends like like he grow he has an orchard a big one. He gave us apple trees  as a housewarming present.  Gave them to us gave us six apple trees. Wow.
31:44And I said, we don't need six. And he was like, no, no, no. He said,  here's why I'm doing this. He said, I'm the one who has the orchard. Listen up. And I was like, okay, thank you, sir. Tell me,  educate me.  He said, I'm giving you four  honey gold apple trees. He said, they're a fabulous apple for baking. He said, and I'm giving you a Regent and a Harrelson. He said, the reason I'm giving you these is because you need  different kinds of apple trees to pollinate each other.
32:15Because you need more than one apple tree. So I'm going to tell you right now, Susan, if you want apples, you're going to need more than one apple get some more. Well, good to know. Thank you. Yeah. And this guy, think he's 70 and we've known him for at least 20 years. And we just wanted to buy some small apple trees from him. And we drove up and we were like, hey, you know, moved to LaSore, right? And he's like, yeah.
32:43And I said, any chance you have any small apple trees you'd be willing to sell us. And he said, well, no. And I looked at him and I said, did we do something to make you angry? And he said, no. He said, no, of course not. I'm going to give you some apple trees for your housewarming present. I almost broke down in tears. I was so tickled and so excited. And I was just like, you don't have to give them to us.
33:13And he was like, Mary, he said, how many times has Kyle helped me with stuff here? I said, at least six. He said, did I ever pay him? I was like, no.  He said, you guys have become friends and you have been wanting to this forever. He said,  I am going to give you apple treats. I was like, okay, fantastic. So it's, sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know. In this case, we were very happy to know this man. So yeah.
33:40All right. So I think  I have asked all the questions I can ask in 30 minutes since we're at 3340. ah Where can people find you, Susan? uh Right now, I post mainly to that Facebook page. um I don't think that I've got a custom  URL for it, but if you look up on Facebook, ah Mama Dragon Homestead, you'll find it. It's right currently the avatar on it or the icon  is one of my rabbits.  And
34:08I'm hoping to launch  a site  in  the next coming weeks.  when I do, I'll post on there. It's either going to be Mama Dragon Homestead or Dragon Homestead because I know putting the mama in front makes it kind of long.  But I'll post there when  it's ready to go.  Okay, fantastic. And I'm going to give you one more piece of advice. I hope you don't mind. Oh, sure.  When you set up your website, make sure that you make an email address with  the
34:37the domain name thing, know, so if it's  Susan at mama dragons homestead.com or whatever you use  when you set up the email for it, do that for sure because then you start an email list and you can market using your email list. And number two, make sure you check that email.  I have,  I did not check my email for my podcast website for like three, three months because no one ever sends me anything but spam.
35:06And I was like, I suppose I should sign in and see if there's anything actually important in there.
35:12There was something important in there and I can't say what is yet, but it's exciting and it's kind of a, it's kind of a minor accolade for the podcast. So I'm glad I went and checked my email, um, two months ago and went, Oh, I should probably respond to that. Well, that's awesome. So definitely check your email on your website because if you don't, you might miss something really cool. Yeah. And I want to really say, you know, thanks for reaching out to, to invite me to this. thought that was, that was really neat. And.
35:42uh I don't know, it felt really good to get recognized, so I appreciate it.  Oh, you're welcome. And honestly, I don't have a podcast without you guys. If I don't have people to talk to, there is no podcast.  And I also really like talking to people who are just starting because it gives people who are interested in starting kind of an idea of what it takes to get going on it.  Yeah.
36:08And I also like talking to people like Joel Salatin, who's been doing this forever because he knows all the things  and he was very happy to share the things with people who are trying to learn. I love that. So I'm just trying to get people to realize that you can't rely  on grocery stores and the government to take care of you. There's some skills you might want to learn that might help you out when the grocery stores  don't have what you need. m
36:35The government might be shut down like it is right now.  Right, right. So I'm just trying to help. All right. People can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com and please check out my Patreon. It's patreon.com slash a tiny homestead.  Susan, this was great. I hope I didn't sound terrible. You sounded great. So I'm glad you're getting over it. I appreciate it. And I hope you have a great day. You too. Thank you so much. Thanks. Bye. Bye.
 

Hens, Hooves & Honey Farms

Today I'm talking with Paula at Hens, Hooves & Honey Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well.
Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
 
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Paula at Hens, Hoves, and Honey Farms  in California. Good afternoon, Paula. How are you? Good afternoon. How are you? I'm good. It looks like it's sunny there. Oh, yeah. It's nice and warm down here today. Oh, well, I think it's not even 50 degrees in Minnesota where I am.
00:29Oh, wow, that's cold already. Yeah, fall is on the way. It's really sunny though. So if you don't think about it too hard, it still looks like summertime outside. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do at your place. So my husband and I bought some land about 15 years ago.
00:54It kind of started, my husband at the age of 32 was diagnosed with cancer  and  the cause of it from  what the doctors could understand was more environmental causes. Basically the water, the food, all the stuff, all the toxins and everything. So we kind of decided that we wanted to grow our own food, just kind of live a healthier lifestyle, so to speak.
01:23Um, so we got some land and we started small with cattle and pigs and then just slowly over the years,  um, we've just kind of expanded things and that's kind of how we got started.  How long ago was this? About 15 years ago. And how's your husband now? He's great. He is cancer free and has been,  I mean, since it went away about
01:5214 years ago.  Awesome. So whatever you guys did helped. Yes, hopefully. It never comes back. Good. It looks like you have a lot going on. So do you grow produce? Do you grow animals? Do you grow both?  Well, right now we grow animals.  We have some fruit trees and stuff growing that we've been slowly planting over the years to just kind of get everything ready. uh
02:20We don't actually live on that farm that we are starting, but we literally make the drive every single weekend. We live in Southern California and we bought up in Northern California. Oh, okay. We have a foreman that lives on the property  and he takes care of the animals during the week. then usually  Jeff and I try to make a three or a four day weekend trip out of it. And we drive up and down.
02:49and help take care of the animals, make sure everything's up to date, make sure they have their food, their pens are secured, run all the errands, and then we get to play with them and have some fun.  So  it's like work and vacation mixed together? Yes. Okay, what kind of animals do you have there? So right now we have mini Hereford cows,  and then we have our pigs.
03:18which we have uh Magna-Listas. ah And then we have about 40 chickens.  And we've got what else? Oh, we have a lot of Nigerian goats that we um have started breeding about two years ago.  We kind of dabbled into the goat world. We've always just done the pigs, the chickens and the cows and up by our property. We have a lot of poison oak, which my husband is highly allergic to. oh
03:48We decided to bring in some goats to help try to clear it and then we just kind of fell in love with the breed and we slowly grown them over the last two years. So um now we breed them and sell them.
04:06Okay. So I was going to ask you if the animals earn their keep. The goats do. Oh yes, the goats do and the, uh, the cattle do as well. So we kind of run them through a cycle. We have, let the grass kind of grow back. We let the cows go through and graze first, and then we'll kind of run the goats behind them to pick up cause cows are kind of a little bit more picky about what they eat. Yeah. And so the goats will go behind them and kind of get what they didn't get. And then.
04:35We'll send the pigs through afterwards and they pretty much take everything down to the dirt. And do you let the chickens go out there too or is that a whole different thing?  We do have them out right now. uh We're training our, we got some rescue puppies. We have two great Pyrenees, they're not puppies actually, that we got.  And one of them we rescued uh from a guy on Craigslist.
05:02who was  getting rid of her for free because she was killing his chickens. uh And we're like, that's okay, we don't need her for chickens, we needed her for the goats. ah So  she's done a phenomenal job with the goats, but she doesn't like the chickens. So we have a huge run area where they're kind of fenced off so she can't get to them. And then we have another great Pyrenees named Clyde that we rescued about six months ago.
05:32uh And we're working with him to make him be with the chicken so that, you know, he protects them. ah Which he's, he's okay. I just don't, I'm not quite sure I'm ready to leave them alone with them just yet. Cause that's, it's kind of hard when they haven't been raised in that area to train them. As soon as the birds flutter or run, it just triggers that instinct in the dog to chase them.  So.
06:01We work with them on a leash and make sure that he's calm around them. So it'll take some time.  But the goal eventually is to just let them roam freely and just have the dogs protect them. Nice. So  I'm assuming you got the great Pyrenees to  keep the animals safe from predators. So what do you have for predators around  the farm?  So we do have mountain lions up here and we do have bears.
06:31uh And there are some wild boar that come through, uh but we've actually been pretty fortunate. We haven't really had anything ah come onto the property because we have a total of four dogs up there now.  And we don't even really get deer that come through our property because the dogs will just chase them off. So we've been pretty fortunate and haven't uh lost anything yet to predators. So that's been good.  The biggest threat we have uh
07:01Up where in our area is other people's dogs.  Okay, yeah. If their dogs get out off their property and  a couple years, about a year ago, there was a problem up in our area where a couple of our neighbors lost their entire herds of animals from wild dogs. They kind of got out and went into this pack mentality and they just, they kill the animals for sport. They don't eat them. They just, it's fun for them.  So, uh
07:31That was a big problem and the poor guy lost, I think, all 18 or something of his sheep. was really sad. Finally, they finally got that under control. So it hasn't been a problem. And dogs typically don't come onto our property because of ours. Yeah. So we've been, we've been really fortunate in that area.  Good. And wild dog packs are not a good thing. And I really want to stress this because if you want to rehome your dog,
08:01Take them to a shelter or ask around if  friends would like to have them. Do not let a dog loose out on its own in the wild because they will gather up with other dogs and it becomes a problem. So don't do that.  Plus it's so hard on the dogs. They go from being pets and loved to trying to fend for themselves and then they become a problem. Yeah, it's unfortunate. It's really sad. Yeah. So don't, don't,  can't talk.
08:30Don't dump dogs. It's not okay. No, definitely not. And certainly don't dump them at my place or Paula's place because  I can't have another dog.  I have a dog. We're  good. So, do you sell chicken eggs because you have chickens? We do. We sell the chicken eggs  and  we actually just started this year with bees. So, we're hoping to be selling honey by next year.  How's that going?
08:59It's going really well. We were a little intimidated at first and we weren't sure. And we did a ton of research on it. I watched a bunch of videos, talked to a bunch of people that have done it. And we just kind of dove in and it was actually much easier than I thought it was going to be. Um, and it's, it's really fascinating. I completely enjoy it. I love going up there and checking on the hive and seeing the progress that they made. These are just absolutely fascinating to me.
09:28Yeah, I wish I was less scared of them and more fascinated by them. Yeah, they don't want to sting you. They don't want to die, but you know, they will protect their hive. Yeah, I used to be deathly afraid of anything that had a stinger  until I wrote an article about bumblebees for a magazine and learned about the life cycle of bumblebees. And then I looked in the life cycle of honeybees and I was like, okay, I don't have to be afraid of those anymore, but those wasp ones, I don't like those.
09:58Oh yeah, no, I got stung by one of those  once three times.  I was going, I reached down at a water faucet to turn on my hose and apparently there was like a tiny little wasp nest right next to it that I didn't see. And those suckers came out, hit me twice in my shoulder and once in my nose, it felt like I was being stabbed. hurt so bad.  Yep. It's not the honeybee because the bumblebees will get you. It's the hornets and the wasps that are
10:27They're just mean. Yes, they are. I hate them. I don't see any point in having them on the earth, but apparently Mother Nature has a use for them. I wish she would find it.  I wish she would find a less scary job for them. Yes. Or make them less aggressive. That would be nice. Yeah, that would help a lot. And funny how wasps and hornets really like farms and homesteads because that's where all the stuff they like is.  Oh yeah. I know they are always around our place and
10:56I actually got to witness the  honey bees attack one, because I tried to enter their hive. Uh-huh. Didn't go well for the wasp, did it?  No, it didn't. They had him on the ground, and eventually I think he wiggled free and just flew away. I was like,  oh, fight.  Yep. The girls said,  no, you don't belong here. Get out. Oh, yeah. They're like, you're not stealing our sugar water. Get away.
11:26Yep. I'm so impressed sometimes with bees. Again,  I was really afraid of them. I got stung when I was like four years old by a bumblebee on the bottom of my foot and that made a very big impression on me.  And once I learned more about honeybees and bumblebees, it is just, it is fascinating the system that is in place for them  to run their lives. Oh yeah. It's amazing. Yep. Loved it. Love learning about it.
11:55And I love honey. I make granola from scratch and I use honey in it all the time. And we use so much honey that we go through a pound of honey a week. Oh, wow. Yep. And I haven't made any granola lately because I've been busy in the mornings and I usually try to make it in the mornings. Plus up until today, it's been really hot in Minnesota. The last thing I wanted to do was bake. Oh, yeah, definitely. Don't want to turn the ovens on or anything.  Not unless we had to.
12:25And our AC broke a couple weeks ago, the central air system. So my husband was like, don't bake anything unless we really need to. I was like, OK. said, it's going to cool down in a couple of weeks. So just don't bake anything in the actual oven for a couple of weeks. I was like, OK. So I am probably going to be making granola tomorrow, because the low tomorrow morning is supposed to be like 39 or 40. Oh, wow. Yeah.
12:53Warming the house up with the oven now. And that's where Paula and I lost connection. You can find Paula at Hens, Hooves and Honey Farms on Facebook and Instagram.  And the website is Triple  H Farms  dot farm.  You can find me at AtinyHolmsteadpodcast.com  and check out my Patreon. It is patreon.com  slash Atiny Homestead.  I thank Paula for her time and I hope everyone has a great day.
 

Burrow & Bloom

Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow & Bloom. You can follow on Facebook as well.
Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow and Bloom in Bismarck, North Dakota. Good morning, Lulu. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather there?  Really cloudy,  really humid over here.
00:25Oh, well, it's really nippy here in Minnesota this morning for the first time in over a week.  Thank God. It's been very, very hot this past week. Yeah, we should be getting some good weather this weekend though. So I'm excited about that. I'm really happy for you. It's supposed to rain here this weekend and that's okay too, because we could use it. And  that sounds really funny coming out of my face because, you know, I didn't grow up as a homesteader.
00:53And so every time I say we need the rain, I sound like a farmer. totally understand. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Lulu.  So my name is Lulu and I'm the owner of Furrow and Bloom.  And  I started a micro  farmstead um in little  North Dakota.  What we kind of do is like we grow
01:23vegetables. um We raise rabbits. That was how we started on a fourth of an acre. And um we recently started to reach out to the community and provide some of our products. And there was a demand for a refillery store. So we started kind of taking on the responsibility of that. So we're just kind of growing and  taking orders like that. Awesome.
01:52And I know that you actually produce almost everything that you put out in the world. And so how in the world do you have time for all of that?  So I have to really sit down and make time for it.  I work  as an administrative assistant for a neuropathic doctor here in town. So that takes up a majority of my time, obviously.
02:19Um, but then I do have a passion for  baking. That's kind of how I got into the whole homesteading life.  And I learned how to make sourdough probably about four or five years ago now.  Um,  so because I enjoy it so much, I make time for it. It started off just  with me baking breads for our family. But then I started gifting it out. People started to really want it. And now.
02:48I um sell that as part of our farmstead.
02:54Okay. And what else do you make and sell? So I actually sell ravioli. So when it comes to food, it's bread and raviolis. um That's mainly what I put out and jams. And I try to source all the things here in town as much as I can. And also just like use the community  as  a, um I guess like a support system. Cause a lot of stuff we actually get
03:23donated or we go and pick up when people no longer need something or just want to get rid of it. So we do use a lot of things like that oh to make our products. Okay, so here's my big question for you. In Minnesota, we have a lot of regulations on  how we can do things like you're doing.
03:46And in our case, we can't really do pop-ups at businesses unless there's more than three people who are going to be involved, three businesses, three pop-up businesses at the business. Is that how it is for you or can you just like get hold of a business and say, can I use your parking lot for five hours? Yeah. So the laws,  the cottage laws specifically here in North Dakota and Bismarck kind of changed over the years when I first started out.
04:14Um, cottage bakers were not allowed to bake at all. Like there was no cottage food, um, really allowed without getting permits and pulling all the right licenses. It has now kind of  become, I guess, more accessible because there's such a big farm  life and like rancher life,  um, in the area. And a lot of them.
04:42don't want to pay, you know, extra licensing because they already have their permits and do all these other things. So a lot of people kind of banded together and the cottage law did change. Before you were only allowed to like bake in an inspected kitchen apart from your home. Now it's a little bit different. You're able to actually bake in your home. You don't need a whole separate kitchen to do that. So the laws definitely have changed over the years. I feel like they're more forgiving. ah When it comes to selling,
05:11I personally  reach out to businesses and I set up. I don't have other vendors with me. That's never been like something that's been an issue here.  As long as you have like the owner's approval, you can basically set up anywhere. And  a lot of the town is really friendly. So if I was to ever reach out to anyone in the area, I think they would let me set up.
05:37That's super because that is not how we're allowed to do it here in Minnesota. I wish it was, but it's not yet. Yeah, I think there's a lot of... um I obviously work in healthcare, so I understand  the public health aspect of it where you're trying to keep everyone safe. But at the same time, um I'm not a big grocery chain person. If I can avoid it, I will avoid it at all costs.
06:07I would much rather buy from a local farmer, rancher, or a baker just because I know that they take more time into sourcing where their products actually come from because we don't know what is actually put on our food, like fertilizers and stuff like that. Like even if it was a natural fertilizer, there's just so many things that could go wrong when it comes to having something that is in a big space like agricultural.
06:36talk likewise. So I like purchasing personally from small batch um operations just because they're able to control more things.  Yep, for sure. um I'm glad that you brought up that because we grew apples. We have apples coming in right now. They're pretty much done. And our apples are not pretty because we didn't spray them with anything. But
07:03Once you peel them and cut them up for a pie or an apple crisp, they are fantastic.  The problem that I have with the grocery stores is that the produce is always beautiful. Like the most beautiful section of a grocery store is the produce section.  The reason that that produce is so beautiful is because it has been sprayed with things that we don't even know about. And so if
07:31If you are someone looking for good food that you know what is on it, it doesn't have to be pretty. It has to be good for you and it has to be edible.  And  I don't love it when my apples come in with spot, but as long as they're not gross on the inside, I'm all good with that. Yeah, of course. And then, uh like I said, like even  backyard, um
07:58gardeners, there's other ways that you can prevent stuff like that. Like neem oil is such a good way to kind of keep pests away.  There's like natural remedies that don't affect the plant at all  and are safe for us to consume also. So  like I said, I think just small batch is always better. I personally think that's always the way to go.  for sure. And so did you end up getting a storefront for your refill store or are you still doing that at the pop-up too?
08:26We're currently just set up as a pop-up. We're working with a local business here in town to see if they will host us in a section of their store. It's definitely in the works. There's a lot of other steps that we have to go through to actually get that up and ready. But we're hoping to at least have it ready like by January or February, somewhere along those lines. We're going to continue to do pop-ups through the fall.
08:56And then in the winter, would be, we would switch purely onto a drop off schedule where people come to a certain location and they pick up unless there's bad weather or something like that. Yes. Northern tier state. Gotta love it. I understand. I grew up in Maine. I moved to Minnesota, which is another Northern tier state and trying to do anything outside from November until April is just bad.
09:26Yes.
09:29I'm so  thankful we have a farm stand that we can heat. And so we're going to continue to sell eggs that fall in this winter.  And we didn't do that  last year because we didn't have a way to heat it. But now that we do, we're going to sell eggs this winter. Yeah, that's exciting. We actually also thought about doing a shed model for our business. um the only thing here is that I'm in the capital of  our state.
09:58There is  a larger population in the area, which means that most of the business space is already occupied. um So putting in a refillery shed, I wanted to do it on  our little property, but our address is just so hard to find. When we did a, um like a trial run, nobody came because nobody was able to find us.  So even with signage that wasn't.
10:25an option for us. So we're kind of thinking about renting a lot to put the shed on. But even that is like so difficult to find. I feel like it's like a needle in a haystack right now to like try to find it. So that's why we've also been holding off that idea and we're working towards getting in stores instead. and that's probably safer for you right now.
10:52Only because that way your stuff is inside of an already established business where they have security and  cameras and things that would probably help too.  Yeah, exactly. um Our local farmers market has been looking for a place to do an indoor winter market for over a year now. And we're in a small town and they're having trouble finding stays. So it's not just you, you are not alone.  Yeah, it's really...
11:21It's a really difficult thing to like rent, know, unless you like have land of your own or a store of your own, it's hard to find  ways to get into these  spaces. Yep. Well, I will keep good thoughts for you that you find a space because these refill stores are something that people really do want. There is a demand for them.  And it's  so great that
11:46that you're trying to do it. I know that there's one in Maine, because a friend of mine used to go there. And  they're busy all the time.
11:58Yeah. I mean, here it's definitely a new concept. We did our official first pop-up on Friday of last week and nobody knew what a refill store was except for the people who are actually asking for it. So it's a completely new concept to a lot of people in the area, but we're hoping that, you know, eventually people will understand it and kind of, um,
12:26It'll pick up a little bit of speed. And I think  what draws people right now  to  our pop-ups is the fact that we make everything in  North Dakota. And again, like we try to source as much as possible here in the area. our products for the refill store, I think are only made up of like five ingredients, tops. So it's really  like natural and like basic and stuff like that.
12:56So we're hoping that that kind of drives people to kind of  want to shop more with us because we're not a resale store. We don't resell products. Like there's a lot of refill stores that have to order out just because, uh you know, they can't make things in small batch, but they order out from these bigger companies. And essentially it's like the same thing because you still don't know what is being put.
13:25into those products. And right now too, it's like a lot of these places sometimes greenwash a lot of things. They say they source them like ethically and then you turn around and you find them on places like Xi'an, like Glisted, know, like things like that you can buy in bulk from like Chinese retailers online. So.
13:51There's just a lot of, um I guess, like ethics behind it. And we're hoping that making sure that people know that everything is made here, it's made clean with minimal ingredients, you know exactly what's in there is like our main focus when it comes to our refill store. Yep, absolutely.  And you were saying that not a lot of people know in your area what a refill store is. Take the floor, tell people what it is. Yeah.
14:18Yeah, we're definitely trying to brainstorm ideas. There's a couple of like women's groups, so we're hoping to kind of like infiltrate in there, try to get in there. But yeah, it's just, it's difficult too, because a lot of people here, I guess you would say, are like somewhat of an older generation. So a lot of your demographic is like above like 40 years old in this area.
14:47which is not always a bad thing, but sometimes some people don't see the extreme value and things like that. So it's definitely going to be a journey trying to explain um what our products are for sure. Yeah. And I appreciate everything you just said, but what I'm saying is take your moment now to tell people on the podcast what a refill store is. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So a refill store essentially is, um,
15:17uh Think about it as like  a  grocery store where you come in and you bring in your jars um or your bags and you fill in bulk or you come in and buy exactly what you need. Sometimes when we go to regular grocery stores,  there's only like a certain size that you can buy and you're also paying for the packaging of it. A refilled store on the contrary.
15:45You can always borrow packaging or buy packaging in the refill store. But the idea is for you to bring in your containers and just  refill them as you need instead of having to go out to the store, buy a new package every single time and add to the excessive amount of waste that we already produce.  Thank you. Awesome. That was a great explanation.  So how do you charge for the products when people bring in a container? Because I
16:15I honestly don't know how you would do that. So we have a donation system set up where if you bring in jars,  people can just grab those jars. So we don't charge for jars.  Then when it comes to the actual products, we  weigh them um by ounce. So you're paying, let's say for dish soap, like 30 cents an ounce.  So if you come in with like a six ounce container, that's what you would be.
16:43paying for, only the six ounces that you're filling up and  like I said, not the actual packaging. Right. Yep. Okay.  And what products do you have now that you're selling at the pop-ups for the refills? Right now we're starting with six products, which is our dish soap, our laundry detergent, and our all-purpose cleaner. We also have  some toothpaste powder, which is a concentrate. We usually tell people to dilute it with  either some water, if
17:13that's a consistency that you like, or I personally like mixing it with coconut oil.  We also have dog treats available  in bulk and those are  freeze dried, so they are shelf stable, and are powder  laundry detergent. Okay, cool. Awesome. So what made you get into this, um Like I said, I really like the idea of
17:41having a farmstead and  I'm big on the small batches  of uh products.  And it's just something that uh I've always really liked. My husband and I dream of one day getting like a huge property, at least like, you know, three acres minimum uh and going out and just having a homestead and having an area where we can uh raise animals and stuff like that and still do burrow and bloom.
18:11Okay. Are you, I don't, I don't want to be nosy, but are you in your twenties? I am. Yeah. I'm 23 and my husband's 25. Okay. My husband and I, I am 55. My husband is 56 and we bought our homestead five years ago. The advice that I would give you or anyone in their twenties who is looking to get into having three acres plus property and, basically busting your ass for the next however many years you're there.
18:41is do it as soon as you possibly can without putting yourself into bankruptcy. Because the older you get, the harder it is on your body. I promise you, it's better if you start earlier. For sure. um We have somewhat of a plan set up, so we're hoping that in the next three years we'll be ready to purchase land and start  the whole operation there. But yeah, I appreciate the advice.
19:10Yeah, it's a  lot of work and  I'm not sorry we've done it. I still love it. But in another five years, we may have to slow down because we're not getting any younger. uh And the other thing that I would say is if you can get friends interested in helping when you get your place and teaching them and  paying them in produce or eggs or whatever, that way you have bodies when you need help.
19:40Yeah, of course. Well, Borough & Bloom is actually, I want the business to be very community driven. Like even now, like I had mentioned, we source a lot of our fruits and stuff like that that we make our jams and our fillings from locally. Sometimes people will reach out to us and say, hey, I have an abundance of grapes. If you come pick it, you know, it's free. Yeah. And I always jump on those opportunities because I'm lowering costs for our customers.
20:09I can charge a lot less  when it comes to that.  And I'm building a community and contacts. future years when I just had  a couple tell me  to come and pick grapes that I'm sure that in the next two or three years, they will probably not be able to maintain that vineyard.  So it's just nice that we're really community driven, or at least we're trying to be.
20:36where we can help each other try to figure out that labor part because yeah, I totally get what you're saying. Like having a homestead is like so much work. Like I said, we  garden or farm on like a fourth of an acre and it's the most time consuming thing  and I raise rabbits. So even that, like taking the time out of my day to go and make sure the rabbits are okay, making sure they're clean and that they're healthy. It's a lot of work.
21:04So I totally understand where you're coming from. Yeah, and I don't want to discourage anybody from getting into this lifestyle, but I see so many posts on Instagram and Facebook and everywhere and social media where everybody's like, oh, it's beautiful and lovely and bucolic and fun.  And it is, but it's also a lot of work and you can't tell your cow you can't milk it this morning. Exactly. m
21:31Exactly, and it just comes with a lot of heartbreak too. You have to have like a really like thick skin when it comes to it um Because you can have like a lot of loss on your farm also So yeah, it's definitely something that you really have to sit down and consider and make like a commitment to for sure Yeah, absolutely um We we tried raising rabbits for a while and we just we were raising them for meat and they just were not reproducing
22:00still don't know why. And so we ended up having to call eight rabbits because we had them for two years and there were no babies. Oh, wow. And that was hard. That was a hard move considering how excited we were when we started it. So,  so yeah, there's a lot of joy and beauty here, but there's also a lot of  hurt feelings and heartbreak. And  you have to find the balance.
22:28Yeah, you really do. And when it comes to like those losses, you really have to kind of fight through them. uh We just recently had a loss,  our uh main doe that we had, we just got her probably about two months ago. She recently passed away like suddenly. And it was really heartbreaking because she was indeed pregnant and it was a miscarriage. sometimes even animals don't know what they're doing, you know, like, and if you don't have
22:56that knowledge on how to help them or specific things that you can  do to try to help them. It's really difficult even for them. um Because Ardoh was, we're thinking that she was really scared when um she was trying to,  you know,  give birth and  it ended up getting complicated and you know, their rabbits are really sensible. Like anything can scare them, hurt them.
23:23So she did end up passing away. So it was definitely like a huge loss for us,  like emotionally and also like financially because we were hoping that her babies were going to be able to sustain us through the winter because we were raising  her babies for me. Yep. Yep. It's so hard and it's not just animals. mean,  we've had two summers of really not so great growing weather here where I live.
23:51We were counting on this summer to be a huge tomato producing summer and it has not turned out that way.  it's like, knew, I knew from last year that we would have more tomatoes this year than we had last year. But  my husband came in and told me that we had the blight starting on tomato plants and I almost cried. I'm like, kidding me. Second summer in a row with very few tomatoes. And he was like,
24:20we're going to need to make some new choices. And I was like, yes, we are.  Yeah. Like this business is really about pivoting.  Like where's such a small operation? I can't even imagine like how, you know, day to day farmers that do this on a larger scale do it. Like you really have to be able to pivot to kind of like make back your money. Sometimes you just break even and you know, that's,  you just have to be satisfied with that sometimes. Yeah.
24:49It's a gamble.  Any kind of farming is a gamble and it's hard, but it's so, good when it goes right. you know that. of course.  So,  all right, Lulu, I tried to keep you to half an hour. We're almost 25 minutes. Where can people find you?  You can find us on Instagram, Facebook. And then I do have a personal TikTok that we're going to start sharing on there.
25:13but we're as Burrow and Bloom on everything. And then you can find us here in the little town of Bismarck, North Dakota. Okay, awesome. I love your business name. Burrow and Bloom is so pretty.  Yeah, we got an inspiration from  the bunnies.  Nice. Okay.  All right. As always, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com  and please go check out my Patreon account. It's patreon.com slash Atiny Homestead.  Thank you again, Lulu. This was really interesting. Thank you.
25:43Thank you. Have a great day.
 

Carlton Hill Farm

Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.
Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You
 
www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead
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
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm in North Carolina, is that right? West Virginia.  West Virginia. I'm in Minnesota. I am a Yankee. It is all the same to me. Sorry about that.  No problem at all.  Good morning, Sean. How are you?  I'm doing well. Good morning to you as well. How are you?
00:28I'm good. I'm going to start this off by saying I have a head cold. So if there's sniffles in the recording, it's me and I'm sorry.  How is the weather in uh West Virginia?  It's honestly pretty good. It was pretty dry and hot there for a while.  we last week, I think we got like an inch and a half of rain one day and weather's weather's starting to cool down in the mornings and everything. Everything's starting to feel like normal fall again. How's the weather up there?
00:54It's a little nippy. I think it's maybe 60 degrees and it's breezy and bright and sunny.  Oh, wow. Yeah, we've had a couple cool mornings dipped down into the high  30s. I actually had to start a fire the other morning. So it was it's it we've had some brisk ones, but overall, it's pretty nice. Yeah, even if I wanted to start a fire right now, I can't.  Our furnace is dead and we have a wood boiler, wood burning boiler  that hooks into our furnace with a blower.
01:23And so right now it's about 65 degrees in my house and probably will be for a couple more days, but then we're getting it fixed. Oh nice, well that's good. And just in time for the cool season.  Oh, of course, of course. That's what always happens. If the furnace is going to go out, it's going to be  in the fall.  And if the AC is going to go out, it's going to be in the spring. Yep, that's exactly right.
01:46Yeah, exactly. Because Murphy is an optimist and God love Murphy.  I have bad things to say about Murphy, so we're not going to go there.  All right. So  tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah. So ah I'm an author and farmer from West Virginia. I farm a one acre property with my wife.  We farm rabbits and chicken and chickens and quail. um Prior to that, I spent 12 years working for the federal government  and uh
02:14we bought this property, started farming on it to feed ourselves first and  then we sell anything that's left over to the community and then we also have some giving initiatives where we give back, whether it be farm products or uh pantry items uh to the people that need it most in our community. Fantastic. So are you strictly rabbit, chicken and quail or do you have a garden too?
02:41We do have a garden. So we  grow a lot of produce, we grow a lot of fruit. We use all of our rabbit manure as the only fertilizer for  all of our crops and everything. So the rabbit manure is kind of where life begins for everything. It feeds everything that feeds us, including the rabbits. And it's kind of a  closed system. But yeah, we also grow wildflowers and um any sales of  things like wildflowers.
03:07A portion of those proceeds go to purchase pantry items that stock are giving initiative, which is called Farm for Better.
03:15Awesome does farm for better have uh a website or a Facebook page or anything?  Yeah, so it's it's just part of our normal website, which is CarltonHillsFarm.com slash farm for better Okay, cool because I'm sure that people want to go check it out because they're gonna be like poor Where can I find stuff about that? um Okay, so tell me tell me how you got in this because I looked at your website and you're about page and there's a story there So tell me the story
03:41There is a story there. So um I worked in the federal government for  about 12 years and my wife worked a high pressure director role in the private sector for  about just as long. And we got to the point where we  felt like we were part of all these extractive relationships.  The job took more than it gave. The families took more than they gave. And so we just felt  like we were being consumed bit by bit by bit. And so when we looked at our lives,
04:11We decided that we didn't want to be in debt. We didn't want to have mortgages. We didn't want to owe anybody anything. And that included our time, our emotion, and whatever that may be. So we took steps to start growing and raising our own food so we could step away from those systems and kind of build our own system on the margins of the one that failed us.
04:33Okay, and how has that gone for you? mean,  are you guys okay? Are you ahead of the game? Are you  treading water? How is it going?  It's going very well. So one of the things that we kind of burned from our former life was our mortgages. We were over a half a million dollars in mortgage debt. We had an  income property and then  our dream home. had  our cars and everything. Both my wife and I had
04:58six-figure incomes prior to making these changes before we liquidated everything and bought this piece of property that we now farm. was  some dilapidated buildings on it that we bulldozed and  converted a garage into our home.  And we're doing well. The community has accepted us. We like selling our products to the community.  And the nice thing about it is that because we made all those drastic changes and we no longer  owe anybody anything, we have no credit card debt.
05:28No mortgage debt. wiped over a half a million dollars in mortgage debt off the books.  so we,  anything that we grow or give comes from  the fact that we just don't owe anybody anymore. So it does make us better community members. It makes us better people because we can afford to be generous. It's not this relationship where we can give people stuff because we feel like we're owed it. We, we don't owe anything to anybody anymore. Yeah.
05:56In case you missed it, listener, this is all on one acre of land. It can be done.  It really can. So just to kind of give you an overview of our farm,  at any given time, we have about 40 meat rabbits at any stage of life. We have our main breeding herd and then,  you know, their kits that come off at various stages that we process into meat for ourselves in the community and our pets as well. We have about 30, 30 laying hens and a couple roosters.
06:23and then about 150 quail that we use for eggs and meat and things like that as well, in addition to our gardens that we  grow produce and wildflowers. Okay, awesome.  And  the turnaround time on rabbits for meat  is how long?  For us is 12 weeks from the day that they're born. So we actually just had a litter born this morning. One of our does, her name is Beans.
06:49uh She's such a sweet little rabbit. We name all of our breeding herd after vegetables. She's black and so we named her after black beans. ah She just had a litter this morning and we'll grow them out for about 12 weeks and then we'll process them into  meat for ourselves and our pets and the community.
07:09Very nice. And again, listener, it's doable. You can do this. I swear. ah I'm always trying to get people interested in producing their own food, whether that's produce or animal meat,  because  in this day and age that we find ourselves in right now,  inflation is making everything expensive. And it's not cheap to raise your own food, but it's  got its own payoff. It really does. Not only just
07:37the work that you feel,  just the accomplishment of raising your own food, knowing where it came from,  what that animal ate and how it lived. But um if you grow your own feed,  it subsidizes those costs even further. And I mentioned that we have 150 quail at any point in time,  but those are even more uh efficient than rabbits. They grow to  breeding age at six weeks. They're ready to process at six weeks and they're ready to lay eggs at six weeks.
08:09So six weeks is the golden number. Six weeks is the bar to beat in terms of  feed to conversion ratio. Rabbits are eight to 12 weeks. We butcher rabbits at about 12 weeks, but quail are very, very efficient and live in even smaller spaces than rabbits. I would equate quail to microgreens. Microgreens take like, I think it's 10 days from...
08:35planting the seed to harvesting. So I think it's the same thing in the produce world.  That's a great analogy. Yeah, it's very quick. We hatch all of the quail on  our farm ourselves and  six weeks just goes by way too quick. One day there are these little fluffy chicks that just popped out of an egg and the next thing you know, you're processing them into meat or they become part of your cubby to start laying eggs. Yeah, exactly. And  the thing about quail, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before,
09:04is you can't just get a couple of quail. You've got to get at least 20. And part of that is that I hear that they are notorious for  unaliving themselves by accident.  That's an interesting way I put it and 100 % correct. Yes.  They need special uh accommodations in terms of housing. So we custom build all of our quail hutches and they need to be in  somewhat combined spaces or  really open spaces. uh Quail like to
09:33to pop up when they're nervous or scared. And so they can pop up hard enough that they can actually kill themselves if they hit the roof above them.  So you wanna keep their height of their enclosure at a maximum of 18 inches  or a minimum of six feet. Anywhere between that, like 18 inches and six foot mark um is kind of a danger zone for quail where they can unalive themselves very easy.
10:00Yeah. And what happens is they startle, they jump up and they break their necks by hitting their heads. Right? That's exactly right. Yeah.  And the thing that's sad about that is quail are one of the most beautiful little birds I've ever seen. The babies are beautiful. The adults are beautiful.  They really are.  My wife, Alexis and I, talk all the time about how quail chicks are our top five cutest  farm animals of all time.  Um, but yeah, the, the grown birds, they're, they're absolutely beautiful. We raised Coturnix quail  and
10:29They have lots of different colored patterns. think there's something crazy, like 17 different variations and then all the hybrids between those.  And you get really interesting feather patterns and  just really interesting birds to observe and watch. They're really cool to be around.  Yes. If I was as good an artist as my dad is, I would be drawing quail with pastels because they're so...
10:56many different color variations with the browns and the tans and the whites and the blacks. Yeah, they're really wild and gorgeous. Yeah. The bird that I have seen on our property, have a five acre, sorry, three acre lot. We have a big pole barn and the barn swallows love the pole barn. everybody's like, barn swallows are just a pest. And they are, they're a pain in the butt. But if you ever get the chance to actually look at one when it's just walking along the ground, they're really pretty too.
11:25Yeah, you know, this might be kind of weird to say, but I kind of feel the same thing about pigeons as well. Pigeons are notoriously known to be rats with wings. And I think they're really pretty, though. There's a bunch of them down at the Rural King here in town that people feed popcorn to, unfortunately. But they're really pretty birds to look at. Yeah, I think, OK, this is going to sound really dumb. I won't say it anyway, because I don't feel good.
11:51I think that birds were given to us by whoever created the earth  for something beautiful to look at at any given time. I agree. Yeah, I don't disagree with that whatsoever. If you were to ask uh Alexis about our chickens, I have never met anybody more infatuated with chickens than Alexis.  I think she still likes spending more time with them than she does with me, honestly. But  yeah, birds are great to be around. They're calming.
12:15Um, they're, they're pretty and, and they, provide so much back, you know, just in terms of food and eggs and things like that as well. Yep. Absolutely. Okay. Do you guys have kids? We do not. Um, one of the, one of the things that we started when, when, when Alexis and I first started dating and then, and then we got married, we were, we were young. We've been married for 14 years now. And, um, we, at that point in time, we didn't want kids, you know, we wanted to, to travel and do things that, that, that young.
12:45uh young married couples do. And uh early on in our marriage, my wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And so now she's  on a monthly infusion  and that doesn't mix well with kids, even if we wanted them.  so um just managing that disease in and of itself, aside from just uh the medication that goes along with those infusions, makes kids not really a possibility for us.  Okay. I was just curious.
13:15And sorry to hear that, but at least maybe you didn't want kids. Yeah, no, it's a reality of our life. It's a big part of the story of why we did what we did.  The food that we eat  is cleaner than any food that you could buy at any grocery store. And it doesn't cure Alexis's MS, but  it helps with symptoms.  A uh clean diet can do a lot for people. not saying that it cures diseases or anything like that, but it can help in a lot of different ways.
13:45So having a clean diet, less stressful jobs and everything like that has really uh helped Alexis manage her fatigue and all of her other symptoms that uh she gets through MS. Fantastic. Good.  Good, good.  I was just wondering because it's really hard to go from that half a million dollar home situation  to where you're at now when you have kids.
14:14And so I'm not, I'm going to say this right now. If you have kids, it does change the dynamic a titch. absolutely does. Kids change it, medical issues change it, anything like that adds nuance to the, to the, to the scenario that makes planning very difficult. And one thing  that I'll say about the steps that we took to go from,  um,
14:38like six figure salaries to just a quiet life in  Parkersburg, West Virginia farming rabbits is  just the fact that we  had to take all these steps  and  ultimately collapse everything that we knew  just to kind of  reset and really think about what we valued in life. And ultimately that boiled down to
15:03staying with staying home and staying with each other  and, just eating good food and treating ourselves the way that we felt that we should be treated instead of how our jobs were treating us or, or, our colleagues or our family or, or whatever the, whatever the thing is that, people are bothered by, whether it be politics or anything like that. It's just, we're tired of dealing with these extractive relationships and kids, kids make that even more challenging. Yes, I've raised four.
15:32Kids make everything challenging, just so you know. You're battling a head cold right now.  I was going to say thanks to my youngest who still lives with us, I'm battling a head cold and that makes things more difficult. So yes, it's true. um Okay, so I was looking at your Facebook page and I saw a post about your opinion about farmers markets.  Do you want to share your opinion about farmers markets? Because I got a bone to pick. Okay, yeah, know a lot of people have a bone to pick about this one.
16:00uh And this could be geographically speaking, uh our perceptions of farmers markets, but we don't participate in farmers markets because  we  believe a couple things about them. We believe they're kind of like neighborhood garage sales where  everybody's dollar is divided  among the vendors there.
16:24We are selling our rabbit, our egg and everything at a farmer's market. We might have to compete with somebody else who are selling the same eggs or something like that. The thing about our farm is that we offer quail and rabbit and chicken, which is something that none of the other farms in this region offer. And so we don't have to go  and set up for hours and everything just to get a little bit of money to bring home that makes that farmer's market worth it. We would rather
16:53sell that product here. um And if anything goes unused, the nice thing about our business model is we eat it, our dogs eat it.  We don't just sit on wasted inventory or anything like that. have the ability to,  it's not like other businesses where they need to move it or anything. It can stay in the freezer. And the nice thing about rabbits is they preserve just fine though, while they're still alive.  Yep,  absolutely.  Okay.
17:22Here's my take, you ready? Yep, let's hear it.  Okay, my husband does sell our produce and our eggs at the farmers market and occasionally there's some treats that go to baked goods.  And the thing that we hear  oftener than I thought more often, sorry, not oftener,  more often  than I thought we would is that there are people in our town, in uh town, that don't have a vehicle drive out to our place to buy our things.
17:50And so they really appreciate the farmers market because it's within walking distance of where they live.  And so that's my only caveat is that we're bringing stuff to people who might not be able to get out and get it from us. That is a very valid argument and I have one counterpoint to that.  I agree that farmers markets are usually held in centralized locations that make it easier for people to get to.
18:14But the problem with that is that in and of itself, they're usually held in centralized locations. We're located in more of a rural part of  the county. So people out here can get to us easier than they can in town. In addition  to that, they're usually held on weekends or at times when like bus schedules don't go or things like that to where it becomes
18:39a place,  again, geographically speaking, it might just be around here, but it becomes a thing where primarily privileged folks get to go to it. And so that's why we've tried to create our Farm for Better initiative and everything like that, not only to get folks out to our farm, but also to show them that they can have pantry staples and good farm products, know, rabbit quail eggs like that. oh
19:02and meet their farmer face to face at their farm instead of being in an open parking lot or something like that.  It just brings everything back to the farm, which is what we're trying to go for. Yep.  And as with everything in life, the answer is it depends. That's exactly.
19:21But no, I saw your Facebook post and I was like, I get what you're saying, but I also understand there are some minor benefits to farmers markets for people like we know. And it might be geographical. don't know. And that really... Okay.  Go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to say, and  that boils down to really anything. Our path to this farm and everything like that, everybody's mileage may vary.  Our path wasn't linear. It was stair-stepped and circular and everything like that. And so,
19:50Yeah, it just kind of depends and  geography is a huge factor as well.  Yup, and I feel like that's true of every place too. mean, my parents live in Maine and I'm pretty sure they don't sell fresh fish at the farmers market in Portland, Maine. Right.  Pretty sure because that would be difficult. That would be a very weird thing to try to do and have it be good for everybody.
20:18you know, a circular circular win as it were.  Okay, so we have about 10 more minutes and you have written a book. So tell me about your book.  Yeah, so that book is is  basically uh a memoir about  Alexis and I's path to get where we are. It kind of starts  in the middle of all the chaos when we were liquidating all of our stuff and kind of feeling hopeless and trapped in our in our former lifestyle and  and just
20:46everything that it costs to leave that lifestyle,  not only  actual  money in terms of trying to liquidate everything as quickly as possible just because  we needed out so badly, but also the emotional toll and  the loneliness that comes along with that.  had  to be completely honest with you.  My entire family has completely disowned me because of some of these choices. It talks a lot about that.  It's not one of those romantic ideas about
21:15homesteading or anything like that of  go live on a farm and breathe  clean air type of thing. It's about the collapse that happened before we got here and  kind of why we did it. Okay, cool. um Is it uh self-published or is it through a publisher?  It's self-published. So that's one thing that we try to do here is everything on this farm comes from us. We process our own animals, we write our own books, we publish our own books.
21:44That way we keep as much value on this property as possible. You can absolutely find that book on Amazon and you can purchase it there,  but it's  always going to be uh more of a return if you purchase it  directly from the farmer itself, obviously. um But yeah, the book can be found anywhere,  but we try to do everything ourselves. That way we  generate and keep as much value as we can on this little acre. I thought that might be your answer.
22:14I'm actually working on a book myself right now. Today was supposed to be editing,  but today is actually  talk to you and then go grab a nap. uh I'm writing a book called, well, I think the working title right now is Kiss Kitchen, K-I-S-S Kitchen  for Keep It Super Simple.  I'm trying to get this thing together so that there is a book that teaches basically how to set up your kitchen.
22:40Like when you walk into a new place, you're going to live and the kitchen is completely empty. Yeah, that's definitely necessary. I mean, I think that people would  definitely benefit from something like that, knowing just what things you need in your kitchen. Yeah, so basically, getting out your kitchen, K-I-T-T-I-N-G,  and then what you really do need to have in your refrigerator. You might want to have some eggs and some cheese to start with because you can make a killer omelet with eggs and cheese.
23:10And uh what needs to be in your pantry, whether you have uh a pantry closet or just a couple of cabinets that you designate as your pantry. you know, salt, sugar, pepper, flour, things to actually cook with.  And then some basic recipes to get you started. And I've  been working on this for about three weeks. I've got about 6,000 words into it.  And today was supposed to be whittle it down, make it pretty and get it up on Kindle. But it's going to be another couple of days.
23:38oh Yeah, really if if  if listener you're interested in writing a book and you like to write  it is really simple to write a book and get it onto Amazon's  Kindle platform. really is. It is very easy. Yep. And obviously they keep some of the money, but you you will make a couple dollars per copy. So.
24:05Yeah, yeah, absolutely.  The royalty structure on Amazon is pretty straightforward. um And yeah, it's very easy to get things up there. Another avenue that if folks are looking to publish their books, another thing that we did is bought a second ISPN through IngramSparks so that we can shop it around to bookstores and stuff like that because they don't usually buy Amazon books  that are published on  Amazon. So  we can offer wholesale
24:33uh retailer discounts through our publication through Ingram. That's how I buy all the books that I ship out from our farm type of thing. And so it makes it very easy to keep the Amazon stuff separate and the Ingram stuff separate as well. Yes, absolutely.  And the other thing I think I saw the other day when I went to save a Word file is that you can now save a Word file as an EPUB. Really? I did not know that.
25:01I think you can. swear I saw it. was doing something really quick and I saw it and I was like, I'm not sure I read that right, but I swear that said EPUB.  And if you can save it as an EPUB, then you can do a PDF and then save it as an EPUB and people can literally download your book from your website and there is no middleman. Yep. Yep. That's exactly right.
25:25So I gotta double check that later today, but I swear I saw it I was like, oh my God, if they actually did that, I'm gonna write a whole bunch more books. Yeah, the way that we sell our book is obviously through Amazon and Ingram and then our website and those EPUB files. um We offer the EPUB file and a PDF and a zip file through our website  so that we get 100 % of that return.  And that's what's nice about generating those EPUB files and selling them directly from your website.
25:51whatever the price, whether it be 99 cents or $9.99, you keep 100 % of that because it's just a digital file and you create it once and it makes money for you forever. Yep.
26:07Okay, so,  where can people find you, Sean?  The best place to find us is CarltonHillFarm.com.  That's  our website. We have a blog, a very active blog. You can sign up for our newsletter there as well on that website.  Our newsletter, we just sent one out this morning. It's nothing political, ah it's not  salesy, it's not, you know, come buy our eggs.
26:36It's a newsletter for people that still care about land and food and just want to read about some of the things that we're experiencing as farmers. And want to keep track of what you're up to, I'm sure. Exactly. Yeah. So  we use our website as kind of a hub for everything. don't rely on social media or anything  really anymore. We rely on our website and our newsletter. um We believe those are where  real conversations happen.
27:05people respond back to our newsletter and it's an actual community. Nice. Awesome. All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com and check out my Patreon. It's patreon.com slash a tiny homestead. This one's a little short because I'm going to sneeze. Sean, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mary. It was an absolute pleasure. Have a great day. You too. Bye bye.