A Tiny Homestead

Moonlight Elk

Today I'm talking with Christie author of Moonlight Elk. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
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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 Christie Green, the author  of  Moonlight Elk,  One Woman's Hunt for Food and Freedom.  Christie is in New Mexico this morning. How are you, Christie? Good morning. I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me.
00:25You are so welcome and thank you for visiting.  love it when I get to people who are  into nature and also write books about it. um What's the weather like in New Mexico this morning? Well, it's unfortunately very warm and sunny and dry. We've had unseasonably uh mild weather. It's been in the high fifties and we haven't had uh much snow for a number of weeks. So it's really precarious here. It's not good when we don't have snowpack.
00:54But we're hoping for some form of moisture, at least in the new year. We'll see. I will keep my fingers crossed for you. And I wish I could send you all the rain we got this morning. Oh, man. I do, too. I have a friend up in North Dakota, and they get snow and those cold temperatures. And I wish they could just push it down here. Yeah, it was so weird. I was looking at my Facebook memories, because I look at them every morning, because I sit down with my coffee and scroll through Facebook to find people to talk to.
01:23looked at my memories and a year or so ago it was raining on this date as well. I'm like, okay, so is December 18th a rain day? Hmm. Yeah, interesting. It seems like it would be too cold up there for rain, but moisture is moisture. Yeah, I'm, I have an appointment tomorrow at 9 45 in the morning, half an hour from here and it's all wet out there. The temps are supposed to drop.
01:50hard this afternoon and it's supposed to snow a little bit on top of whatever freezes.  And it's not supposed to warm back up until tomorrow afternoon. like, I may not make that appointment. We'll see how the roads are.  Go slow.  Yeah. Making appointments in the Northern tier States in December or January, February is a real  iffy game a lot of the time.
02:15But it's fine. I love winter. Winter is my favorite. Well, fall is my favorite season, but I love winter because it's when we all kind of cocoon and  get cozy and eat really good food. So that's right. That's right.  All right. So Christy, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do.  Well,  I  am  55 years old  and  I am originally from Alaska and now I live in San Diego, New Mexico. I've been here for
02:44let's see, 28 years or so. And pretty much my whole career as I'm a landscape architect and I'm also an author and a designer and my work revolves around food and cultivating connection to each other and to place through the catalyst of food. And so in my work as a landscape architect, I focused on
03:10building soil, harvesting water, and growing heirloom varieties of food for  people, like in the homes, but also in larger kind of contexts like housing developments and public spaces. And then I also work with native plants  and um doing like passive water harvesting landform grading techniques like berms on swales and bio-swales and things like that. And then uh I am a hunter. uh
03:39As some people say, an adult onset hunter, started hunting when I was 40. And the original intent was to harvest my own meat, right? So I was growing all this food for myself and for other people. And I thought, well, what about, you know, meat? Why couldn't I hunt as well, you know, to fully round out this sort of self-sufficient way of gathering food.
04:08I thought I was going to get food, so to speak, and what I ended up finding was this revelatory new relationship to place  and to myself, really,  through the animals and through the hunt.  So I started writing about  those experiences with the animals here in New Mexico and other places too, but mostly here  in the West with elk and deer and turkey. And these  stories ended up
04:37becoming this compilation of braided essays and then a whole braid of a book,  which is Moonlight Up, which was published  last September. Very nice. um You said self-revelatory regarding hunting. give me a couple examples of that.  Well,  what I didn't realize, so I'm a mother and at the time my daughter was five  and  I was always, you know,
05:05responsible and on. Like had to be home, you know, make food, go pick up my daughter from school, you know, attend a business, you know, very scheduled,  loaded life in terms of obligations, you know, and all of those I loved, but em I didn't realize  how  off balance I was in terms of my own unscheduled time and the freedom that that uh
05:33affords like the feeling of being unencumbered.  And when I went hunting, it was the time I could be wholly  my own self without attending to anybody. And it was actually for lack of a better way of saying it, the time hunting was when I could become my own  animal, I could be as animal me as the animals were themselves. Because, you know, when hunting, you have to kind of become
06:02that animal and understand how they move, what their habits are, where they're spending time, where they're crossing, all of that. So it was like I got to shed  all of these layers  of the human world and become wholly immersed in the animal world. And when I got a taste of that, I just wanted more and more of it because then I got to actually listen to myself, my own desires, my own inclinations in a way,  you know, like follow my nose.
06:32And that's just become an essential part of my life that has translated into my regular sort of scheduled at home work life in  knowing how to listen to my body,  listen to my own instincts and follow my own way.
06:50That is amazing. That's beautiful.  And the one thing that I will say about being a parent, especially being a mom,  is for me, I've  raised four kids, birthed three, have a bonus child from my husband, which is great.  And uh my favorite moments of being a mom, and people are like, I don't know why I would be so bored, but I wasn't bored,  was from the moment I got home with that baby for the first three months when
07:20when you just cocoon in and you  focus on getting to know this little person that you brought into the world and you attend to them.  And you attend to yourself too, because if you can't be there for you, you can't be there for a baby. But  it's very baby focused and people come to visit  the baby. mean, they'd say they're coming to visit you, but they're coming to see the baby.  It's this very nurturing, very calming, very
07:49animalistic  experience because  animals are very attentive to their babies. I mean, you don't think that they are because  wild babies are born ready to go, most of them.  But if you watch a mama deer,  she is  very attentive with her fawn.  So the one thing that I will say though is once that baby becomes a toddler,  it is time for mom
08:17to take some time for her and hopefully sooner than that, but definitely once they start to walk  because you cannot lose yourself in your children.  It's not healthy.  No, it's true. We have to be our own individual selves. And it is interesting like that, those first moments  and days and weeks and months after the birth that
08:46I feel the same like what you're saying that the clock goes out the door.  It doesn't matter. Any sort of routine doesn't matter because everything revolves around the body and the bodily needs  of that baby. So it is like this  sort of whiplash,  yank into a different world, a different uh realm of that very animalistic child, because the child isn't operating from the mind of
09:16you know, a rationale of,  what time is it and what am I supposed to be doing? It's all driven by the visceral, by the needs. yeah. Yeah. And the other thing that I want to throw in here really quick, because you hit all the buttons for me with this, um is when you're a new mom, like when you have that first baby,  you have got to ask for help.  I didn't know that.
09:41I didn't ask for help. was really lucky. I lived in an apartment building and I knew my neighbors.  And my first child was a girl,  the only girl out of the four kids. I was 20 and she was teething and she was having a very hard time with teething and she would cry and scream and cry and scream.  And one of my neighbors knocked on the door and I opened the door and I hadn't slept in three days, you know, up with baby all night.  And she said, can I hold her?
10:11And I said, she bothering you? I'm really sorry. She was like, no. She said, you need sleep.  She said, she said, has she been fed? I said, yeah. She said, when was she last changed? I said, half an hour ago. She said, okay, I got it from here.  Go lay down, get some sleep.  Your daughter and I are going to get to know each other.  And I was so grateful because it had never occurred to me to ask for help. So anybody out there who's a brand new mom who is drowning, ask for help. People want to help.
10:41No, it's true. need that community, not respite.  Yes, absolutely. So, sorry, I didn't mean to get all weird about babies, but I don't know, you hit a button this morning for me and I was like, oh, there are things people don't know about having babies that are very important. oh Okay, so I am not a hunter, but my parents both hunt  and I got taught by osmosis how to hunt.
11:10One of my favorite memories  of the hunting season  is my dad would get up early in the morning and he would get all his stuff. He'd get all his stuff set out at night, but he would pack everything up the next morning really early.  And he would always clean his guns before hunting season started.  One of my favorite scents on earth is gun oil.  Oh, that's funny. Positive association, huh?  Oh yeah. Yep. Absolutely. And my mom hunted too.
11:39And I've told the story a couple times in the last six months. It's really weird. But she actually got a doe when she was very pregnant with my sister. And she's so proud of that. that she went when she was pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were so able when we're pregnant. I I worked almost up to the day my daughter was born. I was out in the garden and hoisting and shoveling and all kinds of things. It's like for most of her human
12:09lineage, we were out working and hunting and doing all those things. weren't, you know, sitting on the couch waiting for the baby to be born. We had to survive, right? Yep, exactly.  So, so having said all that, I learned about hunting because my parents did all the things and talked about it ad nauseam for a month before hunting season started.  I cannot break down a gun. I will be honest, it's not my thing.  And  I don't hunt.
12:38I  love the process of looking for animals in the woods. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure. That's the hunt. Hunting is more hunting than killing, that's for sure.  Yeah, that part I love and I'm really good at it. Like I can spot a deer before seasoned hunters spot a deer because I understand the shape of their body and how they move.
13:03And I just, love being in the woods, but the idea of taking a creature's life when I don't need to eat that food, I just can't do it. I cannot do it. It kills me. Just the idea of it. And I am all for people hunting. think it is an amazing, I don't want to say sport, I don't know, endeavor to hunt and kill and use an animal. It's not for me.
13:32No, that's,  there's a lot of feelings like that. think every, every feeling and response  around hunting is valid. don't, um, I don't need other people to hunt. I don't need other people to agree with how I hunt or to want to.  I feel like we all have our own ways. And I think the most important thing that any of us can do is to pay attention to and honor what we, um,
14:02desire and what we respect in our own ways. think m part of what's interesting to me in this book and Moonlight Elk and some of the traveling around doing book readings and events is uh the questions I've gotten from people. And some people  are hunters, of course, and want to talk about hunting stories and  the details of those hunts and the animals. Some people aren't hunters and feel strongly against it. ah Ask me things like that. Well, how could you do that? How could you take a life when
14:31We have plenty of domestic meat we could be eating. And some people want to say, wow, you really inspired me. I want to learn how to hunt. Will you take me? So there's, you know, every range of experience and response. And I feel what is  so critical right now is to be open to the conversation and to be open to the questions and the dialogue. feel like uh adhering to a particular polarized perspective or only one view or one side.
15:01is uh destructive, we have so much more in common than we don't. And I'm just really interested in learning how to make connections with people in all the ways that we do  share in common, like what values do we hold in common? And that there are more, I just so believe that there are so many more um connections than disconnects, you know? And it's just been  interesting that through hunting, is a,  people have very strong opinions about it.
15:31practice, you the animals, also like, you know, brought up guns. There's a whole lot of  feeling around guns. And I agree. I feel like we should be talking about those  points of view  and  options and perspectives. And that's one of the biggest gifts of having written this book  is the,  just right now we're having this conversation, being able to be in dialogue with people and, and, and allowing myself to be open  to hearing new perspectives.
15:59And I feel that for me, what's most important  is that there's respect. I mean, I don't expect anybody or need anybody to agree, ah but I do want respect going both ways  and  not even understanding. don't think that's one thing it seems like when people, you know, get in conversations like, I'm going to keep talking until you understand.  I don't actually feel that. I don't need that. think it's...
16:26I don't need to be understood. don't need to be agreed with, but I would like to be respected and vice versa. You know, it's just critical for who we are. We're all on this earth together. We have to get along. We just have to. Yeah. Right now, especially. My goodness. It's been a heavy, heavy six months. I talked to Joel Saliton, the renegade rebel farmer, whoever he is. The other day. Yeah. Yeah. He's such a nice man.
16:56And I was going to ask him about the cost of beef prices and the whole snap benefits fiasco that is going on. And just before I hopped on to talk to her, was like, I don't want to talk about those things.  It's too much. It's too heavy. Everybody is feeling this and we need to talk about something positive. And I asked him before we started talking, I said, can I just ask you where you've been this year,  what you've learned, what surprised you? Can we just talk about
17:25positive things just for a little bit. And he was like, absolutely.  And it was so good. I was so thrilled to just have something positive to chat about, you know? Yeah. No, he's, he's so inspiring. He's been in the, he's been like this pioneer in the, the food industry for decades.  And I remember years ago, I used to work for the Bioneers and he was one of the speakers at the conference  and
17:53just how revelatory his practices are with, you know, rotational grazing and cover crops and just honoring the animal.  as even raising them as a domestic food source, knowing full well, of course they're going to be killed and  eaten, but to  try to offer the best life possible and also the most healthy practice for the land. So yeah, he's always been one of my heroes.
18:18Well, you will be thrilled to know that he is working on a new book this week and next week.  Oh, good. What's it about? I asked him the working title and he said, I said, it have a working title? And he said, oh, yes, food emancipation. And I was in my head, I was just like, oh, thank God. Oh, good. Yes. So I'm very excited. It won't be out for,  oh my goodness. think he said a year,  but.
18:43He had just started writing the first two chapters two nights ago. And I'm just like, yes, please write another book.  Oh, good.  So I um was just going to ask you if it's okay. mean, in your practice as a homesteader and your offerings  of, you know, eggs and breads  and  goods from the garden, like, have you noticed  anything changing or shifts in your customers? oh
19:13points of view or what they're asking for, what they're  hungry for, both literally and metaphorically,  what is the attraction  to what you offer and has that changed over time?  don't think it's changed over time. Now bear in mind, we've only been doing this for five years because we didn't have a homestead until five years ago.  But  what really has stuck out to me over the last year is
19:41We have not been able to keep eggs in our farm stand for sale  for more than 24 hours. We have 19 chickens  and  the eggs are gone every day because people know we have them and they come in and pay their five bucks and go home with a dozen eggs.  And before all of this bird flu  stuff started and um before inflation really hit hard in the last year and a half,
20:08People would stop by and buy eggs, but it wasn't like we have to stop by and buy eggs. Yeah. Yeah. I see.  And  here at our farm and here in Minnesota, the last two years have been really hard growing seasons. It was really rainy  in the spring for a month, both summers.  And it's been really hard for people to grow anything  like they had been. mean,
20:36Four summers ago, we had so many tomatoes, we were giving them away.  These last two summers,  two summers ago, we had hardly any tomatoes. It was just so wet and then it was so dry that the tomato plants didn't stand a chance. And this summer, this past summer,  summer 2025 was better and we did sell tomatoes and people were like, oh, thank God you have tomatoes.
21:02Because the thing that people want to do around here is can tomato sauce for the winter. Yeah. Yes. And so other than those two things, I mean, I think that people really realize back during COVID that it's a really good thing to know your neighbors and know your producers in the local area because you can't always count on the grocery store having the thing you need. Yeah. I feel like that changed everything.
21:32Yes, yeah, I do too. It's also, I feel like when I, for example, if I host  a  dinner or something and offer the meat that I've hunted,  there's such a different experience  knowing  the person  and the place  where that food source came from and even hearing the story about it.
21:58people like even people who've lived here, let's say in New Mexico their whole lives and know about elk or maybe where elk live don't understand that much about the animal and may have never even tasted the animal. So it's like offering a taste of the meat, but then also, you know, like if I have the elk hide or the antler or ivory, you know, tooth or something, it's interesting how  drawn people are to learn more and
22:27The meaning behind the food makes the difference in how they are connecting, I think, to that source of food, but then also the experience of what I call, this isn't original, I know, but like the experience of communing, know, it's real communion with each other.  And I feel like our culture is  starving for that, literally, because we've become so individualized, we rely on
22:53uh sources of whether it's food or anything else, we push a button on Amazon, get it delivered to our door. We relate to our devices more to each than each other. And I believe that coming back together through something as simple as  the egg or the meat or the apple is just critical right now. And it's a way of feeling at home,  I think in ourselves and with each other through food.
23:20Absolutely. We have become so disconnected from where everything comes from.  Everything comes from the earth.  We've become so disconnected from the earth. We think that everything comes from the store  or a delivery truck  and it doesn't. Everything starts with the earth.  Absolutely. The ultimate provider.
23:53It's um, it's so weird to me.  I grew up in Maine and as a little kid, I spent a lot of time outside in the trees, in the woods. And I used to go out to the edge of the swamp because there was a swamp behind our house  and every spring there were tadpoles. uh
24:19I was always so excited to get a jar and have little tadpoles  that lived in the jar.  And it's probably not very nice, the tadpoles, but my dad wasn't going to tell me no. And  watching those tadpoles develop from these little  fishy looking things, two full-fledged frogs with  legs and a tail, actually. The tail  is still there, it's just very short. um And that was my exciting thing in the spring.
24:48And then the rest of the summer was playing in the woods and gathering pine cones and acorns and making things out of them. And there were no tablets. There were no cell phones. was no,  there was, there was no internet. now kids don't do that anymore.  No, I know they're on their devices. I was just talking to a friend the other day saying, Oh, it breaks my heart that so many people on the earth have no reference of life without a device.
25:19You know, they  were raised with them  and I think it's  really too bad. know, like how do you undo that kind of programming and go back to something that's tactile and visceral and sensory, exploratory, all of that, like direct relationship to the earth. know, something's definitely lost, I think.  Yes, absolutely. And the closest thing I can think of at this point for kids
25:47is having a pet, an actual pet like a kitten or a puppy  and raising that pet from baby to adult pet.  Because dogs and cats are not, they're technology,  they're biology. Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, of course some kids do  live on a farm or do have gardens or do have close proximity to the outdoors.
26:15There's more familiarity and comfort with that. then some, you know, so the majority of the world's population live in urban centers. And, um you know, and there is some access maybe to something that is soil or green or water, but a lot less. So  I don't know. It's, it's  how do we, how do we foster connection and remember,  you know, really, I feel like it's a remembering where we came from and what's  essential in our own selves and our own.
26:45beings, like where are we rooted and how can we be rooted to the earth now given  all of these changes in the world? Well, you're doing a good job by writing the book and I'm trying to do a good job by sharing on the podcast.  And really, I think that  you have to be the change you want to see in the world and that sounds very trite and that is not my line. I don't know who said  it, but you're being the change that you want to see in the world.
27:14Well, it's just,  I don't know, living in  what I believe in. It's my own sanity, actually.  In some ways, it's,  when I feel my best, then I can be my best outwardly too. So just learning as I make my way for sure and trying to share what I'm learning.  Plus, I have more questions. I don't really have answers. I have more questions. So em I'm open to  exploring those with people because I think we're all hopefully trying to discover and to be better.
27:44Yeah, absolutely. And if you aren't, you should be. And  I don't want to direct people's traffic, but really just be the best you you can be.  So oh is this your first published book, Kristy?  It is my first. I have another that I just finished the manuscript. It's called Salmon Dreaming, Coming Home to Alaska. And that will also be published by University of New Mexico Press. And that'll come out in summer 2027.
28:12And then there's a third that's published by UNN Press that's coming out two years after that. So  I'm deep in the writing and loving it  and looking forward to sharing the second book, which takes place in my home state of Alaska.  That's exciting. ah I'm going to tell the listeners that the hardest part of writing a book isn't the writing the book. It's the promoting, marketing, and selling the book. It's definitely its own.  It's, you know,  it's a
28:43Something that I'll speak for myself, well, other friends of mine who are authors,  we're not good at that part of it.  And I didn't know how much, ah how much that is a part of the whole process that, you know, getting it out there and sharing it. And, and I just am very thankful for opportunities like this  to share the book and to reach audiences, you know, beyond my immediate network here. And  thank you for, for having me and for being.
29:13uh, let's see, interested in and honoring that Moonlight Elk is in the world.  Oh, I do. I absolutely do honor it because I'm in the middle of trying to write a book myself  and  it is a hard thing to do.  It is, I don't know how to explain it.  When it's going well,  nothing else is happening.
29:38You're in the zone.  The house could explode around you and you'd be like, Oh, what was that? Yes, exactly. But when it's not going well and you're trying to find the right sentence to convey the thing that's important for you to convey,  that's when it's tough. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's that flow state. And sometimes it's easier to tap into that than others. um But I don't know. I don't know if this is your experience. I feel like
30:08If I can just stay open, basically what wants to come through, it's almost like using me as  as a, um, as a conduit or catalyst, vehicle to get the story on the page. And I feel like when I'm open enough and not resisting or not trying to force it, then it, then it can flow more easily.  Yes. And I always have to remind myself of that when it's, if it gets frustrating, I get up and go do something else for a while.  Because then I stopped trying to force it.
30:38Um, so have you been doing any book touring? Are you just doing the things like writing blog posts and doing podcasts and things like that? No, I've been so fortunate to do some touring and I really like reading with other authors. So I got to do  reading here and in Virginia with a dear friend of mine, Erica Hauser, and her book is called The Age of Deer  and it was shortlisted for the Penn Award. oh
31:07And  so she and I have done a couple of readings together. She was in Virginia and I was also in Vermont. I got to do a couple of readings in Vermont  and I did a reading with my friend who is an author, Gretchen Legler, and she's written a couple of books. Her most recent book is called Woods Queer and she's in Maine. And so we got to do a reading in Rockland this past spring  and I've done different readings here in New Mexico.
31:35Yeah, so I've gotten to travel around, I love. And then also being part of these kinds of conversations  online has been really fun. And to meet all kinds of people, it's just opened up amazing different connections with people I didn't even know were out there and people doing such amazing work like you.  Thank you.  All right, Kristy, where can people find you and where can they buy the book?  Anybody can find me at KristyGreen.net.
32:02And then the book is available. It's distributed by Simon & Schuster.  You can find it at the University of New Mexico Press online.  You can order it anywhere. You would order a hard copy.  There's hardback and paperback books. And then anywhere you find your audio books, it's available on an audiobook form anywhere you would go  to find your own audiobook and then on Kindle as well. So you can pretty much find it anywhere. Fantastic.
32:31As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And if you want to support the podcast, you can go to a tinyhomestead.com slash support. Christy, I loved this. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. Thank you so much, Mary. And I hope you enjoy the rest of the cozy season of dormancy. Yes. And Merry Christmas and happy new year, Christy. Merry Christmas. Thank you, Mary. You're welcome.
 

Polyface Farm - Joel Salatin on Food Emancipation

Today I'm talking with Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
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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 Joel Salaton at Polyface Farms in Virginia in the United States. Good morning, Joel. How are you? Good morning. I'm very good. Thank you very much. What's the weather like there today? ah Well, last night it was down about
00:2915 degrees today. I think it's supposed to be a high of maybe 34, 35. And then drop down into 20s tonight. Tomorrow's going to be warm. It's going to be about a high of like 50 tomorrow. So. We're going to be warmer than you are in Minnesota today. It's supposed to hit 45 degrees today. Oh, wow. That's cool. That doesn't happen very often that we're warmer than Virginia.
00:58Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, uh, it, it's, we, we've been in a really, really cold, I mean, the river's frozen over. It's, uh, we've been in a really cold, uh, cold dip here lately. Yeah. I think the whole United States has been at some point in the last week and a half. It's been, it's been unbearably cold here. And I'm really looking forward to getting back into what we would consider to be temperate degrees here. Um.
01:27So I saw that Polyphase Farms is closed for the next week or so. Do you guys close for the holidays? Yeah, we do. We close for about two weeks. And that you got to realize much of many of our staff, we have a very, very young staff here. And so often they like to go to family over the holidays and things and New Year. we just, it's just the easiest thing is to just close for two weeks and
01:58Um, just keep a, you know, keep a kind of a core here to  do chores and feed cows and gather eggs and  kind of hold the ship together, uh, for, for a couple of weeks and let everybody,  uh, just enjoy. And then, and then those people that, put their hands up and say, I'll stay through Christmas. Then obviously they get there. They get there two weeks. One guy already took us two weeks back at Thanksgiving.  And, and then, you know, they, they, they,
02:28stagger out, you know, through January. you know, usually by the, by mid February, we're back at full staff and up and running, but these two weeks were pretty,  were pretty core. That's fabulous. And it gives you and your wife and your son a chance to maybe spend some time together as a family. Yeah,  some, although  I'm a bit of a scrooge, you know, we've done this all our lives and,  um, the, uh
02:58The holidays, you know, the work stays. So we end up picking up the slack because we live here. don't have to go  see family. know, we're here.  so we pick up a lot of extra work during the holidays. I'm actually,  what I've started doing in the last few years  is the holidays oh with the crew kind of down to core level.
03:26and not doing, not biting off any great big projects.  That's when I do my writing. So  yesterday I started on my next book and I'm almost  done with the third chapter. I got two chapters done yesterday. got, em I was trying to get my third one done this morning before this, but I didn't quite get it done. I have to finish after our call here, but  I'm hoping  to get this knocked out here in the next couple of weeks.
03:56And we'll be up and running. you have a working title yet? Oh yeah. The title is  food emancipation.  Oh,  awesome. Cause we need that real bad right now.  We do. We, we need it desperately.  And, you know, this,  I consider this, told Teresa this morning, this is probably going to be my, my single biggest contribution, I think to the culture.  And  of course she said, well,
04:26It's taking your whole life to get to this, you know, to get to this point.  but,  uh, this, this, the food freedom, the food freedom, I think is  the biggest issue we've got now agriculturally, oh uh, and, and in the food system.  And, um, so, um,
04:50I'm really digging into it. I'm excited about it. In fact, I couldn't even sleep last night. got two chapters done  and, um, um, I'm really excited about it and glad to be jumping in. The  big thing with a book, hard part, the hard part is starting.  And, uh, so yesterday when I got that first chapter done, I  was, I say, you know, I was on a roll  and, uh, and now I'm, I'm just really excited about.
05:20about knocking it out. Yeah, somebody told me a trick once that if you're stuck at the beginning, start in the middle. Like literally just get the words on paper and then you can move it around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. So, know, I have an outline, have an outline. And so I've got, you know, kind of the chapter, the chapter ideas, chapter titles,  and, know, they'll, they'll change and they'll morph and things. mean, a book kind of takes on its own.
05:49Uh, kind of takes on its own, uh,  uh, persona, you know, as you get into it and  new things come to mind and all that. But for me, I find that, that just sitting down and cranking on it and trying to get it knocked out on a couple of weeks, you know, a rough draft at least,  um, is the way to be the most efficient because it's often hard to leave it for a month and come back to it.
06:16You know, to know, what did I say this that I said, you got to go back and review. I can't remember where I put this in or that in. So, you know, if you just start and just, um, go through, you, it's a lot, it's a lot more efficient. Yeah. And if you stop and come back to it a month later, you've lost some of the momentum and the energy that you had for it. So that's right. So I, there's no, there's no energy like first energy.
06:44You know, if you've ever written something and then lost it on a computer, you know, hit a button and it all goes away. And you can never, you can never resurrect  the second  writing with the same energy as you did the first one.  No,  it's like new relationship energy. You know, when you meet somebody new and you're just learning about them and you're all excited.
07:09That's what happens with books and articles. It's amazing. I love it. I used to be a freelance writer and every time I would get into it, I'd start writing, come up for air two hours later and be like, oh, I was in the zone. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Zone.  Love that zone. And I actually would love to get back into writing, but I don't have time right now because I'm too busy  talking to amazing people like you every week. um So I was going to ask you about the whole
07:39cost of beef situation and the snap benefits fiasco and things are just so heavy right now. I would actually just rather ask you about what where you've been this year, what you've learned, what your favorite parts of the year were. So where have you been? Where have you traveled this year? Oh my goodness. I've been, I've been all over the place. Uh, yeah, I mean, I'm gone. I'm gone. don't know a third of it, a third of the time or more.
08:09Um,  I've,  I've,  I've do a lot of homestead homestead fairs.  Uh, so, you know, if you want to go around the country, you know, it's, it's, um,  it's a homestead festival in Columbia, Tennessee. That's about, you know, 6,000 people.  And then, uh, then you got,  um, Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. That's Melissa Norris's group. That'll be three or 4,000.
08:37And you got Ozarks, Ozarks  Homestead Conference with the  folks there. That's, you know, that's another whatever, three or 4,000. um Cheryl is the lady that does all that. Then you, you know, you have the Ohio Food Independence Summit. That's another three or 4,000. You got Homesteaders of America up in Front Royal, Virginia. That's  7,000.
09:07Uh, these, these homestead fairs are  huge. Then what's happening this year, for the first time, I really noticed it this year is I'm starting to do, um, 10 or 12 homeschooling conferences. It's like the homeschoolers have, have matured to, to move into the edu-, move into the food space beyond the education space. What I think there is that.
09:35You know, when you, when you try something alternative and you find it soul satisfying, you, you know, you come up from that experience and you say, wow, that was pretty cool. Uh, what else have I been missing? And so these homeschoolers, when they find, uh, homeschooling to be satisfying, uh, they start looking at food, at investment, at recreation, at
10:02uh, energy, you know, uh, all sorts of things.  And, uh, so I think it's a very, very natural permutation that the homeschoolers are coming to homesteading and, um they're just such a, such a fun bunch and, and I enjoy them a lot. So suddenly that, that has really blown open here in 2025  and,  and it's, it's pretty, it's pretty,  uh, it's pretty different. It's added a tremendous,  a whole new dimension.
10:31I have a question based off of that. um So are you going to homeschooling conferences or are you going to actually homeschools and talking to the kids too? Oh, no, no, no, no, these are conferences. Okay. I don't do this for free. No, no. uh I go to these conferences and these are state, you know, almost every state has some sort of state homeschool convention.  The biggest one in the nation is Florida.
11:00The Florida, and they all have different names, Florida Parent Educators, uh FPEA, Florida Parent Educators Association. ah You know, Virginia is a big one, but they're all over. And then there are, are uh overriding groups too. Like, ah they find it here, the great, great homeschool conventions. uh
11:28those they do about six a year around the country. so, you know, they're big, know, there are thousands and thousands of people and yeah, they're a lot of fun. Awesome. So what have you, what have you learned in 2025? Because you've learned a lot in your beautiful long life, but what surprised you this year?
11:58So this year, my epiphany was about halfway through the year.  And uh I've really become this voice of food freedom.  And  of course,  I've had the privilege uh of, for the first time in my life, being  seen by people in the political sphere, administration.
12:26Uh, as an asset, not a liability.  And so I've been able to  spend some time with, you know, RFK junior with people,  uh, you know,  close to him as well.  And, um,  and this whole, you know, food emancipation, this, this food freedom thing is, is such a, is such a big deal.  And, um, the thing that's  struck me about it.
12:54The epiphany I want to share  is all my life I've been. Whatever preaching, get in your kitchen. You know, if we want a different food system, get in your kitchen, get in your kitchen, buy whole foods. You know, don't buy processed, get in your kitchen and cook from scratch. It's never been easier. And you know, we've got Insta pot hot running, hot and cold water refrigeration,  uh, time bake  Insta pots, the bread makers, ice cream makers, you know,
13:24Um, get in your kitchen this summer. I realized after looking at what Americans spend on convenience food, 75 % of the retail dollar is convenience food. Um, and hearing RFK junior talk about ultra processed and, and all this, and this, the whole, the whole maha, I mean, the year started with Teresa and I being invited to go as guests to the, to the maha inaugural ball in DC.
13:54We'd never been to an inaugural ball. And so I had to go, you know, get a tuxedo and we had to, we had to go up there and froze our buns off. But, uh, we, you we went to that thing. And so what I've come to the conclusion is that I'm going to quit preaching, get in your kitchen. Now I still believe that I still think I'm not, you know, I haven't gone to the dark side, but what I'm suggesting is that that horse has left the stable.
14:23Americans,  until some catastrophe happens, Americans are not going to get in their kitchen. They're just not.  And so that leaves the convenience food option  as the single biggest category of food purchasing in the country. Now there's no reason why a convenience food, say, you know, a heat and eat
14:52frozen chicken pot pie needs to be junk. It can be good chicken, good carrots, good peas. It doesn't need monosodium  MSG in it. It doesn't need red dye 29. It doesn't need glycerin, antifreeze in it. know,  these 10,000 food additives that are in all these uh convenience foods that Europe only has 400 of them.
15:21They don't have to be there.  And so, so  I'm...
15:29And then you've got, you've got the farmers. There's  obviously you're watching these things too.  And, um, all the press on 2025 agriculture is negative. I'm the soybean farmers are going to lose a hundred dollars.  Uh, the tariff blowback is having this effect, that effect. Um, and of course, you know, when beef prices jumped, when they closed the border with Mexico and shut down a million, a million cattle coming into the country.
15:59That spiked the prices and then Trump blamed the farmers, cattle farmers for being greedy and selfish. Well, they didn't have anything to do with it. That only took him a week to backtrack from that. I think somebody got to him on that because they told him, look, Trump, you these farmers are the ones that got you in the White House. Don't you be bad mouthing the farmers. And so I am done.
16:29uh, trying to guilt people into getting in their kitchen. And instead I'm pivoting and saying, how can we get farmers  access to the convenience food market? That is, that is where the money is. That's where the food is. And there's no reason why it has to be junk food. It can be good food. And so hence food emancipation.
16:58Let's take the shackles  off our farmers and let farmers  access the food supply  and take the shackles off of the buyers who don't have choice. So both parties win if we take the shackles off. The only party that doesn't win  is the industrial commercial  food system that will be uh
17:28You know, that will have new competition in the marketplace. I love that you're pivoting and I do the same thing on my podcast. So I'm constantly telling people that if they want to save money, they should learn to cook from scratch and that it's better for them. And you're right. People don't want to take the time to cook. And it's so tragic. I love cooking.  spend, I spend an inordinate amount of time cooking and I enjoy it, but if you hate it, it's no fun. So.
17:58Or  if you're so far removed from it, you're intimidated by it. I'm meeting more and more people now who,  young,  you know,  twenties and thirties, who  are literally intimidated by the kitchen. I mean, they're scared of food. They've heard about, you know, whatever, uh disease and safety  and all this sanitation and all this stuff. And they're paranoid that they're going to...
18:25Um, make themselves sick or get some sort of disease because they didn't wipe the counter off well enough. mean, it  actually,  when ignorance, when ignorance finally hatches to its final uh destination, it turns from ignorance into paranoia.  And that's what we've got right now in the average,  uh, American home is literally food paranoia.
18:52They don't want to touch it. They want to open up a bag, stick it in the microwave  and, um, and eat it because they're literally paranoid of, of viscerally engaging in the food itself. And so unless and until that changes the desperate need, desperate need of both consumers  and farmers  is to enable us to easily transact food commerce.
19:22in that space without a million dollar facility and 10 bureaucrats breathing down our neck. oh That leads me to another question. I don't know what Virginia's laws are like regarding food production if you're not a business or a factory, but here in Minnesota, we're not allowed to sell anything from a home kitchen that requires cooling or heating. So
19:51We can sell cookies that have already been baked because you don't have to put cookies in a refrigerator or an oven for them to stay good. Shelf stable things are fine. But if I wanted to make a cheesecake, I cannot make it in my home kitchen and sell it. So what's Virginia's laws like? Yeah, identical, identical.  And most, most states are identical. There are now four states.
20:20that have  pretty effective cottage food laws. ah The best one is probably Maine. Second best is Wyoming. And in those states,  can uh produce any food in your home kitchen that you want to without inspection.  Now, the  ingredients in the food
20:49have to be legal. unfortunately, this means that if you make a  shepherd's pie, let's say with beef in it, the beef has to be from an inspected  source. Okay,  Once you have the beef,  you can open that package and make a shepherd's pie and sell it without inspection in Maine and Wyoming.
21:19So those  are huge wins  in this movement.  And  in fact, in this book I'm working on,  I'm going to oh put in the four states with these good  cottage food laws so that people can see the kind of language. So right now, the strategist that I'm working with, what
21:48the strategy seems to be, we, if we could get, you know, 30 or 40 states to adopt these, these food freedom laws, then, then what we could get, hopefully, would be a federal blanket. I mean, I'm, I'm after a, an amendment to the constitution of the bill of rights that basically
22:19Two consenting adults exercising freedom of choice to give their microbiome uh agency should be able to engage in a food transaction without asking the government's permission. Now,  I'm not saying that I should be able to sell it at Walmart  or export it to Sri Lanka and Vietnam. ah What I am saying is that  neighbor-to-neighbor food transactions
22:49among voluntary consenting adults exercising freedom of choice. And I know those are powerful phrases, but I use them on purpose.  It should not require a bureaucrat's permission to engage in a neighbor to neighbor food transaction, period.  When do you think this book is going to be available to buy? Because I can't wait to promote it.
23:15Yeah. So, uh, so I'm hoping to get it roughed out by the end, by, by the end of December. So I've got two weeks here and I'm cranking on it. mean, I'm, I'm every, I've got some other things I've got, you know, some podcasts I've got  a wood to cut and some other things to do tomorrow. We've got it. We've got a chip. So that Daniel wants me to go up and cut trees for him.  Uh, so, you know, I've got some things to do, but, basically,  uh, every spare minute I'm doing this, uh, I hope for this to be out.
23:44sometime late next summer, uh August, maybe something like that.  And, um, because I'm trying to, I'm trying to coincide it with some other fairly large,  um,  documentaries that are coming out on food freedom. There's a, there's a lot going on in Maha  and, and, and I can tell you, I was just up in DC on Monday night at, at, uh, at the Maha,  um,
24:14Gala.  And uh I mean, it was amazing. RFK Jr. was there and Lee Zeldin, uh Secretary of EPA  guy was there. uh Of course, you you had your regular uh group, know, CDC and  the new NIH administrator and all that.  that,  that
24:42basic movement, that basic movement um is a real catalyst, I think, for this issue because ah one of the big phrases that's  been used now is agency capture. And I think people are beginning to realize that the watchdogs,  people wanted the government to protect them.
25:10from those corporate interests that were hiding behind razor wire and guard towers in big industrial food complexes, whether they're,  know, canneries, uh know,  slaughter processing facilities or whatever. uh We didn't want a government bully big enough to look across the fence and protect our interests. And what they didn't realize was that  the government regulators  and the corporate interests were going to go to bed together.  That's what they didn't realize.
25:40And that reality  is really coming to light now  with, you know, Maha, with Moms Across Americas and Honeycutt. ah What these folks  are exposing  is pretty dramatic.  Well, I'm thrilled that this is going on.  This is a  movement now because it has been incredibly frustrating to me. I make a killer cheesecake,
26:09And I have my cottage food license or registration for Minnesota. can't sell cheesecake in Minnesota because it's cooked in my kitchen. I know that's minor. It's small. It's tiny scale. But if your book actually turns people to understanding that there's nothing wrong with what's cooked in a home kitchen, as long as that kitchen is like, you know, relatively clean and there's not dog and cat hair everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Well.
26:40So here's,  so the difference is the expectations. So, you know, when a food chain, when a food chain is opaque,
26:54Uh, there are,  there, there's a trust issue,  but when a food chain is short and relational, the trust goes way up. See the butcher, baker and candlestick maker, or in your case, I'll say the cheesecake maker. Yeah. You used to be embedded in the village as artisans as craft and, and, and their kids played with other kids in the neighborhood. They went to the same churches.
27:23They lived above their shops.  They didn't have employees only hanging on the door. People could come in, wander around the kitchen, know, look in the garbage can.  I mean, there was a transparency and an accountability that created the  vetting  procedure. But as food industrialized and  started hiding behind
27:53you know, industrial  walls, the public became paranoid of the food. think I already said that. and,  and, and, here's the thing.  Let's take  another way to say this is the Uberization of food. You know, if 50 years ago, somebody had come to you and said, uh, you know what?
28:21Mary, um, you know what? In, um, next week, you're going to go to, uh, Calcutta, jump in a car with a guy that has no chauffeur's license. The car isn't registered with a chauffeur agency and he's going to pick you up and you're going to say, take me to, you know, the museum, uh, at D street. And you're going to trust him to take you there.
28:49You'd have said, what are you crazy? Calcutta? No,  I'm getting a cab. I'm getting a licensed, you know,  chauffeur service. I'm not jumping in the car with some, you Well, that's exactly what happened. It's called Uber. And what made it possible was that the internet with real time, uh real time,
29:17vetting, know, one star, two star, three star complaints, whatever,  has, has  re-embedded the butcher  and the cheesecake maker.  I love that. uh In, in the global village with real time vetting.  And this is brand new. This is brand new.
29:44And I mean, the same thing can be said of Airbnb. know, who would have thought that in 10 years, we would double the number of hospitality rooms worldwide without driving a nail, making another room. Just the power, the power  of a transparent transaction enabled by a renewed democratized voice called the internet.
30:14And so here we are with your cheesecakes.  And if your cheesecakes aren't good, somebody's going to say, you know, Mary's cheesecakes are horrible. I would never recommend them. And you know what? You'll be out of business.  That'll go viral. But if somebody says, wow, these cheesecakes are unbelievable. Everybody should go buy those. You could actually have a side hustle. You could actually start a little business and,  and, make some money. and.
30:43And the point is that the internet is its own protective vetting device because it has resurrected the transparent village voice of yesteryear. Crazy how that works, isn't it? Yes, it is. I love it. I love it. All right, Joel. And that's why people don't need to be scared. I mean, I can hear people.
31:13Oh no, what if, if Mary's, you know, what if they're not good? What if they're not? Well, you know,  are you, are you, do you really think that you can trust a bureaucrat more than, than an artisan, a craft person, a cheesecake maker that you know, that you've asked around, Hey, what do you think about her? You know, what do you think about her situation? You've been to her kitchen?
31:42uh You know, is she clean? she good?  And this  conversation we can now have so easily and cheaply, we don't have to  use snail mail, we don't have to put a stamp on it,  is revolutionary in uh creating  self-policing within commerce.
32:12Absolutely. All right, Joel, I try to keep these to half an hour and we are there. So thank you for taking time out of your time off as it were. Chat with me again. I appreciate it. People can find you at Polyface Farm on Facebook and the website is polyfacefarm.com. Yes? Yes. Okay. All right. And as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Loved talking to you again, sir.
32:42Thank you, it's a real privilege and an honor, Mary. And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Same to you and yours. Have a great day.  You too, take care.
 

Hellfire Homestead

Today I'm talking with Shannon and Allen at Hellfire Homestead. 
 
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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 Shannon and Alan at Hellfire Homestead in New Hampshire. Good evening, you guys. How are you? Very good, actually, despite freezing. Is it super cold in New Hampshire right now? Yeah, we could kind of a little,
00:25cold snap going on so that makes for frozen water bottles and water buckets which is always a nightmare but yeah Minnesota's pretty cold too but not as cold as it's gonna be Saturday the high for Saturday where I live is gonna be minus one oh my gosh  and it's probably coming your way three or four days later so you I've given you a heads up oh
00:50Yeah, I know it's really hard with livestock because they've got to have fresh water whether you want to go out and break the ice and put water in or not. Yep. And we have quite a few different animals here. Okay. Well, tell me the first question I have is why is it called Hellfire Homestead? So, mean, oddly enough, it was sort of to weed out people that would be turned off by that name.
01:18I think, and feel free to interrupt me, dear. But I feel that like in recent years, you know, with the influx of TikTok and other various social media, not only is there a lot of information that's absolutely wrong about homesteading, survivalism, bushcraft, et cetera, but a lot of people into it are not multi-generational. And there's a lot of returning to sort of like bad
01:48Um, bad themes, I guess I should say as far as what we perceive to be gender roles in home setting and things like that on top of,  uh, just a lot of bad information in general, which I mean, as somebody who grew up in New Hampshire and  my family's been out here since the 1700s, um, ah I learned generationally how to can, um, how to keep meat clean.  Um, hunting was big in parts of my family. Um,
02:18And I just sort of like grew up in the woods, like a wild feral child. ah So,  you know, and then you, you know, you log on to like TikTok and you see like 25 year old kids like canning with, ah you know, jars they got, you know, spaghetti jars they got from the grocery store and saying this is viable. And it's like, no, that will kill you if not ruin your entire harvest. There's a reason our grandparents use ball jars. ah
02:46So that was part of it. And another part of it is that people are incredibly interested in what it is we do.
02:54just on the day to day, like they're interested in the farm, they're interested in the fact that we fill our own freezer with our own meat. They're interested in the fact that we do process the hides of the animals that we eat and kill. We have sheep. ah So, some of us being online was to satisfy the curiosity of our friends, but also to kind of counter some of these like...
03:20these ridiculous ideas that people who are not even generational farmers are starting to promote as good.  Uh huh. Good. I'm glad that you're, you're like standing up for that because you're right. There's a lot of crap  on the internet about what's safe, what isn't, what you can do, what you can't do. And I was grown up the same. I was brought up, sorry, not grown up,  brought up the same way you were Shannon. I spent so much time in the, uh, the woods and the swamp behind my house growing up in Maine.
03:50And  I'm 56, there were no computers, were no tablets, there were no cell phones.  Mom said, you ate a good breakfast, go play, don't come back till dark. And that's what we did. Yeah, was Gen X. So my parents were basically like, get outside, you're on your own until it starts getting dark. Yeah, me too.  And  I couldn't necessarily do that with my kids when I finally managed to find a husband who wasn't terrible and managed to stay with him.
04:19and lived in town because there weren't really any woods for them to go play in. So we would take them on the weekends and go hike trails in the area.
04:30Yeah, my son that way too. we, you know, when I was,  it took a while to get a farm in my first marriage. Um, and we lived in the city. We actually lived in Concord, New Hampshire.  Um, so like keeping that rural, that like, you know, that aspect of like self sustainability was a little bit harder.  Um, but you know, we did things like, you know, from a very young age, he was taught gun safety from a very young age. He was taught at least some of the basics of.
04:58killing and cleaning your own food.  And then as we got our own farm  with my ex-husband,  we started raising rabbits and doing things like that. So, I mean, that's definitely uh something that he's held onto. And hopefully I can pass on to my grandchildren one day on top of, know,  those future grandkids into 4-H as quickly as possible.  Yeah, I love where your heart is at. I really do. ah
05:26The other thing that's funny is I'm sitting here listening to you talk about how you grew up. And I didn't know that I was brought up under a homesteading umbrella because my dad heated his house for the wood. My mom and dad both hunted. They both fished. ate bass every summer or every spring.  My dad will not, he does not keep any bass these days. He's 83 years old. If he goes fishing and catches the bass, it's catch and release.
05:55And the last time I had baked bass, he makes it with stuffing. is amazing. Was when my kid was like six or seven, my youngest, he caught the bass with grandpa. And I said to him, I said, if you catch a bass, talk grampy and bring it home. Cause I want baked bass for dinner. And  my dad got home. We're having baked bass for dinner. And I said, Oh, did you catch one? He said, no, of course I didn't. Your kid caught it.  And I said, Oh, did you bring it home?
06:25He's like, yeah, cause he wouldn't let me put it back in the water cause mom wanted big baths for dinner.  So, um,  but seriously, I had no idea that my parents were doing anything unusual.  And as soon as I married my third husband, who happened to have a house in a small yard,  we started gardening because you can't eat grass. Yep. Very true.  And he was already a deer hunter. So we had that box checked.
06:54And we started putting food away and preserving. And I started crocheting and making hats and scarves for the kids. And it was all stuff I grew up with. And now in quotation marks, it's a movement. Yep. For good or ill, I think that the preservation of these homesteading skills and bushcraft and things like that is not only just, you're preserving your heritage as a human being.
07:22regardless of race, you we all came from the land. But you're also, you know, it's mental health. Because when you realistically look at it throughout human history, industrialization was what only the past, what since 1700, 1600, something like that. So you got to think how did we live for millions of years previously, well, we lived off the land and we lived side by side by animals. So there's a big mental health aspect to that, I think.
07:51Yeah. And when I, when I said now it's a movement, it might've sounded snarky and I didn't mean for it to sound snarky. I just find it really interesting that the old ways are now the new ways. Yeah. And I'm not against that idea. I mean, I have go.  And the problem that I have with it, I think is that,  um, these movements, because they are popular on social media and they do generate money is that some of the easiest things that you can do when you're, when you're creating these,
08:21this media is to slide backwards. And I've seen a lot of very detrimental, um, this toward women going back into the quote unquote, trad wife lifestyle. And I have watched a lot of these videos and they're, you know, on the surface, it's like, you know, this, this woman in a dress that looks like it's made out of a 1995, you know, kitchen curtain, you know, dancing around her kitchen, coop and cleaning it out in white sandals. And I'm like, this doesn't happen.
08:50Like good luck keeping your manicure when you've mucked a sheep stall for like four hours.  So yeah, those are the ones that make me mildly crazy. I'm like, I can't even imagine trying to do that. I mean,  I haven't actually mucked out our chicken coop ever because my husband does it. God love him.  But if I was going to go out there and uh scoop poop.
09:15I would be in the crappiest, holiest pants I have that I wouldn't be worried about throwing away.  my least favorite shirt, because you're going to get covered in straw or pine shavings  and poop. It's going to happen.  And spider webs and  dead bugs and beans. Of course, the dog is going to interrupt. Oh, that's okay. Maggie barked her head off this morning or yesterday morning when I did an interview with somebody and I was like, I'm sorry. And they were like, that's fine.
09:46But  I think that um at least what we're going to try to do, we are putting together  some media. We're hoping to get some  videos up by the end of the year. We're just sort of collecting it and doing it in the winter while we have a little bit more time.  It's also to talk about that there's a lot of mistakes that happen in homesteading. It's not all like, oh, I get to go out and play with my cute little sheep and my dogs are frolicking happy and...
10:13You know, like you do lose an entire litter of rabbits to a mother that, you know, knocks them out of the nest. Uh huh. You know, your sheep does split a hoof and then you have to figure out how to help, help that animal. yeah, break a horn on the wind. Oh my God. A broken horn on the sheet bleeds so terribly. So two of our sheep have four horns. Um, so, know, or, you know, a dog gets sprayed by a skunk or in the case of our.
10:42idiot dogs,  porcupines and what? Four times last year.  you know, it's not all about, um you know, canning goods in your kitchen  and,  you know, your beautiful little pet chickens, you know, flitting around. um It's  gross. It's a lot of poop and it's a lot of um dirt.  And  it's not this like clean sunny thing all the time.
11:10You're making it sound so incredibly attractive. Um,  um, but there is a lot of good to this and you know that, I know that.  And I think being real about it is really important. So like, when you look around, like, like what is, what is the pumpkin spice of the farmyard other than chickens, it's goats. I will tell you when Alan or probably chime in here,  goats are the most horrible animals you can ever have. And we say that from experience.
11:39Like, you can't have fruit trees. can't have, I used to have goats that would break out of their pen in order to eat the dirt, like, and start destroying my rabbit hutches to eat the dirty peat on hay from my rabbits. Despite the fact that the goats had like a good acre of fresh, they always had hay. They always had fresh everything. I mean, they were just flat out destructive. Um, so I would always recommend sheep.
12:05But you have a culture where homesteaders, the instant thought, and I fell into this too, which is why I'm mentioning this. The instant thought is, I'm gonna get goats. Don't get goats. Don't get goats.  It's so funny that you bring up goats because our friends have goats and they love their goats.  my friend loves her goats beyond probably loving her dogs. Wow.
12:32I'm okay with that because everybody has a different experience with every single animal. swear I've been doing this podcast for over two years  and I have heard goats are not naughty. I've heard goats are great. I've heard  goats are terrible. So I think your mileage varies on what kind of goat you get and what kind of person you are. But I do know that you have to make sure that you have a really good place for them to be corralled because they will escape if there's any chance.
13:00And our sheep basically, they just roam the yard. don't even fence them. We have a very small, I wouldn't even call it a neighborhood. We have a couple neighbors around us that are on a private dirt road and they just wander around and then about three o'clock in the morning, they start complaining because they want their pellets and to go to bed. So they're pretty easy. And we also have rabbits. We have two turkeys that I guess are pets now.
13:30I think their purpose is to scream when the UPS guy shows up. uh I didn't realize that we ended up with Blackhead on the property, which is going to limit us from really ever having turkeys here. Yep. bought don't know what that is. So it's a, it's not at all. It's a, what is it? A protozoan. That lives in worms. Yeah. And so what it is is that chickens will bring it in, but it,  it'll actually
14:01It's in the dirt now. So anytime, wherever the chickens have been,  and it doesn't even affect the chickens, but it does cause liver failure in turkeys.  the turkeys, any turkeys that eat like the worms and stuff, they come out of the ground because we've had chickens here for 20 years. Yeah. They, uh, yeah, it carries it with it. could have come in at any time during the last 20 years. It's hard to say.  So yeah, pretty much limited us to not having turkeys.
14:30Yeah, so we lost 80%. Yeah, we lost 80 % of our turkeys and I bought like heritage breed.  Again, thinking that I was losing turkeys because they were the white meat bird and they just weren't healthy. And then it turns out they they had this blackhead disease. And again, I think this is why it's very important to tell people about your failures. ah Because now we're not going to have any more turkeys other than these two that are ah living with us now. ah
15:00Because when you talk about your failures, things like blackhead disease or things about, you know, things, the realities of home study um are important to know because you also get into the situation where people think that they're going to come in and they're going to have this cute little farm and they go and they buy like uh a miniature cow and they go buy, you know, goats and rabbits and  a guardian dog. And then the next thing you know,
15:27they're completely overwhelmed and have no idea what they're doing when that cow becomes a bull or that guardian dog wants to work and they have no idea how to control that. um I think it's very important to put out a realistic idea of what homesteading is because ultimately, even if you're eating your animals, you are the steward and the guardian of those animals. So their quality of life is on you up until that time that you um use them for food.  Certainly is. uh
15:57Every time my husband floats an idea about what he would like to do next, I say,  we need to take six months and do the research and think about it before we make any decisions. And he looks at me like I'm cracked.  And I'm like,  no, seriously, we're not diving into anything until we know what we're doing. Because I'm one of those people who  when the animals die, it breaks my heart. We got, we got rabbits.  Um,  oh my God, three years ago now.
16:26Rabbits are not our thing. Just for the record, we don't do rabbits anymore.  And the rabbits were not getting pregnant. And we still to this day don't know why. And we had a confirmed buck and two confirmed does.  We got one litter of rabbits out  of one of  the does in a whole year.  So either they were bad at their job or we didn't know what the hell we were doing. And I want to say it was probably both. But I did all the research.
16:55I looked up everything. talked to the people that sold us the rabbits and it still didn't work. So, there's two schools of thought here. You can do all the research on earth and still fail or you can not do any research at all and for sure fail. And you can feel kind of strophically. Because I think people wonder. So both of us still work full time. I'm in school full time. And of course we have the friends that are like, how do you do it all? And it's like, well, you don't have a choice. So if you want to do home studying,
17:25it's very rare unless you are inheriting ah the infrastructure and an established farm to actually make a living wage out of homesteading. And that's something that I've tried to explain to people as well. Like we don't, we, if anything, kind of break even by the fact that we can fill our, um you know, fill our freezers full of meat. Like we don't really have to go meat shopping at all. um And our dogs, we,
17:54You know, I think that we avoid a lot of vet bills because our dogs eat a good raw diet. Um, for the most part that comes off of the animals that we process ourselves. Um, but I mean, are you going to make a complete living off it? I wouldn't quit your job. Yeah. Like don't, don't quit your day job until you're ready. You know, and that means you're going to be working yourself to the bone. Um, but that's again, that's the reality of the situation.
18:24Yeah, yeah, and you're making a really good distinction here because a small homestead is not a big farm. It's never gonna be And one to two people um There's only so much you can do in a day, you know It does make it a lot easier with two people like we can get a bunch of chickens done in a day We can get a bunch of rabbits done in a day But it is it's hard work and it's constant work and
18:53It's definitely, you know, a labor of love, but these are the realities of the situation. So again, like I talk about that on reality of things like tip-talk and stuff like that, where it shows these people, like one person doesn't have to work and one person doesn't have to do this. then I'm guaranteeing you that a lot of those people have landscapers. have, you know, people coming in and setting up the scene for them and things like that. So.
19:20When it comes to people who actually want to start doing this themselves, don't believe anything you hear in that realm. If it looks too good to be true, it is. I always tell people if they're interested, they need to go to a place where the people are actually walking the walk and talking the talk. Absolutely. And that's what we've tried to do, you know, to an extent with our friends. um Next year, we're going to start raising meat birds ah to  help.
19:49feed our friends and have them all come over and do a butchering party. I'm really excited for that. That will be very interesting on the psychology side. Yeah, well, it's kind of it's kind of interesting because once I think that people at least once in their life, if they're going to eat meat,  really should understand where it comes from. And at least on the homestead, you know that your you know, your meat, you know where it comes from, you know, it's not abused. You know, its final moments were not
20:19you know, on a factory line, was,  you know, just picked up and  in the case of chickens, you just kind of cut their throat and it's instant.  Um, but I think that that's really important to understand because part of what we get at the supermarket where everything is sterile and pre-packaged is a distance from honoring the animals that we eat.  Um, and when you stop honoring your food and you stop honoring the animal, well, you don't miss it until it's gone.
20:50And, you know, that's, that's part of a consumerist culture. That's part of a culture that just expects, well, when I need food on the grocery store in the grocery store, it's going to be there.  Um,  and part of homesteading and part of small time farming is to ensure that, or to understand that, no, it might not always be there.  And  you have to kind of provide for yourself, but it also connects you to that bridge between, um, you know, the wild.
21:18and your domestic life because you are living with animals, you're caring for animals, you're  killing animals in order that their body feeds yours. So to have respect for that circle, I think is very important and very humbling as a human.  Oh,  absolutely. The first time I watched a chicken get butchered that was my chicken, I was like,  oh, this is hard. And I didn't cry. I was more shocked than sad.
21:47And my husband said, are you okay? And I was like,  yeah, I said, but other people need to know this is how it's done. And he said, I think we're going to have that covered someday. And now I'm doing a podcast about all of this. So,  but yeah, it's really, really hard. The first time  you take the life of an animal to sustain your own life through eating it.
22:13Yep. we try, I think another thing that we try to do is use every possible part.  um, you know, in the, in, in rabbits,  um, nearly everything is usable other than sort of the awful, which is like the digestive system and all the feces and things like that. Like you can basically use everything. The chickens will eat it. The dogs will eat it. You can eat it.  Um, and then the fur is obviously usable as our, like, we just barely completed a entire batch of rabbits.
22:42cheek, our key chain, sorry.  Um, so we try to use absolutely everything we can. If we can't use it, we pass it on to somebody else. So we even save bones and skulls because these things are the ears even, um, because these are really big on the oddities market. Yep. So it's important for us that, you know, every part is used, everything is used and that the animal dies a very quick,  um, quick painless death.
23:10And it is hard. is hard with rabbits, especially when you, you know, you're the one raising them. So I kind of, I feel better by the fact that I have,  um, I do have a favorite rabbit who will live her life out here. name's October. She's very sweet and she's a very good mom. So I've decided that, you know, she will be one of the rabbits that stays.  Um, but I also think of it too, as you know, not only do we as humans eat
23:38horrifically processed food, but so do our pets.  And um that was another thing that I think that I had issues with on TikTok too, was that, you know, there's this big thing of like showing people feeding their dogs, like these vegetables and things like that. And I've been a,  I've worked in, I've worked with dogs most of my life. ah I was a groomer, a dog trainer, a behaviorist. um I've ran kennels, rescues. We have five dogs right now that are all rescues.
24:07They're obligate carnivores. So the idea that it's good or easy for them to digest vegetable matter is something that was promoted by pet food companies in order to sell you corn and soy and rice and things like that that dogs really should not be eating, same with cats. ah So another aspect of that was I wanted to start also talking about
24:34you know, Ron ancestral diets for dogs. And part of how we supplement that is through our rabbits and chickens.  Um, so it's,  uh, it's, it's, it's a whole thing, I guess, like when you do this, it becomes your life and it becomes,  um,  sort of a center,  not necessarily of your world because you're working on it, but like a center that centers you. Yes. Yep. You're grounded in it.
25:04Yes.  I love that. I think that's fabulous because a lot of people are like, yeah, we have chickens, we have goats, have cows, and they talk to me about it  and they're thrilled to have them and they take care of them and they do what they're going to do with them.  And that's  wonderful. Absolutely.  But you are grounded in this. Like you,  you were died and centered in this.  Absolutely.
25:33There's a line from a movie. can't think of it right now, but  I said it badly.  Go ahead. God, I'm trying to think of what I want to do. And so we're, we're always like adding projects too, which is crazy. He goes a little crazy cause I'm a little ADHD and I'm always doing things, but,  um, you know, we do maple syrup too. So that's pretty fun. Like we get, um, you know, we'd pop trees on our property.  Um,
25:58And every year we come up with big batches of syrup done the old way, quote unquote. We do use the aluminum buckets and we, you know, we cook it outside on a stove that we rebuild every year. That's for Gordon and Hames, sure.  And everything goes up and down at the same time and everything's made of rock out here. Yeah, that's true too. If  anybody out there is unfamiliar with the quote unquote granite state, well, it's aptly named.  Gardening is very hard here. It is, ah there's,
26:28There's a lot of rock in the ground, let's say, and our property is extremely rocky. It's hard to drive people. It is.  Fencing is an issue all the time. ah And we also heat the house using wood mostly sourced from our own property. Like we go out there and we cut it and drag it out with the Jeep and, uh you know, spend the warmer months kind of processing it and drying it and things like that. But again, it's work.
26:55Are you always a year ahead on your firewood? I would say no. We laxed last year, I think we did. But we made up for it because one of the things too to remember is people are always getting rid of things. Yeah, so we sort the tremendous amount because the emerald ash borer came through this area. It's filled all the ash trees and it's standing dead now.
27:25So they, we were helping out an older couple cleaning up trees that were coming down on their property. And that's where we got a lot of the stuff this year, which was nice because it's already dry. Yeah. The Emerald Ash borers found our tree line this past year or two and  the trees were hanging in. And my husband noticed this spring that there were a lot of holes in the ash trees, you know, the trunks. And he came in and he said, we have a problem. And I said, what's that? And he said, the, uh
27:54The woodpeckers are basically putting holes in our ash trees. And I said, well, yeah, that's what woodpeckers do. And he said, no, we have emerald ash doors. They're going after the bugs. I was like, great. I said, how many trees are almost dead? He said, at least half. And almost our entire tree line is all ash trees. I was like, what are we going to replace them with? He says, apple trees, peach trees, plum trees. I was like, go for it. Please do that.
28:22It's a good time. Is it south facing? Good time for like a food forest. You can see it.  It's actually  south. It is south. It's it runs north to south. And so we have plum trees and apple trees and pear and peach trees over there already. And they're doing great. So he's just going to keep adding some in every year. That's what I want to do. I want to do more like the permaculture aspect of things as opposed to  the annuals where you have to like
28:52them every year. So you're getting more out of a out of the permaculture state like plants as opposed to like your corn, which you have to put a ton of effort into planting every year, you know, where you could just go out there and pick fruit or berries or. Okay.  You know how Shannon is very uh adamant about homesteading is hard and TikTok sucks because people put happy.
29:21the lucky stuff on there. Yeah. I hate corn. Corn is not good for you. really is. It's a grain. It's not even vegetable. It's a starch. It really is not. Not gonna lie. The food quality is so poor in that. Yep. So I am going to die on that hill. Corn is not really good for you. And I mean, if you want to have an ear of sweet corn picked from the field down the road from you because it tastes good in August,
29:51Go for it, slather it in butter, enjoy it. But  corn every meal is really bad for you. Yeah. It is a dietary, you know, like  the amount that we eat it or the amount that we force it onto our pets is absurd. It's a sugar spike here. Yeah. And I think again, that's something that we have to be aware of when we are doing this homesteading thing. Like, why are we doing it? Because the food that we're being fed in the grocery store, 99 % of the time is just manufactured garbage.
30:20It's crap is what it is. My husband grew these beautiful cabbages, like an  old variety of cabbage this summer.  And uh I had told him to not bother growing cabbages because usually they're not very good and they take up a lot of room  and they're buggy. They get bugs really easy. Yeah, I the veracica as well.
30:43Yeah, and he picked this very old variety from some place and got the seeds and put them in and started them from little baby cabbages.  And they were like  dark green. They were sweet. They were crispy. I said, you can grow those cabbages every summer for the rest of our lives if you want. Cabbage is good for you.
31:06Yeah, we tried gardening. Our garden is a little, uh, was feral. We took off for a week in the river and came back and it just sort of took over. We went from the extreme water this year too. So it rained. I think it was like, you know, working full time made it really bad, but I think it was like 15 or 16 Saturdays in a row. Yep.
31:31Like every weekend for like 16 weekends, all spring, rain every weekend. We got so much rain this year from the beginning. And then all of a sudden July came and then it stopped raining. It didn't rain again until October. That was our summer two summers ago here in Minnesota. And these things are difficult. So the garden did okay. We're probably going to try to refurbish the whole thing this year. And we do it again, composting. like we make
32:01Rabbits make massive amounts of manure that you can literally just kind of throw in the garden. um But we have so much  poo production here that, you know, we definitely ah make enough compost, um which again is another thing that I think ah needs to be discussed too, because,  you know, rabbits are definitely a very sustainable way to raise meat for yourself. Supposing you can kill them. Caveat. um
32:30But  there's a lot of push like, you can raise rabbits in a small space. You can raise rabbits like right in your backyard. But what they don't tell you is how much poop they produce and that you have to find some method of disposing of that, whether it's giving it away or uh putting it in the corner of your house because  animals make a lot of poo. And anybody who has ever worked with animals  will tell you that like,
32:57Probably like 70 % of working with them is poop.  Oh yeah.  Even the dogs.  Yeah, for sure.  It's not a clean and shiny and roses and candy kind of lifestyle. No, and it's expensive too. know, like, I mean, when we have the egg shortages, I was trying to go get meat birds and everywhere I went, it's like, we're focusing on egg layers because people want to buy egg layers.
33:26And I tried so hard to tell people like by the time you get your eggs, you've put more money. You could buy eggs even at that extended price cheaper than you ever could by raising your own chickens. Yeah. There's a lot of people in our area that have a $2,000 dozen eggs this year. Yep.  Oh yeah. Those first eggs are expensive. Yeah. Between the feed and the chickens. You can get it layers all day long on Craigslist right now though, free.  Yep.
33:55give them a whole lot.  And the roosters were insane. mean, I even went to tractor supply looking for the meat birds and this woman was there like, Oh, we're get chickens, we're gonna get eggs. And I'm like, these are straight run.  So you might end up with roosters. And I told her flat out, said, I got a couple of Americanas. I got five just to sort of add the blue eggs to my flock. And I ended up with four roosters. ah So you also have what you know, another thing comes into home studying is responsibility.  And part of that is
34:25On a homestead, males are kind of useless. uh know, like, do you, I mean, if you have pets, that's one thing, but like, how many rams do you need? How many bulls do you need? How many roosters do you really need? How many bucks do you really need? Not that many. So what happens when,  you know, someone goes and buys a straight run of chickens  and they end up with mostly roosters. Well, what are you going to do that? Nobody wants a rooster. You might be able to rehome a few or send a few to rescue, but.
34:54for the most part, those roosts are gonna be culled. And that's another thing to consider that you have to be a part of. Even if you're not the one doing the culling, these animals that you're raising, responsibility-wise, they're most likely going to end up culled. And I think too that there's a lot of, there's a lot of rose colored glasses when it comes to how people perceive.
35:23homesteading, or even chickens in general. mean, I'm not, my dogs are being ridiculous right now. I've gotten a lot of flack for, you know, how can you butcher chickens? Well, they're so beautiful and wonderful and friendly. And I said, well, chickens will eat each other. I was like, as soon as I go to butcher my meat birds, my egg layers are out here. They're looking for the blood. They're looking for the entrails. They don't care. They're little dinosaurs. They are absolutely.
35:52And you see a lot of people's vision shattered by this sort of thing. And then again, you look on TikTok, like I saw some lady post this ridiculous ah post about she tried to make it out as her rooster was mourning a hen that died. And of course people in the comments were like, oh, those poor, you know, birds, were, they were, you ah meant to be together.  you know,  people were coming up with this entire love story of this hen and this rooster. When people who actually had chickens are like,
36:22The only reason he's looking at her is he's cause he's trying to peck feathers off her to eat the feathers. Cause they do that.  And  there's again, there's this like sort of blindsided disconnect of how these animals actually are. And I'm not trying to like, you know, I'm not trying to say that if you want to have a pet chicken and you love that chicken, we have one here.  Um, that there's anything wrong with that. But again, when I go back to like, you have to honor the animal.
36:49You have to honor the fact that yes, that chicken is a little dinosaur and they can be exceedingly cruel to each other. I mean, they will peck each other to death. So we don't honor these animals by giving them human feelings and emotions. We honor them by respecting the animal that they are. Yeah. It's like Joel Saliton says, the pigness of the pig. Yes. Okay. Well, this is not the conversation I thought I was going to have this evening, but I'm glad I'm having it.
37:20Well, I'm actually glad to hear that  Yeah, I want to have you guys back because who makes the the pens and the crochet hooks is it yours at oh out? Well, let's have Alan come back when you guys have time and talk to me about that because those crochet hooks look amazing Oh, no problem. I'm sure he would love to oh
37:50If  it was a hit or not. Yeah, he had, he really. look great. oh He would probably enjoy actually talking about that because he starts talking about wood stuff to me and I start glazing over. So.  We'll have to set it up for after the new year.  Excellent. All right. Shannon, Alan, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.  Can people find you anywhere other than Hellfire Homestead on Facebook?  There's that and we've put up a YouTube.
38:20Currently, we don't have any media on that because we're still kind of putting that together. Again, like I said, like over the winter where we have slightly less time um in the summer and fall to do this. So we're trying to just sort of get that done now and probably put it out by spring um because we also have our paranormal group and things like that going. So  lots of stuff. I wish my podcast, I wish I could figure out a way to stretch it to paranormal stuff because I would love to hear about that.
38:50I don't think I can work Homestead and Paranormal into the same thing.  We could talk about how our rural history is very haunted.  Maybe we'll do that in the spring too.  All right. uh As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And if you want to support the podcast, you can go to atinyhomestead.com slash support, because I'm really original like that.  Thank you guys so much for your time. I appreciate it.
39:19No problem. Have a good holiday. You too.
 

Hope Hill Homestead

Today I'm talking with Marcus at Hope Hill Homestead. 
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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 Marcus at Hope Hill Homestead in New Hampshire. Good morning, Marcus. How are you? Good morning, Mary. How are you?  I'm good.  I'm very excited to find out what you do, but tell me how the weather is in New Hampshire this morning. Well, when I was dropping my kids off at their little
00:28uh school, little farm school, little private  Catholic farm school. It was two degrees.  Okay. Is it sunny? it cloudy? What?  It's partly sunny, cloudy. Okay. so, but there's some snow on the ground and everything is frozen here. um It is, I think it's 22 degrees outside here.
00:56In Minnesota, it's very overcast. Our yard light, we live on three acres, so we have a light that lights up the door yard at night. It was still on at 7.30 this morning and the sun was supposed to be up. I was like, oh, it is very overcast. And they are predicting rain this afternoon. Oh no. So you're going have some hard driving conditions pretty soon. Yes. And my husband actually has an appointment at two. So I was like, please be careful when you go.
01:26True. Yeah, I don't love it when the weather does this flip floppy thing because it's been really, really cold here and we've had snow at least a trace every day for over a week and now it's going to rain. Yeah, it just makes a big mess. yeah, we did the driveway and like, for example, I had an oil truck try to come deliver oil to me and we burn wood and we have like oil as a backup and sometimes if the fireplace goes out, the stove goes out in the night, then you...
01:55the heat kicks back on and I wanted to make sure I had the oil tank full because we live up on  a dirt road, a driveway is a dirt road  that goes up pretty  steep and uh at some points the oil company will say we  won't even attempt to go up your driveway because it's dangerous. uh yeah, yesterday he tried to, a few days ago they tried to get up, they couldn't make it up and I'm like, oh please God, please let them help him get up and then they came today and he delivered it. So now we're, hopefully we're set for the winter.
02:25because it's really important when you live on a homestead, as we all know who do. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at your place. Yeah, so we live on, me and my wife and my four kids, live on 10 acres and we have some sheep and we have some chicken and I also from home, I'm a work at home parent here and I
02:54I make furniture, but I also make  like little A-frame cabins and greenhouses. That's primarily what I do now. I make these kind of these smaller concept cabin structures that people use for like Airbnb or just for,  you know, their backyard sleeping cabins or whatever. Yeah.  And as far as like the homesteading part, we just started milking some sheep this last spring, the first time we milked. um
03:24That's been interesting and we made cheese. We were in the process of trying to become more self-sufficient, but as you know, you got to take little steps and sometimes with every two steps you take, you take one step back. Yes, you do. Sometimes you don't even go forward again. We did that with rabbits.
03:48We're not doing rabbits again, I don't think. We keep talking about it, but I don't think we're gonna do it again. just not, it is not worth the return for us. So with the sheep, I already knew that you could milk sheep, but are they good with that or do you have to like train them to be okay Well, you know, there's a couple breeds that are very good milkers. So we have some East Phrasians and
04:14The East Fraser's sheeps, can produce up to a couple gallons each one a day.  And a lot of people don't know that about um sheep that you can  milk them.  we love our sheep and we've had sheep for the last,  well, we had to get rid of our herd a few years ago because we just didn't have enough pasture and it was getting too expensive  and we had young kids and it all together was hard. so we... um
04:43We got rid of our sheep and our goats for a little bit. And then we just had the chance to get back the same sheep that we got rid of, returned to us um because they had young children. They couldn't take care of them.  And luckily they were, one of them was in milk.  And uh so we just kept on milking and it was fantastic. And sheep's milk, if anybody has tried goat milk, there's a little bit of a taste with goat milk. It doesn't taste like cow's milk, but sheep's milk.
05:11actually taste just like cow's milk, I would say even better than cow's milk. And it's actually better for you. It has a higher protein content. It's got a higher fat content. It's a higher vitamin and mineral content. And yeah, they're easy. Awesome. I know nothing about it, so I thought I would take the opportunity to ask. So what brought you to this lifestyle? Oh, man. mean, the simple lifestyle in the country, even though it's
05:41It's simple, there's a lot of hard work, but there's a reward. right, so I think a lot of homesteaders do it because of what they get out of it. Not just because they think they're gonna be able to completely live off the land.  It's like you realize you're sacrificing some time, but the returns you get by the process of homesteading. So having like two young boys, I wanted them to uh kind of grow up.
06:11having farm chores, being around animals,  and choosing just  that lifestyle, which seems so nostalgic  to the modern busy life that we're kind of living now. It just allows you to be home more, um enjoy the company of animals,  and enjoy  that work that goes into it. um So I think this altogether is for, yes, to have kind of
06:40safety net if shit ever hits the fan, know, to be able to produce milk and have eggs. But also just for the experience of it and just for  the love  of the lifestyle.  Absolutely could not agree more. And sometimes you get to hang out with the neighbor's animals too. Just before we signed in to talk to each other,  our neighbor's dog showed up on our property. We have not actually met her before. Her name is Shy.
07:09She is some kind of  Labrador retriever and she's very, very red. She's almost the red of a deer. Yeah. And we have a mini Australian shepherd  and apparently Shy showed up and our shepherd decided to say hello  and uh my son brought our dog in and my dog was losing her mind. So it's a good thing that we couldn't get together till  the time we signed in because I wouldn't have been able to talk until she stopped barking. Right. Yeah. I love that. uh
07:38about getting the random visitors from the neighbors or other wild animals that  come around and the reactions of the animals are always fun. Yeah, she's a very friendly dog. I was like, hello, beautiful girl. And she came right over to the window because I was on my porch and put her paws up to say hi. That's funny because sometimes you hear them. You know you have the neighbor, the dog's neighbor. And then  every once in while, they come over to visit. you're like, OK, that's where the barking's coming from.
08:03Yes, and if it wasn't icy, it's all hell out there. I would have gone out and said hello, but I don't want to break a hip. I would really rather not.  But she said hello through the window. And when she shows up this spring, because she inevitably will, I will have to just love on her then when it's not so scary outside. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I love dogs. I was not a dog person until we got our dog as a puppy.
08:26And now I'm like, oh, look at the good boy. Oh, look at the good girl. And my husband's like, oh my God, you are the most converted woman ever to dogs. It's so funny. Me and my wife, we've gone back and forth with having dogs. We've tried having a couple of dogs. And she says, oh, you're just not a dog person. I do love dogs. I love dogs. But they're also a lot of work. And it's like having another child.  It absolutely is. And it will break your heart when they're not feeling well.
08:53or if they die early, our dog has a very sensitive stomach and when she doesn't feel good, I just want to fix it and I can't. And it makes my heart hurt like it did when my kids were little. So yes, it's just like having another kid. And it's funny because like we just got this new cat and I was reluctantly holding off, but you know, we had, we want to get rid of, know, there's some mice around here and there. So I'm like, all right, so I can.
09:19I can go, my little boys really wanted to have a cat. I'm like, all right, we'll get the cat. And now I'm totally all in and now I understand. I see my friends who have their dogs, they love their dogs so much. And me and my wife would be sitting in our bed talking about our kids. I would always say her, I bet you our friends are just laying in bed talking about their pets before they go to bed. And now we do the same with the cat. And the cat sleeps between us and kind of.
09:47her's us to sleep, you know, and, and, no, it is, it is a wonderful symbiotic relationship, isn't it?  It really is.  I  don't know that I want another dog once ours is no longer with us. I don't know that I have the energy  for another one. I'm 56. We've probably got another six years with her. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, maybe a house cat next time.  It's a lot of work and responsibility and cost.
10:15And so you have to weigh it, right? Cost benefit.  so we tried this dog and it was just, was going to the road all the time and we're so far up the driveway.  have no neighbors around us, but um it would find a way to get to the road and it kept on, the police would have to come get it.  it just became,  everyone says in the beginning, like they're gonna do all the...
10:40taking care of the dog and the boys like, yeah, we'll do everything. And it always ends up just falling on me. And then it ends up being this stressful, it becomes this stressful use of your time sometimes. there's a lot of benefits to dogs. Also, if you wanna go places, sometimes you have to find a place for them to stay. So yeah, it's like having a young child and you have to weigh the cost benefit. And sometimes that...
11:06that benefit outweighs the cost and then sometimes it doesn't. So you have to figure that out.  Yes, absolutely. If we didn't live on three point, whatever it is, acres and we didn't need a watchdog, we probably would not have a dog. Right.  Because I really like the fact that if somebody pulls in the driveway, she lets me know. That is nice. So that's very important to me because I don't want surprises at my door.  I want to know somebody's going to be walking out the door.
11:34I know, very true. then sometimes you'll see those like, you know, now all the reels they have on like the YouTube shorts or whatever, and you see  all these dogs, you know, uh helping out the little kids or like chasing away a coyote or  preventing some attack.  And you're like, Oh, yeah. So I know you're looking like, Oh, that's a good reason to have a dog. Yep, absolutely. And with the cat thing, we have a huge pole barn and we moved here.
12:00There were many, many, many mice in the pole barn, to the point that they were having babies in the workbench drawers. Oh my goodness.  And so we acquired three barn cats. uh we've had many, barn cats over the last five or so years. And the cats do an excellent job of keeping the pole barn  free of vermin.  And they're not so good about keeping it free of possums, because possums like cat food. Ooh. But the great thing about possum is, you know, you know what?
12:30Oh wait, it possums? No, or is it, yeah, possums. They  eat a lot of They do. Yeah, so that's kind of good. I think they eat the most ticks out of anything, I think. And that's great, as long as they're actually in the tree line where the ticks are. If they're in the pole barn, they get dispatched.  That's true. Or are good eating? I don't know. I've never tried. Ah, no. I wouldn't. I don't know. I'm sure that other people probably do eat them. We've never tried it.
12:57But  wild games too, they call it, you know, just get a whole bunch of them and he's put it in a stew and.  I'll have to ask my husband the next time he has to dispatch a big one if he wants to try pasta.  But uh no, I agree with you on your  take on what brought you to this, because  I grew up  on a one acre lot with my parents  in Maine.
13:26And half that lot, the back half was swamp, woods and swamp. And I loved  where I grew up. We spent a lot of time, me and my sister, my brother, hanging out in the woods and making forts underneath the spruce tree boughs and  walking the creek and fishing and the whole bit.  Yeah. And now in Minnesota, I live on flat land  and I don't live near a creek, but we have a tree line.
13:51That tree line makes me so happy because there's a little path to get to the other side of the tree line. And I walk through there and it's not the same because Maine, Lanchester, Vermont, Massachusetts, lots and lots and lots of  conifer trees,  evergreen. Not so much here. Here it's hardwood. Really? Yeah. Oh, I thought there would be more ah softwood there too. I'm in south Minnesota. Up north there's a ton of pine trees.  Right.
14:19but not so much down here. Down here it's more astens and oak trees and maple trees. Oh, no kidding. But it's really interesting because trees are trees. And if you grew up amongst trees, any tree will do. It will. Yeah. Yeah. I love trees. Me too. I love trees.  I harvest trees out of my  woods too. I'll cut some down. It's always kind of bittersweet when I cut down like an oak and I mean,
14:48for firewood  and it's like, oh man, I'm getting rid of a tree, but I'm also heating my  house with it and it's, you know, it's good work, it's hard work, but it's good work too. It keeps you strong, keeps my boys strong. um But it's, that's what it's there for too. It's there to heat, you know, it's there for, that's what's special about trees. It  provides the food and it provides  the shade or provides the heat, all the things that you need.  So um yeah.
15:16I mean, being surrounded by trees is a gift. If you've never been surrounded by trees, you don't really know kind what you're missing, huh? Absolutely.  One of the prerequisites, all right, I said it right, finally.  The prerequisites for where we were gonna land five years ago was that there must be trees.  Must be trees.  Must be trees and must be a flat space to grow a big garden. And we found a place, oh Perfect.  Love it.
15:45We thought about moving back to New England and we looked at house prices and house prices were really reasonable five years ago. Yeah.  The cost of living has gone up so much for New England. was like, no, we're staying in Minnesota. I know we, we, um, we bought right before it was during the pandemic. We brought, we bought right before all the prices went up when the interest rates were still really low too.  we got lucky. We, we were renting.
16:14and we had a bad landlord and we're like, okay, we gotta figure, we gotta buy, we gotta buy now. And luckily we just went far enough into Western, Southern New Hampshire where we just gotta, we can't believe what we found. And we were so, I say not lucky, but blessed, because it does feel more like a blessing when you find a place like what we have. But now I couldn't imagine trying to find something.
16:43being like a younger couple, uh trying to find like  a homestead. Now you have to really, you know, look hard.  And you've got to have the money. Yeah, I know.  And the credit and the income and  that was always something I was never really good at the credit. And I was determined, actually, I was a traveler through my twenties and thirties. I backpacked all the time. And I, I'm a singer songwriter as well. And I figured out you can make money and travel while you're
17:12while you're backpacking if you have a guitar with you.  Then I bought some land, 10 acres of land up on Prince Edward Island in Canada.  I bought 10 acres, sight unseen, it was right on the water, it was beautiful. I didn't go through a bank, I didn't have to go through a bank, it was like a land company that if you just put some money down, they would hold the note, they would finance you at an interest for like a five or seven year term. uh
17:39And I was going up there, I spending like nine months out of the year, like up on Prince Edward Island. I was trying to live that simple, very simple life. And I did, and I had like a little cabin, just a wood stove, no electricity. And you know, that's when I really kind of like fell in love with the simple life. And it was almost giddy every day, just having everything be so simple. And it's funny, it's, we really...
18:07There's a part of us that really enjoys the nature and just having simpleness. And I feel like today we overcomplicate things. You know, we have so much going on, so much modern, you know, all the modern conveniences and the comforts. It hasn't seemed like it's made us more happy, you know? I think when we simplify our lives, I think, you know, we are nature more and homesteading.
18:37I think there's like an amount of satisfaction you just really can't get from the modern world. Well, I agree. And I have been thinking about this a lot because I hear this a lot from people on the podcast. And I feel like homesteading is genuine. And if you're just living in a box and going to work 40 to 80 hours a week,
19:02Home is where you might sit down to eat if not stand at the sink and eat and it's where you sleep. Right. And I don't want to say it's performative, but it's not, I don't feel like it's living. feel like it's a... think you're all the guests in your own home, know, I guess almost where? Yeah. Yeah. I get it. And honestly, I love where we live. I mean, I have talked about this ad nauseum with anyone who will listen.
19:33And when we first moved here,  I  really every day I would go outside in the morning with my coffee and sit on the steps and just  look out toward the trees and just breathe.  For the first, I don't know, a couple of months we lived here because I was just so dumbfounded that we did it, that we finally did it. uh I know it feels good.  And just being able to sit and have tea or coffee and just soak in that moment, huh?
20:02Makes it all worth it, doesn't it? Yes, absolutely. And my husband still has a job, a jobby job as we call it. But his favorite place to be is here at home. Yeah. And when we decided to make this leave, I said to him, I said, we need to find a place that we love so much that it's like being on vacation, even though we're home. Oh, yes. Me and my wife, we talked about the same thing. That's the exact same thing. When we first moved here.
20:31We did, we felt like we were on vacation. We were like, this is cool. It was very surreal for the first month. I was like, my house is clean because it was remodeled a year before we moved in and no one had lived here. And it was so clean and so perfect. And I kept going, this is way too fancy a home for us. And my husband laughed and he said, I'll just give it a year. It'll be not fancy. Oh, that's funny. I know.
20:57all my walls now they need a paint job because when you have younger kids, their hands with chocolate gets smear on the walls. Do we repaint all the walls now or wait until they get a few years older to make sure they're not doing that? then they'll be teenage boys and they'll probably still make a mess out of them. Well, I'll tell you secret. My youngest still lives here. He's 23. He'll be 24 this month. And I see his hand prints.
21:27not prints, not his hand prints, his fingerprints on the wall that goes toward the stairs  because he puts his hand on that side of the wall when he hits the stairs.  And uh we also have dings in our paint because the people that painted it painted it with a  latex paint on the inside. OK, if you ding latex, it peels.  Oh, boy.  So my husband went through and take and mudded those spots so they'll be paintable. Yeah.
21:57Now we're stuck with what color do we want to paint it? So it'll be a bit before we don't have white spots on our coffee painted walls. ah So I don't want to go too far into all the home stuff, but I do want to know about the structures that you build because I saw them on Facebook and I was like, those are super cool. So tell me about that. Yeah, thanks. So, you know, I'm a third generation furniture maker and so we were wholesalers and so I'd make everything from
22:25kitchen islands, to wall shelves, coffee tables, kitchen tables, small accessories, little garden signs, whatever was made of wood, we do.  We sell them to stores. And oh I did that  for  more than 20 years.  then having the homestead here,  I started building my own chicken coops, my own greenhouses. I'm like, oh, this is kind of fun to do. I'm like, kind of getting a little...
22:54with a board of the furniture,  with competing with the imports and ah it's hard to make money, make furniture nowadays because there's just so much competition from overseas. You have Ikea and things like that.  I'm like, you know what? I'm going  to start making these trucks. I'm going to try that. I'm going to try building a chicken coop or a greenhouse and then put it on marketplace and sell it. And they started selling and I'm like, oh, this is cool. And then  I have this signature
23:24I fire burn, instead of like staining, I'll fire burn all the wood first and I build it. And so now it has that protective fire burned stain on it, which protects from raw and from bugs and from, you know, this is from other, from wear and tear, lasts a long time with that fire burn technique that I use. so yeah, so now I'm, you know, I'll make a mini A-frames, you know, I'll make like outhouses.
23:54you know, any type of structure, know, like a fire shed, you know, for your firewood. And yeah, so now, but now it's, you know, it's almost Christmas and no one's really buying anything like, you know, right now, but now I'm coming up with different ideas of different structures that I'm going to do different designs. And I want to keep them kind of like unique because there's a lot of people who sell different like sheds and things. So you have to always try to make it a little different, you know.
24:20I do know my husband and son built a greenhouse two summers ago. Two summers ago. Yeah. And I got a grant for the supplies to make it. No way. Got a $5,000 grant and we spent I think a couple hundred dollars more than the $5,000 grant. Good for you guys.
24:44I forget how big the greenhouse is. thought it was 40 by 20, but my husband informed me that it's not as big as I think it is,  but it's not eight by eight. Let's say that. They built it from scratch and I love this thing. It's gained us two months in the spring to get the baby plants going. It has gained us two to three months in the fall to keep anything that's a cold weather crop going. That's fantastic.
25:13So I get it, I'm not a builder, my husband is the builder, he's really, really good at it. But I do absolutely appreciate the talent and the art that goes into it. There's a satisfaction at the end when you build something like that, know, really I think for man or woman, it's just that when you complete something like that and you step back and look at it, and you know can be used for such a practical purpose, and you're thinking, oh my God.
25:40person's going to have this greenhouse now that they're going to be able to grow their food in and  or like a chicken coop that they can raise their eggs in and it's like, oh, that's cool. And I want to be able to teach my sons that someday too. And to be able to work with the hands because it is, you know, it is very rewarding  to build something with the hands  and that's going to last. And  I am not a builder, but I am a cook.  And when I make dinner and I go all out for dinner about once
26:10once every six months, usually in the winter time. I do like a big from scratch meal and it's usually a turkey and it's not necessarily at Christmas or Thanksgiving. We like turkey other times too.  And  once I get that all on the table and we're sitting down to eat, I'm just like, I just spent six hours total putting all this together. We're gonna have it wiped out in half an hour, dinner will be over. And I just look at it and go, I don't care that it's gonna be gone because it was actually really satisfying to make it.
26:40You  know, that's one of the keys to life, to  happiness in life is enjoying the process as you're doing something and not to do it like begrudgingly  or feel like you have to, but to actually enjoy  your craft or your skill, like cooking, to enjoy it as you're doing it.  I love all that too. I'm primarily the dinner cooker here.  And the only thing I hate is the mess after. That's the part that I'm the dishes.
27:10Me too, right there with you.  I  don't mind the mess like when there's stuff on the counter, it's got to be wiped up. That's fine. It's the stacks of dishes that make me crazy. And I've learned, I've learned when I'm going to cook big to clean as I go, if there's time to wait for something, I try to get some of the dishes in those times and that way it's not so overwhelming. Yeah.
27:34That's true. I have learned to do that too, is to like try to put some stuff away as I'm cooking so you're not also dealing with all the cooked stuff, you know, all the things that you brought out to try to minimize that.  But yeah, you you're always trying to learn new ways of making that part a little more efficient, you know?  One of the most fabulous things I learned in my 20s was the theory of no wasted motion. I'm not.
28:01I'm not as good at it now as I used to be because I just don't care as much. don't have four little kids running under my feet.  But the theory is that if you're in the living room and you see something that needs to go to the kitchen and you're headed to the kitchen,  take the thing from the living room to the kitchen. No waste of motion. Oh, you're right. You're so right. eh You're right.  That is so true.  how  would you get your steps in in the day? If you're too efficient, you're not getting all your steps in. I'm just kidding.
28:31I don't know, eat less terrible food. Right, it's true. Okay, so how many of your little buildings have you sold, do know? I would say, because I've done this now a little bit more than two years, about two years, I would say probably at least a couple dozen. Yeah, like right around there, and it's kind of like supplemental.
28:59income because my wife works full time for a school district  and but yeah and so like you know the jobs are getting a little bit a little bit bigger the structures are getting a little bit bigger so now i don't have to do as many you know because i'm doing bigger so like the bigger they are you know the more money and i'm just trying to find that sweet price point where it's affordable for people but i'm also you know my labor i'm getting enough for my labor and um but uh yeah yeah so you know new
29:29new ideas, new projects, you know, in my mind all the time. and  so, but now this during winter time is when I'm going to kind of ah put together like an official catalog too, that I can like send out, you know, to people.  Yeah. So do you build the structures on your property and then like,  truck them to where they're going, or do you build them on site or how does it work? Well,
29:55It depends on the structure.  it's a small enough structure, I can build it completely here in my workshop and I can transport it assembles.  once they get to a certain size, I come up  with a way of  prefabbing.  can do like the whole, say like for an A-frame, I can build the front part of the A-frame by itself. I can build the back part of the A-frame and then that will fit on and I can build the floor and I can bring those three separate pieces. um
30:24to the site and then I can basically I'm assembling on site.  So I'm not building it from scratch on site. you know, like, so right, it might take me like four to six hours to assemble on sites. Well, I'll prefab a lot of it in my workshop here,  which is just  a double door garage attached to my home. So that way the, you know, the it's easier to heat  and  the overhead isn't as much, you know,  so.
30:53It's really the only way to make money when you're a builder is to have your overhead low pretty much.  know, yeah. So, um, always trying to keep, you know,  your overhead expenses cheap.  And, uh, that's part of the key of, you know, being able to do it.  Any small business try to keep your overhead low. It's true. I know. And there's always a, uh, a tendency to wanna cause I've seen it happen many times,  um, where you, want to get big.
31:22um And then you look for a bigger place and you increase your overhead, but then that means you need increased sales. And if you increase your overhead, then you have to increase your sales. And if your sales aren't there, but your overhead always is there. yeah. Yeah.  There's a lot of talented people who have created amazing products  and drowned in their success because they couldn't keep up.  Right. Yup.
31:52Yeah. And so I've seen this happen in the furniture business over the years. saw different times, m the rises and the falls of many different types of businesses like that.  And it's always been, you get to a point where you're successful and you grow. And then if there's a dip in sales, then you're kind of, you're, in trouble. And so, you know, just being happy, that's where like living a simple life comes into it. it's.
32:20People, we always tend to upgrade all our expenses too. We start making a little bit more money. You're like, oh, I can buy that upgraded car. I'll get a bigger TV package. I'll spend money on this, spend money on that. But if you try to keep the simple living in the beginning, then it's not as hard. You don't need to be huge to be successful. Yep, exactly.
32:46So do you market your buildings on Facebook or do you have other ways to let people know about them? know, do have like, uh it's primarily Facebook  and it's been good enough, you know, so far, but I'll probably have to, you know, venture out more. I mean, I do have like a small brochure that I made, you know, from Staples that I've given out. you know, marketplace is  just an efficient way  of, you can post to up to like 20 different groups.
33:16And that's like, you know, might be like this town, you know, certain towns area, you know, or, you know, so, you you post one thing on some of these Facebook marketplace groups and, you know, tens of thousands of people are able to see, you know, and then, then you can like hashtag, you can get a link to your own page, to your, to your page. then, so as you do more, you're adding products to your page. And now,
33:43It's like you have a catalog basically on your page so people can scroll down and they can see all the different things that I do. And then the algorithms, a lot of it has to do with algorithms.  sometimes it's a mystery how the algorithms work.  sometimes you'll see  a product that I have has  tens of thousands of views.  And then a similar product that I thought was just as good gets just like  a couple hundred views. I'm like, huh, wonder why? This is a mystery.
34:11Yeah, I have no idea how all that works. I wish I knew because I would be the richest person on earth if I knew that answer. You know, I know. now I see like there are some, you know, I see some things on  on, you know,  I get advertisements on Facebook about, about like, you know, like AI advertisers, like, you know, we'll advertise for you just upload it to our AI program and in the AI will find your exact niche.
34:38It probably would work because you figure, you know, like now it's funny because me and my wife joke about like, we were just talking about this and then we'll see an ad on the Facebook about the thing we were talking about. was like, is that listening to us? You know, is it?  But it does seem to know with pretty good consistency what you're interested in because you always see, you know, advertisements for the things that you've been talking about or you've been searching up on Google. It's so funny.  It's a little creepy.  It is. It is.  It really is.
35:08And I don't want there to be  too much surveillance.  It's crazy. I'm a little worried about, we're gonna become too dependent on technology and all that stuff. And we are now, but hopefully we can strike a balance. And I don't know if it's gonna be for, we gotta find that sweet spot, I think.  Yeah, I think that we homesteaders have the sweet spot. We're doing all the things with our hands and enjoying nature. m
35:37and we're using technology to get the word out. True. I think you're right. I think you're right. think  it is a great tool. It can be a great, fantastic tool. um Without it, you and I would not be talking this morning. That's right. And I wouldn't be selling my cabins. So you know, you can use it as a tool for good or you can use it to waste your time.  Exactly. I have one more question about your homestead and then I want to know where people can find you. um
36:05You said you have chickens. Do you have chickens for eggs or do you sell the meat too? Yeah, chickens for eggs. So we just have, we had more, but you know, we had a bobcat come in, in one afternoon, take out a whole bunch of them. Um, and the hawks to the hawks here, we're like on this migration of hawks. So, so now I just have to kind of keep them in my large coop that I made, that I made. Um, so, um, they're not even right now, actually they're not even producing eggs because
36:34some trauma they have. I don't know, trying to figure it out. So hopefully we'll get some eggs again soon.  Well, if they don't have any light in their coop, they're probably not going to give you eggs until there's at least 12 to 14 hours of light again. Really? Yeah. They are based on sunlight.  Oh, wow. See, I  didn't know that. Well, thanks for letting me know. Yeah. We have a light in our coop during the winter because our chickens are the ISA Browns.
37:01And they were bred to lay an egg a day as long as they have light in the coop in the wintertime. Really? Yep.  it's not that it's not trauma, Marcus. It's that there's not enough daylight.  I'll see if it can be something as simple as that. And when you talk to another homesteader, that they can tell you these things. Yeah. So if you want eggs in the winter, put a light in the coop. And if you want to give your chickens a break, don't put a light in the coop.  Well, it's good to know. Thank you very much.
37:28You're welcome. I know just enough to be dangerous.  That's great. All right, Marcus, this was fabulous. Where can people find you? Just on Facebook for now? Yeah, for now. Just go to Hope Hill Homestead and you can also listen to my music too because I have a band called Root 2 Revolution and we  sing songs about living simply and things like that. Is it R-O-O-T or  R-O-U-T-E? Yeah, like the road, like  R-O-U-T-E and then number two, Revolution.
37:57So like route, they say route.  like they would say written route, route to revolution. huh. Yeah. We're on Spotify and on YouTube and we have a song called live simply. You want to look that up?  Nice. I will have to, I'll have to go find your channels and put it in the show notes. Awesome. Thank you very much. All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com and if you'd like to support the podcast, you can go to a tinyhomestead.com slash support.  Marcus.
38:27Thank you again, I really appreciate your time. Great talking to you. You too. Take care, peace.
 

Rustic Haven Homestead

Today I'm talking with Christeen at Rustic Haven Homestead.
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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.
00:12Today I'm talking with Christine at Rustic Haven Homestead in Washington State. Good morning, Christine. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm doing great.  I'm good. I'm good.  I'm good. oh What is the weather like there?
00:30Right now  it's eight o'clock in the morning, so we're just getting our day started and it's super foggy and trying to rain.
00:40That sounds about right for Washington state.  Yes.  Well, in Minnesota, it is bright and sunshiny. We got a little bit of snow overnight on top of the snow we got over the weekend.  So it's very shiny outside because the snow is reflecting the sunlight. It's beautiful out. I love that. I can't wait for it to snow, but we still have a few more weeks of rain. Yeah, when.
01:05I don't know anything about Washington state's climate except that you guys get a lot of rain. So does it get cold, cold there? It does. um Depending on where you live in Washington,  that'll depend on how much snow you get. I have kind of been all over. So  up in Skagit County by like Mount Baker, you get a ton of snow.  And  down here by Olympia so far, we don't get a lot of snow, but there's a lot of ice.
01:36Okay. Yeah.  I don't love it when there's ice. My husband drives all over the place for his job and the days when it's freezing rain, I'm just like, please be careful.  Right.  I don't mind driving in the snow and stuff like that just because I'm used to it from living up in Skagit County, which I didn't  really grow up in.  For the most part, I was born and raised in North Carolina where they put ice  like
02:05um,  ice salt down  instead of  sand. Here they do sand. And so  it's a little bit different on  that front.  But I've noticed that in certain areas of Washington, the roads aren't kept as  well as others. So up in Skagit County, they worked  really hard to make sure everything was maintained. Down here, it's like they're very short staffed.
02:32And so the roads don't get cleared and when they do get cleared, it's clean cleared. So it's very scary. And if you don't grow up in an environment where you're actually driving in the snow and the ice, you become a danger to others. Yes. And that happens every fall here in Minnesota. That first snowstorm, there are more people who end up in the ditch than really should end up in the ditch. Yeah. And so...
03:02I work in the medical field. have  for  almost 20 years and so I'm just like, just stay home. It's okay. Just stay home.  If you can, don't be on the roads. Yes. Yep.  Okay. is more important than your life.  Oh, absolutely. You're, you're  absolutely a hundred percent right. And other people's lives too, while we're talking about it.  So tell me a little bit about yourself and your version of your homestead.  Okay. So.
03:32My name is Christine  and I have grown up with my grandparents canning and  baking everything and doing everything from scratch. My mama, she  lived to be almost 100 and had  a full-time garden, worked in the medical field. She worked in the hospital until she was in her 80s. And  so she taught me a lot about canning.
03:59vegetables and how to grow a garden and all of that aspect. And then whenever  I  was  probably 30,  I started getting into sourdough  and learning all of that process, which has been quite fascinating actually. um But I met my spouse and we have started our own little homestead.  We have all kinds of animals  and
04:30honestly all kinds of kids. uh Blended family  of seven, so we have five kids between the two of us  and they  love to ride our goats  like their horses. And it's fun to watch them get chased by chickens sometimes,  but we have kind of just moved everything into a very simple life and hopefully in the next couple of years we can start homeschooling as well.
04:59Very nice. That sounds like a beautiful life that you're building. We're trying really hard. We have a few acres  and em within that we are pretty self-sustainable for the most part.
05:15Okay, awesome.  So what animals do you have? Because I always ask that question.  So we have about 100 chickens.  We have turkeys and geese  and about 20 ducks. We have six pigs  and  four goats. And then  we have five dogs. And so  it all meshes well with our five children. I was going to say a dog for every kid. Yes.
05:45Are the other dogs all different breeds or do you guys have a favorite breed? They are all different. So we have a 50 50 split Shepski. So he's Siberian Husky and German Shepherd. And then we have a purebred German Shepherd. We have a purebred chocolate lab. We have a purebred Belgian Malmois. And then we have what I like to call a Belgian chocolate accident.
06:15because our chocolate lab got our Belgian and had babies. And so we have one of her babies. And so she is 50 50 Belgian Malinois and chocolate lab. Okay. I'm going to say something and don't get mad at me, but chocolate labs have always struck me as kind of dumb. They're very laid back and they're very lovey, but they're kind of dumb. Belgian Malinois is maybe one of the smartest dogs on the planet.
06:45Absolutely.  So you have turned  the mix, the pub. We have. And she is actually very different. em Our Belgian Malinois, everybody has this idea that they're super crazy and  just kind of all over the place.  And ours is not like that. She is very much,  guard mom and that's what I do. em And she's never been hyperactive like that. And then
07:15Like you said, our chocolate lab, he's our hunting dog and he would rather live in my skin than anything. And so he  has his job, but other than that, he's very much.
07:31just hanging out. He likes to lay down. He likes to just be around his family. And so  it's a very different  aspect. But to get them two together, um she is hilarious because she's got the derpiness of the chocolate lab, but she's also very smart and very quick to learn. Yeah, was Belgian. So
07:58What I was going to say is that you've taken the smartest dog and the dumbest dog on the planet and made the best dog ever. Yes.  She is hilarious.  And do not get me wrong. I think chocolate labs are beautiful. And  we have  a mini Australian shepherd right now who is five years old.  And my husband and I have both decided that when she is no longer on the earthly plane in about,  oh, hopefully
08:2514 years from now, probably not. She'll probably be out long before then.  We would like a lab.  And  I said to him, I said, if you want a uh chill, goofy dog,  we should get a chocolate lab. And he was like, yeah, but, and I'm like, no, no, I think we should look at chocolate labs.  Yes.  Definitely not a Belgian Malinois.  Get them together. It's fine. So our chocolate lab we use to duck hunt.
08:55And he knows how to track. Arshepsky,  he tracks too, but obviously that's not really in his  nature to hunt. um But we  hunt big game, we do waterfowl and all that stuff. We teach our kids  all of that as well. And so  we  really do embrace every single part of being self-sustainable and  really going back to our roots.
09:29Awesome. So the chocolate lab goes hunting with you. So is he trained to hunt? He is trained to hunt.  Awesome. Awesome. I love it. I love it when the dogs do the job that they that they're naturally inclined to. Yes. And then so I had some heart problems and my Shepski has been my baby for the last three years  and he has never been trained or anything like that, but he will alert.
09:59to  anything that's weird with me and he will go find  someone or he'll sit there and bark more like howl at me and be like, hey, something's wrong. Something's wrong. We don't like it. Something's wrong. And so he will make sure that you know one way or another that something's about to go  off sides. Uh huh. Sideways. Yep.
10:24That's amazing. love it. have two very useful dogs. assume the other three are probably useful too.
10:32Yes, they are. So when our German Shepherd  purebred girl was having babies, they were actually, he was the father to them. um And he was actually jumping our seven foot fence and going to try and find somebody to help her. And then he would come back and check on her. We have it on camera and everything. It's so cute. dogs don't actually have that like mentality for the most part.
11:01And so it was really cool to watch. Yeah, but daddy dogs aren't usually interested when mom goes into labor.  No.  And so we could tell that she went into labor and was having babies because he was panicking and trying to find help. Just like a human dad is like, oh my gosh, we got to get going. We got to do this. We got to do that. He was very much dad mode. I love it. Do you have that video on YouTube or anywhere? um
11:28currently, but we do have it on like our ring camera history.  You should put it on YouTube because people would love to see that.
11:39Yes.  People  meaning me, I would love to see that. Oh, absolutely.  Okay. So, um sorry,  I was looking at your Facebook page and there is a photo of,  assume your husband with a bobcat over his shoulders.  Yes, that was this year.  Tell me that story. So we were out hunting. We had the kids with us  and  we were looking for a buck. We were on a
12:08trail  and we saw a buck and we're trying to get in a better position for it. Well, we heard rustling  down below us and we're like, okay, maybe it's a bear or something like that. Just kind of avoid that area. But him and our son  go over and look and there's three bobcats playing right next to where it typically floods out in the wintertime.
12:36They're wrestling around like house cats, but  then they noticed that we were up there and started charging up the hill.  And so he had to dispatch it  to protect the kids. you keep the hide? We did.  We took it to a taxidermy and actually a lot of people don't know this, but Cougar is actually a very sweet meat.  And so
13:06We had talked about making like summer sausage or pepperoni out of it, but typically At least as much as I've ever had it It's mixed with deer or elk or bear or something along with it because it's also very lean Mm-hmm. So so you you saved the hide and you had meals out of it. Yeah,  very nice I didn't know you could eat Bobcat or cougar or whatever it is. It's cougar. Yeah, okay
13:34Here in Minnesota, we have bobcats and we have cougars and cougars look like a leopard that's just like tawny colored. Yeah. And bobcats look like big old house cats. Yes. So we have both here and  he has hunted bobcat before. So we do have one that is up on the wall, but  it was smaller  than the cougar itself.
14:04And so we have that, we have  all of our deer antlers and those sorts of things, ducks. It looks like a hunting paradise.
14:19I love that.  It's so funny because my dad hunted.  I think he still hunts occasionally now, but not as often as he used to because he's 83 years old now. uh He had a deer head mount that hung in our house for a long time. Eventually, it made its way downstairs. I don't know if it's because my mom was not comfortable with the
14:46amount being in, you know, in the main part of the house.  Yeah. Or if they just were bored with it and didn't want to have it up anymore. Hmm. Interesting.  I know when my kids were smaller,  we would go to my grandfather's house and he hunts  and they did not like the feel of the hide.  And  so the  bearskin rug and stuff like that. uh
15:14the elk skin that he had hanging on the wall, they were not a fan. The touch and feel of it for them,  they would freak out and  they did not like it. Oh, okay.  And so  they grew out of that. Obviously they were a lot younger then,  but it was interesting to kind of watch them just,  nope, I ain't doing that. No, thank you, sis. You keep that over there every time we went to his house.
15:44Funny. Now, Christine, do you hunt too? I do. Awesome. Because most women are not really into it. I know there are some, but men tend to be the hunters. Women tend to be the cookers, the ones who cook the food. And my mom hunted for years. My mom actually got a doe when she was very pregnant with my sister. Oh my goodness. I, this year,
16:14on opening day, about 30 minutes into opening day after like shooting light starts  is when I took down a three point.  So my season was very short because I just hurried up and got it done, which honestly never happens. em And so  I was very thankful for that, but we are starting to get the kids into it. Our son  hunted last year and he got a spike.
16:43And then this year our daughters got a chance to hunt, but we couldn't get anything for them this time, but next year.  I love that you're teaching your kids to hunt. And there's a reason why.  With all the stuff going on in the world right now,  I really think that we as parents should teach our kids  survival skills  and feed yourself skills. uh
17:12Hunting and fishing are just a dying art.  I live in Minnesota. We have tons of deer. And  the hunting population is shrinking  every year. So few people are still hunting. Yes. So we hunt, we fish. em I cook everything  and the kids get to help me. On my page, there's a lot of  things that I've made with game and everything like that.
17:42m Also, my spouse is a general contractor. And so  we  have kind of all of the aspects. I'm medical, he can build literally anything and it's just gorgeous. m And so  then we have incorporated hunting and being able to cook from scratch and not just out of a box.
18:08and making sure that our kids are involved with that kind of lifestyle as well. That way they have those skills. um Obviously living on a farm, there's a lot of times where  you get to bandage up everything. And so they get to see that as well.  Our hunting dog had ripped open part of his chest  and I...
18:34cleaned him up, got him all ready and stapled him back together because we called everywhere and all of the pet ERs around here were like, oh, we're at capacity. I was like, dude, I've worked in the ER. I don't even know what that means. We never got to be like, oh, sorry, we're at capacity. I don't know what to tell you. And you just take care of it. And so I was like, I can't let him just have this three inch open gash in his chest.
19:02that's going to get infected if I don't close it up. So  I did like I would do to a human and shaved the area, cleaned it up, made sure it was all pretty and  put about 10 staples in there.
19:18He healed up nice, you can't even tell that it ever happened. You are a superwoman, Christine. We just did it at home, it was fine. And so there's been times where I've had to do little procedures like that on our animals and take care of that. Obviously bandaging up kids as they get hurt as well.
19:42Yeah, and kids get hurt  all the time.  really do.  Especially when they're running from chickens. Yes. Yes, exactly.  We didn't have chickens when my kids were small.  they didn't get hurt running after chickens, our chickens running after them. But they definitely got hurt um riding their bikes and swinging and things like that.  My stepson actually broke  one arm  one summer  and the other arm
20:12the next summer. no. And during the summer, that's so hard. Yep. had, he had, um, can't think, casts on his forearms, opposite arms, two summers in a row. So we lived off grid for about a year. And so everything was like solar and all of that. and during that period of time, we had exposed beams for like in our ceiling.
20:41And  my  daughter  who  adores Spider-Man jumped off of the top bunk of her bed, tried to grab the beam  with her hands  and kind of like swing from it, much like Spider-Man. um She was wearing her Spider-Man costume  and she fell because it had gloves and she slipped and fell and
21:09broke her wrist like through a growth plate and I was like girlfriend what are you doing?  And she went to school and she goes yeah I fell I fell from the ceiling and I was like maybe don't say it like that.  You didn't fall from the ceiling. You  little weirdo.
21:29Oh my God, the things that kids do. uh My stepson actually broke one of his arms because he was swinging really, really high and he decided to jump off as it was going up. Of course.  And uh the second one was that he was riding his bike down an incline, which he'd done a billion times, caught a weird rock sticking out of the ground. The wheel turned sharp and he fell off his bike and broke the other arm. Oh my goodness.
21:58Yeah,  like totally a fluke thing. He had ridden that hill a billion times. So you never know what's going to happen. you just pray that they're going to be okay when they're grownups. um Okay. So you said you have a hundred chickens. Do you have chickens for eggs or do you have them for eggs and meat? So far just eggs. um But we are, well, most of our kids now like duck eggs better than
22:28chicken eggs. And so  we have both for the eggs itself,  but my spouse has actually got into incubating. And so we have babies all the time now.
22:46Yes. It's been  a treat because whenever everywhere stops selling baby chicks, we still have baby chicks and baby ducks and all of that. And so that's been special.  I wish Washington state wasn't so far away from Minnesota because we are going to be in the market for baby chicks here in February. Yes.
23:16It would be great. We would love to have you out.  Yeah, I'm not driving all the way to Washington state for chicks. I can't afford it. And that would be some really expensive eggs eventually. Yes. But that's OK. um I've been trying to find somebody in the area who sells chicks  locally. I don't. There's a few Facebook  pages that I am  on that  are in your
23:46area or have someone in your area or near your area  that are selling. Okay. So I will go try to find that because my husband wanted to order chicks from a hatchery and I  think I have him talked out of it because  the post office isn't very nice to box chicks. No. And I don't want to open up a box of chicks and find half of them dead.  Yeah.  No.
24:14That's not good. And there's been a lot of that lately. Yeah. And I think I have him convinced that if he really wants to get into it, we can get an incubator and we can order eggs because  the hatching eggs are actually taken better care of than the chicks are.  And there's a lot of like local  places too that I know in our area, if you're part of like a farm swap  group on Facebook or anything like that, you can usually find
24:43hatching eggs or chicks  locally? Yeah, I know we can,  but I also really,  when I talk to you guys, I'm like, God, I wish we lived closer because I would give you money. I would give you money for chicks. That would be fine. Do you have any like breed in Because want to support you guys too. Huh? Yeah. Do you have any breed in mind of chicks that you're looking for? Right now, the chickens we have are the ISA Browns.
25:13Uh-huh. And we really love them because they're friendly and they're calm. Okay. So I'm trying to find somebody that has those, but I don't know. I don't know if anybody does. I'm not sure. I know usually like tractor supply and places like that carry stuff like that. Another one that we have found to be really mellow is the buff Orbingtons. And they're pretty. And they're pretty. So we have
25:43a couple of those  and the first one that we got, we named her Blondie and she is just  so pretty  and  so nice. She  doesn't really like go after anybody or anything like that. She's actually just really mellow.
26:07A friend of mine who lives about half an hour away has the Bantam chickens. Mm-hmm. The little chickens. The little chickens are actually aggressive. They are, especially the roosters. Yeah, I had no idea. And they're also really good moms. They are. We had  some silkies and they're supposed to be like really good moms and really into that sort of scene. Ours  were not smart.
26:38So I don't really know.  We would find them like just hanging out. And I don't know if they couldn't see, but they would just stand next to the coop. Huh, weird. And they would try to roost like in the coop door and we would have to go out and like push them into the coop  at night  because they would just sit in the door. I'm like, dude, you got to go in. The owls are going to get you.  You know, um...
27:06I follow a Facebook page called Harry Farm Pit Girls, which is really fun to say.  And they have silkies and their silkies are really dumb. Yeah,  they are. Maybe it's a thing with silkies.  Yeah, silkies are known to be pretty dumb. They're pretty useless. They're just cute and fun to watch. Yeah, they're really pretty, just like the buff warpingtons are pretty. But the silkies are like really fluffy, right? Yes. Yeah.
27:34Whenever it rains, they look like they are drowned rats.  It kills me.  I mean, honestly, any chicken will look like a drowned rat if they're in the rain long enough. Our chickens look like drowned rats.  they're actually smart enough to go in their coop when it's pouring. I'm kind of impressed. Yep. All except for the silkies.  They just stay out there and hang out.  My dad would say they're dumb as a stump. Yes.  I agree.
28:03That's my favorite thing that my dad used to say about people. He'd be like, don't want to, I don't want to his version of throw shade. You know, I know what he said, but his, he would say, I don't want to his version of throw shade, but that one's dumb as a stump. he's from Maine and he has an accent, you know, the New England accent. So, so dumb as a stump always sounded very funny coming out of his mouth. Yes. So, little.
28:30tiny aside, I love my dad, love my mom.  They're still with us. They still live in Maine. They live on, I think 14 acres.
28:41and they have chickens too. But anyway, do you have more time? Do you have like 10 more minutes? I do. I do. Okay. So I saw that you make homemade soap. Do you make the cold process lye soap? I have previously. I don't let my kids do that because of the lye itself. It's a little too dangerous for them right now until they get a little bit older. But I have done it in the past.
29:09and right now we're just doing melt and pour to get them into it. So they  learn without having to handle lye immediately. um But I really like it. It's fun to do.  So how, I've never done that that way. We do the cold process lye soap. how does that work? So the melt and pour, you can actually buy a soap base that has already
29:36kind of gone through the process, it's already mixed and you  literally just melt it, put your colors in, put your fragrance in if you want any, anything like that that you wanna do  and mix it together and pour it in a, any kind of like silicone mold that you have  is what I use mostly just to make sure it comes out pretty easy. um But that's what I do with the kids, that way,
30:06It's an easier process for them and it's a little more instant since  with cold press or even hot press, it's a process and they're not that patient.  Yeah. So with the melt and pour, does it have to cure at all or is it ready to go once  it's all? It's  ready to go  once it's cooled down. Okay. And then
30:32I'm really curious about this because I haven't talked to anybody who does it, the you do it. Is the Melton Hore base, is it already soap? Yes. Okay. Yep. It's already soap. And I don't want to get into your finances or business, but  is the base expensive? It's not really expensive. You can usually get like, um depending on what you  are wanting, because you can get like an aloe base, you can get coconut milk, you can get, oh.
31:01You can get literally anything. So it depends on what you're looking for as  far as that goes. But you can usually get like five, 10 pounds of it, you know, for  20 to 40 bucks, depending on what kind. OK, where do you get it from?  You can actually get it from like Hobby Lobby or Amazon. I usually  if I'm just doing enough just to hang out with the kids and have something fun to do,  I'll just go to like Hobby Lobby.
31:31Okay. Otherwise, I will order it and let them make for, you know, family, friends, and that sort of thing. As far as that part goes, the rest of it, I do like a cold press. Okay, awesome. I knew that there that you could do it the way that you do it. my husband is very into doing stuff from from like zero to 100. Yes. And
31:58When  I asked him if we could try making it, he was like, let me look it up. And when he saw how to do it,  it's science. It's an experiment. really is. So he really wanted to do it. so when my kids get a little bit older,  I will. Yes.  Yes.  And like I was saying, when my kids get a little bit older, because  eight to 12, they don't have the capacity for that yet. It's a process.
32:26It's not instant gratification afterwards. When they get older, we'll go back to just doing the cold process. But while they're learning and still figuring it out, I just let them do the melt and pour. I think that's great. And so do they make like crazy colors? They do. um
32:49Their most recent  phase has been like blues and teals and purples.  And um so we have all sorts of like swirled soaps with those colors because you can still  do  some  of the  artistic parts. Not as much because I mean, it's not quite as technical as the cold press, but you can get colors, you can get
33:18some fun things out of it as far as designs go. And so we have swirls  of blues and purples and greens and teals throughout the house right now. So much fun.  Do you give them as gifts at Christmas time? We haven't yet. They are very  new starting out. So this has been the first year that they've really been interested in doing it.  So we've done it a few times and
33:49They like to take them for themselves, which I am fine with with those ones, because that's more of just  having fun while learning how to do it. em But they have taken them to their friends and  given them that way, not necessarily as like a birthday present or anything like that, but just  an anytime gift.
34:12That's fabulous. love it. Rainbow Swirl Soaps. have to try making some of those. Okay. And then I saw that you do a lot of  bread baking and cooking from scratch. the kids involved in that too? They are.  On my  Facebook page, there's actually pictures of us making jam and breads and they  love it.  I make pickled green beans  and
34:42they go crazy for them. I have to keep those stocked pretty regularly. That's one of their absolute favorite snacks.  Whenever I do  breads, they are like, nope, you have to make this one for us. This isn't a selling one. You have to make this one for us. And I said, okay. So  they really like the cinnamon loaf. like  the garlic parmesan loaf. Those are their favorites. And then just regular
35:10like sandwich style bread  and they'll go through about a pint and a half  of jam along with that and I'm like, okay guys, we need another snack.
35:26Yes. I told this story on the podcast months ago. had made a bunch with, we canned a bunch of strawberry jam  and I thought that we were out  and uh my son who still lives with us had grabbed a jar out of the pantry because he knew where they were. They were staffed.  And I still don't know where they are. I think there's four more jars. have to ask him where they are.  But he was having toast and
35:53I was totally fine with him finding the pint of strawberry jam.  Yeah. Or half pint, the jelly jar size. Yes. And he, I went to do something, probably a podcast and I  went to look for that strawberry jam in the fridge the next morning  and uh there was no strawberry jam in the fridge. And I said, what happened to the jar you opened yesterday? And he said, I ate it yesterday. Yeah. I was like, you are an adult man child.  Yep.
36:22Absolutely.  said, you ate an entire jar of strawberry jam on your toast. He said, yeah, it's really good. And I was like,  yeah, I know. Wish I had some.
36:34Yeah, same. I also enjoy it. That was a new one on me, but  I have to ask him where they are because I don't think he's eaten the other four jars. If he has, he's in big trouble.  Right. Yes, I turn around and the dilly beans and the jam go quick. And so I have to  continuously  be making those.  Yeah.  You make freezer jam, right?
37:01I do both.  The freezer jam I let the kids help with. It's a little easier process and so  it's a good starting point for them.  Okay, so when you make freezer jam, do you actually do that in  jars or do you do it in like a plastic container so it's not as breakable?  I do it in jars because we go through it really fast. Okay. And so  I just do the wide mouth  jars for uh
37:30pretty much  everything that has to do with um anything that'll go in the freezer. Those are the only ones that I use for that. And  I think almost everything has been converted just to wide mouth at this point because I  am doing soups and all of that. um But with those, I think I do  usually about 10 at a time.
38:00the kids will go through them within a month.
38:04What's the age range on your kids again? So I have five kiddos. Four of them are girls between the ages of eight and 10. So I have a kiddo, our youngest just turned eight and then I have an eight and a half year old. And then we have a nine year old and a 10 year old. And then our son is 12.
38:26Lots of drama.  They all fight over who's helping and who's doing what.  so everything takes a little bit longer, but they enjoy it a lot more.  Yes. And you are making memories. Yes. uh I listened to another podcast on Monday mornings. It's called best to the nest BST to the NST. uh one of the there's two women.
38:56One of the women is older, think she's 60. One of the women is younger and she's in her 40s. And the older woman has been going back to school.  And she was talking about the memories that we  make when we're children  versus how we remember those memories when we're adults. And  we actually, we actually like,
39:25construct  new things around the actual event that we're remembering. Yeah. It's really interesting. I wish I could say it better. But um the memories that kids make as children  influence everything they do until the day that they die. Yes. So keep doing the things with your kids because you are building amazing groundwork for them to build on.
39:54I know that whenever my first season hunting with  my spouse and everything after we hadn't really got together and blended and everything like that, every single kiddo, plus my spouse and I, were all there whenever I shot my deer.  And while it wasn't the biggest deer, it was a core memory for everyone. I'm pretty sure our son levitated up to where that deer was, because he...
40:22I think even beat me there. And I had to keep telling him, you got to wait. We got to make sure that he is completely dispatched before you go up there because he will be mad.  He will come at you  with his antlers. so  that was a core memory for all of them. And since then, it's kind of been tradition that we all go together regardless of who's hunting and not hunting yet. And so
40:52Our son shot his deer  and everyone was there. We all got to experience it with them. And so it's been  a lot of core memories made.
41:07I am sitting here  just like stuck, like there's a sob in my chest regarding this because that's so good.
41:17I would rather them be out in the woods and experiencing nature and playing in the dirt like we used to,  than sitting on phones and tablets and nonsense inside or getting into trouble at school. A hundred and fifty thousand percent agree with you, Christine.
41:39They always ask, what did you guys do as kids? And I was like, outside. That was it. We weren't allowed inside. Like in the summertime and stuff like that, your toys were outside.
41:51Yeah, and it wasn't toys that were bought. was sticks and rocks and rain and mud.  You had to go build a fort. You had to go ride your bikes. You had to go  play catch or whatever. But all of it was done outside. You weren't allowed inside until it was time for dinner.  The good old days. I  miss those days so much. We don't even hardly have streetlights anymore. So there's no
42:21time frame. It's just there. Yeah. Yeah. You are doing, you're doing it right.
42:30And so  we try to make sure that our kids are set up to succeed in life, matter what this world looks like.
42:39You're making me want to go back and do it all over again. And I can't. I'm too old to have babies anymore. can't do it all over again.
42:49That's why I like working in the medical field because I get to see babies and give them snuggles while they're in our clinic and then they go home. So it's like having them momentarily. Yeah. And the thing is that's awesome, except that I don't work in the medical field and none of my kids want babies. Yes. So I am out of the baby loop completely at this point.
43:16And it's okay because the last time I held a baby, was like, I think I might be past this because I don't know how to hold a baby anymore. It's weird. It's like riding a bike. You do it enough and you know it all over again. Yep. I just have to cock the hip out and do the thing that I did for years with mine. Okay. So we are 43 minutes and 30 seconds. I would love to know where people can find you, Christine.
43:43um So I am on Facebook. You can find me at Rustic Haven Homestead. It's got a cute picture of a coop  and everything about us is on there. And  then, yeah, just reach out, come find me.
44:00Okay. And you said, so you do or you don't have a YouTube channel? I don't currently. My daughter is  very forward on getting us to that point. She's 10 and she would love to be the star of that.  Okay. Well, let me know when you have it and I will add it to the show notes. How's that? Perfect. That sounds amazing.  Okay. As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And if you would like to support
44:28the podcast, can go to  atinyhomestead.com slash support.  Christine, I loved this conversation. I feel like we were kind of all over the place, but that's how it goes.  And uh really glad to talk about hunting and the fact that you can eat cougar. didn't know that. That was amazing.  And I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your week. Yes, you as well. All right. Thank you. Bye.  Bye. Bye.
 

Santa Claus!

Today I'm talking with Santa Claus! Hope you enjoy our chat, and a small peek into the North Pole. Merry Christmas!
 
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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 have the supreme pleasure of talking with Santa Claus at the North Pole. Good morning, Santa. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm doing very well. How are you? I'm good. Is it cold at the North Pole? Oh, it's always cold at the North Pole, but we adapt pretty well. Yeah, it's a-
00:27It's very cold in Minnesota where I am this morning. We are not even at freezing yet. True. We call that the South Pole. Exactly. So in our summers there, you need to come to Minnesota in June. It's beautiful. Yes, absolutely. All right. So tell me a little bit about the North Pole because I, my questions for, for
00:56the North Pole is, you always listening to Christmas music?  Oh, not necessarily. I enjoy a nice variety. mean, Christmas music certainly keeps us focused on what we're doing, but I like some jazz music every once in a while. Of course, there is a nice crossover with Vince Guaraldi. I love his stuff. Very nice.  And what I mean...
01:20I don't even know what to ask you. This is, this is crazy. I might actually, I might actually be nervous talking to Santa Claus.  So  is your, is your home decor, is it all Christmas stuff all the time? We have some areas that are off limits  to anything Christmas  because Mrs. Claus, she's very supportive, but sometimes she just needs to have something that is devoid of it.
01:47Just to have a variety, just to break things up a little bit. She enjoys her Coca-Cola room and she enjoys her shabby chic room and there's lots of rooms in the castle. So she has many options and I give her carte blanche because happy wife, happy life.  Absolutely. So is the home a castle? Does Santa Claus live in a castle?
02:13Oh, we, we have what you might call a compound actually. There's a whole village, not just the castle, but the ancillary areas where the reindeer live, where the elves have their home quarters, et cetera, et cetera. So just about any facility you might imagine that we need, we have, and it's protected by a great big dome so that we can't be seen by anybody who might want to find us.  I love it. I love it. That's amazing. um
02:43So tell me about your reindeer. Are they the same reindeer all the time? Are they immortal or do you have baby reindeer sometimes?
02:54Oh, we have a, we have the A team that everybody seems to know, although I do challenge the children to try and name them. Uh, they, they always miss two or three. The most famous example is Don Durr, not Don Ur. Uh, Don Ur is something else. Don Durr is the name of that reindeer. And then the B team and the C team. they, they are immortal, but we do have some grandparent reindeers and.
03:21The beyond the first famous nine, there are two more teams of reindeer right now. So two more, 16 more reindeer. And they have fun names like chat and Shlomo and all of, all of the other reindeer.  Shlomo. Okay. I hadn't heard that one before. Right. Well, and then they're all different, but they don't see a lot of action, but they're there just in case. I usually use them when I make visits down south.
03:50Uh, so that the A team stay in their peak strength.  Oh,  okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Cause I'm sure that even if you're an immortal reindeer, you probably do get tired. Oh, sure. They need their naps and they're, they're bedded by time and they're,  they're good diets and such. So you don't want to wear them out. They can still get sore hooves.  Oh my, we don't want that. That's not good.  Okay. So,  um,  what is your.
04:19Well, number one, does Santa Claus like eggnog? Sure. I enjoy eggnog. Definitely the virgin types. You don't need anything tipsy. I'm always driving. Yep. So maybe,  so maybe milk is better. Sure. You can put anything out. It's the thought that counts. And I really appreciate the children who think of us and the reindeer as well. It's nice to put out things for them. They love things.
04:49that make crunchy sounds. So red bell peppers,  maybe some zucchini, some cucumbers, things that crunch. They love making the crunching sounds. So those are always welcome and appreciated as well.  they like apples? Oh, sure. If it crunches, they munches. Okay.  And then,  so I'm assuming that you like all cookies, but you have a favorite.
05:14Oh yes,  again, it's the thought that counts. appreciate whatever the children put out for me, milk, eggnog, a glass of water. It's all fine. And I do have my favorite, it's white chocolate macadamia nut, but cookies are cookies. They're like pizza. Nothing can go wrong if you put out pizza and nothing can go wrong if you put out any kind of cookie for Santa.  Good to know. My favorite cookie is a snickerdoodle.  Oh, that's a good one too.
05:42Yeah, I'm probably going to make some over Christmas.  if you swing by, if you swing by the house in LaSore, Minnesota, where I live, there might be snickerdoodles for you. You can count on it.  Okay. So I know that you are the Santa, but there's all these Santas that people see at the malls where kids go to sit on Santa's lap and tell them their wishes for Christmas. Do you?
06:08Do you feel offended that there are so many impersonators or do you feel flattered? No, I love it. It takes a village so I can  use all the help I can get. It's all a network, you see. So they're doing the recon for me and they pass it on  as long as it's appropriate. I mean, sometimes
06:29children ask for the craziest nines or a whole house. So they filter it out really well for me. The elves on the shelves do a nice job too. So it's all part of my reconnaissance team all over the world. I have a little bone to pick with the elves on the shelves.  Oh, okay.  They are naughty. A lot of them are naughty elves and they do, they like, they personify silly naughtiness and.
06:57I didn't have the elf on the shelf for when I was a kid or when my kids were kids. And so when the elves on the shelves showed up and I saw some of the things that they do, I was almost grateful that I was not part of that. Well, that's a very valid point. And you should rest assured that it's actually a bit of a pilot program because normally the elves are making the toys year round, round the clock. But
07:22A few of them approached me  and wanted, guess what you could call a sabbatical where they come down south and they do a little field work, a little reconnaissance.
07:36Oh, it is a pilot program. Sometimes when they get a little bit ribaldry or a little bit incorrigible, we have to bring them back to the pole and circulate them out. So the elf on your shelf might actually be a different elf from year to year, especially if they're naughty. We want to keep them on the straight and narrow. They just seem to look alike. So  one year you might have an elf that's very cooperative and friendly and nice. And then maybe they get a little too big for their britches and we have to swap them out.
08:06keeping everybody humble. So even the elf on the shelf can be on the naughty list sometimes.  Oh, anybody can be on the naughty list. I try really hard to stay off of it myself. Sometimes Santa has a grumpy moment. Sometimes I get tired. And Mrs. Claus really helps me a lot to remind me of why I'm doing what I'm doing. Yes. And so tell me why you're doing what you're doing.  I just love making wonderful memories.
08:33I love the joy and the wonder in the children's eyes
08:40and it could be children of any age,  but so contagious that it drives me. I guess if you could say if Santa has a drug, it's the spirit of Christmas.  Okay. And tell me what the spirit of Christmas means to you, Santa. If I had one thing on my Christmas list and children of all ages ask me, what do I want for Christmas? I want peace on earth. And when we're all at peace, when we stop worrying about so many things,
09:08So many opinions we don't need to have. We're arguing about so many things these days. Oh my goodness, stay off of the social media. So many irrelevant and irreverent things on there. Peace. Let's get back to the basics of what we are. uh A herd, a pack, a tribe, a social creature. We're meant to be together and to support each other, not to tear each other down. So the spirit of Christmas is the
09:38perfect embodiment of peace and we're all striving to achieve that.  Right there with you. If you ask me what I want for Christmas, I want peace on earth really bad. I want it now. Yes, and we can all do our part. We don't have to worry about being like somebody else or how well or not well someone else is doing. If we mind our own business and do our part, everything works together perfectly. Yes, it sure does.
10:08um What's the craziest thing that a child has asked you for Christmas?
10:15Probably the most common requests I get are for living things and I have to set them straight. And honestly, the parents appreciate this. Santa doesn't fly with anything that can poop in the sleigh. So it goes for puppies and kitties and donkeys and boyfriends and girlfriends. don't do any of that. So  it's always adorable.
10:36And it's always something that I have to advise them.  I can bring a toy puppy or a toy kitty or maybe a Ken doll or a Barbie doll, but that's about it. Mm-hmm.  Yep.  I wanted a teddy bear for my  15th Christmas.  And I asked Santa because Santa is real.  And my mom said, what do you want for Christmas from Santa? And I said, I want a teddy bear. And she said, what kind of teddy bear? And I said, a gunned
11:04teddy bear G-U-N-D. Yes, very nice. Very, very nice teddy bear back in the  80s,  90s, 80s.  And I didn't think I'd get it because I thought that Santa might think that it was silly that a 15 year old girl wanted a teddy bear.  And there was a beautiful chocolate brown gun teddy bear under the tree Christmas morning that said, that said love Santa. So thank you, Santa.
11:32It's my pleasure. I love teddy bears and I love anything that a child can use their imagination to play with. Yeah. My daughter actually asked if she could take it with When we're spoon feeding too, it's not good for children.  Sorry.  I  over you. sorry.  She asked me if she could take it with her when she moved out when she was 18  and it had sat on my dresser for years.
12:01I took really good care of that bear, looked brand new. And I said, why do you want it? And she said, because you love it and I love it. And so she has it still and she's 36.
12:12That's beautiful. What a wonderful tradition to establish.  The thing is, she's never going to have kids. She doesn't want any. So it's going to be her bear until she dies.
12:23Well, and nothing is final. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.  Yeah, I bet he laughs a lot. I he's entertained all the time. Yes. He has a great sense of humor.  He sure does.  I  say things out loud outside and I'm like, Ooh, I shouldn't have said that outside because now God is going to take that and run with it. And I'm going to be like, why did I say that?  Okay. So.
12:53Santa, you  are a jolly old elf. You are a uh round guy. Is that from all the cookies or is that just because you like to eat during the year? Well, I love the cookies. That's a lot of calories to burn off. So I do.
13:11to stay in shape. mean, you have to be to harness the reindeer and drive the sleigh and carry the toys and go up and down the chimneys. And I get a lot of steps in, but the cookies, oh, they're so good. Can't stop eating them. So that takes a little while to burn off. And usually year to year, there's always a little bit of a pooch. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard not to eat the cookies. agree. Yeah, they're so good. Speaking of up and down the chimneys.
13:40I don't know if it's just magic or if you can actually tell me how you do it, but there are places don't have chimneys. So  how do you get in the house if there's no chimney? Oh, that's a wonderful question.  I have a magic key that opens any door and I carry it with me on my belt  all the time. It's such a powerful tool  that you don't have to have a chimney. I'll find a way in and
14:08Sometimes there are some movies and I've seen some silly representations of me about what happens and if I shrink down or I magically create a chimney or things like that. But it's not so complicated as that. If I need to get in, if the house wants me to come in, that's very important. You have to believe to receive that the key will open any door that I need to use to get in. So sometimes it's the front door. Sometimes it's the back door.
14:37Sometimes it's a chimney and sometimes it's through the garage.  Or through a window maybe. Right. Whatever works. We have an understanding. The believers in me.  Yes. And I feel like Santa doesn't exist unless you believe in him. Absolutely. And I'm a gentleman. If you don't want to have me come over or you don't want me in your lives, then that's fine. I will find many millions more who are interested in
15:05Continuing a relationship with me and having a wonderful Christmas. I love it. I love it. Santa, you're a good guy. Thank you. So how old is Santa?
15:22Well, let me think here. I think they, will be celebrating 1743. Hmm. Yes, about right. Definitely over 1700. I've been doing this for a while. You sound fabulous for 1700. Really? Get good rest and I get my steps in. So those are two good things. Good. So how can little kids or even big kids
15:52Being your good graces and not end up on the naughty list. What are the three top things to be on the good list? Well, the first step, I think, and the easiest way to get your heart in the right way is to think of others before yourself, especially little things.
16:12do little things with great love, with  mediocrity or apathy or begrudgingly. You'd be amazed at how  easy everything can go and how  smoothly everything can run just in your own home. If you're going downstairs, maybe take the laundry with you. If you're going upstairs, maybe feed the cats on your way up. Whatever you can do, it's no skin off your nose and it  makes the house so much more peaceful. And that's what we want more of in this world.
16:42Mm-hmm. And then the second thing? The second thing  is ask yourself if things are a need or a want.  Oh my goodness, we're so addicted to more, more, more, more, bigger, faster, stronger. Be happy with what you've got. Sometimes what you really need is a wonderful experience and not stuff. You may not even remember who got it for you. Even if it's me, years later, you may not know.
17:12Where this thing came from and you just throw it away and what a tragedy. Okay, and is there a third? Well, if you've got your heart right and you're not thinking of yourself all the time and you're staying humble and you're trying to work for the good of  others, you would be amazed at how much more fruitful your life can become and when you're at peace, it's a great spot to dream from.
17:41And you might discover  wonderful abilities and talents and a calling to do something you never even knew you had in you. But you have to be at peace to have that frame of mind.  A hundred percent agree with you. And I'm on the nice list. I know I am because I got those three checked off already all the time. Oh, you're doing a wonderful job. Although dusting couldn't hurt.  It never ends. Right. Right.
18:10Never ends. I swear to goodness, my dog sheds and I dust and I dust and I dust and her little white hair show up everywhere anyway. Yes. It keeps you humble. Yeah. And keeps me busy. It's, it's a lot. She, she's, she's got like crimped hair. so when she shakes it goes everywhere, but she's a good dog. So we're going to keep her and I will dust so I can have my dog. And so that I stay on the good.
18:40the nice list. Absolutely, taking good care of what you're responsible for. Well, considering that I was the one who really, really wanted her, I have to be responsible for her. Well done.  And she was a want. She was a want.  I really wanted a puppy and we got a puppy. One of the best things we ever did. She's five years old now. She's still my puppy. That's beautiful. And she wanted a good home and you gave it to her.
19:06Yeah, she's very upset right now because I locked her out of my room so I could talk to Santa.  Oh, well, she'll understand.  She will. She'll be fine. um Does Santa have pets beyond the reindeer?  Oh, we have lots of pets up at the North Pole. Sometimes the elves want something to take care of besides toys. So we have  geese and chickens and ducks and pigs and goats and just about anything. I have a whole zoo.
19:34So Mrs. Claus's favorite animal is a giraffe. So you know we have a couple of those. You might be surprised at what you find up at the North Pole. If you are ever let in, again, we try to keep things private and quiet and invisible. Uh-huh.  And a partridge in a pear tree up there?
19:53Yes, we have a whole orchard of pear trees.  I love pears. We have apples and peaches and grapevines and all kinds of fruit.  Underneath the dome, we can control different climates. I actually have a little beach because I don't think anybody else wants to see me in uh a swimsuit. I have a private beach for when I want to go swimming.  Very nice. That is awesome.
20:21I love swimming. Swimming is a great exercise. That's how you get the calories down from all the cookies, right?
20:29I float pretty well too.  Yep. bet you do.  All right, Santa.  I don't know that I have any more questions right off the top of my head. I'm sure that I will think of a hundred when I'm going to sleep tonight,  but  thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I appreciate it.  It's my pleasure. Anytime. I'm happy to make time in my schedule for you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas.
 

The Homemade Mess

Today I'm talking with Jessica at The Homemade Mess.
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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 Jessica at the Homemade Mess in South Dakota. Good morning, Jessica. How are you? Good morning. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so glad you had time. Hi. It's really hard this time of year starting in September. Harvest season has begun and then the holidays hit.  And I'm like, okay, who's going to be available to talk to me?  Yes.
00:3030 minutes isn't a hard time to carve out of the day. Well, it is and it isn't. It just depends. It depends on what people have going on and what time they have available. And things come up and they can't make it. And I'm just like, ah-ha! And it's not 10 o'clock at night? Yeah, I don't do... I try really hard not to record past 6 o'clock at night because I am not on my game at past 6 o'clock at night. Yes. That seems to be the only me time is after 10 o'clock.
00:59Nothing else is there. Well, that's because you're a mom and you're a home sweater and you're busy and you're a teacher. Yes, I am. OK, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am I live in central South Dakota and I grew up in North Dakota. I did have did grow up on a ranch. And so when I married my husband, I always had these big dreams. I was going to I was going to marry a rodeo guy. Right. And then I fell in love with a fisherman.
01:29So  we,  love him to death and we, um, he really isn't into the homesteading, the animals, the, he's a fishing and hunting guy and that's, that's what he does. And so, um, we moved, he's not my husband's alignment. And so we moved to a really small town.  Um, there was no Walmart. So I said, we're not moving there. We compromised and we moved there.  And so,  um,
01:53We, I really didn't have land.  I do have some horses and I do barrel race as well. And so I didn't have land. And then up until probably a year ago, a little over a year ago, uh we found like our dream place and it was like, God willing it happened and it worked out. And so we really are like living out our dream now.  I do also teach.  I teach in a very small town. have 11 kids in my class.  And then I'm a full time or full time teacher.  I'm a mom. And then from after that, after
02:23whatever time I have left is when I do my social media business. um I actually started it in late  June of 2025, so like not very many months ago. um And I kind of blew up, um which is I'm very grateful, but um I don't really know what I'm doing on social media quite yet, which might, the half a million followers might seem  like I do, but I'm just living on a prayer and winging it over here. But um we live day by day. We don't really know.
02:52I don't really know what I'm doing in life yet, so here we are.  You are in one of the most wonderful and most frustrating spots of life right now because  winging it is really fun, but it can also be really scary. Yes. Yes.  Especially being like, nobody prepares you for motherhood. You could Google all you want, but then you become a mom and you have no idea what you're doing. So I'm like trying to figure that out.
03:20trying to figure out my social media business and trying to be a good mom and be a good wife and take care of all the hundred thousand animals I decided to accumulate and it's busy. Yeah, just just be a good human and everything else will fall into place. Yeah. Okay. I have a couple questions regarding your your answer to my first question. um How many kids do you have? Just have the one. I just have the one. Yep. He's 18 months.  Oh my that is a very busy busy time. Yes,  very busy.
03:49And then did you teach at a bigger school before you moved? I did, yes. I taught in a very large school district. I taught in a school district that had 12 just elementary schools. So it was about 20 to 30,000 people in elementary. So I taught in a very large district. And then I came down here and I had nine kids last year. I didn't know what to do with my time.
04:15So how many kids were in the class size before this new place? About 30. Oh, wow. So this is a huge change for you. Yes. Yeah. also, before that, I taught in really big district. And then I taught  over on um like a um meeting reservation school. And then I taught where I'm at now. So  there was a little bit of steps taken before I got to where I'm at now.
04:45Yeah, very large class sizes. Do you enjoy the smaller class size more because you can give the kids more attention one on one? Yeah, I do.  It comes with its challenges as well, though.  The small school district also comes with a school, so it comes with a small community.  The small community was hard for me to adjust to. OK. All right, that makes sense.
05:11Okay, so your place is called the Homemade Map. Yes. So why did you call it that? I feel like that really encompasses what I do. we are, I really encompass the reality of that life is messy. I also want to normalize the fact that like not everything is Instagram perfect, especially like the homestead we live on. My kitchen is really my main recording place and my kitchen has become a large.
05:40profile of who I am  as our social media presence.  But it really encompasses the fact that life is chaotic, life is a mess and it's okay.  And it's normal. um Just embrace that mess and really  soak it in because that mess doesn't last forever.  And one day you're gonna miss that mess.  Oh yeah, absolutely. Oh my goodness, you just hit a button, I'm sorry. um
06:09I'm 56. I've raised four kids. Oh gosh, I love that.  And uh they're all grown and  it's great.  I swear to you, I love the stage of my life.  do. Yeah. But I miss my kids, you know? Yeah.  I swear to God, every time I think I'm going to get through a podcast without tearing up, I can't. So  it's okay. ah
06:35The other upshot is that once your kids are adults and hopefully you've raised them the way that you hoped you would. A hundred percent. And all move out and they're good human beings and they're doing their thing. Your stress level comes down immensely. I bet. I can't imagine. Today we, I had to get my kid out of the vent of the house because he was stuck and I thought he was going to fall to the basement. Oh my. like, Oh my God. I was like, what? When does this end?
07:03Um, the sweet spot is when they're about eight or nine years old. Oh good. I look forward to that. Because I don't want to rush life. I really don't. I really, I really like where I'm at now.  Um, but nobody prepared you for that part of life.  Oh no, there's no, there's no owner's manual as it were for kids. No, but as far as social media, that is something that I feel like is really not normalized.
07:26Um, especially as a new mom, like when I was feeding in the middle of the night, what was I doing scrolling social media?  And I feel like when I was, when I was doing that, I was, I really felt degraded on myself.  Um, cause I didn't have, I didn't have number one, I don't have family around. So I didn't have a village, right?  Um, and it wasn't even about the village because really our village has changed over the years. mean, I can get Amazon prime in two days now where we couldn't before. So like, I do consider that part of my village. Um,
07:55But I didn't have I don't have family around here. So like, when I was scrolling social media, I felt like there was really nobody out nobody out there that  or that I had found they are out there.  But that really normalized like the mess in not only like my kitchen, but in like life, but also in like homesteading, you know, like  I really um that's one thing that I really wanted to encompass and I couldn't really find that and I wanted something
08:23to give me answers. And that's kind why I created it.  All of my recipes and all my platform is completely free  because I do think that that is really important for moms  and not everyone is um in that financial space where they can afford healthier alternatives. um So that was something that I wanted when I was scrolling. When I was scrolling, I wanted someone to give me the answers right then. I wanted someone to read that it was going to be okay. You made the thing that you needed. Yes. Good.
08:53Good job. That's what we all should be doing. That's why I started the podcast because I needed  a place to talk to people who were doing things like I was doing. So same premise. Yes, I love that. Yeah.  And, and I'm just going to reiterate life is messy. I mean, I  came down with some upper respiratory thing back the first week of October and I am finally over it. took like six weeks to start feeling human again.  Oh gosh. I feel that.  I feel like that's our house on rotate.
09:22Yeah. And my downstairs right now is not very nice.  It's a mess. There's stuff everywhere. Yeah. But that mess is temporary. Yeah, exactly. And sometimes life takes the front seat. Well, being able to function, being able to get the dishes done and laundry handled when you're sick is enough  for at least that first couple of weeks when you don't feel good. um But the other thing about life being messy is that you can spend three days getting your entire
09:52kitchen and living room,  cleaned up, organized and spotless. And within two days, it's going to look half as nice as it did the day you were done. Two days? I wish mine would last two days. Well, you have a little one. So  you get some slack on that.  You just you cannot make your house a museum. It has to be lived in. Yes. So, OK, tell me about your homesteading stuff.  What do you do that classifies as homesteading?
10:20So  my main platform  is in my kitchen.  number one, my platform is I do 100 % think that everyone should have um the knowledge of learning how to can and preserve food. I think that that is a skill that is really dying. And I think that everyone should have access to that and for free. Bravo.  Whether you need it now, but I think you should know how to do that.  And so like a really big part of my platform in my homesteading community is learning how to can and preserve your own food. And that's
10:48um not only for my garden, but it's also supporting local people. So  I feel like a lot of people sometimes think that they can't homestead because they live in an apartment. And that is like so far from the truth. You can homestead in a studio if you want to.  It's all about learning how to  really just be self-sufficient. And  that all starts in your kitchen. um don't need cows in your pasture. You don't need goats. You don't need chickens.
11:15you don't need a chandelier in your chicken coop with wallpaper like that's so far that's so far fetched and we really and that's fine if you want that I'm not at all hating on people that do that like I love that and I really would want to be that but that's just not reality  and so like I feel like that is a really big  homesteading space right now and so I like really wanted to bring that back  and and just let that let homesteading be part of everybody's life.
11:44And you can do it from anywhere. And so a really big part of my homesteading space is canning and preserving your own food and dry mixes. I have a really big space in dry mixes as well. Like transferring your homemade dry or store bought dry mixes to homemade. Number one, it's cheaper. You can do that. So if you are not in a space to be able to afford store bought mixes, then not only you can do it frugally, but you can do it with less ingredients and a healthier alternative.
12:14um But outside my kitchen, I do have lots of animals. um Some that I have accumulated over the years. uh I have like chickens for, and my husband's rule, I have to preface this. My husband's rule is that I cannot have any animal unless it serves a purpose.  And so if it was up to me, I would have everything. um But he really humbles me. um But we have chickens, um obviously for eggs. We tried meat birds one time. ah
12:43one and only time I will support local ranchers before I do that again. um But I have we have goats as well. We have geese,  we have horses,  we have cat well, we don't have to herd of cows, but we raise them for our own consumption.  But that's really the extent of our animals that we have here.  We have a few like random birds. um We'll just chop those up is like I have them for my mental health. But but that's really the extent of
13:12our homesteading here as far as animals.  I do have a garden, it's about an acre garden.  And that is an absolute jungle after the first month.  But it still produces. So,  but that's the extent of my homesteading.  Most of my homesteading space is canning and preserving inside my kitchen. Okay, cool. That's awesome. And I agree 100%. I think that every freaking person on the planet
13:42who has the means and the ways to learn to cook should. And I say it on the podcast all the time. If you want to save yourself money,  learn to cook. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And it's not like I get, I get comments all the time on my platform  asking like, I would really like to start, but it costs a lot of money.  And sometimes I think that a lot of different platforms,
14:04Like it really doesn't cost a lot of money to start. You don't use what you already have. And that's a really big thing that I say on my platform all the time. We are absolutely  not an aesthetically pleasing homestead. We use what we have.  So,  um, and that's one thing that like, it doesn't have to be,  it's only expensive as you make it. You know, I think that people really should use Facebook marketplace a lot or thrift stores or goodwill. Um, like they have a lot of really good things there and it doesn't have to cost a lot.  I found my first set of matched dishes.
14:34you know, plates  and coffee mugs and  salad bowls  at  Goodwill. And they are Faultscraf. They are like a, you know how mallard ducks have that greeny blue color on them? Yes.  They're that color. I love them.  I broke at least a quarter of them in the five years that we use them consistently because dishes break.  Yeah. And now when I'm feeling nostalgic for when I finally decided I needed matching dishes,
15:04I will pull out some of those plates and use them, but I don't use them as often as I did because I lost a quarter of the setting that I had.  And I finally bought restaurant style white plates, bowls  and mugs because I was sick of dishes breaking. And if you want dishes that don't break,  get restaurant style dishes because they're meant to take a beating. I've actually never thought of that. Yep. gave up. genius.
15:31I gave up because I really love Faults Graph. I think they make some beautiful dishware, but they're stoneware. And if you hit them just right, they break. They break right in half. And we've had this restaurant style set for over a year. And I think we've broken one plate and one mug out of a setting of 12. I love that. That's a genius idea. Yeah. Cause I was just like, I'm so tired of buying pretty dishes and they-
16:00break and then I'm out, you know, a dish that I need.  So there are lots of ways to do it. And  I'm actually glad that you're very kitchen focused and cooking focused  because just before I got sick, I had 6,000 words written  for a, basically a book on how to kit out your kitchen and what needs to be in your fridge and your pantry and things like that.  And I am just now getting my brain back to where I can sit down and edit it.
16:27and I'm hoping to have it up on Amazon as a Kindle ebook. Yeah. By the first of the year, wish me luck. And I wish you the best of luck because that is something that is definitely, I think needed in that stage of life. Yeah. And it's so funny. I keep talking about this on the podcast and with friends that it used to be that your great grandma, your grandma and your mom would teach you these things. And
16:57moms are not teaching their kids this anymore. I did. I taught my kids how to cook and how to get out of kitchen because  it's important to me, but it's not as common as it was.  did not have that. I am completely self-taught. Okay. I taught myself how to can and preserve food right out of high school  because I started reading ingredient labels  and doing a lot of research. And I was also going to school to be a health and fitness coach at the time. Oh. And so I
17:23I started reading ingredient labels and at first I didn't until  I started going to school and doing my research, I actually really didn't even know what a lot of these ingredients were. um I thought I grew up on these foods. I grew up on Pop Tarts for breakfast and no hate to my mom. She's probably going to listen to this podcast. So I like no hate to my mom. That's just what we did. um And so we had a lot of ramen noodles and we had a lot of canned soup and that's just what we had and that's what we ate. And so I didn't really know different. um
17:53once I, I shouldn't say I did no different. I did. I didn't know ingredients. I didn't care. And so once I started going to school and started to be doing a little bit of research, I started reading ingredient labels and I knew that if  I wanted to be the best Jessica I could be, um the first thing to change was my diet. um And so that's kind of what started there. um And then  I have like, I cannot let food go to waste. That's like my,  I can't do it.
18:22My brain will not let me do that. uh So I started canning  and then  I had  many fails before I  was successful at all. um But I didn't have that either. And that's something big on my platform too  is people come to me because they didn't have a mom or a grandma to teach them how to do these things.
18:43And so I really work on not over complicating it because I did I was in that stage of life too where I where I needed somebody to like literally grab my hand and teach me what to do because I Didn't know and I mean ten years ago YouTube was a thing of course, but it  wasn't as a big of a platform as it is now  and so  I needed somebody to  teach me and to walk me through it and and Do it with me and so that's kind of what I created my platform on was on to
19:12was that I want people to realize that it's really easy. It's not as over complicated as it seems. I am self-taught and trust me when I tell you if I can do it, you can do it. And the best part is you don't have to put pants or a bra on and leave the house. You just do it in your house. Yes, exactly. Jessica, do you mind if I ask how old you are? I am 28. I love that. There are so few people under 30 who are interested in doing what you're doing.
19:41I am.  I'm going to do this again. I've said I'm proud of people  all last week and the week before. I'm proud of you. You're doing a great thing. Thank you. I do think, though, that it is  it is coming back,  especially  with like I don't I am not going to get into politics, but especially with the um like um things that have been brought into light about what ingredients really are. Yeah. And  that that how  normal it is.
20:11And so I do think that canning and preserving, not even canning and preserving, which is making food from scratch, like my dry mixes, for example. um I sell, do sell,  all of my recipes are free on my page, but I sell um label kits for dry mixes that has over 35 dry mixes that you can exchange um store bought to homemade. And I think that that is like a first step into really becoming self-sufficient on yourself or really um getting to food freedom. I think that's really important. And I don't think...
20:40I don't think there's ever going to be a time where we can't depend on stores. Like we just live in  the  age where we will have to depend on stores. I'm confident of that.  But the less that you can get there and the more you can make at home,  you know what's in it. You don't have any of those, you know, emulsifiers in your food. Then that's a win in my book.  Okay. I have two things I want to share regarding what you just said.
21:09I learned how to make homemade mayonnaise uh a good eight years ago, maybe 10 years ago.  I don't do it very often. I should do it more often, but I'm the only one in the house who likes mayonnaise, so I'm not gonna make it every week because I don't use it every week.  And there is something incredibly magical about watching  something like that come together because it seems impossible.  And the first time I did it and I saw it,
21:37go from olive oil and  egg and whatever was in it  to  mayonnaise. I stood there with my mouth hanging open because it was literally nothing and then it was the thing I needed it to be. That is even small alternatives like that. I  have a lot of them on my page, but the  DMs or the comments on all of my platforms that are like, I had no idea you could make this like powdered sugar or brown sugar. Yeah. Like people don't
22:06And that's no fault of their own. Like they just don't know. It's  just lack of knowledge. So  once they know, well then you take that information and do with it what you will. But  it's  just knowledge and knowing that you can do it  on your own. can. And it's stuff you already probably have at home. And it's significantly cheaper. I mean, my platform is about doing it on a budget. It is significantly cheaper.  Maybe  not. You could probably get some really cheap mail.
22:35because olive oil is really expensive. But um brown sugar and um powdered sugar or tanning your leftovers, I mean, you could do that for pennies on the dollar, really. Yes, absolutely. And the other thing that I made, speaking of the dry mixes you're talking about, I made a homemade ranch dressing because I actually love ranch dressing. I  am very vanilla in my taste, Jessica. I don't like spicy.
23:03Me either. don't like bitter other than coffee. Freaking love coffee, but I can add sugar to that.  And I didn't want to keep buying ranch dressing at the grocery store because it has all kinds of preservatives in it. And I worked at this for  a whole summer trying to get a ranch dressing that I liked with actual real ingredients from scratch.  And I finally looked, I finally Google in, finally typed into Google, cannot talk this morning,  real ranch tasting.
23:33recipe and somebody had come up with one that used buttermilk either dry buttermilk  or or just buttermilk  and I use in mine to buttermilk powder. Yeah, and I tried it and it tasted exactly like the ranch dressing that I buy at the store and I was so excited.  Yeah, and and the dry buttermilk is so weird because if you put it in your coffee, it's it's it's basically like a creamer.  Oh, we don't drink coffee, but that's a good thing to know.
24:03So not only did I have uh the stuff to make a good ranch dressing, but if I was out of milk, I had something to lighten up my coffee. Yes, of course.  So that helped. But when it comes to talking about preserving food,  you certainly can can things  and you can freeze things and you can dry things and you can freeze dry things. Yep.  Am I missing any? um
24:32You could freeze dry, could dehydrate. Dehydrate, yes.  Yeah, you can can. um That's like the main ones I do.  can. um That's it. That's the main ones I do. Yeah.  On my page. Yeah. Because I do I actually don't have a lot of freeze dry. Well, I don't have a freezer currently right with me but  around my house. But um I also realized that that's not something that  a lot of people have.  that's expensive. And so
25:01um Most of my  content is about using, like I said, using what you have.  So most people have a freezer, a dehydrator,  and then my canning. Yeah, and I want to throw in here a dehydrator is not that expensive to acquire. You can get them at thrift stores for very cheap. Yes. Or you can buy a new one for less than $50.  Yes.  Yes.  I will say that they're like with a dehydrator,
25:30If you're purchasing new,  you get what you pay for. um so especially if you're going to be using it in bulk, um using it often,  you get what you pay for when it comes to that. And that's really with anything, but um I got mine at a thrift store. All of mine have been from thrift stores. um and they work just fine too, but yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is, is if you don't have a dehydrator, if you have cookie sheets,
25:58You can dry things in the oven at the lowest setting that your oven will do and it doesn't have to be a gas stove. It can be an electric stove. Yep.  Same with canning.  You can can and preserve food and that's kind of,  there's multiple ways to do that. You can can and you can do oven canning or what they call dry canning. You can do pressure canning. You can do steam canning. You can do water bath canning.  It's really just what method.
26:25is easiest for you and what you are really knowledgeable about.  A lot of people throw out their botulism like they truly understand what it means. ah And so  just being aware of  number one, using what you have. You don't have to go out and purchase a pressure canner if you're not comfortable with that. But just using what you have and just understanding that even with canning, there's multiple ways to can.  So  we talk about dehydrating and freeze drying and freezing.
26:53Um, and canning and so even within canning, there's a lot of ways  to get the end result. Oh, absolutely. It just, the one thing I will say about food preservation is before you get into it, do your research.  Yeah,  especially. and  I mean,  I do like to think that I'm a really good resource for a lot of people, but a lot of people go to social media, including myself.
27:19A lot of people go to social media looking for support or answers to their questions. Like I said, I did it too. And I still do it. uh so like they,  TikTok is the new Google, right? TikTok is a new search engine. So uh I do it too.  But a lot of people, a lot of creators are, oh and vacuum sealing. I forgot that one.  Vacuum sealing as well. um But a lot of creators are really good at fear mongering.
27:47Um, and so a lot of people don't want, don't want it to can because like I said, they're afraid of botulism and a lot of creators are, are, are throw a word vomiting that, that word without truly educating people on what that is. And so that is, I feel like a wall that I run into on my platform is like retraining you that botulism is not something to be afraid of, rather it's something to understand. It's something to be knowledgeable about.
28:15Of course it's a real thing. I'm not going to disregard that. ah We know it is,  but you have to be knowledgeable about it.  I personally am a rebel canner.  I  100 % believe in that. aah But it's all  about education  instead of throwing out that word. People are scared of that.  And so that really turns a lot of people off of that.
28:41Yeah, and that's part of reason I'm saying do the research. Find someone who's been canning for 20 years and knows what they're doing and have them  quote unquote hold your hand through learning it. exactly. And don't just believe the first thing that you read, you know? And that's with anything really and not just canning. Like just do your research. Yeah. And I'm not  about, I'm just about informed. I want you to be informed before you make any decision,  no matter what that is.  And I want you to have real facts.
29:10Yeah, for sure. And the other thing is that this stuff takes time to do. Yes. I'm not saying it's going to take you a week to can some tomato sauce, but it's going to take you a good day.  Yep. And maybe two days, depending on how... you might fail. Yeah. And depending on how practiced you are. mean, when we did tomatoes  four years ago, it took us two days to get through it because we were hot and tired and we're like, let's do the rest tomorrow.
29:37When we did them last year, only took half a day. Yeah. So  it's all about learning. It's all about practicing and it's all about getting comfortable with the things that you are doing. Yes. And being okay to fail. Yeah. Like failing is really part of your learning process and I know it stinks. I know it does.  you learn from your mistakes, especially with canning. When you do spend two days getting, you know, making your tomato sauce and  you figure out that...
30:05you know, three or four jars didn't seal. Like, what do do with that now? And so just, just, just knowing that, that there's a possibility that you're going to fail and what are you going to do from that failure? And that's just not just in canning, but life, know,  definitely.  Um, I love that because we made our tomato sauce that we made two summers ago. Now  I don't love it. My husband and my son will eat it. I don't love it because they made it with different, a different variety of tomato. um
30:35And it's not as sweet and it also had to do with the growing conditions that year. And so I'm very excited. We're going to be canning tomato sauce over the new year weekend, I think this year. That's what we do too. We make it, we, we all put all of our tomatoes in a freezer and make it a winter problem. Yeah, that's what, that's what we did too. And, uh, I have eaten a few of the tomatoes that I know we're going to be making sauce out of and they were so good this year. Oh my God.
31:04So very excited for New Year's weekend to be working because we always work on holidays. We were always doing something that there just hasn't been time for. I love that. That's something that I wish that  I shouldn't say I wish something that I would like to have is to have like a community, local community that does that together. And  I live very rural. uh I live, I live two hours, three hours from like a Sam's club or a Walmart.  do live, there's a Walmart about an hour and a half away from me, but
31:33So I live very rural and there's not a lot of people around that do that. So that is one thing that I wish that I had was just a community here to do that.  Well, it'll just be my husband and I. We are the community on this project, but  at least we have each other to  keep ourselves entertained while we're cutting up tomatoes and smooshing tomatoes and juicing tomatoes. Yes.  All right, Jessica, I would love to have you back because I feel like there's a whole lot more that we could talk about. I would love that.
32:02Okay, awesome. Thank you. Where can people find you?  You can find me on all platforms. I am under the homemade mess on all platforms. I am on Lemonade, TikTok,  Facebook. I'm on threads, Instagram,  but I'm under the homemade mess on all platforms.  Good job, because I just talked to a lady the other day who has to consolidate all of her stuff in the new year.
32:25And she was kind of poking fun at herself. And I don't think she realized that she was going to get as big as she did, as fast as she did. So I'm really glad you don't have to do that too. didn't.  well, I, so I started in late June.  Um, and  I've, I've built a community of half a million followers, have no idea what I'm doing on social media yet. there, um, with that came a lot of struggles. So I have,  I  think I have my, my ducks in a row. think there might be a few, um, off track, but.
32:55I did, I have prepared myself for the, I have learned from the struggles that I already had. So hopefully after the new year, I know with like after taxes and all that fun stuff, there'll be some changes that I have to make, but hopefully my ducks are at least going the right direction. Well, please keep doing what you're doing because you are doing a fabulous thing.
33:19Well, thank you. And I appreciate you  reaching out and I'm excited to get the homemade mess out there and really share our story.  Awesome. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  And if you'd like to support the podcast, you can go to a tinyhomestead.com slash support.  Jessica,  I know it's Sunday. I wish I'd talked to you on Friday so I could say have a good weekend, but have a good week. You as well. Thank you so much for having me. Yep. Thanks. Bye. Bye.
 

Catching up with Becca at Moon Ridge Acres

Today I'm talking with Becca at Moon Ridge Acres.
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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 uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Becca at Moonridge Acres. I think it's the name of your place in Alberta, Canada. Good morning, Becca. How are you?  Hi, I'm good. How are you?  I'm good. Is Moonridge Acres the right name? That is correct. Yeah. Okay. And do you, you have a separate page for that or not on Facebook?
00:59I actually do have a separate page for it, but I don't really  use it very much. um just, I'm spread a little too thin, but eventually I would like to do it and have it be more, you know, promotional for the horses. But  right now it's just kind of sitting there. Okay, cool.  I  looked at your personal profile. was like, I know she has a business name, but I couldn't remember it. And I was like, oh yeah, Mooner Jakers. Okay, cool. So how's the weather in Canada this morning?
01:29It is brisk. Brisk is what I would call it. It's, I think we were at minus 11 last night, that's Celsius. So I don't know what that works out to in Fahrenheit. I'm still, I'm trying to get the conversion in my head, but it's not going super well. So yeah, it's cool. It's one of the cooler mornings that we've had so far. And honestly, this is a really great fall. It's been really nice. So I can't complain.
01:59Is it sunny there? Sunny? Yeah, it is. is sunny. It's,  uh, Alberta's kind of known for being cold, but sunny. So  you, you get  one,  one  evil and one good thing. You know, the sun is nice. Cause when it's dreary and cloudy, that's just depressing. Yeah. Um, yesterday all day, looked like,  um, dusk cause it was rainy and cloudy all day yesterday. um
02:28And I was okay with that because the weatherman was predicting that we were going to wake up to one to three inches of snow this morning. And I was excited. Oh, wow. And I got up and we got like half an inch of snow. I was like, it's going to be another one of those winters where they hype the hell out of the forecast. And then we get nothing. I swear every single year, like in the last like four years, they were like, this is going to be the worst winter ever. And then it's fine.
02:55Like, I'm not sure  if they get more clicks on that. Like, maybe they make more ad revenue by saying it's going to be terrible. I'm not sure. I have no idea, but I was  in my five-year-old pram of mind of, okay, it's going to be the first really nice snow. It's going to be beautiful when I wake up. And oh no. No. I  was also excited because my dog loves the first real snowfall of a couple inches because she goes out and rolls in it.
03:23And I was so excited for her to go out the door and be all crazy. And now I was like, okay, well, this was not the day already.  No, they seem to be doing that a lot. told us  Calgary, which is just  a boat three hours south of us, they got  a decent dump. Like I think it was  10 inches or not 10 inches, sorry, 10 centimeters. ah And they said it was coming our way and  to expect  a big storm and nothing.
03:52Yup,  I don't believe the weather people anymore. The weather is what it is doing outside my window right now. And right now,  it is really windy. It is 28 degrees and I would call it brisk. So I think we're probably in the same, the same. I think  so. think Fahrenheit to Celsius, believe 20 is zero  Celsius. So we're minus 11 Celsius. So that's gotta be like.
04:21I want to say around like the, in the single digits of Fahrenheit, I think. So we're having kind of the same weather day. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you've been on the podcast twice. They have been wonderful conversations. And just to catch people up, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Uh, so I breed miniature horses, um, here in Alberta and we breed for
04:48show purposes um and we show them and my, you know, my whole social media is all about promoting the breed  and hopefully getting more people  to get into them  and see that miniature horses are truly awesome little creatures.  I really, really love them. ah And yeah, that's,  we're all about the minis right now. Okay. So in the first interview we did,
05:15You had mentioned rabbits and goats. Do you still have those? So I no longer have my rabbits. I would like to get back into the rabbits eventually. I really miss my rabbit people because I did rabbit shows as well. um But right now  I am just spread too thin. I don't have  the time to give them proper care and rabbits are very time consuming because they're all in individual cages.
05:44and they all need individual feed. And it's just a very time consuming uh hobby to get into. I just, I'm spread too thin right now to  do rabbits  to the best of my abilities. ah And so we're pausing on that. I would love to get back into them though, cause I really do miss them. Okay. And do you still have goats? We do still have the goats and they are just ruling my life.  They're feral in my yard for whatever reason they don't leave. So I don't lock them up.
06:14And they're just,  you know, eating my horse food  and causing troubles.  That sounds about on par for goats. Yeah, they're just  out there living their lives and being menaces. Okay,  and did you have chickens? I can't remember.  No, we did not have chickens. We would love to have chickens. Like, I mean, I would love to have a whole lot of everything, but...
06:39um We're just kind of limited on space right now  and  the the minis are  currently our  major focus. Okay, I just wanted to check in on on what I remember. Well, I went and listened to both episodes this morning. I was like, what did she say to me the first time?  And I was like, there's got to be I don't know. I didn't know if you were just really focusing on the horses or if you still had the other things. So  and that's
07:05You are still- My husband would really like me to get rid of the goats because they eat all of our trees  and they're they're just menaces and I don't do anything with them other than laugh at them when they climb on things they're not supposed to. ah But I just really enjoy laughing at them.  They are highly entertaining and my husband is really thankful that I have not like demanded that we get goats because he knows how much I love them.
07:32Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're big trouble. um I like, yeah, there's something about them that I love,  but they're really more trouble than they're probably worth.  But here I am. Yeah, I use demanded loosely because I never demand anything from anyone I request. don't demand. But the thing is, is that I really love the baby goats, the adult goats. I'm not as thrilled with so.
07:59So I just let other people raise goats and I go see the babies when they're little and then  they take care of their goats and I just get the benefits of seeing the babies when they come. That's fair. The babies are so entertaining and I'm not like breeding the goats anymore because I can't really sell them.  So  it just, doesn't make sense  to continue on with it, but I, yeah,  I am entertained by their shenanigans.
08:27Yes, to quote Dawn's dirt. She's another person that does a podcast on Bershett  or something like that is her last name.  Her podcast is Dawn's dirt.  She calls that tic-tac-titioning, math-ing.
08:43That's awesome.  Now anytime somebody's talking about  it not making sense to do something because there's no return in it, the thing that pops into my head is tic-tac-titioning every time now. That's funny.  I love it. And she's in Canada too. Oh, no way. Yeah, I can't remember.  I want to say Alberta, but I could be wrong. I would have to look it up. Yeah, I'm going to have to look her up too and see. It's always good to connect with some other
09:12you know, Canadian people that are  probably trying to do  the same thing that I'm trying to do. Yeah. If anybody wants to listen to Dawn's podcast, and it's really great because she's,  she's very, very blunt. She's, she's friendly and she's honest and I love her, but she does not pull any punches.  And she's, she's, uh, she's very, um, anti-government.
09:38And she's very honest about that too. So if anybody wants to listen to it, all I have to do is type in Dawn's dirt in  Google and it'll come up. promise. That's awesome. I might have to do that. So anyway, um I want to learn more about what's going on with the mini horses, but I want to say that I am so glad you're still in the world because I saw that you hit a moose. oh yes. I just did that with my favorite.
10:05car ever. I absolutely loved that car so, much. um And it's,  you know,  I got really lucky because it was a cow calf pair  and I  was paying attention. It was just a really bad lighting situation. And, you know, where they came out of the trees were super close to the road. So  I saw mama and if I would have hit mama, we could have had a much different outcome. um But I swerved and I just
10:35just nicked the hindquarters of  the calf  and  it totaled my car most likely. I'm still waiting for insurance to let me know on that. But you still haven't heard yet?  No, I won't know probably until the end of this week or even early next week.  Oh, my goodness.  And, you know, the adjuster was like, start car shopping.  And I'm like, OK, I'm going to find a vehicle that I really love and then you're going to fix my car  or.
11:05You know, it's just one of those frustrating situations where the insurance companies make it really convenient for them  and you're at their mercy. So,  the best option is, is you find something  you like and you do have your vehicle back. So, yeah, yeah. I mean, I would be happy to have my vehicle back. um Unfortunately, I'm probably going to have to look at getting a truck because in reality I was probably towing a little bit too much with that vehicle. um
11:34And  it sucks because I really, really did like that vehicle, but a truck will be more versatile, I suppose. Yes, absolutely.  And I'm not giving you a hard time. swear I adore you. But it could be worse. It could be so much worse. So much worse.  at the end of the day,  my daughter didn't even feel the she was like, what was that? And I was like, oh, you know, just our car crumpling into an oblivion.
12:03But she didn't even know what happened. you know, like I  had a slightly sore neck the next morning. ah But I couldn't even tell. It kind of felt like I just slept on it wrong. So I'm not even sure if it was related. um So,  you know, us being okay is all that really matters.  And I'll  whine about that car for a little bit, but I'll get over it.  Yeah. And like I said, I wasn't giving you a hard time.  And I am  so glad.
12:32that you are okay and that your daughter is okay because that could have been a terrible outcome for both of you. Yeah. Most are no joke. So the last time we talked, we talked about your horses and we talked about the PayPal fiasco that you have since gotten figured out  and really, really quick. Can you catch us up on how that got fixed? Cause it was actually a very simple fix once you knew what to do.  Oh,  it's so like looking back, it's so frustrating that I
13:01had to go six months in just  absolute agony over this. ah Because what ended up happening was it wasn't that Metta wasn't trying to pay me, it was that PayPal was rejecting the payment because I used a PayPal account that I had had open for years. ah They had asked me to verify my account uh like years ago.
13:27And I had never logged into the account. I never saw the notification and the notification just went away. And so there was no notification and I had called PayPal. They didn't know about this. They had no idea. Facebook obviously had no idea about it. then Greg from PayPal, I called, I asked and Greg was eating his Wheaties that day. He was like,
13:55This is what you got to do. And it was like a two second fix  and boom, payment in my account and life is good.  So  yeah, and it has been fine since. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is uh specific to Canadians. ah It is a regulation put in by the Canadian government that any deposit over a thousand dollars needs to have a verified account.
14:21And that means like with your driver's license and you know, it was a couple steps to get it verified, but it was easy and now we're all good. Good, because I know that was driving you absolutely bug wonky to use it when my mother uses. I mean, you know, was beyond frustrating. Like I had $50,000 sitting in that account.
14:45that I couldn't access and my husband was on disability and like we were, we were struggling and I was at the point of like, do I give this up and just, you know, get a real job or,  or what do I do? Right. Because I'm like, I'm seeing this money here. Like I know it's working,  but it's not working if I can't access it.  thank Greg from PayPal. are my hero.  Shout out to Greg. Yeah.  Okay. So.
15:13Let's get to the horses, because I know that's what you really, really love and what you really, really want to talk about.  How many babies were there this spring? Ooh, this year. So we had five babies total,  but one of them was in the fall, and that's been a whole situation. Okay. So yeah, we had  the first four were born all without a hitch. Everything was great. um And then...
15:42We had the never ending pregnancy  of  the mare that I picked up, George,  from Tennessee. I drove to Tennessee and I picked up this mare in Niagara Falls and drove home  and she was bred.  And  she was supposed to be  due most likely at the end of June.  And  we got to,  the baby was born September 7th. So  it felt like she was pregnant forever.
16:12Um, so yeah, the,  uh, that whole scenario, but this little baby, such a sweet, sweet baby. And we've had problems.  Uh, her mama wasn't making enough milk. Her mom just got diagnosed with Cushing's.  Um, but we've got her all figured out now we're bottle feeding her,  uh, just as like a supplement.  And  it's been great. It's been great. I think I've learned 10 years of knowledge just with this one full.
16:41Which is going to be terribly beneficial to you in the future. So yay. Yes, exactly. It's the, we're just getting it all out at once. Like I feel like a pro now.  Good. Awesome. And the fact is you're never going to know everything because that would be a lot to keep in one brain.  Absolutely. Is this, is this the fool that's named after your friend? It is. Yes. Okay. Can you tell that story without crying or would you rather not? um
17:10I mean, I could give it a go for sure. Okay.  We're, we're,  we're a little bit more healed.  I don't know about healed, but anyways, um, so  my neighbors  were,  they moved in a couple of years ago and we got connected because they were looking for someone to feed their cats.  Um, and  I offered, you know,  as my services to make a little bit of extra money  and we ended up becoming like,
17:40close.  And the this July, I was at Stampede  and the husband of the pair called me and informed me that  Crystal had been in an accident  and that she was gone.  And that was just like, oh, I have no words.  I
18:07I cannot imagine and I feel just  so awful, know, like  you go through the last thing that  you said to that person or, you didn't respond to that message and now you like, it's just,  I've never lost a friend in that way.  So suddenly and so tragically and, you know, her husband who  was just...
18:34you could see how madly in love with her he was and they'd been married for like 27 years or something like that, you know, and he was still just that golden retriever husband that every woman dreams of, you know.  I love it.  And I just, my heart breaks for him. It still breaks for him. I can't even imagine. um And
18:57Yeah, I asked because Crystal loved coming over and she would always save her vegetables that they didn't get through in the week for the animals and she loved coming over and,  you know, seeing the animals and  I asked him, could I name this baby after her? And he gave me his blessing. so now we have little Crystal and it's so funny because this little baby is sweet as pie, but she's got that little...
19:26devil and I think that's that's kind of how Crystal was as well just the sweetest woman  and but you could see there was a little bit of  you know uh a sparkle in the eye a little bit of devious. uh perfect way to honor your friend. Yeah yeah it's  I feel really good about it and I hope that  Crystal is up there smiling  and enjoying watching
19:55little baby crystal kick me when her milk is not correct.  Uh-huh.  Laughing her ass off in heaven is how I would see that. I hope so. I really do because this little baby is,  my goodness, you better have that milk to temperature, let me tell you.  She's worse than a human baby. Uh-huh,  uh-huh.  And cuter than a button, cuter than a button. You couldn't ask for a cuter baby horse.  Oh yeah, and they're all cute.
20:23All the babies are cute. Your friend, I think it's your friend. I can't think of her first name. Her piercelle is how you- Oh, Nicole. Yes. Yes. Yeah. The baby that she had, the horse baby that has the rhinos. Yes. Riley. That is one of the cutest baby horses I've ever seen because of the shape of its face. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very cute.
20:52um Yeah, she's a... It's just, it's crazy, the things that can happen, but you know, it gives them character and you know, you love them for it.  Yeah, absolutely. And we're all different. It doesn't matter whether we're humans or animals, we're all different. We have our own things about us that make us specials.  Exactly. Okay. So I'm super glad that Crystal is doing well and...
21:19I follow you, follow Nicole, I follow Katie. And again, like I said in the last episode, I think I don't have any mini horses or horses. I don't intend to have any. So I don't live vicariously through you three amazing women who are doing the things because that means that I can enjoy it and I don't have to do it. Absolutely.  And I think like that's  kind of the point  of social media. Like that's how I view it. I feel like
21:48You know, a lot of my followers are people that might never even live on an acreage or might never get the chance to  own one or never want the chance,  you know,  and  they get to kind of enjoy these animals through me.  And I  can't think of a better thing. Like, I think that's amazing. Yeah, exactly. And it's almost, it's going sound really dumb, but I'm going say it anyway. It's like a virtual petting zoo.
22:16I don't get to pet your horses, but I get to see them and I get to like in my head I can sort of picture myself there with them. Yeah, absolutely. like  that's something I'm really trying to  get better at with my content is showing off each horse's  like individual personality because they all have their own personality. Some of them are very
22:42you know, chill and calm and you know, they never do anything bad. And then there's some that are total clowns all the time. And I'm really trying to capture their essence in the content, which is a learned skill, I'll say that. But I think that's what makes it so fun, is getting to know the personalities of these little creatures that, you know, they all have their own.
23:12Yeah, they are all good.  Yes,  I just love it. And I feel so weird sometimes. Like I feel like a stalker. Because  I didn't know about you until a good year and a half ago. And then I found your page and I was like, Oh, more mini horses. This is awesome. And then I got to sort of know you through your videos. And I was like, she's really sweet. And then I was like, Hmm, wonder if she talked to me on the podcast.
23:39And since we talked the first time, you're now a new friend to me. So I'm not always talking to you, I'm just keeping up with a good friend. I love that. I love that. It's just so cool to like, you know, have these friendships all over,  like all over the world, really. I mean, I would say most of my followers are in the US, but you know, to see people from Australia being like, you know,  I just, that's just, it's bananas. It's, it's a very surreal.
24:07kind of feeling, but it's super cool because knowing that somebody across the world is rooting for you is just, it's amazing. It's amazing and it's crazy at the same time because I'm an old lady, I'm 56. We didn't have this technology back when I was a kid. Right. Yeah. You know what? And I was born in 91. So I was right on that. I was on the line. I remember life.
24:37before technology, uh but I was like one of the first  to get it, right? Like I was in high school when the iPhone came out. um So  I kind of know both worlds and it's just  so crazy to think of how different my kid's childhood is versus what mine was. yeah, it's just wild. And you now my kid, my 10 year old is like, I want to be a YouTuber. And I'm like, I created this, didn't I?
25:06Uh huh.  Like how would I say no? Like I, it's a valid career. Yeah. And when I was growing up, my mom was one of those moms who was like, okay, you've had a good breakfast. You've had a big glass of orange juice. You've had a glass of water.  Get out of my house  and don't come back till the streetlights come on. And I'm saying that jokingly, but she might as well have said that because we spent all our time outside. Absolutely.
25:34No phones, no screens, no nothing. And I lived in a little tiny town in Maine  and the neighbors all kind of knew each other and they all kept an eye on the kids. they saw, the moms would make a note of who they saw go by if they saw them. if mom called and said, you seen Lynn? My nickname is Lynn.  Have you seen Lynn today? They would be like, yeah, like at one o'clock I saw her headed that way. And that way my mom sort of had an idea of where I was.
26:04It's so wild. think of the things that I did as a child. Like I was, I was an only child  and I would, you know, I was a little bit older than my kids are right now. I was like, you know, 13, 14, but I would get on my horse and ride like  miles away by myself with no phone, no nothing. And my mom was just fine.  It was like, I would, I would have a conniption if my children did that. oh
26:34Absolutely. When my kids were kids, they're now all grown. The youngest is 24 next month. The oldest is 36. Oh my God. We lived again in a small town. And so pretty much the same situation. The kids would head out the door and all the moms in the neighborhood would keep an eye on everybody. And we had a library not a block and a half away.
27:01If all else failed, I knew my daughter was probably at the library. Right. So it worked out fine. It's uh such a different time. Like now,  my oldest is at the point where I will send her into like a gas station by herself if she wants a drink uh or like a small grocery store if I need milk, trying to build that confidence of doing things on your own.
27:27You know, if she takes an extra two minutes, I'm like on my phone, I'm messaging her, I'm are you? Like, meanwhile, I was literally swimming in a river by myself. I feel like kids used to be feral cats and now they are pampered house cats. Absolutely. Yes. And there is something to be said for both. I, you know, I do not want to disparage the way my mom raised me and I certainly don't want to disparage the way that you're raising yours.
27:57And I sure as heck want to think that I raised mine right. So we're all doing the best we can with the information we have at the time we have it.  Um,  my, my horse was a bicycle cause I didn't have a horse. So I would ride my bike and the best freaking day of my childhood was when my parents said,  yes, you may ride your bike the two miles to the library and we're not going to worry about you. Wow.
28:27fast day of my life because I love to read. have loved to read since I was in first grade. Yeah, that's amazing. And I didn't have to wait for them to have time on Saturday morning to drive me to the library anymore. I could just go.  Right.  And two miles.  That's a decent distance for a little kid. Oh, I had legs like tree trunks. I was so strong. was like, I think I was five foot four when I was 12. Oh, wow.
28:54And I think I weighed about 80 pounds. And so I was tough. wasn't fat. I was solid. Yeah. And that's something I think that a lot of kids, mine included,  are lacking is  the physical activity of being outside and having to get from point A to point B.  you know, even me, I was horseback riding, but that is  not, you're not just sitting there.
29:20You know, it was something.  I'm really, I'm really pushing this year to get my kids into  more stuff that is going to build muscles because it's just  so easy to, to sit around on a device, you know? How many kids do you have,  Two, I have a 10 year old and a five year old. So they're a good age, but they're a terrible age at the same time. You know, the, the five year old wants to play with the 10 year old and the 10 year old doesn't always want to play with the five year old.
29:50But  the 10-year-old can help with the five-year-old, help her with some things and that sort of thing. there's pros and cons to the age gap, but  I like it. Yeah. And you have many horses. I know you must be feeding them and hauling hay and doing all that.  Do the kids help?  Absolutely. Absolutely. My oldest, as my youngest, is a little bit of a princess,  especially in the cold.  But this year,
30:18We got round bales and we bought a skid steer in September. So my winter chores are honestly so much easier than my summer chores because in the summertime I am individually feeding horses for show. I'm making sure their diets are ultra specific. And in the winter time I get to be like, here's a bale. And I go out.
30:46I make sure everybody's good, do that twice a day.  And that's about it. You know, we fill it, we have to fill the water every other day, but it's very streamlined in the winter because we made it that way. Cause I don't want to be outside at minus 30.  No, I don't blame you at all. It's no fun. No, it's terrible actually. Okay. So in the summertime they can, they can really kind of get into it. Yeah. And of course the kids are a lot more willing to, to help in the summertime,  um, with, you know, when we're feeding the square bales and we're
31:16We're being specific about it, but right now the horses are all just  eating and happy. Fat and sassy. That's exactly how I like it.  Good. So  I don't want to ask a rude question and if you're not comfortable answering it,  just say so.  How many, many horses do you have?
31:40It's so funny because this is a question that I get asked all the time and my typical answer  is, I don't know,  like a lot. And, know, I have 34, I  believe. Okay. Wow. This  is  where I, you know, I  know everybody's name, but I can never remember the exact number of the count because I go out there and I look for names. don't.
32:08look for, you know, names and faces.  I'm not doing a head count. I'm, you know, if I,  as long as I see everybody that I need to see, then, you know, I don't, I don't count so much. And I'm, it's hard to, with the foals, like three of my foals are sold, or sorry, not the foals, two of the foals, and then a yearling is sold. So do I count them?  It's like, you know, they're still on my property. They're not leaving for a couple of months.  Um, but
32:37Yeah, 34 is a rough estimate, maybe not including the three that are sold. See, the only thing I think of when you tell me all that is in the springtime when the cows have babies around here, they put the mamas and the babies out in the pastures to eat and babies nurse and it's very cute. baby cows out here are called grass puppies. And your mini horses aren't
33:06Well, they're a little smaller than a calf. probably about half the size of calf. And all I can think of is the equivalent of grass puppies at your house.  Yep. And it is the best thing ever. Like there's, there's really nothing better than watching the babies, you know, run around and play with each other  and  get lost in the grass when it gets nice and tall. And it's, it's the best. Okay.
33:34So um I had a question when you were answering my question and now it's gone because I do this all the time. um When did you get your first mini horse? So first mini horse goes back,  oh, I have to do the math on the years.  We're going into our third breeding season, so it would be four and a half years ago.  So  it skyrocketed very fast, but that's just
34:03who I am as a person. I do something, I do it 100%. Um,  and  it was at the time, my  30 year old Arabian horse that I grew up on, he was my childhood riding horse. I, he was that horse that I was riding down at the river by myself  and he always took good care of me. Um, he was starting to, he was not holding his weight. He was starting to have a really hard time moving around and
34:33we knew his time needed to be soon. So I made a deal with my husband and I said, I think a fair exchange when Flair passes is for me to get a miniature horse because I've always wanted one and I wanted it for the novelty of it just because I thought they were cute. And he said, that seems reasonable, way cheaper on food and you know, that seems good.
35:00And little did he know that I would become obsessed with them.  So did you just get one to start with? No, I bought one. And then my dad saw that one, which is Boomer.  And I actually just gelded him. So he was a stallion and he was a nice looking manager horse. And my dad saw him and he was like, oh, that's a nice little mini horse. And he said, you know what? I've always
35:27wanted to have a little miniature horse breeding program. And I was like, sign me up. Let's go. Immediately. Yes.  You're not going to have to ask me twice about that one.  And so my dad ended up buying a few mares  and, uh, you know, then we found a stallion that was
35:51a little bit nicer than Boomer and then,  you know, it just, it snowballed very quickly. And there, there's something about them where, you know, they don't really eat all that much and it just feels like it's totally fine to just buy another one. So what you're saying is that mini horse math is like chicken math. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Because they're addictive and they're so sweet  and you
36:21like yeah, they come in every single color, which a lot of horse breeds don't. um But minis come in every color. So there's a lot of collecting you can do.  Well, this must be why um Katie Vance like has the mini cows because I feel like it's almost the same thing.  Absolutely. Absolutely. I would love to get some of the mini cows. Absolutely love. But I don't have the space for them  yet.
36:48Yeah, we don't have the space for goats, let alone many horses, let alone many cows, let alone any four legged critter other than the dogs and the cat. Fair, fair. mean, and most people don't. I think that's, you know, I thought to myself when I, before I started social media, I was like, you know, to be able to live this life with these horses and get to experience them, it would almost be  rude.
37:17of me to not share them, right? Like it's almost a crime to not share them with everyone  because not everybody gets that. And I live a very privileged life and I'm very aware of it.  I- you are thankful for it. can hear it.  Exactly. Like I'm so grateful that that is, that this is what I get to do.  And  it would just be, it would be rude of me to not give other people  at least
37:46the opportunity to have a glimpse into it.  know, and to get, you know, if my horse brings a smile to someone's day, like that's the most beautiful thing in the world.  agree, because every morning when I see new  videos of you on your Facebook page,  I smile and it makes my day better. So thank you for doing that. That is amazing. That's like just, that just warms my heart. I have no words.
38:14It's so, it's so funny. I get up early. I go to bed early. I get up early because my husband snores and I've mentioned this in the podcast before and he does not care that I tell the story.  My husband snores. So I go to bed early so I can get at least four hours of solid sleep because otherwise I will not.  I average about four hours of solid sleep a night, which is driving me insane.  And so, and so I get up at like between three 30 and four in the morning because I just can't.
38:43stay in bed and listen to the snoring anymore.  And I get up and I get my coffee and I go on the porch and I drink about half my coffee and I just listen to the outside because outside is quiet.  And you know, I hear the breeze, I hear the barn cats meowing and I'm like, okay, that's better than snoring. Absolutely. And then I come in and I grab my phone and I open up Facebook and I start looking at Katie's page and Katie's friend, um, Becca Miller's page  and your page.
39:13And Nicole's page because it's all happy. Well, most of it's happy.  98 %  of what I'm looking at is happy and uplifting. And it's a really nice way to wake up.  So  you guys save my sanity every morning. If that makes you feel even better.  does. Like I, I, I feel just like my heart is full right now. Cause that's so amazing to hear. And  you know, it, it's.
39:41Sometimes I get caught up in responding to the negative people  and that's just a good reminder to  try and ignore them  and just post the happy stuff.  You can respond all you want because it gets you more clicks and viewers. That is true. But don't take it to heart because it's not... Other people's behavior has far more to do with them than it does to do with you. Absolutely.  Absolutely.
40:10Don't let it get you down. And there are times where you may have done something or said something and you may have to look at it and go, okay,  was that  actually out of line? Right. Because we all need to, we all need to like check ourselves here and there. Of course, of course. But for the most part,  everybody is going through things and you can't know what they are.  Exactly. Exactly. So true.  And I don't want to be all Pollyanna about it, but
40:39you can't let it, you cannot let it screw up your psyche because it's probably, it probably has nothing to do with you. Oh, absolutely. I, this is one situation where I think the ADHD plays  a very solid role in how I'm able to  kind of move past things because I genuinely just forget. uh I just,  you know, it'll bother me for
41:01five minutes and then something else will happen and then it's gone. It just leaves the brain because my brain can't handle any more  information to dwell on.  So I focus on the good  and the bad things kind of float in  and you know, I'll feel it and then it floats away again.  Yes, and I'm going to say something that will probably make you giggle beyond belief. My dad used to say, and he used the actual swear word, but I'm not going to.
41:30He would say, Mary Evelyn, opinions are like buttholes. Everyone has one. That is the truth.  100%.  Absolutely. And if you can imagine him saying the actual word that butthole is replacing  to a 12 year old who was very upset, who had been bullied at school, which was me. was sobbing. And then he said that to me and I was just on the floor laughing with tears streaming down my face.
42:00Oh, that's amazing. mean, sometimes you gotta say it straight because it's the truth. It really is. Yeah, and I just looked at him, threw my tears,  guffawing, took a big deep breath and said, you said a bad word and he just fell on the floor too laughing. uh Oh, that's funny. So, you know, every, they tell, the thing they tell people, they tell kids mostly, is don't be judgmental. The thing is,
42:28All human beings are judging beings because we have to look at a situation and make a decision every moment of our day. Absolutely. It's not about not being judgmental. It's about not imposing your viewpoint on other people.  Absolutely.  Absolutely. That  is a true life lesson. I  mean, it goes back to if you don't have anything nice to say, just don't say anything at all. You know, like learning
42:58when to keep an inside thought  inside. Yeah, the trick I used to pull is some, if one of my friends would say, what do you think of my dress? And if I didn't like it, I would say, it's a dress. Yep.  And my, my close friends were like, okay, I'm going to go change. Right, right. Cause they knew they knew that what that meant.  Yes. But I couldn't, I couldn't bring myself to
43:27give my honest opinion because I was like, you like it. Absolutely. And oftentimes  I,  I'll even ask, like if my daughter asked my opinion on something,  um, you know, like, cause she's very crafty  and  she'll say, do you like it? And I'll say, do you want  like, you know, if there's something that  could be better about it or whatever, I'll always say, do you. oh
43:54Do you want my mom answer or would you  like some input on how to make it better?  And sometimes she'll be like, I want the mom answer. I just want to know, do you like it? And I'm like, yeah, I love it.  You  couldn't make something that I didn't like. um But on the other times when she says, yeah, you know what, I'll take the  critique  and I'll say, this is what I really, really love about it. And here's what I think you could do to improve it.
44:23You know, I try and always word everything whenever you're delivering maybe something that isn't what they want to hear. Always, there's always good in everything  and delivering that alongside a way to make it better and being constructive about it.  Um, but I always give her the option. Do you want, do you want my, your, my mom answer, which is  absolutely, I love it every single time. Or do you want the critique and  it's her choice.
44:53Yep. And I'm going to wrap this psychology big net we're on with this. I always say to people when they start talking to me and they're like, what do you think? I say, are you venting or do you really want my opinion? Right. Absolutely. Because the last thing I want is to give someone a place to just vent their feelings and then step in and be like, oh, you could fix it like this. And they're like, I didn't need you to fix it. absolutely. Okay. So.
45:22Yeah, definitely respond to the people who say things  that are inflammatory because you benefit from that, but please don't take it to heart because you're awesome. Thank you. Canada does not celebrate Thanksgiving Day. Is it Boxing Day or is it Boxing Day after Christmas? can't remember.  Boxing Day is after Christmas, but  we do have Thanksgiving. It's just on a different day than the States. Like the US celebrates tomorrow, I believe, which is at the end of November.
45:52um And then Canada is usually the second weekend in October.  Oh, okay. And is it a harvest festival like  we have here? I mean,  kind of sort of.  I guess our harvest is probably just a lot sooner than yours because we go from Thanksgiving right into winter, whereas you guys are probably just starting to get the super cold weather now. um
46:18But yeah, I would say it's kind of like a harvest festival and wrapping up  the season of growing and that sort of thing. It's just, it happens sooner here.  Yeah. And it's not, it's not based off of the same lore that ours is based off of, because ours is based off of the pilgrims or the settlers  and the Native Americans coming together to break bread and eat food. Right. And I'm guessing yours is not based off of that.
46:47I do not think so. No,  I've heard of the the pilgrim stuff,  but I've never really heard it talked about  in a Canadian kind of fashion. So I mean, somebody could correct me if  I'm wrong,  but I don't think it has the same lore. It's just mostly about giving thanks.  Well, at our house, we  just get together to basically enjoy family and eat way too much food and be thankful for the year's gifts.
47:17That is exactly what we do. just, we  like put our belts down a hole  and,  and  fill up.  Yeah. Well, we are having the most unconventional Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow that anyone possibly could think of. My husband is going to make homemade pizza pockets because our kid is going to be at his girlfriend's house. Oh, that actually sounds delicious. We are on a pizza pocket kick right now. whole house is, we're just kind of like.
47:47We've been eating a lot of pizza pockets  and they're really expensive. So I would love to try and make one homemade. Well, he found, okay,  we are so far afield, but I don't care. My son who lives in Nebraska was introduced to something called a Runza,  R-U-N-Z-A. And it's like a meat sandwich pocket thing. And  I guess it started in Nebraska and he had been talking to his dad about it.  And my husband was like,
48:16We should try making those. So we made some beef, sausage,  onion, cabbages part of it too.  Pockets last weekend and they were pretty good. And I was like, you know,  I said, I feel like these would make excellent pizza pockets if we put pepperoni and cheese and onion. uh A little bit of pizza sauce in there. And he was like,  that sounds really good. So then I find out that my son is, my youngest son is going to his girlfriends for Thanksgiving and I was going to do a whole turkey dinner.
48:46Right. I'm not doing a whole turkey dinner for my husband and I that's craziness. Yeah, absolutely. And I said, you know, we have all the ingredients on hand to make homemade pizza pocket runs us whatever we want to call them.  I said, yeah, I just make those. And he was like, yeah. And the reason he makes them is he's the one that makes  the dough and it's a bread dough and I suck at making yeast bread. So he's dinner. He makes the dough.  That's amazing. So we're to do that. So as I'm talking to him about this, I said, by the way, I said,
49:16Do you feel like making  Christmas sugar cookies for Thanksgiving too? Because he makes the most fabulous sugar cookies. They are soft.  Oh, I love those. Yes.  And he was like, we didn't make any last year at all, did we? I said, no.  He said, will you make the buttercream frosting and slather on them? And I was like, yes.  He said, OK. Christmas cookies in the morning and pizza pockets for dinner. I was like, OK.
49:43The scene sounds like the worst ever food for us, but yes. I love it. I love it. But that's what it's all about, right? you know, that'll probably be like a solid memory, you know, in the future, right? Because it was different and it was a little bit off, like off the cuff, a little bit crazy, but it'll it'll stick with you.  Yeah. And Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only times that we really cook together.  I usually I usually make dinner before he gets home, so it's ready when he gets home. Right.
50:11So we love to cook together, we just don't have a lot of time to do it.  Fair enough, yeah, absolutely. When you get older, you gotta find new things to do together.  I fully understand that, I fully understand that because  we have a very big age gap in my relationship and my husband is very much in his  sit at home and watch TV and typically not even good TV, like politics.
50:40I  don't want to do that at all. trying to find  some common ground that we can  do  fun activities together,  it's a challenge. It's definitely a hard thing, but it's so important.  Well, if you want to stay together until you die, yes, it is. It's very, very important. Absolutely. Okay. So Becca, where can people find you?
51:09Oh, on Facebook, um my handle  is  at Becca Bia Moon um or just search Becca Hammond.  And  that should bring me up. That's for Facebook and Instagram. And then I'm at Moonridge Acres on TikTok and YouTube. And I really need to make all of those the same, but I just  haven't done that.
51:34When you're not completely busy with the horses, you will get it done. have faith in you. Absolutely. Okay. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com and I am lowering the price on my Patreon account because I priced it too high. So I'm going to be doing that today. And if anyone wants to check out my Patreon account, is patreon.com slash a tiny homestead.
52:02Becca, it was a joy to talk with you again. I adore you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I love our conversations. This has been fantastic. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm - Catching Up With Chelsie

Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm.
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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 uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm in  Montana, right? Yes, Billings, Montana. Yeah. I've talked to a couple of people in Alberta in the last few days and I keep thinking Alberta. I'm like, no, she's not in Canada. She's in the States.  Okay. How are you ma'am?
01:00I am doing wonderful this morning and yourself? I'm good. How's the weather where you are? It's it's a little chilly, but not  as bad as it could be. Okay.  It is definitely chilly here. We got sleet for the first time this season this morning  and it has all melted away already and the sun is peeking out. So it's, uh,  it's looking like it's going to be a pretty day, but it sure didn't look that way at three o'clock this morning when I got up, when I got up for no apparent reason.  It was.
01:28pouring rain here at 3 a.m.  Oh no, we haven't had a lot of moisture. I've  been pretty lucky on that. I do have my wool out, but it's like mainly for mornings and evenings and then you just don't want to get caught  out before the temps go back down.  yeah, it's been a beautiful extended fall here. It sounds like it has been there too, so that's good.
01:55Okay, so Chelsea was a guest on the show back in May and she was telling me all about her regenerative urban farm or urban regenerative farm. said it in the wrong order. So give me a quick update on who you are and what you do, Oh, well, I am someone that just took their health into their own hand and it led me here and now I like to grow lots of things and
02:24have chickens and I just added rabbits. eh And the attempts  of creating a decentralized intentional community that's focused around edible landscaping and self-sufficiency  and personal growth. Okay, I have a question about decentralized.  Is that the same thing as hyper local community?
02:54I have absolutely no idea. just said decentralized because we won't live together. Okay.  Cause with everything that's been going on in the States right now, I've talked to a couple of people on different aspects of the whole snap fiasco  and  what  we don't, we don't use snap, but I definitely was on wick when I had my first baby.  And, I think maybe way back.
03:22My first husband and I might have had to use food stamps and it wasn't a card then it was actual like paper vouchers.  But, but SNAP is really, really important, but more important than SNAP, think is  number one,  not finding yourself in a position where if SNAP goes away,  you're, there's a bad word, you're in trouble.  And that learning to cook helps with that  planning ahead.
03:51and trying to get things stored away in your pantry or your cabinet for an emergency is really important.  And  your local growers is really important because  farmers  in my experience really want to help. I can tell you right now, someone had pulled into my driveway  and said, do you have eggs? I'm on the SNAP program. I don't have any food. Can I just have some eggs? I would have given them eggs. Yeah. I mean, it's hard because for me, you know,
04:19grew up, was a welfare kid, you know, like I didn't have a great childhood. And, know, even when I raised my children, I had to utilize that even though I still worked full time, you know, I went to college full time, uh, online and when I was working full time and raising two kids by myself, and I definitely used food stamps, but I still had to go sit outside of food banks, you know, on the weekends and in some way forage.
04:48or  additional resources while raising two boys. So I get it. I get  using resources, but I also understand that being dependent on them makes you a slave.  Exactly. And you don't want to be a slave. And  let me just clarify, there is absolutely no shame  in  utilizing the resources that are available to you that taxpayer money pays for, especially if you're one of the taxpayers paying for it.
05:19But I also, you know,  as, someone who has lived lots of lives, one of them is, you know, I  have been part of the Mormon church and watching how they take care of their own  and just everything that I've ever seen. I've lived in low income housing where there was 31 units and we didn't even have an apartment manager for a long time. And we took care of each other. We had a little community garden. You just have to be more intentional and connected.
05:49You know, people are very disconnected with where their food comes from.  They're disconnected that they can forage food or grow food. And they're disconnected from each other too. Yeah. I mean, everything. We just need to be more empowered and think about what we can do instead of all the things we can't. Right. Exactly.  Okay. So you and I talked back in May  and what's  new? Is anything new? I know you had a...
06:16uh, community gathering kind of event last night. Yeah, I went to, um, Morgan with Ruby Grazer had a homesteader meet up yesterday during the day.  Um,  I have my first intentional community meet up this Thursday coming up. Yeah.  Uh, I've been on a few more podcasts about various things  and
06:43given a couple more interviews. I've added rabbits, meat rabbits to the farm recently. ah Yeah, I mean, but everything's kind of calming down right now for the season and focusing more on community and building that at this point since it gets cold here and there's not a lot of growing until I get my greenhouse up and going. Yes, and you had mentioned on the last episode, last episode we did.
07:11that you were going to turn your swimming pool into a greenhouse and that has not happened yet?  We have utilized the last season of it and it's completely empty and so we'll begin the conversion  once it's kind of safe weather wise to do so. We don't want to be  caught in the middle of that and then have a whole bunch of water pool up on us because we're in winter. Yeah, no, that would be really bad. Let's not have that happen. um
07:39Do you have any idea how long it will take to convert it?
07:44Um, that's the thing. Like it, for me, honestly, depends on how fast the parts I have to rely on other people go. Okay. If it's me,  my neurodivergence just hyper fixates and gets it done. Like my front food forest or food meadow I did in a day  once I had a blank canvas.
08:12Yeah. And it's so funny because many hands make light work, but many hands also make many distractions. Well, yeah. I just, you know, if there's like welding, I don't have that as something I'm proficient in at this point in time in my life. You know,  so there's, if I have to rely on someone else's schedule, there is a little different latency than I deal with than if I were doing it myself. Definitely. Yeah. I understand. um
08:42When my husband and my son built our greenhouse, they spent,  oh, every weekend for, I think, five weekends building it. it's, think it's 25 by 15 or something like that.  I thought it was 40 by 20, but I was informed that it's smaller than that. And I was like, oh,  I was wrong.  But  they got it done over the course of a month. And had we had more people, I still think it would have taken a month because there would have been a lot of chatting and
09:09probably would have been beer and pizza involved and it just probably would have taken the same amount of time. think the thing that's going to take me the longest is because the swimming pool, I'm on like a  shotgun property, so it's long and narrow  and the pool is at the back of my property and there's no alley. It's going to be  actually will bearing all the soil back there myself.  Oh,  you're gonna, you're gonna be even more fit than you already are by the time you're done with it.
09:40I mean, that's part of the cool thing about like farming or homesteading is you don't need a gym membership no more.  So how was the homestead meeting with Morgan yesterday? I'm so curious because I saw that on Facebook and I just interviewed Morgan the other day. So how did that go?  It was good. It was small. There was  like her and I and our husbands and then one other person that showed up.
10:09Everything kind of trickles in. So it was nice to just kind of talk about things. It'll grow. I bet you it will grow. I bet not the next meeting, but I bet a month from now you'll probably have like five extra people. Well, home studying is kind of a trend right now. So like every type of convention or fair I go to, it's either back to traditional skills or it's like plastic 3D printed stuff, know, like
10:39There's no, it's either or. And so I think it will definitely catch on as people wake up to needing to have their own sustenance. Yes. Somebody else I talked to last week called it personal sovereignty. Yes. And I loved that because I love the word sovereignty. I have always been entertained by that word.
11:07Mostly because people think of um you know, medieval England and the sovereign king and blah, blah. But  it's not that sovereignty is having your own choices and your own skills and being able to rely on yourself first.  I just, I love that word so much. Man, that's what makes me hecka thankful for  all my trauma because
11:32You know, I've had to be that way since childhood. um But the problem with that also is that it requires that people use their agency.
11:44And people prefer for someone else to be the villain or responsible. I don't. I don't love that. I am. uh I'm a minor control freak, so I really do like relying on myself because if I want to get it done, it's got to be me. Well, yes.  And there is the reason why you're also a homesteader.  What? There's a reason why? What? That you're also a homesteader.  Yes, exactly.
12:13Exactly. So tell me about the rabbits. Rabbits are a new adventure for you? They very much are. We just added them last week. had said to my husband, because ultimately the goal for me is to close  everything on my property and show people that that can be done in the city. um So we have animals that do require meat, even if I don't eat them myself. Yeah. But we could use the textile, the fur.
12:42Um,  so we did, we added a boy and three girls.  And last week,  and that is what I told my husband we should do for each other for Christmas. It was to add our meat.  Sweet. That's perfect. Yeah. So are the, any of the dough is pregnant or are you going to be breeding them? No, we're going to Jamaica next month. Um, this has been planned since last Christmas with his family.
13:09So we're going to breed them right before we leave. That way there's no chances of anyone house-sitting the farm and having to deal with that. Yep. I think it's two months. Two months from breeding date to birth, I think. I think it's 31 days actually. Oh, is it? Yeah. That's why there's such a great livestock, especially for small properties, because it's quick.
13:37Oh my God, you're right. I'm sorry. I was thinking cats, not rabbits. Um,  we've, had meat rabbits for a little while and you're right. It's like 30 days, 31 days. Yeah. Cats are two months. Cause we've had, we've had a barn cat that's had kittens three times and it took two months.  Yeah. At our other house, my husband liked to leave the basement door open and we had two stray litters in there that we ended up taking in and then giving out.  Yup.
14:06We're actually getting three kittens this weekend from friends because we have two barn cats now that's it  and We have no female barn cats and  all of her kittens seem to be female But we need barn kittens because we need them to keep the mice down in the pole barn So if you see a photo of kittens on my Facebook page Monday, you'll know why  Okay, so the only thing that I would say about the bunnies because we've done it before
14:36is you have a place for them to be warm because the cold is really hard on them and hot is really hard on them. So right now they're in the main house. have a bedroom in there that has like tile floor and that we've done up for them because they and the chickens will eventually live in the greenhouse.  Yeah.
14:59Okay. greenhouse is going to be really, really cool because I'm not just like doing greenhouse. It's going to be just like an underground food forest that you can walk through and hang out in. And I want to do like a rocket stove type of situation to help heat and do some like radiant heating in the soil.
15:21So there's a lot of different plans in there. Nice.  I can't wait. I can't wait to read about this when you post about it, because I'm assuming you'll post about it.  Oh, absolutely. There's going be hangouts. mean,  in the winter time, we just enclosed our covered area too, so we can hang out there. But like, if I'm going to be hosting a lot of community events here to have all these outdoor spaces when it's cold six months of the year, it's going to be fantastic.
15:50And it's really great to have a hands-on experience too for the next generation to be in touch with their food. So to have like the chickens and the rabbits running around and then the kids just being able to hang out with them is going to be awesome.  Yes. And please, please, please do that. I just had a conversation with someone  not on the podcast the other day about the fact that the people.
16:16The younger generations, it seems so weird to say that. I just turned 56 on November 4th and I can't say we anymore because I'm older than most people I talk to now. The younger generations are not teaching their kids these skills. They're not teaching them animal husbandry. They're not teaching them how to grow plants. They're not teaching them how to cook. And it can die out in a generation and that is not a good thing.
16:44and coming from the concrete jungle, not having, I didn't even know that vegetables didn't come from a can until I was almost an adult. That's the kind of childhood I had. didn't, yeah. So I'm very, very determined that those skills don't go away. I've had to learn them, but I burned down those gates as soon as I go through them. Good, keep doing that.
17:13because we need you, we need people like you.  And we need people like my mom who  very much wanted to teach me to cook when I was a teenager. And  I really didn't want to learn to cook. I wanted to go babysit and make money. I wanted to go hang with my friends.  I wanted to go to my job because I had a job too.  And uh I ended up learning almost by osmosis by watching my mom cook because
17:38she would have loved for me to be right there in the kitchen with her working side by side. And I was like, nah, I got stuff to do. And that's not good. And I actually love to cook now. And I think it's partially from my mom. So yeah, if you're a mom listening and you have kids,  get them in the kitchen with you. Learn to cook with them if you don't really cook. Even if it seems like it's  inconvenience, because you're going to have to do more work.
18:05Yeah, but make it a game, make it fun. Yeah. Yeah.  I totally agree.  I learned because I had to experiment  and, you know, I grew up mainly on, you know, everything that was leading to the anaphylaxis that I was  living in  because
18:28know, poor people foods mainly have tomatoes and ground beef in them and whatever version, whether it's spaghetti or tacos or hamburger helper  or sloppy joes or whatever it is. And those are the things that I,  I actually need to avoid because the histamine intolerance that I have. So.
18:51Definitely getting that connection to our food is so, important. It's because I get just seeing all these people be like, why can't you just go to the store and get it? It is just so sad. Well, you can always tell them the truth or you can just be a snot and say, because I don't want to. Yeah. Unfortunately, my brand of petty is always being the better person. Uh-huh. I understand. I do.
19:21But you can only explain it so many times and then they ask you for like the 12th time and you're like,  because I don't want to. And I've done that before and people look at me like I'm crazy. But that's why for me, relationships that I have at this point have one pre-correquisite and that's that the other person has a growth mindset because I can't disturb my peace with people who refuse to grow. I'm growing too fast.
19:48Yeah, that's why I don't have a whole lot of people around me ever because the ones that stay are the ones that are good. Yeah, I don't believe any good or bad. I just think there's lots of different perspectives. We're all on different journeys and some of us prefer comfort over growth. growth requires discomfort and we're sold comfort and convenience as the American dream. You know, like...
20:17Yeah, and I meant good, like good for my peace of mind and not having to... Oh, got you. Okay, sorry. Not having to make myself crazy to make other people There's some autism literalism coming in right there.  I do it too, honey. I do all the time. And my husband has ADD, so trying to have him, you know, have a conversation with me  is really interesting sometimes because he's all over the place and I just need a straight line sentence. And I'm like, back up.
20:46five sentences. I,  you lost me. And he's like, I don't remember five sentences ago. And I'm like, okay, start from here. What are you trying to tell me? And we get it figured out, but it's really, I would hate to record a hour long conversation between us and play it. Cause you would be like, what in the world were you guys trying to get at? Well, being that I have like body HD, I might actually get it. Cause the conversations that happen in my head oftentimes, I don't think most people would want to be privy to.
21:16Yeah, it's so hard sometimes and  you know how it is with people you love you want to listen you want to understand and  there are days where I'm just like I don't I don't get it  I honestly do not understand what you're trying to tell me and he says okay hang on let me  let me get my thoughts together let me get them in order and then I will say it again I'm like okay and like ten minutes later he'll come back and be like
21:43This was what I was trying to say and he will tell me in a straight line and I'm like, oh, I get it now. Thank you. So there's a lot of patience and love involved in our relationship. Well, that's good because I mean, that's the relationship is to have that yin yang where you balance each other out, you know?  Yeah, exactly. And we sure do. It may take a few bumps and stumbles, but we do. We eventually get to the same place.  And you both have grown at that point in time.
22:13because now you have another view of or perspective because you had to kind of like muddle through it a little bit to see it all the way.  Yeah. Yeah. It's that never leaves. Yes. And the other thing that's funny is sometimes when, when this, this miscommunication happens,  new ideas pop in to getting his thoughts together and he'll tell me the thing. He'll tell me the thing you want to tell me. And he'll be like,
22:41As I was thinking this through, I had this other thing pop in and I'm like, uh-huh.  And he tells me that and that's clear because he's gotten his thoughts in order. And co-regulation and verbally processing,  those things are beautiful love languages.  Uh-huh. And it's so funny because the first time he said it this way to me, probably 15 years ago, the whole, got  another thing popped in  and he told me.
23:10what he wanted to say and then the new idea and it was all in a straight line, made sense, all words in the right order, blah, blah.  I put my hand over my mouth and I couldn't look at him and he was like, are you upset? And I was like, I put my finger up, like, just give me a second. And I took a big deep breath and I looked at him. I said, I was trying not to laugh because I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing in amusement  and appreciation of the person that you are.
23:37And he said, go ahead and laugh. said, I get what you're doing. And I was like, okay, I just giggled, just giggled for five minutes straight. And he was laughing with me at the same time because it was very funny how that all went. And now I expect it, but either way getting way, way far afield again, because psychology makes me just, I love psychology and how people's thoughts and brains work.  I mean, really it's all connected. It is. Let's be honest. Everything's connected.
24:07And  the other thing I wanted to say is that  one of the ways you can really get kids interested in all the things we want them to be interested in, food, growing your own food, animal husbandry, all of that, is remembering that we are nature. Humans are part of nature. And taking them out for hikes and stuff in the woods and showing them edible plants and  where the animal tracks  are and the deer trails are.
24:35that will spark them into asking questions. Absolutely. I mean, I don't know how to go out in the woods personally. oh You know,  that's not anything that I was ever really taught. I know how to go camping and I know how to like throw a hammer,  but like hunting and  tracking and all of that, I've never had the opportunity or anyone to show me how to do any of those things. So  this is why I literally have to grow a forest around me.
25:03so that I can know my plant allies from seed to fruit and through their death and rebirth cycles.  And  that's how I have to learn  is through experience and teaching myself and just relying on my brothers and sisters that aren't human. Well, if you ever come to Minnesota, darling, we will go on a nature walk. We will go on a nature hike and I will show you some things that you know.
25:31That would be wonderful because I have lots and lots of books. But I mean, there's still a little bit of like,  what if, you know, when it's when it's a book  and so that's why I like I have to plant things that look like  so that I can know the differences.  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we used to take our kids when they were little, we used to take them hiking. We were really blessed to live in an area where there's hiking trails and.
26:00The kids loved it and we came across a patch of wild asparagus. And  there is technically no such thing as wild asparagus. mean, I'm sure that there originally was, but now it's more like asparagus seeds have gotten dropped by birds in the ditches.  And we came across a patch and I was like, oh my God, asparagus. Cause I love it. I love asparagus. And my youngest was like, can be asparagus.
26:25Why is asparagus growing in the woods? And I said, because some bird probably ate the seeds and then pooped them out  and they grew. He's like gross. And I said, yes, yes, it's a gross process, but it's very important because that's how things grow. And we had a whole talk about this and he's looking at the asparagus and he's like, well, it tastes like the asparagus from the store. And I said, no, it'll be better. And he said, can I break off a piece and try it? And I was like, of course you can. Cause I knew it had just rained. I knew that it was probably fine.
26:54So he broke off a little piece and bit into it and chewed it and the look on his face was priceless. He's like it is sweet like candy and I said, of course it is because it's been grown in nature. ah He ate the rest of it. He said, can we come back in a week or so and pick some more? I was like, of course we can and we did and he ate it and most kids don't like asparagus.
27:18So that's my favorite memory from a hike where I actually got to teach my kid about plants and about nature.
27:27That is very, very cool. My very first step into any of this was like essential oils through someone that was still on doTERRA, you  know? ah To learn anything about holistic wellness at all. My children like to call them my witch's oils, because I literally like Lavender Balm any of their sleepovers. um But  now they will. They'll call me like, Mom, I'm dealing with this.
27:56What would you do for this? Like,  it is cool. It is very cool. And we can show them some things specifically for me that I wasn't,  I did not have an example of growing up, you know? Yeah, I do know. And it's, I was really lucky, Chelsea. My parents are big nature nerds. mean, they hunt, they fish, they  grow, they grew a garden every year. They still do. And my mom's 80 and my dad's 83.
28:27They had us involved in everything, whether we wanted to be or not.  least favorite. tried with mine. I really did to like,  I had the requirements of a language and an instrument at least in school. Yeah, my least favorite memory is my mom and dad had permission to go out and pick the blueberry field out behind the neighbor's house.
28:53It would have been six acres of blueberries. Oh my goodness.  Yeah. And, um, number one, it wasn't my favorite thing to do because anyone who's picked blueberries knows that it is a, an utter pain in the butt because they're little tiny berries. And I'm not looking forward to picking my honey berries. I understand. Yeah. And the plants that they grow on, they're pokey. They're like a woody stem. So you're reaching into these plants to pick blueberries and you're scraping your hands on the stems.
29:22And that wasn't even the worst of it. I didn't like picking blueberries to begin with. But my sister reached into a yellow jacket nest when we were picking blueberries. I think she was probably 10 or 11 and I'm a year and a half older than her. And I didn't know what happened. All I know is I had never heard my sister howl in pain. And she jumped up and was running away and the yellow jackets were
29:51chasing her. They're flying after her and she kept getting stung. She must have gotten stung at least 60 times. And luckily she wasn't allergic, but she was definitely swollen up and she was very much in pain. And  I loved my sister and hearing that sound come out of her,  I still hear it in my nightmares sometimes. So again, my parents tried to have us with them.
30:17doing whatever they were doing, but that one really sticks out to me because that was really hard. Not that there's always yellow jacket nests and blueberry fields, but sometimes there are and you need to pay attention.  So we had a wasp nest on the water slide this last season. So one of the last bigger events we had a kid actually got stung twice because we didn't see that it was  on there as they were going down the water slide.
30:44Very quickly ran out into the yard and got some yarrow and made a poultice and put it on there and it just removed everything so Yeah,  isn't it amazing how nature has a solution for everything? It is and then the little boy was following me around asking me about the plants which was that was cool  See there's a there's a silver lining in everything. I swear. Yeah  Unreal I love it. That's amazing
31:14You are, again, I told Morgan this the other day that I'm proud of her. And I'm going to tell you I'm proud of you and that I'm so impressed with what you're doing. Thank you very much. Thank you for connecting people together.  I'm trying everything I can to do that. And it's really super fun. So there's a payoff for me too.  All  right, Chelsea, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're there. Where can people find you?
31:41Uh, right now I'm still on Facebook, but I have probably intentions of removing myself from Facebook and everything again once I get  this up and going. like, if people do want to get connected, they should do that. Otherwise it's going to just be like snail mail or telephone.  Okay. How is that going to work? I don't have any desires to be
32:10famous or anything. just have desires to create and cultivate a peaceful place for people to come and be a part of  and have rest and recovery if they'd like.  I don't care about any way of this world and how it operates. I'm just creating my own. Okay. So basically right now people can find you on Facebook, but if they want to keep track of what's going on at your place, they need to get hold of you.
32:40through your phone or they need to get an email. I haven't a rosewood urban regenerative farms at gmail.com is an email if people want to get in touch. Okay, cool. Because I'm like, you're doing really cool stuff, people are going to want to know and want to be involved, but they're not going to be able to find out about it. At some point, I'm going to need someone who wants to deal with the outside world. It's just, you know,
33:06want to be surrounded by the problems. I had to crawl out of the problems as a child, you know,  and I finally have peace and safety and I just, I can cultivate that for others. I just don't want to deal with a lot of the other problems anymore.  I don't blame you at all. And you know what? You have to do what's right for you. So you do that.  You stay true to yourself because it's the best way to live.
33:33All right, as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  And if you'd like to support the podcast, you can go to atinyhomestead.com slash support. um Chelsea, thank you for coming back. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Have a great day.
 

Lala and Justin’s Homestead

Today I'm talking with Amanda at Lala and Justin’s Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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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.  The tiny homestead is sponsored by uh cottagefoodiecon.com. Today I'm talking with Amanda at Lala and Justin's Homestead in Vermont.  Good morning,  Amanda, how are you? Good, how are you Mary?  I'm good, how's the weather in Vermont this morning? Chilly, we got our first freeze.
00:56Um, well, our first day that the bowls in the barn, the ice bowls were all frozen. So that was a fun morning, topping out dishes, but it's to be expected. It's Vermont. So as my dad says, it's all part of it. Yep. Yep. It's, uh, it's very gray here in Minnesota this morning. It's chilly  and there's almost no breeze at all. It's very quiet outside, which is weird. We usually have some kind of wind blowing.
01:24Okay, so  I want to know why it's called Lala and Justin's Homestead first. Well, Lala um was a nickname given to me by my stepdad.  And  when I got into rabbits,  he helped me a lot with like building nest boxes and building cage areas and different things that I needed help building. And he always called me Lala. So
01:52When I started the rabbitry back up, um as an adult, I decided to honor him and call it Lola's Lovely Lops.  And Justin's my partner, so he gets to tag along.  Well, yeah, and he probably helps, which is really nice. um Is your stepfather still with us?  No, he passed away five,  he's been five years since he's been gone. Okay.  Well, what a great way to honor his memory. That's, that's fabulous.
02:20Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you guys do. Um, sorry. Um, so I'm- Did I make you cry? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
02:37It's just... I just miss him. That's all. Yeah,  yeah, it's so hard. It's hard around the holidays.  Oh, for sure, yeah. And the way that I deal with people who have passed... The way I deal with it is I try to remember the really fun stuff that made me laugh and then it makes me laugh and it kind of counteracts the crying a little bit.  Yeah, he was hilarious. So there's a lot to laugh about.
03:05Yeah, and you're carrying on his memory by doing something you love to do.  So that's a beautiful thing. And how much do you love raising rabbits? I mean, come on. I've been raising them since I was 10. I absolutely adore them. Yeah. one of my favorite animals in the whole entire world, other than my dogs. Okay. So are you okay? Yeah, I've got it back.  Okay, good. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do.
03:35So we are a family of four.  We have a point four or five acre property and we raise the rabbits  garden. We do a lot of foraging.  like, I'm very into mycology and mushrooms. um So we've been taking on teaching ourselves different types of edible mushrooms for the past,  I'd say 12 years or so we've been learning about mushrooms.
04:05And I'd eventually like to get into herbs and learning about that. But I would like to find a mentor before I step into that because there's just so much to learn. But yeah, we're a small family and we raise the rabbit meat. I do a lot of bartering with people for rabbit. And I get most of my beef and chicken from other people that raise so that.
04:30That's a good trade. It's a good barter system we have going in our community. And we started that back in 2020 with the bartering because of the shortages and stuff. So I just got deeper into the rabbits at that time.  And I have way more than I intended  now.  So rabbit math is not much different from chicken math. take it. Oh, I think it's a little worse. Okay.
04:56But it's enjoyable, so it's okay. don't have anything bred right now. I have one that's due today. And, she was due yesterday and she hasn't had her litter yet. But other than that, I don't have anything bred because I haven't decided if I want to have babies in the cold, cold months yet. But I have a few that I was thinking of breeding this week so that I could have them born during my Christmas break from work. So. Yeah. And it's addictive. Those baby bunnies are so cute.
05:25Oh, they're adorable. Yeah, I don't, I'm not, I am not an expert. We tried raising meat rabbits for about a year.  We had one litter after trying to breed rabbits for the whole year. got one litter out of the deal  and had to bring them, had to bring the mama and the babies in the house because they're born on the hottest day of and oh there was no way to keep them cool out in their hutch. And my husband was like, we should let nature take its course. And I was like,
05:54No, because this is not nature.  She is not living the way she would live if she was in nature. If was in nature,  she would be burrowing into the ground to stay cool with her babies. I said, I am not letting those babies die. And so we literally put her in a clear bin with her nesting box with the babies. And I had little baby bunnies in my house for about three weeks. Oh my goodness.  No, it was so fun.
06:24It was no, it wasn't bad. just we had pine shavings that we had in a bag and we would just empty the  bin out every morning  and put them for our shavings in and it was it was very educational but it was far more entertaining than anything else. Yeah. But they are they are the most adorable babies and  about the only time you can hold a rabbit really safely is when they're the size of your palm.
06:56I know if I agree with that, but. Oh, I I got kicked really hard when I was about, oh, probably 15 from my pet rabbit. had a pet rabbit when I was 14, 15 and, uh, claw punctured the skin at the top of my breast. I still have the scar from that puncture. I have a scar in that area too from a rabbit I had as a child that bit me and. Yeah.
07:24And I mean, if you hold the babies from when they're just  little and they become something that you hold every day, they trust you and they're fine. But I didn't get that rabbit until it was probably four months old. So it hadn't really been handled a lot. So it did not love to be held. And of course I wanted to hold the bunny.  I didn't hold that bunny as often after that happened. Yeah, they get kind of feisty if you don't really hold them too much, if you don't give them too much attention, but if you socialize on them and
07:52play with them, they're usually pretty easy and chill. Yeah, exactly. They don't fight me too hard, but I think I just have a bunny way about me. I don't know, I  can handle almost any rabbit, even the wild ones.  You're a bunny whisperer. Yeah,  I've doing it a while. I I've had rabbits for 28 years, I've  had them for a long time. You have a lot of experience. Yep.
08:21Okay, so since you've been doing this for a long time,  can you walk me through so that anybody who wants to get into rabbits could think really think about it more how you get started because  it seems like it's easy, but having done it, it's not as easy as one would think. Yeah, they don't really breed like rabbits when you want them to. They do not. oh Well, if I was to get started, I think I would research.
08:49the breed that I want. There are so many breeds to choose from. And I would  look at the American Rabbit Breeder Association standard of perfection and find someone that knows a little bit about what they're talking about. Because  rabbits bred to the standard,  the meat breeds are bred to produce more meat. So if you get something that's closer to the standard of perfection, you're going to have more meat production.
09:17and better meat production because they're going to be bred to the right standard. oh I would start by finding a breeder that knows what they're talking about,  that has a little bit of experience at least. I mean, there are new breeders that have done the research, so I can't say just experienced breeders, but for the most part, find someone that might want to mentor you. So if you have questions,  you can refer back to them and
09:47I mean, as a breeder, if someone buys from me, when they message me, I answer their questions. That's part of it is they get mentorship out of purchasing my rabbits. um
10:00But I would research that and then research  the type of environment that you want for your rabbits  based on your space.  So I don't have very much space because I'm a small property  and I do stacker cages, which work for me in my space.  But with that, you've got to clean more often because if you don't, you can get pneumonia buildup and end up with sick rabbits. So your space,  some people want like a full barn with
10:28just hanging cages, which is nice because then you can shovel out the poop and you don't have to clean pans.  And you don't have to clean as often because  the droppings fall to the bottom and they're not ever going to be in their waste. you'd want to do, some people want to do colony style.  That doesn't work for my area. um I also don't like, I personally don't want my rabbits  on the ground picking up parasites and
10:58being exposed to disease.  So for me, cages work best to keep them clean and healthy. Let's see. What else? have, I have a specific question. If someone was going to get into raising rabbits  and they were in it for the cuteness effect to begin with, because a lot of people love baby bunnies.  If you were going to get like,  I don't know, eight week old baby bunnies, is there a whole different
11:27way of taking care of them until they're old enough to breed? um So my rabbits,  my rabbits are on hay and pellets. um The younger ones don't get treats, snacks and stuff because that can give them diarrhea.  So for the younger ones, I wouldn't expose them to like vegetated  stuff. I would wait until they're a little bit older to start introducing that to them.
11:53Okay. Just so that their stomach doesn't get messed up because they have sensitive digestion.  But if they were into the  cuteness factor, they might want to consider what they actually want to breed for. Do they want to breed for pet? Do they want to breed for meat? There's dwarf rabbits that are primarily pet or show. And  is that the direction they want to go? But if they go that direction,  they might want to research. um
12:21issues with dwarfs and know a little bit about like rabbit hips because some rabbits will get stuck if their if their hips are narrow when they when they go to birth. um So that's something I would look into um getting a properly  shaped rabbit obviously that's able to birth those kids.  and a narrow pelvic floor is no good for any female animal ever. No,  no.
12:49And that's when you end up, can lose your female, lose your babies. Dwarfs are more prone to producing peanuts, which is a double genetic dwarf  and it's not viable.  So you might have to call those babies because sometimes they'll survive about 10 days or so,  but they don't grow.  why do they call those babies peanuts?  I've seen it before. Why is it peanuts? I don't know why they're peanuts, but they're super tiny.
13:19Um, that could be part of the reasoning because the I've had, I've had letters where the mother had a peanut and a regular kit and the penis just don't grow. They stay like birth size.  They get fur and then they slowly like wither away and die. If you leave them in the nest,  um, they have pinched pointy ears that are like closer to their head versus a non-peanut that has a little bit bigger ear. So you can kind of figure them out when they're born.
13:48They're usually like half the size of the rest of the litter. So it's like failure to thrive? Yeah. Yeah, they can't survive. They're not, they're not viable. Okay. I always wondered about that. Thank you. Cause I read about it when we were looking into getting meat rabbits and I was like, why do they call it a peanut? And I couldn't find any information about it. Well, if you're getting into meat rabbits, your meat rabbits shouldn't produce any peanuts. Um, I was just reading up on baby rabbits in general, and it mentioned peanuts.
14:18And I  think probably the reason that people pick the word peanut for it is because they look like a peanut. They're so tiny. They're just little tiny things. Yup. And you know you're going to lose them. It's just pretty sad. This raising animals thing is like the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I kid you not. It's so  good and so bad at the same time. Yeah. There's days that I think about getting rid of all of them because it's just been hard.
14:48Then I'm like, oh, look how cute they are.  I can't do that. I love them. Yeah. And honestly, meat from rabbits is really  nutritionally dense, I think. I think it's really good for you. It's the highest protein of any meat you can get  and the lowest amount of fat.  And it's absolutely delicious. It's very similar to chicken. Yes. And actually, I was thinking about this earlier, knowing I was going to talk to you.
15:18I have an opinion question for you. you think that if you are trying to get someone to try rabbit that you should say, I made rabbit as a dish for dinner. Would you like to try it so that they know what they're eating? do you think that you should let them think it's chicken and then wait a few days and let them know that they ate rabbit? Wow.
15:44The first time I went to Bible study at my new church, I brought buffalo body dip and I made it into, it looked like chicken, know, buffalo chicken dip. And I didn't tell anybody, I just let them enjoy it, you know? And then later someone asked me, oh, is that chicken or was that pork? That was really good. And I said, actually it's rabbit. And they're like, oh.
16:08And were they like, ew? Or were they like surprised and considering they were like, more curious. So I mean, I've tried to bring,  I try to bring a rabbit dish every Bible study. It's once a month.  And I try to bring it with me every time I go so that they can try something different because I feel that, um, like a lot of people have prejudgment around rabbit and eating cute little animals, but aren't they all cute?  Like aren't the cows cute? Aren't the chickens cute?  Um.
16:36So I think if  it's cooked up and made into something that's edible looking and smells good, people are more prone to try it. eh And when I have birthday parties for my kids, I'll make some kind of rabbit dish. So if someone's there that hasn't tried it, they get an opportunity. em I pulled rabbit for summer barbecues. People seem to love that. And I've had a lot of people that said they never try rabbit. Look at it.
17:02and be like, actually, I'll try a little bit of that. That looks pretty good. Yeah, and part of the reason people don't have exposure to eating rabbit is because grocery stores don't really sell rabbit. No, only like the Asian markets like carry it. There's a couple of specialty food stores, the health food store around us used to carry it, but I don't think they've found another farmer to supply it to them.
17:28Yeah, just yeah. So they don't I don't think they carry it anymore because the lady that was selling to them got out of it and I haven't bothered to see if they were interested in mine or I don't know. I don't think I make I  grow enough to  supply any stores, but I do grow enough to supply myself and my community with barter. OK, so the reason I asked you about that that question is.
17:56When I was a young  lady, like not quite 18 and not 12, um I babysat for a guy who raised rabbits  and his kids ate rabbit all the time.  And I didn't realize that he thought that I would be grossed out at eating rabbit.  And so he was like, I fried up some chicken, it's in the fridge. You can have some if you would like it, but that's the kid's dinner. And I'm like, okay, cool.
18:25And so I grabbed a chicken wing or chicken leg or something. remember what it was.  And I had a piece of chicken with the kid.  And he informed me like a week later that it was rabbit. And you couldn't tell the difference, could you? No, I had no idea. But I was really perplexed. I was like, why didn't you just tell me it was rabbit? Because some people have that mental block. I mean, my niece,  when she comes over, I make
18:55chicken nuggets, but they're not really chicken nuggets. um And she's always said, Oh, Auntie makes the best chicken nuggets.  And she was over a few weeks ago, talking about how I'm cruel for killing little baby bunnies. And I'm like, you don't seem to mind my little baby bunnies when you're eating chicken nuggets.  Oh, that just clicked for her that she's been eating rabbit for four years. And what was her? What was her? uh
19:25reaction to it clicking. mean, she's  10 and I got the big eyeballs.  but yeah, she's still going to eat it. think when I make it again and think it's chicken. I  don't think it'll ruin that.  Okay, good. Well, the answer that I got when, when I said, didn't you just tell me it was rabbit was that he had had people, he had told people that he raised rabbits.
19:50And he would have people over for dinner and they're like, is it rabbit or is it chicken? And he would say it's rabbit and they would say, no, thank you. And he learned that asking for forgiveness was better than asking for permission to get them to try it. I said, how's that been going for you? And he said, well, he said, I've only had a couple of people get greener on the gills when I tell them they ate rabbit. And I said, is that why you wait a week? So they don't end up. um
20:20up checking dinner. And he said, yeah. And I said, okay. I said, I understand your reasoning. said, I'm kind of offended that you tricked me.  He says, okay, I can accept that. He said, did you like it? And I was like, yeah, it tastes just like chicken. He's like, it does. He said, it might as well be chicken, but it's not. So that was why I asked you because people are like, oh my God, rabbit. And I'm like, it  literally tastes like chicken. It does. I mean, I've been labeling my crock pot lately when I go to places and
20:49It's funny when people read it and I can  see the faces. And I went to a  baby shower this fall and I brought a, my friend wanted Buffalo bunny dip. So that's what I brought. And there were some kids there about my son's age, about 13, 14. And you could tell they were daring each other to try it.  And then one finally did. And like the look on his face was like, Oh, this is really good and impressed. And then the other little boys all tried it and.
21:20they were all eating it and enjoying it. So I mean.
21:25I  think if you label it, they have the opportunity to see what it is and then you don't get in trouble as much with them when they find out. Yeah, exactly. don't think it's fair to trick people into trying something. I  have a little bit of an issue with the trickery involved.  But I also think that people should try things because you never know what you're going to like until you try it. You don't know.
21:54and kids are more picky usually, but I found that uh my son's friends when they come over, they're interested in trying it because they've never had it before. Most of them don't have a clue what it tastes like because that's not something on their menu.  And I've had quite a few of them that are like, ooh,  I'm coming for dinner tonight. Can you cook rabbit? And I'm like, OK, I'll go outside and pop one off.  You know, because it takes me about two hours to make it if I'm roasting it in the oven.
22:24And  it's a lot quicker to take a fresh one than it is to take one out of the freezer for the most part.  Yeah, absolutely.  Rabbit takes forever to thaw out. Yeah, about a day. It's a chicken. That's  OK, so I have a question about that. I thought that you were supposed to let the rabbit carcass sit in the fridge in water overnight. That's not you don't have to do that?
22:48And  when you put animals in water,  takes the blood and stuff out of the meat and it makes it like soft texture. oh I never soak my rabbits.  Some people brine them, I don't.  I usually will process and if you eat it before it hits rigor, then you're good. um But if it starts to hit rigor mortis, then you want to wait until it passes rigor mortis or you'll end up with tough meat.
23:17And how long  is it from death to rigor setting in? I don't know. I don't know.  When I'm making them fresh, I go out and I kill one  and  process it right off and get it in the oven. So I don't usually  have to deal with that. em But if they've hit rigor, it's usually like you want to let it sit in the fridge for a couple of days.  If I'm processing and I don't have time to get them packaged up,
23:44right off, I'll put them on like a baking sheet pan in little bags and  let them sit there for a day or two until I get to um them and then package them up when they're flexible again.  Okay. And if you're not going to cook them after that timeframe, then  you put them in the freezer? Yep.  Okay.  I usually take and I marinate  a large portion of my rabbits. So I'll
24:10I'll bring them in and I'll put them in a marinade and let them sit in the fridge for two days anyway  to soak up that marinade. And then I'll freeze them. oh Awesome. And then since you know what you're talking about and I didn't know what I was doing, um do you, is it better to roast a whole rabbit or is it better to  piece them out and  cook them like fried chicken or is it different in general? Oh, there's so many ways.
24:39There's so many ways to cook rabbit and it took me, I mean it took me about three years since, it took me about three years of cooking it to learn how to cook it properly. And I was always like, okay, this is tough, this is gross, like I don't know about this. But the thing with rabbit is if you cook it low and slow, so like 300, 350 for like two hours, if you do that, something like that in the oven and you want.
25:06to add some kind of a moisture method. So like butter, oil,  water,  it'll help make it more tender in a closed vessel. You don't want it drying all out because if it dries out, it's not gonna be nice and tender.  No, it's terrible rabbit jerky and you won't be able to chew it. Yeah.  Yeah, I love to cook. So I'm glad you're talking to me about this because...
25:32Eventually we will probably try meat rabbits again, not anytime soon, but we have flirted with the idea of trying again. Yep. Because I actually do like eating rabbit, but I don't know anybody who has any to buy. So yeah. mean,  yeah. I'm sure there's someone in your area. I've got a list of readers on my page that's pinned to the top. If you want to find someone close to you. Go look. Yeah.
25:58And I really loved having the rabbits. I just didn't love feeding them for no return. Yeah, that's upsetting. So when I don't get return, I usually end up culling the rabbits that don't give me return. Yeah, that's what we ended up doing because we only had three  and they were not doing the job they were hired to do. No, sometimes a lot of rabbits get fat if they're not bred continually um and will not.
26:26That sounds terrible, but not continually. um... When they're supposed to? I breed my does like two... two to three times a year. And if they go a whole year without breeding, they're gonna get a lot of internal fat and they're not gonna get pregnant for you. Or it's gonna be a lot harder to get them pregnant. Yeah, we had the most beautiful... I don't even know how to explain her coloring. She was...
26:54She was like the prettiest, softest brown with gold tips and black mixed in and a little bit of white. All those colors together, the  predominant was like a deer color brown. Oh, so she's probably castor colored or chestnut colored, which is a wild rabbit color. Yes. She looked like a wild rabbit, but she was not a wild rabbit because you're not allowed to keep wild rabbits in Minnesota as any, in any way, shape or form that is highly frowned upon.
27:24Same here.  But she was beautiful and I so wanted her to have babies and she just never took. And I was so frustrated after six months I was like, what is wrong with you? Why are you not getting pregnant? My husband's like, she cannot understand English. I'm like, I do not care.  I still want to tell her.  Why? Why are you not giving me babies?
27:48And so after a year, we were just done with all of them because  the one that did give us babies actually died. have no idea why. um I don't know. Three, four months after she had that first litter. Yeah. My husband went out to the Hutch and she was just killed over dead. And he came in and he said, you are going to be upset. And I said, OK, well, I've been upset here before. What? And he said.
28:15the white rabbit died and I said, well, it's a good thing no one's having babies anywhere in this house or around us. I said, because that would be a bad thing. It's the old joke is the rabbit died if you're pregnant.  he said, you're not as upset as I thought you'd be.
28:31I said, well, I said the rabbits are not exactly doing what they're supposed to be doing. So it's one we don't have to call.  Yeah. And he said, I am so proud of you. said, thank you.  I said, when are we going to take care of the other two? He's like, oh, we'll give it one more breeding attempt. And if it doesn't work, they're done. They're food.  Yeah. I usually give three strikes and then they're out.  It was what I try for. And if I really  want them,
28:59I threaten them one more time and give them that fourth try  and hope that it works. I mean,  you don't want to waste too much time on them. They should be breeding. And if they're not, then  it's time to find something else  that does want to breed because there's a lot of rabbits that do know how to breed.  Yes. And feeding rabbits is not cheap.  Nope.  I mean, my feed bill is about $400 a month, but I have a lot of rabbits.
29:29Yeah. And I mean, they are lovely little creatures and I really do like them, but I don't want to spend the money to feed them if they are not doing the job that we've got them to do. Well, they do great fertilizer. They make great fertilizer. So I mean, that's a job that they can still do  if you still want to hold on to them for  fun.  Yes. And rabbit manure is um a cold fertilizer. You don't have to let it uh cure, right?
29:57Right, you can add it right to the garden. Yeah, yep, and they are very good at producing poop. They poop a lot. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I pull four wheel barrel loads out every weekend.  And uh as I recall, it's not their manure that's stinky, it's their urine. So yeah, yeah, their poops don't really stink unless it gets like built up in a corner.
30:24And the only reason it would stink is because it's getting built up and there's pee on it. So yeah, exactly. It's true. And to end this out, because I try to keep these to half an hour, I feel like we could talk for four hours about this. could talk for five hours about rabbits. Yeah. Yeah. But I, no one's going to listen to that for five hours, Amanda.  I know. uh Um, so I learned a thing when we had the baby bunnies,  they will eat the mom's poop, but it's  different. Can you explain about that?
30:55Um, so they have hard poops and they have soft poops and their soft poops.  Um, so the mama's soft poops  have all the probiotics and everything the babies need to build up their gut system. So they'll eat the softer poops. The moms that will go in the nest box and drop off some of those poops for them.  And they'll, that'll be some of their first foods to build up their stomach.  Yeah.  There's a note for that.
31:24poop though.  Centotropes. Thank you. it's the right, I don't know if I'm saying it correctly, I say things a lot of times. That's okay.  It's a very specific thing that the babies actually need to do. Yes. probiotics is a good thing to give them during that time too so that they can help build more of an immune system. Yep. um
31:50The other thing that I learned when we had the baby bunnies is that they nurse upside down.  Yep. So when people are like, Oh, don't hold a bunny on its back. I'm like, what are you talking about? They eat on their backs when they're babies. Like I think they can go upside down. They'll be fine on their back.  Funniest oh thing I saw when the bunny, when the baby bunnies were probably  two, three weeks old,  I looked in the, in the
32:20in the box and I had taken the nesting box out. They were probably three weeks old, I think. And they were just all over the place. There was no point in having the nesting box in there anymore. They were just in there with mom. And they were nursing and you could see their little feet kicking, their back feet up from under her eye. Oh my God. So funny. so cute. So. So cute. I've had, I got some heat because I shared a litter. I keep my doughs with the mom until
32:50I'm ready to harvest or breed back the mom. So sometimes my does will be with the mom 12, 16 weeks. And it's very funny when you go in to go take care of your rabbits and you hear these loud gulping noises and you've got some 12 to 14 week kids nursing off of their mom. huh. Yeah. the feet are flailing and they're almost as big as her.
33:19Yeah, I would feel so bad for that mom because that just makes me think of the fact that I nursed all three of my babies. And if they had come to me at like, I don't know, eight to nurse, I'd been like, no, we are way done. No, way done with that.  I nursed both of mine too. So I mean,  I'm like, well, if she wants to do it, that's up to her.  Absolutely. Our  barn cat,  she's gone now. She disappeared.
33:48I'm so sad about this.  But uh last year at this time, she had her third litter of kittens. And uh when the kittens got to be about  six, seven weeks old, they were still wanting to be up close to her because it was kind of chilly outside.  And of course, they're up close to her, so they want to nurse. And she was trying to wean them. And they would get up underneath of her, latch on, and you could tell they were nursing.
34:17She'd give it maybe a minute,  maybe, and then she would kick them off of her.  And she'd walk away like,  uh, no. And they would just follow her around waiting for her to lay down to take a nap. And then they would just swarm her to nurse. And I'm  like, oh my God, you guys.  So yeah, babies are always going to want that comfort, whether they actually need it or not. And it's up to the mom to be like, yeah, we're done. m
34:46All right, Amanda, this was amazing and I hadn't really had uh a,  to quote AI,  deep dive on rabbits before on the podcast. So this was great. Thank you. You're welcome. I hope it's informational for some.  Oh, I think it will be.  Everything on this podcast is meant to teach people how to get information and how to consider the next step. And so every time I talk to people like you, I'm just like, Oh, you're brilliant. Thank you for that. uh
35:15Where can people find you, Amanda? Well, I  have a Facebook page, Lalo and Justin's Homestead. I also have a rabbitry group, Lalo's Lovely Lops, I  post my babies when I do have them available. But I like to evaluate before I post anything, usually. And then I have an ad on American Rabbit Breeders Association if they want to see the breeds that I raise and  contact me through phone or email.
35:46Other than that, I don't really have anything else for contacts. Okay. Well, if anybody listening wants to learn about rabbits, they should talk to Amanda. And I'm assuming if people have questions, they can message you on Facebook or they can email you. Yeah, they can comment on my page on something I post or keep those interactions coming so I can keep growing that page. Yeah. Yeah.
36:12It's amazing what it takes to get Facebook to notice you.  as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. And if you want to support the podcast, you can find  the support page at atinyhomestead.com slash support.  Amanda, again, thank you. I hope you feel better and I hope you have a great day. Thank you for having me, Mary.  Absolutely.  Bye.