A Tiny Homestead

Empty Pockets Ranch

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

Triskell Bakery

Today I'm talking with Alain at Triskell Bakery. You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Alain at Triskell Bakery. How are you? Hi, good morning. How are you? I'm good. Sorry to make you talk shop on your vacation. No problem. Okay. All right, so tell me about yourself and what you do.
00:30Yeah, so, well, I'm a baker now. I was a food scientist for all of my career, and I retired last September, and I always wanted to start something from scratch. And I had several options, I had several hobbies, and I ultimately selected baking, because that was...
00:57passion of mine. I've been baking for about 15 years and you know, I came from a family of baker in France and so I started the bakery in January of this year. January 23rd was my first day and so I you know I posted on on social
01:27thousand followers from my town and you know, neighboring towns and quickly realized that there was a need for an artisan French baker in Medina, Medina, Ohio, where it is. And it started from there. And yeah, it's taken off fairly quickly. That's amazing. So I have a quick question. In Ohio, do you guys have the cottage food producer?
01:55thing like Minnesota does? Absolutely. That's exactly how I operate. So back in December, I started an LLC for Triskell Bakery and I looked up the rules and regulations for college law and made sure that I followed those guidelines. So I operate out of my house. I converted
02:24mixing and my ingredient storage and all the extra equipment that I need. And I essentially used the oven in the kitchen and I've taken over several rooms in the house now. So my dining room is my office and a freezer in there and a refrigerator. So my wife is very gracious.
02:50That helps a lot. Gracie's spouses are amazing. Absolutely, absolutely. I could not have done this without her support. She still works, she's a marketing project manager for a pet food company. And she's the one who told me, follow your passion. I was ready, I was ready to retire. I'm 57, so I was 56 when I retired, so fairly young. But I had enough seniority that
03:20I was able to do that. So she's the one who carries the load for, she's the breadwinner and no pun intended. And she carries the family with all the insurance and things like that. Yay, girl power. I love it when women have the chance to do that stuff. She's a rock star. Awesome.
03:47Okay, so since you've taken over a bunch of your house, does that mean that you might be considering moving into a bigger space? You know, we thought about it and eventually I think this is something that I would like to get, you know, at least a commercial kitchen so I could expand and grow because I'm close to capacity right now.
04:14And so that's something we've talked about. A couple of options that came up. Ultimately, we decided that we want to go through at least an entire conduit year and see how this progresses and make sure that it's not a flash in a pen and it's something that's sustainable, both from a business standpoint, but also from a financial standpoint for us. We didn't want to go into taking a significant investment at this point.
04:43So, but in the future, I think this is something that I'd like to do. Not to have a retail place to sell bread. That is clearly not my, my, my, my objective. But, you know, we'll talk a little more about this. I'm sure I, besides selling bread at local stores and farmers market, I also teach classes. So what I'd like to do is to have a commercial space where I can, I can have more equipment.
05:13and that I could also teach my classes out of. Yeah, yep. Because you'll need the room because you're very popular and people are gonna wanna learn from you. So speaking of classes, I have a question. I have a question about croissants. When you make croissants, we have never attempted that here. My husband loves to bake breads, but we have not attempted croissants yet. Is that?
05:39Is that like the puff pastry dough? Is that how that works? So croissant is a laminated dough. So that means that there's layers of, yeah, so it's essentially it's a puff pastry but with a commercial yeast. So it's using yeast. So it's, you know, a very simple list of ingredients. It's, you know, very similar to puff pastry, but there's also yeast in
06:09overnight then I create my butter layer which is Typically deposited on the center of that dough that I stretch and fold until I get multiple layers. So You know you you make what you do You make what you call a butter block butter layer and then the dough is Encasing that butter and then you stretch it and you fold it stretch it fold it you do that about three times
06:36which creates about 81 layers of butter and dough. And then you stretch that, shape it, proof it, bake it. And it's been very popular here. So when you, I'm asking, because my husband is probably gonna listen to this episode. He doesn't listen to very many of them because he's busy, but because you're a baker, he's gonna wanna listen. So with the butter, is the butter cold when you do that, or is it room temperature? Absolutely.
07:04Okay, well the butter needs to be cold but pliable. So when I'm, you know, so last night I started on vacation, but I have been baking. Just, you know, just for my neighbors here. It's something I do. So the butter, I make my dough the night before so I made two batches of croissant dough last night. And if they've been proofing overnight so this morning.
07:29After this call, I'm going to make my butter block. So basically you shape and you use a European butter. So it has a higher fat content, so lower moisture. And that really helps in the proofing and it, not the proofing, but it helps during the baking of creating those layers of butter and dough. So the butter has to be cold, but pliable. So you don't want it to be brittle and you don't want it to be warm.
07:59because then the butter would melt in those layers of dough. So it's important to keep that butter at the right temperature. So it's about maybe 50 degrees, 50, 55 degrees, when I do the stretch and fold. OK, thank you, because he's going to want to know. I suspect that I have croissants in my future this winter, as soon as he listens to this. He's going to be like, that's not.
08:28That sounds simple. Yeah, it's not hard at all. It's just time consuming, because you start your, the French call it the trempes, you start your dough the night before, then the next morning you make about a block. You go through your three successive stretches and folds, and then I let that final dough rest again overnight, and then tomorrow morning,
08:57I'll be stretching it to its final shape and shape the croissants and let them proof and bake them tomorrow morning. So it takes about two days, two, two and a half days. So what you're saying is that tomorrow morning, wherever you're staying is going to smell amazing. Uh huh. Yeah. And I have a German neighbor. She's 85 years old.
09:21and she loves my croissants. And so I haven't told her it's gonna be a surprise for her. I'm gonna bring her croissant for breakfast tomorrow. Aw, sweet. That is adorable. Okay, so I read in the email you sent me that you are from the Brittany region, is that right? Yeah, that's correct. I was born in France, born and raised, and I went to school in France. So my...
09:49All my family is from the west coast of France in a region called Brittany. So if you look at France, kind of an hexagon, Brittany is the westernmost region in France. My family comes from the north coast of Brittany, so it's alongside the channel. And when I was a kid, I used to spend my summer at my cousin's bakery. He's my cousin now, but he's my cousin, but his dad owned the bakery at the time.
10:19So when I was a kid, I used to spend my summer there and go and work with him at night. When I was a little too young, he would shoo me and send me back to bed. But I would help him in the bakery and then go on delivery runs with them because they live, it's a countryside area. It's rural, it's not urban.
10:45So we would load the van and we would go house to house and farm to farm and sometime it was, all right, you take two baguettes and a large loaf, you go in the kitchen, don't mind the German shepherd, drop the bread on the table and pick up the money and come back. And that's how it was. And so that's what I did when I was a kid, my brothers and my cousins would go to the beach, I would go to the bakery.
11:13And so, but I was born in Paris and I went to school in Paris. I studied food science. So I was a, you know, food scientist, like I said, and, uh, but yeah. Uh, so, um, French through and through, uh, I've been in the US for 33 years now. Okay. Thank you for all that. The reason that I asked about the Brittany region.
11:38is because you said hence the name Triskell bakery and I don't know the reference so you want to fill me in on why it's hence Triskell? Absolutely. So a triskell is the logo, you know the three arm logo that's on my website and on my Facebook page, that's called a triskell. So when I was looking for a name for the bakery, I was looking for something that was reminiscent of my origins.
12:08And so I had several options and I went to my social media and asked my friends, my family, what do you think of the different names that I had? And Triskell was one of the ones that was intriguing. The logo was very compelling, very unique. And Triskell is a Celtic symbol that has been present over
12:35over centuries, so originated in Ireland and the British Isles and has had multiple meanings across generation. The one that I'm most familiar with is birth, life and death. There's other meanings as well. So I thought the logo was very compelling as a logo for a business. The name was easy to pronounce for Americans.
13:04compelling for me as a Frenchman from the region of Brittany and all my family over there thinks it's wonderful that I chose Triskell as a business name. Awesome. Thank you. Because I was like the only Triskell I know about is in pagan stuff. And I was like, I don't think it's a pagan reference. So I need to know. Okay. Awesome. So tell me about your classes. How? Actually, no, don't tell me about your classes yet.
13:33How much bread are you producing and selling a week? Because I'm really curious. We're a cottage-brew producer. OK, so right now, I do the farmers market in Medina, which is Medina, Ohio, which is located about one hour south of Cleveland. So we are between Akron and Cleveland, roughly, just to give you a location. So from a bread product, I make bread for the farmers market.
14:02The preparing for this is a two day ordeal. I feed my starter on Wednesday night. I shape the bread on, I make the dough and shape the bread on Thursday. Then I start the croissants on Thursday, shape them on Friday. And then Friday evening is when I start baking everything. So I make about between 25 and 30 loafs of sourdough bread, either sourdough bread or
14:31I also make little Brazilian cheese bites, cheesy bread. You can find it in stores. In Brazil, it's called Pão de Queijo. And I traveled there. I worked there for Smucker's back in early 2000. And this is a little recipe that people in Medina love. So I make that as well. And I make about 100%. So between
14:59croissant, pain au chocolat, the Pound de Queijo, bites, I make about 250 of those, and the sourdough. Yeah, that's quite a bit. So it's a, you know, I start baking, you know, I heat up my oven around eight, nine o'clock on Friday night, start baking around 10, I'm done with the sourdough about maybe one o'clock in the morning, and then after that, it's the Pound de Queijo and then the croissant lastly.
15:29I want the croissants to be as fresh and crunchy as possible. And sometimes they are still a little warm when I get to the farmers market. Wow. So you don't sleep the night before the farmers market. I don't. It's a yeah, I pull probably 30 hour to 36 hours straight when I do the farmers market. So I think I underestimated the amount of time it would take me to do all this. And I do it all by myself. So
15:59It's very time consuming, but I love it. And I think I might scale back a little bit next year. And there are some farmers markets in the winter as well. We have a couple of greenhouses here, one's called Boilips, and I do that farmers market in the winter. It's more like every other week or once a month. Oh, so you sleep in the wintertime. That's helpful. Yeah, exactly.
16:27So and then to make my sourdough, so the process is I'm using Dutch ovens. So because that I want that nice opening of the ear on the sourdough to have the microblisters on the side and to have this kind of like gelatinous shiny surface of the bread. So it's not only I want the bread to taste good, but I also want it to look good. So I use Dutch oven for the first part of the baking process.
16:56And then halfway through the baking process, I removed the lid, which enables the bread to start developing color and the crust. And since we have a fairly wide and deep tall oven at home, it's a commercial. It's like a wolf or Viking, but it's to do quite a few loaves at once, which is the only way I could do this. Yes. And
17:24I understand about you want them to look good too because we eat with our eyes first. Absolutely. Absolutely. So one little thing that I do is, I don't know if you saw some of the pictures of the bread that I make, but I have little stencils that I put on the bread before it goes in the Dutch oven, before it bakes, and I sprinkle some flour through the stencil. So then I remove the stencil and I have either the Eiffel Tower or a
17:54uh... you know stock of uh... of weeds or uh... even my logo or or the gazebo of our town center so it's kind of a way to differentiate and uh... you know to give a little bit of that uh... uh... differentiation you know aspect of of my bread and and and people react to it pretty well at the market they want to start with like oh do you have one with the Eiffel Tower or do you have one with the
18:23So my sister-in-law has helped me a lot with a lot of, you know, setting up the bakery and doing all those things. And so she's made all those signs for me. That's fun. Okay. It is fun. Okay. So I still want to get to your classes, but I keep coming up with other questions that don't have to do with classes. We will get there eventually. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. So you learned a lot of this as a young kid.
18:53Did you go to any culinary school at all or have you just learned this on your own? It's learned on my own. It has been, you know, I was gifted a bread machine back in 2006, 2007. And so I started with that. And then I realized quickly that I didn't meet my, my, my, my ideal of a, of a, you know, advertising loaf of bread.
19:20So then I started using it just to make the dough and then shaped it and baked it in the oven. Still was not happy. Then we started investing into, you know, KitchenAid mixers. And then I bought my first sourdough starter, which was a San Francisco sourdough starter, back in 2009, I think. So my starter is about 15 years old. And then I never went back. So, and I learned from
19:50You know from failures and it's really how I've have grown in in in making bread is trying and taking notes some help from some you know bakers and some people that some authors there's there's a great. How do book called the perfect loaf gentleman by the name of Mauricio Leo and.
20:17friend of them online and he's been giving me some advice as well as sharing some of the tools that he uses in his bakery. So I've not attended a culinary school and it's been all about learning myself and practicing
20:43especially making baguettes and making, well actually everything, sourdough baguettes as well as croissants. It took me a while to get to to the quality that I have now and it was sometimes frustrating but you know you just like everything you once you persevere eventually you'll get some results that you're happy with. Yep, it's funny that you mentioned that you got the
21:12the bread maker machine back whenever you got it. My husband started out making yeast breads using a KitchenAid mixer to do the kneading. Two years ago, he made a honey oat bread and he had cleaned off our island and everything to get ready. He started making the bread and I said, you're not using the mixer. He said,
21:39It doesn't need it the way I want it to. He said, I'm just going to do it with my hands. And, and I was like, Oh, okay. Fine. Use your hands. He said, I'm not being prissy. He said, it just doesn't, it just doesn't do it the way that I do it. And I said, have at it. You are the bread maker. Enjoy. And he's so funny because when he's making bread, he hums.
22:05He's so happy to be baking that he hums under his breath. It is adorable. You know, it's funny because even when I, after the farmers market, I need a couple of days to recoup. So usually my weekend is a Sunday and Monday. And we're lucky enough to have a little cottage alongside a small lake here in Ohio. So that's, we come down here and regroup and re-jump, you know, refresh. But when I go back,
22:34I'm excited, I'm ready to do it again. I'm ready to, just the process of feeding my starter first thing in the morning. I make coffee, I feed the dogs, I feed my starter. And then I decide like, what am I gonna do today? And sometimes it's making bread for the neighbor or it's just practicing testing a new recipe. And sometimes I've got people reaching out to me and say, oh, I'd love to learn how to make eggs. And say, huh, I've never made those.
23:04Because I, you know, like I said, don't have a culinary background. So my portfolio of product is expanding, but it's still fairly limited. Okay. And with that, let's get into your classes. Do you hold them in your home? No, no, I don't. That's one thing that we decided my wife and I, like our home is outside of, you know, doing the making the bread is we keep it private.
23:34So people ask if they could pick up bread from the house and say, no, I'll find places where people can go and find bread. So back in January, so very sweet was it, for a second, I was having breakfast with a friend at a little cafe in town, and they have a little kitchen which is set up for classes like this. And the owner was talking with us, and my friend said, oh, Alain could,
24:02teach classes there and the, you know, the, the owners are years parked up and said, Oh, you, you know, you, you, you, I don't, I had done a few classes with a school with my, with my children and, but I had never done something like that. So it's like, yeah, I could. So pretty much simultaneously between starting the bakery, starting to sell bread.
24:28and I started planning classes all at the same time. So March 2nd was the first class that I held. I did a couple of dry runs and just to make sure I had the material that I had the content of the class. I put together a little presentation which I joked that I thought my PowerPoint days were over. And it was, that's how it started. So,
24:56I hold classes mostly at a little cafe on the square called Cool Beans Cafe. And so we take six to eight students at once. The class is about a hundred dollars per student and it's a three hour class. But since the process is a two and a half, three day process, it's a little bit like TV magic. So I started the process two days earlier.
25:25So I make the dough or I make the detente. I prepare the dough. So when we do croissants, onto class with a dough that's ready to be shaped and proofed and baked. So students will go home with some croissants that they've shaped themselves. A batch from scratch during the class. And I teach them making the stretch and fold.
25:56making the top, making the bottom layer. And then we go through a couple of stretches and fold. And then we develop and they take home as well, though that they continue on shaping the next day. And then they send me pictures of the croissant they make as a result of the class. And it's amazing. Some of those are absolutely fantastic. And I think everybody's enjoyed the class so far.
26:24And so that's all the croissant. For the sourdough, it's a little different. So I start the dough a couple of days before, and I shape it so that when we come to class, there's already some loaves that are shaped. So that's where they learn to, the scoring of the bread, they decorate it with the stencils that they bring. But we also start a, I also shape the dough that, so that when I come to class, that dough is to be divided and shaped. So,
26:53they learned the pre-shaping and shaping process of a boule, a batard, and then a baguette as well. And so the bread that they decorate, we bake, they take that home, and then they have, so in the vannette, it's the baskets where the sourdough is proofed.
27:22Each of the students go home with one of those baskets. They get an apron, they get a dough scraper, a bench knife, the slats they use to slash the bread. So they go home with quite a bit. And we also start a batch from scratch during that class to learn the gluten development and doing autolyse and doing all those things that I teach.
27:51But that bread is not done by the time the class is over. So I take it home, I finish it, and I donate that bread to a cafe in Medina that serves free food for people who don't have much. Super cool. This is an aspect also of the bakery that people have actively invested in.
28:18I donate a lot. I donate back to my community and through donation and charity and people have been reacting very positively to that. I say this to everybody who makes my heart bigger than my chest. I love you. You're doing a fantastic thing. What's the atmosphere like in the classes? Is it like chatting and laughing and giggly and people making mistakes or not making mistakes? How does it go?
28:46Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. So the classes that I do at Cool Beans, it's a little more, they are paying customers, so they pay a lot of attention, right? So, and they do remarkable work. I'm amazed at the quality of what they do in a very short amount of time. But it's also fun. And I include some stories about my childhood and some of the language bloopers that I did when I first came to the US.
29:16But then I also do classes in people's home. So if people have like five, six friends, they can book the class and I go to their home. And at that point, usually it's a little more, it has more room for fun. So sometimes it's a breakfast, but they have mimosa or sometimes it's an evening and they have wine and charcuterie. So it's very fun.
29:45and sometimes they are friends and family. I've done some for birthday parties, a surprise birthday party for a man who did that for his wife. That was a great class. And then we have another one also in, it's called Parlor Farms. I've friended the two owners, Tony and Jamie, and they have a beautiful home, beautiful kitchen, and they invite some friends and family and neighbors, and we do classes there.
30:15And yeah, so the classes are really fun. It's probably my favorite part of what I do. And I do a few corporates as well. I do some for, there's a restaurant in town that focus on individuals who are recovering from addiction. So they've asked me if I would teach classes there. So it's a charity, it's a nonprofit. So, you know, I...
30:44I give them a little discount and I teach their cooks their sourdough croissants and baguettes. And I just finished a class last week, a series of three classes with them and I'll do it again because it's rewarding. I didn't go into this retirement job to make money and to be rich.
31:14matters to me and just the aspect of giving back to my community and connecting with people. I see Bred as a way to connect people together and luckily it's been very successful so far. Awesome. All right. So to recap all of this, the reason I asked you to be on the podcast is because I thought that you had started it as kind of a passion project, a hobby, whatever.
31:45And I assumed that you were a cottage food producer because I didn't think you had a standalone bakery. And you kind of fit my things that I like to do regarding the podcast. And the reason that you fit is because you are a cottage food producer, but you are doing big things in that title, I guess, that label. So
32:14People who are interested in baking or making canned goods or whatever, if your state has a cottage food registration, you should be able to take the thing you love making, make it and sell it and make some money from it. And I want people to know that because I didn't know until a few years ago that I could do it. And I've been making granola because it's easy.
32:43And we sell it, we sell it at the farmer's market and people are paying $12 a bag for like not even a pound of granola. And that's to cover my cost and my time and stuff. And I kind of feel bad about it, but I also feel like not everyone wants the fancy factory made granola from the store. And that's even more expensive than what I make. So yeah.
33:12Anyone who wants to do this and has the drive and determination to do it can do it. Yeah. So that's why I wanted to talk to you. So in all of this, I really appreciate your time. I'm going to let you go because I'm sure you'd like to go hang out with your family while you're on vacation. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It's funny you mentioned something about the price and people
33:40people tell me you don't charge enough for your bread, you don't charge enough for your croissants. And it might be true, but I see the bread almost as a business card now, because people, when they come and buy the bread, I mentioned that I also teach classes, and the reaction more often than not is, oh, you do? It's like, I could teach you to make exactly this. And then usually they take my card, and very often I hear back from them, and now I'm booked.
34:09I'm booking already into November and December. Wow. It's been a journey, but it has exceeded mine and my wife's expectation. This is really, it's me, I'm the front of the business, but like I said, I couldn't do it without my wife's support. My kids are getting involved as well now. So now it's been a great ride. I don't read.
34:39regret having retired at all. But you said something about people, if you wanna do it, start it. I was interviewed a while back and someone, the interviewer asked me, would you have a tip for someone who wants to start something like this? And I said, do it and start it. If you fail, you learn from it. And next time you have another idea, try it again. And that's the advice I would give anybody who's listening.
35:09Yes, and it goes along with my thing about make the big ask. If there's something you want to know, if there's someone you want to talk to, if you want to learn from someone, ask because the worst you're going to get is no. And if you want to start something like you're starting with this, the worst that's going to happen is it doesn't go anywhere and you try something else. Exactly. Absolutely. So that's how I see it.
35:36All right. Thank you so much for your time. You're welcome. I appreciate it. Have a great day. It was great talking to you.
 

The Fiddlin' Farmstead

Today I'm talking with Kelly at The Fiddlin' Farmstead with an update on her Valais Black Nose sheep babies! You can also follow on Facebook.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Kelly at the Fiddlin' Farmstead, and Kelly was my, I think, third guest back in August, and she was the third episode released back in August. How are you, Kelly? How you doing? I'm doing pretty good.
00:29I'm good. So, Kelly raises Valet Black Nose sheep. And back when we talked in August, you were working on having full bread. I guess that's the right word. Valet Black Nose sheep. Is that what was going on then? Yes, I think we were in the process of purchasing a purebred ram. Okay. So what's happened since then? Because I know, but I know you're excited to talk about it.
00:58We had our first purebred lambs and they are everything and more that I had hoped for. I couldn't be more just tickled by them. So that was super exciting. How many did they did you end up having? We ended up with three. They both had twins. Unfortunately, the little ram lamb on my second ewe didn't end up making it. He was just tiny, stillborn. So we ended up with.
01:27three ewe lambs total. Okay, awesome. So are you going to keep all three or are you gonna sell a couple? No, we've been working on listing a couple of them. We ended up with a bottle baby again as well that lived in my house for a couple months. So she's a tough one to let go, we'll probably end up keeping her. But yeah, I think it just went so smoothly having a ram here. We're hoping to do the same breeding again next year.
01:57Okay. And are you going to, is it going to be the same, the same number of ewes bred or are you going to be breeding more? Yes, it'll just be the same too this year because our bottle baby, you know, our ram would be a herciter. And then we have two polypay ewes as well that we've been experimenting breeding. That would be a first generation valley. So half polypay, half valley. Okay. And
02:26I read something about that blend that there's a reason you wanted to do that. Yeah, I got into it. Well, with the Valley, their personalities and their friendliness just really caught my attention for somebody like me who was not very experienced with livestock. With the Polypay cross, their milk supply and their fiber is excellent. So my idea was to kind of create a perfect homestead sheep with those qualities you want for production.
02:55Also the friendliness and well-maneu-rism. And they're also a polled breed, the polype, and because polled is a dominant gene, this cross will always be polled. It won't have horns, which also makes people more comfortable on the smaller homestead. Okay, do the valet ones have horns? Oh yes, they have massive horns. And they, you know, they're not mean with them by any means, but when they come run into greet you, they really get you in the back of the leg sometimes, and they get caught in the fences.
03:25all the fun that comes with organs. Okay. All right. So for those who haven't listened to the original interview with Kelly, tell me, you were saying something about there are very few full-bred belay sheep in the United States and something about the country that they originated from. So can you refresh my memory? Yeah, so we come, they come from Switzerland. The UK had a breeding program. They were able to import
03:54the actual animals were in the US, we were not allowed to. So we worked out something with the United Kingdom to purchase frozen semen. That's where the breeding up comes in. Artificial laparoscopic insemination. Lately, though, we've been able to import embryos as well. So there are more purebreds. They actually call the embryo ones pure blooded. But there's a lot more of them in the US now than there was two years ago.
04:22just because of the availability of the embryos, more rams live here. So they're not quite as uncommon as they were a couple years ago. A lot of people really got into the program, but they're still hard to come across, that's for sure. OK, and why couldn't the actual sheep be imported? Because of disease resistance. It's kind of a closed.
04:52with, I think with sheep, I'm not sure what other livestock that applies to, but mainly to keep disease out of the US. Yeah. And plus, I'm assuming that it's very stressful on the animal to be put on a boat or on a plane and shipped here. And that would make them vulnerable to being sick on top of being vulnerable to being sick with things they haven't been exposed to before.
05:18Right. We had a similar situation with the valley. A lot of people are still transporting them around the country. So when we brought in the poly pay is actually with some more valleys last fall, they ended up having a detour from where they started all the way to southern US and then up to Minnesota. And it took so long to get here that they did come not feeling well. They had no cops and stuff that we had to treat. And it's just really hard on an animal to, you know, live in a.
05:47confinement like that and travel. And all the noises and all the movement that they don't understand. Yeah. I mean, it's hard on a puppy when you pick them up from somewhere that's half an hour away, put them in a kennel or a crate, put them in the back of your vehicle, and drive for half an hour, because the only place they've ever been to is the vet, and it's typically five minutes away. So I can't imagine what it's like for
06:15for a cow or a sheep or a goat.
06:20Yeah, even a puppy's five-minute trip to the vet can be a handful. Oh yeah, exactly. Because they just, they don't understand and they haven't had enough experience with being in a vehicle to know that they're safe. So yeah, it's stressful and the last thing you want for livestock is to stress them out. So you do it as little as possible. Absolutely. Yep. Okay. I was talking with some people. Well, I've talked with a few people since I talked with you.
06:50Um, like over a hundred. Not. Not all of them have sheep, but some of them have had sheep and they've been telling me that the wool market in the United States is not great. So, so what are the valet sheep used for? Are they for milk? Are they for wool? Are they for meat? Right now they are basically just a, a fancy pet for, you know, to mow the lawn. Um,
07:20The wool market, I mean I think anything agricultural is a really tough market right now. I think people are finding more unique ways to utilize their fiber. I had just connected with a lady who is purchasing a wool pellet machine to actually break the wool down into pellets and it's supposed to be really good for plants. You know, it retains moisture, helps the soil, house plants, gardens, all that kind of stuff.
07:47So there's definitely alternatives to just sewing the fiber, but it is, it's really hard to, unless you have the time to, you know, go from start of the animal to a finished yarn. Then there's not a whole lot of market for it, no? Yeah. I was very surprised when I heard this from the second person. I was like, you are the second person to tell me this. And I went out and did some research and I was like, oh, okay.
08:17I guess my son's hope of getting a real wool cloak at some point might be not as likely. You can definitely still find it. There's so many advantages to sheep other than the lack of a market for wool. That's been just really fitting for us. So there's definitely still wool out there. You could probably get some for free. You just gotta learn to spin it.
08:41and card it and clean it and all the pieces and parts. Spin it. Oh yes. It's a very long process, but I think it's a beautiful one to, you know, tradition to keep alive. Yeah, we, I've mentioned this before on the podcast, we went to a historical reenactment kind of thing event and there was a lady there who has been spinning wool for years and she had her spinning wheel which was beautiful.
09:11And she had the carding tool and she was teaching people about how you card the wool, how you clean it, how you spin it, and how it's not soft once it's yarn. It's not soft. It's kind of scratchy. It is, yes. And I knew that, but I knew my son didn't know that because it was, geez, probably 10 years ago at least. And he was fascinated watching her spin that clump of wool into a piece of yarn. He was like,
09:40Oh, it's amazing when I had learned to do that after we started with alpacas. And the wool is a lot more coarse, especially the valley fiber in itself is, but I have kind of a reaction to the itchiness of wool myself, which is why we started with the alpacas. Their fiber when you spin it is very, very soft and very luxurious. Mm-hmm. I have not. No, no, I have not actually. Um, I have.
10:10Pet a llama but not an alpaca and their fur is different. Yes, llama is very different too. Now the thing with the Valle fiber that intrigued me because of its coarseness, it's actually one of the best fibers for felting. And felting is a much easier way to process fiber into a finished project. You can fill purses, hats, bags, blankets. I also recently connected with a lady who
10:39when you shear the animal, you try to take it off in one big piece, and she felts the bottom of it into like what would be a pelt, but without harming the animal, without the skin. Yeah. And it's just, it's beautiful with the valley that get like really curly locks that, you know, get like 12 inches long. Wow, okay. Twice a year you shear them, so it's, I have my ram's fiber actually in a tote, hoping that she'll teach me how to do that one of these days here. That would be great.
11:09Okay, so tell me about the babies, because I gotta hear about the babies. Are they friendly, was it amazing seeing them be born? Would you see them be born? So I started working back in December, and this has just been really bizarre for me because I've been a stay at home mom and you know, farmer for so many years. So I set up a camera, Wi-Fi, so it could peek on them at work and I actually, I think that the first, you must have lambed literally the moment I left work until I got home, which was only about a seven minute drive.
11:39I got home, I looked out and I just saw these little legs behind her. I thought, oh my gosh, they're here. So the second one lambed in the middle of the night and I did run out to help her back in March. It's so cold. They quickly became so curious and so friendly. We would allow them and they used to be in our main yard with their dogs and cats and other animals. And they got to the point where when my dogs would run along the fence, as cars went by or people came by.
12:06They would run along behind them and chase them. Like they were barking at the object too. They run up to my kids and play. They follow you around everywhere. And it's not really different, my bottle baby that was inside versus the ones that were dam raised. They're just naturally curious and friendly. Okay, I have a question about your dogs. You told me before, but I don't remember what breed of dogs you have. I have a smooth collie.
12:35hurting dog, but he, the only thing he likes to hurt is tractors and big machinery. Um, and then we have a livestock guardian dog that is a cross between a collie and a great Pyrenees. Oh, wow. Okay. And she is amazing. Um, she just adores the baby animals when she even gets a whiff that there's a new animal here or hears a little baby outside her butt wigs, the whole back end of her, she's very calm and gentle with them and, uh, yeah, I couldn't ask for a greater farm dog, really.
13:05Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you about because our barn cat last fall, last September, had kittens and she had them in the barn. And we have Maggie, the mini Australian shepherd dog that I talk about all the freaking time. And she kept the kittens in the pole barn until they got curious enough to climb out underneath the door because there's a place where the cats can get out under the door. And Maggie saw the kittens and she sat down.
13:33She did like that point thing that pointer dogs do, except she was sitting, and her whole rear end was just wiggling on the ground. She doesn't have a tail, she's got a docked tail. And tongue hanging out, smiling like dog, smiling just waiting for the kittens to come over. And that was awesome. Floof, the barn cat, got pregnant again, because we're stupid and waited too long to get her spayed. And she had babies back in...
14:03very first part of April and she had them in the pole barn again. And Maggie could smell the kittens on our hands when we would pet them when we were out there, but they weren't coming out of the pole barn yet. So she knew there was a new set of babies in the pole barn. And I'm telling you the minute one of those kittens stuck its head under the door and meowed, she sat right down and waited patiently with her rear end, just wagon on the ground for the next batch of friends to come visit.
14:33So I was very curious to see how your dogs were with the baby lambs. They're good, Pop. They are really great with them. We got chicks recently too, and Dolly the livestock dog. She's the same way even with the squeaky baby chickens. She'll hover over them, wave her tail and make sure the other dogs and cats don't get too close. So I'm happy for that because with lambs, foxes are one of their main predators. Of course, along with neighborhood escapee dogs.
15:02you know, coyotes and stuff. But we have a lot of foxes around here, so that's always been a concern of mine. So it's great to have, you know, that dog here to keep them safe and. Yeah, absolutely. It just, it surprised me that Maggie was so excited to see the babies and so motherly to them because she's never gonna have. With that breed too, yeah. She's been spayed. She's never gonna have babies. She's never gonna be a mom, but.
15:30I think she probably would have been a really good mom based on how she is with her cat babies. Yeah, that's what I thought too. And we did introduce her to a baby rabbit, which was a big mistake because rabbits are prey animals. They don't like dogs. That poor baby rabbit, Maggie was so curious and I was holding it and I put it down near her nose and that rabbit went, Oh, I'm stupid. I shouldn't have done that. So no more introducing Maggie to anything. That's a prey.
16:00animal because they can have a heart attack and die. Oh, yeah, and that's not fair. Well, yeah, it's nice to have a dog that's friendly around them too, though. Yeah, she loves anything little. Yeah, and she hasn't really been around any big animals. She's met her, she's remet her parent dogs because we took her over to visit from where we got her and she had no idea what to do with those dogs. We got her during COVID so she was never around.
16:30other dogs and she's barely around other people during COVID so she's not the most socialized creature on the earth with people. So it's just weird to me how some dogs see something smaller and they're like attack and eat it and some other dogs are like oh it's a baby I need to be gentle. Yeah that is bizarre isn't it? Yeah so I don't know whatever. Got my Maggie conversation in for the day. There you go. I love her so much.
16:59And love having barn kittens, but I'm really not looking forward to more. I don't want any more barn kittens. We're going to try to get flu spayed here very soon. Yeah. It's tough to control when it, when it gets. Yeah. I don't need a, what is it called? Uh, there's a word for a bunch of cats. A colony. I don't need a colony of cats. I'm good. So anyway, uh, so what did your kids think of the baby lambs?
17:28They adore them as well. It was nice this time they were old enough to really help out with the bottle baby, you know, with feedings and such. They've been working on, if we do keep the bottle baby, we named her Luna. The valley names all the lambs a different letter every year and this year was L, so we found moon names. We have Luna, Larissa, and Leda. I think that's how you pronounce it. But they run around with them. They've been trying to halter train them and they've been.
17:57really enjoyed the friendliness as well. They were excited when we started with alpacas, but they could never really have this kind of a relationship with the alpacas. Yes, because the alpacas get bigger than sheep, right? Yes, and even when they're little, they're not easy to, and with alpacas, especially baby males, you don't want to make them friendly and bond with you because they can hurt you later on in life. Mm-hmm, yep. Alpacas have...
18:24Alpacas have super long legs when they're born, right? Yes, we had our baby alpaca last time I talked to you, I think. I think so, yeah. Okay, I think she had just been born. And yet they're basically like a baby deer, you know, stand up right away and start running around and they're pretty much all legs. Yeah, they're super cute too. So we still have her here and she's actually the baby alpaca that was born last year.
18:54also obsessive over babies that are born here. Oh, funny. She'll just stand and stare at the babies and try to get close and just looks at them with this look of awe and then the lambs follow around and she'll run around and play with them. And we actually were looking to sell alpacas and just focus on the sheep. But it's they're a tough one to sell. They're so great with the lambs. Yeah. And they can also help protect against foxes too when my dog can't be outside. Really? Oh, yes.
19:23Do they yell? Do they kick? What do they do? They'll stomp on them. Some places actually have alpacas specifically as protectors for their sheep, keep the fox away. Not all of them have the personality to do so. But yeah, I know when we had our boys, we had to be careful of friends spread over smaller dogs. They would try to stomp on people's dogs. It was like openness. Let's not do that. Yeah, no, that's probably not a great plan.
19:52Yeah, they fit in well together. We just end up with a lot of fiber between all those animals. I'm sure you do. You're swimming, swimming in it. So what I don't this is going to sound stupid, but it's the only question I think to ask about this. What is the end game for the valet sheep? I mean, what's what's your goal with this? So, yeah, I was going to get into that, too. Naturally, you know, just like with alpacas, the more.
20:19availability, the prices aren't going to be as crazy. And I'm really hoping that they do become more of a normal shape that you see. I was pretty impressed. You know, I make milk based soaps and lotions and such. And I was decently impressed with the size of the udders on my valley when they land. It's not anything like a dairy goat or even the polypate you that I have. It's not that big of production. But again, depending on your demand and what you use it for, if I'm just making soap.
20:49I think they'd be great to milk too because with that friendliness comes the ease of milking them. You don't need to lock them up or put them on a milk stand. They basically just stay in there. So that's kind of my goal is to keep the farm business going as far as milk products. I really wanted to dive into cheese making eventually. Another reason I prefer sheep over other livestock is the nutrient values of sheep milk is...
21:17far surpasses any other livestock. Okay. So there's that factor in it too. I think they're just a great, you know, I guess I would say dual purpose, but also if people raise them for meat, could be a good triple purpose animal to have. Sure. Hoping kind of just to work on Luna as far as getting her out to shows. And I've always wanted to utilize, you know, like at nursing homes and hospitals
21:47that type of route. Yeah. And then eventually have our little flock of sheep to mow the grass and enjoy. Yeah. Are you OK? I have two questions. Are you intending to grow the herd bigger or to keep at your place? Or are you going to just keep doing a few and selling some and maybe keeping one? I think for now, we're going to keep it a small flock. With our acreage being smaller and.
22:14Just with our lives being busy right now with two little kids too in sports. Eventually I would love to have a larger farm and a whole flock of these sheep. Okay. And when you, when you take them places, when that happens, are you teaching about them as well as just letting people experience them? Yep, absolutely. Um, people are quite fascinated by them. Um, Luna, because it was cold out, I didn't get to bring her around as much as I would have liked to.
22:43But we'd go through drive-throughs together often. People just adored her. You know, they get the long curly locks right away and they're just really sweet sheep. But yeah, I love telling people about them and I work in assisted living as well and just the reactions that people get when I bring up that I raise sheep and have lambs. I just think there's so much that could be done with them as far as enrichment for, you know, other humans. Yeah.
23:11I was going to say I was a Girl Scout co-leader for a couple of years. And I suspect that if you have any Girl Scout troops in your area, if you talk to the leaders about the fact that you have these sheep, they would love to have the girls learn about them. Oh yeah, absolutely. And it's really hard to find unusual, interesting things to expose the girls in the troops to.
23:41cold process lye soap at the time. So we had the girls come over to our garage and he showed them how you do that. And they were interested and they each took home a bar of soap that had already cured. And one of the girls came back to me and she was like, do you have any more of that soap? And I was like, yes ma'am. She's like, can I get into the bar? I was like, yes, you can. And so they learned that from us. I had a friend who knew knot tying.
24:11real knots like the ones you use when you're sailing and things like that. And so they taught the girls some basic knot tying skills. And then there was a guy that we knew who had an orchard and he also keeps honeybees. So we took them up to show them how the honey is extracted from the hive with the centrifuge thing. And they were into that too. They thought that was super cool. Oh, yeah.
24:38But we did not take them to see belay sheep because there aren't any belay sheep around here. Right, and that's the bonus about them. They're so friendly. People get to actually touch them too, and I think that can be very therapeutic. I used to teach kids with fiber processing as well, and that was always fun to educate. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know. I'm sure there are so many places you could take them to.
25:06to show them off to people and teach people about them. And I think it's super that you did this, you're doing this. And I know back when I talked to you in August, you were so excited about having babies. Yes. And I'm so glad you took the time to come back and talk with me about it. Yeah, thanks for having me back. Absolutely. All right, well, kiss Luna for me. I will. And have a great afternoon next to you time. Yep, thank you. All right, bye. Bye.
 

Nothing But Knots by Mackenna

Today I'm talking with Mackenna at Nothing But Knots by Mackenna.
 If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment.
00:16Today I'm talking with Mackenna at Nothing But Knots. Good morning Mackenna, how are you? I'm doing good, how are you? I'm good, tell me about yourself and what you do. So my name is Mackenna, I run Nothing But Knots by Mackenna. I've been doing it for about three years now as an actual business, but I've kind of been crocheting my entire life actually.
00:42I learned when I was super young, was taught by my great aunts and my grandmother. And I just kind of picked it up when quarantine happened again. And then I decided after about a year that I wanted to make a business out of it. Okay. So did you choose crocheting because no one was knitting or have you tried knitting too? I have tried knitting. It's just mainly that I can't quite get it down.
01:12I'm not super, uh, like-
01:17Like able to do things with two hands at the same time kind of thing and with needles with knitting You have to use two needles and crochet is just one hook So it's a little bit easier for me to multitask when it's just with one Like one hook Yep, I understand I I tried knitting when I was younger and the thing that made me not want to knit is the sound of the needles Clacking I yes
01:45Yes, I totally understand that too. When you're so used to it being a very quiet hobby, hearing the needles touching each other can be kind of overwhelming. Yeah, I just didn't like it. And then I learned about crocheting and learned how to do the chain stitch, you know, just one after another after another. I was like, okay, I can do this. And then went on to the single crochet and actually the turn and then the single
02:14Oh, I can do that. And then I read about the double crochet and tried that and then triple and then the other things. And I was like, oh my God, I love this. It's quiet. I can do it while I'm watching a TV show in January. When it's cold out, it's great. I am a big fan of crocheting. Okay. Especially if you're making a blanket, you could just curl up with that blanket that you're in the process of making. When it's cold outside, it's perfect.
02:38Yeah, it's a great way to stay warm if your house is not, if your house is drafty for sure. Our old house was drafty, so I loved doing that. And a scarf is so fast to make if you're crocheting. I couldn't believe how fast the scarf came together. Oh yeah, I tried to make, that's when I tried knitting for the first time was trying to do a scarf and I was like, man, this is really taking forever. I could knock out a scarf with crochet and like.
03:06Couple hours and here I am three days later still working on this knitted scarf. Yeah, I think the hardest thing with crocheting is keeping the tension correct. Because when I first started, I did a scarf and it had spots that were narrower than they should have been by just a little bit because the tension wasn't right. And I also did the washcloth, the crocheted cotton yarn washcloth.
03:35the one corner was always too tight, so they weren't square, and it drove me crazy. I finally figured it out, but the tension is probably the thing that you need to learn how to get correct, I think. Yes, I am on the same page with you there. I mean, it's the same with crochet and knitting, but crochet is a lot easier to keep your attention, because you have one hand free, essentially, at all times. Yep, exactly.
04:01Okay, so now that we've raved about crocheting, because I love it, you love it, I haven't done it in a long time, but I love doing it when I'm doing it. So what do you make? Because I saw your Facebook page photos and the little bear with like the blanket that comes down for the body, that's very cute. Oh, thank you. Right now, I mainly specialize in making bags and baby blankets.
04:26I get a lot of custom orders from my co-workers for baby blankets. I'm currently working on one for my son and I have a niece coming in September so she'll be getting a blanket as well. Besides that, I've kind of been venturing into wearables so like sweaters, hats, that kind of thing, obviously some scarves.
04:56quite found my niche really for it is like stuffed animals and stuff. Everyone wants a stuffed animal. Everyone wants me to make like those lovies like the bears with the blankets attached to them. I am not a huge fan of sewing things together. So if I can find a no sew pattern where I can just kind of crochet everything together, that's where I what I like to do. But a lot of people want like super complicated.
05:26stuffed animals and I'm trying, I love the look at them. I love like making the pieces, but it's putting them all together that I really struggle with. Yeah, because it's not the thing you've been doing. It's an added in thing to learn how to do. I get it. Mm-hmm. And honestly, you're a new mom. You have a seven week old baby. You've got a lot going on right now.
05:50Oh yeah, I haven't really had quite a lot of time lately, obviously, to crochet, but I try to sneak it in during his naps or once I put him down for bed I try to crochet for a little bit before I go to bed myself. Yeah, and as we all know, I mean I've had three babies, I know that sleep is a commodity when you have a brand new baby. So if you're tired and you're trying to learn a new thing it makes it even more frustrating.
06:19Especially when you're trying to count stitches. It's like a project where you have to have a specific number It's definitely pretty hard Yeah, if you're if you're sleep-deprived it just it will drive you bonkers trying to keep it all straight Okay, so So you said you started crocheting when you were little um Who taught you so I have
06:47some wonderful women in my family and my great aunts are the ones who mainly taught me how to crochet so they're my mom's aunts and then my dad's mom my grandmother also crocheted at the same time so she kind of taught me like the actual stitches my aunts mainly just taught me like chains we called them dog leashes at the time because that's pretty much all i could do was just chain
07:17And then I started doing like the simple like single crochet and a half double crochet. Like I said, I lost it for a while. You get busy as you get older. Started my first job, all this kind of stuff. Life happened. And then everyone was off work for quarantine when COVID happened and I needed something to do instead of just sitting here doing nothing.
07:43So I kind of just retaught myself how to do everything, watched a couple YouTube videos, and now I'm to the point where I can kind of just make up a pattern off the top of my head and it somehow by magic turns out. So I got lucky in that aspect. Yeah, I've done that too. I think it's wonderful that you had amazing women in your family to teach
08:13I learned from YouTube videos. And yeah, that is very common nowadays. And I have to get I have to give it to the people that can make videos because I don't have the patience to make a video and try to teach someone how to do it through a video. I'd rather be right next to someone. Yeah, because watching it, you have to reverse it in your head. Mm hmm. The hand placement, you know, because you're looking at it.
08:41their right hand is where your left hand is, you know, what I mean? Yeah, yeah, no, I totally understand. And so it's, it's, if you can't do that in your head, you can't learn that way. The other thing that that's interesting with crocheting is that reading written instructions, it's, it's really hard to learn how to crochet reading it. Seeing someone do it is the trick, I think.
09:11Yeah, you definitely, if I had any like suggestions, I would definitely say start with videos first and then go to patterns and like reading patterns because like you said, if you don't know the terminology like very well and you're still learning, reading a pattern is going to be so difficult for a beginner if you don't know the stitches like abbreviations. Yep. Yep. I was, I was
09:40learning the next thing after the chain stitch and I was reading what I thought was a simple pattern. I got like two sentences into this thing. I was like, I have no idea what they're talking about. I need to go find videos. I can't understand this. It's a different language and I don't know it yet. Okay. So how is the business going? Is it like a hobby that turned into a business? Is it a real business?
10:09And by real, I mean, do you have to pay quarterly taxes on the money you make? That kind of thing. Oh, no. Okay. So it really is a hobby that started out and like, it started out as a hobby. And I was like, I got a couple people saying, oh, you could like sell this stuff. Or when they like, I'd be willing to just like give people something and they were like, oh no, I'm going to pay you for it.
10:38You put in a lot of hard work to this. And then once I had a couple people saying, oh, I'd rather just pay for it for you to do it that way. You're getting something out of it. I was like, oh, well, maybe more people would be interested in this and be willing to buy things from me. It's not an actual business at the moment. I would love for it to be an actual business maybe later down the road. Right now, it's just a side hustle kind of thing.
11:08making like a little bit of extra money here and there. But I mainly do like markets or like craft shows. So that's like my main source of income when it comes to crochet and my business. But it's not like a legal, like pay taxes business. It's more so like a.
11:33I just wanted to give it a name. I just felt weird just going to these markets and it just being me. I felt like I needed a name to go with it, so it felt a little more official to me. Yeah, and you came up with a really great logo. I love that. Thank you. Yeah, anyone who wants to see it, I'm going to put the link to the Facebook page so people can see your logo. It's adorable. So I haven't really crocheted in years because we've been...
12:01I'm mildly busy with starting a brand new home almost four years ago and growing things and getting a puppy and getting chickens and barn cats and stuff like that. But in talking to you, that little niggling thing in the back of my head is telling me that this winter when it's cold, I would be really smart to pick up some cotton yarn and make some washcloths to sell at next year's farmers markets because we sell at the farmers
12:30and I hadn't even thought about it. So I might be doing some crocheting this winter. Thank you. I appreciate the inspiration because it's not that hard. I know how to do it. I just haven't done it. Do you have a favorite brand for your yarn or are you just good with whatever yarn you pick up? I kind of like all yarn. I go mainly based off of like how it feels, but
12:59The brand I like the most for when I do like larger, larger like products or projects like the blankets or a wearable like a sweater is the Karen one pound yarn because it comes in a one pound ball of yarn and even though a lot of like this like these bigger skeins of yarn are
13:29It's like $11.99. You can get it at Joann's or Michael's or really, I assume you can get it at any craft store. I haven't tried like a Hobby Lobby or anything, but they last and the yarn is sturdy. I don't have to worry about when my ends get weaved in at the end of a project, any of it coming out, because it's just a nice thick but soft worsted, which is like the basic
13:59weight for yarn. That's pretty much what all acrylic is. You can get different weights of yarn, but the most popular is the size four. And it's just, it comes in a big skein, it's soft, and I just like the pricing that it is for the size that it comes in. And if I remember correctly, that brand has some really pretty colors for baby blankets.
14:29Oh yes they do. They have some vibrant colors, they have more natural tones, like they pretty much have, if you can think of the color they probably have it. Mm-hmm. Yep. I really like that and I really like lion heart, is it lion? Lion heart? Lion something? Lion brand? Red lion? I don't remember. Lion is in the name, but I really like that for scarves because it's not as heavy.
14:57But it's thick and it's soft. It's so soft. And my kids, I made scarves for my kids when they were young and they loved them. They would wrap the scarf around their neck and squish their chin into the yarn to feel it. Yeah, it's a great yarn. Yep, and I really like the... I think it's sugar and spice cotton yarn for the... Oh, the sugar and cream, yeah. Something like that, yeah.
15:26for the for the washcloth because yeah that's what I used to make my sorry my coasters yep yeah and do you start your coasters or not I personally don't um I I don't I don't have any experience starting anything like any any of my projects so I don't like to if it if I did I was
15:53afraid it would take away from the absorbency of the cotton, like as a coaster. I've seen other people do it and I get why they do it because it makes it like firm, it makes so it doesn't, it's not like super floppy when you like take like go to use it. But I'm afraid it's going to take away from the absorbency and um.
16:14My coasters are pretty like probably not like top five of my best sellers at markets and I haven't had a complaint yet or someone asked me to start them. So, I mean, if someone asked me, I would, but at the moment I'm not going to knock what's working. Yeah. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Um, I would never want to use one of your coasters to actually set my coffee cup on.
16:39because I would absolutely slop my coffee on it and I would be sad because the stain would never come out because your coasters are really pretty. Well, thank you. I mean, I've had some people say the same thing, but I tell them all the time, things are washable. I understand not wanting to stain it, but that's kind of the whole point of them. Get them dirty. They're washable.
17:04I've been using the same set of coasters that I made for myself for about two years now and they're still their vibrant color even after washing them. So I say get them dirty. I always tell people they're going to get dirty no matter what, whether it's going to be from condensation or a spill. They're going to get dirty, they're washable and their colors don't fade, especially if you use that Lily Sugar and Cream Cotton Yarn. Okay.
17:34Good to know, because I really like nice things. I like nice things that people make. I like nice things like glasses that are beautiful, vases that are beautiful, but I don't typically buy them because I'm like, invariably, I am going to ruin that thing that was so pretty when I started with it. And I also have a younger sister and shared a room with her until I moved out.
18:03at 18 years old and she had a way of breaking all my nice things. So I got trained to not have nice things. You know the line about this is why we cannot have nice things. Yeah. And so I tend to get things that are utilitarian, that the function is more important than the fashion of it. So that's just me.
18:31But anybody who needs coasters, you should talk to McKenna, because they're very pretty. Thank you so much. Yeah, I love what you're doing. I think it's beautiful. And I know the work that goes into creating the things that you're creating. And it takes time, and it takes patience.
18:49So I think that whatever you are charging for your goods, I think that it's at worth every penny because I know the work that goes into what you're doing. Yeah, that's something people don't realize a lot of the time if they don't work on the craft or they don't have like a hobby that's like crochet.
19:15they don't realize, like you said, the time, the patience, and even sometimes the money that goes into them. And then they're like, wow, that's a really high price for something kind of small or something like that. But it's like the same with people that like do like the soldering of like the glass and making all like the glassware, pottery, anything like that. They think, oh, it's like, it seems so easy. Why is it so expensive? It's just
19:45You guys gotta realize how much time and effort and practice goes into these things. Yes, handmade means time. Handmade requires time. Factories can create a blanket in an eighth of the time it's going to take you, if not a sixteenth of the time it's going to take you. Oh yeah. So.
20:10It's a very fine distinction and it needs to be made. So you mentioned Joanne Fabrics. I freaking love Joanne Fabrics. I haven't been in one in quite a while. But number one, I love the inspiration that smacks you in the face when you walk in the door. And number two, I don't know if they still do this, but they used to have amazing coupons and sales. Do they still do that?
20:40Oh yeah, I have the app for Joann's, so I get like 20% off coupons all the time. Sometimes they run like 60% off on sales, especially in the yarn section. I obviously take advantage of that a lot, a lot. But I also take advantage of all their other sales that they have. But yes, they do have some pretty amazing sales.
21:09compared to Michael's sometimes I used to shop at Michael's all the time for all my yarn and then I rediscovered Joanne fabrics and It has just like boosted my yarn supply like Tenfold almost like they have so many more options for not alone like colors, but also brands at Joanne's It's it's just a whole different ballgame over there
21:38Oh yeah, I don't dare to walk into a yarn aisle at Joanne's right now because I would buy 17,000 colors. One of the things that drew me to crocheting is that there's so many fun colors. Yes, there are. I mean, I love sage green. I love navy blue. I love cornflower blue. I don't know if you know what that is, but it's just a lighter, brighter shade of navy.
22:08And I don't really have a lot of color in my house. My house is cream and coffee colors. And I keep saying to my husband, I'm gonna go to Joanne's and buy a whole bunch of crazy colors and make some things to hang because it's colorful. He's like, you are not, you love the color scheme of our house. And I'm like, yes, but we need some color, my goodness. So I should not have talked to you today. Now I'm gonna make a run to Joanne's this weekend. Yeah.
22:36I'm the same way. I like I'm a big sage green fan as well. I that's probably one of my favorite colors Um, and the problem is is if i'm making stuff for myself, it's all in that same color scheme like greens Browns like a very neutral tone, but I love seeing people's work where it's like vibrant colors And I keep telling myself mckenna Make something for yourself in a vibrant color, but then i'm like, I don't know
23:05it doesn't really match everything else, you know? So I'm in the same boat as you, where I wanna make a little bit more, like add more vibrant colors to my collection. Yeah, I asked my husband a month ago, I said, so, I said, we've been here almost four years. I said, next year, are we gonna paint? Cause the house was remodeled before I moved in and it was perfect. And of course we've lived here, so we've gotten dings in the walls and.
23:34There's just things that need to be touched up and trying to match paint is a pain in the butt. Oh yeah. And he said, do you want to paint your kitchen sage green? And I said, I want to make the cabinets sage green, not the cabinet cabinets. The cabinets are cream, I like them. The only cabinets, the only feature original to the house are these pantry cabinets and they painted them the coffee color that is the other.
24:02color besides cream for the color scheme for the house. And these are the original cabinets. They left the shelves in with the contact paper on them. Oh yeah. And they left the hooks for coffee mugs in them. So I will never change the inside because I love that the nostalgia for this old farmhouse is still there. But I said I would really love to paint the cabinets sage green and that would be fine with cream.
24:29And he was like, yeah, he said, we could do that. He said, do you want to paint the accent wall in the living room sage green? And I was like, no, I want to paint it a coffee color just like it is now. He said, oh, good. So people's preferences for colors are very, very specific. And that's totally fine to each their own. I just.
24:56I love it when Joann's would put their yarn on sale in the clearance section because you could get three skeins of yarn for three bucks. I don't know if that's the case now, but you used to be able to. And I didn't care what colors they were because I was just going to make scarves for the kids and the kids loved all the crazy colors.
25:17Yeah, I recently had a pretty large custom order for some pillows that were shaped like cannabis leaves. And I got super lucky that all the colors that this lady had picked out were all in the clearance section and all the brand that I use anyways for that kind of project for like a pillow. And I got super lucky.
25:4710 skeins of yarn for each skein was like $2 each. So I barely spent like 30 bucks. It was great. I loved their deals there. Yeah, it helps, especially if you're new or you're on a budget. So we have about five minutes left before we get to 30 minutes. I try to keep these to half an hour. If someone was going to get into crocheting, like they have never crocheted in their lives.
26:15What would you suggest for first steps and ways to make it less expensive if they decide they don't like it? I would always say YouTube is gonna be your best friend and don't stick to one person's like channel for videos and like tips and tricks because everybody does something differently. I would definitely say look at multiple different channels or
26:44If you're not into a specific channel, just multiple different videos for sure would help because there's different terms between the US and the UK. So you want to get familiar with both of those because if you're reading a pattern, it might change. They might say, oh, this is in UK terms and a double crochet in UK is the same thing as a single crochet in the US. So definitely.
27:11watch a lot of different videos. Don't skip to the- don't watch like all the same person. I- I mean all- you can always go back to those videos and watch more of that person's videos, but I would definitely say watch more than one. And when it comes to supplies, shop, like we've been talking about, sale yarn, do some like you said washcloths, coasters, anything like that, and then once you kind of got the hang of it, then invest in that more expensive yarn.
27:42It's just all personal preference. And if you're looking for hooks, there's even stuff, you can go to thrift stores and possibly find hooks and yarn and all that kind of stuff to make it a little bit less expensive. Amazon is great. You can buy like a whole kit where it has like 10 different sizes of hooks and maybe some sample sizes of yarn as well as stitch markers.
28:09Tapestry needles for like 20 bucks for a whole kit. So I mean Just shop around the first thing you see is not always gonna be the best thing look at reviews You don't have to have the most expensive hooks to start off. I started off with like dollar store plastic crochet hooks you don't need Furl brand which is like a really really nice brand like almost fifteen dollars per a hook
28:39You don't need that when you begin and even now I don't use those and I've been doing it for A quite a long time. I don't Definitely just just shop around You don't need the most expensive things cheap things Cheap hooks do the same work as expensive hooks. They more expensive ones might be a little more comfortable in your hand But when you're just beginning It it's not it's not that big of a deal and take breaks when you crochet take breaks I don't know how
29:09how much my hand hurt because I don't I didn't think of that when I first started. Take breaks, stretch your hands out. Trust me, it's going to be worth it in the long run. Yeah, mine, my hands hurt when I did it too. I remember that now. Okay, the other things that I would chime in with is join some of the Facebook groups for crocheting or the forums online because people are so willing to help you if you get stuck. Yeah, especially with patterns.
29:38I'm in a group where they take a picture of the row that they're on or the round that they're on and they're like, hey, I don't quite understand this. People are so willing to explain it to you. Yeah. And then the other thing I was going to say is you can find yarn on Craigslist and on Facebook Marketplace that people are just trying to get rid of. I had somebody message me.
30:07And it wasn't because of those, but someone messaged me who knew that I crocheted and said, I have a garbage bag size bag of all different kinds of yarns. Do you want it? Yeah, I've had that happen to me too, where they're just like, I just wanna get rid of it. You can have it. I don't want anything for it. I ended up, the only problem with that is sometimes it's just like kind of older yarn. But still, you're getting it for free.
30:34go through it, see if there's anything you would like, and then maybe pass it on to the next person, that's what I did. Whatever I didn't use, I passed on to the next person and they passed it on and it just kind of was like a big chain of free yarn. Yeah, and yard sales, and Goodwill, and really, there is yarn everywhere in the entire world, sitting there waiting for you to decide you wanna try to make something with it. Exactly. So.
31:02All right, Mackenna, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a great time talking to you. Yeah, I love talking about crafting. I think it's really fun. Don't leave me when I stop recording because I need your file to upload, okay? Okay. All right, thanks. Bye. Bye-bye.
 
 
 

Rustic Roots

Today I'm talking with Cindy and Mike at Rustic Roots. 
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https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Cindy and someone else in the background. I don't know who it is yet. At Ruster Groots Farm. Good morning, Cindy. Good morning. It's my husband, Mike. Hi, Mike. Sorry, I didn't know you were going to be part of this. Awesome.
00:29Fantastic. All right. So tell me about yourselves and Rustic Roots Farm. Rustic Roots, sorry. Rustic Roots Greenery. We started a small greenhouse a few years ago and now we've built up. We found a used one for sale and bought it and put it up. We sold a couple of our cows to help pay for it. I don't know. It's fantastic.
00:58Go ahead. All right. Mm-hmm. So for years, she wanted a greenhouse. And for a long time, I did a lot of the plants. And one year, she just couldn't handle me getting rid of the little helpless seedlings that we were thinning out. So she decided to keep them and took over our entire living room. So 2020, with the COVID and the COVID-19 pandemic,
01:24Um, the kids getting kicked out of school, um, finally, after about eight or nine years of, uh, begging, we decided to have a, uh, arts and crafts and science program. And we built a greenhouse. About a eight by 12 or eight by 14 on the pad in front of our house with the kids with, um, rough cut lumber and glass panes and just basically things that we had around. And then we.
01:51rolled it around to the south side of our house. And that first year she filled it. So the second year we doubled the size of that greenhouse and Cindy took that as a challenge. So she filled it again. Um, then I had a friend sent me a link to some people selling a 30 by 70 greenhouse about three or four hours away. And I'd been looking into.
02:19I'm building a different greenhouse for a while and I've really been, I was really getting into the geothermal and some of the different ways to make greenhouses cheaper to heat and operate. And so we went down and we bought this greenhouse from some people that do the same thing. They sell garden starts. And then September of 22, we started our...
02:46construction of our brand new greenhouse or brand new to us. And we dug a 20 by 60 foot hole in our front yard and filled it with 2000 feet of perforated pipe. And we built a climate battery style geothermal and then we plunked a greenhouse on top of it. He says we, but really he built, I just helped a little. You guys sound a lot like me and my husband. Um, we, I applied for a grant to.
03:16to fund a heated greenhouse last year. And we actually got the grant, which dumbfounded me because I didn't think we had a hope in hell of getting it. And I was like, so do you want to build a heated greenhouse, honey? And he was like, I do. We can't afford to. I said, we can now. And he said, did we get the grant? I said, we did. I said, it's got to be finished, complete, by May 31 of 2024.
03:45Can you make that happen? Because we didn't get the money until November of 2023. And he said yes. Oh, wow. And I said, OK, you better pray for good weather in the spring, because otherwise this is not going to work. And it was finished, I think, the weekend before May 31. Oh, nice. So yeah, go ahead. We applied for a grant. But what we learned is the grant money is only for brand new greenhouses. You can't.
04:14You can't utilize that money to buy a used greenhouse or anything like that. Yes. We had to buy all the, the, we had to buy all the supplies new or they had to be in really, really good condition. Yeah. Almost new. So yeah, there's definitely some parameters that you have to meet. Yeah. We had a, we had a drought, um, 2022 and we had a small cow herd that we were running.
04:44And basically it was a decision of, do we want to buy hay and rent pasture? Or what do we do? And we ended up selling the majority of our cows and calves. And we took that money and that's basically how we funded our greenhouse. Yup. You gotta find a way one way or another, because if otherwise it just doesn't happen. And the other thing is, is that animals are expensive to feed. I mean, people who have dogs and cats.
05:13As house pets, they know how much money they spend to feed their pets. And it is just exponentially more expensive, the bigger the animal gets. And the more it's livestock, not a pet. So it's hard. And I don't blame you. It's the weather has been insane the last couple of years. You're in Nebraska, right? Yep. We're in a, we're in the panhandle in Nebraska. We're.
05:38We're actually closer to the capital of Wyoming and Colorado than we are the capital of Nebraska. So we're about three hours from Rapid City, three hours from Cheyenne, Wyoming, and about four hours from Denver, Colorado. Yeah. And we're in Minnesota. And you guys pretty much have had the same weather we've had as far as I know. The last two summers have been rainy in the spring and then not a drop of water to be found at the end of June, July.
06:08Well, yeah, end of June, July, August, and end of September. Last summer, my husband watered every night for at least an hour and a half from the well. Yep. Well, we kind of had the opposite problem last year. Last year was actually an extremely wet year for us. Oh, okay. Um, typically we only average about 15 inches of rain a year. Um, last year we had between 30 and 40 inches. Um, but like, like I say, in 22, we had.
06:37well below normal, probably more like 12 inches of rain. Yeah, so my original statement stands, the weather has been absolutely bonkers. Yup. Yes. I don't know if you guys know what's going on in Minnesota right now, but we have major damaging flooding going on in the lower half of the state right now. Yeah, you got a dam that's no longer a dam, too. Yeah, I'm about half an hour from there. Oh, wow. Yup. Yeah, that was...
07:06Not great. And my husband actually works in the city where that is going on. So the detours that he's had to find to get from Lusor, which is where we live, to Mankato and back has been crazy. And our road out front of our home is basically a two lane county road and it is one of the detours. So
07:31Usually, you know, a couple cars go by, it can be another 20 minutes, a couple cars go by. If it's harvest season, lots of tractors and semis full of corn going by. For the last two days until this morning, it has just been car after car after car and people honking their horns and screeching their brakes. I'm like, we did not move back to the city. I know we didn't. That's right.
07:58So it's eased up this morning because the major highway nearby is back open again, which is a blessing because I really did not miss the sound of the cars. Yeah, I didn't miss the sound of cars all the time at all when we moved here because we used to live in town and it was constant noise. And boy, I got reminded why we moved. Yeah. So anyway, all that having been said.
08:27awesome thing about the big greenhouse. And I think it's funny that Mike tells stories just like my husband tells stories. That's awesome. He's like, yeah, she wanted, and I begrudgingly said sure, blah, blah, blah. But underneath- Well, I know they say to, you know, you need to thin the seedlings and pick the best ones and everything, but I'm like, they're all growing perfectly fine. You don't need to thin them out and throw them away. You just put them in dirt and there they go. Yeah.
08:54But underneath the husband's stories is that I love her, I want her to be happy. How can I make her happy? So it just makes me giggle when I hear other people's husbands tell stories about them because it's the same tone of voice every time. Well, I felt so bad for him because the second year we had the little greenhouse and I had so many in the living room and I kind of took over part of our computer room with plant
09:24We were just outgrowing things and he went outside in March and it was snowing, kind of sleeting outside and he was putting together the other greenhouse, just like kind of tacking it on the end of the other one, just so we'd have room for all of them. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm right there with you, Cindy, because we used to, now we have the greenhouse, we don't have to anymore. Yay. But every year for the last 20 something years.
09:54we have started our seedlings in the house on the kitchen table. And the kitchen table was actually a living room table in the old house, we didn't have any room for a kitchen table anywhere. And so my living room table would be covered with seedling trays and seedlings growing like crazy. And then when we moved here, we have an eat-in kitchen. So where the kitchen table sits, we actually added another folding table behind the kitchen table.
10:22And that was completely covered with seedlings. And it didn't bother my husband, but I love to cook. And part of the reason I was so thrilled about this place when we bought it in 2020 is because it had a place to actually sit in the kitchen at a kitchen table and have coffee or lunch or dinner. And every spring, there's no place to do that because the table is covered. So...
10:48This spring, I was like, this is the last spring my kitchen table is going to have to be covered in baby plants. Yay! You'll get your house back. My husband looked at me, he said, you're going to miss them. He said, you're going to be begging me to bring in basil babies just so you can watch them grow. I was like, all right, yeah, maybe. But at least it'll only be a couple, not two tables worth of seedlings anymore. But anyway, all that.
11:17being said, because this is very much a giggle fest, but I'd really like to know what you guys are doing with all these plants. Are you selling them as bedding plants? Are you selling them from your property? Do you wholesale? How are you moving them? I started my first year, it was kind of an accident. Like Mike said, I just took all the thinned seedlings and planted them. I ended up with 350 tomato plants.
11:42Yep. And normally we only used about 40 to 50 in our garden. So I'm like, what do I do with all of the rest of them? I didn't think that far ahead, but you know, it was amazing. They grew, they stayed alive. So I just kind of put an ad on Facebook and sold them for a couple bucks piece in town and just to whoever in the area. And they went in like 24 hours.
12:11So that was eye-opening. For us, I garden, I can everything. Tomatoes were really a staple in our garden. So I make sauces and can the tomatoes just plain and whatever. So going to places around here, it was extremely expensive to buy the amount of plants we needed. And
12:39The cheapest place to get them at the time was like Menards. You can get a little four pack of tomato seedlings, but you know, they were four inch tall plants. And between the hail and a shorter growing season up here, there was no way to make it work. So that's kind of why we started doing the seedlings to begin with. But in the...
13:07After the first year we sold and they went so quickly, the second year was a little more on purpose. I started a few other things and... I sold them at the co-op that year. Okay. Yep, yep. There's a farmers co-op in town. They let me set up some tables and bring in some plants and they just sold for a percentage and that went really well.
13:37The next year we partnered up with Valor General Store in Hemingford and was able to sell it at both stores there.
13:51So, and then this last year was just at Valor, but Valor and Facebook. We sell some at the house, but we sell a lot of them in town. It's, we're, we're seven miles out of Hammingford, but we're, we're two miles off the highway on a pretty terrible dirt slash mud road. So, um, it's hard to get people to come out to the greenhouse and buy, but, uh, we got a pretty good relationship with the folks that run the hardware store. So we sell in there. And then.
14:21It's a ton of work because they're closed Sunday and Monday. So every, every Saturday evening we go up with a pickup and stock trailer and bring an entire trailer load of plants home, put them back in the greenhouse and kind of nurse them back to health from being inside and then turn around on Tuesday morning and haul it all back. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's gotta be just kind of a bummer to have to do that.
14:50Well, and it's funny up here, you know, I have people starting in April. Well, when are you bringing your plants in? I'm like, you know, we can't plant till like June 1st, right? Our frost dates the 25th of May, you know, which really turns into the first week of June. So. Yeah, but people don't, people don't know. I mean, my husband, the first spring we were here in the new house, planted seeds in February. And I said, what, I said, what are you doing?
15:20Yeah. I said, they're going to die before you can get them out. They're going to be so leggy and root bound and we don't have room to repot them and keep them in the house. There's no place to put the bigger pots. He was like, I'm just dying to get started. He said, I'm so sick of not having anything green. Well, hey, it sounds like the man needs to get into flowers. They take forever. Oh yeah. We are growing. Cindy started.
15:48What was your seed in the ground issue about? January 17th. Yeah, no. And I think I need to start a little earlier because my flowers didn't bloom on time. Oh, and you were doing this in the greenhouse? Well, no. No, in the house? It was in the house, but I had so many going that I ended up taking over part of his woodshed. He's got a little room off the side of his garage that is sort of insulated.
16:17And it was easier to heat. So yeah, I took over a little more of his life. We built vertical originally when we were doing it in the house, we built vertical racks and we're using basically 10 by 20 trays and there's five, I think five shelves, um, and then there's three sets of lights per shelf. And then there's two of those racks. Well, we just moved those to the wood shop and she's got a table out there. And.
16:46soil and then she can plant everything and then what we were doing is she would transplant and then as the season progressed we would then move it to the greenhouse in like four-inch cups. Yeah, yep. When you're growing from seed it is a never-ending battle of transplanting them from the little tiny cells to the next size up.
17:14until you can get them outside in the ground if that's what you're doing, because that's what we do. If you're just putting them in pots to sell them, then you gotta keep doing the thing with transplanting because they keep getting bigger. So yeah, it's a constant, constant, never-ending job. So my question is, I don't wanna ask a rude question, but are you...
17:41Are you seeing success with this? Are you, is it worth it to you? Are you making a profit on this? Well, this year we had trouble the last couple of years with soil. We would end up with a volunteer tomato plants coming out of soil. Yeah. Or too many bugs coming out of some really name brand soils. I don't want to knock anybody, but it was frustrating. So we had to find some special soil.
18:11and ended up being Iowa or sorry, Ohio. My bad. He dealt with it. I didn't. So see how that works. But to get it here, we couldn't find any truckers coming west with an empty load. So the soil ended up being the same price as the shipping. And I just, it's frustrating
18:41preferred to keep using the soil I was using. It was a little more affordable. Anyway, we had to raise prices for that. It just seems like everything was more expensive this year in general. And the store, you know, they were fine with it and people still supported us really well. I was very grateful. So by Memorial Day...
19:11weekend, we had finally broke even on soil and seed costs. Good. So, so, so is there any room to be ahead of the game on this this year? Is that where it sits? So basically, in my opinion, we've for the three years we've done this, we broke even, you know, even with some investments and things like that, which is fine for me, in my opinion, to get a business going. You know, if you can.
19:41breakeven and cover your costs and continue to expand a little bit. Um, one of our most successful things is that we partnered with, um, the recycling center in a town about 30 miles away. And so all of our cups and flats and all those things are all recycled. We don't have to buy any of that. Which really helps the price. Yes. And keeps it out of the landfill. Yeah.
20:09The part I hate is seeing a bunch of these corporations, you know, Walmart, the farm store and then the next town over, they just, they throw all the plastics in the dumpster. Or you know, they can't reuse them. It's just frustrating. I'd rather reuse something and it not be so pretty than to think of it, you know, not quite riding away the way it should in a landfill.
20:38Well, the other thing Cindy always said when we started this is gardening shouldn't be expensive. Right. It shouldn't be expensive to raise a garden for your family. So, you know, yeah, we could charge more and we could do this. But at the end of the day, we also want it to be affordable for people. And that's why, you know, we've had offers in the past from some of the hardware stores to buy out our inventory, you know, but they're just going to take it to town and mark it up.
21:06we would rather sell it ourselves instead of sell on wholesale. Yes, that makes sense. Yeah, it's not all about making money. In fact, I work at a feedlot a few miles west of our place and I've been there about nine years and my boss, he'd just shake his head at me every time I'd start telling my stories about the greenhouse endeavors and he goes, well, does that pay for your time? And I'm like, no.
21:33And he's like, you're just crazy. You're crazy. The guy's all kind of got a kick out of it. Every time we'd start talking about, oh, I got, you know, 250, you know, plants transplanted this week and, and they're like, man, well, how many more you got to go? And I swore about 3,500 more. Yeah. But you love it. So you are, you are getting a return on it because you feel good when you do it.
22:02Yes. And that's why I asked because I wanted to know if it was about money or if it was about the fact that you love it because if it's just about money, at some point you will be like, I'm not doing this anymore. Exactly. Exactly. Because it's not, it's... The other thing is too, the way that we have built this is everything's paid for, right? So there's no stress about paying the bills or paying the payment.
22:31you know, and at any time, you know, Cindy kind of stressed about the greenhouse. And I said, if nothing else, we can completely stop the plants and just garden inside of it, you know, it's, it's paid for it's not a big deal. I just stressed because I even told our tax lady that we, we sold the beef cows we had, which wasn't many, but we sold the, the pears we had to invest into this greenhouse and I'm like,
22:58I feel like I'm going crazy because at the time the prices for cattle were high and I just think you can at least make a good chunk off of a cow every year, but can I come near that with plants? I guess you can, but there's a lot of expense in it too. So yeah, kind of a toss up. Yeah. But
23:26There's an old saying about if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life and work is a very different definition in that phrasing. And you love the work. So if you love the work and you're breaking even, then you're probably doing a great thing. My husband gardens because he loves to garden. Like it's an avid passion for him. It's how he de-stresses from his job.
23:53And he loves his job. He just got a new job last year. Loves it. But it has stresses too. Every corporate job has stresses. So every spring, well, actually every January, he starts talking about planning the next year's garden because that's how he calms down. Yes. So, I don't know. I think everybody needs a thing that they do that brings them joy.
24:22brings them peace and hopefully helps other people too. That's what I think. Yeah. I like it. I start itching around Christmas time. I'm like, we need plants. We need green. We need something. So January 17th, I finally got my first tray of seedlings started. I feel content.
24:51when I start doing that finally. This time of year she's ready to be done. Yep and that's where Mike kind of steps up then because I'm like okay I'm good, I'm planted out let's and he loves the gardening part so I go out and help where I can but this is really his time of year. He loves getting out there and just his quiet time in the garden.
25:18Yeah. It's his happy place. I think that's the reason why Kyle really likes to garden too, because I just leave him to it. I can't even make a suggestion these days without getting the look, you know. And I'm like, do you want me to shut up? I don't need to make any suggestions. I can just be quiet. He's like, what's the suggestion? It might be important. I'm like this. And sometimes it is sometimes like I hadn't thought of that. Thank you. And other times he's like, I got it. I'm like, okay, no problem.
25:48So I am very happy to cook whatever comes out of the garden if it needs cooking with dinner. I am very happy to help with canning. I am very happy to eat fresh radishes and cucumbers and tomatoes when they're coming in. I don't want to be in the garden with him. That is his baby and he can go take care of that baby. I'm good with that.
26:13There you go. So do you guys do other things besides this greenhouse nursery thing? Yeah. Go ahead. What kind of things are we talking? Well you build things, so are you a carpenter? No, I'm actually a welder for BNSF Railway. Okay. I work at a big locomotive diesel shop.
26:41head of the welding department there. That's, that's my full-time job. That's your jobby job. Yes. Okay. Yup. On top of that, we do, I don't know, we got too much broke stuff around here that I fix. I fixed broke things for other people. We were crazy enough to have milk cows. So we milk and make cheese and do all kinds of things like that. We'd, uh, apparently we don't sit still very well.
27:10Oh, okay. Well, you do need to take a break now and then I hope you actually do get sleep. Occasionally. Until he stresses about the garden, you know, or the greenhouse freezing. He gets himself up a few times a night through the winter and it's like, stop, just stop it. So what's interesting is since we built it, so we built it, we started September of 22. We got it basically going by March.
27:4023. So from the time we got it going until now, it's only froze twice inside of it. So we had two nights of, it was 27 and 25 below. And I don't have a propane heater yet. I just got some diesel shop heaters for backup. But
28:02I got up and it was 25 below outside and it was 18 above in my greenhouse, which is depressing because it froze. But it's a little impressive because with no other heat other than the geothermal, it was 18 above in there. That is impressive. Yeah. And it's just a plastic hoop house, you know? Yeah, we run two layers of air inflated plastic. That's all we're running. Wow. That's amazing.
28:33Well, it's a thousand dollars to put plastic on it. And at the time we were building it, I figured it'd be 15 or 20,000 to get, uh, twin wall panels to put on it. So it was just a, it was a cost thing. You know, we had X number of dollars after, you know, we sold cows and we had some money saved. So we had a budget and that's what we went with. And I've been, I've been pretty happy with it so far. Um, that air inflation helps too. We.
28:59we live in a very windy environment so it keeps the plastic from whipping quite as much but I've been really impressed with that geothermal. Yeah we we thought about it for the one that we just put up but it would have been expensive to dig for it you know we would have had we would have had to rent somebody's machinery and time to do that so ours is actually a hard-sided
29:30wood and the polycarbonate panels and the tin roof and back on it. And we haven't, we haven't actually done anything else. It's built, it is a greenhouse at this point. Um, my husband is going to be putting in installation this winter. It has electricity to it. And I think the plan is, is that we're going to get this thing. I don't know the name of it. It's like a battery.
29:59but it's like a generator too. So you can actually plug things into it. Your cell phone chargers, electric things that need to be plugged in, blah, blah, blah. And we're going to get solar panels so that we can use solar for that battery. And then we'll have some kind of heat source that that battery powers to blow warm air around the greenhouse. And we have no idea if any of this is going to work. Not a clue.
30:29And I said to my husband, what if it doesn't work? And he said, well, he said, we will have a greenhouse. We just won't have a heated greenhouse. I was like, okay, that's fine. But we're really hoping that it works because I really, really want tomatoes in January that we grew. That's my one tiny little hope that we might be able to have homegrown tomatoes in January because I was telling someone else, there is a company that grows
30:59Better Boy Tomatoes in Minnesota in hot houses. And they are the closest thing to the tomatoes that we take out of our garden in August that I can get in January in our area. Oh neat. So, I really would love to have tomatoes. I really would love to have cucumbers because I will eat a cucumber a day when they're coming in. I love them. And he said, I don't know about the cucumbers. I said, okay, well, we can try. And we want them.
31:28When our greenhouse frosted, we had, uh, they were 12 or 14 foot, uh, tomatoes in there. They were calling them ceiling fans were clipping them off. Oh, and they died. They were, they were loaded. I was getting ready to can waiting for them all to set on and. We had a sun gold cherry tomatoes out there. And then I had a bunch of, uh, Rutgers for, uh, slicing tomatoes out there. And then we had. Uh.
31:57We were eating fresh green beans out of there. I had whole beans in there. Um, we had zucchini out there. Um, we, we still have strawberries out there. They survived the frost. So I couldn't believe that. Well, they're right by the outlet for the geothermal. Did, did either one of you just cry when you realized everything grows? Yeah. Yes. I was a little upset. Yeah. I would be sobbing. That would, that would be so.
32:26sad and not, not, not. Yeah. Oh, the worst part is I lost a whole bunch of houseplants out there. Yeah. Well, it was getting a little crowded in the house with all of his houseplant babies. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, we have like 10 things of each in here. Why don't we excavate eight of each out to the greenhouse and they can grow happy out there. And he had a rubber tree. Rubber plant. A rubber plant. Uh huh.
32:56It kept getting like, I was afraid it was going to get knocked over. Everybody kept brushing up against it when they walked by and it was right in the way. There's no really good place to put it. So I took it out to the greenhouse and I felt so bad because it died really quick. I thought I had to hunt for another one for him.
33:20Oh, it's so sad. I mean, I cry when animals die, but man, if I had a greenhouse full like that and everything froze, I would sob for that too. Yeah, I did. It's frustrating. All right, guys. Well, we're at over half an hour and I try to keep these at half an hour. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. And when I stop recording, don't leave because I need your file to upload from your site, okay? Okay. All right. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
33:50Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

Groovy Grazers MT

Today I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazers MT.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today, I'm talking with Morgan at Groovy Grazer's MT, and I'm assuming the MT stands for Montana, but I could be wrong. Good morning, Morgan.
00:22Good morning. Yes, it is Montana. We're hoping to be another state. So we like to kind of divide it out. So this is our Montana location, which would be our original location. Okay, that makes sense. Well, tell me about yourself and Groovy Grazers. Yeah, so I'm an Air Force veteran. I spent about two years in and then I got out in Okinawa, Japan when I had my son. And it did set off some genetic disorders. So that's kind of how Groovy Grazers came about.
00:50was I left my corporate America job making over, you know, $100,000. I was like, I'm going to do something different. And then we got some goats because we needed to like refresh our land. Goats are good land rebuilders. A lot of people don't understand that they can rebuild the land. So it just started with three goats and we were just sitting there one night, me and my husband, and I was like, man, these guys are just burning hay. They're kind of like horses or, you know, just kind of an ornament right now. They got to do something.
01:20So it started originally with grazing because in the south, and that's where I came from, I moved from Arizona up to Montana, but I lived in Homesteaded in Louisiana and I lived in Texas. And I've seen them do this like massive grazing, but they've done it with meat goats. So I was like, okay, we're gonna try it. And that's kinda how it started. It went from grazing to birthday parties and events to kind of being like a community-based thing. So it's really got a lot of facets to it as a business and as like,
01:50accompany what we do but the main thing is just go birthday parties right now. Fun! So how does that work? How do the goats interact at the birthday parties and is it for little kids or up to 18 or for grown-ups too? Anyone can have a goat party. I actually did a 34 year old males party this month and part of it was
02:15He had goats growing up. So some of it is nostalgia, right? For the adults. Tonight we're doing St. John's United. They're a really big nonprofit. A lot of people know them. They're, I believe, worldwide. So we're doing it. So it kind of varies in who and what and where I've done. Dispensary grand openings, because it is legal here. We're doing a kid event at the park. So it...
02:41There's really not like a person, right? If you ask who can do goat parties, it's anyone, but what do the goats do? Well, I mean, they're Nigerian dwarfs, so they're cute in general, right? They're like max 50 pounds, but I bring the babies. So I just rehomed my 10 to 12 week old. I think every 12 week, I'd have to count back. We had a few babies, but I would take them with, and the kids can hold them, the adults can hold them. You can take pictures with them, just watch them, right?
03:09Sometimes kids will just sit there and watch them because they're really interesting creatures. A lot of the event is me talking and interacting with the public, which is really my favorite. So, you know, being disabled and not having a lot of things to do and being at home on 20 acres, you don't get out a lot. So a lot of it is me interacting with these people and explaining to them weird facts about goats and why we got into this and how it works and then them getting full range of touching them.
03:38and exploring them. I love when the kids touch the horns and they look at, you know, their eyes, and I'll even show them their teeth. It's just a hands-on learning experience. And that's really what the whole party is about, is letting the kids touch something that maybe they wouldn't. I mean, not very many people have 20 acres or even goats per se, so it's something that they may never get to do. And so to allow them to do it to the fullest extent is kind of what Groovy Grazers is about, is like free or like...
04:06I don't know how to explain it, hands-on learning, like free play. Like you play with the goats, you see what they do and you see how they interact and then the kids will ask you questions naturally. It's kind of a really cool interaction between the kids and goats. Super fun. No one has told me the, whatever you said, the facts. Oh yeah. Tell me some facts. Tell me some crazy facts about goats. Okay. So my favorite is land, right? Because in Montana...
04:34our soil where we're at, I'm in Laurel, which is right outside of Billings. It's kind of a bedroom town for Billings. We're really high in alkaline, right? Alkaline isn't good to garden in. It's really hard to garden in actually. And you have to rebuild your soil. So I tell people, they're like, man, goats are annoying. And I'm like, yeah, well, do you have weeds in your yard? And they're like, yeah, my horses don't either or the people that bale hay.
05:01Those are especially my favorite, because we talked to a lot of other farmers out here in Montana. It's a pretty rural area, right? And so I get to tell them, I'm like, well, hey, you need goats, because goats naturally eat. And then they process like 90% of the seeds, so they digest them fully. And then the other like eight to 9%, I'm probably a little off of my percentages, they're rendered unviable, so they're not gonna sprout. So you're talking about an animal that comes in and cleans up your field.
05:31The other really cool thing is they're ruminants like cows. Um, so they chew cud, right? So I love that. They love seeing that, right? They love being able to watch the goats chew. You were saying. Yeah. So the, I mean, just the interaction of the goats, right? Them being ruminants and them chewing their cud. The kids think it is the most hilarious thing ever, right? Because they've seen cows do it, but cows' cud smells really different compared to goat cud.
06:01And so they love watching it. They also love learning that the ruminant is on the left side, right? So on the goat, which if you're looking at the head, it's on your left side. If you're looking at the goat, it's gonna be on the right. So a lot of people say R for ruminant. I just know it the different way because that's how I was taught. So I love letting the kids or adults put their ears up to the goat's side. When I have little baby goats, that's easy, they just pick them up, you know?
06:26And they're like, wow, you can hear it gurgling and talking. I'm like, yeah, it's digesting. So there's so much hands-on. They can see almost a full 360 around them with their eyes. That's why their eyes are on the side of their head and they're shaped differently. My husband knows the actual name of the shape that their eye is, and he's got some of the cool facts. They also produce cashmere. Not a lot of people know that. I didn't know that actually. My boyfriend, or husband, we just...
06:54got married, she basically was like, did you know that they produce cashmere? Cause I'm obsessed with crocheting. Cause my mom taught me how and I said, no. So even me who crochet didn't even know that cashmere came from goats. You know, so I think there's a lot that we don't know about them. Also Nigerian dwarfs are 50, they're like 50 50. They're more of a cream breed, which is what I have. I know people are like, you're nuts. You milk a Nigerian dwarf, you only get a quart of milk. Max, today I have a dough that produces two quarts.
07:24And I'm like, yeah, but it tastes really good. Most people don't know that because the Nigerian dwarves produce less, that it is a higher fat content. It's actually about 10% more than most other breeds. I mean, these are just like my best facts. I can keep going for days. I absolutely am obsessed with goats. Yeah. I actually have a question. I was watching a show, a vet show, and I think it was dogs. Dogs have uterine f*****.
07:54horns so they develop babies on both sides. I was a vet tech. That is correct. Do goats do have that too? Yes they do. So that was something I actually learned. So anyone that has goats listening to this you need to go on a Facebook and type goat emergency into your search bar and join that group. Because it's just farmers being farmers and you do have some vets on there but they're just giving advice for free right?
08:21So on there, I learned that because goats can have babies or kids, which is what they're called, that develop in each horn at different stages. It's super rare, but that's how I learned that goats have uterine horns. And I know that dogs do because I used to help. I was a veterinary technician in Louisiana and we used to perform surgeries. And I remember looking at the horns and him telling me all about that. So that was something that when I went to goats,
08:51I thought was really interesting that they also have uterine horns too. So they have two separate uteruses almost because from what I was reading, they can have different developmental stages if they're releasing extra eggs, right? Which isn't, they're not supposed to do, but yeah, they do. Isn't that crazy? It is. Nature is nuts. I don't understand what...
09:17in the world, nature was thinking when it decided to do the things it does. And if you're a God person, I don't understand what God was doing. I don't have to understand. I'm not, I'm not religious. So for me, it's nature. Yeah. I look at the way things happen and the way things get messed up and the way things turn out right. And I'm just astounded every time. Yeah, absolutely. Ghosts have taught me a lot about nature, right? Like it's kind of a cut, cut throat.
09:46Farming, we're a small farm, right? Well, I don't know. If you ask my neighbors who don't like our homestead, because we're the only homesteader on our entire street, which we're on a smaller street, right? They don't like the farm, but if you ask other people, like we're a small farm, we only have 20 goats. And we can't afford shrinkage. So when you're talking like natural things that happen and not understanding them.
10:13goats, you know, everyone told me, oh man, goats just love to drop dead and I didn't have any issues for a really long time. And I was like, that's not true. You know, but then I bred and I lost one, um, giving birth and then I just lost one this Friday to worms. And it's just crazy to me that you can let a goat out in the pasture in the morning and they look perfectly fine. I mean, she's running around acting like a little, you know, goat being playful and
10:40not wanting to go in the pen and having to be chased and eating her food. And then at the end of the night, they're, you know, no longer with you. And so that's what I find crazy is that goats can come and go really quickly in that sense. And sometimes there's no rhyme or reason. And that's with all farming, you know. And so when you get into farming, especially I think with what you're saying is that we learn firsthand just that like there is.
11:07sometimes no reason for the things that happen in nature. Or you have to really dig, like you don't understand, like goats needing B12. So my goats right now have a heavy worm load and they're anemic, so I'm having to give them iron, B12 and organic apple cider vinegar. Isn't that crazy? Like you're just giving them vitamins. So it's just downing to me that that's just, it's just that simple of a fix for a goat, you know? It's that simple sometimes in nature.
11:37But then other times it requires antibiotics and it's a lot harder. Yeah, and sometimes nothing works, which is the saddest thing ever. It's so hard. I mean, I keep saying it's so hard. It should be my catchphrase for the entire podcast. It's so hard losing crops and animals because you put all this love and all this work and all this time into the thing you're trying to grow, whether it's plants or animals. You do...
12:04everything you can, you do all the studying, you do all the work, and sometimes it just doesn't work. It doesn't. And we've experienced that. And I take it so personally, right? When my animals are sick or something. We've spent, I have spent hours actually researching goats need copper. So when people go to the feed store, something I've had to do a lot with Groovy Gracers is education.
12:30Right? So really groovy grazers is the goats, but there's education involved. So we are a less waste farm at the end of the day. I want to teach people how to do that. So when we, I don't even say we're organic because I can't afford the shrinkage in animals, which is loss, right? Like I had to decide to no longer be organic this weekend because it was either lose four goats or give them an antibiotic. And you know what? They're getting antibiotics.
12:58Oh, well, I'll just not milk them or I won't, you know, for an extended period because we do watch what we put in our body. But we try to teach people that it is so hard, but it's worth it, right? Pour your heart out into this. Do what you need to do, but know that it can be done on any scale. So when you're having the goats and you're having to make choices with them, sometimes it feels weird, right? And you try everything you can and they still end up dead. But sometimes it works really well.
13:28So I tell people like, yes, farming is hard, but it's worth it, right? You're growing your own food. You're growing everything on your own. I know what goes into my animals. I know what's coming out of them, right? So like needing copper, that's something they have to have. They have to have selenium and iodine, we're deficient. So you have to do your own research. Like this is a lifestyle, it's not a hobby. I try to tell people like, if you're going to do some type of farming,
13:58small scale, one acre, it's a lifestyle now. You have to indulge in all the information you can get from other farmers because you don't really, I can't call it that, you know, for some of the things I need. And that's one of the, you know, the problems that a lot of farmers I think run into is that they wanna give up because it can be hard. So like, yeah, it's totally hard, but it's worth it. You can find the things that you need. Just do a little bit of research, right? I go to like five different feed stores.
14:26If I need to to get all the vitamins I need. Goats need a lot of vitamins. They're a vitamin-based animal. Like, did you even know that? That's another cool fact. If goats' vitamins are off, then they get sick really easily. So- Yeah, yeah, I did know that, but I'm sure that my listeners do not know that. So thank you. Yeah, I didn't know that, right? When I got into this, I was shocked. Do you, so do you have goats, Mary, then? I don't, but I love them.
14:53And I have done a bunch of reading on what it would take to have goats at our place. And I can't afford to feed them. I don't have any place for them to graze. Okay, so Nigerian dwarfs. Let's talk about it then because this is a really cool subject. We haul water. I am not hauling water for full sized goats at all because of the fact that it's a lot of water.
15:22And we, I don't drive the water truck. My partner does because I just, I'm not there yet, right? So when I went into home studying, I never had to haul water. So this was different when I moved to Montana and it's common here. So we looked and looked and looked and the same thing you're talking about, right? Feed, I'm on just my disability right now, right? Groovy Grazers brings in enough money to pay the bills for the goats thankfully now, but in the beginning it didn't. That was why.
15:52The Groovy Graziers was created. Nigerian Dwarfs are only eating three pounds a day. Compared to six to nine pounds that your Nubians, your Boars, Kikos, Alpines would eat. That's why I went with the Nigerian Dwarf. Also because they're a dual breed. They're meat and they're milk. So end of the world, tinfoil hat, right? Veterans, sometimes I wear it. It's okay. That's why I got the Nigerian Dwarfs in the end of the world type situation. I have everything I need.
16:22I have a goat that doesn't consume a lot of water. I have a goat that only eats three pounds. So in the winter time, in the harsh winter, they eat more than three pounds here because we got down to negative 40 this last winter. So obviously they eat more in the winter time, but they need very basic needs. So you could essentially, yeah, you probably could have a few Nigerian dwarfs, but you would have to supplement with hay.
16:48which is okay because if you're milking them, then they would probably benefit you enough, right? So it's all a, like, what is your end goal? And that's what I had to look at, right? When I was getting my breed. So the Nigerian Dwarfs ate less, drank less, but also provided milk that was higher in fat content. I wasn't really a goat milk person, I'll be honest.
17:10But I do like my goat's milk. So that's what I learned the vitamins is if your vitamins are off, it's a muscular taste in the milk along with how your cooling process. So maybe, you know, if you have an acre, you could technically have three goats. I have a lady she bought goats for me. And she has them in her backyard. She's not in city limits. She's right on the outskirts of it. There's actually a herd of 150 boars across the street from her, but they have a house with a small yard.
17:39And she has three little withers back there and she gives them hay and they couldn't even keep up with her yard actually because it was growing so well from the manure because goat's poop is ready manure. It's not hot. So it automatically starts absorbing me into the ground. So they're a rebuilder. So I don't know, maybe take a look at it again and look at Nigerian Dwarfs. Like I encourage listeners don't be put off by the size of your land or how much you might have to graze because...
18:06If the goat only needs three pounds a day and you need at least a minimum of three goats, most people on an acre can do it. But you have to look at the benefits. This lady didn't want to milk. She just wanted lawn mowers, so therefore we went with withers. If she wanted to milk, I would have had her put, use does and then you wouldn't keep a buck. So you would have to pay for the breeding services for your does. So there's a lot of planning that I think goes into each homestead.
18:35And a lot of people just aren't aware that these miniature goats eat far less than the large size Yeah, and I appreciate everything you just said and it makes me want to look into it more However, I would have to convince my husband that it would be a good idea to get goats and I don't think he's into it Right now. No, maybe maybe what I can do is do some more research over the winter and then hit him in about I don't know February and be like
19:01Could we get a couple goats this year? Well, and tell him right when he was about to go mo, hey, you could be doing something else like golfing or whatever his hobby is instead of doing this. That was like kind of our grazing catch slogan. It was like, go do something else. Let us do the hard work with the goats. But there is a lot that goes into goat owning. I mean, the vitamins is a big ordeal. And if we weren't milking them.
19:28I don't think they would be as fruitful for us as they are for the farm. Because yes, we want to get rid of the sweet clover that we have in the fields and they'll eventually graze that out. But we do plan on forever keeping goats because of how much of a duality they bring to the farm. And I think that's important, right? And even though we have 20 acres, 10 of it is grazing the other 10 is forest and gold.
19:55Because we're kind of on the rims and so I try to explain to people that like anyone can can do do it But how much work do you want to do? You know with us being me and my husband are both? Hyper mobile therefore we have some like physical disabilities and so I tell people like we have ten acres But anyone can do it you can do it regardless if you're mobile or not as mobile It just depends on how much extra work you want to do so like when I have to clean stalls
20:24it takes me a lot longer, but that's okay. I still get it done. So everyone's, I mean, really honestly, everyone's homestead is so wildly different. It is even hard to like give advice. People will ask me for advice on their goats and their homestead, and I'm like, it all depends even on soil and your location and weather. And so I encourage like your listeners, you know, understand that we're in the middle of Montana. We're in rural, rural Montana, and we have
20:54extreme highs and lows. We hit 90 two days ago, but less than four months ago, we were in the negative still with snow on the ground. And so in Minnesota, it's not a whole lot different, but in Florida, it might be. Yeah. And so yeah, for you, we're pretty kind of on the same plane. But yeah, Texas, man, was this a learning curve coming from the south up to here? It's a short growing season. You have to be really picky.
21:21There's a lot more planning and a lot less errors I feel like I can make in Montana. So it's definitely more of like a moderate homesteader type state when you're getting into lots of mistakes, lots of learning curves with plants and animals, but it's all worth it in the end. Yep. So I don't wanna run out of time. When did you get into this? What brought you to doing this in the first place?
21:49So about a year ago, it's actually kind of funny, our in-laws that live on the property, they weren't really a fan when I moved in. And so instead of building like a fence, I said, let's put a goat barn up. And it creates this like peaceful. So I mean, the goats are funny, like how they came onto the farm was just to create kind of privacy. And then they just turned into a passion and a hobby. So this happened about last.
22:17Let's see, I moved in last Mother's Day, not this last. So I've been here for about a year. So we've done all this in a year. We've done it really quickly. Um, I probably had goats about eight months, nine months. Um, I got them a few months after I moved in, but I, I don't know. They're like my little animal. I'm just really obsessed with them. So I spent months reading, um, while owning them and like slowly building the herd up. So we started with three and now we're at 20, 21. I think I just bought two mini Lomachas.
22:45So, and I bought another goat. So yeah, it's always like, but I mean, trinket is right with goats. There's, there is that on the homestead. So you have to kind of go through and learn. It's been a hard year for a lot of farmers too. So yeah, we're slowly building, but I don't know if we're going to expand much more. I mean, 20 to 25 goats is a lot. That's a lot of hoves to trim. Yes. And they have to want to cooperate too.
23:13Yeah, they do. And thankfully, ours are pretty good about it because I stay on top of it and I trim hoes from the time they're five weeks old upwards. So they're pretty used to it. But yeah, I mean, it takes a lot of time. So I mean, if we could add like four more days into my week, I probably would get more animals. But right now, I think we're capped. Well, I think if everybody could add four more days into their week, people will be doing a lot more fun things with their time or what they're interested in with their time. Yeah.
23:42There's no life when you have a homestead. Your homestead is your life. We don't leave the farm much.
23:51Yeah, I understand. We don't either. I shouldn't say that. My husband has a jobby job. That's what we call the job that pays the bills. Yeah. So he's gone during the day during the week to his job. But we don't go on vacation because we have chickens and we have a dog and we have barn cats. And we really made a plan years ago that when we could buy a place like we bought in 2020.
24:19that we wanted it to be a place that felt like being on vacation. Yes. And it does because what we want to do on vacation is go to people's farms and see what they're doing and what they're making and how they're doing it. Now we're just doing it. So it's, it's really fun. And the other thing is that we lucked out and our home that we bought was completely remodeled before we bought it. Oh, wow.
24:46So it's been such a joy to live in a place, and I'm going to jinx it, where we haven't had to paint every fall because the house we lived in before had plaster and lath walls. And so they would crack because the house would shift. So we'd have to mud the walls and paint. We haven't had to put in a new toilet. We haven't had to do any of the stuff we had to do at the old house.
25:11So it's been living, it's been like living at an Airbnb except we own it. Yeah. And that's, that's minus. Yeah. And we get to be outside on three acres. It's just, it's been such a joy. And so I'm not at all upset about the fact that we don't do vacations because we live where we vacation. That's us too. Like we have a rock. I'm sure you've seen it on my Facebook posts and the viewers can go look too.
25:40on our Facebook, but we can see into Park City. And so we can just walk five minutes into the forest and then we're in a whole different location. And so yeah, we don't really leave the land a lot. I mean, I do for doctor's appointments and stuff. So for the most part, I'm here. This is where everyone wants to come to. I mean, if my friends are like, Katie, wanna hang out? I'm like, yeah, do you want me to come to your house? And I'm like, in my head, I'm like, please don't. I have too many farm tours. I'd rather you just come here.
26:09you know, and but all my friends want to come here, it's a little slice of heaven, kind of tucked away. And then, you know, you can just sit outside and relax and that we have a cool breeze most of the time. And so living I mean, three acres that I tell people all the time, three acres is like, ideal. I had five acres when I was in Louisiana. And that was a little too much if I just had chickens, because we just had chickens and dogs and cats.
26:37you know, cause there was nothing to take care of, like the lawn. And so three acres, you can do so much on it. Like you can get into rabbits, you can get into quail, you can get into all sorts of things. I, thankfully my partner loves animals. He doesn't say no. Since I've moved in, I've brought three dogs, a cat, in on top and like probably 20 chickens. I think we're up to like 35 chickens.
27:05and three guineas, but I just bring animals in and he's okay with it. But I do pay the fee bill. So the fee bill is my part of the contribution for the house. I think that's why it's okay. But yeah, three, that's really cool. 2020 was a good time to buy. My partner bought this before. It sure was a good time to buy. Yeah, I think he bought his in 2019. So like right before COVID.
27:32He already had the 20 acres when I met him and we actually live in a tiny house. So it's a two loft tiny house. Yeah. So my son lives on one side of the loft. We live in the other, it's only 450 square feet on the bottom. And the, and the other, we live in a pole, pole barn house. The other portion of the house, which is 1000 square feet is a shop. And so like I blow glass and he's a metal worker. So we'll do that in the winter time in here. And then we're going to convert.
28:00some of it into an indoor garden too. So even though our house is tiny, we don't really spend a lot of time, which it sounds like you guys are the same summertime. You got to get outside because winter time you have to hibernate. There's no option. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. I didn't know you blow glass. Do you want to come back like in a month or so and talk to me about that? Because this is also a podcast for people who make things. Because I know nothing about blowing glass. I just know that I'm fascinated by it when I see people do it.
28:30It's super cool. So I only apprenticed for six months, but I have my own torch. Um, and I was doing it on my own. I was blowing glass on top of my full time job. Um, and I do borrow glass. So it's like Pyrex. So it's going to be like, um, more of like your bongs, your glasses, your shot glasses, like the really, it's really cool. It's not soft glass, soft glass is a lot of waiting for everything to cool down. But yeah, I would totally love to come back and like.
28:59I could even bring one of my glass-blowing friends to or have you talk to Brennan. There's so many different things, but that's cool. It sounds like you have a lot of facets to your farm. You have two podcasts and you do a little bit of home. Well, you do a lot of home setting, it sounds like, because you have the chickens and I'm sure massive gardens. So you're busy. Yeah, we do. We do, yes. And honestly, my husband is the gardener.
29:22Aren't they always mine too? Loves it and I do not I will cook anything for him out of the garden, but I don't love Gardening. I love all the techie stuff, which is terrible because you know, we live on a homestead I could have done this from my house and in town where we lived before. Yeah My son who is living with us. He's 22. He handles chores, which is wonderful Yeah, and and I handle making sure that they get fed
29:52and they have clean clothes, they have clean folded clothes. And I do the marketing and the finding out things from my husband. And he's like, when he's like, we have a new bug in the garden, can you look up this thing? And he sends me a picture. I love it. I'm like, yeah, I can find out what to do. And now that I have the other podcast with the Master Gardener, I literally have someone who can answer any question about gardening ever known to man, which is great.
30:18She's fantastic and I'm so thrilled that she's doing it with me. Yeah. Master gardeners are just knowledge, man. Watching knowledge. I wanted to go and take my master gardening, like go through the process of it. Um, we're organic living soil. Uh, so before we did Groovy Grazers because Montana, it is recreationally and, um, medicinally legal cannabis. That's what my partner grew before.
30:47So when we sold, he sold that business, we ended up doing Groovy Grazers because we like having a small business. And so he is the gardener also. He knows about all of the organic living soil. You feed the soil and then you get what you need out of it. And so he taught me a lot about gardening. I didn't know so much about gardening. I'm the animal person. I was on and off of vet tech in multiple states.
31:15I've done a lot of that. So animals, I can troubleshoot. I can give them the shots. I can handle the sickness. When it comes to the garden, I'm like, you need to look at this. I don't know what I did. So COVID, I actually killed like $1,000 worth of houseplants within the first like, you know, two to three months because I was stuck inside and I used to work on the computer. I was sales reps and so I was at home working. And so I tried and that's kind of what started. I...
31:43could finally grow something and it was cannabis and I did it really well and so that's kind of where my gardening is and so this year I am gardening on a hugel and it's so interesting. You'll have to ask your master gardener about it because they are cool. Andy, my partner, showed me them.
32:03and you get more gardening space and it's a big organic living soil bed. And so I planned out my garden this year, but there's certain things you can't put in there, right? Strawberries can't go in there, they don't like it. So I've been learning all of it. And so knowledge, it's just cool to see, you know, where you can lead, even though everyone has their place. Like you don't do a lot of stuff outside, but you do the important stuff inside. You provide the meal, nourishment is huge.
32:30If they didn't eat, they wouldn't be able to do what they did. Your son doing chores is awesome. I have a nine-year-old son, and I hope he doesn't move out at 18. He stays a little bit longer because he's so helpful on the farm, and he's a key role, right? He's a key player in the farm. Everyone has their role, and that's why I say all the time, homesteads are like little clocks. Everyone's a cog in the clock that works, and if one is off, then the whole farm is off.
33:00I mean, there's no shame doing the tech stuff. I'm tech dumb, like just not able to do it. And I'm young, right? I'm 30. My bosses hated in corporate America. They're like, oh, thank goodness you can sell stuff because you're terrible on the computer. You make so many errors. And I'm like, yeah, because I want to be outside, you know? So it's funny, whereas like my son, he likes to be inside. He likes the techie things. He's the one that, you know, can take pictures and makes his own music to go with our videos and stuff.
33:30sometimes and so it's cool to see that like everyone's homestead has that cog feature, right? Everyone has a role in it. So I would be really interested to see like the other roles in homesteads. I'll have to go and listen to your podcast. I've been listening to it and it's interesting. I've learned a lot. I think just talking and listening to other people you learn quite a bit. It's better than reading.
33:56Honestly, I'm gonna I'm gonna say this again. I keep ending up repeating myself on stuff on the podcast episodes, but it's relevant I really never liked podcasts. It's not how I learn best. I don't learn audibly. I learn reading okay, yeah from reading and Since I started doing the podcast I've listened to more other people's podcasts in the last year than ever before because I wanted to know how they sound and how they
34:24paste their podcast and what kind of things they do. And so now my husband walks up and starts to say something to me and I just point at my ear and he's like, oh, hang on. And I go and stop what I'm listening to and I pop one out and I'm like, yes. He's like, you are constantly listening to podcasts. I'm like, I know, it's crazy. But I didn't like listening to podcasts before. I didn't know I was going to be doing a podcast at this time last year.
34:54And I have what my dad calls got to know itis, which is basically perpetual curiosity. I am a lifelong learner. So when this idea popped in and I ran it by my husband and he said, go for it, try it. I thought that I'd do two episodes and nobody would listen and it would be done and that I would not be good at it and that I wouldn't enjoy it and that it would just be weird. And I actually do love it. And it didn't die.
35:23I just passed 4,000 downloads since last August. Wow, congrats. Yeah, which doesn't seem like a lot, but for this particular situation, I feel like that's a big step, you know? No, that is. Like, we got contacted by Q2 out here, which is a local news station. The first day I posted that we were grazing, and I remember looking at Andy and I was like, wow, people really believe in what we're doing. Like, this is cool, you know, because...
35:53I didn't know I thought I was going to flop but I needed income. I needed my goats to at least get paid for because I'm still going through my VA reading process. I'm not at that 100% that we all need to be at. I totally need to be there. It's just taking two years. These last years have been trials emotionally of wanting to get there and knowing that I will get there but then also having to find my place. I just can't sit at home. I'm a busybody.
36:21I have to move around all the time. As you see, I'm a busy lady. And I love it that way. And then I had another news station, and I've been on the news quite a few times, but I didn't have like your intentions, right? I didn't have the intentions of being this popular gold lady in town, right? Like people recognize me. It's really weird. When people do it. I mean, I'm flattered. And I like I like tell them thank you. And I'm, you know, thank you for supporting my dream. Because we'll eventually nonprofit, we're going to work on that.
36:50next year, but it was just a small little idea and it turned into a big thing just like yours, right? Like you've hit $4,000. I never expected to even book a party, let alone be booked out. I'm booked out two to three weeks most of the time on my parties. And like, I mean, I only do two, like we're not talking like days and days of work, because I do days and days of work on the farm. I only do two parties. So four hours a week. That's what my body can handle, right?
37:20being disabled, I have to work around that. But having those parties constantly booked is like, I don't know, I don't even post sometimes that I'm looking to book parties and I have messages constantly flowing in about it. And you're just shocked, right? That people believe in you. And I think that's part of it, right? Like when you started your podcast, you're like, no one's going to listen. But then people do. It's like the same when people are like, I'm going to homestead. Like, I encourage all of your listeners, if you're a homesteader,
37:46Find a way to use your homestead to bring in income. Yeah. We should all be doing it. And if we're not, like message me, I won't charge you at all. Like tell me what your farm is about and I'll try and think of an idea. I sold accounting software for a big company. I've heard so many different businesses, that was my job. And I love empowering people. I love the fact that your podcast does that. You're empowering other homesteaders to learn from other people.
38:14You're gardening, right? Having a master gardener, that's like awesome. That's unbelievable knowledge you can provide to your listeners. So really like you're doing a really big thing for us homesteaders. You're providing a way for us to talk about our own stories. I've gone online and I've read Reddit, I've read forums and stuff, but nothing is better than listening. I wasn't a podcast person either. But when I got into blowing glass, I was like, all right, I can't listen to music.
38:40for six hours on end because it repeats. I only have so many favorites, you know? But you can listen to podcasts, but the amount of knowledge that I've learned, it's insane, right? Like what I always tell people, and again, tinfoil hat, right? Like it's not about stopping the government, it's about how are you going to survive a collapse of our government? Which to me, translate to homesteading, right? Providing for my own family.
39:08And so that was like part of the push for it. I think everyone right now should be finding something outside of corporate America and should be really pushing to be their own boss because what's gonna happen when corporate America is not there. So we should all be thinking about the bigger picture. Yeah, it's scary, right? Nobody wants to think about 10 years from now. I sure don't, but I do because I have children. And like you, you have a son. We have to think about those future generations. And so-
39:36providing the knowledge that you're providing, just like me, when I go in, take my goats around, it's giving people stuff that they wouldn't have opportunity to, people don't go buy books anymore. You know, it's not like where we all used to go to the public library, because it was the best thing to do. There's jump bars and other stuff now. Yeah. So having these are a great way to provide knowledge. So I think it's a really cool thing that it's grown this big, and then I see it with a lot of people.
40:05just kind of branching out, doing what they're good at, it ends up being fruitful for them and their own homestead. Yes, and the other thing is that I started this because I was just curious about how other people were doing the homesteading thing. And I've had so many people say, I have learned so much from your podcast. And it just makes my heart too big for my chest. I mean, I'm just like, yay, that's great. But anyway.
40:34Morgan, I don't want to cut you off. Yeah, I have to because it's like 41 minutes already. So thank you. And I want to have you back. Let's try to schedule for something in like October or November when it's cold again. Yes, and I'll be back. I'll have my torch and everything set up. We're actually in the process of setting up my area. So that'll be really cool. Thank you for having me. And thank you for the listeners.
41:00definitely reach out if you guys have any questions like I'm on Facebook and Instagram. We love giving advice to people. So that's kind of what we're here for is we just want to help spread knowledge. Alrighty. Thank you so much for your time Morgan. I appreciate it. Thank you. Bye.
 

Runamuk Acres Conservation Farm

Today I'm talking with Samantha at Runamuk Acres Conservation Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Samantha at Runamuck Acres Conservation Farm. Good morning, Samantha, how are you? I'm very good, thank you, good morning. I'm in Minnesota, you're in Maine, and everybody who's listening to the podcast already knows this, but I grew up in Steep Falls, Maine.
00:30Oh wow, that's cool. Which is like half an hour or northwest of Portland, Maine. So I know what Maine's like and I think it's beautiful and I can't afford to move back because it's gotten so much more expensive to live there. So I'm really happy that you get to live in Maine. I think that's fantastic. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Let's see, so I'm a farmer, writer and conservationist.
00:59I own a 53 acre farm and ecological reserve in New Portland, Maine, which is nowhere near the city of Portland. It is about two hours north near the Western Mountains. Okay. Yeah. All right. So what do you do at your place? We raise chickens for eggs. We have a one acre market garden. We have maybe...
01:26an acre or so fruit trees that we've put in since we got here. And I raise a small flock of sheep, which we rotationally graze on our 10 acre pasture out back. Awesome. So why is it why is it conservation farm? How does that play in? Yeah. So I built my business on bees with a bent for bee friendly farming. And it's kind of morphed along the way and become more
01:55geared towards beneficial insects and soil microbial life. And so that's what we are working to conserve. We're working to conserve wildlife through the wellbeing of pollinators and beneficial insects and soil life to benefit the whole ecosystem. Fantastic. Last night as I was heading up to read, because I read before I go to sleep, my husband texted me a photo of a queen bumblebee.
02:25that had landed on one of the logs or the logs that they were cutting up for our wood burning boiler. And I was like, is it a honeybee? Because I couldn't tell from the picture. I knew it was a bee. I just didn't know what it was. And he was like, no, it's a queen bumblebee. And she just happened to land there. And he was like, I'm going to stop and take a photo because this doesn't happen very often. Right. Yeah. She must have emerged from her family nest and be going off to start her own.
02:54Yeah, I don't know. Usually it's earlier in the season. So I don't know why she blessed him with a visit. But it was pretty cool to get a photo. I'm going to post it on Facebook later today. So, okay. So you before we started recording, you said it's your sixth anniversary at being at the place you're at now? Yeah, we call it our farm-aversary. We've been here for six years officially today. Okay, tell me the story. Tell me how you how you ended up where you are.
03:23It was very long and arduous. I was a landless farmer for these eight years. I had gotten divorced and I really just refused to give up on farming. It was kind of the way, the only way I felt that I could become a homeowner and provide a home for my family. So I used the skills that I had and it took a long time to build my income from agriculture.
03:51I raised bees because everybody will have a hive on their property if they don't have to manage them. So I had apiaries all over the area and that allowed me to build my income to the point where I could justify to a financial institution investment in real estate. So and then at that point we weren't able to qualify with a traditional
04:16financial institution. So I ended up going to the USDA as a beginning farmer and the farm service agency classifies a beginning farmer as someone who has been farming for less than 10 years. So at that point I was at eight years or so and I was like, oh geez, if I'm going to do this, I better do it now. So I didn't want to go that way, but because nothing else was lining up, I was like, okay, this is my last chance. I'm going to give it a shot and then I may have to give up farming.
04:46Mm-hmm. So we did we went we were able to qualify it took 270 days to close on a property I went after this other property first and so we were in Closing process with that one for six months before we finally found out that the house wasn't going to pass an inspection and to save my loan I
05:10I had to scramble and look for another property in the area that might qualify, and I ended up here. Okay. For those who don't know, Samantha has a Facebook page, and I started watching or, I don't know, following her Facebook page. It's got to be three years ago, I think. When did you do all this? I was in search of a farm.
05:37It must have been seven or eight years ago now, because it's been six years since I bought this place. Yeah, so I've been following your Facebook page and your story for over six years. That's amazing. And I was so curious to see what would happen and how you would figure this out. Yeah, I was looking a lot of noise.
05:57Yeah, so did you blog about it at the time? Cause I know you have a blog on your website. Yeah, I was blogging about it. Um, and then just to get the word out in the community, I was writing articles to local papers, I had graphics that I had made up that I was plastering all over Facebook. I put up flyers, just trying to connect with someone who might either be willing to rent to own or lease or even, you know, sell if I could make the finances happen, um, a farm that I could take over.
06:25Yes, so if anybody is interested in the whole, let's call it a saga of Sam finding her farm, go check out the blog because I remember your post just being heart-wrenching and then exciting and then heart-wrenching and then exciting again. So the whole journey was like that. It was just
06:51Yeah, and congratulations because it doesn't always happen that way. So, so good job. It's so hard to be tenacious and determined and not lose hope. Oh, it really is. And I definitely considered many times, you know, whether or not I should give up. And people told me I should give up. Can you imagine that people say into your face that you should give up this, this dream that has consumed your whole life and your everything. And they, they're like, you should just walk away from it. And yeah, I couldn't do it.
07:22Yeah, and it's one thing if strangers say that to you. It's another someone who actually loves you and cares about you and has your best interested heart to say it. Yeah, you really have to consider what they're saying in that moment, and like, maybe I'm wrong. Yep, exactly. Because the people who love you absolutely do not want to hurt you, but they also don't wanna see you drive the car into the brick wall in front of you. That's right. If you don't have to.
07:51So I'm glad it wasn't a brick wall. I'm glad that it was an open field for you to drive your tractor through safely. So that's good. All right, so I'm assuming that the farm, and I could be wrong, is supporting itself as much as it can. Is that correct? I make all of my income here on this property, yes. But that wasn't always the case. Like in the first couple of years, it did not.
08:19Did it? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Right after my divorce, I was living in an apartment. The only way I could call myself a farmer was because I had those outlying apiaries. I was working at Johnny's selected seeds in their call center, sitting in a cubicle full time at that point and then farming part time. So I did that for three years and then I was able to go down to part time at Johnny's and farm full time. So I kind of swapped things around a bit.
08:49And then after I got here, I eased myself off of Johnny's and off of, you know, um, outside income. And I've been able to scrape by here on, on the farm. Awesome. Um, so did you leave Johnny's on good terms because I hear they're a great company. I love Johnny's. They have a lot of really fantastic people there. We, I think the
09:19was mutual. I think I had outgrown them at that point. I learned so much working there, just rubbing elbows with these great minds of these other farmers. But I think it was mutual. I was ready to be here. And so I was taking, I was calling in more and more often, and they weren't impressed with that. And they had new management in the call center. So I didn't have the same level of appreciation and support that I had had from my former manager. So yeah, so it was mutual.
09:49They already see me go and I was ready to go. Good. Because we order seeds from them every spring, like specific seeds, because we love them. And I was, I was going to be heartbroken if they're terrible to work for. So I thought I would ask. Corporate, then, then you would think they're a corporate office. And so it's just like any other corporate business, their seeds are unbeatable though. And their service is excellent. Mm hmm. Yep.
10:17I love the fact that I live in Minnesota, but I can order seeds from Maine. It just makes my heart bubble, you know? Okay. So, I'm not sure what else to ask you. Oh, the one-mile trail that you have. I read about that on either your website or Facebook page. I can't remember. What's the deal with that?
10:41So in our, we have 53 acres. 13 of those acres are up front and that's what I'm farming on basically, like three acres right around the house and then the 10 acre pasture out back. And then beyond that is 40 acres that we have contracted to the government for wildlife conservation. We had a couple of different habitats back there that passed their...
11:08assessment with the state biologist. We had the NRCS come out here and the different ecological services came to walk the property to see if it would qualify. And so in that acreage there is an ETB trail that was already there and there's a bunch of different trails that go down to a creek and around to this northern large grove. We have a remote campsite back there too. So I've kept that
11:37open and accessible for the local community to be able to go back there and walk or bike or bird watch or camp. Wonderful. You said NRCS. What is that? The Nature Resource Conservancy Service. Okay. I just, not everybody knows the acronyms and the window. Yeah, I had to think about it there.
12:05So if anyone's interested, that's what that stands for. I'm biased because I grew up in Maine, so I grew up playing in the Maine woods. I know what it's like there. But I feel like Maine has one of the most wonderful, I don't know, public conservation situations. And I could be wrong, Minnesota is pretty good too. But I feel like Maine just really honors the fact that they are so blessed with all of the forest.
12:35I think we're all really proud of it. Yeah. It's this beautiful wilderness. Basically anywhere up above like Central Maine is just wilderness. And it's still like that just like from, you know, the frontier days. And it's wonderful. And you can really go and get lost there. And we have so many beautiful ponds and rivers and lakes and gorgeous mountains. And if you've ever visited Maine, I say this all the time. I'm going to say it again.
13:04You've ever visited Maine and you've only ever visited the coast. You haven't seen. You haven't seen if you haven't seen our mountains, if you haven't seen Bigelow, oh my God, you haven't seen Katahdin you gotta come back. Yeah. And it's such a huge, um, I mean, it's not the biggest state, but there's just so much wrapped in the state. Yeah.
13:28It's gorgeous. Every time I say I'm from Maine, people are like, Oh, I visited. It's so pretty. And I'm like, yes, try, try living there and then leaving. You won't want to. So, but Minnesota is really pretty too. I've heard. Yeah. I would want to visit for sure. Yeah. It's, it's really weird. Minnesota is like three different growing zones. North is zone three. Mid-state is zone four.
13:58and southern Minnesota is now zone five. Wow. And it's so bizarre to me because I don't swim in the area that we're in because the water gets so hot and it's so shallow that there's green algae on top of everything. Oh yeah, yeah, ew. But I keep hearing that way up north, the waters are clearer because it doesn't get as hot up there. I understand. And like people talk about...
14:25big hills here. They don't talk about mountains. And I went somewhere further north than I lived quite a while ago. And so I was like, and this is our mountain. And I just laughed. I was like, that is not a mountain, guys. Sorry. And I'm like, what do you mean? And I'm like, let me take you east about 1500 miles and we'll start seeing mountains. That would be fine.
14:56It's funny because the Minnesota River is about four miles west of my house. East of my house. Hang on. East of my house. Sorry. I'm looking toward, I'm looking south, so I had it backwards. But anyway, Minnesota River is four miles east of my house and it is flooded beyond recognition. It will hit its highest flood stage today or tomorrow in the history of keeping records. Goodness. And the area that I live in.
15:24is River Valley, but we are just far enough that everything's flat. Like we moved just far enough away from the river. We're not in that diagonal slope down to the river. And so right now we can still get out of our town by car, but it was questionable yesterday whether we would be able to get out of our town by car. That's amazing. So Minnesota is really, really.
15:51interesting geographically because it's so different geographically in every area of Minnesota. It's just crazy. So you'd have to visit more than one place there too, really. Oh, absolutely. And Minnesota is very much farming country. I mean, it's where we are at soybeans and corn and winter rye and alfalfa fields everywhere. Yeah.
16:19But the further north you go, it's like Maine, and it's very, very forested. And so everybody, well, not everybody, because not everybody can afford it, but many, many people have their cabin up north that they go to every weekend in the summer. I see, I see. And so it's like the bottom half of Minnesota is prairie land and farming land, and the northern half of Minnesota is camping, fishing, cabining.
16:48Hiking, that stuff. So I really didn't, I made a very lateral move when I moved here because the only thing missing is the mountains and the ocean and I didn't get the mountains and the ocean very often anyway. So, so thankfully it wasn't hard on me in that way to move here over 30 years ago. That's good. It would be a hard transition, I'm sure. Yes. And
17:15The other thing I will tell you is if you grow up in Maine, you know that when you go to the grocery store or the laundromat or the library, any public service place with people, people talk, complete strangers just start up conversations in line. We do. In Minnesota, people are very to themselves. And it was super hard the first year I was here because I was so used to.
17:43striking up a conversation with a complete stranger in line. And people looked at me like I was nuts. Oh no. Why are you talking to me? I don't even know who you are. And people are very nice, but they were confused as to why this complete stranger with a New England accent was chatting them up. So that was the culture shock. That was the hard part. Yeah, I'd have a hard time with it.
18:11Yeah, I did. It was rough. It was really rough. So tell me again, you have livestock. What is it again? So we have laying hens and sheep right now. Usually we have some honey bees, but this year is the first year in 15 years that I have no bees. Did the rain last year cause issues? Because I heard it rained and rained and rained and rained. Honestly, I think it was.
18:38neglect. Like I just don't have the time for bees like I used to when I, you know, before I bought the farm. I had 30 hives when I bought this place. And I thought that's what I was going to do. But then I got here and there's just so much other stuff I need to tend. And I wanted to have vegetables to feed my family, but also to feed my community. So I'm in the beehive one day, and I'm looking across at the garden, which needed to be planted also. And I had to really
19:05way, like do I want vegetables or do I want this high value honey to bring in the money? And I'm like, I really want to be able to feed my family. So I backed off on the bees and we had for a while we had four hives or two hives or back up to six hives, I think. And then it just kind of got down to one. And this year I'm not investing in them.
19:30anything in livestock. I'm trying to get finances squared away. We had a really tough year last year with all the rain. So I didn't make any investments. So just no bees this year. They died over the winter and I still have tons of equipment. So I think next year I'll probably get one or two new colonies. Yeah. My dad tried to grow his garden last year. He's in Whitefield, Maine.
19:59Every time I talk to them, because I talk to them once a week, I'd be like, how's your garden? And he'd say, what garden? Oh no. He put it in, but it just didn't work. It didn't do hardly anything. And this year, we've had tons of rain here. And I talked to him yesterday and I said, you know how you said you didn't really get anything out of your garden last year because of the rain? And he said, yeah. I said, we're now in the boat that you were paddling last year.
20:29That's terrible. It sucks. I mean, I hate to say it that way, but it sucks. This is the first year in four years since we moved in that we have not had lettuces and stuff to sell at the farmer's market by this time. Yeah, I feel for you. Last year, I couldn't grow anything. I tried, I had to close the farm stand to prioritize the CSA. I didn't even get zucchini. Yeah.
20:56Yep, that's where we're at. We had little baby zucchinis at this time last year and I was eating them in salads, you know Because the little baby ones are yummy. Yeah But yeah, so yeah, I understand your your pain from last year because we're feeling it now And and not only that it didn't sound like Maine had a lot of river flooding and where I'm at Our rivers are just way out of their banks right now
21:24So it's been real interesting watching the local news. Over the last few days, I'm like, man, is it gonna get to where we are? And it's not, we're too far from the river, but boy, it is really high. Okay, so back to bees for a minute. Is it hard to raise bees? Is it like a high maintenance thing once you get them established? It really is. And I know when I was...
21:51I was president of the Somerset Beekeepers for six years before I had bought the farm. And I was doing a lot of bee schools at that point. And all the old timers would come to our beekeeper clubs and they'd talk about how it was 30 or 40 years ago. And they could just have these hives in the yard. They didn't ever have to touch them. And they were just always there doing their thing. And it's not like that anymore. We have.
22:18pests that have been introduced to the honeybees, we have climate issues, we have habitat encroachment. They really need to be managed intensively. Like when they need attention, you gotta be able to drop everything and go intend the bees. And I don't have that ability anymore. Okay, I didn't know if it was really high maintenance because like we have chickens.
22:45They get let out of their coop in the morning. They're let out into their run because we don't want them eating our garden. What is in our garden right now? And, uh, and then at night they get fed, they get put back in the coop. Yeah, it's easy peasy, right? It's super easy. They get watered every day. They give us eggs. It's a wonderful working relationship. Yeah. But.
23:09I've talked to a few beekeepers and I keep hearing about all the little detail-y things that are going on. And I'm like, man, I would love to have a couple hives, but I don't want to, I don't want to have to take care of them because it sounds like it's really high maintenance and time intensive. Yeah, it really is. And the, the startup is expensive and if you can get a harvest of honey, it is a high value commodity and people will pay for it. Yeah. But getting to that point is tricky.
23:39Yeah, I'd rather have somebody who is already doing it bring a couple hives out, put them where they think they'll do best and they come check on them and they take care of them. Then we get a couple jars of honey at the end of it. That would be great. Give me a couple jars of honey to rent my space for your bees. That would be great. And then there was another question I had about bees and I'm completely spacing what it was. I don't remember. Oh well, it doesn't matter.
24:09And then you have sheep. Do you have sheep that have wool or do you have the hair sheep that aren't wool? I have wool sheep. They're thin sheep, which actually have next to skin quality wool. So it's super soft and luxurious not that itchy scratchy wool that some sheep have. And they're also a meat animal and I just learned I've had these sheep for, I think I'm going into my fifth season now.
24:36And I just learned that they are actually able to be milked, like for family needs. You couldn't do like a large scale commercial thing with them, but definitely to feed my own family, I could be out there milking those sheep. Have you done it yet? No, I think maybe next year. Like I've kind of held off on milking anything because that early morning block of the day is when I do my writing. And I don't wanna give it up. So I haven't done any milking.
25:05But we've always had state assistance, honestly, because I've been a single mom, I'm a low income household, I had two kids in the house, so I've had assistance from the state for food. But my second son is gonna be turning 18 soon, so now I'm more concerned with being able to provide even more for myself because I'm expecting to lose those benefits. Yep.
25:32So I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about taking on milking. Yeah, I was just gonna, I, you're gonna have to message me and let me know how it goes because I don't know how, I know goats can be trained to stand still to be milked and I'm assuming that sheep can too, but if they haven't ever been milked, that's going to be a circus. Yeah. I think I'll have to pick one of my, I have a couple who are very receptive to being mick handled.
26:00And there are some who are less receptive. So I'll pick one of the ones who I know will let me manage them that way. And I'll see how it goes. It may be that I have to start with one of the new lambs and work our way up with it. That's what I was gonna ask you next, is do you breed your sheep? I sure do, yeah. Because it's nice to have something that I'm taking from. I don't use the wool to make yarn with. I should, but I don't.
26:28have a facility near me and I just haven't made that leap yet. So I've been using it to mulch in the garden. Um, the meat, we take a harvest every fall. Um, and that's what my household eats. We, we eat a lot of lamb. I sell some of it. Um, so quite a bit of it went out to my CSA members last fall. And then this year I'll put some on my farm stand to sell that way. Hopefully that will cover the cost of my processing bees. Yeah.
26:56But yeah, I don't do it myself. Yeah, it's a lot of work. And to make it pretty, you gotta be practiced. Right. So it's not like just butchering a deer and you butcher it the way you wanna cook it. You gotta make it pretty so people will buy it. Exactly, and they're accustomed to certain things, you know, they're accustomed to it looking a certain way. And there's also like the legality issue in order for me to sell it to
27:25the community, I have to get it processed at a USDA inspected facility. Yep. Yeah. The government's gotta have a hand in it. And I don't mean that to sound snotty. It, again, I get in so much. I have such a quandary about talking about the government on this podcast, because I think that we need government for a lot of important reasons. I also think that.
27:51They make us trip over our own feet over the most simple things ever. Yeah, they tend to complicate things. And so when the USDA comes up, I'm like, I don't want people to die because somebody screwed something up. So I guess it's important. But, but I feel like we should be able to butcher animals on our property, sell from our property and we deal with what happens next. You know? Right. You assume that responsibility for your own self.
28:20Yeah, we have LLC insurance. I think that if someone gets sick, we would probably be able to make a claim on that and we'd probably be okay. I don't know. Has never happened and we don't butcher our chickens because they're laying hens. They're not a dual breed, so we don't use them for meat. So we don't have to worry about that, but it's just, it's so, I don't know, bothersome. I'm not even sure it's frustrating. It's just bothersome.
28:47that people who are doing things and trying to feed their community can't do it without the government having their fingers in it. It drives me crazy sometimes. And what's the excited thing? They've got the all these corporate interests in there who want to make it seem difficult or dangerous for us to do that stuff at home because then we have to give our money to the food industry.
29:12And then there's also the government who thinks they're keeping us safe. And yes, to some degree they are keeping us safe, but at the same time, they're also forcing us to align ourselves with these corporate interests. And that's. Yeah. Especially when you have no interest in doing that. It's so that part is very frustrating. Um, so, so that we end this on a lighter note, cause I tried to keep these to half an hour. Um, do you love what you're doing? I'm guessing you probably do.
29:41Absolutely. Every day is a gift. Good. Cause you worked awfully hard to get to where you're at. I know you did because I follow it along because I love what you're doing. Yeah. I wake up every day excited to start a new day. Who can, who can say that? Me. I get up and I'm like, I get to interview Samantha today. That's what I thought this morning. Thank you. But I'm also not.
30:09Busting my body up to sit here and talk with you guys doing the hard work. So I'm trying I'm trying real hard to to promote you guys because I'm not I'm not the one who busts my my ass on this stuff. My husband's a gardener and My son does the chores. So like I said on a podcast recording yesterday I make sure that the boys get fed and that they have clean folded laundry and
30:35That's pretty much my job. And I make sure to remind them to be careful, to drink water. And if they don't have water, I bring it out to them, that kind of stuff. I'm the one kind of behind the scenes marketing us and making sure that my husband and my son don't die. So I figured that's a good job. Yeah. Yup. But to the people who are doing the hard work, I am so impressed every time I hear a new story.
31:06Well, thank you. And I love talking with you guys. You're so generous with your time and your thoughts, and you're so ingenious on the way you come up with things to get around a problem. So many stories I've heard, and they were like, we couldn't make it go this way, so we went out around Robin Hood's barn and figured out another way, and we made it work that way. I love that. I love those stories.
31:31Just do what we got to do to make it work. Yep, absolutely. All right, Samantha, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

LilyFire Farms

Today I'm talking with Roxanne at LilyFire Farms. You can follow on Facebook a well.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprises entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Roxanne at Lily Fire Farms. Good afternoon, Roxanne, how are you? Hi, I'm doing well, how are you? I'm good, so did farm school go well this morning? We did not have farm school. It actually ended a week or so ago.
00:30Oh, okay. I thought it was a summer. No, we have a spring session and we're looking at scheduling a summer session, but I do give myself some downtime in between just because I can't do week after week after week during our busy season for, you know, farm projects and gardening and all of that. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, well, tell me about yourself and Lily Fire Farms. Oh my goodness, where do I start? So.
00:59I guess what you want to know about me is that I'm a mom and obviously a farmer. And we have our little farm here, like you said, Lollipire Farms, that we run it as a business and we're trying to grow and be that kind of resource for our community for what I would personally, of course I'm biased, but what I would consider to be kind of food the way nature intended it to be.
01:24meaning that we follow organic principles. We're not organic certified, but we follow the organic mindset. You know, we don't use chemicals. If we can help it, I will obviously occasionally pull out a chemical dewormer if I need to for our goats, since those are, you know, extra picky. And, you know, I'd rather not lose any animals, but we try and go natural methods as often as possible. We pasture raise everything or free range here. We have poultry, we have chickens, turkeys, ducks.
01:54We'll be getting geese next week just for fun for predator protection. We have goats Cows we have pigs We have a couple of sheep. We have a couple horses Just for you know, what's a farm without a horse kind of? So, yeah Yeah, what yeah exactly. So you're an agriculture zoo is what you are in a way. Yeah, uh-huh Okay, and I
02:23asked about farm school at the beginning because I thought it was all summer long. So tell me about farm school too. Yeah. So we farm school plus other things we offer what I would call on-farm educational opportunities or community experiences, that sort of thing, where we have farm school that so far that's been a six-week program where we take each week and we kind of cover what's hard to do. And these kids work so hard and their parents too to absorb all this information.
02:52It's basically all of the multiple facets of running a farm like this, slammed into those six weeks with that organic-minded, rotational grazing, regenerative agriculture kind of focus. So like we meet the animals, we learn what quote unquote jobs they all do. You know, like we call our pigs our rototillers because they're helping us clear land and they'll clear the garden later. And you know, the sheep are the lawn mowers, that kind of thing. We cover parasitology and nutrition.
03:21and how those are connected and it connects to pasture management and how it connects to, I mean, all of the pieces of, you know, like I said, running the farm, rotational grazing, all of that. I do have, this year we're doing it a little differently. I have a, I'll call it a grow along gardening program. And so it's once a month classes from, when did we start? May until September.
03:47And so that's basically like come and learn crash course of how to grow your own vegetables and a little bit of the fruits. And we do it as this once a month this year. So that way like you came in May and you know we're starting seeds and it's a little late, but that's okay. We start seeds, we plant some stuff in the class garden here, you know, and then the next one we'll be doing pruning and plant supporting and you know kind of as the garden progresses it's going to match whatever is growing in your garden.
04:16And of course we offer field trips and hatching eggs. And we've had field trips here and we kind of try and cover the base of basically however it is that we can help connect our community back to these foods that we're providing for them. We kind of have a few different angles for that, like you mentioned with the classes and all of that.
04:46I will put it this way. It's meant to be farm school for kids. By the time we get about halfway through it tends to be the parents that are really you can see the wheels are turning and they'll start asking some really good questions. They participate too. So I call both the kids and my parents. I call them my farm kids while they're here. So I have Awesome. I haven't Great. Yeah. I haven't done any like adult farm school classes.
05:13But I have had every year, I've been doing it, this was our third year so far, and every time I've had at least one family come, if not more than one, where they say, I ask everybody first week, why'd you sign up for farm school? What is it that you're hoping to take away from here? Because we have that luxury of being able to kind of make sure that we cater to your interests and yours a little bit within our topics. And every year I have at least a couple families that they're either actively looking for land to start farming on their own.
05:42Or they've just gotten there and they're like, well, we were hoping we could kind of come get this crash course and then we know we're kind of getting off to a good start because you've been doing this and you know what works and what doesn't and kind of have that good start. So that's always really, it's a really gratifying feeling for me when I, when I have those families and it's, you know, they'll come back to me later in the summer or the following year and they'll be like, hey, we're doing this. Thank you again for firm school. It was so great to learn this. And
06:09know, we don't feel so lost getting our first goats or starting this or whatever it might be.
06:15That's amazing, fantastic. Okay, so are you, did I see that you're in New York? Yes, upstate New York. Or not quite upstate, I don't know how you wanna call it. To anybody outside of New York, upstate means anything but New York City. When you live in New York, I would technically be Western New York. Okay, got it. It's kinda like Minnesota. Minnesota is either up north at the cabin or the Twin Cities. Those are the two things that you hear about the most for locations, so.
06:45Okay, I had a thought while you were talking and a horn honked really loud outside and distracted me. Oh, I didn't mean it. You probably wouldn't because I have headphones on and a noise reducing mic. Perfect. However, it's going to be distracting. We have had flooding happening all around us because of the heavy rains we got for eight days in a row. Oh, boy. And a dam failed in a city that's about- Oh, my goodness.
07:14half an hour southwest of us. So our little cute tarred two lane country road is now a detour for a lot of the major roads here. So I have been listening to cars go zoom in by all morning and I hadn't even thought about the fact that people are going to be stupid because they're not familiar with the area. So I've been hearing brakes screeching and horns honking and I'm like, did we move back to the city? This is crazy.
07:44So if I seem distracted, that's why it's been a nutty couple of days here. No problem. Okay. So you have farm school, which is great. And I am so impressed with what you're doing because people really do, I think, need to learn how to grow at least some basic nutritional food if they have the room to do it because we all learn during COVID supply chain issues happen.
08:14Absolutely. So do you sell your produce on property or at farmers markets or anything? So I have not sold any produce, the fruits and veggies specifically, just because we have a small garden here that's just for us. And my reason for that is because the area that I'm in, I've had a lot of people in town tell me that I am convenient country because I'm 15 minutes from
08:44downtown in our city. So, you know, I'm 10 minutes from the airport. So it's not like I'm out in the middle of nowhere, where like, if you need to go to the grocery store, it's a 30 minute drive, like it's five minutes to the grocery stores, like three of them within five or 10 minutes, it's, it's quite close. And so I live in an area where there are some farms within like 15 minutes of me. And you know, it'll be like, there's a beef farm a couple miles from me. There's another pig farm.
09:14I want to say about 15 minutes west of me. And so there's kind of these little same-as-mine small farms that we do a little bit of this and that. We're not going to feed our community entirely, unfortunately. We couldn't replace the grocery store between us. But I'm really in an area where there's very limited availability for what I'll call the good meat, the pasture raised. It's not the factory farmed. It's not in Styrofoam and shrink wrap at the grocery store.
09:42And so since I'm in such a pocket of, you know, we have CSAs, we have fruits and vegetables, you know, some bigger farms that are 20, 30 minutes that, you know, they're big enough now, multi-generational, that they have drop zones in different towns, et cetera. And so, like you said, people need to grow their own. My, my personal philosophy has always been that if you have the room, like you said, if you have the room and the physical capability, you should grow your own food. If you can do any farming and raise your own chickens, for example.
10:11you should do that. And then if you can farm enough and sell extra, you should do that. And the reason that I kind of follow that mentality here is that, you know, we live in a suburban area. Most people have a backyard or a balcony in their apartment or something where they could grow something. And so I feel like personally, if I could change the world, if I could have a magic wish to change the world, everybody would grow their own produce and they can do that on their quarter acre, half acre yards throughout our town.
10:40but they can't have their own livestock. And so I feel like my first focus needs to be growing what I'm doing here and being that resource for the livestock. You know, my pipe dream down the road is to have a little micro dairy here. And those are the kinds of things that you can't do on a half acre in your backyard around here in this town. And so I will provide what you are literally, like legally incapable of providing for yourself otherwise. And then it's that idea of
11:09you know, let's work together to put food on your table as opposed to like, you know, it bugs me that we have door dash these days for McDonald's, like drive-throughs are no longer fast enough and convenient enough. We now need to have it delivered. And I think that speaks volumes to the direction we've gone. And I feel like by providing the meat and encouraging these garden classes and farm school and all of that, I'm trying to kind of help reach as many as I can back towards what you're saying.
11:37We all know that it's smart to grow our own food. We need to more collectively, we need to be doing that. So any of the pork and stuff we have, the pork, the chicken, the eggs, I do an online farm store, virtual farm store, if you will. Do not do markets just because it's tremendously inconvenient to try and run a farm by yourself and also. Sorry, yeah, it's really, it's tough to try and run a farm by yourself and then.
12:05you know, also be at a market at six in the morning because like who's going to do farm chores if you're sitting at a market all day, um, you know, and dragging the kids along and there's just a lot of chaos with that and transporting, you know, frozen pork, refrigerated eggs. It's a whole different game than taking produce. And it just works out better to just do the virtual farm store. Customers order what they want. They pay for it online or have a cash box if they want to bring cash with them. Um, you know, but they order and I have a little pickup spot and.
12:33little pickup fridge down at the road and it's just a beautiful system to me. We started doing it when everything was still the you know the no contact covid stuff and so it's like that's just beautiful. I can just go drop it and carry on with my day and you know I don't have to sit and wait for somebody to be here at an exact time to hand them their stuff. I can just here you go curbside pickup let's make it work. Yep absolutely we have a farm stand on our property and that's why I love it because they just come in and they pick out what they want and leave the cash in the box and
13:03It's awesome. So you were saying whatever you can legally grow or do or whatever. What are the regulations for for selling eggs and meat for you? Because in Minnesota, as long as the people come to our property to pick up eggs from us, from our chickens or if we had meat chickens and we butchered them here, they could just buy it from here. There's nothing that says that they can't.
13:32So what is it like in New York for you? That's a great question. So there's a lot of nuances that if you want to buy, I think a lot of people are familiar with a whole hog or a quarter cow or something like that, the bulk purchasing, those kinds of things, they have to be done by a butcher. I think there is some tiny little loophole of the farmer butchering themselves. But I think it's a good idea to have
14:00I don't have that kind of time, so I never bothered to look into it. But generally, I have to go to the butcher for that. I have to pre-sell it. So like I can't take a cow and if I only have three quarters of it sold, technically, I'm not supposed to take that cow to the slaughter yet because I haven't sold that last quarter. It needs to have a customer, you know, an actual owner has transferred ownership in that way. And then it's the farmer, I'm just providing the service, taking it in.
14:30know, just the cuts like just a pack of bacon or just the pork chops or whatever. Those have to go through the USDA inspected butcher. I'm not sure I would assume that's similar for where you are or where anybody is honestly. But yeah, so that makes it a little easier for me because then I can still just get it butchered and put together if you will a quarter pig or whatever and then sell it after the fact that I can just, you know.
14:58sell it when I sell it kind of thing. Meat chickens, I can butcher them here up to what is it? I want to say up to a thousand birds per year. So if I do meat chickens and I do Thanksgiving turkeys, there's a conversion there. So I can't do a thousand bodies if you will, because one turkey counts as four chickens or whatever. It's a weird bunch of annoying math. But yeah, we can butcher those up to a thousand chickens.
15:28on farm and I can sell those at a market or I believe that those can go to if there was like a small grocery store that wanted to carry them I could put them there. Any of the pork that's going through the butcher that has to go through a USDA butcher in order to go to a grocery store anything like that. Eggs can be on farm or at the farmers market. There is no as far as I'm aware there's no real inspection or anything for.
15:56like the small stores, if you were partnering with another farm, like I know a beef farm that's nearby that she had offered that I could put my eggs in their cooler and they'll sell them there because they don't have chicken eggs for their customers. So there's kind of some flexibility there, but generally I haven't really worried about the retail sales and whatnot just because I don't.
16:25I don't want to say I don't believe in it. Because I still frequent the grocery store now and then too, but I just, I feel like it's kind of more the right direction for the world to go that we go back to buying direct from the farms. And so I'm not going to go jump through hoops to make sure that I can sell it somewhere else. I'm going to do what I do to sell it here off the farm. And so I think it's the same as yours as far as as long as I'm...
16:52doing it here, selling it direct from the farm, direct to consumer, then that's okay. If we were to cross into, I'm not doing it yet, but if we were to do raw milk, that one is really particular. It has to be on the farm only, cannot be sold through any retail outlets or anything like that. Yeah, that's what it's like here too.
17:14The reason I asked is because every state seems to have at least one or two things is different from every other state. So I try to ask when people are dealing with this stuff. Fair enough. Yeah, there are some nuances. So what brought you to this? Why are you doing this? How did you get into this? That's a really great question too, because ever since I was a kid, I wanted a farm.
17:41without having any clue what kind of farming I was going to do because I did not grow up in farming at all. I grew up spending a couple of weeks every summer at my grandparents' house where they had a big old garden and my grandfather had honeybees, which I forgot to mention we do have honeybees here too. I kind of got used to that and you go pick it fresh out the garden and as my grandma says, you pick the beans and it's like one for me, one for the basket.
18:09you know, and doing the canning and that kind of thing with them and cooking with her and really that homesteading kind of feel without them having any livestock or anything. But I always told her I was going to buy the sheep farm that was next to her and I was going to live there and that would be my little farm. And I don't know why, but I've always had that in my head. You know, grew up, went to college, met a guy that I don't even remember having the conversation with him, but he also always wanted to be a farmer since he was a kid.
18:36You know, we just happened to cross paths the right way. Um, and so it was just always our dream to, you know, move out of the suburbs, buy land, um, and do a farm. And we, we initially bought this property, um, to homestead and specifically not sell it to anybody. We just wanted our own little like micro ecosystem, grow our own grain, do our own hay, the whole nine. Um, and that's what we really wanted here. When we had first moved, of course we did the stupid thing of not.
19:05Donating things before we moved we moved all of our crap and then donated it as we unpacked So, you know the other side of the coin there As we were doing that we were posting it at our local by nothing group on Facebook And so we had people coming and you know picking up like the extra nightstand you don't need in this bag of clothes And whatever and almost every single person that came up the driveway to pick stuff up. They would see our chickens out there Because we got chickens within I don't know four or five months of moving in I think it was super quick
19:33And so people would see our birds and they're like, oh, do you sell eggs? And we said, no, we, you know, they're only like two months old at the time. Like they're not even laying, but no, we don't, we don't have any eggs for sale. And they said, well, if you ever have extras, you know, down the road, then, you know, please send me a message. I'd love to buy them. I don't know where to get farm fresh eggs around here.
19:53you know, and we just kept getting those kinds of things. We had somebody come pick something up and she's like, would you ever consider raising meat birds? Like I will pay you just to raise them for me because I can't do them where I am, but I want pasture raised chicken and I can't find it. And so that was really kind of our clue into this. Like I said, in our area, there are not a lot of farms. I'm pretty much right in the center of our town itself. You know, the sign says Child Life Center, but as...
20:23As we kind of kept doing this, you know, get rid of our junk thing, we just started to really feel like, you know, we were researching it and looking into it. We're like, wow, these people are not kidding. Like where do you get pasture-based chicken around here without driving, you know, 30 minutes out of your way somewhere? And so it really just kind of started to feel like maybe we got, you know, planted on this property not just to homestead for ourselves.
20:54you know, we can provide these products to these people that are asking for them. So we should. And so we just went for it, started up the LLC and we've just grown from there. So you had an already established demand for what you were doing before you even moved in. In a, in a really unexpected way, I guess. Yeah, we did. That is so lucky. That's so lucky. That's great. Um, okay.
21:23So tell me again when you moved there, tell me how long you've been there. So we've been here since 2020. We dealt with a nice long closing during, you know, COVID and all of that. And we officially started the farm business in August of 2021. Okay. Do you love it? I mean, it's been four years. So in your four years of getting it started and meeting your neighbors and finding out there was a market for what you were doing,
21:53and all the things, are you at the point where you love it?
22:00It's a trick question, isn't it? A little bit, yeah, but I ask everybody. Yeah, you know, I mean, there's the usual of, you know, you get certain days or certain weather and you're like, ugh, why am I doing this? I should just shut it down. I should quit, you know, because nobody really likes having to chop up ice water in the winter in livestock troughs. And nobody likes having to, you know, if the equipment goes down, well, guess what? You still gotta get water and feed to the animals. And so if you're hauling it little by little on a wagon or something, then that's what you're doing.
22:30You know, there are moments where it's hard, of course, and I think any farmer listening can relate to that, and kind of you have to just get through it. But I guess I'll word it this way. I don't know that I've ever asked myself the question, do I love what I'm doing? But I will word it as, I love the life that we're living here. You know, and I'll take the bad with the good. I've had my moments of, this is tough.
22:55I've had my moments of that existential crisis of like, should I keep doing this? This is a lot of work for one person and, you know, trying to do all the fencing and the expanding and clearing land and all of that. It's a boatload of work. But at the same time, I can't see myself doing anything else at this point anymore. I thought about that for a while that I was like, if I shut down the farm business, if I took it back to just, you know, back it down to homesteading only.
23:25What would I do as my job? I don't know. I don't know what I would want to do. I don't want to go sit in an office all day. I don't want to go be a cashier at the grocery store. You know, I just, I would pick what I'm doing every day, day in and day out, the good, the bad, the ugly. I would take all of it over, you know, corporate America, for sure. I do not miss that world. Yeah, okay.
23:51I'm going to say it out loud, I probably shouldn't, but I think anybody who's worked in corporate America and then ends up doing what you're doing and what we're doing here would agree with you 100%. Working in an office is not a natural state of being for a human being. It shouldn't be. I agree. 100% agree. As I sit at my computer and talk to you at a desk. Weird. But...
24:21But I chose this and I see it as not really work. It is something that I love to do. And I feel like work has this connotation of going to a job you don't like to make money so that you can go home and maybe eke out the time to do things you do like.
24:44And my job, I love this job. I don't make any money at this job yet. I'm almost to the point where I can monetize the podcast and then maybe I'll have a little bit of money coming in. But it's a job and I love it. And when I talk with you and all the other people that I've talked with, I learn so much from you. And all the listeners learn so much from you. And that's what I wanted when I started this.
25:13I love when I say, do you love what you're doing? It's either this long pause because no one's really thought about it. And the answer usually comes down to, yes, I love the choice that I've made. I've yet to ask someone and they're like, no, I've decided I hate it and I'm going to quit. You know? Right. But I always ask because it's always phrased differently. It's always a different reason why the person loves the life they've chosen.
25:41So I will always ask because I want to know. So anyway, what else? Do you have kids? I do. I have two of them. Are they young? Are they teenagers? Are they grown? We're elementary age. And are they involved with the stuff on the farm? Whether they like it or not, yes. OK, do you think that they do enjoy some of it? So they were really little.
26:11The one was about three and a half, the other was about five and a half when we moved here. Just getting here and having a bigger backyard in their minds to run around in was like a dream come true, right? My son especially, he's a runner, so he can go. We're surrounded by woods. He's got a really clear fear of the woods, not fear, but he had an innate, this is the stopping point. He's loved it because it's a three or five acre open space that he can just go. I know he's not going to get lost anywhere.
26:40So that's been great for him. And then as everything's grown, like my kids were so excited when we got those first chickens, it lined up to be really close to their birthdays. And so I was like, guys, do you want chicks for your birthday? And they were like, yes. So while we're doing the hatchery order for our first things, I took each kid and I sat down at the computer and I scrolled for what must have been hours of like, what do you want for chickens? And my one daughter was like,
27:11I want the blue eggs. I gotta have blue egg chickens. I'm like, all right, cool. Let's find blue egg chickens. Here's your options. We narrowed it down what the feathers look like. She picked out her chickens. She's thrilled. My son did the same. We picked out chickens. He's thrilled. So I think that was kind of the clue in of like, okay, good, we're raising farm kids here. As time has gone on, they have claimed this animal or that as quote unquote theirs.
27:35the one goat for whatever reason my daughter claimed as hers. It was one of the first ones we got and I'm like, um, it's mine, but sure you can call it yours if you want, whatever. But you know, fast forward a couple of years and this spring when that goat had her kids, my daughter was in there as the goat kitted. She wanted to take a video of it, but like, she's watching, you know, the slimy mess that is kidding. And she's just right in there coaching her like, come on pancake, good girl, you can do it. It's the cutest thing.
28:04My son has shown an affinity and a love for when we have to stack hay bales or any of this build muscle kind of stuff. He's at that age now where he wants to be the tough guy. They might be a little grudging sometime when we have to go do chores and it's raining, but when we have good weather especially, then they're eager to do it.
28:32And it's been amazing to see things like, you know, I'll say, hey guys, we've got to get going on chores and, and, you know, like it's time to go outside. We're done with breakfast and all of that. And like, let's go do chores. And they'll be like, okay. And they run out and they know the routine that they just, they grab the buckets. They start scooping food for the chickens, for the pigs and whatever. And like, they just know what they're doing. You know, I know that if, if something happened or if I wasn't here or whatever, and somebody else had to do the chores, like my kids have done that, that they'll tell people this is what it's got to be. And this is what we're doing. And.
29:02It's just so cool to see these little kids, how do I want to word it, that in certain moments they show up as the farmer. And it's the coolest thing to see. So they do enjoy it. And honestly, I'm sure that mom doesn't really like going out and doing the chores when it's cold and snowy or cold or any either. I do not. So they're no different than a grownup doing it. Right.
29:32No, I can't blame them. I can't blame them. And you know, I have asked them outright within the last probably six months. Just out of curiosity, like, do you like being a farm kid? You know, would you rather be no because we homeschool and so it's obviously a whole different game here. Versus public school and you know, it's not like I'm making them work and then go sit school for six hours and then come home and do more chores and So it's a totally different feel to life. But it's like, do you like our life here? Do you like what we're doing? And they're both like
30:01yeah, I don't want to go to public school. I want to keep doing this. It's like perfect. That's all I needed to know. I love that you asked them because there are lots of parents who wouldn't have thought to ask. I mean, it's not like I'm going to ditch the farm and move. No, but you wanted to check in with them. Right. And I would maybe structure our days a little differently. Like we only live a couple miles from my parents. And so there might
30:31You know, there might have been a conversation of like, well, maybe you're going to go, they're both retired. Like maybe you guys are going to go hang out at their house for a couple hours, more than one day a week. Kind of, you know what I mean? And, and we could kind of shift that of like, you know, just the way we structure our day was really, that was why I asked the question was like, if I need to do the chores without them, I'm going to do it at a different time of day than if they're going to help me with it. And then at the same time, there was still that conversation in my own head with myself of.
31:01You know, we didn't move here so that we could all be separate. We didn't buy a farm so that the kids wouldn't have to do the chores. And it's not that they have to do the chores, it's that we want them to do the chores because they do have such a good work ethic from it. I see a huge difference in my kids and even among other homeschooled kids, because there tends to be a difference between, you know, public schooled kids and homeschooled kids, and then there's a different group of the farming and the homesteading kids.
31:27They have a different work ethic. They don't give a hoot about video games, you know? Like their idea of fun, I keep asking them, guys, why do we have so many toys? Because their idea of fun is literally catching a little tiny toad and making it a habitat or playing swords with sticks that they find on the ground or just picking it up and it's a walking stick and we're just walking around the grass. It's like, wow, they don't need anything. They just, they're one with nature now.
31:53Even if they didn't like being farm kids per se, I might change what their chores were, but we're never leaving this just because I can see how good it's been for them. Yeah, and they will never outgrow the wanting to play with toys from nature. There was a big fat toad on our quote unquote patio. We have a cement pad that sits in front of our door.
32:23so that you could put like a picnic table or something out there. We just haven't gotten to it because all it's done is rain here. Um, but anyway, big fat toad out there this morning at the bottom of the steps. And I texted my son, he's 22 and he was doing something in his room. And I said, there's a big fat toad on the, on the pad outside. And within seconds he was downstairs to check out the toad because he loves frogs and he loves toads and he's not elementary school age.
32:51And he has always loved snakes and frogs and lizards. He would have a lizard if I would let him, but it's mine and my husband's house. We are his parents and I don't want a lizard in my house. So we don't have a lizard in my house. I don't want one for a pet. I really don't. We have a dog, we're good. We don't need any more pets in the house. But point is, if kids are raised around nature and taught...
33:19to love that life, it lasts their entire lifetime. So I think it's great. And I'm obviously the converted, you're preaching to the choir. I agree with everything you're saying. But I think that, I don't want to make anybody mad here. I think that when kids are raised in the city, like in the city, I don't mean small town, I mean like downtown Chicago or New York City or whatever.
33:49They don't have the opportunities to be exposed to toads and frogs and birds and whatever nature. And it's a shame. It really is a shame. Oh, I agree. So that's where I'm at with it. And if you're raising your kids in a big city and they're happy, good, you're doing the right thing. But that's not how I wanted to do it because it's not how I was raised. So
34:17It's really hard on this podcast because I just want to be like pro nature, pro grow your own food, pro everything that I believe in. But then I have to remember that not everybody does it the way that I do. So you know what though, you're doing a great thing because you know, like you said, people hear this and other people listening can learn things. And I hope, you know, it's not my place to say per se. But if I could dream of one thing that would come from people listening to me in particular in here, I would hope that a whole bunch of other little farms are doing farm schools
34:48Because we had field trips with a school. We have a couple of schools that I have sold hatching eggs to for the last couple of years for the life cycle units. And so the one school was like, hey, can we do field trips too? And really connect the kids to this is where your hatching eggs came from. And now the chicks are going back to this farm. And it was the sweetest thing of how many kids gave me a hug when they were leaving. And how many kids were like, you know, I want to be a farmer when I grow up.
35:17as they're getting back on the bus. I had kids that were saying, okay, you know, like, we'll see you next year in first grade. I'm like, oh my God, please come back. That would be so fun. But, you know, it- Your heart, your heart was probably five times too big for your chest cavity. It sure was, but it was just, it was that, as the guy at the school that, you know, coordinated all of this, he said, you know, most of these kids, this is the first time they've ever been to a farm. You know, they're really-
35:44They're not exactly, it's a fairly rural-ish area, suburban sort of rural area where these kids are coming from. But at the same time, he's like, most of these kids, they're not getting out into that kind of area. They're not getting out. And I mean, even the parks are very structured with the equipment and they're in the suburbs, right? So there's always houses around and it doesn't feel like you're going to the woods. Whereas my property...
36:10The buses, if I wasn't standing in the road, the buses would buzz right by us because you can't tell that there's nobody here. And so it was just the coolest thing to really kind of do what you're saying of give these kids this opportunity to realize this is amazing. It's so worth it. Yes. And the other thing is that the air smells different where you are versus where they live. Right.
36:39And I don't mean it's stinky because you have animals. I mean, it just smells cleaner and different to where they are. And I feel like that's important too because people like to travel to experience different things. And different things can be as simple as the smell of the air being different. Oh, I agree. I agree. So...
37:08So you're giving them, you're literally giving them a culturally different experience when they come to the farm. That's a good way to word it. Yeah. So you're doing a great thing. And I think that's wonderful. And I'm so glad I had the chance to talk to you today. Absolutely. Thanks for taking the time. It's been over half an hour. So I'm going to let you go. Thank you again.
37:35And we're going to have to chat a year from now, because I want to see where you're at. All right, sounds great. All right, thanks Roxanne. Yeah, thank you for having me. Bye.
 

Harvest Creek Farm & Retreat

Today I'm talking with Debra at Harvest Creek Farm & Retreat.
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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm chatting with Debra at Harvest Creek Farm and Retreat. How are you, Debra? I am doing wonderful today. Thank you, Mary, for inviting me today.
00:22Oh, you are very welcome. I need you guys to talk to me or I don't have a podcast. So thank you for being willing to come visit. Tell me about yourself and Harvest Creek Farm and Retreat. Well, we started about three years ago and my husband and I were just looking for about five acres. We live in a subdivision and I wanted to have some chickens and I wanted to grow some vegetables and fruit trees. And well, you know what HOAs are like.
00:50We would try to find about five acres. Well, we came across this 15 acre parcel that used to be a farm decades ago. And so we slowly but surely, it had completely grown up. It was woods, forest. So over the next about a year or so, it was literally just excavation and taking down trees and just trying to get back the pasture again. It was so overgrown. And so we started working on that.
01:20put in a little vegetable garden that first year and it did amazing. So we started growing vegetables and we had our chickens and ended up buying four or five more acres adjacent to our property. So now we have 20 acres and it is just exploded and we have now built a pavilion on it. We have a vacation cottage that people love to come and stay and we've left, we left quite a few woods and put the cottage near that.
01:50So people have a place to just come and relax and get away from city life. Yet we're only minutes from the main city of Lenoir City. So it's just been an incredible project. As all farmers know, it is tireless. You never get caught up. And so we've had help here and there that we've hired. But basically my husband, myself, and some friends really have been helping us here and there. But now we are officially
02:19A You Pick Flower Farm. Nice. Okay. So, you're in Tennessee and how many years ago was this that you started it, that you bought it? Three years ago. Okay. Yeah. All right. Awesome. I want to talk about the flower farm for sure. Yeah. But I also want to talk about the work involved. Did you get your chickens?
02:44So yes, we had chickens for, I think it was about 18 months and we started doing a lot of traveling. We've actually joined the Tennessee Agri-Tourism Association. Oh yeah. Yeah, we've been going to those conferences and getting more involved in that. So as you know, you just can't leave animals. No. It just got to a point where the chickens were not going to be our focus. So we were able to have them adopted by some friends. And so they're happy. They did not get beheaded.
03:13Good. Yes. And so now we do not have any animals on the farm. Eventually, we'd love to get some horses. I actually lived in a farm in Australia on a stud ranch for some time. And so that's always in my heart. So eventually we'll get horses. But right now we're focusing on the flowers. Okay. You lived in Australia on a what ranch? A stud farm, a stud ranch. Stud, stud ranch. All I heard was said. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. Sorry.
03:43Okay, Stud Ranch, that makes more sense, thank you. Okay, so you have the flower farm. Do you do events around the flowers? Do you sell the flowers? What's involved in the flower part of the business? So we actually ended up putting a farm store at the bottom of our property to sell our vegetables and to sell our flowers, which has now become this beautiful little boutique farm store that we carry honey, not from our own property, that we purchase honey from.
04:13and we have flowers, other flowers and gifts and candles and soaps and things like that and wind chimes and garden theme that people love to just stop by. We just started that last month and so now they will come to the farm store and they will sign up for their you pick time and then they'll go out and they'll start picking flowers. So yes we have a pavilion and because we're part of the
04:40We have a minimum 15 acres and we're part of the agritourism association. We can have events under, under that. So we will eventually do weddings and have lots of other fun events here. Awesome. I just, I just chatted a week or so ago with a lady who lives a couple of towns up from me and she has a flower place too. It's freedom, freedom, forge flower farm or something like that.
05:09And she does events. She's got three planned this summer. And it sounded like so much fun. But I'm not so big on the pollinators that go with the flowers. I mean, I love them. They do their job. They're important. But I don't really want to be walking through the flowers and get popped by a bee. So not really my thing to go to. However, I love
05:34I love, love, love flowers. I mean, when we moved here four years ago, the first thing we did was get peony roots in and tulip bulbs in and daffodil bulbs in because there was nothing here. The only flowers here were hostas. And hostas don't count for me as a flower because they're not my favorite and they love shade. And the only place to grow them was on the backside of our house, which is where the only door in and out of the house is.
06:04So everything else, which is grasses and wildflowers, there was no anything here for cutting flowers, as it were. You've really transformed your place. We have, oh my goodness. Isn't it? It's a lot. It's a lot of planning. It's a lot of thinking through. It's a lot of knowing, or if you don't know, learning, what will grow where. Yes, trial and error all the way.
06:34What I have never in my life had more appreciation for farmers. The dependence on the weather, the dependence on what kind of pests are going to come that particular season. Some seasons are stronger than others. What do I use this year? It's like you finally see your apple trees coming in and these beautiful sweet apples and then you go out the next day and they're all gone. That happened to us last year. We still don't know what happened. There was not.
07:02even one on the ground. They were gone. Do you have deer in your area? Yes, there are a few deer, but they were in a location. There's no way they could have reached the top of those trees. They're tall. So quite interesting, but you don't know. You just have to go with the flow and the breaks come sometimes and sometimes the difficult challenges arise and you just ride through them.
07:30because there's going to be a sweet season coming. Yes, and you have to either laugh or cry and either one is perfectly acceptable. Exactly. We had a whole bunch of lovely apple blooms this spring. There is not a single baby apple on any of our trees because we had a huge windstorm when the trees bloomed and they took the flowers, gone. Nothing to pollinate. Devastating, isn't it? It's...
07:59It's my dad, my dad would say it's such a pissa because he's from New England and it really is. It's such a disappointment. Yes. But there's always next year and we had some apples last year so we actually got to try them. They were fantastic. So there's always another season coming and that's, I think that's what all of us who grow produce rely on. Definitely. Yeah. It's not the easiest thing on earth.
08:27It's also not the hardest thing on earth either. Right. Right. And I think that's why we really chose flowers, too, because we because we have so much land here. We ended up doing a flower trail. And so people can go to different zones over it throughout the farm. And so they can just go for a hike, basically, and pick flowers. While they're hiking, we did not concentrate all our flowers in one garden. We spread them.
08:55over the entire 20 acres on trails. And fortunately, we've had plenty of sun in each of those locations. And we've measured and we're almost a mile of zinnias. Wow. It's pretty incredible. I think we can probably take the Guinness World Book of Records on that one. I think that's a lot of zinnias. Do you guys have a drone? Do you have any way to take aerial footage of your gardens?
09:22Thank you for that reminder. We do have a friend that does that. And yes, yes, yes, they're in full bloom right now. We totally need to do that. Thank you, Mary. Yes, do that, because I want to see them. I ask because I'm selfish. I want to see this. And then the other question I have for you is since you grow flowers and you clearly love growing flowers and you know how much happiness flowers bring to people, I'm not. If you don't do this, I'm not telling you you have to, but something to consider.
09:52Do you donate flowers to, I don't know, hospitals for patients or to nursing homes or any of that? This is our first year and they just came to the Zoom two weeks ago. So that is a fabulous idea. Yes, I will definitely look into that. I love that. Yeah, I, they're okay. Where we used to live before we moved here, there was an
10:18what they wouldn't have called 100 years ago or 80 years ago an old folks home. And now it's called assisted living or whatever for folks who are older and need some help. And they would get bouquets from the local florists, just extra flowers that the florists weren't going to use. And they would give them to the people who live there to have in their rooms. What a beauty. It just spurs things up.
10:48I was like, she's grown a lot of flowers. I wonder. I think I have a new assignment now. Definitely. Wonderful idea. Yeah. And I mean, man, if I was 85 years old and could not really get out in nature, I would be thrilled to have a bouquet of flowers brought to my room. That would make me really happy. Yeah. I'm not there yet, so we're good. Right. Yeah. Good job for that. Well, we actually have a lady that lives just kind of in our property when we bought the
11:17We bought it from her and she really didn't want to move. So we sectioned off a half an acre for her so she could stay. And so 81 years old. And so every time I do the bouquets, because I also do wedding bouquets, just did my daughter's wedding. So I took her one of the bouquets and you're right. At that age, it means the world to them. Yeah, super cool that she got to stay. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, worked out great. Awesome.
11:47Okay, so what kind of flowers you grow besides zinnias? Because I love every flower I've ever met. Right, we have astur and then we also have some dahlias in and then I have two huge sunflower fields. Okay and is that all? Is that all you grow? So in the fall I will get my ranoculus and my peonies and my anemones in. So that's here. You know it's always in stages.
12:17Usually I'm not failing. So we're gonna get really good at this before we start adding anything else Okay, you mentioned my absolute favorite flower on earth peonies. Have you grown them before? Well, my mother grew them. So I'm originally from Canada and she had a garden she had she did roses and What else did she have? But just flip my mind Azaleas and Rhododendrons and
12:46She did peonies. She had quite a few in her garden. The weather up there was better, so I'm not sure how peonies will do in the South yet. Yeah, I was going to say, I have been growing peonies in my yard one way or another for about 20 years. And the things that I can tell you about peonies, if you would like to know, is the first year, the first spring after you plant the roots, or rhizomes or whatever they are.
13:16They won't really do anything. They will just, they will grow. They will have the green leaves and everything, but they probably will not bloom. Second year, second spring, you might get a couple blooms. Third year is when they do really well because they've gotten themselves established. Ah, good to know. Yep, and the thing that people have always told me is the first year is sleep, second year is creep, third year is leap. Isn't that the truth? Yeah, I see it.
13:43trees all the time when we've bought those emerald green trees, you know, yeah. Sometimes you're thinking, what's going on? They're not growing. And then boom, three years later. But it's such a reminder that farming is patience. It sure is. Oh, you just, the reward is down the road. But patience and yeah, giving God all the way through it is, there's a result at the end. Yep.
14:10And then the other question I have is how cold does it get in the winter time for you in Tennessee? We had, we've had a couple of rough winters. It has gone down to occasionally eight degrees, which is quite rare for here. It's not, it doesn't usually do that. It usually sits around, you know, 32 degrees, sometimes 28 in the winter in January or so. So it doesn't get biting cold, but the past two years have definitely changed. It's gotten
14:39and we've lost a lot of plants because of that. And also, as you mentioned with your apple tree, all the blooms, the wind came along and blew them away. We had last year, all our fruit trees were blooming and we had a late, very late cold snap and it killed all the blooms. Yep, I hate that. Yeah. Okay, the reason I asked how cold it gets is because the peonies need time to sleep in the wintertime and they needed to be chilly.
15:09So as long as it gets to the freezing mark or slightly below, you might have some good luck with peonies. I don't know. Okay. I will not plant a whole field then. I will plant a small garden of them. Thank you. Bye. Yeah. I would hate for you to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on the stock and then have them not do well. That would be terrible. Have you done any ranunculus? I have not. I don't even know what it looks like.
15:38They're like a little mini rose almost, puffy. They're beautiful, but they're fragile. So I'm a little hesitant, but I'm going to give them a try. Well, you can start small with that too and see what happens. Exactly. We put in, we tried two springs ago, three springs ago. I can't remember now. We wanted to try growing the crocus that puts out the saffron. Oh, I've not heard of that.
16:07because I read that you could grow it in Minnesota. Well, you might be able to grow it in Minnesota, but I think that the voles, the little rodents, ate the bulbs, because we didn't get any crocuses in there. But we got the regular crocuses. Oh my goodness. And we only bought like 12 bulbs, because I was like, I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on these, not knowing how they're going to do. And really glad we didn't spend hundreds of dollars on the...
16:36the saffron crocus producing thingies because it would have been a really bad situation. So sometimes you try and sometimes it doesn't work and sometimes you try and it turns out great. Yeah, exactly. And it's quite shocking. We get excited in the spring or kind of in the winter when you know spring's on its way and you can't stop. You start buying all these seeds and bulbs and it's like we've spent.
17:01thousands of dollars here. You know, because it's exciting and it's fun to buy all that kind of stuff. But boy, you've got to really watch your budget or it can be crazy. Yes, you will go broke trying to grow beautiful things. Yes. We haven't gone broke yet, but we've thought about going broke buying beautiful things. So, okay, so how hot does it get in Tennessee in the summertime?
17:29We are in the nineties this week and coming week it's forecasted for 95. So the average has been over the years. It's between 85 and 90 throughout the summer. It's definitely way higher this year. We've not experienced nineties like this in June. It's unusual. So, and I'm just hearing that all across the country, different people that I speak to different regions, they're all have new challenges and just
17:57unusual weather patterns. So you just don't know. Next week it could be in the 70s. Yeah, this weather has been absolute insanity. We got a foot of snow for the entire winter where I live and we usually get three or four feet. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. And then this last two weeks we've had nothing but rain. Yesterday was the first day in eight days where it was sunny and
18:27Oh my goodness. And that is a very unusual pattern, isn't it? Yeah, that doesn't, that's not, that usually happens like at the end of April into May here. And today's June, what, 24th, 25th? Yeah. Yeah. So, no, this is, it's nutty and I don't love it. And I'm, okay, I've said this a billion times. I'm going to say it again. We grow a farm to market garden here. And,
18:56for the last three springs. By now, we've had lettuces to sell, we've had spinach and chard and kale. We have nothing to sell right now because we got stuff in and then it just rained. And everything in the garden right now is just stalled out. It's still alive, it's still growing, but it's just really, really slow. And it just reminds you, you can't promise people and customers anything with these. No.
19:25friends right now. And you say that you grew lettuce. I don't know why I have been so challenged with lettuce. I grow it. It's gorgeous. I pick it and it's bitter. What am I doing? I'll tell you exactly why. If you've had really hot days, lettuce gets bitter if it's too hot out. Oh my gosh. Okay. So there's no doubt that like, I guess just a greenhouse is the only way. Yep. Okay. Yep.
19:54I won't eat lettuce out of our garden past the end of June because it's just too hot. And it does. It gets that real icky, bitter taste to it. And it looks wonderful. It looks like the most delicious lettuce ever known to man, but you bite into it and you're like, this is awful. It's too hot. That's what it is. All right. Thank you so much for that. Yep.
20:18Lettuce likes it to be warm during the day and cool at night. It's more of a cold weather crop than a hot middle of the summer crop. So similar to spinach, I guess. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Yep. And kale doesn't matter because honest to God, nobody actually loves kale. No, right? Yes. I'm sure there are people who do, but most of the people I've talked to are like, eh, kale's something, yeah.
20:44You throw in the pan and wilt to go with your stir fry, because then it tastes like everything else. Yeah, I see. And I am not actually the gardener in my household. My husband is. But I used to garden with him. I just don't love it enough to keep doing it. But he is an avid gardener. So when people bring things up like that, I know the answers. But it's not because I'm still doing the gardening.
21:13Right. Well, you're doing what you love. And I think it's wonderful you're doing these podcasts. I was able to go in and listen to some of the past ones and I was learning some stuff that other people are sharing and they tried this and that didn't work and then they tried this and that's just, yeah, it's great. Thank you for doing these podcasts. Oh, you are absolutely welcome. I just needed something to do that I was interested in. So it's no skin off my brow to do these.
21:43I was going to say, because I'm nuts, I am absolutely crazy. I have started another podcast with a friend of mine who is a master gardener in Minnesota. And that one has three episodes out. It's called Mary and the Master Gardener. And I'm not the master gardener. She is. Her name is Liz. So if you want to learn things about gardening, it's not necessarily just gardening in Minnesota. It's gardening wherever. That's wonderful.
22:12So I can send you the link if you want it later. But it's fun, and we're doing two more episodes on Wednesday to be released on Friday. One's going to be about herbs, and one's going to be about composting. Oh, definitely in on that. We do have quite a big herb garden, too, and we're selling those as you pick. Mm-hmm.
22:34I love herbs. I love going and picking out herb seedlings. I love growing the babies on my kitchen table in March. I love being able to go cut fresh basil for bruschetta or the stuff you put on pasta. Garlic and basil and olive oil. Pesto? Yes, that. Thank you.
23:01Yes. I was like, I know the word. Where is it? We have to find some pine nuts, Mary. Oh, that too. Yes. Yes. And oh my goodness, pine nuts are so expensive right now. They are. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. I'm going to have to figure out how to do my own. I'm going to have to find a pine tree and harvest my own pine nuts because this is not okay. Fascinating how they do come from that. I want to learn.
23:27You can never stop learning, can you? Like, I mean, literally there is so much that we can learn from others and from podcasts and books and YouTube, and you never stop learning. There's so much. I think that my brain would explode if all the gardening things I've ever wanted to know were in it. Yes, so true. Well then, like, I've got to ask the gardeners. And I gotta.
23:51I gotta warn Liz not to tell me everything or my head will explode because she's brilliant. She knows so much about gardening. I know maybe an eighth of what she knows. Maybe. Right. So, but either way, how are your flowers doing? I mean, when did you get stuff in this year? We got them in the last week of April. This week they exploded.
24:20So we have, so we're open this Friday for you to pick. There are millions. I mean, I'm not being dramatic. There are so many flowers and they're so beautiful. And the bugs thankfully have not harmed any of the flowers. We were praying for rain. You could see the bottom of the leaves because we've planted so many. They were starting to dry out because we've been in the nineties with no rain. Yeah.
24:49the rain came and it was a soaking rain and it was just what we needed. And I put on Facebook, thank you Lord for the rain last night. And all these people were liking it. So a lot of the farmers in the area was just like, Oh, everything is so thirsty. So they are doing now that they've also had that drink of water. They are stunning. We do have a lot of photos on Facebook and on our website. Nice. Yeah. Um, as I was telling you, before we started recording, it's been doing nothing but rain here.
25:19So I would love to just like send you bucket fulls of water from the state of Minnesota because we don't need anymore. And I'm sure just like suddenly your weather is going to change again. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I figure we'll be back in a drought by August, but right now we are nowhere near a drought. Right. Wow. Amazing. And it's so everything that we growers do is dependent on what falls out of the sky or what
25:49doesn't. Back in April, we were in a drought and had been since last year. And we'd get a little bit of rain and everybody's like, oh, thank God it rained and we need the rain. And then basically the whole month of, well, the end of the month of May and almost all of June, we have gotten rain almost every day. Oh my gosh. That is just a drastic change.
26:16Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's just it's not great. It's If you're in a drought and you have a well you can water your plants If you're not in a drought if you're in the exact opposite of a drought You can't suck the water back out of the ground. Mm-hmm So I would almost rather be in a drought and be able to water what needs to be watered Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, it's it's like in the wintertime in the wintertime if it's too cold
26:45you can throw on 7,000 layers of clothes and be warm. In the summertime, if it's too hot, you can't be any more naked than naked. It's the same situation. You're right. So it's been incredibly frustrating. My husband has been getting more and more frustrated as it's rained more and more. Yeah. And I looked at him the other day. I said, are you OK? And he's like,
27:14I'm letting it go. He said, I am, he said, I have been so frustrated with this. He said, I'm letting it go. We have the greenhouse. We have lots of stuff growing in the greenhouse because it's not soaked. Right. He said, as soon as this weather breaks, I will be able to get all that stuff that's been growing into the actual garden and it will do fine. I said, well, look at you being a grownup. He's like, I can't fight the weather. I know.
27:39And it's so interesting because my husband, Randy, he's been like completely the opposite with the weather. It's been a drought here for a while. And so we bought a huge tank. Well, he bought it and put it on the back of his side by side. He drives around with a hose watering almost a mile of flowers. And of course, 40 gallons doesn't go very far. 100 gallons, maybe it is. And so he's back filling it up again. He's like, oh, I need this rain. God love that man. Yeah.
28:09Yeah, and that's for my flowers. So sweet, you know, you can just, oh, well, honey, I guess you're croc died. But no, no. He faithfully helps me through all of it. It's it's a joint effort. It takes both of us for sure. He loves you. There's no question in my mind. He loves you. Yes, I do know that. It's a wonderful thing. Yes. All right, ma'am, I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap this up because we're almost at 30 minutes.
28:37I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and I hope that your you pick goes really, really well. Thank you so much. I love this time sharing with you today. I loved talking with you about flowers. Yeah. All right. Have a great day, Debra. Thanks. You too, Mary.
 

BlueSky Homestead

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00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Amanda at Blue Sky Homestead. How are you, Amanda? I'm well. How are you? I'm great. It is really sunny and beautiful here today. So tell me about yourself and Blue Sky Homestead. So...
00:31I just, um, so Blue Sky Homes had started just not even, probably not even a year ago. I would say about 10 months ago. I started venturing into more homemaking. I'm a stay at home mom. I work on a horse farm part time in the mornings, but other than that I'm home. So I started venturing more into.
01:00cooking from scratch and the sourdoughs. I got married this past September and my husband lives on a little five acre farm. So we have goats and chickens, which I do not grow up around at all. Didn't have gardens, didn't have animals, except for cats and some dogs. But other than that, nothing. So it was like a, kind of like a culture shock to me really because I've never been around animals like that.
01:29So, so I decided like maybe I can make my own little website and post things that I'm learning and share it with other people that are new to it and don't know much about it because that's still kind of where I'm always learning. But it's been fun. I still want to venture out into more like holistic things.
01:59I like, I can't do like perfumes and stuff. Those chemicals really gave me migraines, like really bad. I had to get rid of everything. So I want to start venturing eventually, candle making, like incense and stuff like that, that doesn't cause and doesn't have all those nasty chemicals in them that really destruct your whole body. So.
02:29I mean, that's where I want to head into, but for right now, I'm still in the works. Okay. Well, speaking of perfumes, giving you migraines, me too. You're taught, you're preaching to the choir. Me too. Oh, really? I know a lot of people and they, like my daughter, she doesn't believe me. She's about to be 16. She buys all Victoria's Secret and bath and body wash and I'm like, get it out of the house.
02:57You want to know why I have a migraine all the time? Cut that stuff out for a little while and see how you feel. Yeah. Well, he's a teenager though, so. Yep, and you don't want to stomp on him, but you also don't want to have a headache all day every day either. Oh my gosh, yes. So the last time I was at a public entertainment event, it was a chorus thing for my youngest son, and the...
03:27The high school has had, we don't live there anymore, they still have a really nice auditorium that they built. And we went and I was there for maybe 20 minutes and all the perfumes and all the deodorants and all the colognes, I couldn't even think my head hurt so bad and I didn't have a headache when I walked in. So it does cause issues for people who are sensitive to it. So crazy because I never used to be like that.
03:55Or I did and I didn't realize it was comics or not because I didn't know anything about this kind of stuff until now, really. So I would, it was, it would really be bad because my husband and I would like, we don't really have date nights. So the one time that we would have a date night, I'd get all dolled up and looking nice. And I would put on my perfume and we would get ready to go. And I'd be in the car driving. And
04:24All of a sudden my nose felt like stuffy and my head just started. I was like, Oh man, this is not going to be a good night because my head is starting to hurt and I don't know why. Yep. So it was a whole thing where I was reading books and was in a podcast. And I'm like, wow, like that could really be a thing. So I had like 20 different perfumes from like different places. And I just actually gave them all to my oldest stepdaughter cause
04:53She doesn't care about stuff that doesn't affect her. So I'm like, here you go, you can take them. But it's amazing that just, well, even body lotions. And I was shocked when I learned about how that really can affect your everyday living, honestly. I got rid of all my plugins. I don't use Debreze anymore. So the only perfume that I really found that does not affect me is, it's a brand by Skylark.
05:22So it's a little crazy. It's a roll-on. They do self-sprays, but when I found it, I initially just got a roll-on. And it's a cream, and I don't have migraines when I wear that. Because I do like perfumes and stuff, so I miss wearing them. But this Skyler line is the only line that I have found so far that has clean ingredients that do not have that effect on me at all.
05:52is you can put essential oils that you like the scent of on your skin as long as it's in a carrier oil like a sweet almond or an olive oil or coconut oil. The coconut oil that isn't the room temperature hardening kind, I think it's called fractionated coconut oil. Yeah. Okay. I wear a roll-on essential oil blend if I want to wear perfume. And it does not cause any headaches because it's just...
06:22the natural oils. There's no alcohol, no fixatives, no nothing. It means that you have to put it on more often because it does wear off faster. Yeah, yeah. I do buy oils at Whole Foods. There's little, I wouldn't say there's natural oils. They're like, they're natural oils, like a must. Yep. So there's, it's a clean set. So I have a few of those. There's small ones and there's some of them, but I don't wear them too often just because they're crazy, but.
06:52Yeah, I have found some alternatives, but being able to like manage and make my own and you know do it that way and to share would be really fun. And candles, I can't do candles. I can do soy based candles. That doesn't give me migraines. And when I say migraines, it's so bad that I can't function. I can't go and do anything. So literally ruins my day. So the soy based candles
07:20have that effect on me, I don't know. And I do check ingredients because of the phyllates and all those kinds of things that make it bad. But so I wanna do candles and keep all that nasty chemicals out that really damper your day. Yep, I understand. The other thing I was gonna say, since you wanna do candles, is you could do wax melts. And
07:48That way you don't actually get the smoke from the candle either. That is true. I do like, I do like the wax for sure. Yeah, we make those. They're fab, they're fabulous. We love them. Oh really? Yeah. That's awesome. It's just the candle wax, you know, you just put her into a, I messed that up completely. You just pour it into the little molds and let it set up and then you just put them in the wax melters and they melt and they smell just like candles, but no smoke.
08:17Yeah, I do like those. I thought, look, I'm in like a couple candle Facebook groups just to get an idea of how the difficultness of making candles and I've watched YouTube videos. YouTube videos, they don't seem so difficult. I mean, it's just the fractioning of everything, I guess that makes it scary. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, once you do it a couple of times, it won't bother you at all. You won't be afraid of it anymore. We
08:45We started making candles last spring and loved it. Love it. And we still have tons of candles. We sell them at the farmer's market and we're starting to get down on our inventory. So we'll be making candles again here in a few weeks. Yeah, that's awesome. And the whole house smells amazing when you make them. That's what I miss about candles and those because I love a good smelling and my house is always clean and stuff, but like there's no smell.
09:15At least to me, it means that I live there, and it means the way the house smells. But I love walking into the house and it smells really pretty. Yeah. So I've been missing that. Yeah. My house always smells like whatever we cooked last because we cook a lot from scratch. So, so it's not just something in the microwave and there's no scent. Um, my husband, my husband cooked up hash browns this morning and the food, the kitchen is right below my bedroom, which is where I record the podcast.
09:43and all I can smell right now is hash browns. I'm like, oh my God, okay. So yes, anyway, we could talk about smells and candles and stuff all day. All day. So what, you said you have chickens and what else on the homestead? Yeah, so we have two sister goats. We did have a male first. Like when I moved in with my husband, he had a male, his name was Fromms. His oldest daughter named him.
10:13and she was small, but he had, he came down with some kind of brain anemone or some kind of brain thing that literally came out of nowhere. So we tried to help him and the penicillin and stuff and he had just, he passed away very quickly. So we have like this huge hill that we had fenced in for him. So we ended up getting two, two sister goats.
10:42Two years ago, no, probably three years ago now, but yeah, they're nice. They'll come to you if you have food. That's it. And then when you'll be able to pet them, they don't run to you and want to like be pet all the time. Like I wanted, I wanted goats to love on and they are not lovable girls. I'm sorry if you have food. But, so I mean, they keep the hill that we have, like chewed down so we don't have to like motor anything. They.
11:11I've been there best of life up there in the woods. But yeah, so then we do have chickens. I started incubating my own chickens three years ago. It's a lot of work to do that, but I love chickens. I just love them. So I have 10 chickens. I did have 11. One, I don't understand chickens and when they die, like what happened? You were completely fine an hour ago and then you're just.
11:40fall over dad, I don't get it. But this one was in the middle of the yard. It wouldn't move. So I thought it was injured, but it wasn't. And so it's, I had a little bit of blood on its mouth. So I thought maybe a one of the rooster, my rooster attacked it or something. So I put it, put it in by itself. It was walking. It was, it seemed fine. So I was like, okay, put my other chicken in with it the next day, just for some company and the next day it was.
12:11I don't know what was wrong with it. It's just I hate when things die. So I feel so sad. Yeah, nature is cruel sometimes. Yeah, I just wish I could understand why they just fall over. Don't get back up. Yeah, and I mean, you could take it to the vet and have them do a necropsy and see what caused it, but that's a lot of money to find out that.
12:39It died from something and it doesn't matter because it's still dead. It's not like they can fix it. So yeah. But I still have 10 chickens, but I think I so I hatched five and I bought three off of my friends who I believe she ordered them. So these chickens are massive. I don't remember what they're called. I can look it up. But they're.
13:07Two of them are black with turquoise, like a shimmer to it when the sun hits on. Their legs are big. They look, they're literally tiny dinosaurs. They hover over, they tower over my other chickens and my other rooster. They're just massive. But I believe I have more roosters than hens, so I have to figure that out. They're also in their own little cliques. So my original rooster and hen, those two are together constantly. They're inseparable.
13:37And then the three that I cut from my friend, they are a little gang of themselves. So they stay to themselves. And then the other ones that I hatch myself, they stay to themselves. So they don't mesh well. I don't know how to get them together. I'll put them all in the coop together for like a day or two. And, but they, when they're out rearranging, they want nothing to do with each other. They just stick to their own people, I guess. They're clicky. They're mean girls.
14:05Yeah, I don't but I do have more roosters than hens. So I'm gonna have to probably get rid of some before they start fighting each other Yes, my black ones are really pretty. They're really pretty Yeah, we have black ones, but they don't have a blues or a greenish blue shimmer to them. They have Coys kind of shimmer. I do have a red one with like um, black mixed in there kind of hmm But yeah
14:35Yeah, our black ones have like a reddish sheen to the black, like a brown red. Oh, wow. They're really pretty. That's pretty. Okay. So do you grow any produce on the homestead? So my husband actually built me a produce stand because I'm like, I want to start selling off our property, our vegetables and stuff because we eat them, but we eat them, but we still always have much more than what we eat. So I'd like to be able to share it with the community. So it's not.
15:04fully done, so I'll build my shelves. So our garden, I'm still trying to love gardening. I really am. I'm not a fan. I don't like pulling weeds. I don't, I just don't. But this year I covered my entire garden with the black fabric, which I don't like the fabric. The weeds still grow underneath of it. It doesn't kill it. It just grows underneath. So I'm still like where my plants are.
15:31I still have to like push my hand underneath and like grab the weeds that are like around it, but it's not anywhere near as painful as it was past years. But I have it completely covered. It just holds cut out where my plants are. So I have tomatoes and peppers. I have a spaghetti squash. I have a watermelon and a zucchini, I believe it is.
15:54We don't, we eat vegetables, but we don't eat a lot of vegetables. We eat more meat and potatoes than anything, but, oh, and I do have asparagus, which I messed up for like the last two years. I didn't know. I didn't know that you were supposed to like cut it. Like I, I was thought when it would grow, it would have spheres automatically, but this one grew and has like those feathers. And I let it go to seed and then.
16:23the next year, it wasn't looking like spheres. I'm like, where are these spheres that look like, it's very, it looks like a big tree. Yeah. And so I finally YouTubeed it just a few weeks ago, actually, and I let it go again, like too long. So I guess this fall, I'm supposed to cut it completely and then cover it. And then next season is when they'll come up into spheres. Yeah. I had no idea.
16:52When did you put them in? I seriously I put them in like two years ago. And she was like, they won't come up this spring. They'll come up next spring. And I'm like, well, there's no asparagus spheres here. So I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I literally thought it would just be spheres that would come up out of the ground. But it didn't help. Yeah. So I literally been wasting two years of buying produce or buying asparagus from other produce stands because I didn't know what I was doing.
17:21Well, if it makes you feel any better You really wouldn't have gotten a lot the first year after you put them in or the second year because it takes about three years for them to get Established to where you're getting more than you know eight or ten So and the reason I tell you this because when we moved here four years ago, we put in asparagus crowns In the spring after we moved in in August so like nine months later and
17:51This is the first year that we've really gotten a lot of asparagus out of the garden. So it takes three, three and a half years for them to get back together. Okay, so that technically should be right on track then. Yep. So, and yeah, you're supposed to cut them. We do it in the fall, but yeah, you're supposed to cut them back after they've done their thing in the springtime. Yeah, because it's like falling over, it's so heavy, it literally looks like trees that are growing in my...
18:21He made a thing out of skids. Yeah. What is it called? A raised bed? Yeah. So he made one of those for the asparagus. We did, we did carrots one year. So it didn't, they didn't produce very much at all. And then we did potatoes last year and those bugs got in them and just told most of them. So we did it again this year. We're hoping. Potato bugs are the worst ever. They really are. I had no idea.
18:50They're actual potato bugs. But, and I was like, oh, the potatoes are dead. They're gone. Yeah. They were eaten. Yeah. They will strip them completely. Yeah. So I've been on top of those so far so good, but there, I haven't seen anything coming out of the ground yet anyway. So, but I mean, other than that, I try to just take the things that I know that we eat because of the peppers, I use green peppers and red peppers and all those for a lot of meals.
19:20Um, so I'll just freeze them. Um, and then I have them for like the rest of the year and the tomatoes last year, I didn't can them, I just throw them in the, all in the freezer. So I was like, this is getting bored. Tomatoes, I just throw them in a freezer or a vacuum seal bag and put it in the freezer. So now my freezer is still like full. The floor of my freezer is still full of tomatoes. So I have to follow them out and probably just make some sauce with some sort and can it.
19:50Yeah. We have half a cow coming the first week of July. And so I have to clean out a freezer for that. Okay. I'm excited for that. We've never had, we never bought a half cow at a butcher before. So we're excited. Yeah. It's, it's a really good way to have beef year round. That's not going to cost you an arm and a leg. It's a huge outlay at the beginning.
20:19But you are getting filet mignon and really nice steaks for exactly the same price as your burger and you roast and all that because that's how that works out. It's a great way to do it. Yeah, I feel like it's a huge money saver for sure. It is and it's security. As long as your freezers are working, you have beef for a year. I was going to say about the peppers. Did you know that you can oven roast your peppers?
20:48and then put them in ziplocks and then they're already cooked for sauces and stuff. No, I didn't. I never thought about that. Yeah, all you gotta do is chop them up the size you want them, put some olive oil in the bottom of a cookie sheet, you know, with the edges. This is, I'm not saying this right, not a flat cookie sheet, a cookie sheet that's got the edges so that the oil doesn't spill out. And then you can season it with whatever you want to season it with. You roast them until they get soft.
21:18And then you can put them in a ziplock and freeze them. You push all the air out or you can use your seal meal and it does it for you. But they're good for a couple of years in the freezer. Yeah. That's what I like about freezing. Um, and I do vacuum seal and stuff, but I don't, I, yeah, I don't, I like freezing stuff to last the rest of the year when it's not in season. Yep. Um, I'm still trying so I can, we had to get.
21:45We have mulberry bushes out back also, so we picked mulberries. I made a mason jar of jelly of that. We picked blueberries the past Saturday. We got a lot. And then everybody scattered when it came to like having to wash them, pull their stems out, sort through them. I was spent my Saturday night till like 10 o'clock and I'm really anal about things too, so I probably wouldn't have done it the way that I wanted it to be done anyway. But now I was standing at the sink for like.
22:15like three hours just going through and stemming and getting out the bad ones. And then my husband comes in and he's like, you're still in here? I'm like, leave me alone. It's a process that I have to do. And he was like, well, you know, I would have used all the bad ones, even just for jelly, you're, you're putting it through the processor. I'm like, leave me alone. Yeah. Not using it. I'm going to give it to my chicken. So leave me, leave me be. I'm doing my job. Yes. Yeah.
22:43Exactly. So I'm going to start doing some blueberry jam or jellies, which actually my first year doing jellies, it lasted a full year. Like it lasted. I still have a jar from last summer, this summer. And so I don't ever buy jelly ever at the Sourcher store because it was super expensive anyway. We don't ever buy jelly or jam anymore either because we started canning two summers ago and made tons of jams and jellies.
23:12We made peach butter. You know like apple butter? Do you know what apple butter is? Oh yes, I love apple butter. We made peach butter instead and we still have like 10 jars, jelly jars of peach butter in our pantry right now from two seasons ago. Oh my gosh, I never heard of peach butter. It's really yummy. Yeah, it's thick like apple butter, but it's delicious. Well, peach season is coming up soon I believe, so maybe I'll try that.
23:41Yeah, you just cook the peaches down like you into like almost like an applesauce texture and do your sugar and your pectin and whatever and tada you have peach butter and I didn't even know. I call it peach butter because it reminds me of apple butter. I don't know if peach butter is actually a thing. I have no idea. But anyway. Well, you just trademarked that. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that you are in Pennsylvania. I didn't mention that at the beginning. I usually try to try to pin that down with people.
24:10So it's Lancaster, PA, but I live in, my aunt is in Conestoga, but I don't live in the little town of Conestoga. Brighton, Lancaster is like on the border. So we live in a very quiet area and I love it because it's so quiet. My kids are young and they're like, it's boring out here. There's nothing to do. So I mean, they have a park across the street, like it's a nature preserve.
24:38And they can run over there. Like I'm a worry work. So I'm like, take the walkie talkies and our phones and don't go too far. But they go into playing the creek yesterday. They were gone for like two hours. I started panicking. I'm like, they went on a trail back in the world. So they never been on before. I was not without me anyway. And so I was getting a little worried, but they made it back and they had finally found a little waterfall. And.
25:07some other teenagers down there that were playing with them. So I just get worried. So it is much different than it was back when I was a kid where you could walk anywhere you wanted. You didn't have to worry about so much. Yes, and you're right. But I'm gonna tell you, I grew up in the woods of Maine, okay, the state of Maine. When I was a kid, we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have walkie talkies, we didn't have any of that stuff. Because I'm 54, those things weren't available then. Yeah.
25:37And there's nothing better for kids than to just let them go and use their imaginations and make forts in the trees and count the minnows in the creek and all that stuff that the kids miss out on so much now. So good on you. Good job, mom. I know, they really do. Yeah. I love being able to let them go even though I'm like, don't go. My son is 12 and then I have two nine-year-olds and those are the ones that are just like my son, my oldest son. He's...
26:06He's so adventurous. He just loves to explore and I just have to get out of my head. So he tells me, just stop it. I'm going to be okay. I'm going to come back. I wish she went to the United States in 2020 and it just muscles up my head. Yeah, when I was 12, I would take my bike and ride out to the creek and spend five hours on this flat rock that stuck out into the creek. And I would be out there with a book and just in the quiet and listening to birds and reading.
26:35And I would come home and my mom would be like, so how far did you get in your book? And she'd look, because I dog-eared the pages because I was a terrible steward of books back then. She's like, wow, you did a lot of reading today. And I'm like, yep. And I saw three deer, and I saw a fox, and I saw a cardinal, and I heard the birds singing, and I saw some fish. And she's like, oh, so you weren't just reading the whole time. I'm like, no. Of course I wasn't. My oldest daughter will do that. So we have an overlook, which I will not let my kids go without an adult, because you have literally
27:05fall off, you're done. Yeah. I don't let them go to the Overlook where my daughter will go. Um, and she'll take her book and it might be ridiculous, but I make her either take a knife or pepper spray just to ease my mind and that's what she does. Every time she wants to go out, but she does the same thing. She'll go out there for like about two, an hour or two and take her book. Set out the Overlook and read her books and stuff. So yeah, I love.
27:32that they have that so close to home because like you said, kids don't know anything about the woods anymore. It's just not a thing unless you live in like the country or you have it close by. Mm hmm. Yeah. We ended up taking our kids camping two summers in a row because we wanted them to actually understand that you could pitch a tent, sleep in it and then spend the day outside. And it was lovely. It was also very, very cold.
28:00The first time we went, it was end of May and it was unseasonably cold. And the day we went was fine and we were all in sleeping bags that night. And then, oh my God, it was like 40 degrees when we got up in the morning. Oh my gosh. Getting up out of a nice warm sleeping bag into 40 degree weather is not, it's a rude awakening. It really is. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
28:26But it was still fun. We got the fire going and had a hot chocolate and coffee made with a percolator on the fire thing. It was great. They were like, you can make coffee and hot chocolate in the woods? Yes, yes you can. Yeah. So yes, I feel like a lot of kids these days are living vicariously through other people's videos of doing the things.
28:56And you've got to experience it. You've got to actually do it to know what it's like. Yeah, totally. I totally agree with that. So anyway, we've spent like almost half an hour just not really talking about anything you're doing on the homestead, but talking about how good it is to raise kids with nature and freedom. And that's OK, too. So why is it Blue Sky Homestead? Well, I was.
29:25really having a hard time finding a name. And so honestly, I was, at my husband, I tried to get him involved in helping me and he was either like, nah, I don't like it, it's too much or then he would shoot out ideas. I'm like, well, I don't like that either. So I actually used chat GPT to find my name because I put in everything that I wanted to do.
29:55what my interests were as far as using the name for. And it came out with a bunch of names. And I'm like, I really like this one, and I like this one, and I like this one. So I had to narrow it down. So my daughter's middle name is actually Sky. And my favorite color is blue. So I'm like, when I saw that one, I'm like, huh, I kinda like that because there's a significant there, my daughter's middle name. And so it just sucked. And my husband was like, yeah, I like that. So.
30:23And I didn't even realize the sky part of it until like a couple weeks in. I'm like, Oh, well, let's take this middle name. So I'm glad I, I chose that one. Well, when, when I read it, I, I got a feeling instantly of just peacefulness. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. So it was awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, Amanda, I am really happy that you took the time to talk with me today. And I appreciate it. And.
30:51Keep raising those kids in the woods is the best thing for them. Yes, I will do that for sure. Alright, thanks so much. Yeah, thank you for having me. Bye. Bye bye.