A Tiny Homestead

Future Farmers of America (FFA)

Today I'm talking with Kristy at Future Farmers of America (FFA). You can also follow on Facebook.
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 Kristy at Future Farmers of America. Good morning, Kristy. Good morning, Mary. How are you? I am wonderful. It's a beautiful sunny day in Indiana.
00:26Awesome. It's a beautiful sort of overcast day in Minnesota. The sun keeps peeking out. So tell me about Future Farmers of America. Yeah, so National FFA is an organization that allows students to take agriculture education classes and then also participate in FFA chapters. And what that means is along with taking those classes in their schools, they can then participate in FFA events.
00:55that allow them to really focus on different projects and also on leadership skills. So instead of being like some clubs that are extracurricular, FFA is unique in that it's intracurricular, meaning you have to have an agricultural education class to be an FFA member. Cool. So it's just offered in schools. And I'm assuming it's not necessarily offered in city schools, or is it?
01:25It actually is. Interestingly enough, we are in 23 of the largest 25 cities. We have more than 8,995 chapters and we're almost a million members strong. So FFA is definitely growing and really gaining interest for a lot of students on a lot of different levels. That's awesome. I'm sorry, I made a bad assumption on that one.
01:55Okay, so what do you guys teach in the FFA classes? Yeah, absolutely. And Mary, don't worry, a lot of times people make that assumption. It's an easy one to jump to. So our ag education classes really run the gamut, right? There are more than 350 careers in agriculture, which a lot of times people don't realize because we usually tend to think just about production agriculture, but there's a lot more.
02:22There's aquaculture, there's forestry, there's veterinary science, biotechnology, so a lot of opportunities. So depending on where your chapter is, it could vary of what you might really be focused on. For example, some of our urban chapters focus a little more on the greenhouse pieces or maybe the aquaculture piece. We have a chapter out in the Northeast that really focuses on aquaculture.
02:47And then one up in Chicago that focuses a little more on agri-science. So it's kind of all over the board. But our goal really is to let students understand that there are so many opportunities in agriculture and really help them look at those career paths and figure out what their best pathway is to a career in agriculture. Okay. So what grade level can kids start taking these classes? Well, we've actually just recently expanded into middle school.
03:17So they can start in fifth grade. Not every state has that, but some do. Traditionally, most of them are in high school, but we have expanded to include middle school and junior high. OK, and it's offered as an elective, I would assume. Well, so the agriculture education class is a regular class, but then FFA just is an additional piece. Yeah. It's been a while since I was in junior high or high school. But I'm.
03:46The classes that weren't required were called elective classes back then. I don't know if that's what they're called now. Well, and also been a long time since I've been there too, but I believe that some of the agriculture education classes qualify as science classes as well. So some of them might fall under those science classes and not necessarily elective, it just depends on what those offerings are in your school. Okay.
04:11I wish that they had been offered in my high school because I would have taken one. I would have loved to do that because my parents were very into the growing things and hunting and fishing and I would have been happy to take an FFA class. That would have been awesome. Okay, so on average, do you have any idea how many kids choose to take these classes? Oh, well, that's a little hard to break down on like how much it would be per school.
04:40I do know we're reaching close to a million members nationwide. So there is a large percentage. It just depends on if those schools happen to offer those agriculture education classes and if they have an FFA chapter. Okay. And does it, it doesn't cost the students anything to take those classes? The classes don't cost, no. But FFA membership, there is a fee.
05:07And usually that just depends on what the chapter fee is and then what the state fee is and then what the local fee is. Okay. All right. Well, what are the benefits of taking the classes? I assume the benefits are that the kids are interested in whatever they're interested in and they get to learn about it. Yeah, absolutely. The benefits are kind of twofold. One, it's an opportunity really for them to
05:34explore those different career paths and see what they might want to really focus on after graduation. It's also an opportunity for them to get involved in their community. We have what we call a supervised agriculture experience, which is a project which allows them to get hands-on learning. So working with the community maybe on some of a local
05:56Maybe it's with a local farmer or with a local vet where they can work and get that work experience. And that's part of their SAE project where they can kind of get that hands on. So we really like the hands on piece where they can kind of experience those careers firsthand. But then in addition to that, the FFA chapters definitely teach leadership. And we also believe in giving back to the community. So service is also a big piece. So there's a lot of different benefits. And of course, as most organizations have, the camaraderie as well.
06:27Do you guys work at all with the 4-H organizations too? No, not exactly. There are times where we're like working hand in hand on if we're promoting agriculture, but there's no big partnership with 4-H. Okay. And I don't wanna put you on the spot, but I'm gonna ask the question, is there a reason there's no real tie-in?
06:54Well, they're just two different organizations, right? 4-H is extracurricular and FFA is intracurricular. So they're just different. Okay. Alrighty. See, I'm the type of person who would be like, hey, we should join up and do a cross thing with the 4-H and the FFA, cause they're kind of related, but not exactly. But whatever, I'm not the one who runs it. Yeah, I mean, we work together on promoting agriculture, but like I said, they're a little bit different, right? They offer different pieces.
07:23They're also open to different age groups. So that's why they're just different organizations the way they're created. Okay. When you talk about service, what kind of things do the kids do to help out their communities? Do you know? Yeah, there's tons of things that they do. Sometimes they're helping at food pantries. Sometimes they're running the food pantries. Sometimes they're growing the produce that then they donate to the food pantries.
07:51Other times they might be helping with Habitat for Humanity or they might be working with local animal shelters. We had a couple chapters who worked with the local animal shelters and helped them with their facilities, building things at their facilities or creating dog toys. There's just a lot of opportunities. They look in their communities, see where there's a need for service and see how they can get back. Nice. That's fantastic.
08:18I had another question while you were talking and of course now I've blanked on it. I'm trying to think and I don't remember what it was. It was something about the kids. Oh, if there aren't any classes offered in the schools that the kids go to, is there any way for kids to get involved in FFA beyond their school?
08:45Yeah, for those who don't have a chapter at their local high school or for those who might be homeschooled, we always encourage them to reach out to their state FFA association and then they can work with them to see how they can get involved and how they can be still a part of FFA. Okay. And then I'm thinking if I was in FFA when I was in school, I would want to grow up and help.
09:13like volunteer at the FFA. Is there a way for people to do that? Yeah, absolutely. I'm actually really glad. Glad you asked about that, Mary. So we have an alumni and supporters group for FFA. And the reason we call it alumni and supporters is you do not have to have been an FFA member to be an FFA alumni, because you can be a part of FFA alumni and supporters and you can volunteer on your local level. You can volunteer on your national level or state level.
09:39in a variety of ways, whether it's helping that chapter, helping that advisor, or maybe it's being a mentor or sharing with members what your career path is. We also encourage people to become a member of our Forever Blue Network, which is basically a LinkedIn for our FFA members and alumni, for them to make those connections and mentor. So absolutely, you don't have to have been an FFA member to become involved and really play a part in FFA members' lives and volunteer. So.
10:08I'm really glad you asked that question. Yeah, because I mean, I'm guessing that the FFA organization probably needs all the help it can get wherever it can get it because people, bodies help. Absolutely, absolutely. And our advisors are such amazing individuals and they give so much of their time that I know it helps them when they have people in the communities who can help them a little bit.
10:32on the different events, you know, help them when they're taking students to competitions or when they're taking students to different conferences. So we greatly appreciate our supporters and our volunteers. Okay. And is the FFA, is it a nonprofit organization? It is. We're a not-for-profit. We work with a lot of corporate sponsors who give back to our organization and help us make sure we have the programming we need for our students.
11:03And do you guys do like fundraiser event things at all? It varies. So a lot of the local chapters will do local fundraisers. So you may see your listeners may see FFA chapters out, perhaps selling mums or selling vegetables or seedlings, or they might see them at Christmas time selling poinsettias or fruit. And that's the way that they raise money for their chapters, so they can go to different events. So it just depends. And then
11:31Many of the state organizations, the state FFA associations also do fundraising. And then national also does fundraising with our corporate partners, but also with individual donors. So during FFA week, which is a week where we celebrate FFA in February, we have a day called give FFA day where we encourage people to give back to the organization. And so that's always a big success and an opportunity for people, not only to give to the organization, but to really indicate where they want their dollars to go.
12:00whether it's to program to fund blue jackets for members so they can get their blue jacket, or maybe it's to conferences, or maybe it's just to where the greatest need is. But there's definitely opportunities to get that. Okay, is there a link on your website if people want to donate to FFA? Yeah, actually, I would just encourage them to go to FFA.org, and then they can find information out about the organization as a whole, and there is an area to go for a foundation where you can give back.
12:28And you can also find information about our alumni and supporters on the page as well. Awesome. Yeah, I looked at your website after I asked if someone would chat with me about FFA and it's actually pretty user friendly. I'm impressed. Oh, thank you. We love to hear that. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. So what do you do at the FFA?
12:56So I am the communications manager. And what that means is I work with my colleagues to make sure that the information they're putting out is correct, right? That it's pristine, good copy, engaging. I do a little bit of editing for them and a little bit of writing, but then I also work when I get to talk to people like you to spread the word. So I get to work on our public relations. And then I also get to work during our national convention of sharing the word.
13:23broader audience. So that is what I do. I've never bored. It's always great to share our message with a lot of people.
13:31I was going to say your voice sounds so I'm guessing you love your job. I do. I really do. Yeah. I really like it when I talk to public relations people. It doesn't really matter who they are doing public relations for because every single marketing person and public relations person I've talked to has just sounded so up and peppy and happy. It's really fun. I think it's...
13:58I think that you're born with that personality and it just comes through. Maybe, I don't know. I think it helps when you really believe in something. And I, I, this organization, I also was not an FFA member. Um, so I've been very privileged over the last years to become involved in the organization and learn about it. And it's just, it's something I'm very passionate about because I think it's a great opportunity and had I had the opportunity wasn't when I was in school, I really think I would have wanted to take some classes.
14:27Yeah, I feel like they're probably really fun. So have you talked to any kids that have been through the classes and gotten any feedback from them? Yeah, absolutely. We have a lot of wonderful stories and testimonials from kids about how FFA's made a difference. We often have stories from members who talk about when they took the ag class.
14:53They were just taking it to get a class in, and then their advisor kind of pushed them out of their comfort zone. We've had a couple who talked about how shy they were, and then their advisor talked about, well, maybe you should try this public speaking class. And the next thing you know, they're competing at a state level and then a national level of speaking to a lot of people. So they really talk about how much those classes have helped them come out of their shell, but really how much their advisors have helped.
15:22can't say enough about our advisors and how much they help those students really find their niche and where they fit. And then we've had a lot of students talk about how they found their career path. And this is why they're gonna go down this pathway or this is why they're gonna go down another pathway. We also have quite a few students who often talk about wanting to go into agriculture education because their advisors have made such a difference in their lives. That's awesome.
15:48So I was looking at your website this morning just to refresh my memory on what FFA is and does and all that. And it said something about that FFA has changed in the last, I don't know, few years from being just future farmers of America to encompassing more. So what was it when it began? What was FFA when it began? Oh, sure. Well, it began in 1928.
16:17with the group of farm boys who really wanted to focus on farming and production agriculture. And so that's how it got its start, really talking on farming and just, you know, an opportunity for them to network with one another and focus on vocational education and agriculture. And then it just evolved over the years. It grew to also include women and let women be involved. And then it went, yeah, I know.
16:47In the 80s, our membership dropped. As your listeners may or may not know, the 80s were very difficult for farmers. It was a very trying time for them with all of their field issues and just agriculture as a whole was struggling. But then we saw a resurgence in the 90s of an interest in agriculture, agriculture education, and we saw our membership grow.
17:16And we really saw that people realized that agriculture was more than just production farming, and that there were so many opportunities in agriculture. Like I mentioned before, there's more than 350 careers. Careers that you may not think are agriculture related, right? So like veterinary science or forestry or food science. And we really talk about the fact that agriculture is around you.
17:40every day, every moment of your life, from the clothes you wear to the food you eat to the fuel you put in your car. You touch agriculture every day. Agriculture has a place in your life. So I think it really hit home with some of our students. And I think they saw that there was a potential. And that's why we just continue to grow. And we continue to share that message that agriculture is such a broad field and there's many opportunities. And we believe our members are going to feel that.
18:08talent pipeline that there's a real need for. Yeah. Did you guys see a jump in membership a couple of years ago after COVID went through and people started realizing they needed to know where their food came from and have a local source for it? Well, we did. It stayed pretty steady. Um, it stayed pretty steady through COVID. It increased a little bit more after COVID, but we had seen even before COVID, the interest of.
18:36people really wanting to know where their food came from. Especially with some of those urban settings too, a lot of them started doing greenhouses or urban gardens even before COVID. And then what we found is during COVID, when so many of the schools weren't meeting in person, they were still working on giving back to their community. One of my favorite stories is we had a couple chapters who on the onset of COVID, when so many food banks were really struggling
19:06have what they needed to provide for people. And then some local farmers were also struggling in terms of getting their stuff to market. We had students working with local farmers, getting the protein, right, whether it be the chickens or the beef, and then donating that to the local food pantries. So it was definitely a symbiotic relationship where those students were able to work with the
19:30farmers in the community to give back to the community. So, but yes, we definitely saw an increase during COVID and we saw a lot of things change during COVID of really being aware of where things came from and also trying to continue that community partnership. Awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. Okay. So I'm shifting from that to this. I keep hearing the term agritourism when I talk with people who have homesteads or farmsteads or whatever.
20:00when I talk with them for the podcast. Are you, is FFA teaching kids about that perspective of agriculture as well? Yeah, yeah. I'm actually glad you asked that. So I mentioned that there were a lot of different opportunities in FFA. So we have what we call a supervised agriculture experience. So it's a project, right? And so for some students, it might be raising cattle. For some students, it might be...
20:29teaching agriculture to elementary students and but there's always a different option of what you can do. So we have some who definitely do pieces of agritourism and it can run the gamut. We have people who do corn mazes or people who might have an orchard and then do tours of the orchard. So it's definitely an opportunity for those students to get creative but they absolutely share with us what they're doing and those supervised agriculture experience.
20:58projects also allow all of our students to learn how to keep record books and learn how to run a business Which dovetails perfectly in with those agritourism opportunities? Nice The reason I I brought it up is because I like I said I've been hearing that word a lot in the last month and a half and I figured it was probably something you guys at least Touch on but also because we here at my place are building a winter
21:28greenhouse, like a heated greenhouse right now. And it's a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. My husband told me it would be 18 by 40 or whatever it is. And I am spatially challenged. I have a hard time understanding how big that is until I'm standing in it. And the framing went up last weekend and the rafters went up on one side of it yesterday. And it's huge. And
21:57it's going to look really interesting from the road. And I have a feeling that when people stop to buy things at our farm stand, they're going to be like, can we see your greenhouse? And I think it may turn into some form of agritourism. I don't think we'll charge money for people to step into the greenhouse. But it's just one of those things that people are really interested in. Yeah, it's amazing. And it's really interesting.
22:25I think agritourism can be so broad, right? Because we immediately think of the greenhouses, the tours, the tours of the farms, the corn mazes. We have one young lady though, and we talk about outdoor recreation, and she was a white river raft guide. And she tied in the agriculture on her guiding of the white water rafting, because she would talk about
22:52all of the things that they would see, right? That related to agriculture. So I thought that was very unique, a unique way to make that connection. So there's a lot of creativity out there. Yeah, that is super cool. I'm gonna share a story with you that other people have already heard on the podcast, but I don't know if you've heard it. I was interviewing a young woman a couple of weeks ago, and she raises goats.
23:18and she raises them for showing them and for milk and for stuff. And I've talked a lot with a lot of people about goats on a tiny homestead podcast because it's chickens and then it's goats and then it's cows and then it's horses. And we're talking away and she was explaining to us about genetics and how you want to have the babies be better than the parents and all this stuff about goats.
23:46and she is going to school to become a veterinarian. And she said that she had applied for an internship with a local veterinarian clinic, but that she had to be 18 to be part of it, and she wasn't quite there yet. And I said, how old are you? And she said, 17. And I suspect that she probably had a hand in an FFA class or two. I don't know, I didn't ask, because I didn't think about it. But...
24:15As I have said a few times on this podcast, I think that young people like her are the light and the hope of the future. Because without these kids who are interested in continuing in the ag field, we are going to be in some big trouble when the farmers that are doing it now age out. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that's one of the things that's really refreshing is we see this membership continue to...
24:43to increase is knowing that there are a lot who want to fill that need and the talent pipeline of agriculture, right? Whether it's production farming, whether it's more in the industry of like the technology piece of, you know, working with the agronomy, but it's good to see that there is an interest and especially an interest in where our food comes from and taking care of our earth and making sure things are still sustainable. That's one of the things we always talk about, you know, I don't think people realize that
25:13all of our people in agriculture and farmers are some of the first people to really be concerned about sustainability, because that's their livelihood, you know, to make sure that they're taking care of everything around them. Yeah. And it used to be that the farm families were farm families. It was a dynasty or a legacy. The farmer from 1850.
25:37had a farm and he had many children and some of those children continued to run the farm and then their children continued to run the farm and their children continued to run the farm. And that's not happening as often as it used to. Yeah, it's not. You know, we've noticed that too. We actually offer a conference that's called New Century Farmer and it's offered to our members who are interested in staying on the family farm continuing that legacy.
26:05And we offer different pieces in that conference about succession farming and how that looks like and how can they be supported when they're taking over the family farm. Because it is changing. It's definitely evolving, but it is a very important thing for us to keep in mind and support those who are staying on the family farm. Yeah. I talked to a woman a couple of weeks ago. I have many, many episodes I need to get out over the next month. And she has a farm.
26:35And it's been in her family for a long time, and her kids aren't terribly interested in coming back to continue it. And the sadness in her voice about this was just palpable. She is very, very sad that that farm may no longer be a family farm once she and her husband are gone. And it was really hard not to cry.
26:59because she is a wonderful person and they have put their heart and soul into this place and it's just killing her that it may not be under their name anymore. Yeah, it's very sad. So when we hear those people who definitely want to stay on the farm, we try to do what we can to give them tools and skills that would help them as they move forward. Okay. So we've got like three more minutes before we hit 30 minutes. And I have...
27:28question that you may or may not know the answer to. How can the everyday person support these kids that are in FFA and support their local farms? Yeah, so that's actually a pretty easy question. One, I would encourage them to go to our website, FFA.org. Click on the alumni and supporters link. See if there is an FFA chapter in your area where maybe you can get involved, be a mentor to a student.
27:56or find out what those local events are and just support those students. And then, you know, if you see those fundraisers going on where they're selling those seedlings or those plants or maybe they're selling vegetables from their greenhouse, go ahead and purchase those. And that gives back to those FFA chapters and helps them too as they move forward. So there's definitely different ways that they can get involved. And then,
28:19I'm just going to do a very selfish plug for National FFA. Feel free to follow us on social media and just see all the different things that are going on and all the FFA chapters around the country. So you can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and of course X. Okay. Awesome. And how do we get people to support the local growers? Because we're local growers and we know local growers and marketing is always the hardest part for any small business.
28:47And I don't mean I'm not saying commercial farms, I'm saying the smaller farms. Right, right. You know, I think the best way to encourage people to support is, you know, just look at those local growers and if you see them at the local farmers market, you know, have those conversations one with them, but then make those purchases and try and follow the different communities online that support the local growers, because it is important to really...
29:15look at your local growers and support them because probably many of those are also FFA members and FFA alumni. So it's always a good thing to give back to your community and support your local community. Yeah. And I'm going to, I'm going to say something mildly controversial. It's really not that bad. Farmers are smart people. I just talked to someone last week who was saying that back in high school,
29:43Kids were encouraged to not go into ag. The kids who were smart weren't farmers. And that is absolutely not true. Kids are smart, frighteningly smart. And I don't think that it matters what field they go into. They're going to take their love of learning and their curiosity and they're gonna direct it to being successful in whatever they choose. So don't assume that if someone is
30:11digging in the dirt with a shovel and putting things in the ground and growing not smart because they are smart. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, more than likely, they're probably some of the most intelligent individuals out there. I have a real quick story, Mary, to share with you before we go. Um, so we have a national convention where we do awards for different things that students have done. And one of them is called our star in agriscience. And.
30:38I think it was about 15 years ago we had a young man who was a finalist because he found a way to eradicate kudzu, which is an invasive species in the South that really kills a lot of plants. And not only did he find a way to eradicate kudzu, he worked with NASA and they were going to patent his formula. So never think that just because a student is taking an FFA class or an agriculture education class that they are not smart because they are probably some of the most intelligent
31:07people that I have ever met. Yeah, and how old was he? Because I think I read something about him. He was, I believe, at the time when he won that award, he was 20. Nice. Yep, I just want people to think about their preconceived notions and maybe, maybe take a minute to reconsider them. That's all. So.
31:35All right, Kristy, thank you so much for your time today because I really wanted to talk to somebody from Future Farmers of America. I also want to talk with someone from 4-H. I'm working on it because I think that, number one, people may not know how to get their kids involved. And number two, if a kid comes home from school and says, I want to take the FFA class, parents may not even know what it is.
32:05Yeah, absolutely. And Mary, I just wanted to tell you, while we may not work hand in hand with 4-H, we have a lot of members who are both FFA members and 4-H members. So it is also a wonderful organization. Yeah, I'm working on trying to talk to you. I have sent an email, I have messaged on Facebook and I haven't heard anything back yet. So I'm trying to find my local 4-H chapter and I think I finally found them. And I'm going to email them today and be like, would somebody please talk to me about 4-H? Because I wasn't part of it when I was growing up.
32:34So, hopefully they'll get back to me. But thank you so much for being with me today, Kristy. I really appreciate it. Yes. Thank you, Mary. I appreciate you letting us tell our story. Oh, absolutely. Have a great day.
32:49Bye.
 

Upward Spiral Goat Service

Today I'm talking with Josh at Upward Spiral Goat Service. You can also follow on Facebook.
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 Josh at Upward Spiral Goat Services. Good morning, Josh. How are things in Otter Tail County, Minnesota? Good morning, Mary. It's really good. The rain stopped sometime overnight.
00:27Yeah, did you guys get bad storms up your way? Because in Lesor, we had some pretty good thunderstorms going on. I saw lightning once, but and the wind picked up after half of the day. But no, no, it was just a pretty gentle rain all day. OK, good, because it was a little spooky here last night. The dog actually barked at the thunder. I was like, why are you barking at thunder? You can't fix it.
00:54Okay, so tell me about yourself and Upward Spiral Goat Services and what you guys do. All right. I'm Josh. I've kind of discovered farming in my adulthood. My parents both grew up on the farm to some degree and I, as a travel opportunity, I learned
01:24about wolf willing workers on organic farms. And that's where I first saw regenerative management, intensive grazing. And I decided to make it my business.
01:38Okay. And so what is your, what do you do? What is your business? Um, I, uh, I have my herd of goats, um, my breeding herd specifically, and I move them at least once a day. Um, I bring them to other people's properties for a fee and I'll move them through, uh, especially for managing buckthorn and, uh, really weedy places. I guess they.
02:08They love brush and they eat a lot of like pasture forage as well, but they prefer brush. So it's a, they thin it like, they'll stand on their back legs and they get the leaves up right as high as you can see. So it's a really drastic difference and it looks great. And I'm moving towards kind of a environmental like management.
02:36sort of side of things where I've got a lot of test plots and I'm trying to see just how good I can make it look. Okay, full disclosure, I wrote an article for River Valley Woman, it's a regional magazine out of Mankato area, a few years back about people who have a business doing the same thing that you do, they're based over toward Montgomery, Minnesota. So I am aware of how this works, but the listeners probably aren't.
03:06Um, what Josh does is he, he has his goats go to places where people need their brush and their, their undergrowth and their tree lines cleaned up. Or like, I assume that if a park has buckthorn, a buckthorn problem that you could, you could take your goats there and they would take care of it. Is that how this works? That's true. Yes. Okay. And
03:31So my questions are, because I was terrible when I did my article and did not actually address this, can the goats do this work in the wintertime too? I just went to a pasture walk outside of vining here, which is like a neighboring town, and that was all about bale grazing with cattle. And I...
03:59It wasn't until then that I started describing what I've been doing this past winter as bale grazing. Um, and yeah, they, the answer is yes, they, they have a really drastic effect in the winter because I'm feeding them hay. There's not much for them to eat, but they will, they peel the bark off of the buckthorn and they'll eat the stems way back a lot more than they would in the summer. Um, and their manure.
04:29and the waste hay is a lot more concentrated. I don't have to move them over as much land. So I've got this big strip of tree line that I'm watching and the difference is already really dramatic. I love it. Okay, and then the other question I have is, I know that they eat the leaves and they eat the stems and they eat the bark, but do they eat the plants all the way down to the ground? I mean, if there's a...
04:57If there's a trunk that's three inches in diameter, will they eat the trunk down to the ground? No, no, definitely not. Okay. Um, yeah, I work with my buddy Cody. He has his company, Jonas & Company, and that's brush clearing. So he's the brush clearing specialist, and he helps me with treat like fence lines, cutting fence lines and stuff. Yeah, the big stuff, they don't eat wood. They'll eat...
05:27Um, uh, they won't eat lignin, but they do eat cellulose, which I think is kind of the same thing, but lignin is more hard and like that's actual wood. I think that's the line. Okay. And the other question I have is how hard is it on their teeth? I mean, how long can I go do this job before they start to destroy themselves? I don't know. I think they're made for it.
05:56I think they prefer it. Honestly, I know they're in better health when they're on the brush rather than just a soft forage. And they'll, they rub up their whole bodies against trees and I'll look behind them and an oak tree will just be covered in, this spring, it was just covered in fur. They love it and I'm sure their teeth are the same. I think they like it.
06:24Okay, I was just wondering because we, I don't want to talk about my dog today, but we have a dog and she gets like a chewy thing that she eats every day for her teeth. It's called dental life and it's supposed to help keep her teeth clean and it's really hard and I've read stories about dogs cracking a tooth on things that are supposed to actually help them. And I was like, huh.
06:53I wonder how long it takes a goat to wear down their teeth eating brush. Yeah. That's why I asked. Like a beaver. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so do the baby goats go out and eat too? Yes. Yes? Yeah. I've been surprised. They'll be eating the really soft forage like within a week. But...
07:22I let them pretty much naturally wean and they might be on their mom for a year. But they eat forage pretty early, really early. Okay. And how many goats do you have, if that's not a rude question to ask? Not at all. In my breeding herd here with the bucks that I have, I have 27.
07:48And I have a separate herd that is my finishing animals, and that's nine in that group. So I have, that's 36. Okay. And does it, I don't, I don't want to assume genders here. Does it matter whether the goats are female or male? Do they just pretty much do the same job? Does it matter? No, they do the same job. I've noticed that,
08:16I was trying to slow down my growth. I'm intent to have a bigger herd, but I'm trying to kind of go up and then down a little bit before I go back up. So I took a break from having the does bred. And now this spring, I noticed when I did, I bought a new buck and I brought them in and the does were, it seems like they're all bred. And then their forage consumption went way up.
08:46So I think, you know, if sex comes into it, that might be a big part, because they're raising, they're growing animals now, once again, where they were just full grown adults for a little while and maintenance, and now they're growing animals right now. Now they're eating for two or three instead of just one. Yes. So they're hungry, they're gonna eat more, of course. That makes sense. Okay.
09:14So how long does a goat live? Because I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure either. I think all the ones that I have are pretty young. I think it's like a cow where they can be eight or nine if it's, if, you know, you, you're really working them, but if they're kept more like a pet, maybe more like 15. I'm out of my, I don't know.
09:43Oh, that's that's fine. Um, so basically they can do the job Until they can't eat or walk around anymore. I would assume Okay. Yeah, I had a dough that had a Disease I think it was CAE chronic arthritis and cephalitis I think it's it is and it's That like really wore down at her joints on her rear legs
10:13and she couldn't walk anymore. I think she was one of the older ones. But other than that, I haven't had any issues where they can't eat. They're all hungry consistently. I'm glad to have that. That's good. Yeah, I bet. Yeah.
10:40So you told me a little bit at the beginning about this, but when did you start doing this business and how did you decide on goats to eat brush? Well, so I met my partner, Chloe, in, it would have been 2019. And I'm on her family's farm now and we live here.
11:10Her dad, Al, had a dairy and I got to work on the dairy and that was some of my first farm experience. I was then painting my grandpa's shed. I really liked it. And when I had the chance, after COVID had been around for a year, I think it was 2021, I went traveling with a friend of mine, Hannah, through this program called Wolf, Willing Workers on Organic Farms. And...
11:40Um, I went to a pretty big organic, raw goat dairy on the West coast. That was Marsha's farm. Um, and I really liked it. I really liked the goats. I really loved the dairy. Um, and the work, I like farm work a lot. I think chores and, uh, some regularity in your life. It, it keeps me responsible. It keeps me accountable. Um, but.
12:10The next farm we went to was Katia's farm in Oregon. And that's a really small hobby farm. She had a few cows and a few goats. She had chickens and rabbits and I loved it. I really, it was, it was this magical little spot in the valley and the nutrition I got there made me a lot healthier and happier. I could feel it and
12:40She did this, she moved her animals to a different spot every day. And seeing the difference in the ecosystem and in the soil and hearing the bugs and the birds and everything, it just seemed so much more vibrant and full of life. And at that point I was reading books by Joel Salatin and by Michael...
13:13I forget the name. It's The Omnivore's Dilemma. It's a really good book. And I was kind of turned at that point. I knew I wanted to do this kind of grazing specifically. Okay. It's a long story. No, no, that's fine. Because that's what I need. I need the stories. That's why I do this. I love the stories behind how people come to what they're doing. So, so do you okay?
13:41I'm guessing that you're not doing anything like selling goat meat or selling goat milk. That's not the goat's job. I am selling goat meat this year. Okay. All right. Okay. And how do you feel about that? Because I mean, I'm assuming you have a minor attachment to these animals. Yeah. Yeah, it was harder than I thought it would be because I've raised chickens and
14:10I slaughtered and butchered 70 chickens in one day, and it was a really big job. And I got over it, and they were raised for that purpose. And I ended up really liking the time I got to spend with family and stuff. But yeah, the goats, I mean, I'm with them like every day. And it's, there is some attacks.
14:40And yeah, it was kind of hard bringing them up to the butcher. And that one with the bad legs, I, with a friend, I butchered her myself. And that was, that was hard too. But with her, I mean, it was, she, she couldn't walk and it was, it was either let her die or take advantage of, of her, you know, her life and use it for our family and that's.
15:10Um, so I was, I was more content doing that, but these were animals that were more just call animals. I didn't necessarily want them in the herd. And it was, you know, sell them on to someone else or, you know, start my, my meat business and what, which is part of why I'm raising goats, it's for the, the meat that I produce with this kind of grazing. So it was, it was a challenge, but it was why I'm doing it. And, um, the meat is.
15:40really really good. I'm happy to have it. Yeah. I think one thing that keeps me in the right headspace about it is that when I'm grazing the goats and I see what they're eating, like I eat gandalines and stuff, but the buckthorn and the grass and all that, I see it and I'm choosing what to put them on because it looks tasty.
16:10And I'm not eating it, but I get to eat that goat or, you know, we're thinking about doing dairy someday and we can drink that forage as delicious milk. I think it's, you know, it's why I feed the animals so well, in part. Yeah, that makes all the sense in the world. Part of the reason I asked you about how you feel about having to, to cull the animals that you raise is because...
16:39I feel like lots of people think that farmers are hard asses, that they don't have feelings about their animals, that animals do a job and that's it. And I know, I know that people like you get attached to their animals and they're doing everything they can to get the best out of the animal they're raising but also treat that animal the best they can. And you can't help but have feelings when it's time for that animal's life to end.
17:08It's just the way it is. So for anybody listening, farmers are not hard asses. They're not heartless. They love what they do. They love the animals they raise and they do the best they can for them. That's what I'm gonna say anyway. Yeah, I would agree. It is the, like that book, it's the omnivorous dilemma. It's like, I choose to eat meat. So.
17:37I'm really lucky enough to give those animals the very best life possible. And that's my challenge and my dilemma all the time is that it's a big part of my life. Yeah. And I think part of the reason that people have a perception that farmers are heartless or just don't care about the animals they raise is I think...
18:06people's perception is of farmers from 150, 200 years ago. And mostly farmers were male then, and men of those generations weren't chatty, they weren't talkative, men weren't supposed to talk about how they felt about things. And so men were very quiet and very withdrawn, and so no one ever really knew what men were thinking 150, 200 years ago. Yeah, yeah.
18:34We've come a long way from then, I think, because most of the men that I know, and I don't know very many now, but most of the men that I've known over the years, they're a lot more willing to answer questions and talk through things than they used to be. Yeah. I love being asked because I'm a verbal processor, as you can probably tell. That's how I work through a lot of stuff. Yeah. And men just didn't do that.
19:03a long time ago. And I appreciate it because I really do want to know what my husband and my sons and my friends who are male think about the world and about their place in it because I'm really curious about people. And it doesn't matter to me whether you're male or female. I want to know what you think. So yeah, I think the question of, you know, you know how people feel and approach to animals to it, I think.
19:32the mechanized farming that has come up into our sort of farming economy in the past few hundred years. I think it's another big part of it where you see confined animal feeding operations and stuff like that. I think people really do end up having to treat animals like machines. And even though those people are farmers because
20:01know, a lot of the time they love the land and they care about their family. I think they are forced to treat animals like machines in a way where they, you know, maybe that's just what farming is to them. But I like alternative farming because it seems more holistic in that sense. You don't have to sacrifice your ideals and everything.
20:29Yeah, and there's not that wall between you and the animal anymore. Okay. My goats, my goats whine and they'll, they'll, they'll cry and they'll tell me that they want to be moved and I can, I can push it for a little while, but my fence isn't perfect. And I have a few good jumpers and they'll, they'll just go out if they have to. It's like.
20:56I can't force the animals too far into anything. I've found that I have to, I can't push them into anything. I have to lead them into something. It's a hundred times easier. And that's kind of, I think that kind of goes with that. Or the wall is gone between me and the animals. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And of course you're dealing with 36 or 37, not thousands of them. And so it's probably easier to be.
21:24closer to your critters than say having a thousand or two thousand goats.
21:33Yeah, those guys with like a lot of goats. I really would love to see that happen with the buckthorn grazing and everything, but I can only know it from my perspective. Right, exactly. So how many baby goats did you or do you have coming? Did you have baby goats this year? I'm going to have like a late summer kitten this year.
22:02because of that me pushing back the breeding, but it's gonna be.
22:1025 bread doughs. So if they're averaging two kids per dough, that I could probably expect about 50 kids. It's gonna be noisy at your place because baby goats are chatty. They're very skucky. Yeah, I have plenty of Nubian goats too and they're supposed to be the noisiest.
22:36I know just enough about goats to make assumptions. I don't have any. I've never had goats. I just love them and I really love the baby goats. I've talked about this a lot on the podcast and I need to not get too far into it because people are going to get bored. But baby goats are adorable and I'm sure they're even more adorable when you know that they are going to improve and increase your bottom line. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
23:06I like them a lot. I think the charisma of goats is probably why I chose them specifically. Sheep might be more fitted to my, like the farm that I live on, and I get to graze the margins and the edges of fields and stuff. And it might be better for sheep because there's more grass than brush. But the goats are just, I love goats.
23:37They are full of personality and sheep, I don't feel like are. No, no, they're a little bit. Well, I mean, you know, when people talk about sheep in a metaphor. Yeah, exactly. Sheep, to me, sheep are dumb and boring and goats are funny and full of mischief and always doing something you don't expect them to do. Yeah, that's right. So.
24:05Okay, let me see what else. You clearly love what you're doing. Absolutely. Yeah. Good. And do you see this being a lifelong thing? Or is this a 10 years and then maybe maybe not anymore? Um, well, animal agriculture is my lifelong passion. I'm certain about that. The goat business
24:35I'd like it to become a sustainable, like maybe a replicable thing where if at some point I need to split my herd into two, I could...
24:57I could share the business of it with other people. And if someone eventually wanted to buy my business from me, I'd be okay with that. Not yet, of course, it's not at that level, but down the line, because I like working with people, but working at home, close to home right now.
25:25Like I can see the goats out of the living room window and this is so perfect. Like I would love if things eventually looked a lot more like Katya's homestead, where I'm moving cattle out there and goats are sheep close to home and chickens and stuff. And yeah, no, I...
25:53I joke about how as I get older, I'm going to move from inside the trees to the edge of the trees to the high ground on top of the hills and be moving cattle or something. You're going to be a cowboy. That's what you're going to do. Yeah. Everyone talks about horses. They're hay burners out here. But I have family in North Dakota who loves their horses.
26:23I think there's, you know, I can see that someday, someday I think I'm going to have a horse and I'll love that horse. Yeah, I love horses. I don't want to own one, but I love watching them. I think that they are incredibly beautiful. I don't want one. They're too big for me. It scares me to death. They're huge. But it's okay. It's okay. There's so much power there. Yeah. And they're smart. They're thinking animals. That's like the goats.
26:53It's a lot of power, not just, you know, muscle and everything, but they're thinkers. Yep. Absolutely. Okay. I have one more question for you because I keep meaning to ask somebody and you're probably the person to ask. When you eat goat and say it's a steak, like a beef steak, only it's a goat steak, how do you cook it?
27:20Yeah. Um, yeah, I just got back my, my meat from the butcher, like a couple of weeks ago. And I cooked, uh, what they called, they labeled it a leg steak and I cooked it like I would a steak. I salted it the night before. And then I cooked it on high heat. I left it kind of rare in the middle and I rested it. And.
27:50The, when it was fresh, like off the, you know, cut it up on the chopping block and everything, it was tough and I wasn't happy with it. The next day it sliced really, really good and it was tender and toothsome or whatever, but. Yeah, I have had dry aged goat that cut like cheese and that was so.
28:19really really delicious. I think braids, like a braids in some kind of a broth or slow cooking is the more like tried and true you know break up the tougher meat because it is a tougher meat. I just had meatballs with ground goat and that was flawless. It's like lean beef. It's like except
28:49Like between lamb and venison in flavor, but the fattiness was like lean beef. That was really great to cook with, really delicious too. But yeah, the cuts and the roasts and the steaks, I think it's slower cooking or, I'm experimenting with it. Okay, because we have not tried goat yet and I'm.
29:16I'm hoping to maybe find somebody local who has goat that I could just buy some from because I don't want to buy an entire animal and then not like it and have it sit and then get thrown away. That's a terrible use of an animal. I don't want to do that. So I thought I would ask about the cooking process because I've never cooked it. I've cooked beef, I've cooked chicken, I've cooked lamb, I've cooked venison, but not goat. So. All right. Well, I'm going to go ahead and start.
29:46Josh, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. And I learned new things just like I do every time I interview people on this podcast. It's really fun.
29:57Yeah, thank you, Mary. I've been listening to your podcast and I really like it. I'm going to keep listening because you have such different people on and I like hearing your story and mixed in with it. So it's a good joy. My story isn't nearly as interesting as you guys' story. So I'm just going to leave it there. We're just doing our thing and trying to get through our life and be happy in it. That's what we're doing here. You'll have to have a guest interviewer on.
30:27have yourself be the guest sometime because I'd love to hear that. I did, it's actually released. It's the one called A Tiny Homestead. Oh cool, okay awesome. I'll find that one, thank you. Yeah and don't fall asleep listening to it, it's really not that interesting. All right Josh, thanks so much, have a great day. Thank you, you too Mary. Goodbye.
 

Freedom Forage Farm & Flower

Today I'm talking with Amber at Freedom Forage Farm & Flower. You can also follow on Facebook.
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 Amber, Freedom Forage Farm and Flowers. Good morning, Amber. How are you? I am great this morning. How are you, Mary? I'm good. It's a beautiful day in Minnesota. Absolutely is.
00:26And you're in New Prague, so you're only about a half an hour from me, I think. Yes, I am. If you're in Lees Center. In LeSore. LeSore. Oh yes. Yep. So not far. All right. Well, tell me about yourself and what you do. Um, well, I am a stay at home mom. I homeschool my three boys. And during the summer months, we grow cut flowers. We also have on-farm events called happy hour in the flowers where
00:56We have our flower friends come out and learn about growing and harvesting techniques and build their own bouquets, watch the sunset, take pictures, all the fun stuff. Nice. Speaking of taking pictures, do you let like photographers come in and take photos of, I don't know, engagements and prom pictures and things like that at all? Yes. Or graduation pictures? Yep. Cool. Yeah.
01:25How did you start doing this? Like a lot of other people, COVID, we were at home. We had a positive test, so we knew that we were stuck here for at least 20 days. And it had been something, you know, throughout the years, we would just walk around our pasture and think of all the things that, you know, we wanna do. And it was like, hey, we have the time. Should we just do it? And he was like, yeah, let's just do it.
01:55Yeah, there was a lot of why not and let's just do it when COVID happened because people had so much time for self-reflection and so much time to actually pursue something they had thought about. Yes. Yeah. And it was like, when are we going to get this time again? And you know, what's the worst that could happen? We're here now. Let's just do it. Yeah. That's, that's kind of how we ended up where we are too. Amazing. And.
02:24Like I've said to everyone who has mentioned COVID, you're not the first person to take a leap during a very uncertain time. And honestly, I feel like part of what COVID did is reminded us all that we only have a limited amount of time to be alive and pursue our dreams. And some people didn't get that. So we all who did decided to do something else. Yes.
02:54So are your kids young? We have a 10 year old, soon to be seven year old and a four year old. And did they, are they into the growing flowers too? They love the flowers. They love to help. Except for when I asked them to help, then they're not fully on board, but they are just as much involved as, as any of us. Yeah.
03:24They definitely prefer when the flowers are in bloom though. They like that work a lot better. Yeah, well, it's really, really pretty. And I'm sure that draws them to help. So what kind of flowers do you grow? Do you grow native flowers? Do you grow hothouse flowers? What do you grow? Mostly annuals, field grown. We got our first hoop house. Actually, we got it two years ago now. And this is the first year. It's actually up.
03:53It has flowers in it. I was really scared to do a high tunnel because I had just that we're going into year four and I felt like, okay, I know what I can grow. I know what grows well. And I didn't, I kind of didn't want to mess with that because there's such a steep learning curve with season extension. And so it's a lot of, a lot of annuals. We have a few perennials. I'm starting to.
04:21lean more towards perennials and every year I grow less and less things. More colors, maybe different varieties, but less actual different crops. Okay. So in particular, what do you grow? We have dahlias and snapdragons, tons of zinnias, forget-me-nots. We did, what else did I put in the ground? Buplerum, tons of basil.
04:50What else? Celogea status is down there. Rubbeckia, feverfew, delphinium, eucalyptus, and lisianthus. You can grow eucalyptus here? I started from plugs, but you can, absolutely. It loves the hot and humid. So I didn't, last year was the first year that I had like a really nice big crop and I didn't let anybody cut from it. Like almost all season I wanted to do.
05:19Dahlia, Lysianthus, and Eucalyptus bundles. And my dang Dahlia's just were so far behind for some reason, lack of rain, who knows what it was. And at the end of the season, I was swimming in it. Swimming in it, and I really was kicking myself because I could have been cutting from it all season long. And so in October, I sold just Eucalyptus bunches last year because it just was going nuts. I had no idea you could grow Eucalyptus in Minnesota. I need to do that.
05:48You 100% do. Yes, there's a lot of like Queen bees in Prior Lake. She's got, I know that she has, well, the last time I was there, Dahlia, or not Dahlia starts, Eucalyptus starts. They're big, they're beautiful and they're like bushes. So they don't make it through the winter, but they, they're like when I was trying to yank them out of the ground this spring, because I left them, they were the last thing that I was harvesting from.
06:18They were in there. I had to have my husband come and help me rip them out because they were pretty sturdy. Huh, okay. I'm so glad that I'm talking to you because I would love to grow that. And we are almost done with our heated greenhouse build. So might actually be able to grow it into December. Oh, for sure. You protect it from frost, absolutely. Awesome, oh my God.
06:45I'm so excited. I have had more good ideas thrown at me in the last three days than I can stand. Like my heart, my heart's going to explode if I get any more good ideas today. Okay. So what do you, I again, brain full, words not working very well. So you sell bouquets, you have events. What else do you do? We
07:13So we do subscriptions. I have two pickup locations. One is in downtown New Prague at Cedar Press Coffee and then one is at Moose Winery in Jordan. Oh, yeah. Yes. And I always bring extra bouquets there for anybody who just drops in and sees flowers. The events, I have started doing weddings this year. We also have a flower wall we rent out for events.
07:43fun. We have something we call the foragers table where we set up just in our open pasture and it's like a little picnic spot with all the fun things. For special events we had a 10-year wedding vow renewal that we did. We set up, it's like a yurt, a big canvas tent for them to have a little picnic in. They had
08:13a photographer come out and photograph them exchanging their vows again. So that was pretty special. That's really fun. I've had a few one-year anniversaries to have me set up for a little picnic for them. Sweet. That's adorable. I love that. Yeah. Okay. Do you... Okay. Valentine's Day is off the books because it's February. It's cold. You're not doing anything with flowers at your...
08:42at your place for Valentine's Day. Right. So you said you do subscriptions. Is that kind of like based off of the CSA model or how? Yes, absolutely. So we start selling, I'll do a fall release right away after the season because there's a lot of people that are still just super flower hungry and they want to get on it right away. And then I'll do like a spring Mother's Day release. And then we close it down.
09:12I find that I take less and less subscriptions each year. I want to make the bouquets way bigger. And since I started doing the happy hour and the flowers, I just love the events so much more. So are you an extrovert? Do you love being around people? I think I'm an introverted extrovert. Okay.
09:42Yes, I'm not shy. But if I'm out of my comfort zone, we tend to go on our shell a little bit. Uh-huh. Yeah. I am a terrible introvert. I do not handle groups with people well and I know it, which is why I do a podcast, because then I get to talk with people all I want, but I don't have to be across a table from six people. It's great. Or standing with a microphone in front of a whole room.
10:11That too, yeah. I just get terrible stage fright in those situations. And realize how bad it is because we were at a fire pit gathering with friends. And I was talking with two people who I knew really well, trusted, and they had asked me a question. I was telling them a story about what they'd asked about. And all of a sudden I realized that everyone...
10:39was listening to my story and there were like 12 people there. And I literally locked up. I had like a chill go on my back. I broke out in a cold sweat. I was like, oh my god, I am, I don't know what did this to me, but I wish it hadn't, you know? Yeah, for sure. That's so, so I'm really, I'm really glad that you can do events like that because I could not. It's not my thing. Oh, I still get nervous every time.
11:09Every time, like sometimes I know that there are other flower growers in the group and that especially just for like I, every gardener does things different. There's no one way to garden correctly, right? We all have our own microclimates. We all have our own soil. Yet I feel like somebody's going to tell me I'm doing something wrong. You know? Yes. Yes, I do know.
11:36I mean, when we only have 12 to 14 people out here at a time, it's a really small, intimate group and it's still, every time I get, I just get super nervous and I let everybody know. Sorry if I fumble over my words. It's not my, yeah. I can talk to the flowers really easy. It's the people that are, that are hard for me. Yep, exactly. I love my dog for that reason because I can talk to her.
12:01all day and she doesn't yell at me, she doesn't tell me I'm wrong, she doesn't do anything except cock her head and say talk to me more. So it's great. I love her. I love my dog and I'm not going to say anything else about her because I have talked so much about her on these episodes that it's getting sickening. So I tried doing a couple small wildflower gardens over the last two summers.
12:29And what I didn't realize is that a lot of wildflowers don't take well to being cut and put in vases. They don't last long. Yes. So we end up just taking really pretty photos and sharing them with people. That's what we do with those. What we did learn is that sunflowers grow really well. In anything you put them in. They just want to grow and they will.
12:59Yup. And so we, we planted sunflowers two summers ago and had no idea how well they would do. And we had, we had like double the size of a dinner plate sunflowers and they, they were gorgeous. I believe you. Yes. Yeah. And, and, and learn that there are small sunflowers too. Yes. Well. They didn't know.
13:25there's a branching sunflowers and then there's the single stem sunflowers. But you can also, even if they do have the big heads, if you plant them super close together, they can't, they won't grow really big either. So that is, that is a lesson that I learned as well. Big, huge sunflowers aren't awesome for bouquets. So no, but they are awesome for the seeds. Oh, absolutely. But for cut flowers, you don't want to use pollen.
13:55Like we try to use pollen lists, so people's countertops aren't all full of pollen. Yeah. So those ones actually don't even produce seeds. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. So we plant a little of each just so, you know, we want a thriving ecosystem. So we plant for the birds, but a lot of the sunflowers I grow, they don't have seeds.
14:20didn't know that there were different colored sunflowers either until we started looking at getting seeds and I was like, oh, there are burgundy ones. There are no blue sunflowers. Got suckered on a package of blue sunflower seeds. They don't exist. But they do grow into sunflowers and they were pretty. They just weren't blue. And there are cream colored sunflowers. My favorite. Uh-huh. Yeah.
14:49We're going to be doing some more of those this year too. Notice about your cream sunflowers though, that the bugs are attracted to those a lot. No, no, didn't notice. Yep. Huh. Okay. Good to know. Is there a reason why? I'm not sure. I think just a majority of white flowers just get decimated first. No, if it's because of how, how bright they are, I'm not
15:19I don't know the scientific explanation for that, but I just know that that's a fact. Okay, and since you said you don't know the scientific reason for that, that leads me to my next question. Do you have a background in raising flowers, growing flowers, or was it just something you wanted to try doing? It was something I wanted to try doing, something that in my mind was like, this will bring me happiness, and there's no doubt in my mind, and I was right. Uh.
15:45But no, no background whatsoever, other than my mom's peonies and clementis in my backyard. That's it. Okay. Just wondering, because some people are like, I went to school for 25,000 years to be a horticulturalist. And some people are like, I threw seeds in the ground and they grew and it was fun. Yes. So, and I'm the latter. Same. Yep. And peonies. Do you grow peonies? We do.
16:15So just we had, when we moved out to the farm, Marla, who lived here before us, she had a peony bush that was, oh, it was like 20 years old. That was the first one. We divided that and placed it strategically in the landscape around. And then two years ago, we bought 100 bare root. Ooh, fun. We get a random, you know, last year we got a random few that bloomed.
16:44I've been out there already and they're starting to bud up a little bit. I'm currently trying to decide if I should disbud them or not because you want them to, you want the roots to be super healthy and strong. So you're, you're, you're told not to cut from them in the first two years. Yep. You know, but they're peonies and how can you not? Yeah. You put them in last year? Yes. We put them in, well, last fall.
17:13last spring. When did we put them in? Two falls ago. So we, this will be the second bloom year. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I am a, I'm a peony fanatic. So I'm going to tell you what I think about whether you should disbud them or not. Give it to me. If you bought that many plants, I would, I would disbud some of them, but I would let some of them bloom. So you can have some of the blooms
17:43The deal with peonies, the saying is the first year is sleep, the second year is creep, and the third year is leap. Yes. And we moved here for almost four years ago. And so this is our third spring because we brought peony plants from the old house in the fall of 2020. And we have so many buds coming right now.
18:11And I am so excited because we had hundreds of blooms at the old house on a little tiny city lot. So this will be the first spring in four years that I will have peony flowers whenever I want them again when they bloom. Have you ever cut them in marshmallow stage and put them in your fridge? I have not. I've read about it. Yes. Got to try it.
18:40Yeah, I just, I always miss the marshmallow stage. I go out and they're still hard like a marble. Yeah. And then I don't even think about it and they've bloomed. So I always miss that smushy stage. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's just like tulips, like all of a sudden they're just open. So you got to be on it. Yep. And honestly, we don't have enough to make it worth like selling to anybody right now.
19:09Yeah, we will probably have some peony blooms for the farmers market June 1st and the Saturday after that and maybe the Saturday after that to sell some open blooms. That's a lot. That's enough Saturdays. Yeah. And we have the early blooming varieties and we have the later blooming varieties. So we should have a staggered set for the month of June and then it'll be over. Beautiful.
19:37And then it's fleeting. Yeah, it's unfortunate that my favorite flower on earth is a month long bloom and then I gotta wait another year. That's why we love them so much. They're special, yeah. It's kind of like rhubarb. Rhubarb grows in the spring and sometimes you get a second crop in the fall if your fall has the right conditions. Right. And so when the rhubarb comes in.
20:03We make strawberry rhubarb sauce. We have it over ice cream or scones, and then we freeze some bags of it. And then we have some in the wintertime. Yes. And I'm current. I'm right there with you right now with the rhubarb. It's my second. I have a rhubarb cake in the oven right now. I made a coffee cake. Not yesterday, but the day before I've got some in the fridge to chop up for the freezer. All the things. Yeah. And the great thing about freezing rhubarb means that you don't have to blanch it.
20:33What? My mom used to blanch rhubarb, like fresh rhubarb, she'd chop it up in pieces and then she would put it in hot water for a minute and then she'd take it out and put it in ice water. And I was like, why do you do that? And she said, because it breaks down the fiber so it's not as stringy. And come to find out if you freeze rhubarb, you don't have to do that blanching step to make it not so stringy. Yeah. Yeah, I've never heard of that, blanching it before freezing it.
21:02So I told her about it and she was like, I've been doing this my whole life and I didn't have to. Oh no. I said, well, you learned it from somebody. So it just takes one major step out of the equation and, and it means you don't have to heat up your house or your kitchen. So it's fantastic. Absolutely. It's, it's so funny because I feel like I know a little bit about a lot and a lot about a little.
21:32A lot of the time, a friend of mine was over on Wednesday, Tuesday or Wednesday, and she had gone to the extension office in, I don't know, one of the towns around Lesor because she has a shady area in her yard and she's trying to figure out what to put in there for ground cover. And I don't want to say where she went or who she talked to because it doesn't really matter but she didn't really get any answers. And I said, do you want answers from somebody who?
22:01nose just enough to be dangerous and she was like you and I said yeah. She said what do you think? I said I think that you're sick of hostas but hostas grow in shady areas and she said I don't want to put any more hostas in. I said okay. I said how about violets? How about wild violets? Because they grow in dappled sunlight. She was like violets would be really pretty. I said why don't you do that? Try that. I said do you want to be able to walk?
22:29on this area?" And she said, no, I just want to fill it in. I said, put violets in, they would be really pretty. And she looked at me and she said, thank you. She said, you don't even have a degree in any of this, but you just gave me a solution. I said, yes, because I read everything and I learn quick. Yes. So flowers, more flowers. All flowers, all the time, please. You mentioned Rudebeckia. Is that the little like low to the ground
22:59plant that spreads and has little yellow flowers on it? Is that the one? Rudebeckia is a black-eyed Susan. Yeah. Yes. So there's so many different varieties. There's so many different ones. So I'm sure that there is one. I know Rudebeckia tribola has the super small flowers and that is a perennial, eye-grown annual version, Rudebeckia hurta.
23:28I'm pretty, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. That's what I grow. And they don't, they don't come back every year. They're beautiful. They're a bunch of different colors, salmon, rust, bright orange, bright yellow. You never know what you're going to get. It's a beast's choice, basically. Sometimes they come back. I have three plants from the 38 I planted last year that decided they're going to.
23:58They're going to come back for me this year. Nice. Yeah. That's amazing. So I asked before, but I think you got sidetracked. Do you grow any native plants at all? I have done a few different varieties of milkweed, but otherwise, no. We've talked to somebody at Prairie Moon a few times about.
24:25Prairie restoration, we would like to do, you know, we don't want to mow. We only have five acres, but we don't want to mow all five acres. So they have a bunch of different seed mixes that we've contemplated getting and getting it all hydro seeded and all that fun stuff. But that's, I mean, that was the original dream. That's how flowers even entered the chat.
24:55the native wildflowers. Okay. But we have yet to do that. Yeah, we tried. We tried doing the, I can't think of the name of it, the purpley, lavendery one that grows in the ditches all over this area. Reven- Prairie something, prairie wild. There's so many, there's so many, and they're all purple, I swear.
25:21Yeah, it's very wild flame or wild flower or something. I can't remember, but it's really pretty. And supposedly it's easy to grow because it's a weed. It grows everywhere. And we bought some and put it in and it died because we had the drought last summer. Of course. And we bought some, uh, cone flower and that died because of the drought. I was like, weeds are supposed to hand, you know, wild flowers, weeds, whatever are supposed to handle.
25:51drought better than the not native plants and they died. Our coneflower died too last year. Yeah, I was so sad. But it's okay. Yes. Many years. Yeah, I'm hoping this summer is better. I don't know that it's going to be, but I'm hoping that maybe we will have a moderate summer.
26:19where we get some rain and some sun and some rain and some sun. That would be a nice change. And no hail. And please no hail. Yeah. Yeah, we did not get hail. We got little tiny, tiny pieces of hail twice last summer. So we lucked out. Yeah, you did. We got a few scary ones. And I have a high ton. How do you lose sleep about flowers and plastic houses? It happens. Easy.
26:47easy to lose sleep over. We lost a high tunnel. I can't remember what was the first summer or the second summer we were here. I think it was the second summer we were here because we had it turn the wrong way and the door was not zipped all the way closed and the wind got up underneath of it and just lifted it right over and ripped it, of course. And it was full of plant seedlings. Oh no.
27:18The high tunnel needs to go north to south, not east to west. The opening doors have to be north and south for where we're at. And even that doesn't necessarily guarantee you that it's going to not get blown over. Absolutely not. And that a hard-sided greenhouse might have been smarter and that is actually built now. Oh good. Yes, so excited. I've talked about this before on the...
27:44Yeah, the podcast and I'm not going to get too far into it, but my husband and my son got the doors on it last night. Amazing. Congrats. Yup. And it's gorgeous. I'm so, so thrilled with it. And it still has a couple pieces above the doors to be finished, but we can't finish them until we get the exhaust fans that we ordered in. And they're not coming until the 24th. So hopefully by Memorial Day weekend, we will.
28:13have it completely done. Amazing. Yep, and the plan next spring, which ties into what you're doing, is to do potted flower baskets. Oh, I love it. To have ready for Mother's Day. Yeah. And to have ready for the farmer's market in June. Awesome. I love those things. I love picking out the seeds or the seedlings, however we do it, and putting those together, picking out what the colors are and what the textures are.
28:43So I think that's actually gonna be my baby next spring. I think I am excited for you. That is Yeah, um, I just I don't want to get too far into this but I I Applied for a grant from the market entry fund. It's a it's a Minnesota grant opportunity and There were three questions to answer. I spent maybe 15 minutes answering the questions and hit send
29:13And I thought, there's not a chance we're going to get this grant. And, and we did, we got it back in October and that's what funded the heated greenhouse. Oh, congrats. And I just, I feel so weird about it. Cause I'm like, this greenhouse didn't cost us a penny to build. It's so weird to me. And I, I have been writing off and on my whole life. I have been published in a regional magazine. I've been.
29:42published in a newspaper and stuff online and not made a whole lot of money ever with it. And it's great to be published, but making money from it would have been way cool too. And it took me 15 minutes to write this grant proposal or answer their questions and ended up making more money from that than I've ever made from writing anything else. And I just have to laugh about it. I just think it's so amusing. Yeah.
30:12But thankful that they decided we were worth taking a chance on because it's really cool. It's really great. Good for you. That's so cool. Yeah. Weird. I had no idea I was going to do it. And I did it and they gave it to us and now we have a heated greenhouse. Amazing. Oh my goodness. I'm like crazy about this today because everything is, right now everything is coming up roses. It really is. Good.
30:40I figure next week everything will be coming up black dolly-as or something. I don't know, but today is a good day. Good. Okay. So what is the plan for Freedom Forage Farm and Flowers? Number one, is this your job or do you have a jobby job outside of it? My jobby job isn't really a jobby job. I bartend once a week at the local 105 down in New Prague. It's great.
31:09The money's too good to quit. I love everybody that works there. I love the establishment. They welcome you with flowers on their patio. I get to take it over and do happy hour with the flowers there. Oh, awesome. Yeah, it's a blast. But otherwise, yeah, I'm home. We homeschool. It's a full-time job, even though it's seasonal. Sure. So are you going to grow it bigger? The farm?
31:40I at this point, no, I don't think so. It's, um, we might, we might lane change a couple times over the years, but we have, I, we have a lot and it's just me. If I get to the point where I can hire help, who knows what will happen. But right now it's the boys and Kyle and myself and that's, that's good.
32:07in where we are in life, it's really busy. He's also in landscaping, so his busy season is also my busy season. So it's hard to juggle sometimes. I'm sure it is, that's a lot. Yeah, I mean, the ultimate goal would be to have him here. And, you know, us both doing the farm full-time, but we're not there yet. The plan, I told him this year that we're doing nothing new.
32:35I'm not growing anything new. I'm not offering anything new. We're just gonna coast this year and see what happens. That is so funny. You are not the only person I've heard that from lately. I just feel like there's so much right now.
32:59take on more. So yeah, yeah, my husband was chomping at the bit back in January about starting to plan the garden, the farm to market garden that we do every summer. And he said, I think I'm going to cut back on the different things we grow and just grow the things that we know we can sell. And I said, Are you sure? And he said, Yeah, he said, because broccoli
33:26Broccoli is a crapshoot. We never know if it's going to grow well, and we never know if anybody's going to buy it. Same with cauliflower. He said, so I don't think we're going to grow those this year. And I said, okay. He said, tomatoes always sell, cucumbers always sell, green beans always sell. He said, there are things that people just want lots of. He said, I would rather do it that way. He said, so I'm just, I'm going to cut back a little bit.
33:55And I said, that's fine. It's your baby do what you want to do with it. And then I had someone else say to me, I'm changing my work paradigm. I'm cutting these things out because they don't, they don't give me enough return on the investment. And then someone else said it to me like a week later. And now you're saying that you're, yeah, this is, I don't know, maybe it's post COVID hangover. Everybody was all excited about their brand new ideas
34:25their go-get-em spirit and now it's been four years? Yes. And they're like, huh, we might've bitten off more than we can chew or maybe we're just pivoting or maybe it's just time for a reevaluation. Yeah, absolutely. Just to find the things, A, that are the most profitable, like your husband's doing, right? It just makes sense. Yeah. So, I mean, we went from probably
34:5540 different varieties of flowers down to 15. I could go down to five. I really, I would love to. So it's just finding, you know, what it is that we know grows well and that people love. Yeah, finding the secret sauce to your business. Yeah. So I'm going to say this and then we'll wrap it up.
35:21Number one, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me because I wasn't quite sure what your story was and I love flowers so I will always be happy to listen to stories about flowers. But the other thing I wanted to say is that the longer I do this podcast, the more I feel like it is a study of people and social norms.
35:49I keep hearing things and then I hear it from other people. And there's always like a theme for the year or a theme for the season we're in. And I feel like the theme for 2024 is people now having the chance to take a breath from all of the things that started with COVID. Because COVID gave everybody a chance to take a big collective breath and go, okay, what are we doing? Yeah.
36:17Now, four years later, everybody's taking a big collective breath and saying, what are we doing based on what we've done? How cool is that? Yeah. So I feel like I'm conducting a philosophical social studies experiment here with this podcast. It's been really, really fun. And it's been eight months now. Really? Yep. Wow. Yep. And the more I talk with people, the more I learn. And for me, the more I learn, the more questions I have.
36:47Yeah. So, so I just, I love this so much and I'm really glad that you had a chance to chat with me this morning. I am. Thank you for inviting me. It was a pleasure. All right. Have a great day, Amber. Yes, you too, Mary. Thank you.
 

Joe Lamp'l (aka Joe Gardener) of Growing A Greener World

Today I'm talking with Joe Lamp'l (aka Joe Gardener) of Growing A Greener World about his love for gardening, where it started, and the unexpected fame that's come with it. You can also follow him on Facebook.
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 Joe Lamp'l, aka Joe Gardner of Growing Greener World. Good afternoon, Joe. How are you? I'm great. Good afternoon to you. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. You have no idea how tickled I am.
00:29said yes. Tell me about yourself because you're pretty famous, but not everybody knows your story. This is true and I feel like I've told it a few times and I think maybe by now more people have heard it and the word's getting out I guess, but I love my story because I remember it as though it were yesterday. I grew up in Miami, Florida and I was one of four boys in the family. That was it, just four boys but...
00:57Uh, in the pecking order, I was last, you know, I was eight years old when I was out with my dad on the weekends. He had his weekday job, his nine to five weekday job, although I know he worked more than that, but on the weekends he did his guard work, you know, his typical mowing the grass and edging the driveway and trimming the bushes. And because I was only eight years old and my next oldest brother was 13, he wasn't hanging out with me. He was hanging out with his buddies, which was fine because my dad was my buddy and I had them all to myself for the weekend.
01:26And I love that. So I would follow him around and just tag along and do anything he needed me to do. But on this one day, when he finished up on this Saturday, he went inside and I still had plenty of energy. So I'm out running around and I, I hit a branch on a plant he had just got through pruning earlier that day and I broke it. All right. I basically broke it and I didn't want to get in trouble, but I wouldn't have. My dad was a very kind, sweet man.
01:54But I didn't want to disappoint him. Maybe that's the thing. So I took the branch and I stuck it. I shoved it in the ground basically right next to the base of the plant, covered it up with soil. Although I probably would have called it dirt at that point. And, um, you know, went about my business and time went on and I forgot about it until I came upon it again, weeks and weeks later. And when I did, it reminded me that that's the, that's the plant that I broke the branch on, but I couldn't find.
02:21I couldn't figure out which was the broken branch because they all looked the same. They were all green and growing. And I'm like, wait a minute, I know this is the plant. So I, um, I isolated it down to the one that I actually broke and I looked at it and it was a little less vigorous than the others, but it was growing in that. And that just surprised me. So, because I had no idea that it was going to live to begin with. And the fact that it was sprouting new leaves and forming new roots. Literally blew my mind. I just couldn't understand how that was happening. I didn't know anything about.
02:50gardening at that time, but I needed to know more because that was the coolest thing ever to me at the moment. Still is. And, um, from that, that very moment was when I decided I'm hooked on this. I love this. I need to know more. And I started propagating. Again, I didn't know that word then, but I started, you know, making more cuttings and sticking stuff in pots and growing seeds. And I started a garden, a few gardens, actually a rose garden and a vegetable garden and fruit trees and daylilies and you name it.
03:20So that was it eight years old. And, uh, honestly, I haven't slowed down one second of my interest in my quest to learn more and my love and enthusiasm for gardening and all that it has to offer. So you were eight and the magic of nature kicked you in the head is what happened. You know, it did. It kicked me in the head for, for, for garden. You know, I was.
03:46Way earlier than that, I'm sure I was fascinated with nature. I was just in awe of being outside and hearing and seeing the birds and the trees and the wind and you know, back then, well, still, I mean, I was in the hurricane region and I know we had big storms coming through when I was little and all of that just amazed me. But then the, the gardening side really is what totally captivated me. Specifically, it was the gardening. Do you remember what the shrub was by chance?
04:15Kind of, I do. I picture it as a privet. Basically your standard hedge shrub, ubiquitous everywhere. And I really feel like it was a privet. Okay. Just wondering, cause I don't know if you knew at eight years old, what, what the plant itself was. I, you know, I learned a lot of those plants. Uh, but I don't know that I ever really specifically named that one, but I, now that I
04:41I've thought about it. I think about what that was and I'm pretty sure that it was a privet. Okay. Cool. Um, so I have one big overriding question for you. Most people, when they find that thing that kicks them in the head, it's a hobby, but it sounds like you took something that could have turned into a hobby and made it into your life's work and a business. So, so what do you do?
05:11outside of gardening because most people garden to get away from the things that they do all the time. This is so true. And Dino Mary that um...
05:24I'm not one of those people. I just, I've said this a lot and I mean it when I say it, but I, I say this, I say, I love gardening more than yesterday and tomorrow I'm going to love it more than today. And I really feel that way because, because, um, in my, I was going to say in my free time and I started thinking how much free time do I really have, but I make it, I make it because I get up really early and you know what I do is I, I
05:50I do work, I do work while it's dark. I get up while it's dark and I work for a couple hours. And then as it's light, I go outside and I go in the garden and I, or I prune, or I do something gardening or horticulturally related and my vegetable garden or my native landscape beds, but I am outside. And the happiest I'm going to be that day is when I'm gardening and, um, it's, it is totally a passionate hobby. But for me, I think I have a personality that
06:21or whatever it is that excites me, I tend to go deep on it. And so, um, you know, it is a hobby, but it's, it's, and it's, of course, it's become my profession, but even if it wasn't my profession, I would be. As involved with gardening as I am now, you know, I just, I, I, it feeds, it scratches every itch I have. It feeds my intellectual needs. It, it helps me with my physical needs.
06:50and desires and my curiosity for knowledge and science and understanding and the fact that I can't know it all or never will know it all, but I want to learn more every day and I do through gardening and just the wonder of it all. And it just, it blows my mind every day. Every day is more exciting and fascinating to me. And that's the other thing about it. It's never ever boring and I can never control it. I think that's the other thing that keeps me.
07:18so engaged is that as a sort of a control freak, I'm-
07:25I am very attracted to the fact that I can't control this. So it really challenges me to keep going and try to figure these challenges out that come up every day. So what you're telling me is heaven is going to be a terrible disappointment to you when you pass over because you've been living it since you were eight. I feel like I have, but I think, you know, heaven promises to be greater than we can ever imagine. And if, and if it is. Then.
07:56It really is going to be unbelievable because I feel like I am living living that kind of life now. Yeah. I, okay. Did you, did you end up going to college for classes in gardening, horticulture, whatever? Yeah. I've had, I've had academic training for years through college and beyond. And, and, and actually at, this is an interesting story when, um, I was going into college.
08:24You know, my mother was a really excellent, passionate English teacher, high school English teacher. And, you know, we were talking about college plans. I said, well, you know, I really want to go study horticulture. And, you know, in her wise way, she said, you know, that's great. You should, you, I can encourage that, but let me offer a suggestion that you consider as well. And that is consider getting a business degree also, because if you could marry those two coming out of school.
08:53Your opportunities will be exponentially greater and you can apply, you know, if you end up going full time into horticulture, you can apply your business skills that you wouldn't have had if you didn't study it in college and, and really accelerate your career in horticulture. And I thought, huh, that really, she presented a good case, very compelling. So she sold me on that. So that's what I did. And when I was coming out of school, you know, you're graduating, you're getting recruited and there weren't a lot of horticulture.
09:21recruits knocking on the door, but there were a lot of, um, business opportunities or, or, or several attractive business opportunities. And that's what I ended up doing simply because it made, it seemed to make the most sense and it offered the best money. And, uh, I took that, but I knew when I did, it really wasn't what I wanted to do. But I did it for a year and a half or so. And then, well, I actually had a suit and tie job for a few years, but I was waiting for that moment.
09:51When the whatever opportunity was going to happen, I knew it would happen. I didn't know what it was going to be or when it would happen, but I was patient. And, you know, I'm sitting in my very nice office and my suit and tie looking out the window of the 23rd floor of a downtown office building, looking down on a cold winter day at the landscapers down in the cold, wet sleet rain, uh, planning pansies or something, and I'm thinking, I want to do that.
10:20I had a really good job. I'm like, why don't want to be down there doing that instead of this. Cush job I've got up here, but I did, but I didn't take, you know, I didn't do that because I couldn't replace my standard of living at that point, but then this opportunity came on, which I, you know, eventually I knew something would, and it did, and that was my opportunity to host a television series on the DIY network. And that ended up being a three year television, national television hosting job, teaching people how to grow food. So that was how I ended up.
10:49back in horticulture full time. And that was in 2002. And so here I've been ever since just taking that business knowledge. Thank you, mom. And building a brand and a business around and several brands at this point and three television hosting jobs and other stuff. Um, thanks to the combination of the two. It's amazing how smart moms can be. I am a mom of four. Yeah.
11:18My youngest still lives at home with us. He's 22. And I've been, I freelance right now and then. I don't make any money at it. I'm not determined or disciplined enough to do it all the time. But all of my kids are pretty good writers. And youngest decided to write some fan fiction for fun, like two weeks ago. And he's okay.
11:44You know, he needs a little help with the grammar and punctuation, but he knows how to string a story. Yeah. And he posted it on some, I don't know, forum or, or platform, whatever online. And he came down three days later for his room, all smiles. And he said, my story is, is like on the featured page of the platform. That, that, that, that he was just tickled pink. Yeah. And I said, see, I said, I told you just start something.
12:14do something creative and something will happen. And he said, you know, sometimes you're really smart. And I just laughed. So to quote my son, sometimes moms are really smart and sometimes dads are really smart and we need them. That too, yeah, that too. So I have a question about the growing arena world stint that you did for the three years. And it was growing arena world then, right? Well, that was Fresh from the Garden, the first series.
12:43was fresh from the garden on the DIY network. And that was supposed to only be one year and 26 episodes, but the, the show was more successful than I think they even imagined because they ended up turning it into a three year series and 52 episodes during the first year. They said we want to renew it to three years and 52 episodes. Okay. So my question about that is when you walk into that kind of situation where it's a, a TV show on a.
13:13on a cable network, that's what it was at the time, I assume. Is that weird? Like, like, were you, were you comfortable doing the thing while all these cameras and things were around, or do you have to like settle into that? That's a good question. You know, I'll take it back a few weeks or months before that, because, you know, they didn't call me out of the blue and say, we want you to host this show. It was.
13:40We're looking for a host for this show and this is who we're looking for. And I was sent the email from that national email blast that went to garden writers and garden media people. And one of those people forwarded me that email and said, Joe, they're looking for you, they just don't know you yet, but they are describing you. You need to contact the producer and get an interview. And so I did.
14:07I'm going to make this shorter than in story really is. I did and I got a, I got a, um, I had lunch, I had lunch with the producer and it was very awkward but, um, he called, you know, he's just never, I couldn't read them and I'm good at reading people. I could not read this guy. And at the end of the lunch, he basically said, well, you know, we'll let you know if we're interested. I'm going to talk to my executive producer about you. And if she's interested, we're going to call you back and do a screen test. And I got a call back to do a screen test. So
14:34The appointed date was set up and they told me where to be. And I showed up and there were the camera trucks and the people and the audio and all that stuff. And he's there and you know, he's kind of a, in a nice way, he's kind of a cold fish because he is not Mr. Personality. He's just there all business. And, and I had a script that I was sent and I was supposed to memorize that and do these opening a roles, these hosts, like, you know, the intro to the show. As if I'm doing it for real on camera to the, to the viewers. Yeah. And, um, so I'd never been on TV before.
15:03I watched a lot of gardening shows, so I had a sense of how that goes, but never doing it to a camera, but I didn't feel, I did not feel weird about that because to me that camera was just a round piece of glass and I was talking about stuff that I knew a lot about. And I was very comfortable with it because when I would watch those shows on HGTV, I knew all the stuff they were talking about. And I had no doubt to think that I couldn't communicate that as well.
15:31So that's kind of the attitude, not a cocky attitude, just a confident attitude. And so the weird thing was he had me do that scene over and over and over again with zero feedback. And I thought that was weird because I couldn't tell if he liked what I was doing or he wanted to see if I could do it better or there was no coaching, no, okay, now try it this way, none of that. And then he threw a curve ball at me and had me do another like.
15:59doing a soil test, teaching people how to do a soil test on the fly, unscripted, didn't know that was coming, but I think they wanted to see if I really knew what I was talking about. And I, and I think I did it, you know, but he had me do it over and over and over again. But anyway, long story short, I'm wrapping this up. They, they had their big meeting up at HGTV, uh, reviewing all the candidates and, um, they narrowed it down to a male and a female and they, they said, we need, we'll get back to you in a week and whichever person, whichever gender they're going with is going to get the role.
16:28You're the male that they like and there's a female they're looking at. But a week later, they called me and said, you're the guy. And so a week after that, I'm on set for the first time in my life, actually doing episode one on this series. It turned into very successful 52 episode series. And to your question to finalize the answer, um, I didn't feel weird at all. I just felt like I was in my element because I was out in a, at that time it was open field where we were going to build our garden that was going to become the set, but the first show is how to build the garden.
16:58And I knew how to do that. And I'm just talking to the camera and yes, there was a crew there and I'm wearing jeans and a golf shirt, basically a polo shirt versus a suit and tie, which was really cool. I really love that part. And, um, you know, we just went on from there for 52, you know, we, uh, 52 episodes, which is every day, every week for three years, pretty much other than the weekends. Wow. What a great story. Um, so then, then growing up in your world happened. And.
17:28Now growing a greener world is on YouTube. It's not tabling or whatever they call it. Now. Yes. Yeah. Well, it was national. It was over the air national PBS. So, yeah. Okay. So does that mean that you're now it, you're the producer, you're the director, you're, you're the one who does the YouTube episodes? Well, um, so what we did was we did.
17:5512 years, 12 seasons of episodes for Growing a Greener World. And all of those were on PBS nationally across the country. And when COVID hit, we were, you know, we're set up for the next season and we were ready to go and we had our whole lineup ready. Just like we always had, and we always went across the country to tell stories. And I was really looking forward to it. Albeit, you know, 12 years in a row of a lot of intensive television production. And I was the executive creator, executive producer.
18:24And host. So that's a lot of hats and there's a lot of pressure involved in all of those details, even though I had a team, it was a small team and we had to raise all our own funding for that. So every year, you know, you're trying to make sure you've got enough money to do pay all these people and do what you need to do to buy your plane tickets and hotels and rental cars and food and all of that. And, um, at the end of this 2022 second year COVID or whatever, I, I had gotten so
18:53attracted to staying home and not being on a plane every week that I said, you know, I think we're going to back off on production and just do more, less, less often, do episodes less often and start putting these on YouTube. Because people have been asking for a long time if we would be doing that with all of our episodes. We've done it with some, but we hadn't done it with all. And we started, during COVID, we started thinking about, you know, what's the...
19:22What's our next step? What is the future of growing a greener world? How are we going to reach the people that we really are trying to reach? Which, which is honestly, it's the younger up and coming future gardeners because they are our future. They're they're who we need to be carrying the torch into the future. And on PBS, we're not reaching those people there. They're not watching plug-in television. It's on a particular schedule through the TV set, you know, they're watching it on their phones and, you know,
19:51could unconnect a device and anytime, anywhere online. And, and we knew that we really needed to make some drastic changes. So that's when we decided that going forward, we were going to not do our episodes exclusively for public television or even at all, and we were going to direct all our energy towards making sure that all of our episodes first and foremost were converted and uploaded into YouTube. So.
20:20Now every episode we've ever done over 12 years is on YouTube now. And it took two years to make that happen. I thought it would happen a lot faster, but there's a lot of technical things and music rights that have to get converted and approved. And it's just a big process. So anyway, it's finally done as of just a few weeks ago, maybe last week. And, um, that's, that's where we're leaving it because so many more people are able to watch it now. Everybody that used to watch it on television can still watch it.
20:49They just need to change the way they watch it and they can watch it on their television and by just, you know, Casting it from their phone or their device onto the television if they want to. But anyway, we feel like that's the best move we can make to have our message reach the most people that we really feel need to see our show that haven't been or haven't been made aware of it. I've never seen it, but need to see it. So.
21:16I don't know if I answered your question and all of that, but, um, yes, you did. Thank you. That was perfect. Okay. So I don't, I don't want to like get bogged down in all the details of, of TV versus YouTube versus podcast versus whatever the, the mechanism is to getting what you're doing out in the world. But I do want to say that I feel like you are growing a garden in the world too. To get all of this out to people.
21:46And that's impressive. I also want to say that I am in my mid-50s and I remember having to get up from the chair or the couch or the floor when I used to sit on the braided rug in my living room, my parents' house, and change the channel on the TV. I remember having to go to the actual little box that you used to get for cable and slide the little doohickey across to get to the channel you wanted to get to.
22:15And now with our TV, all I have to do is hit the app on the button on the TV remote. And I have YouTube on my TV. Yeah. So I'm 54. I'll be 55 in November. And the amount of technological advances that have been made in just my lifetime, scares me to death and impresses the hell out of me. Right. So the fact that you went from.
22:45PBS to, or not PBS from, from DIY or HDTV or whatever it was to PBS to YouTube now. It's, it's just mind boggling, but it's wonderful. I think so. The accessibility is really what matters to me and understanding who your audience or your perspective audience, your dream audience is you've, you've got to, in my
23:14seat, I've got to think about how am I going to reach them? What's the best way for me to, to meet them where they are. It's more likely that for them to buy my show, I need to come to them rather than hoping they come to me. And, and so that's what we did. And fortunately, along with my team, who's very talented in the areas I am weak. Um, it works, you know, and while we're doing all that, you know, we started creating online courses and we've had this podcast, my podcast going for, I think eight years now.
23:44And, you know, all kinds of, all kinds of digital content has been created thanks to the ease of being able to do that to, to all the smart people out there that have facilitated that, you know, um, it's amazing. And so all I really wanted to do to dumb it down, all I really want to do is teach people how to garden organically and. However I can do that wherever I can do that. I want to do that. And so I think I've.
24:10done well in all the platforms I've been able to get out there around the world to reach, you know, to reach those people or some of them anyway. Well, the ones who want to know. Yes, exactly. Um, okay. So it is springtime in the United States. And the reason I say United States is that I just talked to a lady in Australia, um, last week, week before last week, and they're rolling in a winter time right now, which is weird. And.
24:37When I talked to her, it was in the evening here and it was the next day in the morning for her. So that was really fun and interesting to do. But we're in springtime and thank God we're in springtime because this winter was so dumb. This winter was terrible. I'm in Minnesota. We basically got a foot of snow and it was sort of cold. And that's not Minnesota winter. So I'm very happy to be back into springtime and we're having our very first
25:07extended, gentle, moderate spring we've had in years. So I'm very, very excited. And my heart is big and I have peonies blooming right now. They're my favorite flower on earth. So I'm all lit up because it's spring time. Now we have been growing flowers in a garden, a produce garden for about 20 years, maybe a little more.
25:33And so we know how to grow things and we know how to not put bad things in our garden and not put herbicides and pesticides and things on plants that we're going to eat the produce from because that's not a good plan for at least, at least not the ones that are manmade. So for those who are just learning about growing a flower plant or a produce plant.
26:01What would you say are the first three things that someone who's never done it before needs to learn needs to do? Set the plan up for success. So there you'll hear the same a lot for the, those that I'm speaking to that this applies, put the right plan in the right place. So if it's a plant that's a sun lover, you need to put it in a place that it has the most sun it can get, because that's when it's going to thrive, assuming that you also focus on the soil. So if you can really take your energy and your efforts and your money.
26:31and create really good soil with compost and, you know, nice, rich, dark growing environment. And then put the plants that do well in sun in full sun with that kind of soil or, you know, shade lovers in that kind of soil and shady environment. Those are the two most important things that you can do because the plants have the DNA that they need to thrive on their own. You know, obviously you look out at nature and it's amazing what happens without anything.
27:01without us having to do anything about it. But if we do those two things and then not be afraid to make mistakes. So I guess the third thing would be just do those, just do those first two things and then see what happens and learn from whatever happens. If you're successful, repeat the process, but if it doesn't work out to your expectations, your job is to understand why.
27:28And as you learn why it didn't go that way that you thought it would, or it was supposed to, that's when you start getting better and more confident. So embellish or relish the mistakes. And I call them learning opportunities. I don't even really call them mistakes because the only way you get better or become better is by, um, allowing those mistakes to happen and then figuring out why they happen.
27:56Yeah. I've referred to mistakes as educational opportunity. Absolutely. That's what they are. Yeah. Cause things are going to go wrong in your life. That's how we learn. So, so yeah, try just, just try. If you want to do something, learn how to do it from somebody who knows how to do it and then try it. Yeah. And then the other thing is because we'll never be in full control of anything outside, um, even when you do all the right things.
28:26You'll still get curve balls thrown at you and that's okay too. And I think that keeps it extra exciting and why it's never boring. And it just allows you to broaden your skills so that you are ready for those variations in the growing situation of the de jour, you know, or of the season. And, uh, and you're able to adapt. And that's when you, that's when the confidence really starts to come into it and you're not intimidated anymore. And you know,
28:55If the frost is threatening and your plants are outside and you haven't really prepared for that, you're not freaking out anymore. And things like that, that happen only over time and experience and understanding the potential consequences or the fact that a lot of times plants are partier than we give them credit for. Yes, yes, they are. We had a terrible tail storm back when we lived at our, our small house on our small lot.
29:2410, 15 years ago. And we had a rhubarb patch that was at least a hundred years old. My neighbor, my next door neighbor, was too credit shy of a horticulture degree. And part of the reason she didn't finish is because a lot of the men in her classes told her that women didn't do well in horticulture.
29:49And so she just didn't finish. And I feel so bad that she never finished her degree, but it doesn't matter. She knew so many things. I love her. She told me so many things when we were learning to garden and she came over and wanted some of the rhubarb roots. And I said, um, I don't know anything about splitting rhubarb. And she said, that's okay. I do. And she, she watched as my husband dug some of the plants out and she said, do not.
30:17mess with this patch, do not. Don't kill it." And my husband said, well, I don't want to kill it. And she said, don't do anything. Just let it be. Like splitting it is fine, but don't do anything. It has been here for at least a hundred years. He said, how do you know? And she said from the roots. She said, she told me why, but I can't remember now, but she was convinced that this patch had been there forever. And the whole point of talking about the rhubarb is we had a terrible
30:46and we had almost golf ball size hail. And I was so afraid that it was gonna just ruin the rhubarb. I don't know why, but I was afraid it was gonna kill it. Rhubarb is really hardy and the leaves are huge and the hail basically bounced off the leaves. Wow. There were maybe a couple of little holes in the leaves but I was just like, damn, that's amazing.
31:14So yeah, plants are really hardy. I would not like a hailstorm right now because we have tomato seedlings and cucumber seedlings just in the garden for a week and they're so, and they will get healed. But once the plants are bigger, they're pretty hardy. So I agree with you and you're an expert and I'm not, so there we go. So I found out about you.
31:42when I think Growing a Greener World started. I don't think I ever saw the other show. Yeah. And it's just, it's tickling me to no end that I am talking with you because I remember watching Growing a Greener World and going, that is fantastic. We're gonna keep watching this guy because we know nothing about gardening and he knows all kinds of things. And watching your show actually really helped us to learn how to grow a garden. And thank you so much. Appreciate it.
32:12You're welcome. It, it's an honor, you know, um, and I don't know if you were through there or not, I didn't want to stop you before you finished. Go ahead. Okay. Well, it just, um, you know, it has been an honor. I'm not, I'll tell you this, you know, there was a, there was another television series I hosted for three years between, or after fresh from the garden before growing a greener world and, and actually it was during that middle series where I decided, you know, I need to, I need to stop and
32:41change directions on how I'm presenting myself to the world. Because, you know, when you're in a position in front of a national television camera that actually has a further reach than that in many cases, um, I need to, I need to use my time to what I think is the best use of it for, you know, man, for what I wanted to do with my life. And that was to, you know, as I told you earlier, teach people how to guard them, but do it with an environmentally responsible approach, you know, not
33:11I wanted them to understand the bigger picture, you know, the, the ripple effect or the unintended consequences of doing things with, you know, bad inputs and so forth. So in that middle series where I was the host traveling the country, touring public gardens and talking to the head horticulturalist and basically just a travelogue show that happened to be in a public garden. And we did that for, you know, three years shows still on, but I left because it, I felt like it was.
33:40kind of Groundhog Day. I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over. It just was a different location every time. But I did a hundred shows or so with that. But then I left because I said...
33:51If I'm going to stay in TV, I need to create a show because the show that I have in mind doesn't exist right now. There's nobody teaching people how to garden and do it with an environmentally responsible approach and tell it through their stories and their eyes and their experience and go there to wherever they are and, and give them the opportunity to tell the story and let me just ask the questions and set them up so we can hear their story. And so that's how growing a greener world evolved.
34:19Quickly. I mean, that's how I envisioned it. And that's why we shot the pilot and that's how it became the show that it, the series that it's become. Um, and now I can't remember why I was telling you that. I do the same thing all the time. Yeah. Um, but I, I just, I just, I thought, I felt like, you know, there was a lot of, uh, and, and excessive amount of makeover shows by then.
34:44You know, the good gardening shows on HGTV were being done away with at that time, which is sad, but it was the truth. And I thought, well, if I'm going to be one of the few gardening shows on television these days in the U S then I want to, I want to tell it in a way that I feel is very important for people to learn about that no one was telling them. And it was my chance on a national platform to do that. And thanks to underwriting support, like through Subaru and others, um, you know, we were able to keep going. And.
35:14Anyway, I think what I was, where I was going with that was it's just, you know, it is exhausting when you are traveling all the time and you're doing it for year after year after year, and then 12 years in, it's like, you know, it's the only thing we could really, with my company, the only, it sucked the most amount of time out of my, my business life, you know? And, um, there were other things I wanted to do and hadn't been able to do while I was wearing all those hats with growing a greener world, you know?
35:43And, um, so when COVID hit and we were not able to travel and we started thinking about the future of growing a greener world, that's when it really made sense to, to back off on, on all these additional new episodes, take what we had, put it out there for the world to see on YouTube and continue to teach people how to garden through the various platforms that we were doing, but we would then be able to focus more on those other areas that we had not yet been able to delve into.
36:13to the depth that we wanted. And now we've been able to do that. So I feel like we haven't undone anything and we've only layered on top of that with additional depth of information to additional audiences, which is good. Yeah, and reach. Your reach is so much bigger now. Yeah. So, fantastic. So,
36:38I gotta know because when I started my podcast back in the last week of August, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know if it was going to go anywhere. I didn't know if I could do it. And it's now May, it's almost June. Yeah, almost a year for you. Of 2024. And I'm telling you, I am obsessed with this thing that I'm doing.
37:05And my friend actually told me that I keep her company on her drive to work in the morning, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, because she listens to the podcast. It was so unnerving to me because I know that I'm doing this, but I forget that people actually listen to it, who I know that I know them and they listen to it. So. Your whole life has been.
37:33growing this thing that you're doing. Did you expect it to become what it's become? And is it, I don't know, is it a problem for you because you're well known? I mean, do you, are you uncomfortable being out in the world?
37:54Great question. So when you asked me the first part of that question, um, you know, did I know it was going to get this big and all of that and, and no, I did not, nor did I ever intend for it to get this big. Um, you know, I, I loved. So my first real exposure into the. Business end of horticulture was when I was hosting fresh from the garden. So we talked about that and it started in 2002, but again, marrying that business background.
38:23And realizing I loved what I was doing. I wanted to make sure that I put in place. Feel safe ways to keep it going. And so that's when we branded Joe Gardner and we created the website and started doing the national speaking circuit and did my first couple of books. And, you know, it was interesting how kind of quickly that all started, but. All the while I never. Uh,
38:52I thought about how big can we get? You know, all I wanted to do, as I told you, was just teach people how to garden. And fortunately, I started off with a really nice platform. You know, DIY had 40 million subscribers at the time, so that wasn't a bad start. But that wasn't, it was never on my list of things I wanted to check off as I started my career or as I envisioned it five, 10, 15, 20 years later. And over time,
39:21You know, it has grown and grown and grown on it, you know, just by nature of being in this business this long, being consistent with it, meeting new people and making these connections. And my business has grown. My team has grown.
39:40But to the second part of your question, does it ever get uncomfortable? It doesn't get uncomfortable, but what a lot of people don't know about me is I'm quite the introvert, you know? And like, I'm in a public life, you know? And so to me, the thing that is sort of, I don't wanna say intruded, I don't think that's the right word, but where I feel like guilty if I'm not,
40:09sharing enough on social media or if I'm not posting every day, if I'm not taking videos of my daughter's birthday parties or my wife's, you know, our anniversary, I don't know. I just, that's not me. And I, and I, sometimes I feel like I should be doing that because that's the norm these days. That's what everybody's doing, but that doesn't, that doesn't interest me. I, I'm, you know, I'm an open person, but I'm also, you know, I have a private life too, and, and I like.
40:40that introvert side of me. So it's, um, it's not a struggle. It's just something I reckon reconcile all the time in that I'm in an interesting situation that has a significant public persona to somebody who is happiest on a Friday night sitting home, you know, watching Netflix or reading a book. No. So, yeah. And, and that's kind of what I was trying to get at is you are, you are pretty well known. And.
41:09Are you, I don't know what stores you shop at, but I mean, if you were going to go to Walmart, can you go to Walmart and be comfortable walking through and picking up what you need and leaving? I can. And, you know, I appreciate when people, I can tell, you know, a few times when somebody, you know that they recognize you, but they're not coming up to you and everything.
41:39If they did, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine. But you know, when the people do come up, I love that. I love to meet people. I really do. I always considered an honor when they are, you know, tickled to run into me and introduce themselves and say, hi, I don't, I never take that for granted. I'm, I'm always honored and flattered. And, um, you know, we're all doing this, we're all in this together. And if I'm somebody that they listen to or watch or spend time with, then I
42:09I feel like I owe it to them at the least to recognize that and be grateful for that. But I do not, one thing I will say, I'm thankful that I do not have any kind of ego that makes me feel, makes me think that I have anything over anybody else. I feel like we're all equal and we're all in this together and that's the way it should be. And so...
42:36Yeah, I get recognized, but you know, more often than not, it's, it's as if I can walk into Walmart like anybody else and walk out and it's just, you know, just another day. Okay. I was, I was just curious because I am terribly shy, which is why I do a podcast, not a video thing. And, uh, I can't imagine being in your shoes or anyone else's shoes where you are.
43:04recognizable to the general public. I don't want to be that ever. And if I am, it'll play out the way it plays out, but it's just not something I aspire to. And I also get really anxious when I talk to people like you or Joel Salatin, who I interviewed like a month ago. And I was so nervous to interview him because he's, he's
43:31famous in quotation marks and he is, he's a big deal in this homesteading gardening world. Yes. And I had to remind myself 20 times the day that I was going to interview him that he gets up in the morning and he drinks his beverage of choice and he eats breakfast and he puts on his pants one leg at a time, just like everybody else does. I was shaking when I sat down to interview him.
44:00And my husband said to me last night, he said, so you're talking to Joe Lamp'l tomorrow evening? And I said, yes. And he said, are you as nervous as you were as the Joel Salatin thing? And I'm like, no, I said, because Joel was super nice and gracious and kind and was willing to entertain my questions. I said, I think I'm over the, the scared to death part. Now I'm just excited. Good. So yeah, it's crazy. When you.
44:29when you start something new, and then you find out that you love it, and then you find out that you get to interview someone that you're really curious about, there is this bubble of excitement that is just crazy. So I've been living in a bubble of crazy excitement every time I get to talk to someone who I'm really curious about, and it doesn't matter if it's you,
44:58or Joel at your levels of, of whatever it is you're doing. Or if it's the person that just started a cottage food business in the town over who is so excited to be able to talk about what they love. Yes. This is true. So I think, I think I'm just as excited about what I'm doing at this stage in my life, as you were at eight years old to realize that that piece of the plant grew. That's fantastic. And why shouldn't you be really, I mean, why?
45:27Why should it be at eight years old for me more exciting than you with this new venture for you at whatever age that is. And you know, you're, you are not old. You got a lot of years ahead of you. So why, why not embrace that and have fun with it and take it where it goes. I keep calling it my midlife crisis, my late midlife crisis. Call it what you want. It is what it is, but it's a great medium to meet a lot of people.
45:57have great conversations and have people find you and listen to you and become fans of your show and of you and look to you for those conversations and that information and you know, the, the thing that I love about audio over video and why I, you know, I'm definitely slowing down on the video. I just.
46:22I feel like I've been doing it. I will have been doing it for over 20 years. It's like I'm ready to just not be in front of the camera all the time. But I don't know that it'll ever stop with the audio because I feel like the audio is a much more intimate connection with the people that are listening to you. You're literally in their ears, you know? And it's like, they don't have to stop what other thing they're doing, whether that's gardening or driving or whatever. They still get to...
46:52hear or consume what you have to offer and they can do it for longer. Statistically, the people are much more open to listening for longer than I think they are sitting in one place watching something. And so, um, there's something magical about audio that I think TV or video just is never going to have. I think audio requires a different kind of focus. I know that when I am listening,
47:22podcasts, I'm very aware of people's tones of voice and inflection. And when they get caught up in something, it comes through in their voice. And I love music and I sing and I just, I love sound. So for me, podcasting is, it's the best way for me to be able to get people's stories out.
47:48I don't really want to tell my story. I don't think that my story is all that interesting. I want the people that I'm talking to, to tell me their stories so that other people hear them so that the people listening to them can be inspired. There are a lot of great stories out there and plenty of people to tell them. And I think your role and my role as podcasters is to find those stories and ask good questions and just let them go and
48:15guide the conversation if necessary, but other than that, be prepared, you know, and, and guide it with great questions. And that's, I think that's the secret formula to a great podcast. Yeah, I do too. And I'm just still dumbfounded that I started this and I'm still doing it eight months later. So how did Mary, how did you, how did you, if I can just digress or divert a little bit on that note. Um, so that's not that long ago. And, and you sound great. You, you got this figured out.
48:45How did you teach yourself how to do this? I talk a lot. I was saying this to someone yesterday. I have had the resets of in-laws in my lifetime because I've been married three times now. Third one's a charm. I'm keeping him. He's amazing. I raised four kids in a very tiny house. So a lot of communication.
49:13a lot of compromise, a lot of teaching my children how to communicate in a way that wasn't I hate you, I hate you and door slamming. And I don't know, I just, I don't think I taught myself anything. I think that I just really am curious. And I really like talking with people. I do not like being in many people's presence at the same time.
49:43So I was just like, Hey, the podcast sounds like fun. I need a thing. I'm going to try doing a podcast. Well, there's that side of it, what you just mentioned. And that's a special set. That's, you know, one of the most important parts about the success, but then there's the technical side too, that you have to figure out and not be afraid to, you know, dive into also, and that can be very intimidating for a lot of people. Although I think it's gotten easier than it used to be. It's there's still a lot to, to deal with there. Google.
50:12Google knows everything. I, honest to God, I, my son and I, I've said this before on the podcast, my son and I were going to do a podcast called Mother and Son Days, S-O-N, S-U-N. He suggested it and I was like, yeah, that'd be really fun. And I said, what is it? And he said, yeah, how we kind of sit around, shoot the shit, cause we're always hanging out and talking and doing stuff together. And I said, yeah. He says, like that.
50:42And I said, okay, we can try. So we recorded two half an hour episodes. They never saw the light of day. We never did anything with them because he said, I don't want to do this. And I said, why? And he said, because it's not spontaneous. And I said, it can't be spontaneous. If we're going to record it, we have to have a topic. We have to have an idea and we need to have something to talk about. I said, it's not the same as.
51:08As we saw something on the news and started riffing on it right then. So I really enjoyed the recording part of it and the talking part of it and the listening to his ideas part of it, but he didn't want to continue it. So I spent six months trying to figure out how I could do a podcast, but I didn't know what the subject was going to be. Oh, and then we were talking last summer about how hard it is to market.
51:38a small business because we had started a small business with our gardens and we made lip balms and soaps and stuff and we were selling at the farmers market. And I have a tiny little bit of experience in marketing and PR because I worked for a friend who had a PR company. So my husband and I were talking about it and I said, you know, I said the podcast could be people who are doing what we're doing but they're doing it differently and it could be a way to market them.
52:08And he said, do that. So that's how it came about in the process. I have learned so many cool secrets and tips and tricks about gardening and about baking and about making things. So I am gaining so much more than I thought that I would. And I'm hoping and really hoping that the people who listen to the podcast are either being inspired or reassured.
52:38or just entertaining? Well, they are any one or three, all three of those things, because if not, um, they have too many other options and they're not going to keep listening to you if they're not being fed personally from your podcast. So, um, you know, those repeat listeners are gold to you and it's a huge compliment to you that the work you're doing is meaningful to them and everyone that continues to come back and listen to you. So, um,
53:07You know, embrace that and again, don't take that for granted. I know you won't, but that's with all the options we have today in the time that we've got, which seems to be less and less all the time. And the attention spans are now down in the second single, single digit seconds. In many cases, thanks to tick-tock, you know, we really have to get their attention quickly and, and so good for you that you. Grab this by the book, grab the bull by the horns and figured it out and, and are doing it. Yeah. And.
53:37The thing I keep coming back to is there are people who are entertained watching cats clean themselves on YouTube. This is way more interesting than that, I think. And I get to talk to people like you, who really have made a life and a living doing something you absolutely love. And you can do it. It's possible to make that happen. And you're living proof of it.
54:06So, I don't know. I mean, at this point, I'm just rambling because it's been over 45 minutes and I don't know what else to say. But, yeah, there's so much going on in the world right now that is not great. And finding something that you can hang on to that gives you faith that it's okay is really important. And I feel like...
54:35gardening and homesteading and cooking wings from scratch is an everyday thing that happens that is always going to be good.
54:47So what you're doing is important. What I'm doing is important. What my friend who has goats is doing is important because nature abhors a vacuum. I read that somewhere at some point. And the world would be just fine without humans on it. Nature would continue to do what it's doing. So basically we're here. I'm not sure why humans are here.
55:17But nature doesn't really care about us humans. It cares about putting things together to grow. Yeah. I, and I like, uh, what you said a minute ago about, um, you know, there's enough.
55:36bad news or news and just doesn't have conflict out there right now. And there's just a lot of, um, tension and exposure to things that, you know, we may choose or choose not to be a part of, but I think when we create opportunities, like what you and I are doing, it, it gives those who would rather be fed positive information and not waste their time on the, on the bad stuff.
56:04the chance to do that. And, you know, I'm one of those people on the, on the listening side, on the content consumption side, who chooses to spend my time listening to, you know, positive gardening podcast or, you know, not necessarily the news of the day, because I mean, these days is it ever good anymore? I don't know, but, um, I can tell you this at the end of the day, I feel much better and more positive and more hopeful.
56:34When I fill my day with positive energy, which includes podcasts like ours and other good, you know, curated content and cloister that together so that I kind of create the world that I want to spend my time in through the content that other people create that resonates with me. And I think that's what your listeners are doing with your podcast. I certainly hope so. Um,
57:02I do have one more question for you before I let you go. Okay. You, you have a daughter. Yes. Two. Two daughters. Okay. Are they, are they adult children or are they still in their teens? Adult 25 and 26. Okay. So, so what did they think of dad's job as it were? You know, it's, it's all they've ever known. And so they don't think anything of it. They just know that I'm out in the garden all the time. My life is gardening.
57:31My crew is here all the time and it's just their extended family. And other than that, I'm just dad. I am, I am, you know, the guy dealing with the dog throw up and, you know, I'm just that I'm the same as everybody else to them and that, and I am, but I think the, the, if nothing else came of it from how my, my girls think of me, I, I, I do think they recognize that I. They see.
58:01They see that I am recognized a lot because they're with me when other people, you know, so they see it and, and, and to them, I guess it's, it's kind of cool. Or they think a lot of it. And I, I kind of don't, I just kind of shrug it off. And I'm, like I said, I'm, I'm thankful for it. But my point in telling you that is that, um, I'm glad that they don't think that I'm, you know, anything special in that regard, I, I, I want them to think I'm special to them because of how I treat them, of course, but, um,
58:31The neat story that I'll always remember. And if nothing else ever happens, it would be hard to top this. But when my youngest daughter, who at the time was, um, you know, one and a half or two, I mean, barely able to speak, but on that Saturday morning, when you prop your little kids down in front of a PBS for Teletubbies or what Sesame street or whatever's on that they like to watch at that time, you know, it was a chance for me to.
59:01pop out around the corner into the garden and I'm sure my wife was home. But anyway, she's watching television on a Saturday morning and it's PBS. And, um, I'm out in the backyard. And then, and the next thing that came on after whatever she was watching was one of my shows. And so she's not old enough to know that I'm on television, but she sees her dad on the TV screen, but she looks outside and she sees me working out in the yard.
59:30not get her head around what is happening. So she, she comes out to the door and she opens it up and she's trying to tell me what she's seeing and she's pointing to the TV, but looking at me and pointing back to the TV and she just can't figure it out. And I walked in and I realized what was going on and it was just, I guess it's one of those moments where you had to be there, but it was priceless. And the fact that she just couldn't quite get her head around that for the longest time tickled me to death and I'll never forget it, but
59:58I don't know. I'm not sure the tie into what you were saying, but, um, that is super cute. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, you know, I'm just, they take me in stride and that's good enough for me. Okay. Well, the reason I asked you is because my, my dad is a very outgoing, very personal man and has been the entire time I have been in his life. And I can remember going places and people
01:00:28that I had never met before would be like, hey, Cal, how you doing across the room? No idea he was going to see them, nothing. My dad was in the medical field. He used to repair all the machines that keep people alive. And he lived in Maine, still lives in Maine. He's never gonna not live in Maine. And so all these people that he would meet at the hospitals that he worked at, at the conferences he would go to,
01:00:58He would just run into them or they would run into him in public. And my dad was terrible about introducing me or my sister or my brother to these people who came up to talk to him. They would just have their conversation. You'd be standing there like, you know, bookends and no idea who these people were. And I was with my dad when I was about 18, I think.
01:01:26And we were somewhere and some person said, hey, Cal, how you doing? And I was like, oh, here we go again. The person walked over, shook my dad's hand. How you been? How come you haven't been at, da da da. And I'm standing there feeling like a fifth wheel. And the guy says, so who is this lovely young lady? Not realizing that I was dad's daughter. And my dad said, oh, this is my daughter, Lynn. My name's Lynn. And Lynn, this is so and so.
01:01:55And I just felt so weird about the fact that my dad was so quote unquote, popular in his world. And I finally said to him, I said, why do you never introduce us kids to the people that come up to you? And he said, because it's not relevant.
01:02:14I said, we're not relevant. He said, no, they're not relevant to you. And that changed my whole perspective because he's right. None of those people were relevant to my world. And so I feel like maybe, maybe it's just the flipping, the first perception and perspective on it. Perhaps I hadn't thought about it. Because a lot of the people that that will recognize you aren't
01:02:42relevant at all to your daughter's lives.
01:02:47Yeah, yeah. Interesting perspective. Yeah, and I was always offended because my dad didn't introduce me. And when he finally said it that way, I was like, oh, I now I understand. Okay, that makes sense. So I don't know, maybe that's a thing for you to ponder in your role today.
01:03:08All right, Joe, I can't tell you what a pleasure it has been to chat with you and learn about your life and your passions for gardening. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. It was a fun conversation and you're, you're doing great. And, um, thank you for putting me on your list of people that you wanted to connect with. Oh, absolutely. I have more. I haven't reached out to anybody yet, but I have more. It's going to be fun. Yeah.
01:03:37Get that momentum going and keep them in your, on your calendar. So you've got a consistent, uh, backlog of people that you've, you're ready to roll out there on the next, uh, next episode. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. For sure. I have, I have like 15 episodes or recordings, I guess, backlogged right now that I need to get up next two weeks, but I have, I'm trying to pepper this with things that educate people who are already doing the thing.
01:04:07And people like you and Joel and people like you and Joel. Um, and then just the average everyday doer who's, who's doing the thing. And I think, I think it's a really good combination. So I don't know who's next on the level of you and Joel, but I'm going to find somebody. We'll see what happens. They're all over the place. You'll find them. Yep. Absolutely. All right. Thanks, Joe. Have a good night. You're welcome.
01:04:37You too. Bye.
 

Big Whiskey Creek Range

Today I'm talking with Chebrai at Big Whiskey Creek Range. You can also follow on Facebook.
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 Chebrai at Big Whiskey Creek Range. And when I first read the name, I thought it was ranch and I've been thinking it's ranch the entire time. Good morning, Chebrai. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good.
00:28This being over 50 thing that I got going on, I just think I read things the right way and then I realized that it's not ranch, it's range. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do. I have been pretty enamored with the farm life since I was a little girl. I can remember just being on my grandparents farm and it really ingrained like a passion for animals and farm life.
00:58So I guess when I grew up, I always knew that farm life would be it. And I was really lucky to meet my husband who also loved the homesteading self-sufficiency life and big Whiskey Creek range was born. The range part actually comes from us having a small little shooting range in the back. So. Okay.
01:28Awesome. So when did you guys start doing this? We started in 2019 and we got six chickens. And I remember going, yep, we can handle this. I had raised horses and trained horses. So I kind of knew what I was doing and thought chickens wouldn't be a big deal. And now here we are with, I don't count anymore.
01:54But there's goats and rabbits and ducks and chickens and a horse and some pigs Yeah, you got hooked in with the gateway drug of chicken yes, yes we did Yeah We we got hooked in with chickens when we lived in town Because the bird flu was going through and I was like, you know I'd really like to have eggs so I can make cookies for the kids and if this bird flu thing is a real
02:22problem and eggs go up to $10 a dozen, I don't want to pay $10 a dozen. So we bought four chickens and that was really cool. And then we moved here like almost four years ago now and we have 18 chickens now. So yeah, it meant chicken math. Chicken math is real. The only problem is that I found that chicken math starts applying to all the different animals as well.
02:50It does. It's an umbrella term for, I got this, I got this handled, I know what I'm doing, what's the next thing I'm going to bring onto the farm? We tried bunnies, I have talked about this at least four times on the previous episodes so far. They were terrible at reproducing, so we decided we didn't want to feed rabbits that didn't give us any return. They were dumb bunnies.
03:18We have, I think I have seven or eight litters out there right now. I have a mama that was due yesterday, but she hasn't kindled yet, so I'm impatiently waiting for those. Yeah, and nothing cuter than a baby bunny. Nothing. Yeah, I feel like the sweet spot is like three weeks old and they just, they look like an adult rabbit, but they're so small and fluffy. Yeah, and if you've handled...
03:47them since they were born, they like to be held and petted. Oh yeah, we have three kids and they handle them daily so they are of course, you know, super snuggly. Yeah, they're a lot like kittens except that they don't meow. Yes, yeah and well I mean I was going to say I feel like their nails are sharper but they might be about the same. It's a different sharp because we did get one litter.
04:16Yeah, they're pokey, but yeah, but kitten nails are curved down and so they hook into whatever they get hold of and If you pull away, it doesn't help you you just push, you know, so but anyway, um, so How do you I don't know? I want to ask you. How do you feel about what do what you do? Do you love it all the time? All the time. No, I'm
04:45I think the good part is that I'm very passionate about what we do. Before we started getting the animals, I went and found the breeds that I wanted and that I loved the traits for. I think that really helps because there are days where it's hard and you just want to quit. At the end of the day, you crawl into bed if you make it to bed and you just lay there and go, okay, is it worth it?
05:15Every morning I wake up and I walk out to the barn and I start milking and the birds are singing and the sun's rising and it's like, yeah, yeah, it is worth it. It might be hard but kind of our family saying is we're not quitters. So we keep going. Yeah, and it's really hard to quit when you have living beings counting on you. Yeah, yeah, it is, it is. And that's part of it. I think
05:45a mom also helps me want to take care of more. So I'm never one to turn down another mouth. Yeah, and I'm exactly the opposite. When we bought this place, we had big, big ideas. Because when you buy acreage, and we only have three acres, but to us, that was a big jump. You have big ideas. You want to get
06:14animals and you want to have a huge garden and you want to have a greenhouse and you want to make it go and My husband was like we should get goats and we should get sheep and we should get and I said It's three acres and only about an acre and a half of it would be usable for food for to feed the critters I said you want a huge garden because you love gardens first, right? He said yeah I said we're not gonna have room to graze goats or
06:44cheap. So that's probably not gonna work. And he said, but you love goats. And I said, I love other people's goats. I'll go visit other people's goats. That's fine. But the other thing that I have discovered, I was thinking about this yesterday and I was hoping I would be able to work it into this interview. I am very one task focused. Like, like,
07:07Since I started this podcast, I have been obsessed with researching and learning about how to do this because I didn't know what I was doing when I started it. I love it. I love everything about it. I love talking to you guys, learning from you, sharing what I learned with listeners and especially my husband because he has ADD. So anytime I learn something new, he wants to know because he either wants to think about trying it or he wants to try it.
07:36Yes. I don't have ADD. I am very organized. I am very linear thinking. I am very focused, but not in the way that he's focused when he gets a new idea. So for me, this particular lifestyle has been a huge adjustment because there's always something going on and it's not the same theme for the entire day.
08:05Yesterday was Mother's Day. And I don't release the podcast in chronological order. So clearly when people are listening to this, it will not be yesterday was Mother's Day. But yesterday was Mother's Day. And he had asked me Saturday if we wanted to order food from our favorite dive bar in town. It's really good food. And have that for Mother's Day for lunch. And I was like, why don't we have it Saturday? Because you're going to be busy outside all day Sunday because the weather is going to be gorgeous, which it was.
08:35So we had dive bar food for lunch for Saturday. I had a burger and potato salad and onion rings and I love that stuff but I only do it once in a while. And forgot that that would mean that I would need to provide food for him and the kid on Mother's Day, which is fine. So our rhubarb is coming in. And I had asked him to pick up strawberries and I was gonna make scones and do like a strawberry rhubarb sauce shortcake with whipped cream thing for dessert yesterday.
09:05And then I was like, oh, we might want to eat real food before we dessert. So I asked him while he was out to pick up salad mix and, um, stuff for chef salads, cause I was like, that's, that's good. That'll offset Saturday's binge on greasy dive bar food. And I had podcast stuff to do and I had emails to respond to. I, on Saturday and Sunday, I try to catch up on everything comes in during the week.
09:30So I spent the entire day inside doing computer stuff and getting food together. And he and the kid went out and put more stuff together for the greenhouse that they're building. And it was just a crazy day of up and down and up and down and doing things. And I got a phone call from my daughter. I got a phone call from my stepson. They both wanted to talk for at least half an hour. It was a very chaotic day for me. And it really made me think about what we're doing here.
10:00I said to my husband last night, I said, after you get done with your training, next week he's got a thing with work. I said, can we go somewhere where it's quiet and have like a not terrible for us meal, just you and I, and can we talk through what the plan is for, what the five-year plan is from here to five years out? I said, because I'm feeling really, really chaotic and I don't enjoy that at all.
10:29He was like, yeah, it might be time, because we'll have lived here four years in August. It might be time to reevaluate the plan. I said, I love you. Thank you. I need to reevaluate the plan. So I don't know if that resonates with you, but when you jump into this stuff, it's a lot at first. And then you settle into wherever you are, and you think you've got it handled.
10:55And then something will happen and you're like, it might be time to reevaluate what it is we're doing, why we're doing it. Yeah, and it's kind of funny because I think I relate to your husband as like the ADHD stuff. I am very ADHD and I have to have several things going on in order to accomplish anything. The other day I was working in the garage and I am...
11:24building bee barn frames and I'm putting garden beds together and I was doing something else for rabbits and I was just switching. I'd get tired of fastening nuts and bolts, so I'd move to the bee frames and I'd put a couple frames together and then I'd go move to my rabbit stuff. It was just, it was a circle. Yeah, yeah, that's how he is too. Yeah, yeah.
11:49And I guess I at this point in my life, and I never thought I'd say that, but I thrive on chaos. We are kids are we have three of them and they're young and we homeschool. So they're home all the time. And my husband's gone pretty often for work. So, you know, a lot of the times I'm juggling the kids and the farm and making all of the stuff for our we we just recently actually started Big Whiskey Creek Naturals.
12:18which we're branching off to kind of do non-toxic living. So I've been prepping for that because our first farmers market was this weekend and it's been chaos, but it's almost felt like the most organized I've been. Yep. Yeah, I have such a hard time. I love him. I must say this, I love my husband to pieces, but I have such a hard time because of the...
12:48everything is all over the place all the time and he doesn't seem to notice and then all of a sudden like after months of this he's like my desk is a mess and he just blitzkriegs his desktop and just tosses things and sorts it out and gets it put away and filed and I'm like oh my god it's so beautiful but it's gonna last for five minutes. We call that rage cleaning. Yeah he calls it blitzkrieg
13:17thing but I pick like a week where I'm like okay the countertop really needs to get cleaned off and things need to get put away and I'm terrible because I'm a cook. I love to cook so I will leave like the coffee bag on the counter because I know I'm going to need it within six hours because I drink coffee all the time.
13:41So there's always a bag of coffee beans on the counter. There's always the coffee grinder on the counter. I don't have a coffee station. I wish that I did, because that would be organized. But I just, I am going through a thing right now where I feel like my house looks like a bomb went off in it. And I clean one thing.
14:02And 10 minutes later, it's a mess again. I'm like, oh my God, this is useless. Why am I even bothering to clean? You know? And it's that time of year. Everybody's outside. It is, it is. It's springtime. We're hardly inside, I feel like. So anytime somebody comes over, I'm like, okay, don't mind inside. We haven't been inside, so. Yeah. Yeah, and I feel like I am never actually clean for more than five minutes. Like the only time I feel really clean is the five minutes after I get out of the shower.
14:32Yes. I'm like, okay, I am going through something right now. I don't know what it is, but I need to get some organization back in my life. And the first thing I need to do is get a handle on me. And then I will know what I need to request from him. Yeah. So it's a thing I go through this about every five years where I'm like, okay, what am I doing? What? Why am I doing it? And what do I need
15:01What am I doing? We try and do five year plans, but I feel like it's just so hard. And it might just be the years of life we're in, I guess, or the stage that we're in where everybody's just constantly changing and something's always going on and the world's fluctuating so much that it's hard to get a good five year plan going, I feel like.
15:30Yeah, and I feel weird about saying we need to make a five-year plan because we're very much still in the throes of learning what we're doing here. So we're very immersed in, okay, so we've got this greenhouse now almost finished. What are we going to do with that? And clearly, a greenhouse is to start seeds in. It is to do maybe potted plants in. We're going to put in a couple raised beds so we can grow stuff quote unquote in-ground this fall.
16:00because it's a heated greenhouse. But my husband said the other day, he said, I think that we should start flowering, hanging plant pots next, next spring. And we can hang them from the beams in the greenhouse and we can have baskets ready for Mother's Day. So people can come and buy them at the greenhouse. I was like, oh my God, how many ideas do you have? He's like, well, I didn't know.
16:29He said, I didn't know the beams were going to be exposed. We'll be able to put eye hooks up there and hang baskets. And I was like, that is brilliant. But, oh, okay. And he said, you're starting to get overwhelmed with this. I said, I am. I said, honey, I said, I spent my years in the trenches raising four kids. And it was constant crazy. I said, I've had about a year and a half of not constant crazy. Cause we finally got settled in here.
16:57I said, and now I feel like we're ramping back up to constant crazy. I said, I can't handle it anymore. I'm going to be 55 in November. I said, I would like my quote unquote golden years to not be nuts. Yeah. Okay. He said, I understand. He said, I, he said, I think that when you see the potted plants, the hanging potted plants, you will be happy that we're doing it. I said, yeah, I think so too. I said, but.
17:25Could you maybe do a little preamble from now on when you're going to generate or share a new idea? I had a thought it would be a good start. I was going to say I feel like that is my husband. My husband is you and I am your husband. And it's not gender specific by any means. Not at all. So now we've talked about philosophy and getting older and chaos and calm.
17:55You have the black chickens. I don't know what they're called. Yes, the I am Samanis. Yeah, those. They do not lay black colored eggs, I read. They do not. I always get asked that, but they actually lay a very light tan almost pinkish egg. But everything about them is black, right? Yeah, yeah. Their meat, their organs, their blood's not, but
18:21Um, the, uh, we actually did get black layers, but those are kaiugas for ducks and they only stay black for the first kind of couple of lays and then it has to reset yearly. Oh, okay. Yeah. I've been reading about these, these black chickens that their, their wings, their feathers are black, their skin is black, their meat, their meat is dark. Yes. Their meat's very dark. And I've never seen one before and I saw that you have them and I was like, Ooh, I need to ask her.
18:50because I thought that they didn't have black eggs, but who knows? No, they sadly don't. We have a lot of rainbow eggs, and black eggs are the elusive. Yeah, I don't, I mean, you said that the one you were just mentioning has a black egg, but it doesn't, they don't continue to lay them. Yeah, they're just the bloom on the outside. So the actual eggs are like, they can be a light blue, but they're more white, and then they just have a...
19:18black dark gray bloom. Okay. All right. Thank you for clearing that up. I thought that was the case, but I thought I would ask. And then tell me about what you're doing with the soaps and stuff. It all kind of just started because we got goats. I knew that I wanted to switch us to, you know, more of a natural lifestyle. And so
19:45was just the first step. We have so much milk. So it's easy, you know, to freeze some and then make a batch of soap. And it kind of blossomed into, okay, well, let's get rid of all the toxic stuff. So now I'm making, you know, tooth powder and healing salves and just all sorts of stuff to promote a more healthy, holistic lifestyle.
20:14It's so, okay, it's not easy to do, but it's simple. It's really simple to do. Yes, yes, and that's something that I'm hoping to get into. I hope my goal is that I can make blog posts to share the recipes, because I want everybody to have access to it, but if they don't have the time or the actual physical things to make the products, then I want to be able to provide that for them.
20:43Yeah, we do soaps, we do lip balms, we do salves, we do candles. And it's really weird because to me all of that is like cooking because it's all chemistry. And I love to cook. So when I first made my first lip balm, I was like, this is very much like cooking. It's a recipe. And I really love the process of cooking.
21:08recipe making it. Yes. We're going to go back to the not chaotic thing again. It is very calming. It is very Zen. It is something that you have to focus on doing and you're not doing anything else while you're making something. Right. Yeah. I think a lot of people probably don't realize how much planning and researching goes into a lot of the formulations. We kind of
21:38when I'm making soaps and stuff. Yeah, and it's fun. Yeah. When we first made soaps, we made unsended soap because it was the easiest thing to do. And it's cold processed lye soap. Hey, I said it right. I usually say cold pressed and then I change it to processed. That one is the easiest to do because you're not messing around with essential oils or fragrance oils. Yep.
22:05And it worked great. I loved it. My skin didn't itch anymore. I, the reason we started making it is because I would get itchy from store bought soap and loved this stuff and our friends and neighbors love this stuff too. So we were like, we need to make more. And I said, I think we should do a lemon scented soap because I love lemon everything. And my husband was like, cool, what, what should we use to put in it to make it smell like lemon? And I said, I don't know. I have to look it up.
22:34So we ended up using lemon grass essential oil. Okay. And oh my God, it was lovely. Yes. And we screwed up the first batch. We over fatted it. I don't know what the word is. There's a word for that. Too much oil. Yeah. So it's very oily soap and it takes forever to cure and it doesn't look right and it's still slippery. And we screwed up the first batch. And so we made that the bathroom sink soap.
23:03because that way nobody slipped in the shower with the oils. And so my hands smelled like lemon for like six months because I would use it every time I washed my hands in the bathroom. And it made the bathroom smell amazing. And then we finally got it figured out and made a batch of lemon scented soap for the bathtub and the shower. And it didn't screw up that time. So we gave that to our friends to try. And they were like, can you make other scents? And I said, yeah.
23:33and somebody said, can you do like a clove cinnamon one? And I didn't know if I could do a clove cinnamon one. So I looked that up too. And the clove cinnamon one, we also put sweet orange oil in it and oh, it's so lovely. So the reason I'm telling you this is the fun part of soaps is if you can find a fragrance oil that's soap safe, or if you can use an essential oil that you've never tried before.
24:02and it works. It's so exciting. It's so exciting. And it's been, it's been cool, just kind of like, not winging it, but winging it with patterns and swirls and stuff. I, I love being artistic. And soap is just kind of an extension of that. It's been fun. It's it's crafting in a, in a different manner. And I
24:30I keep getting told that I'm becoming a grandma already. But I'm oddly okay with that. You are not a grandma already. That's like telling someone who paints that they're a grandma. They're not a grandma. Most people have just lost touch with the simplistic
25:00side of things that anytime anybody goes back to those ways, they're old, you know? Or they're seen as old. Yeah, but you got to have the energy to do this stuff. And that's young. Yeah, it's very young. I climb into bed sometimes and I'm like, boy, how old am I?
25:27Uh-huh, yeah, after being on my feet most of the day yesterday and I'm not on my feet all day every day very often. And I was on my feet almost all day yesterday and when I crawled in bed last night, I had to like stretch before I crawled up and went to sleep. And I'm going to be 55. I am not 25. I do not have the energy that I used to have. And there's something about menopause that changes how your joints feel.
25:56and how your body feels and the energy levels that you have. So I don't have it. I don't have it anymore. You're 32, you said? I just turned 30 this year. Yeah, I've been saying that 30 was gonna be it for me for probably the better part of five years. And so far, it's been all it's supposed to be, or I've hoped it to be. So it's been fun, you know, thinking that maybe I wished this for myself.
26:26I, yeah. Yeah. Um, my thirties and forties were the best years of my life for feeling strong and being healthy and I don't know, feeling like I had the world licked, like, like I knew where I fit. I knew what I was doing. I didn't have to put up with people's crap anymore. Cause I just was like, nope. That makes me feel so good though. Yep. I hit 30 and I was like, okay, I do not have to be nice.
26:56I still have to be kind, but I don't have to be fake nice. If I don't like something, I'm allowed to say it. And so I was just like, okay, I don't appreciate this thing that you're doing. And if you could not do that anymore around me, that'd be great. And if you must persist, then I won't be around you. And that's not how I said it, but that's how I was. And the real cream of the crop of friends came to the top. Yeah. It was fabulous.
27:26I'm finding that more often than not, my friends are coming from extended family. So that's been fun. And it's been interesting re-evaluating myself, I feel like also. But everybody seems so scared to turn 30 that it was hard for me who was excited to turn 30 to be like, yeah, woohoo.
27:56It was the best times because I'm here for it. Yeah. My son who's in the other room who's 22, I had him at 32 years old. And I knew who I was with him. Yeah. When I had him. I had my daughter, my first child when I was 20 years old. And I had no idea who I was. I had no idea what I was doing. It was a constant learning curve. And she.
28:26says that I was the best mom ever, but my son, I feel like my last child, I feel like I had a better handle on myself. And I had already taken care of two babies and a stepson. So I knew what to do with a fourth child. So yeah, there's something to be said for age, but I'll tell you what, I had all the energy in the world for my daughter when I was 20.
28:55Yes. With the last baby I had when he was a newborn, she was 12, my stepson was 10, my second son of my body was four and a half, and the youngest was brand new. And oh my God, I was busy every second of every day. Yeah. I can vividly remember trying to take naps. Our oldest right now, he's eight and then we have a four-year-old and a two-year-old little girls.
29:25and they are crazy. There is not a lot of time that goes by that mom's not being yelled or somebody's not yelling at each other. Yeah, our house was loud. And our house was 850 square feet of living space with my husband, my four kids and me. I don't know how big ours is, but it's not very big.
29:55Uh, we actually part of the house, the original house was just a one room house. Um, and this used to be, I feel like it used to be some sort of like farm yard. And this was just a little farm hand house and it's since been, you know, extinct, like expanded and built on and there's enough room for us, but I don't, I don't know for how much longer. Yeah.
30:22I understand. Believe me, I understand. We had three bedrooms and so my daughter had the small bedroom upstairs. The three boys were in the loft style bedroom off of her bedroom and then we had the bedroom downstairs. And as soon as my daughter moved out, the next oldest boy moved into the small room. And when he moved out, the next oldest boy moved into the small room. So when it was just my youngest at home,
30:52He had both bedrooms upstairs to himself. So one room was for gaming and one room was for sleeping. He was very excited about this turn of events. Oh, I can imagine. So yeah, it's, I don't know, every season of life is different and I am really enjoying this particular season because I'm not raising small children anymore. Yes. It was great while I was doing it. I loved every second of it,
31:22I'm glad that they're raised and they're adults and they can make their own food and do their own laundry and three of them live outside our house at this point. The youngest is still here. So it's kind of great to work myself out of that job as it were. I feel like we're very philosophical this morning. I didn't mean to do that. Okay. So back to Big Whiskey Creek Range. Do you guys, I understand that you're selling your...
31:52natural product stuff. Yeah. But are you selling eggs or meat or whatever too? Yeah. So we've been taking the eggs to the farmer's market. We haven't gotten into selling meat yet just because there's more stipulations. We looked into Iowa past the raw milk is legal.
32:16And we we looked into selling milk, but there's still so many holes to jump through like you have you can't have more than 10 Animals being milked at a time. You have to be testing your milk and the animals monthly It just becomes almost not worth it. It just negates itself. So our
32:41Our milk's all personal consumption and soap's been the easiest outlet for it. But our extra meat animals like rabbits, we sell those. Or our extra goats, we sell those. Okay. Can you use goat milk in a lotion? Yeah. I actually make goat milk lotion. Since it's...
33:07milk. I do use a natural preservative and I always tell people it's best stored in the refrigerator just because it won't be as stable. But you definitely can. It still has like the nourishing goat milk properties. Okay, I didn't know because I've heard a lot about goat milk soap. I've seen goat milk soap for sale, but I haven't seen a lot of goat milk lotions or
33:36It just becomes a little trickier because milk isn't as stable as water. Right. And in the soap, it doesn't matter because it goes through the saponification stage and then it basically cooks it sort of from the heat. Yeah. And the lotion, it doesn't have that chemical process, but chemical reaction that happens. Yeah. I love the word saponification. When I learned that that's what that's called.
34:04I was like, what a beautiful word. And I am a word nerd. I love words. I love reading. I love writing. I love talking. If you couldn't tell, I know. And so when I learn words like that, I try to use them correctly. And I've had so many people ask me about soap. And they're like, how does it work? How does it become soap? And I'm like, well, it goes through a process called saponification. And they'd go, what?
34:33And I say, so, ponification. And they say, oh, okay. Cause I say it too fast. And they're like, what does that mean? I'm like, basically it cooks. It gets hot and then it cools down. And in that process, it becomes soap. And they're like, that's a big word for that. Yes, it sure is. Yes. But there's something so musical about that word that every time I say it, I just grin inside my head. Yeah, it's a good word. I like it.
35:03Yeah, I love serendipity too. I think that serendipity is one of the best words ever invented. Serendipity basically means when everything comes together for the good. And I just, I love serendipity. I think it's a fantastic word and a fantastic promise. So that's my, my education for people day on words. I should do a podcast on books and word, but I'm just not there yet.
35:28Okay, Chebrai, I don't know why I'm so silly this morning and why we're doing Velocity 101, but I guess that's what the theme was for today. That's okay. I appreciate your time talking with me. And you guys have a website, right? Yes, we do. I'm actually today. I'll be getting it back up. We had market this weekend, so I took it down for inventory purposes, but it'll be back up today. OK, what is it? What's the website? BigW
35:58Sweet. So very easy. Yes. All right. Well, I hope that you have a wonderful day and keep doing what you're doing because you're doing it good. And thank you again. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Have a great day. You too. Bye. Bye.
 

The Honeyberry Farm

Today I'm talking with Bernis at The Honeyberry Farm. You can follow along on Facebook as well. 
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 Bernis at the Honey Berry Farm. Good morning, Bernis. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm just great. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the honey berries are growing. Good. It's a beautiful day in Minnesota for growing honey berries.
00:28Yep, we've had a week of rain and they're just loving it now that the sun's come out. Cool. So, tell me about yourself and Honey Berry Farm. Well, I grow honey berries along with my farmer husband, Jim, and we've been growing them for, well, about 14 years now. We planted our first ones in 2010 and we really like them. They are so...
00:55tasty and good and good for you. And we also offer, once we got into honeyberries, it kind of led, it was kind of the entry, you know, the gateway fruit drug. So we then got into tart cherries and currants and a whole bunch of other cold hearty specialty berries that we didn't know about, that we found out about just because we started to grow honeyberries.
01:22Nice. Are you up near the Canadian border? We're two hours south of the border of Minnesota with Manitoba. Okay. That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. Okay. So how did you, how did you decide to start doing this? Well, it started in the winter of 2010 when I was looking through a garden catalog and I noticed this strange looking berry that was kind of oblong and never seen it. It's a berry like that before. Usually berries are round, you know, but this had...
01:52kind of an irregular shape and it was bright blue, very attractive, and it was called a honey berry. So I ordered a couple and later that spring I got my first two bare root plants. They look like dead sticks. I was skeptical. I didn't think they'd grow. I had never ordered bare root plants before, but I stuck them in the ground and...
02:13actually had 50% success. One of them did not break dormancy, but the other one did. And usually bare root plants are just fine, but once in a while there's a dent in the batch. And so I had my first honeyberry bush growing and then I went to Canada and Googled cold hardy fruit and I found out that the University of Saskatchewan was developing – they had a breeding program for something called Fast Gap and the more I read about it, I thought, wow.
02:42I think that's what I ordered this spring. So sure enough, it's the Japanese name that they use in Canada, Hascap. Whereas down here we call it honey berry just because it's a lot easier to pronounce and it's a honeysuckle. It's the same thing. It's a honeysuckle berry, a blue edible blue honeysuckle. So that's kind of how the journey started, except there was one other key factor. I went to visit a friend.
03:11at a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada there. And we got talking gardening and I said, I asked her, have you ever heard of these haskaps? And she says, well, my brother-in-law got some. She has some planted behind her house. You wanna go see? So I said, sure. And we went and there she had probably half a dozen bushes or more. And they were just starting to ripen. They had just started to turn blue. And I had my first taste. I've had a berry and it just, the skin was so.
03:39tender, it just melted in my mouth and it had this interesting flavor I hadn't ever tasted before and I asked my friend, well, what do you do with them? And she said, nothing, my son eats them all off the bush. Well, that's what you first do is eat them off the bush, but they are so good for so many purposes, for jam and toppings and...
04:07put in your pancakes and anything that you would do with a blueberry basically. Nice. So they don't taste like blueberries, right? Well, there's a much more complex flavor in most of them. But what I have to tell you is that honey berries, they need two parents. Most of them need two parents to produce fruit like apple trees. They need cross pollination. So every child, like humans, is unique.
04:35different. You never know what a seedling is going to taste like. They have a lot of different flavors ranging from very mild, almost bland, to very strong, to put it mildly, even nasty. That's why these breeding programs do a lot of research, tasting their berries to select the ones that taste the best and grow well.
05:05bigger ones that grow vigorously and they breed for, you know, a good size. And yeah, it's just a fascinating area of research fruit breeding that I got to learn about as well. So, okay. So what conditions did they like to grow? Because I grew up in Maine and we had wild blueberry plants all over my parents' property. And
05:30Blueberries really like it kind of dappled sunshine and they really like acidic soil. So what do honey berries like to grow in? That was exactly what drew me to honey berries because we don't have acidic soil. So it was going to be very difficult for us to grow blueberries. Honey berries just need a, they grow best in like a 5.5 to 7.5 pH. So not in acidic soil. They can even grow.
05:59update in half in Canada that they have very alkaline soil in some of the prairie provinces up there, but kind of in that range. And we're just at a six and a half, so we really have ideal conditions and kind of a sandy loam with heavy clay underneath soil. Once they get established, they're very drought tolerant, but like any young plant, it really needs some babying to start off with with adequate water.
06:29And they don't do well with competition from grass and weeds. So if you keep the grass away and water them the first couple of years, then you should be just fine. OK. And how much sun do they need? Well, up here, you know, in zones two to five, they seem to do fine and, you know, actually prefer probably full sun. Well, definitely up in here in zone three, they prefer full sun.
06:58warmer zone, six to eight, they do need some protection from that hot afternoon sun is preferable. It depends what climate zone you're in and also what varieties you're growing. Okay, because I was thinking about getting some honey berry plants and putting them in here. We're in zone 4B, I think, in Lasore, Minnesota.
07:26I just didn't know the growing conditions for it because we have full sun all day where I want to put them. So yeah, that would be great. They should thrive there. Yeah. And I don't want to grow like an acre of them, but just a couple to see how they do would be kind of fun. Yeah. So there's a couple different categories for fresh eating. We'd recommend one that we call Aurora while the University of Saskatchewan released one called Aurora.
07:53Aurora several years ago it's got a large oblong berry that has a very very nice kind of zingy flavor but not too zingy just a very very lovely flavor for fresh eating and you can do anything with it processing as well. If you want a large quantity of berries that are smaller you can go with something called check 17 berry blue.
08:19it can grow up to 10 feet tall and wide and produce a lot of berries that are smaller. So they're not so good for hand picking. You want to shake them off and then make your jam and it has a stronger, more intense flavor. So those are just kind of the two kind of extremes of where you can go with these plants on the size. Oh, the Aurora gets about five feet tall and wide.
08:48They have different, yeah, characteristics. I was going to say personalities, but yeah, characteristics. Very interesting. I didn't know they got that big. Sounds like they're huge plants. Well, that 10 footer is the largest one. But the other ones, most of them max out at five, six feet. The ones from the University of Saskatchewan have the larger berries and a little bit sweeter flavor. And then there are some later.
09:18blooming once they bloom. Well, they're in bloom right now in northern Saskatchewan when the early bloomers are just finishing. So that will extend your season as well, depending on when they bloom. So there's that aspect to consider as well. If you want them all to ripen the same time or you want to plant different varieties that will ripen across the spectrum. Okay, so when do you harvest them?
09:45Up here, we start around Father's Day and go through mid-July. Oh, so it's an earlier summer harvest. Yeah, the earlier ones, those would be the Russian ones from Siberia. They ripen just before the strawberries here. And then the mid-season and later ones would be in early July, early to mid July. Okay.
10:09And of course, the further south you go, you know, in zone four, you would be a week or two earlier than us. And the further south you go, you know, some people in the south have already finished their harvest. So, yeah. So, what do you do with all the honeyberries? Me personally, we freeze a lot. Yeah, we put them on our cereal in the morning, make smoothies. We've made lime out of them. There's just so many things you can do with them.
10:38They are a juicy berry, so if you're gonna make pie, it helps to mix them half and half with blueberries to give them a little bit more body, because they are really juicy. It's like eating jam if you make a pure honey berry pie. And the other difference between them and blueberries is for picking, since the skin of honey berries is so much softer, you just have to be a little bit more careful, like the berry juice can get all over me.
11:08If you aren't careful, the skin will be softer like raspberries. Oh, okay. So that's one of the reasons why you don't find them widespread in the grocery stores because it's a real challenge to, to ship the fresh fruit when the skin is tender. Cause they bruise so easily, I would guess. Well, yeah, the slightest puncture and then you got berry blood all over the place. Yeah. Gets really messy.
11:34So I prefer actually, we have a Yup'ik, we have two acres of Yup'ik and I really encourage people to come and pick their own berries, take their berries home and mess up their own kitchen, make their own jams. But we do have, we do make some jam for sale on site as well. Nice. So you grow cherries and other things too. Do you have people come and pick those as well? Oh yeah. Yeah. Anything that we grow here, we welcome.
12:01the public to come and pick, like I said, from Father's Day through the last fruit that ripens in the summer, it would be the currants, black currants, would be in mid to late July. And yeah, so we start out with the honey berries and then move into raspberries, Juneberries, known as Saskatoons in Canada, or service berries. They're all the same thing.
12:29Makes the best pie in the world even better than honey berry pie is the Saskatoon service berry Juneberry pie and Let's see. What else red white pink and black currants and I Think that's it for the summer fruits. Oh along with the cherries. So the cherries are in About the second week of July tart cherries now these grow on their own roots and they they do sucker so
12:58If you're in a town lot, you want to be considerate of your neighbors because they might not appreciate the cherry suckers coming up. But you can control the suckers by mowing. And these tart cherries are so cold hardy and they just make the best pie or juice. The tart cherry juice is so good for athletes that are needing to heal some of their...
13:27There's been studies done on that, on the health benefits. There's also been a lot of health studies done on the honeyberries, all those antioxidants. Just great berries, great for you and great boosting. Yeah, did I see that you grow aronia berries too? Yes, moving into the fall seeds, we have aronia which has an astringency that doesn't maybe
13:53what most people would appreciate fresh eating, but we have them just about every morning on our baked oatmeal. And I put them in banana bread. Once you bake them, that astringency dissipates and you can eat the whole berry, unlike a choke cherry that has a seed. So the roni is like a really firm blueberry with a little stronger flavor. And the plants are so productive. We can get 30 pounds or more out of one bush that's 10 years old. So.
14:22Very productive. The birds don't even eat them. The wasps would get into them. We've had a few years where the wasps liked them in the fall if it's a dry year. But very low maintenance and very attractive foliage. The leaves turn red in the fall. So that's our favorite fall berry, along with eronia, or I'm sorry, that was eronia. So along with elderberry is another fall ripening one. Grapes we have in the fall. Another one called seaberry.
14:52sea buckthorn, orange, citrusy berries, difficult to pick because there's some thorns, but it's a very healthy once again and an interesting flavor if you have the patience to pick them. Yeah, if you don't mind getting blooded by your plants, it's a good one to have. Okay, so when you bought your first honey berry plants, did you think that this is where you would end up now? Are you kidding? I was barely...
15:21I had a postage stamp size garden back then. I guess we had just started gardening, vegetable gardening, and then moving into getting some fruit bushes. So, you know, I had nothing prepared. I dug a hole in the middle of the lawn and stuck it in the berry bushes. Terrible place to plant them because the grass competes with them. I moved them later, but you know, you got to start somewhere. I guess my attitude is if I can grow them, anyone can grow them. And...
15:51You just start and learn as you go along. So yeah, I had, I came back from Canada. You asked how did we get into it? So I came back from Canada and I was familiar with, you know, Saskatoon, you picks and strawberry you picks. So I said to my husband, you know, I feel like kind of like a couple hundred plants cause they were just something different. You know, I wanted, and I thought, well, how about if we just get a couple hundred? I thought we could have a, just had a little mini you pick and have enough for ourselves. And so he asked me, well, how are you going to pay for them?
16:20And the answer just came immediately. I didn't even think about it. Just, well, I'll sell some, I said. So, so I'm kind of the, the public face of Honeybeer USA where I put up the website and, and, uh, do more of the public interface. But Jim is really the one that, uh, he was the one that had this idea to, to go big with it. And well, big for us. We're just, we're not a huge farm, but you know, we have both.
16:49three, four acres of fruit now, but, and he's, he puts so much of the manual labor in. So it's definitely a team effort, definitely. But yeah, between the two of us, we got my first couple hundred, 120 bushes down and I'd sold, well, out of 700, I was left with 120 and I was happy. And then a month later, he says to me, well, I think you should bring some more plants down from Canada. So that's how Honeyberry USA was born.
17:21Okay, so if you bring plants from Canada to the US, is there like a, I don't know, a tariff or a thing you have to do before you're allowed to bring them in or not? Well, first of all, there's a nursery license for selling them. And so we got set up with a nursery license. And then we got set up with our various propagators in there. And they're the ones that apply for the permits.
17:51the border has to verify that these plants have been inspected and are safe for import into the United States. So yeah, there's a few hoops to jump through, but you just learn a step at a time. And yeah, we source from all over the place. We actually don't propagate the plants, but we have propagators all over that we try and find the best plants.
18:18Yeah, and then distribute them. We do some growing out here as well for larger sizes. Yeah, it just, it's worked. Okay, I figured there were probably hoops to jump through.
18:36Yeah. So you think you're going to get a couple bushes and try it out? I'm going to talk to my husband about it because he is the gardener. He, he just, he's a fanatic about plants and dirt and watering and being outside in the evenings when he's done with work, because it's how he de stresses from his job. And I, we had talked about it a year or so ago because friends of ours in Cloquet, Minnesota have, they grow honey berries.
19:06I keep seeing her posts on Facebook about it. I was like, we should try growing honey berries. He said, what's a honey berry? And I said, it's like a blueberry, but it's not really a blueberry. It's a berry unto itself. And he said, what's involved? And I said, we get some plants and we put them in the ground and we see if they grow. That's what's involved. He says, we should think about that. But we've also been doing lots here for the last almost four years and it just got dropped. So.
19:34I think I'm gonna chat with them about it. When he gets home. There you go, this is the year. We're shipping for another week or so and we'd love to send you some. And along with that, you might wanna consider a cherry bush or two. You don't need a lot because they're very productive. Yeah, we have a couple sweet cherry trees growing. Oh wow, we can't grow sweet cherries up here in zone three. We don't know if they're gonna do anything yet. We just put them in last year, but they did bloom.
20:04the spring. So hopefully we'll have a couple cherries to try. Great. I don't know. We'll see what happens. The YouPick idea, I'm going to run that by him though for our tomatoes. He just put in 150 plus tomato plants over the weekend. Yes, definitely.
20:33farmers market. But it's always too many and he doesn't have as much time this year as he did last year. Last year he didn't have a jobby job he had the summer off. So he had lots of time to play in the garden and pick things and sell them. He's not gonna have quite that much time this summer so I'm gonna tell him that he might want to let people know that if they want to come while we're here and just pick tomatoes that would be great. Hey yeah!
21:01It's such an experience. You know, what I love about the Yup'ik is just seeing the happiness that it brings people. You know, the youngest that we've had here is 10 days old. Of course, she didn't know where she was, but she was happy out in the Berry Patch and the oldest in her 90s, you know, and anywhere in between. So it's just it's a great joy to share our farm with people, as I'm sure it would be for for you.
21:28Yeah, we've had people come in, but they come in to buy stuff that's already picked out of our farm stand shed. And if we're home, they always chat. They always stop to chat and say how pretty the garden is and what a great thing we've done since we moved in in growing a garden again, because nothing had been grown there in like 40 years. It was a pumpkin patch 40 years ago. Oh, wow. Yeah.
21:57so we get told stories about our place. We have a self-serve Yup'ik as well. The gates are open the evenings and self-serve way and pay. So you know, people want to come in after work and de-stress and enjoy it can do that.
22:16Yeah, where did you live before you got the place that you live now? Were you in town?
22:24Well, Jim grew up as a dairy farmer and then his dad passed away and they sold everything. I had worked actually overseas for several years. We met in our late 30s and everything that he owned pretty much fit in the trunk of his car and I didn't have much more.
22:51So we started cutting from scratch and found two and a half acres in his home area here in northern Saskatchewan, northern Minnesota. I'm from Saskatchewan. And built a little log cabin with the helpful friends who were very grateful and two and a half acres and just prayed about what are we going to do with this? We wanted to do something with the land, two and a half acres. And then spent several years doing some building and building houses and stuff.
23:21And then the housing slump 2008 hit, and we stopped building houses. And it just actually started doing some mowing lawns for some of the widows in town. You know, you just do what is put before you, and then this opportunity opened up, and we're just so grateful that it just one thing led to another, and now our land is productive, and we can share it with others.
23:49Yeah, the reason I ask is because we've lived here almost four years now and we lived in town. Like we lived very close to our neighbors in a small town. And when we first moved here, it was so wonderful to get up and go outside and have my coffee in the morning. And it was quiet. We have three acres, our nearest neighbors a quarter mile away. And it was just amazing to me to not hear cars going by in front of our house every five seconds.
24:18and to not hear neighbors making noise and not hear the dogs barking, you know, that kind of stuff. And after having been here, you know how you take things for granted once you've had them for a while? I stepped outside this morning and I was just, I took a minute and I was just listening to the cow that lives a quarter mile away, lowing and the rooster crowing and our chickens cackling. And I was like,
24:47Wow, I forgot how lovely it is here in the morning. It is so good to remind ourselves to do that. In fact, for this podcast, I took a lawn chair out behind the house and I'm doing that very thing. There's a hummingbird whirling around and other birds. Can you hear the birds in the background? Oh yes. Yep, that's not a recording. Yeah, no. No, it's just been a delight to.
25:16to chat with you Mary and reminisce over how we got where we are today and enjoy today and look forward to very season coming up here in about six weeks. Yeah, how crazy do your days get when it's time to start harvesting them? Well, you know, we just do what we can, I guess. Because the most intensive thing about the Yup'ik is to...
25:45explain to people once they learn what a honey berry is and we show them some tips and tricks on harvesting them because if you hand pick them it's very therapeutic but it's very time consuming too so if you need to have a family to feed and you want to make a large quantity we have some we have some tricks like shaking the berries and then blowing the leaves off with a leaf blower and and just to make harvesting more and more efficient because there is a
26:14a limited amount of therapeutic time that we can spend handpicking. So that's what we do for ourselves. We do the shake and drop. But yeah, some people just like to come out and have an hour and hand pick whatever they want to do, you know, accommodate. Well, I guarantee you that picking honey berries is probably easier than getting wild rice from the places in Minnesota where you can actually go and harvest wild rice. I've done it once. I will never do it again. Yeah, we don't have so many worms. I hear it gets wormy.
26:44Um, it does. And you really have to think about what you're wearing because those little tiny kernels will get inside your clothes and they itch like crazy. I had no idea. Yeah, the main thing here is the berry blood. It gets purple. The kids love it. You know, they just smear their hands and they can, they don't worry about it. But yeah, you want to wear maybe something that you don't mind getting a little berry stain on it. So.
27:14Other than that, wear a purple shirt. Yeah, there you go. Okay. Well, Bernis, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. And, uh, I'm going to go check out your website and see about maybe getting some, uh, honey berry plants, maybe. All right. And if you're ever in the neighborhood, uh, stop by and we'll have a meet you in person. All right. Thank you so much, Bernice.
 

The Naked Rancher

Today I'm talking with Ginger at The Naked Rancher. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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 Ginger at the Naked Rancher. Good morning, Ginger. Good morning, Mary. How are you this morning? I'm great. You're in Texas, is that right? I am. The hill country of Texas.
00:26I wasn't sure and I couldn't figure it out from your Facebook page, but then I saw something I was like, I think she's in Texas. Okay, great. Tell me about yourself and the Naked Rancher. Well, thank you. I appreciate you even talking about it. Well, I was married to a gentleman in the army for 40 years and after our divorce, I had a ranch to run and it was my 29th move and I thought I'm going to make this work and...
00:56I had some girlfriends come over and they jokingly started calling me that. I'm not in the nude, so it's not about actual nudity. It's about being honest about trying to run a ranch and everything on it. From that, they suggested that I do stories about it and post about it. I also...
01:25I started doing that and then realized I should get a trademark for it. So I applied for the trademark for the name and the brand and I've been posting for four years now. That's awesome. So if you were married for 40 years, you must be over 50 years old, I would assume. I am. I am 63 years old.
01:50I'm impressed because I'm 54 and when I decided to start a podcast, I had a steep learning curve on all the technology behind it. So I'm impressed that you managed to do this four years ago. Yeah. Well, my children think I've got all adult grown children and they all think that I'm still not there yet. So. Oh, that's always going to be a thing. My 22 year old is like, I can't believe you're doing this now. I know. Isn't that funny?
02:20I'm like, you know what, old dogs can learn new tricks. I actually said that to him this morning. Well, see, and to me, it's all about the learning process. So I'm not the only one out there that's like you, that's learning and trying to make it work in today's world. Yeah, and honestly, the minute you stop being curious and the minute you stop trying new things, you might as well be six feet under. That's my take. I agree with you completely, and I enjoyed.
02:49learning new things and you know, I don't mind embarrassing myself or talking about things that I mess up on and have to redo. Yeah, because that's how you learn and how you teach. Yeah. Yeah. But I was going to say thank God for girlfriends. Your girlfriends helped out and I'm really glad we all have girlfriends because without them, I don't know where we would be. I agree completely. Okay. So I was talking with a lady
03:19at a local, I'm in Minnesota, and I live in Sibley County in Minnesota. And I was talking with a woman the other day who I interviewed, and she is, I don't know what her title is, but she's involved with the Water and Soil Conservation District in the next county over from us. And she was talking about how trying to market what they do has been a bear.
03:46and that they have not been really great at promoting what they do. And it's a county state agency thing. And I said, well, I said, it's a shame that the topics of homesteading and farming and ranching and growing things and raising animals for food or for milk or whatever you're raising them for isn't considered sexy. And I said,
04:13We watch grown men run down football fields and they get dirty and sweaty and people pay big money to see that. And I think there's nothing sexier than watching people work hard at doing something that they love and they get dirty and sweaty. Exactly, I agree with you. So then I happened to watch a couple of your videos on your Facebook page and I watched the one where your pants are trying to fall down and I was like that right there. That's sexy.
04:42Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no part of that is sexy. But you know what? It happens. Yeah, it sure does. And you were working and you were getting dirty and sweaty and your pants weren't up all the way. And that's okay. So you proved my point because people probably see that video and they're like, oh, oh, okay. Okay. What is she, what is she actually doing? And then they're interested. So, so, um,
05:10The lady that I talked to, her name is Holly. I was like, we need to enlist some people to make like promotional videos of people doing the work that they do in the garden or working with the animals or whatever they do and post that and be like, be a doer, it's sexy. There you go, I like that. So I said- It should be on a T-shirt. Yep, so I said on the interview, which will come out in two weeks.
05:38I said, if anybody out there wants to help Holly and I start a campaign like this, let me know. Well, I'll join in. Okay. Well, I'm thinking about it real hard. I haven't quite got it fleshed out, but I'm working on it. I think, no, I think that is great. There's a lot of us out there. It's just like you said, it's not in the forefront of sexy. Yeah. And I'm not sure that the TV networks would be interested in running our campaign because
06:06then all of their high paying advertisers would probably be like, we're not going to advertise with you if you're advertising people do it for themselves. Yeah. I don't know. It seems like a losing battle, but I thought it was a cute story. So I just shared it. I like it. Okay. So what do you do? What do you do at your place? Well, so I am rescue horses and have four that I've had now for five years. And
06:35Besides that, I literally, I do all the physical labor myself, whether it's part of my house, renovating something or, you know, picking up manure or plumbing, septic. I won't do electric. I'm not brave enough to do that. But I mean, you know, there is always something on the grounds or the land, the earth.
07:03that needs something and I literally record almost anything I do because you never know when something interesting will come out of it even if it's as ridiculous as do you turn the lights off when you leave the room or do you leave them on. So you think that's ridiculous but it's content and you know I just want to show basically what I do every day all day.
07:33that I actually enjoy it. And it's such a different life from what I had before being a military spouse. But I love the earth and the land and animals. I couldn't be happier with the horses, they're such a joy. Yeah, I'm gonna say it again. I get real twitchy around horses. There's many reasons why I love them. I think they are beautiful animals, but they are a big.
08:03animal and they are they are I feel like unless I got a Baby horse and raised it from whenever they can be away from mom I don't think I will ever be comfortable around a horse because I want to know What the horse is telling me as its owner? Yeah well, you know that's funny because it really is so true that they know whether you're sure about them or not and You just kind of have to be bossy with them
08:33even though they, like each of mine, have such a distinct and different personality. And they're such social animals. Like I said though, it's selfish for me because I just find it such a joy. And I do ride both English and Western, but do not with these. I just let them basically be law and art in my field and enjoy life. Well, that's some lovely art. I know, isn't it?
09:02Well, my eldest is 39. Yeah. So that's old for a horse. It is. Honestly, I think that the two most beautiful animals on earth are horses and deer. Oh, there you go. So anytime I see a horse, I'm just like, oh, they're so pretty. And then I'm like, I want to go hug it. And then I'm like, I'm not going to go hug that animal.
09:29I want to, but I'm just going to let it be where it is and be pretty. Well, I'm so sorry you had an unfortunate circumstance somewhere. Yeah. I'm sorry. It wasn't me. It was a friend. She got thrown from a horse in front of me. I was little. I was like eight or 10 years old and it made a very, very distinct impression upon me that horses...
09:54would require an inordinate amount of respect and wide berth on my part. Yeah, yeah. But I like them. You're right. They are huge beasts that, and I mean that lovingly, but you know, they definitely are stronger than us. Yes, yes they are. And the thing that scares me the most is that they, if you have one that's friendly, that's awesome.
10:23But if they come up behind you and bump you and you're not expecting it, you're gonna go flat on your face. Oh yeah, you know, you're exactly right. That happens often. So I don't really wanna have that happen, I'll pass. Yeah. But I do love horses and I do have friends that have horses and one of them, her name is Ginger. The horse's name is Ginger, actually. Ginger is quite a popular pet name. Yeah, and so Ginger is beautiful and she's friendly and she's gentle.
10:53and I will have her. But I'm just, I'm good. I like my dog. I like my barn cats who are friendly. I love both those too. But what about cattle? Same with cattle? I don't know because I haven't been around grown cattle. I have been around calves and I love the calves. They're so sweet. But I don't know. I don't think I wanna be around a bull. I think I'll pass on that. But.
11:22Yeah, I'm with you there. I did get to pet the milk cows at my dad's, oh, my dad's friend's farm. And the milk cows, as long as they were in their stalls, they were fine to pet, but I was never around them when they were free to move. Yeah. So, I don't know. It's fine. I just, we don't have room to have cows or horses where we live anyway. So it's not like it's in my face all the time. It's all good.
11:52So do you grow a garden? I do not. I do not have a green thumb. And I have tried repeatedly. And that is one thing I wish I would improve about myself. Because I think it would probably be not only rewarding, but relaxing to work in the earth and do that. Like I said, I've tried different things.
12:23videotape myself doing it and showing the fails that I have had doing it. Even with things that you think would be simple like tomatoes or potatoes or squash. I mean, I don't know. I hear those kind of things are easier to grow, but.
12:43Well, I don't know that anything is necessarily easy to grow. It's just a matter of having the right conditions to grow the thing you're trying to grow. Yeah, that's a good point. I can do cactus. Yep, you're in Texas, yep. There you go, absolutely. It likes the soil, but surprisingly enough, I'm in an area that has,
13:12quite a few vineyards. And in this soil, you'd be surprised, but that and olives seem to grow well. Yeah, it's because it's hot and I assume it's kind of dry. Yeah, you're right. You are right. Yep. And grapes and olives grow fantastically in Italy, so it would make sense that they would grow in Texas.
13:36Well, there you go. And I just started following a site, I don't know if you've heard of it, called Permies. Do you know it? Not yet, but I do now. I'll have to look it up. Well, it is about homesteading and people that are doing it even much more so than me. I mean, I'm just, you know, enjoying a life on a ranch and what comes along with it. But it is so interesting
14:06everything that they're doing. And there's a lot of people that, maybe they could be part of your interest in how sexy it is doing this. My doer campaign, yeah. There you go, it's called curlies.com. I have no connection to it except that I was interested in their homesteading and what they did on there.
14:33Is it P isn't Paul E R M I E S dot com? That is correct. Okay. I think it's from permaculture. Yes. I will look it up when I'm, when I have a minute this afternoon, because I bet you're right. And I bet I could talk to them and they would be like, yes, how do you want to do this? Um, okay, cool. Thank you. I, I absolutely love talking with you and everyone else I've talked with on the podcast, cause I learned so many new things that I didn't know about yet.
15:02There you go. That's why we should all do things like this or, you know, that's why I enjoy whether it's Tik Tok or Facebook or YouTube. There's just so much out there and so many people that are just brilliant at making it work. Mm hmm. Yup. I have.
15:24I have a brilliant husband who is in the middle of building us a heated greenhouse. He's not in the middle of it right this second, but he started it. Oh, how wonderful. Yeah, he started a couple of weekends ago. We got a grant from a Minnesota organization. And so I said, hey, you want to build a heated greenhouse? And he said, I sure do. We don't have the money. And I said, we do now. Oh my goodness. That is fabulous. Are y'all recording the build? Yes. We're taking photos.
15:54And the video, we're not really doing video because there's not much to video, you know, they're in the middle of building it and I'm doing other stuff. So, but it should be done by May 31st. Wow, that's soon. Uh huh. And once it's done, we're going to be able to extend our growing season. I've already talked about this on a couple episodes. I'm sure people are sick of hearing about it, but I'm excited about it. So I'm going to tell you about it real quick.
16:22I don't know what you know about Minnesota, but basically, last frost date or chance of frost date is usually the 15th of May. And it can frost in August. It hasn't happened in a long time, but it can. So we were finding that we were really at the mercy of a very short growing season. And
16:44we got asked by a private school if we could supply them with leafy greens and carrots and radishes and stuff for salads. And we can't grow that stuff past August, really. And so I was like, I would love to do that, but we don't have anything to sell you after August. And when I told my husband about it, he said, we need to build a heated greenhouse. And this was like two years ago.
17:12And I said, we don't have the money to build the heated greenhouse. And so this grant opportunity came through and I basically answered their questions and emailed it back. And I was like, if we get it, we get it. And I completely forgot about it. And then I got an email last October and I rem I remembered the name of the place the grant was through and it said that name and I was like, Oh, I wonder if we got it and I opened it and I went, Oh.
17:42And my husband was in the kitchen and he said, what is somebody dead? And I'm like, no. I said, you want to build a heated greenhouse? He said, I do. I said, good. I said, uh, I said, you want to build it this coming spring? And he was like, did we get the grant? I said, we did. So plan congratulations. That is fabulous. Thank you. So the plan is to be able to put the seedling babies that are on my desk in my living room and my kitchen table right now into the greenhouse.
18:11at once the greenhouse is actually dried in. You know, it's got the side door. And that way we can get stuff out of my house and then they get more sunshine instead of grow lights, which would be great. And then this fall, we're gonna do raised beds in the greenhouse and plant- I love it. Lettuces and carrots and radishes for this school. I'm so excited. That is fabulous. Because Farm to School,
18:38is just as good, if not better, than Farm to Table. And pretty much the same thing. Yeah. So that is great. Long story short, sorry, I'm so lit up and it's beautiful here today. And my tulips and my daffodils are blooming. And I'm just like, yes, spring is finally here. Oh, I'm happy for you. Oh, I'm telling you. It has not been a long, miserable winter. It's been a long, weird winter. And I'm really glad to see it go. Interesting.
19:08Anyway, I don't really know what else to ask you because I didn't know what you did. And I looked at your Facebook page and I was hoping you had a website, but you don't have a website. So I do actually you do. There's no link on your Facebook page. I do. There's not that's because we are in the midst. I mean, it's there, but we're in the midst of adding merchandise and other information to it.
19:34So it's boring at the moment, but it is the naked rancher.com. Oh, well, I should have just typed that in and check cause that would have been really obvious. But I mean, right now, like I said, we're in the midst of morphing it. So it's, it's, um, just a cover page right now, basically with me on it. But, um, yeah, no, I mean, it's there and we're expanding it and hope to, uh,
20:02I mean, fortunately, I've got people that call me to want to ranch it and come take care of their livestock, which is great. And to do some other friends do things at their homes and renovating and ideas. So it's, surprisingly enough, it's growing this late in my life. I think it's fantastic. I don't think that people die at 50, even though they're still alive. I think.
20:31I think the minute, especially women turn 40, a whole new version of your life opens up. You may not know what it is, but you hit 40 and you're like, I have no, I can't say the words left to give. Yeah. And I'm just going to do what comes next. And I feel like I'm going to get myself in trouble. I'm going to say it anyway.
20:55You know the old cliche about when men go through midlife crisis is they buy a sports car and get a 24 year old girlfriend? Absolutely. Women start businesses. There you go. That's great. Why would you get in trouble for this? Because I don't want to slam men because I don't think men are that cavemanish anymore. I think a lot of improvement has happened. Yeah.
21:23in the last probably 25 years where men have been more, I don't know, welcomed into cooking and childcare and caring and nurturing. And they've stepped up. I know my husband, when I was pregnant with our son that we have together, we have four kids but two I had, one he had with a previous relationship and then my husband and I have the youngest who still lives here. And when I was pregnant with the youngest.
21:51My husband was all in on knowing everything about the pregnancy, about how it works, about talking to the baby. Oh, that's fabulous. And he just embraced the entire thing. And when he was home, because he was the breadwinner, he was gone 10 hours a day. But when he was home, when Littlest was a baby, he changed diapers and he gave baths and he read stories and the whole bit. Oh, that's wonderful.
22:21people and I don't want to man bash because I don't think it's fair and I don't want a woman bash because I don't think that's fair either. I think there are good people in the world. I think there are not so good people in the world and if you're lucky enough to know good people, keep them. Agree. That's my take on that. I agree completely. But I do. I think that women are so lucky to live in this day and age who are over 40.
22:51and your body is eventually gonna give out. There's no question, no one gets out alive, but while you can do what you can do, we have so many opportunities available to us now. Agree, and we shouldn't bash each other, so you're right. We should support and let people enjoy and start the second part of life or third part of life or wherever you might be and be successful at it.
23:20Yeah, and I also tend to not bash because I feel like the world has a way of dealing out its own, I don't know, rewards and punishment without my opinion being involved. So I'm just like, living well is the best revenge and I just leave it at that. It's just easy. There you go. I like that. That's good. So I try to be positive. Now, I'm not saying there aren't days where I'm like, oh, so-and-so has me so angry, you know, in my head, but I will never ever ever
23:50in public bash anybody because there is no point. It doesn't do any good. No, there's not. And it's a choice. Yeah. So, you know, anyways, well, no, I mean, I've enjoyed it. It's nice of you to even reach out to think about asking about the Naked Rancher who is not naked. No, you're transparent. You're not naked. That's it. Exactly. Yep. Exactly. So,
24:18So what's a typical day like for you? Well, I normally get up at 4 30 and I revise cause I post every morning on my social media accounts by 6 AM and then the horses, you know, they don't care if you're sick or whatever it is, there's, I go out to take care of them and check on them and.
24:48There's always something. This morning I was finishing, I've got a second floor. The home I live in was built in 1874 and was a stagecoach and pony express stop for two counties in Texas. Awesome. So just a wonderful historic home. But anyway, so on the second floor I had sanded and was sealing and repainted the
25:15porch on the screened-in porch on the second floor. And a couple of weeks ago, I did my concrete front porch again and the columns there. So there's always something around. I need to do the window sills. And then there's some earth I need to take care of, because the horses pulled the grass from the roots versus chomping on the top like a cow.
25:43And so I have to reseed and I need to get to that. And fortunately I've got some new growth there, but that's kind of it. It's just what's happening around here and whatever is on my list to have to do to keep up with it. So never a dull moment. No, never at all.
26:06And like I said, firstly, now I'm really enjoying the physical labor aspect of it. And like you said, we won't be able to do it forever, but right now I can. And I can't lift more than about 75 pounds at a time, but that's enough. You're doing better than I am. You know, we end up doing what we can, right? Yep. Absolutely. Um, part of the reason that I.
26:34One of the minor reasons I started the podcast is because I know that at some point I am not going to be able to do all the things that I can do now. And I wanted something that I could do sitting down and just talking with people. I think that's wonderful. And I know you know that, but just how many people enjoy listening to podcasts. And another thing, I do record audio books. And so...
27:03That's something else that I can do in the future, but I have 53 audio books to my name. Wow. In the big picture life, that's not very many. But at least I hadn't been fired. And with my ridiculous Southern accent, people still hire me to read their books. I love your accent. I think it's awesome. I worked. Well, you're generous. Thank you.
27:30I had to work really hard to get rid of my Maine accent when I moved to the Midwest, and I kind of miss having a Maine accent. Well see. Okay, but when you talk to friends and family, does it come back? A little. Not as much as I expected. My dad is 80, and he has lived in Maine basically his entire life. And he had to tone down his accent because he worked in hospitals as a...
27:59I can't remember the name of what he did, but he used to repair all the machines. Okay. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so he had to talk to people all over the place. So he really had to clean up his accent so people could understand him. So he had his work voice and he had his at home voice. There you go. And he had the most amazing down east Maine accent. It's the one that you think of when you think of a Maine accent.
28:24Oh, how cool. So he makes fun of me because I say things and I am very careful about trying to pronounce every letter in the word that I'm saying. And once in a while I slip into the big O that Minnesota uses. Like if I say snow, it's usually snow. And he laughs at me and he's like, you have been assimilated. He said, I don't hear any main accent in you at all anymore. Wow. I'm like, well, that was kind of the plan, babe.
28:54Yeah, yeah. I wish I was that good. I'm not. I mean, like I said, I'm on my 29th move, and you would think after all these years I would have lost this accent, but I have not. So, you know, I just got to accept it. It makes you sound like a Southern belle. Ah! That gets dirty. Oh, yes, that gets dirty. Yes. That gets dirty, yeah. Yup.
29:23All right, well, I can't think of anything else to ask you right now. Well, I've enjoyed it, Mary. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it, Ginger. Absolutely. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

Renville County Soil & Water Conservation District

Today I'm talking with Holly at the Renville County Soil & Water Conservation District. You can follow them on Facebook as well.
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.
00:15Today I'm talking with Holly at the Renville County Soil and Water Conservation District. Good morning Holly, how are you? Good morning Mary, I'm fantastic. How about yourself? I'm good and I'm not quite sure how to start this because I don't really know what you guys do exactly. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do. Sure. So, the Renville County Soil and Water Conservation District is a local government unit.
00:43And what we really focus on is working with landowners on promoting sustainable use of water and soil resources. So things that are going to have a direct benefit on water and soil for the county and the state. Okay. And does every county have an organization like yours or are you alone in this? Sure. So while I think we are unique and special.
01:13five Soan water conservation districts across the state. So almost every county has a Soan water conservation district. Okay, I'm in Sibley County, which is I think right next to Renville. It is. You are a neighbor. I am terrible at counties in Minnesota because there are so many of them. Yes, there is a lot. But yeah, you're directly east of us. Sibley is a Soan water district that we've partnered with on projects in the past and wonderful team over there.
01:43Okay, so tell me how this works. Sure. So really what a Soil and Water District does is we provide education and resources to stakeholders. And when we say stakeholders, that's anybody that uses water or soil in the state. So the bulk of our customers or clients that we work with on a regular basis are farmers, just because we're in a heavy ag region.
02:12And, but that doesn't mean that we can't help somebody who's got a tree in their yard that they think is sick, or if they want to do something to change water flow through their property, things like that. So, we really can kind of just do anything, like I said, related to water or solar resources. Okay. So if someone has a tree that they think is sick, how do they contact you? I mean, do they.
02:41Do they just ask around until they find out about you or do you guys promote what you do or how does it work? So it's interesting you bring that up, Mary, because even like my whole childhood and going through college, till I was in my senior year at college, I didn't really know what a Swinwater district is, right? And I don't know if we've always done a fantastic job of promoting ourselves. Historically...
03:07In Minnesota, soil and water districts really cut their teeth on tree programs. So if we back up just a little bit, we're a product of the dirty thirties. So what happened is the dust bowl and we had massive erosion and the government, US government created our partners, the natural resource conservation service. And as a result of that federal partnership.
03:36locals got involved and said, it's great, we have this federal partners, this federal money, but we also need local buy in and local support for programs. And so Soin Water Conservation Districts got organized, usually sometime between 1938 and 1960. And again, that varied on kind of those local stakeholders and just momentum of getting those organized. And so
04:05part of that was is our USDA partners would say, okay, you have this massive field erosion, you tore out your trees and you broke up all the prairie to farm it. And so we need to plant some trees here to stop that erosion. And that's really where Soan Water Districts got their feet under them was selling trees and designing and installing that. And then we expanded that to also designing and helping with installation.
04:32of structures out in the field where we would actually move soil to slow water flow or just adjust where wind would blow in a road soil.
04:44Okay. So like last year, we're surrounded by what used to be an alfalfa field. Sure. And is now a corn field. Yay. Um, I'm not a fan of corn. I, I sneeze when it does its thing in. Oh yeah, all that pollen, right? Yeah. Kind of kicks my butt every summer, but it's okay. Um, they put in drained hyle. Uh huh. I can't remember what was last summer or the summer before. I think it was the summer before.
05:15And is that something that you guys are involved in, or is that just something that the farmers just do on their own? So how we're actually involved with Green Tile is on the level of making sure that whatever is installed has no negative impact on what we have today for waters of the state, which includes lakes, rivers, and wetlands.
05:41So our involvement is a landowner wants to install tile. They first start with the USDA Farm Service Agency and say, I wanna put this tile in because the federal side of our partnership has to say, if you put in tile, you won't be impacting any wetlands. And then that request also flows to us because the state has different wetland rules than the feds. And so we need to make sure that locally, they're not.
06:10potentially going to alter a wetland by putting in this tile. So tile, I mean, we're in the prairie pothole, right? Yeah. And just west of you, Bird Island was truly an island. That's why we named that town Bird Island, because it was surrounded by water and wetlands. And now that we've altered and drained it with drain tile, our role in tile is to make sure that we're not gonna put any new tile in that could-
06:39negatively impact what we have left for weapons. Okay, that makes sense. So this is all very sciencey. There's a lot of science here. Okay. All right. All right. So I wasn't sure whether this was going to fit with my podcast, but I think that it does because I had no idea that you guys existed, number one. And number
07:08A lot of people don't know. And homesteaders can be a tenth of an acre a lot with the people living there growing a garden, or it can be a hundred acre or a hundred thousand acre, I doubt that, but it can be a humongous property where people are growing crop things, like commercial farming. So it does fall under that, but I'm not quite sure.
07:38what to ask here. I was going to say, obviously, good soil grows good plants, which means good food, which means good nutrition for people. Good water is extremely important. We all know this. So what do you have to say about that? Yeah. No, and it's interesting you say that because when you had asked if I'd be on your podcast, I then...
08:07hopped on and found some of your podcasts and listened. And to be candid, I kind of had the same cat. I'm like, oh, really different than her other guests. But really where we fit in is kind of like where we started our conversation. We're here to help anybody that is a stakeholder. And if you use water or soil, you're a stakeholder. We might not have all of the answers, but really we would have that network to hopefully find you the answers.
08:35And really where our niche is with homesteaders is that we can provide resources and education on things related to improving their soil health. We can also provide them with resources for potential grant funding. If they're looking, maybe they're a small homesteader and they want to put up a high tunnel to extend their growing season, we can help provide them some of the resources and tools to hopefully find some financial support for that. Or for example, maybe they're having trouble.
09:05with a certain pest in their garden, and we can come out and visit with them and talk about maybe changing that rotation or what are some other less intensive ways to manage that pest and talk about crop rotation and looking at, you know, reducing tillage in that scenario, things like that. So it's all scalable, everything we do. So that's where I think our niche is, is to help people with those resources.
09:32It's interesting you bring that up. I'm actually working with a customer right now that is taking a building site that has been abandoned for seven years. And we're basically mapping out their homestead plan and where they're going to put up some fence and how we're going to manage that grazing system and water development, all of that A to Z is what we can help with on the technical side to give advice and recommendations.
09:58And is that fun for you? Because if I was in your shoes, I would be so excited to help them. It's so fun. It's just energizing and just wonderful to be around that energy of trying something new. And just, I've been in my career a while and working with people that are excited about what they're doing is really fun. And that is a group of people that are usually really energetic and excited about it.
10:26And so it's really fun to be around and just to be creative. Sometimes we don't get to be creative enough and it's really fun to just throw out scenarios about what about this or have we thought about this? And yeah, no, I love it. Especially around the side of soil health. We do on our YouTube channel have several videos that we've done with landowners, just educational tools to share with customers. And it's just really fun to be around that energy and see something improve and change that.
10:56maybe we got to help advise on. Yeah, in you saying that, it makes me think about the fact that when we're doing this, whatever it is, cooking from scratch or growing plants or raising animals or anything like that, it's like when we were five and learning about the world on literally a small scale because we were all small at five years old.
11:25And I feel like homesteading and baking and cooking and raising animals is it really allows that child inside of us to come back out and, and dream and think through. I think that's exactly how I would describe it as well. So I grew up, um, I have a large family and I'm the youngest. And when I was three, my mom had to get a job off the farm. And so I spent a lot of my childhood.
11:53with my dad wherever he was. And if I wasn't with him, I was playing with the cats. I was plunking around in the grove, digging around, climbing trees, and just that excitement and trying new things and turning over a rock and finding a bunch of worms then, it's still thrilling for me now in my career. And so I completely agree. It's just that whimsy, that excitement of new, and also really your encouraging life versus maybe some of the
12:23other conventional systems of looking at making our food in that system. It's really more trying to figure out how to control or kill. Yeah. I guess I'm really glad that I'm talking to you because I have been trying to put my finger on why all the people that I talk with sounds so excited. Even if something bad happens, something good is around the corner and they know it and it's because it does, it brings that.
12:51I don't know that whimsy and that excitement and that why not to the front of your brain again. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, and... Go ahead. Sorry. I do want to recap and I didn't mean to cut you off, but you talked about, just touched on the health of what we're producing. One of the other cool things about a Soan Water District is we're governed by a local board of elected officials. And it's really that local impact.
13:20And so our board here in Renville is really creative and really open to just giving the staff the reins and letting us come up with ideas. And what we've been doing locally, just as a team on a small scale, is doing a nutrient density assessment with soils that are reduced till that have a diverse crop rotation, really a healthy soil system versus something that's a monoculture corn and soybean rotation with a lot of tillage. And what we've been doing is we've been growing sugar snap peas in those.
13:49environments. And we have found that local data is that soils that are in a healthy system where we're trying to mimic Mother Nature's historic tall grass prairie with diverse covers and not stirring the soil, we can grow produce peas that have 46.4% higher protein than if we're in a system where we're stirring the soil and doing conventional tillage with a monoculture. Wow. Yeah.
14:18That's kind of great. Yeah. Yeah. And like, it seems silly, but like, that's so fun. It gives me goosebumps every time we talk about it, because it's so fun to see, like, there's our measurement, there's our change, right? Like, we can be healthier, and we can produce less and be healthier if we look at trying to regeneratively farm and focus on soil health.
14:42Yes, and it's a quantifiable number, which is really hard to get when you're dealing with animals and plants. So yay, that's fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, we think it's super fun too. Yeah. So I've heard a lot about no-till, no-tilling. And we grow a veggie garden, pretty big veggie garden every summer, and we sell it to farmers market, blah, blah, blah. This is my thing that I talk about all the time.
15:12And we do till because when we moved here in 2020, the yard, field, whatever it is, it's not big enough to be a field, but it's a very big, open, flat space. It was all grass and weeds. And there was no way we were going to be able to plant it without tilling it. And so we tilled it the first year. And
15:37We ended up buying a tiller attachment for our little tractor that we have because there was no other way to do it. What is the problem with tilling?
15:49So the challenge with tilling is what you're doing is you're actually breaking the soil aggregate. So if you think about where tall grass prairie here historically, and so there was always a living root in that system that was creating open pore space, that was creating areas for air and water, all the biology to move through the soil profile.
16:19iron or tillage, we create a scenario where that pore space collapses because we break the aggregate. And then what we end up with is a fluffy, fine, soft textured soil. And really what we want to see in soil is something that looks a lot more like cottage cheese or chocolate cake, some people like to call it too, where it's really erratic. There's lots of open holes and pore spaces. And that's a system that...
16:49is going to be more reactive to allowing things to cycle in more of a natural way. It's also going to prevent wind erosion because if you break the soil, like when you till your garden, I'm sure running the tiller across it, it's really fluffy and light, right? No, not, not especially. No, not unless it's been terribly dry. Sure. And it's like a conventional field. We often see though what it does in that scenario. Is it
17:19creates a system that breaks that aggregate, that soil aggregate, collapses in on itself. And then what happens is the silt, sand and clay particles that are in that soil separate. We're in an aggregate, they're all intermingled and hanging out together and supporting each other in their natural system. But now when they're separate and independent, they can erode and blow and they separate. Okay. So then that leads me to my next question, because I know you know the answer.
17:48How do we not till in a small vegetable garden? How do we not do that? Yeah, so there's not a right or wrong. There's just lots of options and opportunities. Some of the easier ways to do that is to look at planting more of a three sisters approach. Are you familiar with the three sisters? Yes. So
18:13something like that. And that's exactly what that scenario with the three sisters is doing, where we've got a grass from the corn. So you think about that root structure, then we've got a legume that's fixing nitrogen and feeding that corn in that system. And then we've got a broad leaf, some sort of squash or vine. So we've got a corn, a pea and a squash, for example. So we've got different leaf shapes that are photosynthesizing, we have different root structures as well.
18:43and those root structures are doing the tillage for you. Mm. Okay. And so that's maybe like just the first to start thinking about what that could look like. Okay. Go ahead. No, please. So what if we're not doing corn? Cause we don't grow corn. It could be any other thing too. Like in my garden, I tend to kind of just put like all the peas and the tomatoes and everything kind of all together.
19:10and everybody just kind of finds its balance. I also can appreciate though if you're on a commercial setting it's a little bit different right you need to be able to go down the whole pea row pick all the peas so you can take them to the farmers market. Yeah. So what we would look at in that scenario is we try and encourage people to plant something in between the rows that's going to be a low moisture competition or even as simple as like mulching it with straw or we've
19:39customer that's using chop up alfalfa bales to mulch in between the rows. And then basically what they do is they move over their row the next cropping year. Okay. And so they just kind of move in, it might only be four inches, six inches, but they're then not disturbing that soil in that scenario. What we're finding is then everything is cycling, right. And it's breaking everything down to continue to.
20:09remove that residue in between the rows. Okay, that makes sense. My dad has grown a garden forever and his take on healthy soil is when he sticks a shovel in the dirt and pulls a shovel of dirt out, if there's earthworms, it's good soil. Is that true? He's right. Yep. So earthworms are a really easy biological indicator. When we go around and dig around, we can find them.
20:37And what they're doing is fantastic, right? They're taking in residue and breaking it down. And it's now becoming carbon in your soil, which is then nitrogen. So fertilizer for your plants. Um, and so yeah, earthworms he's right, are a fantastic indicator, super visual. You don't need a microscope to find them. But honestly, if you think about earthworms too, sometimes if you find a spot that if you go out into your trees, maybe for example, and dig up a shovel
21:06historically we tend to find more in that undisturbed shovel full versus in an area that's tilled up. Okay. All right. That environment is different. So yeah, that helps. Thank you. Cause I've heard more about no-till and and hugelkultur. I don't think I'm saying it right, but heard about that, heard about spaghetti or lasagna method for growing stuff and
21:35Honestly, my husband tills the garden in the fall after he puts it to bed and then he throws some goat manure or chicken manure or some kind of animal manure on the garden. He lets it sit all winter and then he tills it one more time before he plants it in the spring. That's how he does it. So the other thing is too, as far as those that are no tilling in their garden, instead of doing that tillage in the fall.
22:04They're actually using some cover crops on their garden and then spreading their manure because if you've got that living root, it's going to take up and capture that manure and basically tie it up in its biomass. And then over the winter as it dies and breaks down, it releases that just like what he's doing kind of with the tillage by burying. So yeah, there's lots of ideas. I'm glad to visit with you.
22:31with other techniques or get you in contact with those that are doing other things. Yeah, I just, I never, I never know. He's, he's always watching videos on YouTube and he's like, I saw this thing, it's a new thing for gardening. And I'm like, yay. Because there's so many. And every winter he's like, I want to try this new thing this coming spring. And I'm like, uh-huh. Okay. Have at it. Let me know how it goes. Because
22:59There's so many things he's done and I'm like, I don't think that's going to be good. And he's like, no, it'll be great. And then it's not good. Um, one year he, when we lived at our old house, we had a very small garden, like very small and our neighbor had a bunch of leaves and, and seeds that have fallen from, I swear it was an ash tree, but I could be wrong. Sure. You can be right. And they have those little plot little helicopters at full.
23:28Yeah. And my, our neighbor was like, if you want some of the leaves to put on, you know, on the garden for the winter, come get them. And my husband was hell bent that he was going to do this. And I said, you know, you're going to have baby trees. Oh, it's so full of seed. Yeah. And he's like, no, no, no, they'll, they'll biodegrade. They'll be fine. I'm like, okay. Worst garden of our lives that following year. So
23:56Now when he says, I want to try this thing, I immediately, when he goes to work, I sit down with my computer and go on Google and look it up and see what's involved and what it does. Because I don't want to lose a garden again. It was terrible. Right. Well, and that brings up a really valuable point that you're talking about. Every time you're stirring that soil, you're actually bringing up hundreds and thousands of years of residual seed bank that's in that soil profile.
24:25We know sweet clover seed can lay dormant in the soil for up to 200 years and still be a viable seed. Wow. And so tons of other weeds in that same environment. So that's part of the challenge with every time you till your garden, you're actually creating more work for yourself all summer because now you've brought this seed to the surface, this weed seed, where it can get sunlight and water and grow. Exactly. Yep. And so that's exactly what happened with the leaves.
24:54when you brought in all those ash seeds. Yeah, luckily we don't live there anymore. So it's somebody else's problem now. It would have been nice. Have we not lost, well, we didn't lose everything. It just made it really difficult that summer. Oh, without a doubt. Yeah. And then just one pulls out easy and then the next has a little bit deeper root and they're just not even easy to take care of when you're trying to hand deal with them. Yeah. My mom loves holly hot.
25:22and she asked me if we grow hollyhocks here and I was like absolutely not. Oh. And she said, why? They're so pretty. And I said, because they spread like wildfire. I said, I don't need a thousand hollyhock plants. I don't need a thousand morning glory plants because morning glory spread like wildfire too. Same thing. Yep. And she was like, oh, well ours just stay put. And I was like, well, where are they? And she said.
25:50down by the tree line and I said that's a really good place for them to be. So yeah, you've got to be aware of how things grow, not just that they grow, but how they grow and how they spread. So yeah. So we've been talking about a lot about soil. Tell me about water.
26:20is when we started a podcast, I should back up. We started a podcast on Earth Day, actually, April 22. And it's called Armored Soil Podcast. And it's really because everything that we do in the soil still directly impacts water. So if you think about a raindrop hitting the soil surface of the earth, if it hits the surface and runs off, now we've moved water and soil and potentially nutrients if it's a crop field.
26:48and into an environment we probably don't want it to be moved into. If that raindrop falls and hits the soil surface and infiltrates into the soil, now it's regenerating down into aquifers that we're drinking from. So, um, really it all does come back to the soil, everything that we're doing, even though we talk about water a lot. But what we help customers with is, um, access to water.
27:14We can provide support as far as like an advice on if you need a new well, we can get you connected to the resources to get a new well if it's failing. Helping customers find and abandon old wells, right? So we're capping off potential contaminations going into our aquifer. We also can help with if people have erosion on their crop field that has maybe been a result of too much water being in the wrong place. We can provide advice.
27:43and details on, you know, maybe some sort of structure, earthen structure needs to be installed there to slow the water down a little bit and allow it to infiltrate to prevent erosion. So those are kind of the pieces when we talk around water. We don't do much with irrigation. We only have one pivot in the whole county. So we don't regionally, we don't do a lot with that. But we also work with landowners adjacent to all of our open waters.
28:12We have the Minnesota River along our southern border and so we work a lot with landowners to make sure that we're not going to have an impact of water moving too quickly, leaving their property too fast to create erosion or to move things off of the field that we don't want to move like nutrients or soil. Okay. So because you're Renville County, are you limited to helping people in Renville County?
28:42We are not. Part of that is to just, you know, as a state, we all have different local goals and priorities. But as a state, in the last five years, we've moved more toward water planning on a watershed boundary versus a political boundary. So most of us do work in projects outside of our political boundary, but on a watershed boundary. But collectively, we still...
29:09visit with landowners anywhere from around the state and offer advice. It's just we might not have all the resources beyond our borders to know what's out there. If that makes sense? Yep. Yep, it does. Okay, I have one more question for you because I know you have a meeting at 10 and I'm sure you would like to get prepared for that too. This past winter, everyone who lives in Minnesota knows that this was a very, very strange winter. What do you think about that? Because I am...
29:38I am starting to get really concerned about the weather patterns because we've been here since 2020, where we live now. And the weather has been so erratic and it's either been lovely and calm or it's been intense and not calm. And I was told when I was 15 by my biology teacher that, well, our whole class was told.
30:06He said, I am going to step away from normal curriculum today, and we're going to talk about climate change. And I'm 54. 15, no one was talking about climate change in a very direct way. And he said, by the time you guys are in your 50s, you will see the actual effects of climate change. And I was 15.
30:31my classmates were 14, 15, 16, we didn't really know what he was saying. And now that I'm 54, I know exactly what he was telling us. So what do you think about this past winter and how bizarre it's been?
30:50So it certainly has been bizarre, and this is a personal opinion that I'll offer. We have seen and we know that we can have a direct microclimate change on areas, and we've seen it. Say for example, there's a customer that I met several years ago that has a ranch in the Chihuahuan Desert. And by increasing
31:18his stocking rate and starting to mob graze by putting more pounds of beef per acre on his ranch, he was able to increase the amount of vegetation on his soil and increase his amount of rainfall because now he created an environment, a microclimate where he had plants that were then impacting his direct climate because they were photosynthesizing. They were respirating and evaporating moisture.
31:48and created a scenario where he was actually getting seven inches more rain than neighbors five miles away in his microclimate. So I do think we are making some sort of changes. We know we've obviously changed the landscape, right? In an effort to grow crops, we've changed that landscape. And so I think we need to really think about trying to balance that back out, right?
32:18Maybe it's as small as every farm having a few acres of pollinator, right? That's constant green vegetation to balance that out, or maybe widening field borders to have green vegetation growing. Um, but I certainly think that we have made some sort of change in the atmosphere, um, with how we're operating on the planet today that is impacting us. Whether you call it global warming, climate change, whatever, um, we're doing something and I think we need to take a look to see.
32:48What do we need to do to change that, right, or try and correct? So I don't know, did I answer that? It's kind of, it's such a loaded question and it's something we talk about all the time at work just because we see it, right? And we know examples like the one I just gave where we can really have a positive change and impact. Yeah, and I know it's a loaded question, but I really want people thinking about it and talking about it. Yeah.
33:16Maybe in prompting the discussions, maybe someone who we don't even know yet will come up with something that everyone can get behind. Yeah. I want people to be thinking about this because honestly, it makes me upset. Sure. I have kids who one has a kid, so I have a grandchild, and I want there to be a world for my...
33:44descendants and at the rate we're going, it makes me really worry. I can't disagree. You know, we see it just in my career. I've seen fields, farm fields, and I'm sure you see them in your neighborhood as well, that the hilltops used to be black, but now they're tan and gray because we've eroded off that topsoil. And that's left. Where did that go? Right? Is that now in our atmosphere? Yeah. Is that in the river? Where? And so things like that. It is
34:14upsetting, especially on the visual side of things and like you said, extreme weather patterns. So I do think it is a conversation to have. Definitely. I just wish I had the answer. I wish I was the person that had that answer, how to get there. I think it's a lot of little things though, Mary. I think it's a lot of little changes. I think a lot of it's education as well. And just part of the thing that seems like with getting large scale
34:44It's really hard to think about what you're doing and maybe even admit that you haven't been doing it the best. Yeah. And, and then making that change, right? Like as humans, oof, I don't just ask my husband, I don't like to admit when I'm wrong. Uh huh. I certainly don't want to tell him. Yeah. But that's the piece of it too, right? And then changing that pattern. And that's really what we're trying to do here in the soul and water. And I think across the state, soul and waters and
35:12our partners at USDA are trying to do the same thing is really look at large scale adoption of soil health practices where we're not stirring the soil and trying to keep it armored as much as we can to kind of hopefully re-stabilize that entire environment and the globe. Yeah. I think part of the issue is that recycle, reduce, reuse, homestead, sustainability, blah, blah, blah. All those words.
35:42sexy. We need to figure out a way to make it sexy and shiny and new and bright so it gets attention. And it just makes me laugh because there is nothing sexier than seeing people outside in the fresh air working on things. And I don't know why people don't think that that all of this is is sexy and attractive. I don't understand. Yeah, I'm 100% with you like
36:12Absolutely. How do we change that mindset as a society that that's, that's a good look having dirt under your fingernails. Yeah. And sweat on your brow. And part of it is that it's dirty work. You're going to get sweaty and dirty if you're doing stuff. But we watch sports figures run down the football field and get sweaty and gross and they have the black stuff under their eyes.
36:42sexier than somebody outside working in the sunlight in a garden. What we really need is a marketer, right? That's what we need. Yeah. As a marketer. Yeah. To get. And I need, I understand how marketing works because I worked in marketing for a while. Sure. But I also know that it takes an idea and a story and then money to make the thing that people see. So if anybody out there is interested in
37:11Holly put out a really great video about gardening. Let me know. Yeah, definitely. That would be awesome. I doubt that there is. I love the awesome because that's what we wanna do. Yeah. I think it'd be great. Find some really handsome man and some really lovely lady and have them out in the garden planting things and then spraying the water off their faces with a hose. That'd be great. There we go. Why not? You've even got the intro right there. Sure, why not?
37:41Okay, well, I was mostly trying to lighten this up because that whole global warming subject gets real serious real quick. It does. And like you said, I'm not afraid of that either, but it's just, it's a loaded question. Yeah. And I'm going to keep asking it because there have to be conversations going on about this. That's what I say. That's what I think. And it's my podcast. So I can say it.
38:11All right, Holly, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. I didn't know how this was going to go, but I think it was really important to talk to you. Good. Well, I appreciate that. I'm really glad you reached out. I wasn't sure exactly what you were looking for either. So hopefully we got some good content for your listeners. I'm not sure I knew what I was looking for, but I was like soil and water conservation. This is important. How did you find us, Mary? Can I ask?
38:37I think just like I find everything else, I was scrolling through Facebook and it got fed to me in my feed, I think. Oh, cool. Okay, no, I was just curious. I don't remember. I am constantly looking at my phone. I should not be, but to find people to talk to, I kind of need Facebook to feed me more of what I'm looking for. And God love Facebook. I mean, it's probably not.
39:03great in some ways, but when I'm trying to find homesteaders and cottage food producers and crafters to talk with, it's fantastic. Oh yeah. No, it's a great way for them to be out there and marketing. Yeah. So, but that's how I found you, I think. And I was like, what is this? And then I thought, hey, I should talk to them and see if it's a fit. Cool. Well, I'm glad you reached out. I'm glad I did too. And thank you for your patience with my questions and thank you for
39:30walking a fine line on the answers of the loaded question, because I know you need to be careful and it's important. Yes, because I want to keep my job. Please, yes, keep your job. I think you're doing a fabulous thing. All right. You have a fantastic day. Sounds great. Thanks. You too, Mary. All right.
 
 

Crazy GF Cookies

Today I'm talking with Brittany at Crazy GF Cookies. You can follow her on Facebook as well.
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 Brittany at Crazy Gluten Free Cookies. Good morning, Brittany. How are you today? Good morning. I'm doing well. How are you? I'm great. Tell me about yourself and Crazy Gluten Free Cookies. Right. So...
00:29Um, I actually just started, uh, I call it crazy GF cookies, but yes, the GF stands for gluten free. Um, and I just started it back in January, but it's kind of been like a slow start. So, but I'm going to be at a farmer's market, um, come next month in May. And so, yeah, it's super exciting journey for me because I've never really done anything with
00:56restaurants or businesses or baking and stuff like that for at a professional level. So it's kind of a fun adventure for me just starting off slow with a cottage food bakery. Okay, so tell me how you got started. I read your About Me on your website, but I would love to have you share why you started doing this. Yeah, so I feel like when somebody asks like, oh, why are you doing the baking? They always are like, because I love to bake.
01:25That is not me. Mm-hmm. It is quite actually totally different. I actually got into it because I see a problem in our marketplace, especially I live in a smaller town outside of the Twin Cities, like an hour outside of the Twin Cities. And so I really don't even, this is even bigger problem where I live. But there's just nothing for people who have allergies and gluten.
01:54being one of those allergies, which a lot of people don't understand what gluten is. It's just a protein in wheat, but wheat products are all over the place. It's pretty much in everything. And so it's very difficult to eat out anywhere or to be safe anywhere. And that's my story because I didn't used to have to eat gluten-free. So I know what it's like to just go to a restaurant and order whatever you want.
02:23But yeah, back in 2012, I was basically told, hey, you're allergic to gluten. And I was like, can't I still eat it? And I was asking the doctor that and the doctor's like, you're going to die if you keep eating it. And so I had to go gluten free and it was awful. I mean, I love my pastas and my bread and the treats and the cookies and everything.
02:52And so for me, it was just an awful realization. And so my passion really lies with, you know, helping people who have allergies like I do, because it's like, we just don't have that many options. If we go to a restaurant, we have to always like ask a million questions. Like, do you have gluten-free on the menu? Is this gluten-free? Does it have wheat in it? Is it fried in the same fryer with everything else? Like...
03:20You know, so it's very difficult. And I just, I saw this as like a hole in our marketplace where there's really nothing that's super safe in our area and like that's dedicated gluten free. And so I was just like, you know what? We need something. We need something in our area. Cause more and more people are finding out that they're allergic to wheat, or they're just going gluten free for just to be healthier because in general, um, most people, even if they don't have an intolerance or an allergy to wheat.
03:50they actually do better when they're off of weight. They lose weight and they are healthier and stuff like that too. So that's really why I started it. Okay. The restaurant thing. The thing I have found if you ask the waitresses or the manager questions about what's in the food is you get one of two kinds of responses.
04:17Either they understand why you're asking and they're really kind and they're really sweet in their response, or they're really short with you because they're like, if you need to ask, you shouldn't be eating here. You know? Yeah, exactly. And I would feel like there's also the response of they have no idea. It's not that they're necessarily short with you, they just are so confused. They just don't know what you're talking about when you say gluten. And it's like, okay, well.
04:44it's wheat. Is there any wheat in it?" And they're like, I don't know, what is wheat? And it's like, that's basically flour. So anything that has flour in it, that's your typical flour that hasn't actually been purposely made gluten-free by picking rice flour or corn flour or something like that, is going to automatically have wheat in it. And so I try to explain it to people. And it's just, it's countless times I've tried to explain it to a waitress going like,
05:12this is what we is, like, and I have to explain it to them. And so then, but then that makes me feel less safe because I'm like, if I'm explaining it to you and you don't know, how do I, how can I trust your response and your answer? Because you probably don't understand still, even though I just explained it to you. Yeah, exactly. Um, I have an allergy or a, I don't know if it's an allergy, but it's a reaction to monosodium glutamate, MSG, and it gives me terrible headaches. And people will say that that's not true.
05:42But it is true. And there was a restaurant that I wanted to order a beef commercial from. And a lot of gravies have MSG in it. And I called to order and I was like, is your gravy house made and does it have MSG in it? And the lady on the phone...
06:02said, let me ask. And she put me on hold and went and asked. And she was like, we're really, really busy right now and I couldn't find anybody who had an answer. So just don't order that. And I was like, yep, that's fine. I'll get a burger. So it can be any food allergy that makes life miserable. So how did you come to find out that you had the allergy to gluten?
06:31So I was bent over in pain, like my stomach and just the center of my whole body was pretty much just in so much pain. And I was sick like all the time. And I went through this through childhood and stuff too. It took quite a few years before we finally identified the problem and it was just getting worse and worse for me to the point where I couldn't stand up straight anymore because it was just that bad.
07:00And then I ended up finding out after going off of gluten that there was other reactions that I didn't even realize were also attributed to it, such as acne, migraines, and stuff like that as well. But it wasn't even an official like they diagnosed me because like the typical way of diagnosing an actual celiac, someone who's highly allergic, is to take a piece of their colon out.
07:28and examine it with a microscope and all that, but I didn't go through that. I just needed someone to tell me, you're probably allergic to gluten and wheat and you need to go off of it and see if you feel better. And that's what I did. And yeah, I felt tons better. I could finally stand up again and all this stuff. So it definitely is a problem. And now I'm like so sensitive that, yeah, I can't walk through the bakery area at a grocery store. So.
07:58I get immediate headache if I'm by the bread or by the bakery. My son, I have a two-year-old son named Joshua, but I brought him over when he was still a couple months. I brought him over to the bakery section. I'm just so used to now if I go over there, I just hold my breath and I just run through real quick to grab whatever I need to grab and then run out. But he broke out in hives just in the area for a few seconds.
08:28And I was like, ah, he has it too. So now it's like extra precautions have to be in place because it's not just me now. It's also my son who I obviously want the best for him. And it's not just eating gluten, it's being around it. Yes. And that's what makes it even harder is because there's been restaurants that my family is like, oh, hey, let's go eat here. They say they have a gluten free option and I'll walk in and I'm immediately sick. And I'm like,
08:57Even if they have a gluten-free option here, there's absolutely no way I could eat it and be safe because just if walking in the environment is causing me issues, then that means that there's going to be what we call cross-contamination where there's going to be crumbs and stuff lying around or flour lying around that got into the gluten-free product. And oftentimes, restaurants call that gluten-sensitive, not gluten-free because there's probably still gluten in it. It's just that it wasn't made in...
09:26intentionally with gluten. So is it that you're breathing in the gluten, the wheat dust or particles in the air? Is that what's making the reaction happen? Yes. And I mean, places like, for instance, like a pizza joint, like they might toss the pizza dough up in the air and they've got all the flour if they're mixing their pizza dough, you know, from there. And so that just gets up in the air and you breathe it in. And so...
09:55My dad even went gluten-free for a while just for my sake, but he didn't have a sensitivity to it. When he went gluten-free and then he walked into a bakery area, he was like, wow, I can smell the bread. I can smell this stuff. He's like, I didn't know it had a smell before being gluten-free for a while. And I'm like, that's...
10:18That's funny, yeah. And I'm like, me either, really, because I didn't notice it either until I was gluten-free for at least a year before I started noticing that I wasn't even feeling good walking through the bakery areas. Wow. I didn't know that breathing it would cause a reaction too. That is good information to have. Okay. So what do you – do you just make cookies and what kind of cookies do you make? Yeah. So I'm starting off slowly. So yeah, I was just focusing on cookies.
10:46Um, so my newest ones that seem to have gotten a lot of attention online right now are the whoopie pies and the oatmeal cream pies. Those are two cookies that I have been missing since going gluten free. And it's been quite a few years. So I was like, why haven't I made these sooner? I don't understand. Like, why didn't I make, try to make them sooner because they are delicious. Um, but yeah, those kinds of cookies are especially what I'm focusing on right now is like the ones that like.
11:14you just don't find anywhere. Because you can find a chocolate chip cookie at different places. And I do make those as well. But it's the more unique ones that you just don't see anywhere. Okay. And what are you using for a flour, a wheat flour replacement in your cookies? Because I would love to know because I would love to make some too. Yeah. So I use the King Arthur brand of flour.
11:42It's a mixture of different flours. It's got rice flour in it, I think primarily, and then it probably has some other flours mixed in. There's tapioca flour and other things that you can get separately as just that flour, but I found that the ones that are mixed together, Pillsbury also makes a really good gluten-free flour mix, but they're just a little bit more expensive even than King Arthur.
12:11They do pretty well. Like you can't really tell the difference. I've had multiple people eat the cookies and go, it does not taste gluten-free. And I'm like, yeah, it's because of the flour that was probably chosen. Okay. So it has the same, I don't know, mouthfeel as a regular cookie? Yes. It tastes the same. It's got the same texture. I try to make sure that my cookies are moist enough to not crumble because that's one of the problems with gluten-free often.
12:40Even gluten-free store-bought stuff, it just crumbles immediately as you're trying to eat it. So when I try to make my cookies, I try to make sure they're moist enough so it's like a regular cookie you're biting into, not something that's going to crumble all over the place. Okay, and then the other question I have is, when you're making something with gluten-free flour, do you have to change the other ingredients or can you just use what you would normally use with wheat flour?
13:10Well, I would say that depends. Okay. Because I can use stuff like eggs. That's easy. And milk, if I'm making a dairy-free item too, because I also make dairy-free stuff, then I'm going to use either almond milk or oat milk or something like that. But there are some things that I do have to be careful of. For instance, like if I'm putting cinnamon or something into it.
13:37I have to be careful with that because even spices, most spices will have cross contamination with wheat or actually have wheat in them because a lot of things are fluffed up like to add. It's like wheat is cheap, so companies will add it into stuff. I mean, you'll find potato chips, which you'd think would just be potatoes and they would have wheat in them. And the same thing goes for spices. So I have to actually...
14:02very carefully look for spices that actually are labeled gluten-free in order to be able to use them and feel safe about it. I feel like you live in a world where you don't trust anything unless you make it yourself and I don't blame you at all. Yeah, exactly. It's really difficult. I mean, and I wish that we had more places that understood the allergies and understood like all this stuff. But yeah. I mean, it's...
14:31there's just not options out there. And that's really why I made it crazy GF cookies. Because it's like, we need an option. You know, I know that I wish there was an option. And I'm like, I know there's got to be other people out there wishing there's an option. Well, yeah, because cookies are their comfort food, their feel good food. And everybody should be able to eat a cookie now and then. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite, there's actually a gluten free food truck.
15:01And yeah, I don't partner with them or anything, but they are amazing. And they actually say on their truck that fair food should be fair. And I'm like, exactly, like we should be able to have gluten-free options, you know, things should be fair for us too, but there's just not much out there. I mean, and other allergies as well, of course. So I don't want to get too far away from what you're doing.
15:29How in the world do you shop for food at the store? Like food food. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of difficult. I mean, and I've, you know, over the years I've discovered more and more things. So I've had lots of problems with getting cross contaminated and then getting sick. And when I get sick, I'm sick for at least three days before it gets out of my system. So it is difficult. I...
15:57even found out a few months ago that frozen fruits and veggies, they sometimes spray them with some chemicals to kind of like preserve them. And in those chemicals is wheat. And I'm like, so I can't even trust like bags of frozen fruit and vegetables, because they could possibly have the wheat in them. And they don't have to disclose it because it's such a minute amount.
16:24that they don't have to disclose it on the packaging. So there are some fruits that I found that did say gluten-free on them, so then I was able to get those. But most items, yeah, no. It's a lot of going to the store, walking through the aisles, picking up stuff off the shelves, looking at the back of it, seeing if it contains any of the ingredients that would be wheat-related or if it actually says gluten-free. And basically, I know I'm safe if it says gluten-free, but if it doesn't say gluten-free, it's like a 50-50 chance. Jesus.
16:54I'm so glad that you were willing to talk with me because I had a vague understanding of people being allergic to gluten, but I have a much better understanding now. That's not fair. I'm really sorry that you're dealing with this. Yeah. And it's hard. I feel like the hardest part is when I'm dealing with other people. So if I'm dealing with people at my church or if I'm dealing with my family because it's like...
17:18I know they don't understand it and I would like to explain it to them and I've explained it to them multiple times, but there's still so much. I mean, like I said, I'm still learning some stuff, like of what actually has we in it. So it's like, it's hard to safely eat with family and friends. And that's the hardest part is because I feel bad because I'm like, I know I'm putting pressure on you guys that I don't want to put on you if you wanted to make us something for lunch or whatever. So I think that's really the hardest part. Yeah.
17:48Absolutely. I mean, the hardest part is I'm sure that you spend a good percentage of your time being anxious about what you're presented to eat. And that's you. And then you have to worry about how your friends and family react to your anxiety about it. Yes. Yes. It's a lot of anxiety. That's for sure. You hit that one right on the head. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
18:16I have to be really careful about when people say, what would you like me to make if we're going to their house because of the MSG thing. I also have an allergy to capsaicin that developed about two years ago and we're going to be going to visit friends sometime I think in June. And the male of the couple asked me what I would like to eat and I was like, well, what were you thinking of making?
18:43And he says, well, I could do ribs, I could do this, or I could do burgers. And I said, no hot pepper anything. I said, unless you would like to have me die in front of you. And he had already heard a little bit about it. And he's like, I don't want you to die in front of me. He said, no hot peppers. I was like, OK, good. I said, how about burgers? I said, burgers are a fairly easy thing to do. And we can just add what we want to them on the bun and eat them. He says, that's the easiest option.
19:12that would be great." I said, okay, thank you. And I thought it was lovely that he asked what we would like to eat, but I always feel weird about being like, I want plain salad and a glass of water. I mean, that's not fun food. That's not something you want to make for guests. Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard, especially, yeah, that's rough. I feel like yours would be even harder because at least gluten has gotten more attention in the last few years.
19:42Yeah, you've got more stuff to worry about. I've got a double whammy, but at least I can really, really work around it. If I breathe something that has MSG on it, it doesn't bother me. If I know there's a jar of ground hot peppers, I'm probably not going to go smell it. So I know the dangers and I know what's going to happen and I can work around it. With you...
20:10You may not even know that someone was making pizza dough half an hour before they went to wherever you are and still have the flower in their hair or on their clothes. Yeah. So no, I mean, if we're going to play the who's got it worst game, I'm going to say you on this one. All right. And the capsaicin thing.
20:37I don't really love hot peppers anyway, so it's not a huge loss to me to not eat them. I'm totally fine with that. And bell peppers are fine. I can still eat sweet peppers and I love sweet peppers. So at least if it had to be one or the other, it was the one that I like that I didn't lose. Yeah. And I heard with people with allergies that a lot of times like it's always what they love is what they're losing.
21:03And so yeah, that was what it was for me. It's like, I loved pasta and bread and pizza. It's like all my favorite stuff. And then it's like, that was everything I lost. Luckily I can make it a different way and still have it. But like, yeah, at first it was so rough. I thought I could never eat that stuff again. And I had to only ever eat whole foods. Yeah. Yep. My favorite snack growing up was one of the single sized bags of Doritos.
21:33and half a Dr. Pepper. That was my favorite treat. Doritos has a ton of MSG in it. So I haven't eaten a Dorito in 25 years and I still would give my right foot to eat one chip. I really would. I loved the flavor of Doritos. They came out with a no MSG kind. I think it was the Cool Ranch ones.
22:03They lie. There's MSG in those too. Oh my goodness. It's just a little bit, but a little bit for me still kicks the headache. So yeah, it's just a thing and people have all kinds of allergies to all kinds of things and we just have to learn to work around it, I guess. Yes, yes, exactly. And that was part of the reason I started up my business. I've already had some people go on my Facebook page and like be f***ed.
22:31saying thank you from a gluten-free family and stuff like that. And it's just like, that's really why I started it was because those are the people that I have a heart for. And I'm like, yes, you're my people. Let's do this. We're going to do this together. Singing you the song of your people. Yes, exactly. Okay. So are you maybe thinking of later down the road doing like an actual bakery? Yes.
23:01I have been considering it. I mean, it's over, I don't even know, like the last six to seven years. I mean, I've been talking about like, oh, it'd be so cool to have a restaurant. Oh, it'd be so cool to have a bakery. Oh, it'd be so cool to have these other things. And I think that a lot of it is me just wishing that there was somebody who was doing it and then not seeing people do it. And even some of the gluten-free options that used to be available where I lived was they've gone out of business or they just…
23:31stop making the gluten-free options. And so I'm just like, what we really need is like a gluten-free restaurant. Like the whole restaurant gluten-free. And so this bakery is kind of my way of starting small, dipping my toes in the business side of things. But yeah, I would love to have like an actual storefront bakery or even eventually a restaurant that's totally gluten-free. But yeah, I'm new to business in general. So I'm just a…
23:59trying to dip my toes in it first and do the cottage food bakery out of my home so I don't have like all those startup costs right away. Yeah, because those are the things that will sink your ship faster than anything. Is there such a thing as a gluten-free restaurant in the United States right now? Oh, yes. There are dedicated gluten-free. There's actually in Minnesota, there's a really nice one.
24:26I love going to them there, but they're over in Burnsville. So for me, it's like a 40, 30 minute drive somewhere between there to get there. And they serve breakfast foods. So they have like waffles and pancakes and stuff like that. Their whole facility is gluten-free and they cater highly to dairy-free people as well. And they're sensitive to other allergens. And so they're amazing. So.
24:55I don't know, there's a few more, but a lot of them I feel like are very, they're like really closer to bigger cities. And in Minnesota, most of them are further up north. Because there are some dedicated gluten-free bakeries as well, but they're further up north and I'm further down south. And so there's really nothing down here, which is such a bummer because it's like I don't like traveling to three hours to go get dedicated gluten-free stuff.
25:24Yeah, that's a big ask. Yeah. Yeah, and I've done it. I've done it. It is a lot. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, how is it going? I mean, you said that people are commenting and saying thank you from another gluten-free family, but how is it going? Are you feeling in the weeds? Are you feeling like you have a handle on what you're doing? Are you... Where are you at with it?
25:54I would say in general, I just feel a little overwhelmed right now. But I mean, part of that is just because I have a two-year-old. And so, and I'm a stay at home parent. So it's like, I'm trying to parent him while also trying to get this bakery stuff up and running and I was experimenting with different recipes. So it is a little overwhelming. I've had a few sales. I haven't had that many, like less than I would have expected. But then again,
26:19I also haven't been promoting myself as well as I probably should have been. I just because I've been busy and it's like I turn around and then another disaster has happened in the living room because my son's thrown everything everywhere. So it's like I have to balance between parenting, keeping up with the house and starting this business and making orders for people. So I'm hoping though that I'll get more sales once I go to the farmer's market.
26:48in New Prague and so hoping for that. Yeah, is that on Saturdays? Do you know? Yes, that is Saturday mornings starting in May, the day before Mother's Day. I think it's what, May 11th? That's 9 a.m. to noon. Okay, because there's also a farmers market in Lesor, which is the town that I live in, which is only about 15 minutes from you. And it...
27:17It's really good. It's a really busy, thriving farmers market. So if you discover that the New Preg one isn't for you, you should check into the Lassour one. It's on Saturday mornings as well. Yeah. Yeah, I probably should. The reason I went with New Preg was because we used to live in New Preg. And so I was aware of that. And I have one of my friends, she does homemade peanut butter.
27:44and some other treats like that. And she's at that farmer's market too. And so I thought it would be fun. And I was like, okay, I can go see my friend and stuff too. Oh yeah. At the farmer's market. And yeah, and I just was aware of it because it's right there on Main Street. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm hoping that it's good, but yeah, I should check out that one too, because that one might even be a little bit closer to me than the new Preg one. Yeah.
28:11Yeah, we, my husband, I shouldn't say we, I don't sell anything at the farmers market because I don't go. I get real twitchy with lots of people around, so it's not my thing, but he loves it. But he started doing that last summer and he can't get over how fun it is and how many people actually come through during the day. LaSore is a small town. It's not much, it's not, it may be bigger than Belle Plaine. I don't think it is though.
28:40And so you wouldn't think that many people would swing by and see what's for sale, but they do. So I have one more question for you, and then I'm going to cut you loose because I'm sure that you would like to get back to doing your thing. If you take your gluten-free goods, all packaged up and pretty and lovely the way that I know you do them, and you go to the farmer's market or you sell them at
29:07I don't know, a store that decides they love your stuff and they want to sell it on their shelves. Does it become cross contaminated in a place that isn't gluten free?
29:21Yeah, so that would be the challenge. I mean, I don't know if I can right now with the cottage food bakery laws to sell it anywhere outside of just a farmer's market. I don't think other businesses can sell it off of their shelves. But yeah, when it comes to the farmer's market, I mean, it shouldn't be cross contaminated if it's on my tables, like if I bring my tables and everything.
29:50If there's gluten in the air, obviously I can't help that. But yeah, since the products are already packaged, gluten shouldn't be getting on them. And yeah, there is a slight risk, I guess, with people if they were to come and touch the boxes after touching wheat on one of the other tables. That would be a slight concern that, honestly, I hadn't thought about before, just now.
30:19the goodies themselves as long as they're already prepackaged, they shouldn't get stuff on them. Okay. I was wondering because that's what I would think of because I have a crazy brain that goes places that most people's brains don't go. Okay, Brittany, do me a favor after I stop the recording, don't leave because I need the recording to upload. I forgot to mention at the beginning. I really appreciate your time and I'm so glad that you talked to me.
30:48in a very vulnerable way about what you've been through with this because I learned things I had no idea existed regarding gluten allergies. So thank you. Well, thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk with you. Yeah, absolutely. I want to know more. I want to touch back with you a year from now and see where you're at with your business because I think you're on to something big here. Yeah. All right. Sounds good. All right. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you. You too. Bye.
 

Independence Gardens

Today I'm talking with Chonnie at Independence Gardens. You can follow them on Facebook as well.
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 Chonnie at Independence Gardens. Good morning, Chonnie. Good morning. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Good. Fantastic, actually. Good.
00:26I'm actually in Lewisville, Texas. So it's a town a little bit north of Dallas. It's kind of in a North Dallas area. Okay. I thought it was Texas, but I just wanted to make sure. All right. Well, tell me about yourself and Independence Gardens and what you guys do. So Independence Gardens is a local nonprofit that has roots in Lewisville, Texas. We've been around since 2013. And our overall mission is to provide children access to fresh food.
00:55through nutrition-based programs. And it includes sustainability programs. I was actually just recently had an opportunity to be at EarthX at 2024, that was held in Dallas. And I spoke about some of the programs that we had, specifically our Beanstalk project, which is our hydroponic system, which is a fairly new program for us. And so really it's just an opportunity for
01:22school communities to not only grow their own food, but to feed everyone in that school, in the heart of that school. And the program started in 2013. And I tell this story because nobody believes me. It started with a simple school lunch. And my daughter was in kindergarten at that time. And I just happened to be having lunch with her, of course, like everybody wants.
01:51first year of their child's public school years. And I remembered, right, our school lunch. I don't know if you remember your school lunch. Mine was like the best hamburger ever, right? It was the best hamburger I ever had. And, you know, everybody said it was kind of a hamburger, but not really a hamburger because it tasted like meat, but there were some additional fillers in it that made it. It was the best thing I remember when I was growing up.
02:17So when I had lunch with her and went through the line, she had, I remember this because she had chicken nuggets. She got her chocolate milk and it was green beans that did not look like green beans. And it was the weirdest color I'd ever seen. And I didn't really think much about it, but I should have had a warning when I went in to check in and the administrator asked me.
02:46if I brought her something to eat. And I'm like, absolutely not. I'm having lunch with her. And she said, well, maybe next time you can bring her something from either McDonald's or Chick-fil-A. And I'm like, that's odd. So as we went through the line and she kind of, you know, I saw these green beans. It was supposed to be green, but I don't know. I've never seen this color green beans before. She kind of picked her food a little bit, drank all of her chocolate milk of course.
03:14and basically threw about 80% of it away. I noticed that in every child around me as they threw away their food, and there was 80% of everything they had in their lunch tray they threw away. I understood why she was so hungry when she came home because she didn't eat. I left and I was checking out this administrator said,
03:42see maybe next time you need to bring her something else. And so I left that lunch. That's when I think the mission of the organization seeded itself because I could not consciously send my child to a place that is supposed to be the organization, the people that would nourish her mind and body when we can't even.
04:09solve the simplest things and that is what would they put in their body, right? To actually nourish their mind and get them on the path of success. And also, I couldn't believe that adults would actively say, I wouldn't eat that lunch. And then my thought is, then why are you feeding it to my child? So that's really, and I talk about her because she is going to be a senior this year, so she's graduating this year, and Independence Gardens started with her. And so that really just
04:37I surrounded myself with like-minded individuals and having a background in marketing and in health because I always say I started my journey in this sphere of food and health when I worked for the American Heart Association. So I was a marketing manager for them and I led part of the Heart Checkmark program. I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's on the...
05:05It's on the cheer-grows boxes and it's like a heart with a check mark on it. And so I was really plugged in with the importance of how food impacted your body. And also at that time as well, the school that she was in was 55% Title I school. So everyone and those children received free or reduced lunch.
05:33in food deserts. So believe it or not, there is still a food desert in the US and roughly, I think back then there was 44 communities in North Texas alone that really qualified for that. So that's really the background of who I am. I'm founder of Independence Gardens. I serve as founder and executive director. We are a fully volunteer organization. I have
06:01My amazing board members, some of them have been with me since 2013. So pretty, pretty long time. Because they believe as we do, right? If we can just give children access to fresh food, then they're able to make healthier food choices as they grow. And I am also on the flip side of that, I lead a pediatric organization locally.
06:31their ramifications when we do not feed our children the right kind of food. That's a lot, right? That's a lot. That's awesome though, because that was everything that I needed to know to keep asking questions. And to share two stories about school lunches. I'm going to share mine. I was in school, oh my goodness, I graduated over 30 years ago.
06:58I did not eat the school lunches because number one, I was a terribly picky child and did not like any foods. I was really skinny. And number two, I knew that if I bought a very fine juice and a single serving size bag of Doritos, I would still have $3 left at the end of each day. And I wanted pocket money more than I wanted lunch. So that worked out slick.
07:26And then the other story is my kids, two of my sons came home from school one day. I think the older one was still in middle school and the younger one was in elementary school. And they both came up to me and said, can we start taking lunches from the leftovers from dinner? And I said, of course you can. Why? And my older one said, because school lunches aren't food.
07:53And I thought, yeah, you can certainly start taking cold lunches to school. I didn't think they'd want to because I thought that they would think it wasn't cool to do that. But we got them some very neutral lunch box, soft sided lunch boxes, and they started taking leftovers from dinner the night before. And they were very happy with that because school lunches are not typically food. Isn't that crazy? That just blows my mind.
08:22I continuously hear stories like that. And it's actually, it's fairly recent too, I mean, because we have been around since 2013 and I've been advocating for ways for us to really address not only the school lunch issue and ensuring every child has access to fresh food, but the obesity epidemic as well.
08:52It's counterintuitive, right? If they don't have access to fresh food, then how are they obese? Well, it's actually interlinked because they're eating processed foods. Because first of all, it's a lot less expensive to purchase for a lot of these families. It's fresh food just basically rots a lot. It doesn't last as long as all the foods that they're buying.
09:19And we always get asked why schools, why even do it in that realm. And I like to kind of say schools are the heart of communities. Elementary schools are truly the heart of communities. They're full from different neighborhoods. They bring a lot of families together, a lot of different cultures. And I think in a lot of these kids, especially if they fall within the parameters of...
09:49free and reduced lunch, if they get SNAP benefits, then that's the only food that they get. Like 90% of what they eat, they get from school lunches. And so, whenever they're throwing 80% of that away, then they're literally not feeding their body anything. And so, as a parent, it really surprises me whenever we get those lovely letters saying,
10:15We're doing testing this week, right? You know, standardized testing this week. Please make sure that your child is getting sleep, that you're supportive of your child before it's successful. And then my pushback is, and why don't we look at whether we're feeding them in the morning? I mean, you cannot expect them to succeed when we're not even feeding them the right type of food and the right combination of food.
10:45to fuel their mind and their body. So that's been, and I mean, it's been an ongoing journey. So I didn't think I would still be here. If you would have asked me in 2013 what I would be doing in 2024, I'd probably say, I don't think I would be doing this. So this is a passion project for me, which is kind of why it's...
11:12My daughter is 17 and my other tier are not even elementary schools anymore, but I am actively still, I like to say, in the trenches and getting my hands dirty. As we're putting together outdoor learning spaces, edible spaces through our Apple project or going and talking and actively talking about the newest initiative, which is the Beanstalk Project, which is our hydroponic systems that we're putting in schools, because we have to be actively.
11:42involved in not only teaching our children the link between food security and water sustainability, because it's so interlinked right now. And it's that our population is just going to get bigger and our water resources shrinking. So we really have to find ways to be able to feed not only the population, our communities.
12:09but also in a responsible and sustainable way. And the food thing for me, by the way, it's not just about the growing because we have our Come and Eat It program, which is our chef driven program that we created in 2014 as a trademark program for us. And I have a lot of chef friends. And so I've been in the industry. So I understand their passion for ensuring and especially creating fresh food. And so since
12:37I think this past May, it's kind of our first post-COVID event that we've done. We had over 825 kids participate. And so we hold it one day out of the year. And this year we just pushed it back to National Nutrition Month, which is March. And so our goal is to really take that program nationally and that it's a program that every elementary school can have access to in the future. So that, you know, that we have, we have a ton happening and it's all...
13:06I really, I love to talk about my board because they're kind of the heart of who we are and without their passion and because there's a lot of good people and humans out there that are really passionate about ensuring children are equipped with all the resources they need to succeed. And part of that is ensuring healthy nutrition that goes into their body as well. Absolutely. I agree a million percent with you.
13:36Not just 100, a million. That's how big. How big I agree with you. Yes. So are you only in Texas or is this outside, is it the whole United States? So we're based in Texas, but our program is national. So we were built, we were founded on the premise that we would be a national program. We are in conversations with some school districts in Arizona.
14:05And that's kind of where our foray is. And we actually, we work directly with the school district, because if we can get the buying from the school districts and then it's easier to get it into every school, right? So it doesn't really cost any of the schools to get our programs in place. They just have to want it. And so we work with them. And it's an easy sell, right? But then you would think it's an easy sell.
14:34But it's the hardest thing to kind of get into schools. And I understand that and I get that because the school gardening, I like to say, is not a new thing. It's been around for forever. The reason that we're a little bit different is we build it on relationships. We're very relationship and collaborative driven, meaning that when we go into a school, we actively build a community.
15:00And we stay for three years. We have a commitment to stay with the school for three years. And that includes funding if it's available for them for the entirety of the three years. And, um, and then we, we continue to keep them in our network until they tell us to leave, right? Um, so we're able to bring this program because our, I always like to say is, um,
15:25You have to think big, especially when you're a nonprofit. Whenever I think whenever you minimize the way you're thinking, you just don't grow as an organization. And they are, I just, I just did this study the other day, cause I wanted to kind of see there's over, I want to say 60,000 plus elementary schools in the country. And we need to be in every one of them. Um, the reason I say that is because if we're in every one of them, then
15:54communities automatically have access to fresh food. And that's really what we are. I'm not going out and saying, you know, a company needs to change the way they do business because we have active partners in Aramark. So Aramark is a food service provider in K-12 here in some school districts in Texas. And there are active partners that we partner with them on ensuring food is readily available. And we're collaborating with Come and Eat It.
16:23And we're actually going to be doing a chef battle. This is the first time we're announcing it in this kind of format. The chef battle is called Food Fight 2024. And a food fight is going to be held at a local elementary school. And we're actually going to be sending out a national invitation next week to chefs to come in for this event. And they will be creating a dish.
16:53that is within the parameters of the National School Lunch Program, even down to the dollar amount that every child gets. There's going to be a secret ingredient because I have a lot of chefs that are competitive. They're going to have about roughly 45 minutes to an hour to create the dish in the school cafeteria kitchen. They get to present their food to
17:23third, fourth and fifth graders, because they're at the end of the day, they're the ones that's going to eat it. The reason we're putting this event is twofold, right? Like I say, you're asking if it's national. The fresh food access is a national problem. We have to really address it. The reason we're doing it is because it's twofold. We want to see if the current dollar amount that is being given to children when it comes in that the food program for in-school lunches is sufficient. Is it sufficient?
17:53Or, I think they just came down with new guidelines when it comes to, I want to say sugar and salt. And so, are those guidelines acceptable? And can we actively work with local farmers, with local organizations that are doing amazing work when it comes to sustainability, food access, whatever that looks like? And can...
18:21Can organizations, companies like Aramark or school districts actively partner and bring in more fresh food for these kids? How does that look like? And then if it's not, and if it's a total waste and these kids say, we hate this food, then we know, okay, then let's start the conversation is how do we increase the per child amount when it comes to fresh food?
18:49To me, it's kind of the cost of not doing that is astronomical because obesity costs, from a healthcare perspective, by the way, because I've seen the numbers, it costs the healthcare industry over a billion dollars in obesity alone. And that is coming from those preventable diseases like diabetes.
19:18heart disease and things of that nature that could be prevented when they're younger. But we don't look at it that way. We are actively doing things to what I like to say to put a band-aid on the problem versus just ripping the freaking band-aid off. Let's look at it. Let's just put things in place.
19:48work and the most impactful solutions are never the easy ones. So yeah, absolutely. So I love what you're telling me and that's awesome. But my next question is with your program, how does this work? Are the kids growing food to have in their school lunches at their schools on their school property or how does this work?
20:18So our Apple project is our, what we call our outdoor edible learning spaces. And we positioned it that way because whenever you say that there is a learning component to something, then teachers tend to buy in a little bit more, right? It's not extra work on them at all.
20:43And so whenever a school comes to us, say, hey, we want one of your programs in our school, I said, okay, and they want the outdoor learning space, the Apple project. We always build to scale. Like if there is a thousand kids in that school, we will build a big enough raised bed system that every child will have a 12 by 12. So each child will experience square foot gardening in their school, right?
21:10And so, and that's because, and we teach those concepts. So those concepts that we teach. So they'll grow it and then depending, it really is depending on partnerships. So in our agreement, we always say that we want them to be able to raise edible, whether it's fruits, vegetables, herbs, whatever. And then they're able to either take that home, they're able to do cooking programs in their school with it. So they're able to work with
21:37either their in-house school lunch program provider or like with Aramark, Aramark does a lot of food tastings when it comes to our products. So they'll do tastings at the school. I think they're going to do one with the hydroponic system, whatever they're going there. So they're going to do food tastings on that. And they're able to utilize that. And it's an active partnership because whenever we started this program,
22:06The school district was really hesitant, right? Because they weren't really sure, like why would we need that specifically? And they thought that it would be detrimental for the kids to be able to use the product. But I'm like, and I couldn't understand that reasoning. And then, but as we act, as we collaborated and our partnership grew, they really understood the importance of growing it, taking it home, and then doing cooking programs. So they do cooking programs
22:36of our products. They can use it if like because our hydroponic systems are located in the cafeteria so they can actively see it. The kids are able to pick off of that and eat it if they choose to do that. And if there is enough of the product is really kind of, you know, the concern is if there is enough product, then they're able to really utilize that in what they are serving.
23:05So, and if they don't use it, then families are able to go into the schools and bring it home. So, it is always a community garden-ish for us. We want to make sure that it's open to the parents. And so, the kids can actively go out there. And if they're out there learning about the root system and they just happen to see a strawberry growing, then they're able to pick that food and eat it, right? That's really the intent of that.
23:34And also, because if we're doing an outdoor space with them, we automatically build, we automatically plant an orchard for them. So we have, it's always six different fruit trees that we plant on their campuses. And so that way the families and anyone really can go in and grab the fruit that's growing. And a lot of our campuses do that. Like they actively will tell their...
24:03students or and then their teachers in their community, they'll send out information to their school community to come and get some food. And so, and then they're actively eating it. So one of our campuses is in Central Elementary. They have a couple of raised beds that they've done and that we've supported, we've actively supported this year. And that one is purely community.
24:30The kids can eat from it. They can use it if they want to in the cafeteria. Their families can come and get that food. We actively say use the food. What they don't use, because it's built into our agreement, 10% needs to be donated to a local food program.
24:58a percentage of what they're growing to a local food program as well. Okay. So who tends to these gardens and to the fruit trees? So we have, we actively work with their volunteers. So whenever we go into a school, we create what we call a team. So one of our board members will always sit on a quarterly meeting with
25:24their principal, a PTA or PTO member, and then the teachers that are either championing this on their campus. And the reason that we do that is because we know that their PTA, PTO members will always volunteer. So we do help them with that. We provide them with guidelines on
25:48This is seasonally what you can plant. This is kind of how when you can harvest. We provide seeds, we provide all of that if we have a signed agreement with that campus. So who takes care of it is the, let's say a fourth grade class will actively have a bed out there and then they'll come out there and they'll plant. And because it just directly aligns with what they're learning,
26:18then they're utilizing it both as a learning opportunity as well as a way to tend the garden. And some of our campuses have had afterschool programs or they've incorporated it in their 4-H program and they're the ones that take care of those gardens or those spaces in their campuses. So the kids are learning life skills, they're learning math, they're learning science, biology, they're learning.
26:45words because they have to be able to read the packages of the seeds to know what they're supposed to do with them. So it's just like a little microcosm of education outside at the raised bed. It is. And I think COVID really kind of gave us an opportunity to showcase the importance of being outside, right? And it's because for a while there, we were just all in inside. And I laugh because when we first put the program in...
27:15A teacher says, oh, great. We can teach our kindergartners the difference in the root system after they go to Google. I'm like, why would you go to Google? Go outside. Go outside and take out a plant and then draw it that way. Draw it and then you can actually actively teach them how to do that. Which is kind of why it's called an Outdoor Edible Learning Space.
27:44They get to do everything out there. I always like to say is, if you're in art class, go outside, draw something. Then you're getting not only that natural sunlight that we always do, everybody's saying that everybody's lacking vitamin D because the lack of sun that a lot of our kids are getting, but they get to be immersive and it's experiential learning. It's always, and they get the concepts a lot faster.
28:13Like they can tell you the root system because they picked the plant, they touched it, they felt it, and especially if it's basil or mint or something that smells great. So all of a sudden, it's sensory learning, right? And you're learning, you're using all of your senses to learn a single concept. And so children learn a lot faster that way.
28:39And we're seeing that, and which is why a lot, all of our programming actually is built on the experiential approach and that it's immersive. And so to us, that's the only way that they will actively embrace the program and they'll have fun with it because you have to have fun, right? I think that fun makes learning a whole lot easier. Yes. So. Yes. Okay. The elementary school that my kids went to. Mm-hmm.
29:08The principal that was there when they were in school, I cannot remember her name and I love her. It makes me crazy that I can't remember her name right now. She started an outdoor garden for the school. It wasn't to feed the school, it wasn't to feed the community, but it was to have the kids have a chance to learn about how to grow food in a raised bed garden. It wasn't as big as what you're talking about, but she started that.
29:37And she also started a backpack program for the weekends for kids that were on the free and reduced lunch scale. And some of the foods that they grew went home in the backpacks for the kids. So I have a tiny little experience with this, of your program on a much smaller scale. And I loved what she was doing and I love what you're doing. And
30:05We actually are going to be doing a farm to school thing on our homestead this fall, I think. I think. A principal of a private school emailed me a couple years ago and said, could you supply us with leafy greens, carrots, and radishes for the school year, for salads for the kids? And I'm in Minnesota. We don't grow those things in the wintertime because it's frozen here.
30:35So I'm not going to get into this too much because I've already talked about it a lot on the podcast, but we got a grant to build a heated winter greenhouse and the greenhouse framing is up. We have to get it sited in and roofed. And then this fall we can extend our growing and grow lettuces and baby spinach and carrots and radishes for the school. So we're doing our little tiny part too to try to help.
31:03When I talked with the principal, I said, you might want to approach some other places that are doing what we're doing because we're not going to be able to grow enough for all your kids. Right. And he said, I already have emails out. I was like, good, keep doing that. So you're not the only one who thinks this is important. And I didn't think that you thought that you were the only one. There are lots and lots of people who want to see things like this happen all over the place.
31:30And you know what I think that, and I've been kind of thinking about this because, um, so I'm very big on collaboration, like so, so big on collaboration. It's not even funny. And, and, um, I, I see the passion and the work that a lot of these nonprofits are doing, like there are so many of them.
31:54And but I've seen this in kind of the corporate world that sometimes we all get caught up in our little silos, right? And then we kind of like, oh, this is my program. This is, you know, what we do. I'm not going to share it because if I share it, then I'll share the additional resources. But what I've found out is, is that when we work together and we work collectively, we could do so much more.
32:24I've been actually thinking about, and maybe we did something that maybe you and I can maybe work on, is there is an EarthX, right? Maybe there's already something like this, and I don't know. I could be like, oh, you're recreating a wheel. EarthX started by Trammell S. Crow here in Dallas, Fort Worth, and it really brings, it started to kind of bring in all of the individuals, all the brains that it's trying to look at sustainability. But I think there's an opportunity to do it when it comes to food access.
32:54when it comes to what we're doing. And so I would like to put together like a conference so we could like collectively see what we could do to kind of move the needle. Because I think that, I don't think we're moving the needle fast enough, right? And I think the reason why we're not moving the needle fast enough is because we're all working individually. Like, and...
33:22I am the first person to say, man, if one of my volunteers, or donors would wanna support what you're doing, more power to you. Because if you're doing things in your world that is going to impact someone, and I think that is more important than having me keep that donor, right? And it's interesting, my board is like, Shawnee, stop saying that. I was like, no, but I absolutely believe that.
33:51that I think that the reason that we are not moving the needle, not only on food access, but on obesity is because we're doing it all wrong. We are literally doing it by ourselves and it's individualistic. And it's really hard for organizations to say, I want to actively collaborate with you. And my thing is, is like, I want to actively collaborate with you. How do I do that? How do I find partnership?
34:20And so one of the things we kind of started that with a local organization here. And I think she, Elizabeth Dry, if you've not heard, she has an organization called Promise of Peace. And she started in Dials for Worth. She moved to Mineola and she's doing amazing things in that little town in East Texas. She reached out to us because she knew she was moving and she wanted us to see what you think, continue her work here. Absolutely. But then we actively started helping support what she's doing in Mineola.
34:49And that was different for us because we're like, man, we're actively supporting another organization. I'm like, well, the reason that we're doing that is because we may not reach where she is in that community, but with our support, we're actively doing and helping her with her mission, right, in that realm. And so she's doing the similar things that we're doing, but we're actively partnering with her to do that.
35:17And then I really honestly think that there is an opportunity for us to get together and just specifically target that one thing when it comes to food access. And there is a nugget and a way to do that. But I'm happy to hear that people, that schools are reaching out to you because I think that's important.
35:47say, let's all get together and like, let's figure this out. And then if we could do that, then I think that we can move the needle a lot faster. Yeah, absolutely. Because the more bodies and the more minds that are aligned and working together, the more things get done. Yes, yes. It's so hard when it's just one or two people trying to do backbreaking, frustrating work and
36:15gardening can be backbreaking and paperwork for an organization can be the most frustrating thing on earth. So if you've got a bunch of people who are willing to balance and share the load, it makes it so much more doable. Yeah. And I think that there are opportunities and so I've been really thinking about that. One of those things that you kind of have to start thinking about.
36:43making choices when you're listening to your head, your heart and your gut, kind of, you know, what is it, what it's saying. And it's been kind of leading me to that point where I'm like, I think we need to actively get together and, you know, and, and, and, and, and partner with organizations that so we can, we can impact each other's mission and we can make an impact on that. So we're actually doing that. And we have an event that we're doing in June.
37:10And it is through a film called A Fine Line. So A Fine Line is a documentary by Joanna James, and she is an amazing individual that's out of New York. And it is actually looking at the hospitality and restaurant industry and how the needle has not moved for executive female chefs.
37:37it is harder for them to get an executive chef role because they're female. And it's called the fine line of women's spaces in the kitchen. And so we partnered with her five years ago. I think we brought Kat Korra in for our coming edit program. And we just ended when all of this was in my head and starting to kind of like, how do we collaborate at the Universal Line and we're bringing the film back here. I think they are going to be, PepsiCo is bringing the film down here for them. And we're doing a co-fundraising event that night.
38:07not only to highlight how they're empowering women in that role, but how fresh fruit access and what they do really aligns. It's in that alignment that I think works well with organizations like that. I'd love to see alignments happen like that all over the place.
38:36courageous enough to say, okay, I can do that. I'm not, you know, we can grow a lot better as an organization if we actively align. And I went to a breakfast where there was a nonprofit consultant there that says nonprofits will only grow if they align. Like, you have to align. I mean, you cannot, we cannot sit in our silos because we can't grow as much as we want to grow.
39:06So I would love to find ways to kind of align with individuals that you have been around. Because our goal is to take this program nationally and we want to be in 60,000 of the elementary schools. That is our goal. And so we're going to reach it and we're going to reach it one way or the other. And if that's through alignment, then I think we have succeeded. Yeah. Yep. Again.
39:35million percent agree with you. But it's hard, right? It's so difficult. It is hard because people are afraid of change. I'm not. I'm really not afraid of the unknown. My husband, on the other hand, is terrified of the unknown. Yeah, so is my husband. Isn't that crazy? And I don't know if it's a male-female thing or if it's just a him thing. But I'm the one who's always like, I was thinking we should do this.
40:05And he goes, no. And I know that he's afraid and I say, okay. And then I just work on him for a little while and I just here and there bring up things that I read about the thing that I think we should do. And so and so has tried this part of the thing I wanted to do and this is how it went. And eventually he thinks it's his idea and then he wants to do it. Wow. Yeah. And then he's not afraid of it anymore. But...
40:33But honestly, people are terrified of change. You get comfortable in the way that things are done and you stay there. And also people are terrified at the work involved in changing their paradigm. Yeah. So that's where the pushback comes from, I feel like. Is, and you know, and I...
40:59When I am sitting in a room of leaders and we're doing coaching and I'm talking about how they grow as an individual, we always talk about fear. Fear is one of those things that a lot of leaders and a lot of individuals will tell you is the number one thing that really holds back their growth.
41:28And so I have, I've read a book on John Maxwell where he's talking about failing forward, right? And so failing forward is a way for you to push through that fear. Because if you know that you're going to, because I think it's not even about the fear. I think it's the fear of not doing well in failure. Like it's, as humans, I think we don't like
41:56the option of feeling. And we intrinsically, as individuals, we say, oh my gosh, I'm failing, then I must not be doing well. But I think that there are lessons to be learned in failure. And so, and I didn't fail, but if you can fail forward and keep moving, then fear is just an afterthought, right? You're like, but it's hard because I, trust me, I wake up.
42:25some days when I'm like, I don't know if I'm doing this right. I don't know if I'm doing this correctly. I don't know why I'm doing this. And those thoughts come through my head. And then I meet people like you. And people like you will actively reach out in moments that I'm hesitating or I question what I'm doing correctly or incorrectly. But I think the universe puts people in your path.
42:55And especially if it's something that God has said that this is something that you will do because you will make an impact and sometimes you just have to stay on that path even if it's hard. It's always about the journey and we forget that sometimes. We always want the end result, right? But I think the fun is in the journey.
43:23But it's always the hardest, right? It's fun, but it's hard and you hate it when you're doing it. But when you're at the end of it, you're like, okay, that was hard, but now I'm here. But you're right. The fear, I think, is one of those things that even as individuals, whether or not we're leaders in our community or kids, like teaching kids to push their fears is really hard and difficult too. But when you garden though...
43:53It teaches you failure when you're like, okay, why is that thing not growing? Or what did I do wrong? And you start thinking of ways to kind of fix it and you start thinking outside the box. And I think that I always like to say is gardening for me and I was just out there this morning because I was planting lavender. I was like, okay, how do I?
44:19know, how do I do it? And you kind of get lost in that zone of, I got to think this through. But what I was actually doing is I got to think through this problem. I don't know what I'm doing. But you're right. Yeah. So fear is fear, but if we can kind of push through it, I think we're better off. Yeah. Gardening is the thing that will teach you the high of success and the low
44:48A failure. Yep, absolutely. And also, I think that people are afraid to make the big ask. I was talking with a lady months ago, and she's a celebrity in Twin Cities, Minneapolis, St. Paul.
45:09And she's on TV. And I had sent her an email because I saw something about her being big into gardening and homesteading and stuff. And I asked her to be a guest on my podcast. And I'm a baby podcaster. I just started this in August last year. And it felt like a big ask to email her cold and just say, this is what I'm doing. Would you chat with me? And she did. She went on my podcast. Her episode's released. Her name is Elizabeth Reese. She is the nicest woman. And she...
45:37I talked to her after and I said, I didn't think you'd say yes. And she said, oh, she said, always go for the big ask. She said, what's the worst that happens? The person says no. Right? And so I like hitched up my big girl pants and I emailed Joel Salatin, who is big in the homesteading and gardening and farming community. And I said, I'd really love to talk to someone from Polyphase Farms, which is his place.
46:06on my podcast about what you're doing. Joel emailed me directly back and said that he would be honored and delighted to be on my podcast. I almost fell out of my chair. I was so excited I had tears in my eyes because I did the big ask and I got a yes and it's out and it's wonderful and he's a super nice man. If you had asked me last year at this time, if I had ever thought about speaking with Joel Salatin,
46:35on a podcast, I would have laughed myself stupid. So it's fear. It's thinking that you're going to be rejected or you're going to get hurt or you're going to die. And none of those things is probably going to happen. No, it's really not. So I tell my daughter all the time, I said, ask. What are they going to do? Say no? Then if they say no, find somewhere else because...
47:03The no is not a no. No is just an unopened door somewhere else. I mean, that's all it is. And so, but you know what though, sometimes that's kind of intrinsically, I was introduced when I spoke a few years ago, somebody says, no is not in her vocabulary. It's true, it's not. And said, but man, whenever I get the, it feels like the 10th no ever,
47:32You're like, okay, maybe I'm doing this wrong. But it's that fear, right? I think we are our own worst enemy all the time. But I'm glad that you took that leap because that shows courage and I'm glad that you did that. So I'm very happy to hear that they're saying yes because
47:58And what it is though is, and you are surrounding yourself with passionate people like you are. I am. That could only be the best thing. Only best things will happen when you do that. Yeah. I am so grateful and so astounded at the number of people who have been like, yes, I would love to talk with you. And it really has nothing to do with me.
48:27It has everything to do with them. People who love what they're doing want to share about it. Yes, but I think more so is that when they share their journey and their passion and other people hear it, it gives those people listening to it the courage to do what they wanna do, right? Yes.
48:50And so, which is, I'm kind of glad that you reached out because I would, like, I can talk about this program all day long, but I think more so is that what I hear all the time is, we hear how passionate you are about your program. And it makes me think about some of the things that I want to do and I'm passionate about. And it kind of gives them that courage to try it, right? Because then they're pushing through the fear.
49:19So I think what you're doing is amazing first and foremost, because you're not only putting yourself out there, but you are giving a platform for individuals to be brave enough to talk about their passion and be open with you on why they're doing what they're doing and how you guys can do it together. So I just wanna thank you for doing exactly what you're doing. So.
49:49Well, you are absolutely welcome and I love what I'm doing and I keep saying that on any time this comes up, people are like, thank you for doing what you're doing. I'm like, I'm doing it because I'm selfish. I love doing this. And it's okay to be selfish. It's okay to do that. It's okay to say, you know what, I'm doing what I love and I'm like, great. So yeah, no, I just, I know how hard it is to get the word out about whatever it is that you're doing. And we went through it last year.
50:18We started a business, we were selling lip balms and candles and homemade cold press, lie process, whatever soap, and selling at the farmers market and selling at our farm stand. And I'm not going to lie, we did not make a whole lot of money because trying to market yourself with a low budget is not the easiest thing ever. And I was like, if I was having trouble getting the word out, I know everybody else is having trouble.
50:46I'm going to start a podcast and let people talk about what they do because that seems like a brilliant idea. It is. And it is a brilliant idea. So it's actually an amazing idea. And I'm glad that you're doing that because then whatever... Because people always ask about the podcast that has been kind of brewing on our end. I'm like, I don't have the time for that right now. Clearly, it's just not happening right now. But then...
51:14I'm getting connected with people like you and then I see the value of that. So I may come and ask you to come be on our podcast to let us know what you're doing when it comes to homesteading because I'm not very familiar with that, by the way. Like homesteading, I need to be more familiar with that. I don't exactly know what goes into that. I can nutshell it for you. Homesteading is wanting to do everything yourself so that you don't have to pay the man.
51:43for what you need. It really is. I honestly we and the thing that I'm discovering is that a lot of the people that I have interviewed, they had a need that needed to be filled that they could fill themselves. Like I talked to a lady who has a kid who has like psoriasis or eczema or something and they couldn't find anything on the market to ease that up.
52:13And so she made her own lotions and her own soaps and it helped. And then people were like, can I buy some from you for mine? And it was just a need that they had that they figured out how to fix for themselves and then other people wanted the thing they made. And I may have to get that from you because my daughter has eczema and it's so, she's had it for forever. So, but.
52:39I love that because my husband and I were just talking about the possibility of like, what about home setting? Because there's a good thing that can you do that? And so I don't know. I don't know if because we kind of live in like a suburban area in North, far North Dallas. So I guess I should go ahead and research what would give us, you know,
53:06homesteading, right? And so, you know, what would that look like? And so, because he's like, you're turning the backyard into a farm. Uh-huh. I said, yes, I am. Can I have chickens too? I don't know. And so, he's like, I don't think we can do that. So, I don't know if HOA will allow to do that. So, I have to look into that because I am, like one of the things that, just from a personal perspective, I want to do is, because my mom is a doctor, by the way, and that's kind of how I'm going
53:36I got into the whole herbal thing, the herbal medication that has been around for thousands of years, right? I want to be able to build that. I want to be able to build it and then take it to a school like, you know, schools in Arizona and say, let's see what the Native Americans in this area were using for thousands of years when it comes to medication.
54:01And so I'm getting all these books because I want to be able to recreate it and say, okay, I don't necessarily, if I have a headache, I can just make this tea and then I can brew it because it's been shown by thousands of years of trials that that's what they did. And so that's what I'm doing. So that's one of my personal things because I'm all about...
54:29seeing if I can impact my health because I, I, I, unfortunately I have, I'm pre-pregnancy dispositioned because of my family for like type two diabetes, heart disease, et cetera, and things like that. So I want to be able to say, okay, I can't believe that there is not something in nature that can help that or even help alleviate it. So I'm not so dependent on medication, right? I just, I don't want to do that. So if you know of someone, because I'm really putting this together and I'm...
54:56documenting it and then I want to be able to put it as part of what Independence Gardens does that we're culturally really exploring how they're impacted, how different cultures have impacted food in a positive way when it comes to health. Yeah. You don't want to know. Let me know. So, I'm looking. Okay. I want you to come back a year from now and talk to me because I want to see what you're up to a year from now. Okay. So, we'll have to do that.
55:25And we're almost at an hour and I try to keep these to half an hour, but I didn't want to cut you off because this was really fun and really interesting. Sorry, I left the talk. You should have cut me off at 30 minutes. No, no, no, no. No, it's fine. If I needed to, I would have. Okay. So, Chonnie, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and I'm so impressed with what you've started with Independence Gardens. Thank you. And thank you for that. And I look forward to talking to you in a year.
55:53Yes, I will. We'll get it on the calendar at some point. I won't forget. I promise. Okay. I guess I should say, if you want to get to know our program, go to inde That would be good, right? Because my team was like, did you even mention the website? I'm like, yes, I did at the very end. I did. I promise. Yeah. And I'll put it in the description for the show too. So it'll be there. I appreciate you so much. So thank you for what you're doing. And if there is an opportunity for me to be able to help you in the future, please reach out and let me know.
56:23I'd be more than happy to do that. All right, thank you, Johnnie. Have a great day. Thank you, Mary. Have a good one. Bye.