A Tiny Homestead

Butcher Shop Bake Company

Today I'm talking with Dustin at the Butcher Shop Bake Company. 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 Dustin at the Butcher Shop Bake Company. Good afternoon, Dustin. How are you? I am doing fantastic. How are you doing today, Mary? I'm great. Other than the fact that...
00:25Our technology doesn't always work the way it's supposed to. Everything's good. So tell me about yourself and Butcher Shop Bake Company. Sure, so I am a third generation entrepreneur, not in the family business. We were a construction family, but I've been in the food industry pretty much my entire life, more years than I haven't been.
00:50And we've been doing the Butcher Shop Bay Company now. I wanna say this is, we're going on year seven. And really I started this whole company with one thing in mind is creating something exciting to eat. Cause we all gotta eat food. And I was in the health and fitness industry for a lot of years. And I did diets and this and that and the other thing. But you still gotta eat something that makes you, something that makes you salivate a little bit.
01:17So that was where we kind of came up with the idea of making some ginormous products, specifically some gourmet cookies. Awesome. So I gotta know, did you start out as a cottage food producer or did you start out as a commercial place? Sure, so actually before I started Butcher Shop Bay Company, I had a cottage company called the Flexible Baker where I created healthy protein desserts that I
01:46sold mainly kind of just like through Facebook and online like that through local meetups and made some cookbooks and stuff like that. And then that kind of just snowballed into the commercial side of things. Okay. So you started small because everybody's got to start somewhere. Yes, ma'am. Cool. So you're exactly the kind of person I want to talk to because there's lots of cottage food producers.
02:16who are starting out in their galley-sized kitchens and maybe dreaming of someday doing something bigger, and that's kinda what you're doing, so that's awesome. Absolutely. All right, I have so many questions. Number one, this, number one, how do you get your cookies to be so tall and they cook all the way on the inside? Well, part of it is trade secret, but, so,
02:46a couple of things. One, it helps that I cook extremely hot. My oven, my oven is convection, of course. But the temperature is way hotter than what you cook a normal cookie at. It helps if a lot of my cookies are also stuffed. So then there's actually less dough to cook through. So that helps a lot. And then what is not quite traditional.
03:12with my dough recipe is I almost started off similar to a scone instead of a traditional cookie recipe, which I help. I think that that helps then distribute the fat a little bit different and a little bit better, which helps it cook through quicker. Okay. Because I was looking at your Facebook page, because that's what I do. I look at people's Facebook pages and websites before I interview them. So I know what to ask. And the cookies look almost like a cake cookie.
03:42Just about, yeah. It kind of has some of my flower makeups. I try to mimic, because for me, I grew up eating very thin, crispy cookies. And as much as my dad loves those, not me so much. I like a nice, chewy, a little crunch on the outside, but I like it to still be nice and chewy on the inside. So that's kind of what I try to replicate. And then that's also where that
04:11really hot temperature comes in to give the cookies a nice, um, crunchy exterior, so to speak, but then yet keep them nice and cakey on the inside. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of the, the crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, soft and chewy on the inside. So when I saw the pictures, I was like, Oh my God, how does he do that? And the other question I have is what is a hodag? Help me here.
04:41Oh, that's funny. So, so the whole day has been around for boy, I want to say now, 120 some years or so late 1800s. Boy, Jean Shepherd was his name, kind of created this mythical creature that lives in the woods and eats white bulldogs. And it's just this giant lizard looking creature with white horns and red eyes.
05:10And it is, for whatever reason, the Hodag has stuck. And I think last year or the year before, we actually won best mascot in the country or something like that. So yeah, it's kind of cool to be from a town that is known throughout the country. I've been everywhere you go, you meet somebody that's been to Hodag country.
05:38Okay. So it's Rhinelander, Wisconsin? Yes. Okay. And is it specific to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, this Hodag thing? Yes. Okay. All right. Cause I saw the, the post about the, the cookies and I was like, what's a Hodag cookie? And then I was like, oh, I have Google. I can look up Hodag and see what it is. And then I looked it up and I was like, oh, he's making cookies to go with the festival thing. Yes. Yeah. We have a, um,
06:07We not only have the Hodeg Heritage Festival here in town, but then there's a store here in town called the Hodeg Store and that he features exactly that. Everything under the sun that you could imagine, but green and Hodag themed. So this is year two now that we've been working together to create the Hodag Cookie to kind of just have one more offering at his store.
06:35It's funny because a lot of places have these, I don't know, made up legendary things to promote their area. And the town I used to live in, we had the Heimatfest Festival. And it's basically just a day or a weekend every September, just after school starts. And there's a car cruise and there's just like a little tiny festival in the city park.
07:03And it's been going on for years. And when I moved there and found out about it, I was like, what is this about? And it actually, I don't know if I'm saying this correctly, but my understanding is that some bad things went down in my town many, many years ago, the town I used to live in and the powers that be decided they needed to create something really fun for families to kind of change the atmosphere of what people thought of the town.
07:33And it's worked. Wow. That's kind of a neat backstory. I mean, I'm a big history buff, so I think that's pretty cool. And boy, now I'm intrigued on what bad things had to happen to create a festival to cover it up. I will tell you after we're done recording, because I don't want to give my town, my former town a bad rap. Oh, sure. But I'll tell you after where it was.
08:03and the town I live in now we have we are the home of the jelly green giant oh No kidding. Yeah, Lasur, Minnesota There's a there's a billboard when you drive into town on the highway that has the jelly green giant and sprout on it Nice okay, I didn't realize that Okay, so go fig yeah weird. Um, okay. So beyond all that silliness
08:31You also make all kinds of other things. I saw your brownies. Oh my god, I wish that there was such a thing as taste division. Yes. Yeah, that's something I hold kind of near and dear as much as I love my cookies. I played around with my brownie recipe for a long time. I think I went through six different renditions before I finally said, okay, enough is enough and
09:01very particular in certain things. And brownies, just like the cookies are one of them, as much as I like kind of a cake-ier cookie, I like the exact opposite of a brownie. And I like a really moist, fudgy, kind of gooey brownie versus the cakey, maybe a little more structured brownie, so to speak. But to me, those usually end up being a little dry and a little...
09:30little less flavorful compared to a fudgy brownie. But then I also find myself leaning typically on the side of the gooier thing, even on the cookies. They still are kind of that gooey center and stuff like that. So I guess I kind of like that. But yeah, the brownies are just out of this world. Yeah, my go-to for a brownie recipe is Ina Garten's Outrageous Brownies recipe. I don't know if you know about this,
10:00they are like, I don't want to say gluey, but they're so gooey, they're almost gluey. Oh yeah. And she calls for chocolate chips in the brownie batter. I don't do it that way because I don't want that much chocolate in mine, but hers calls for chocolate chips in the batter and sprinkled on top while they're baking. It's a lot of chocolate. No kidding. But really, really good.
10:29She has, side note, has a fantastic soda bread recipe. Yeah, I don't do breads. I always screw them up. My husband might be interested. I do cookies and cakes and brownies because I'm better at that. Okay, yeah, absolutely. Well, and soda bread is a very easy quick bread. So yeah, I don't touch the yeast very much. As much as I love fresh yeast bread, it's just too much of a pain.
10:58Yeah, it's got so much chemistry that can go wrong. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Because cooking is chemistry. Don't let anybody tell you different. It is. Yes. Yep. Okay, and you do cheesecakes and what else do you do? So let's see. Yeah, so we got cheesecakes. Today. We also just we just got done doing tiramisu and carrot cake. And we're also making
11:27some cake pops. Okay. So we do a little bit of everything, but I would say our main features are our cookies, brownies, cheesecakes, and then muffins. Ooh, muffins are great. Yeah, I'm a big muffin fan as far as breakfast desserts go. Sign me up for a nice buttery blueberry muffin with a crumb top. Oh yes, nice cup of coffee.
11:57Do you do scones at all? It's so funny. My cookies get mistaken for scones so much. I do it as a joke to not make scones just because of that. But no, not scones so much really, because once again, it kind of falls down into my pickiness and I think you should either just eat a biscuit or a muffin. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. But so many people like scones, so I'll be honest with you. I think my...
12:27My girls here at the bakery are slowly talking me into scones. Um, so I'm, I'm assuming we'll be doing those very soon. Okay. And so two questions. Number one, why is it called butcher shop Baker bake company? And is it a standalone store? Sure. So this, it, sometimes I wish I could go back and maybe name the company something else because it is such a confusing name for people. Um,
12:54A to say I get it mispronounced all the time. And B, a lot of people think that we are a butcher shop as well. We are in fact are not a butcher shop. But I started with six, not even a six foot table, probably about four and a half feet worth of table inside of a butcher shop. So I had one shelf, I had four feet of table, I had one freezer and I got to share an oven.
13:23Um, so as the company was kind of growing and I really needed to hammer down, you know, a name, I just thought that, um, I, I'm someone that really likes to humble beginnings and, and a little nod to where we came from. Um, to not eat, to, to just remember, you know, that as big as we get, don't forget that four feet of space that we had. Yeah, absolutely.
13:51And is it a standalone store? Yeah, I'm sorry. As of this year, actually, we finally are in our own location. We've been renting out a back of a, I was also co-owner of a deli in town. So we were renting out the back of the deli, but this year we finally had a space open up downtown, so we took the plunge and now we got our own place. Congratulations. That's a huge deal. Good job.
14:21Thank you. Yeah, it's been, uh, we, unfortunately the building we went into has been, um, neglected and very old. So it's been a lot of hurdles and a lot of headaches this year so far, but it's, um, all good things to encounter and overcome. Cause then you can just add it to the tool belt of, of things that you've, you know, you can, you can deal with when they come up. Oh yeah. Life is a wonderful teacher.
14:50Absolutely. Every damn day. I saw in one of the videos that you put up, I don't remember what it was about, one of your cookies or something, and you were like, sweet baby Jesus. And I laughed myself stupid because my son started saying three or four years ago, he heard it somewhere, he said, he was all excited about something. He said, sweet buttery baby Jesus. And I said, what is that?
15:20from. He said, I don't know, I heard somebody say it, it's funny. And it is funny. So when you said, Sweet Baby Jesus, I just laughed. I was like, boy, after my own heart. There we go. Well, I got to tell you, you got to just have fun and you know, sometimes you got to be a little goofy. And that's the one thing that I try to keep here at the bakery with even like today I was rotating some muffins and it caught my hand and I dropped the whole pan of muffins mid-bake.
15:50It was very irritating, but as my girls are looking at me and I just got to remember, every day is fun here. You know, you got to love coming to work and through all the trials and tribulations, just remember that I get to create something sweet today and that is awesome. Yes, and the mantra of every entrepreneur everywhere is shit happens. It's amen, sister. Oh gosh, if that isn't the truth.
16:21Yep. And I actually try really hard not to swear on the podcast, but sometimes it's entirely appropriate and that one was. Yes, absolutely. I've never thought about it, but yeah, if you had to sum up a little phrase for entrepreneurs, that's one of the top ones right there. And the other one is being your own boss is the best thing ever. Yes. Amen. Only I have to yell it myself.
16:51Yeah, and you can only be mad at you when something gets messed up. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And for me, it's such a humbling experience even with employees and things like that is when things happen, you kind of take a step back and, oh, I could have prevented that or what wasn't I doing to change that course of action? And once you, like you said,
17:19what a learning experience, you know, every day. Even though I've been, like I said, this is year seven for us and I've been cooking for 16, I think, and you still, you know, every day is you still learn something new. Yeah, for sure. We're going through a learning from life thing here. We got six inches of rain between three o'clock yesterday afternoon and seven o'clock this morning.
17:48Wow. And we're a farm to market garden producing place and market being farmers market and the farm stand on our property. It's been a terrible spring here in LaSore, Minnesota for getting plants in the ground. And my husband's the gardener and he is getting increasingly frustrated with the situation because today is June 3rd. And we usually have...
18:17Lettuces and kale and chard and stuff coming up by now That hasn't happened because it's not in the ground yet because our garden is a puddle. It's mud So I said to him I said to him yesterday. I said are you okay? Are you mad? Are you feeling terrible about all this and he said? Honey, and I thought oh no he says this is this is part of it He said we've been really lucky the last three years. He said this is the year that it's gonna
18:46that's gonna try us and I said, okay. And he said, I can't fight the weather. He said, thank God we have the greenhouse because at least I have starts that are growing so that when we can get them in, they'll be okay. So we are learning patience this spring. Well, you'll have to tell them that I am, this is my first year, because I eventually would like to see myself in some sort of homestead.
19:15capacity. So right now I just got a house in the city, but I did, I got 16 raised garden beds this year that I am going to try and fill and grow as much as I can. And it has been a learning experience so far this year. Oh yeah. Is it the first time you've ever done it? Yes. Yeah. I grew up, my mom and grandma are master gardeners, but for,
19:45Pretty plants, never really was vegetable gardening until my mom started the last couple of years, but this is my first year actually trying to get into it. And yeah, unfortunately, I think I've killed more little seedlings than I've saved so far, but we're trying. Yeah, it happens. And honestly, if the conditions are right, you throw the seed in the ground and it grows. The problem is the conditions aren't right where we are this year.
20:15anything. So a little bit of frustration going on on the tiny homestead right now. Yeah, absolutely. So back to naming things. You were saying that you kind of wish you could change the name, but you also want to pay homage to where you started. When I started the podcast, before I even did the first episode, I was trying to come up with a name for it because
20:43I didn't really want to name it a Tiny Homestead Podcast because that's our business name. And I wanted to step away from it a little bit. And I was talking to my husband and my son and I was like, what do I name this thing? And we brainstormed for a week. And after a week, there was nothing coming to the forefront. And my son said, just name it a Tiny Homestead Podcast. He said, you already have the business. You might as well put it back. Put it under the umbrella of the business.
21:14the
21:44I kind of was in the same boat as, you know, we've been going so long where it's like, could I rebrand and change the name? Sure. But I've done, especially locally, I've done such a good job of name recognition at this point. I think it would be more detrimental than it would be beneficial to try to rebrand. Yeah. And rebranding is such a pain in the butt.
22:10You have to change all of your marketing materials. You have to change so many things.
22:17Yeah, it's not just changing. Yeah. Headaches I don't want to deal with. Yeah. It's not just changing the name. People think it's just changing the name, but it's not. Yeah. So thousands of business cards that I have would then be wasted. Yeah. They'd become little note scratchy paper thingies. No, that's not a great use of that money. Um, okay. So I'm not going to lie. Pretty much every baker I've talked to. I.
22:46think but one has been female in my my weeks and months of doing this podcast. So I assumed that the owner of butcher shop baked company was a woman until I looked at your Facebook page and saw your videos. I was like, Oh no, that's not a lady. That's a guy. Okay. So you do understand how unusual that is in baking, right? Yeah, absolutely. Um,
23:16I have two ladies that work for me and I have yet to have any male show any sort of interest for a baking position, nor have I really met too many male bakers over the years of my travels, so to speak, or years of doing business. Even some of the companies that I connect with, because I ship nationwide, so I try
23:46as much of an Instagram and social media presence as I can. And I like to network with other companies and most of them are also female bakers or owned and operated female businesses. So yeah, I am definitely a little bit of a standalone here. Which is not necessarily a bad thing at all because it gives you.
24:14I don't know, cachet, clout, little bit, makes you stand out.
24:20Yeah, I, I, yeah, I, um, I'm definitely not one for being, whether it's the, the little guy in the room or the, um, you know, kind of the oddball out, um, that's kind of been my whole mo for, for life. So, um, I'm, I'm no stranger to it and, and I don't mind it, you know, it, um, whether it hurts or helps or anything like that. I try not to, um,
24:48even think about those things. I'm just a baker and I show up each day to make awesome cookies and hopefully people buy those either way. But yeah, I think it is pretty cool that – because I was a chef for many years and in that industry, it seems to be at least in my area more men than it is females. But then yeah, as soon as you switch over into the –
25:17the dessert side of things, it's a light switch flip as far as gender roles go. But I don't mind that because sometimes...
25:30having some ladies in the kitchen is a little better than having some guys in the kitchen. Sometimes some egos in a small space isn't always great, where my ladies are absolutely fantastic and just a joy to have. So I think that works really well to kind of help balance things out on that side of things.
25:53Yeah, and I wasn't saying that men should not be bakers if that's how that came across. That wasn't what I meant. Oh, no, not at all. Not at all. Okay. I have three sons. I have a daughter. My daughter is the oldest of the four kids. And all four of them cook and love to cook. And my first son of the three made Russian tea cakes when he was 12 because he wanted to make them.
26:22on his mom's side, he's my stepson, had this recipe that she used to make at Christmas time for Russian tea cakes and he wanted to make them. And he said, he says, I'm gonna take over your kitchen. He was 12. I said, okay. It was a little galley style kitchen in the old house that we lived in. I said, okay, what do you need? And he said, I need convection sugar and butter and smashed up pecans and something else. I don't remember what it was.
26:52And I said, the only thing we don't have is pecans. Would you like to go to the store with me and we'll get some? He says, yeah. And I said, would you like my help making these things? And he said, he says, I want to try to do it myself. He said, but if I need help, I will ask. I said, okay. And that boy whipped up the yummiest Russian teacake cookies I have ever tasted. Oh, that is awesome. That is so cool. So, yep. And my daughter used to.
27:21used to when she lived at home, used to make cookies and things and she was very good at that. And my youngest is still living with us and he cooks dinner twice a week for us, which is amazing because that means I have two nights I don't have to come up with dinner. And my other son lives with his dad right now so I don't know what he's cooking. But they all were raised.
27:44to do their own laundry, to know how to cook, to know how to make at least one meal and one dessert, they would be proud to serve their friends. And they all can. Well, that's for you. It wasn't gender specific either. So I guess what I was trying to get at is, I think it's a shame that in the baking people I've talked to, I've only talked to two men who do it. I guess that's what I was getting at. Yeah, absolutely.
28:12It definitely is. I think a lot of guys kind of look at it, maybe look down on it, or maybe it isn't quite as glamorous as grilling steaks or being a head chef because I've been both. And sometimes the head chef is definitely the focal point, especially if you're in a restaurant that is doing maybe course dinners or something like that. It's definitely more
28:40romantic or sexy, they might say, to be a chef or a line cook than it is maybe being a baker or a patissiere. But so fun and so, yes, there are plenty of different savory dishes to make and so many different ways to cook a piece of chicken. But the wow factor, we did.
29:09at the restaurant that I owned, we would do beer and wine pairings and it'd be six courses. I would probably say 90% of the time, I would always ask, oh, what was your favorite course? What was your favorite course? And it would almost always be the dessert because it is just, whether it's nostalgia flavors or it's eye popping or you put something cool like gold leaf on it.
29:36It's just such a fun way to either tie people back to maybe something that they had in their childhood or give them some new ingredient a different way or a presentation that they've never seen before. Whereas grilling a steak is delicious, but it's still a steak on a plate. Yes, yes, absolutely. We don't do a whole lot of dessert after dinner here. We do it once in a while.
30:06And a couple weeks ago, our rhubarb was coming in and strawberries are in season in the southern states right now. And so we bought strawberries and I made a strawberry rhubarb compote to have over scones with whipped cream. And not gonna lie, I would have been real happy to just have that for dinner. And I thought, you know, I'm a grown up. I might want to eat real food before I eat sweets.
30:31And so I ate like three bites of a burger and two french fries and five stalks of asparagus from the garden because that is dessert to me anyway. I love asparagus so much. And I was like, okay, I ate grown up food. Now I'm going to the kitchen. I'm getting two scones. I'm splitting them in half. I'm putting them in a bowl. I'm putting the sauce over. I'm putting a mountain of whipped cream on it. I'm going to devour it. And I did. The joy of being a grown up.
31:00is knowing you can have dessert for dinner, but being reasonable enough to eat actual food before you do it. Absolutely. That's, look at you. You've done well. I was a grownup for five minutes and I was sorry. But yeah, I mean, for me, food, food, real food, like dinner food is the means to an end to get the lovely dessert that is coming after if there is one.
31:31Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, I don't as much as everybody's like, oh, you must eat so much stuff. I eat my fair share because I like to try things and make sure it's all right. But once you have sugar every day, you start to crave some savory stuff and you don't need to have it every night, so to speak, or not so much. So thankfully, it's almost worked a little bit.
32:00opposite for me is now I don't even crave the sweets anymore. I'm almost craving savory stuff by the end of the day just because I've been around sweets so much. Yeah. And all you smell all day is dessert. Yes. So you're like, I can't, I need salt. I need sour. Correct. I was just going to say salt. Yeah, absolutely.
32:27I was thinking of something when we were talking and now I forgot because that's what happens. I don't know that it matters. Is there anything else you would like to share about what you do and how you feel about what you do? Well, I know for anybody listening that is not on a commercial space or is still struggling on a small scale.
32:56become very, very comfortable in your small space because even when you get to commercial settings, a lot of times, like I said, I started on a four foot table. So a lot of times, I used to find myself very frustrated about, oh, I just need more space, I need more space. Well, once you start to learn how to really utilize the space that you have and figure out your processes and really hammer down.
33:25exactly how to get from A to B with not a lot of nonsense in between. That just, that tremendously helps that when you make that switch to a bigger setting, whether it's a commercial kitchen renting or your own space. So I, boy I kind of just lost my train of thought there, but pretty much just for anybody that's listening that's on the small scale, become very, very good at what you do on the small scale.
33:53and then just slowly kind of amplify that. And then most bakers that I found don't ever think about a wholesale route. And that's what my company set up. 90% of my business is a wholesale business because I learned in my very rural town of Rhinelander, we don't have a lot of walk-in traffic. So even though I have my very own storefront now,
34:23We don't even have an actual storefront set up Yet just because we don't really have we're a town of 8,000 people So for me to fill a big bunch of bakery cases every day I just found isn't beneficial where I think a lot of a lot of young bakers think Oh, I got to get a storefront. I got to fill cases and that's the only way to become a baker But I found in the bakeries that I've worked. That's a great way to throw away a lot of product
34:52where on the wholesale side of things, it's sold before I make it. And that's really helped me keep the bakery going as long as it has. So just a little piece of advice for anybody listening that is trying to figure out how to increase their business is go wholesale. So many businesses, the dessert is the forgotten about course. You know, your waitress doesn't talk about it. They either don't stock a dessert
35:22just buy some cheap Cisco cheesecake or something like that, where you can go in there and say, hey, I got a local product. It's gourmet. It's delicious. All of the above. And it's no nonsense. They can just put a piece of cheesecake on a plate and sell it for $3, $4, $5 markup. For them, they're making more money. They're offering a better product. And you now as a baker have a confirmed sale.
35:51or a reoccurring sale versus hoping somebody's walking in. So I think that's just a missed point for a lot of bakers. And I think that's why a lot of bakeries fail is because they're a little too narrow-sighted on their customer base. Yeah, before I ask you the second question again, there is almost nothing more disappointing than ordering a piece of cheesecake at a restaurant where the food is really good, where they make their food.
36:21And then they bring you this, this scale piece cheesecake that is hard and doesn't taste like anything. I had that happen a few years ago and I sent it back. I was like, no, no, no, no. You guys, your food, your dinner menu is amazing and I know how you make this stuff. Find someone who knows how to make a cheesecake. And the manager came over to me and said, excuse me, what?
36:50I said, I'm not being mean, I promise you. I said, but anybody can make a decent, yummy cheesecake in their oven at home. It's not that hard. I said, you either need to hire somebody who knows how to make a cheesecake or don't put cheesecake on the menu. He was like, well, aren't you, aren't you uppity? And he was grinning. But that was what came across, you know? Yeah. That's, that's.
37:18I too many times now when whenever I'm somewhere and I really enjoy the dinner and we're thinking about dessert, I always ask first I says what's made in house. And unfortunately, most of the time, a lot of the stuff isn't made in house. And then yeah, I don't even order it because what's what's the point is I'm going to be disappointed if like you said, if the dinner was amazing, and they're making making it in house to then get handed something that isn't made in house is just just a buzzkill.
37:47Yeah, that's such a myth. You're starting to see it a little bit more, I think now in the last couple of years, the Instagram foodie, that whole trend has become so popular. I think it's almost forcing some places to increase, which is phenomenal, to increase their quality of food, especially when you get into the city, more populated areas. But yeah, you still see it.
38:17You hate to see it. Yeah, and it's kind of amazing how these little small mom and pop restaurants do make their own desserts and they are fantastic. They're wonderful. Absolutely. I think it's Anthony Bourdain's got this famous little quote and it goes something like, whenever I go somewhere to eat.
38:44They always apologize, oh, I'm so sorry that this isn't, you know, truffle mashed potato, you know, something amazing. And he's like, listen, he's like, I just want to eat something that was cooked by your grandma in the kitchen. That's good food. And that's exactly what you're finding in some of these small mom and pop places. They're just making good, it doesn't look amazing, potentially, but boy, is it going to taste awesome. And that's really all you're looking for.
39:14Yeah, exactly. Okay, so how do you feel about what you're doing? I mean, I can tell from the way you're talking that you're really, really enjoying what you've built, but how do you feel about what you do? Yeah, I tell you, this is actually the first year that I've been able to work full-time for the bakery. I had the restaurant, so that was my day job, and then I kind of would just handle the bakery after that.
39:43So to wake up every day, not only to be working for my baby that I created, but just to be able to do something that I love that is fun, working with people that also love what they're doing, is just absolutely fantastic. And then I tried moving away many times and then finally I realized, I was like, dude, you live in an awesome place, people vacation here, plant your roots.
40:12And after I planted my roots, I just, I wanted to do whatever I do, focus on making the place that I live a better place to be, not only for myself, but for my family and, and the community. So this bakery has really allowed us to not only, um, make an impact, which is creating great food for the area, but then it's allowed me to become extremely community involved, whether it's donations, volunteering, um,
40:41speaking for small business panels, just allowed me to give back to the community, which has been just so rewarding. So you're growing where you planted yourself, which is great. Yes, absolutely. Yes, those seeds took. Good. Awesome. All right, Dustin, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today because I know you've got a lot going on.
41:08Absolutely. I can't thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to jump on. Oh, absolutely. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you.
 

Amy’s Garden Jam

Today I'm talking with Amy at Amy’s Garden Jam about her jam making and her podcast, Grounded In Maine, which is about sustainability. 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 Amy Fagan at Amy's Garden Jam. How are you, Amy? I am doing good, thank you. How are you? I'm good, it's been a decent day. It's been a decent week so far, so that helps. So.
00:29So full disclosure, folks, Amy and I tried to do this a few weeks ago and the recording failed and so we're trying it again. So Amy, tell me about Amy's Garden Jam. Amy's Garden Jam is, I have a jam business. It is for a little over four years old. I just started making jam.
00:57for not for fun necessarily, but I made it as my contribution to the income in our home. Because I don't make a lot of money at my job. I was thinking that if I, you know, grew produce and harvested and preserved it, then that would be just like making money. And so I started making jam. I mean, I've just I've always made jam for like the last 20
01:27And my sister got married and I made little four ounce jars of jam for all of their guests as a gift. And they said, you really need to do this. To which I said, that's really funny. No. But then a few years ago, four years ago, I changed my tune. So
01:56Amy's Garden Jam is a thing. And why did you change your tune? So I was, I actually had a car accident. I was in a car accident and I was out of work for a few months. And so while I was out of work, you know, a lot of people were like, you know, just catch up on Netflix and watch lots of movies and I was like, no, I just can't do that. So I was watching like...
02:25I was doing webinars and...
02:31stuff like that, webinars and workshops and just getting myself all hyped up. And I was like, well, maybe I can do this. And while I was out of work, I couldn't really walk. I had foot surgery. So I had the time to wait on hold with the state and get everything in line. So by the time I was able to walk again, I had a kitchen all lined up and I had my license in hand.
03:01And I started with a, I started running. So you did all the leg work with a broken foot. I did. Very nice. Yeah. I mean, I had nothing to do, right? Yeah. It's amazing how that works out. Um, I just thought leg work with a broken foot was funny. Oh, I didn't even get it. Good one. Yes. Yeah. Very funny.
03:30Okay, so are you at liberty to say what your jobby job is? Do you mind telling me? Oh, well, I mean, at the time, at the time of the car accident, I was working for an elder home care agency in the office. Okay. And what's your jobby job now? Now I work for a healthcare company in medical records. I work from home.
04:00Nice very nice, but I should have been doing four years ago at the time of the accident because I could be working. Yeah Yeah Okay, so I also know that you have a podcast called grounded in Maine Actually how I found you. Yeah So are you like balancing your jobby job you're making jams and your podcast as your three
04:29jobs that you do or does one take more time than the rest? Oh, my job takes up most of my time. Uh huh. Uh, the podcast takes up most of my brain space by choice. I mean, I get very excited about it. And so I'm thinking about the podcast while I'm working. Um, and then jam is usually like one day on the weekends. Okay.
04:58So jam is where you de-stress, I take it.
05:02Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because we I called it I named it Amy's Garden Jam for a couple of reasons. So one, you know, it's a jam business. I'm making jam, obviously, but I also used to be a singer. And before I got like obsessed and and podcasting took up my my whole brain. I would listen to music and sing. So and so while I first started
05:32making jam for the business, I would play like 80s music. It's always the 80s. And even still, like I'll do it sometimes. But so it's a jam session. I call it a jam session. And do you listen to music while you make jam and sing? I do. Uh huh. Yeah. I love having music playing when I'm doing housework or cooking. Oh my gosh. It is so it's like, I mean, I enjoy cooking and baking, but it would be unbearable if it was just quiet.
06:01Yeah, the old house that we lived at, the music used to come out of our bedroom. When you walked in the door, our bedroom was to the right, the living room was where we walked into, and the kitchen was to the left. And so the music would just flow out of the bedroom toward the kitchen. So if I was cooking, I just turned the music way up and just danced around the kitchen and cooked and sang along and it was really fun. Here... What's your music of choice though?
06:31Oh good lord. I don't even know. Um, alternative rock maybe? Okay. Um, I can't listen to 80s music. It makes me cry. Yep. Um, I really, really liked the music that came out from Maroon 5 and Sara Bareilles and all those people. Back, back 14 years ago. Oh my god. Oh, that's- Like-
07:01It's still relevant. It's still relevant. It's still good, but I can't believe it came out that long ago. Yeah. So so the problem is the house we live in now is set up completely differently. And if I want to have music, not like pulling my eardrums out while I cook, I have to move the speakers out in the kitchen on the table and I have to move my laptop out there. I have to reconfigure everything to have music. So.
07:28That is on my list for this fall to figure out how to fix that permanently. Hmm. Yeah. So, but either way. So, um, I really love that you you're making jams, but I'm actually more in love with the fact that you're addicted to podcasting because so am I. And I want to talk to you about your podcast because your podcast is really about sustainable living, right? It is indeed. So tell me about that.
07:57Well, so it's kind of a long story, but I volunteer at a local farm. I'm a volunteer gardener. And so this farm, we grow organic produce just to donate it to the local food banks, because food insecurity is such an issue. I assume it's everywhere, but
08:25in my area, that's what we're able to manage. But so I've been doing it for, I think this is my seventh year. This is my seventh year. We're the Saturday crew. And so the people that always go in on Saturday mornings, we are like family. And so we were weeding garlic one day sitting on the ground and a friend and I were talking about how cool it would be to start a YouTube channel.
08:55and talk to people about different homesteading skills, like raising animals and butchering animals and gardening and making cheese and stuff like that and have a different person every week or every two weeks. And then after that conversation, bring it home and test it out and then report back the next week and be like, this was totally something that I'm taking on. I'm going to do this from now on.
09:25or ain't no way I can do this while I'm working. And then my friend kind of dropped off and I said that I am not going to be talking to myself on YouTube. No, thank you. So it became a podcast, but it still took two years. It took about two years to actually come to fruition.
09:50And I just I talked about it with everyone, you know, I'm gonna do this. I want to do this and a Friend of ours had told my sister-in-law Not me. I don't know why he told her I think he told her because she's she can be she's sort of In the nicest possible way bossy like she there's something about her that I can't say no to so He told her
10:18that some friends of his in Florida were hosting a podcasting training workshop. And this was 2022. I found out about this in, I think, January. The workshop was in March, early March. And at first I said, no, it's 2022. There's a pandemic out there. And Florida is COVID county.
10:48So no, I don't want to be on a plane with people and get their germs. But, um, but then this friend, I did eventually end up talking to him and he offered me flight points and said, you pay for the workshop. I will get you there. And that was just too big of a gift to say no. So I went, it was only like four, I think it was four other people and myself, and then the people that were doing the training.
11:18So it was really, really, really intimate. And there were a lot of tears on my end because I did not feel ready. I didn't feel...
11:30Like I had a place, I didn't feel like I had a voice that should be doing that. Like I just don't have, I don't have a lot of training. I don't have a lot of creativity, but then I did. So I left there in March and June, my podcast started. So I'm going on two years. It'll be two years in just a couple of weeks.
11:58When I decided I was going to do this podcast, I was doing it within a week of deciding of what it was going to be. I wish. But, but there had been two years of trying to come up with a topic to do it on. So I wasn't afraid to do it. I wasn't, I didn't feel like I couldn't do it. I just didn't know what it was going to be about. Hmm. Because I talk all the time.
12:27I mean, I've raised four kids. I've had many friends. I have, I have parents. I've had the resets of in-laws in my lifetime. It's not like I don't communicate all the time. So, so the talking part was not hard to handle. Right. And I knew that I had a listen, a listenable voice. I didn't know that it was as listenable as people have been telling me.
12:53But I knew that it wasn't like, you know, nails on a chalkboard. So that was good news. I just needed the idea. And when I had the idea, I was like, honey, I'm going to do this to my I said, honey, to my husband, do this. And he said, yes, do that. So I'm going to do that. Do that. Go talk to somebody else for a while. Do that. I. Right. Yeah. Stop talking to me for a second. Talk to someone else.
13:16Exactly. It was totally the opposite for me. That's so that is really funny. I mean, I was scared to death to hit record that first time. And I think I redid that first episode, which was only I think it was like four minutes, but it was the longest four minutes of my life. But it was just you as well. Yep. Yeah. Having another person on the other side is no problem. I'm so good talking one on one, but me just me is whoa.
13:44Yeah, I had to do the intro for mine. I had to record it eight times because I kept screwing it up. I'm like, I'm never going to get through the intro, which was I'm never going to do this. And then I finally got one I liked and kept it. So, but anyway, we could talk about the details and the imaginations of podcasting today. Yeah. What I want to get to is what it's about and it's about sustainability and. Yes. So, um, ground to me.
14:12is an open conversation about how we show up for the world. And the intent is to encourage people to be creative about sustainability. It is a huge word. It can be very overwhelming and feel like, you know, especially with the state of the world right now, it can feel like, you know, why even bother? Like I'm just one person and I don't have
14:37know, a 10 acre farm and I don't have solar panels covering my whole property and I don't have lots of money to buy all this stuff. And that's where this is coming in. Like, people are talking about all kinds of really cool stuff. I mean, I had Mary on my podcast and she was talking, or actually next Tuesday. The prize. Mary was on my podcast talking about her
15:06her tiny homestead and how it's totally possible. And I've had people that came on and talked about making their own broth, which I'm all for and container gardening and stuff like that. Like it doesn't have to cost lots of money to be part of the solution and to feel good about what we're doing. Um, and that for me feels like I am making a difference just by encouraging people. Yeah. And giving people new ideas because
15:34The thing I'm finding with my podcast situation is that people talk to me about the things that they're doing and they love. And they tell me things I haven't thought of yet to try. And that makes me so happy because if I haven't thought of it, other people haven't thought of it yet either. Right? Yeah. So I feel like a cheerleader and a teacher and a learner all at the same time.
16:03Yes. I am that. So I just, I love, I love, love, love doing podcast casts. There we go. There's the S and I love being on your podcast. I listened to the, the episode that you sent me that no one else can listen to until Tuesday the fourth and it's beautiful. It's great. I I'm in love with what you did with that. Oh, I did nothing.
16:33You asked the right questions. That's what you get. Well, that is, I don't know about that. I mean, I just, I'm so curious about what people do and how, you know, for me, it's like the story of where someone's life changed. You know, we, there is for a lot of people or most people or all people, there's like a switch where we change from,
17:01being careless and not thinking and then there's a switch where we're very mindful of what we're doing or you know, even if we're not like what changed what changed was there something that pushed it or was it just like a waking up? I don't know. And that's, you know, it's just for me, that's what's so exciting to get to know people. It's about getting to know people on my on my end.
17:29and learning what they're doing. And hopefully it's resonating with a lot of people because I don't wanna stop it. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so what do you do to practice sustainability? Because I didn't ask that last time when we talked. I have a jam business. Uh. Ha ha ha ha. I had.
17:57I'm a gardener. I'm not a great gardener. I'm actually a really bad gardener, but I enjoy gardening. I recycle like compost. We have chickens. I have a worm compost, which a lot of people don't know about, but that's because it doesn't smell like they would assume it would. I am not, I try to not use electricity as much as possible. Not to say in the summer, my air conditioner isn't running.
18:2624-7. But otherwise, like in the summertime, or even, you know, in the mornings when it's light out, like I don't use, I don't turn lights on unless I actually can't see. And that's just a, I think it's just a weird mindset thing. Like I just don't, I don't feel like I need to, so I don't want to use it if I don't have to. I feel like that's it. And I say that all the time. Like I don't, I don't really do that much.
18:54But then there are people that are like, oh my gosh, you do that too? But, oh, I make my own tooth powder. I do an all-purpose cleaner. And I also, excuse me, we have in the town that I live in in Brunswick, we have a refill store, which is the coolest thing. So it's like a total sustainability geek store.
19:24And I bring all the jars that I can think of and I will fill them with dish soap and hand soap and castile soap for making my own cleaners and cleaning vinegar and deodorant and tooth. Oh, you can get like mouthwash tablets and stuff like that. So you just fill up your jars and then you have no waste. Which is so cool. I just love.
19:52I love that. And they don't just carry all this stuff. They're super smart and super passionate. Like, you know, you go to some stores and they hire kids that they're just like, you know, they're frowning. They're just grumpy. They're like, I'm just here because I have to make money. These people actually really care about what they're doing and they know what's going on, which I think is so fun. And they know the products. I had to... I am currently in menopause.
20:22And I had to, I, I've finding that my head is, um, my skin has heavily having allergies these days. And I've always used a shampoo bar. That's another thing that I do. Shampoo bar instead of a bottled shampoo. But, um,
20:40I so the shampoo bar, the essential oils have been irritating my head. And so I went in there and I was like, I just need a shampoo bar. And they're like, maybe you need an unscented one. I'm like, you shut up. I like the sense deal with that. And then I went in the next day and I was like, yeah, or the next week. I was like, you're probably right. But I don't, I don't like it. Um, so, but it is, you know, it's just cool to have conversations with them and like,
21:10They are, they're humans and they care. They're like passionate about it. And I can have real conversations where there are so many places I go and I try to make conversation with people and they're like, stop talking. Just stop talking to me, please. I'm trying to ignore you. Yup. Um, the last time I had to buy a computer, computer ish thing. We went, we went to best buy and.
21:38There was this kid who looked like he was about 12, but I'm sure he was probably 20. And I was like- Oh my God, 12 years old is what I say when people look young too. Yeah, I said, I said, I need, I need a basic laptop computer that can do these things. And he said, I don't think they make those. Oh my gosh. And I said, really? They don't have computers for cavemen.
22:06He said, no, he said, I don't think we have the, I don't think we've had that basic a model in forever. And I was like, number one, you're implying I'm 80, which I'm not. And number two, I know there are basic laptops around. So, so I literally said, is there anybody else I can talk to who might help me? And I didn't say, can I talk to the manager? Right. Cause I don't want to say that I've never said that. I don't ever want to, unless I really have to. Right.
22:32But he was like, Oh yeah. And he called some other person over who looked like they might be 30. And I was like, okay, we're getting somewhere now. And went through the whole thing again. And he was like, Oh yeah. He said, we have those because some people don't need gaming computers or a ton of memory or whatever. He said, yeah, come on over here. And I think I paid like 150 bucks for a workhorse computer to basically write on.
23:02to write articles on. So I understand what you're saying about people just being at their job because they need a paycheck. It's not great. And as for the refill store or whatever you said it was called, we don't have one of those nearby. But I saw on TV the other day that there are these detergent laundry detergent sheets that you stick in your washer and they're not
23:31There's dry. Yep. And I had heard about them, but I really had seen them before. And I was like, that is really cool. And I'm really sick of paying for water. So I went out on Amazon. It a big thing of plastic every time too. That too. Yeah. And I went on an Amazon and I ordered some and it's supposed to be here tomorrow. And I can't wait to try them and see if they're good. Cause if they are, we're switching over. Yeah. Which brand did you get? I don't remember. Okay. I don't know.
24:01I really I liked the kind I think they're kind version kind brand. I've just I'm I've learned that they a lot of them have plastic in them. So the the sheet is part plastic and then hate. We you know, it's going to dissolve into your and get in your washing machine and whatever but some of them don't. It's hard to tell.
24:30It's hard to tell because they're all going to tell you they're eco-friendly and whatever and they want you to buy their stuff. Well, I'm going to try it and see what happens. But it's less plastic anyway. Yeah. And I'm in the same boat as you. I am definitely past childbearing years and your joints don't quite handle pressure the way that they did when you still had tongue vestrogen running through your body. And we end up buying the great...
24:59big containers of laundry detergent and they're heavy. So I was like, huh, that laundry detergent sheets aren't heavy. Right. And they cost basically nothing to ship and they're, yeah, they're so light. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I'm very excited about this. I haven't even told my husband about it yet. I was like, I'm just going to spend 12 bucks and we're going to try it. And if it works, we're going to do that. And I will tell him about it afterwards. Who cares? It's fine. Because you can like subscribe to them. You can subscribe for them and get...
25:29on schedule and yeah. Yep. So that's my new my new myth that I'm turning over regarding laundry and being sustainable. Yeah, it's good stuff. I mean, I love I love stuff like that, you know, just people are catching on to the the inefficiency of all the stuff. I actually had a podcast guest on not too long ago. Her name is T T E.
25:57Fortin Barnes, her name is Therese, but she goes by T. And she has her own podcast called Green Living with T. And so she talks about toxins, all the toxins that we have in our world and in our homes. And one of the things that I remembered so well is that she said that the companies, like the cleaning companies are trying to sell us.
26:24a different cleaner for every single piece of area of our home. You know, the bathroom cleaner, the toilet cleaner, the glass cleaner, the, you know, all this stuff. And we just don't need, we don't need all that, but we're convinced that we need to because they're, they're yelling at us with it. You know what the best all purpose cleaner there has ever been and ever will be is vinegar. White vinegar. Yep. Yeah. And it's cheap. And it's available.
26:55Yep. And it doesn't make your house smell like vinegar for more than five minutes. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I've started using a vinegar rinse on my hair. Yeah. For a soap maker lady. She told me that the head, I mean, I was telling her about my woes, my menopause woes. And she said, you know, your hair and your head are begging for acid.
27:25And she said that would be the best thing that you could do. And so I have, I've been making my own apple vinegar, um, with the scraps from my apples for my apple jam. So I'm getting a twofer. And so I've been using that, just mixing that with some water and putting that on my head and it smells so I love the smell of vinegar. It doesn't bother me at all, but then I don't smell it after like 10 minutes.
27:51Yeah, I love pickles and I think part of the reason I love pickles is I love the smell of vinegar. So I'm right there with you. The other thing I was going to say on the sustainability topic here is my peonies are starting to bloom. And I was like, I don't have any cut flour preservative packets that you get at the florist. Right. And I was like, there must be, there must be a do it yourself remedy here. So I went up and looked at that. Right. Isn't it?
28:20It's well, yeah, you can ask, but we don't have any house for it in the house. But really what works is apple cider vinegar and a little bit of sugar in the water. Huh? Yeah. So I was like, okay, I have those. I can do vinegar will save the world. You guys. Who knew? Yeah. I was very excited because I was like, I do not want to order. Cut. Oh, plant. Preservative. I don't need it that bad. So.
28:51And very excited because my peonies are starting to bloom. I have been waiting for three years for this to happen. So seriously. Oh, because it's a new house to you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We have we have coral and burgundy and Hello Kitty Pink right now blooming. Hello Kitty Pink. Yep. I want a peony tree, man. I want a tree. There are I mean, yes, there are tree peonies, but.
29:20They're not a tree. They're like a bush. That's fine. And they grow differently than a herbaceous peony. You know what they're called? I don't know. The normal peonies. So you have to stir. Yeah. Not a plant person. I am a peony fanatic. So what do you call that person? What? What do you call that person? The person that talks about plants that's obsessed with plants? I don't know. I'm a
29:49and I have no words, right? You call it me. I'm obsessed with plants. But either way, the tree peonies, they actually have like a stem, a hard woody stem. And you have to prune them differently and you have to take care of them differently. I have one and I have ignored it. And it's reverted back to being the normal peony. Oh, what? So yeah, tree peonies are not all they're cracked up to be. Oh.
30:19They're pretty. They're all pretty.
30:23But either way, my peonies are starting to bloom. I'm probably gonna have over 100 blooms this year. I'm so excited. And the other thing that's happened since I talked to you last is we just received two honey berry plants from the lady that I interviewed last week and her episode came out this morning. Oh, honey berry. Are those like big fat, like long?
30:51Yeah, they're they look like a blueberry, but they're oblong. And she says that their skin is like a raspberry thickness, so they're really easily bruised. Oh, so we have to. You have to have two different varieties for them pollinate. So we have two different varieties and they're going in tonight and they will not fruit this year, but next year we should have honey berries. And I'm so wet about this.
31:22So yeah, lots of plant things going on here. Another wonderful thing about podcasting, the people that you get to meet and the friends that you make and the connections that you make and people will send you stuff. If you're next to them, of course. Yeah. And I'm going to say it right now. I don't ever expect anyone to send me anything just because I interviewed them. That's not why I do it.
31:53Yeah, but if somebody says hey you were talking about wanting to get you wanted to start growing honey berries Can I send you a couple plants? Why yes, if you're okay with that, I love that Right, you know like I'm yeah, there's like cuttings or whatever that you can. Mm-hmm Yeah, I mean people are will like prune their own and and thin it out and if you're you know, if you're gonna compost that I'll take it Yeah, and this is this is actually her business. She she
32:22grows plants and sells the seedlings. And she also sells the berries when they harvest them. So I was just gonna go order a couple from her. She was like, I'd like to send you a couple. I said, are you sure? She's like, yeah. I said, okay, cool. So they're here and they're beautiful. And I just, I looked at them and I opened the box and I was like, oh my God, finally, we're gonna be able to grow honey berries, finally. That's exciting. Have you had them before?
32:50I have not because they do sell them in the stores around here now and then, but they're not common and they're expensive. So we've never bought them before. But no one in our area grows them and people like them. So it's a good thing to start growing. Yeah. So that's happening.
33:20But this really isn't about me, it's about you. But we are talking about sustainability because growing fruits is definitely a sustainable thing. Well, and also sharing. Yeah. Sharing instead of buying and selling, um, is also very sustainable. Uh-huh. Just doing my part. Yes. I think we both are. And I think a lot of people are, and that's kind of the point because if we don't start doing things differently and.
33:49maybe better, it's not gonna matter. Right. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, I had had, we were using Amazon at that time, and we have since this year, we canceled our membership. But at the beginning of the pandemic, I was like, I've got my toilet paper on auto ship, and I'm not worried about that. And then they canceled my auto ship, and I had such a panic attack.
34:18I was so worried, like, you know, because I knew that the, you know, all the shelves were bare and I was like, what am I supposed to do about no toilet paper? Like, I need my toilet paper. So we bought it today, like an attachment for the toilet. And we never opened it because then things started to come on time. Yeah, the whole toilet paper thing was, it was not funny, but it was funny to me because I was like, that's what you're worried about?
34:47Having a closet full of toilet paper? Yep. Well, and then there's the whole like, you know, the people that could buy or were buying all of it. Yeah. Like, what about everyone else? Yeah, COVID definitely showed us who people are. Right. And I wasn't all that impressed with most people at that point in time. No, no, and I, what-
35:13Yes. I mean, it showed me that so many people were so grumpy. And it was, you know, I don't know if it was out of fear or if it was something else, but I hated it. I remember going to the grocery store and, you know, they only let so many people in at a time. I don't know if you had that in Minnesota as well, but they had to limit the number of people in the store at a time. And so we were waiting outside six feet apart with our masks on.
35:43And it was such a beautiful day. And I, the person that was in front of me like turned around and was looking at the line behind her. And I was like, what a beautiful day, huh? I mean, it's not so bad to wait out here, right? And she just like scowled. I could see her scowl through her mask. And she turned around. I'm like, you just ruined grocery shopping for me, man.
36:04Like it wasn't bad enough to start with and you were trying to make it lighter and she didn't slay. Yes. Yes. I remember going to Sam's club with my husband about a week after after our our governor said everybody mask up everybody um wash your hands everybody do all the preventive preventative things and it I think
36:32I don't remember what the date was that happened, but it must have been like a Wednesday because we were at Sam's Club that Saturday. So like four days later. And I had never seen that store that crowded in my entire life. And people, you could just feel the panic in the air. And I looked at my husband and I said, are we weird because we're not panicked?
37:01I mean, this is what we do. We go every two weeks to Sam's, we stock up for two weeks and then we go home. Yep. And he said, I don't know. He said, I don't think this is going to be as bad as how this deals. It's going to be in this moment. And I said, okay. I said, okay. And everybody was just so tense. Yeah. Like the way that they moved, you could see how panic they were.
37:31And I was just like, okay, let's just get what we need to get and go home because this is really weird. I don't love this. This is not great. Forget the bill. Forget the bread. Forget the toilet paper. Yeah, I mean, we did what we always do. We went. We filled our list. We went home. And we weren't panicked. We were just on our usual shopping trip and wearing masks. Oh, well. And I like don't get me wrong.
37:59I know people lost people that they love to COVID and that sucks and I hate that. But I've said this before on the podcast, some really great things came out of COVID. 100%. So it was a podcast for one. What? A million podcasts for one. Yeah, and a billion sourdough makers and I'm okay with that too. That's fine. But like I've said, people had.
38:29A chance for people who weren't sick and weren't miserable mourning someone that they lost had a chance to take a deep breath and go, Okay, so what's next? What are we doing? And I love that the world had a moment of pause. Because there just wasn't any room for it until they were forced to take that moment. Yep. Yeah, we didn't allow ourselves to stop at all. We were just on autopilot. Yeah, all the time.
38:59And also, one of the other things that came out of it is boundaries. Boundaries came out of it because if you were smart during COVID, you were like, no, we're not having friends over. No, we're not going to a dinner party with other people and boundaries happen. And I feel like the longest time people would just like walk all over each other.
39:27because they thought that it was okay, or it was how they expressed their love to the person that they were friends with. And for me, boundaries are really important and always have been. So I was very happy to be like, no, you cannot come over and have coffee with me right now because I don't want you to die and I don't want to die. That's how I expressed my love and my affection for my friends. It was no, this is not the time.
39:57So boundary. Right. Yeah. I went to a graduation party in 2022, maybe. I feel like it was, yeah, it must have been right after I started the podcast in July. I went to a graduation party and somebody, there was a couple that had COVID and they showed up anyway. And they were wearing masks. And I ended up with COVID.
40:25Uh-huh. It was the end of June. And then, so I was sick for the 4th of July, which I don't care. The holiday is not that big of a deal, but it was strawberry season and I couldn't go pick strawberries. And I was so mad. Oh yeah. And then, you know, there was also, I remember reading in the, um, the regional newspaper, somebody was like, well, it's long over. Like it's not a big deal anymore. And I was like sitting home and I couldn't
40:54go shopping and I couldn't go to work and I couldn't do all these things. Uh huh. I was like, oh, you're telling me it's over. But that was the first time I was my only time with COVID. Thank goodness. Got at a party. Uh huh. My first party out. Oh, that's a lot party out. That is such a bummer. My son and I, the youngest had COVID. We think we had COVID.
41:23back in December of 2019 when supposedly COVID wasn't here. Right. However, it was all the same symptoms that everybody else had in 2020. Yep. Were you in Las Vegas? Because my sisters were in Las Vegas and they were pretty sure that they had COVID. No, I was in Minnesota. But what happened is my son worked at a comic book store and a couple of the guys that worked at the comic book store
41:52were sick with some kind of nasty crud. And then a bunch of people came for, they had game nights and things. And they came in and they were sick with this nasty crud. And my son caught it. And then I caught it from him. Of course. My husband never got it. He never had it. And then all of a
42:21COVID-19 was all over the news. And I was like, boy, that sounds like we had. And the worst part of it was that we were all sick for three days. But then we had this cough for six, eight weeks after. Yeah, that was the worst part of it. Yeah. So so we were lucky. I think we got the we got the early version that wasn't quite as bad as the later version. Hmm. I don't know. But either way.
42:51COVID, I think, is the thing that jumpstarted the new interest in homesteading and sustainability and being prepared. And I'm thankful for that.
43:08For sure. I mean, I just think there are a lot of people that, you know, I think that there was a huge...
43:19Well, I mean, it made people stop and think about what they were doing. And, you know, and that pause was really good for people, as you were saying. And a lot of people were like, yeah, I don't think I really want to do this anymore. And I don't really want to go into the office and blah, blah, blah. But it just, it really, it really changed a lot of people's lives in, I want to say, good ways. Like, I mean, I'm sure that there are bad things about it.
43:50you know, realizing that our lives were, we were slaves to the paycheck. And there was just so much more. I mean, when I actually, when I, you were saying that, that, oh, the sourdough thing, that was really funny that you couldn't get flour either. But when I, I started my jam business in my first time.
44:17making jam in the rented kitchen was May 3rd of 2020. Right in the heat of COVID, I was making jam, but people were also doing a lot of canning. And so jars were super duper expensive and there was a shortage because everything was coming from China and everything was backed up coming from there. It was so hard to get jars.
44:46I was like, this timing is no good. Yeah. Yep. And that's the other thing is that there were so many supply chain issues of things that you never would have thought would have been an issue. Right. Right. So go fig. It was very weird. I hope we don't have to go through it again anytime soon. Well, we'll see. That would be nice. If people learned and
45:15Well, I guess we'll see. We'll see. Uh, I still have masks in my car because you know, just never know. I still have my favorite mask. My, my daughter-in-law made me a mask and it has, um, many Australian shepherd dogs on it and it's like turquoise blue with, with many Australian shepherds on it.
45:40And it's one of the real soft elastic ones that go behind your ears. So it's really comfortable and it's washable. So that's my favorite mask from COVID and I still have it and it's all clean and ready to be used again if it needs to be used. Yep. She also made superhero ones for my husband and my son. And I think they still have theirs too. Awesome. I think. They're probably their favorite too.
46:10Yup, my mom, my mom, God love her, she made so many for her, for her extended family in Illinois and her family in Maine and friends. And she was just a mask making maniac for for two years. And I finally said, I think you can maybe stop making masks now. She said, she said, that's good, because I really need to make new curtains for my kitchen. I was like, yeah, do that.
46:39So my mom's sustainable too. She makes her own curtains for her kitchen windows. Aw. Yep. And she actually made some out of the material that she had made some of the masks with and it's the most beautiful material with chickadees on it. And she sent me- Oh, they're painters. Yeah. And she sent me pictures of the curtains and I was like, oh my God, they're so pretty.
47:10She said, do you want me to make you some? And I said, nope, I'm good. I have curtains, I'm all set. Stop, stop sewing. Your future's must hurt. She's like, huh, I'm used to it. But no, no, I don't need curtains, but thank you for offering, but they were really pretty. So yeah, I come by, honestly. That's the sustainability and homesteading and gardening and cooking from scratch and all of that. I learned it from my family and I'm really happy that I did.
47:39So anyway, we've been talking for 48 minutes, so I'm gonna let you loose because I'm sure that you probably have things you would love to be doing. Oh, well, sure. All right. I love talking to people, so I'm good. Yeah, well, I have things I actually have to do. I have things I need to do. Yeah, I have dishes to wash because we were just having dinner before I hopped on with you and.
48:07The boys are outside planting honey berry plants. So I get to do the dishes. Okay. It's a good trade off. I'm okay with it. All right, Amy, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Oh, thanks, Mary. It's, it's fun having these conversations always. I, I agree because we already know each other now. Yeah. We're best friends. We're besties.
48:33Yeah, for sure. From Maine. All right. Have a good night. You too. Thank you. Bye.
 

Lazy Knoll Farm LLC

Today I'm talking with Liz at Lazy Knoll Farm LLC. 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 Liz at Lazy Knoll Farm LLC. Good morning, Liz. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm doing well. How are you? Great. You're in North Carolina? Yes, ma'am. Pilot Nob. Pilot Nob? Pilot Mountain. Mountain. Okay.
00:29Alright, tell me about Lazy Knoll Farm LLC and what I really want to know is why it's called Lazy Knoll. Well I guess the name was just kind of situated on top of a hill and it's one of the highest points in the area. I was trying to find something that was more of like a relaxing name. It's a quiet area. It's in the middle of the country.
00:59And to me, just a lazy novel is just a peaceful little place. But we actually got started in 2020. We started our first pumpkin patch and that was in the middle of us purchasing the property from my husband's family. And after that, the farm kind of began an annual pumpkin patch here and it slowly grew into what it is today with the chickens. We had pigs.
01:29We ended up processing them and we have our cows, which is a variety of cows now. We have our Highland cows and white Galloways and belted Galloways and we have a Dexter and a ton of chickens. Nice. The Galloways, is that an Irish breed or does it just happen to be called Galloway? They're actually a Scottish breed. Okay. Yeah.
01:59And I honestly, I was drawn to them originally before we even got howling cows. I liked the fact that they were smaller in size and polled. And we started looking at the different varieties of smaller cattle because we live on 40 acres, but you can only keep so many cows on each acre, especially when it comes to Angus or some of the bigger breeds that are so popular around here. And
02:29And then we happened to be watching an auction. And I asked my husband, I said, it was for a Highland cows. And I was like, do you think we should try for it? And we ended up winning her. And that just started the snowball effect of getting all these different cows. OK. Polled means that they don't have horns, right? Yes. Yeah. How is it spelled? Is it P-O-L-L-E-D? Yes, ma'am.
02:56Okay, I keep hearing it, but I never know if it's polled P-U or polled P-O. So thank you. Um, the Highland breed is the, the orange-ish colored cows with the real fluffy coats, right? Yeah, they, I mean, they come in a variety of colors, but they have, I guess most distinguishably their, their horns are those, um, similar to like long horns, but they, they curve a little bit and I mean, they all have a different.
03:26shape to their horns. They're just, they're all unique. But yes, they had the long shaggy fur, which, you know, a lot of people call them the emo cows. Yeah, they look like a stuffed animal. They're the Justin Bieber's of cows. Cute. Okay. So what is the purpose of your farm? Are you guys just raising animals and
03:55gardening and stuff for yourselves or do you sell?
03:59We do sell our cows, but we sell them more to hobby farms, small homesteads, smaller farms. A lot of people like Highland cows for, you know, kind of, I guess, glorified yard ornaments, but they are actually sought after for their meat too, but they're so cute that a lot of people have trouble making that transition.
04:30I do know that it was one of the, I believe it was the only beef that the Queen of England would eat. It was a highland beef. But it does take them at least two years to mature. And so you can't get it as readily as you would say an Angus or a Baldi or some of the more popular beef breeds.
04:58They do. And it's actually rich in buttermilk. Okay. So it's, you know, if you're interested in churning butter or anything like that, it's one of the better cows for that. We don't currently milk any of our cows. We do have a mini Dexter, and she's our smallest. She won't get over 36 inches, and she has A2A2 milk.
05:25She was tested genetically for that. And A2A2 milk is supposed to be better for people who have lactose intolerance, milk allergies, those sort of things. I guess it's easier to digest, which my five-year-old son has, he cannot drink milk or soy milk. He has allergies to both. And so it's been on my mind when she has her first calf that I've considered.
05:56starting milking her and seeing how he can digest that. I also don't tolerate milk as well. So I'm curious to see what the difference would be in that. Yeah, you'll have to check back with me because I want to know too. That would be really interesting. Okay, so did you always want to do this or was this a new thing for you or what? It's kind of crazy. Our story is, I guess,
06:26unique. I actually moved down to North Carolina from Alaska in 2016. I will say I was originally born in Virginia, but I moved to Alaska when I was six. My mom has this book from when I was in school. My preschool page, you had to mark what you wanted to be when you grew up. On my page, I had put farmer and a mother.
06:56And now here I am with three children and we own a farm. And so I had a variety of jobs between them. You know, I'm working in Alaska. I did not do this. I worked in residential treatment. I had my degree in psychology and I worked in prisons and I worked as a probation parole officer and
07:24My last job was actually in the courthouse. And when I had our third son, or our third child, I made the transition to being a stay at home mom. And that was about two years ago. And I started building the farm up then. And that's about two years ago is when we started getting our first cows.
07:50I had gotten chickens before then, which everyone says chickens are the gateway drug. Yes, yes they are. Yes they are. And then it just doesn't, I mean, it doesn't end with chickens. You got to go beyond that. But we got the pigs and yeah, we never, I had met my husband after I moved to North Carolina. I met him in Pender County. We worked together and we moved up here when we had our first son. And
08:20I fell in love with the property that we're on right now because of all the open pastures and it's got a huge wooded area also. We just decided to ask the family because it was family owned between his father's siblings. We just talked to them about buying them out on this property. It's been in his family since, I believe we traced it back to the 1930s.
08:49It was originally a tobacco farm. And so we, they agreed to it and we started our pumpkin patch and just slowly grew into this and here we are. And we, I think we focus a lot more on homesteading as in providing for ourselves. We've done meat chickens. We processed our own pigs. My husband hunts. He, he processes deer. Um, but.
09:16We've also gotten into the cattle and that's more of a, you know, I guess, farm aspect of, you know, selling beyond just our family and friends. And we do our annual pumpkin patch, which that sells to the community around here. But yeah, we never plan on it. It's the best life for us, I think, especially with the three kids being able to raise them.
09:46on the farm and raise them getting dirty every day. I always talk about my daughter faceplanting into a cow patty. She's two years old and she couldn't care less. Yeah, they don't care. As long as they're clean when they go to bed, they're fine. Go cat. Go. Okay.
10:10So is the plan to continue to grow it and grow it and grow it as you get older and the kids get older or do you have a different plan for it? We're pretty much good where we're at with the cows right now. We have 12 acres that we've fenced in for pasture. I do want to expand. It's been in my plan for this past year is to.
10:39add babydoll sheep to the farm. A lot of it is the attraction. Highland cows, people like to take photographs of them. People like to pet them. It brings people here for the pumpkin patch. So I think we hope to expand in that regard. We do our sales for the pumpkin patch in the fall. We've talked about maybe expanding to selling Christmas trees in the future, depending on
11:09how things go, just bringing our community in and bringing them together to, I guess, have a place they can get something local. We do have a couple other pumpkin patches around here, but ours is the only one in the Westfield area. But that's, I think that beyond that, we don't plan on expanding anymore, just maybe adding the sheep and then.
11:37I think we're at our limit with animals beyond that. Okay. Sorry. I had a question when you were talking because this is what happens to me. You guys talk and I get so engrossed in what you're saying, I forget the prompt that kicked me when you were talking. Christmas trees. Is that a hard thing to start? And do you have any idea how long it takes for them to be cuttable size? Well for us, we would actually...
12:05purchase from a local farm and then bring them in as already cut and just set up a sales stand basically. What I envision I guess is I see we would like to have like a little building on that side of the property that we can sell out of but also you know just at that time of the year having hot chocolate, having Christmas lights up and just…
12:32a place where people can come and pick out their Christmas trees. That's not the grocery store. You're making me want it to be Christmas and we are literally just coming into spring in Minnesota. So I'm feeling really conflicted right now because the idea of an open fire and a mug of hot cocoa or coffee and sitting down and chatting with people and then picking out a Christmas tree sounds wonderful, but this is not the time. Mary Evelyn, no.
13:02Okay, I remembered the other question. The other question was, what's the biggest city near you? I'd have to say, we have Mount Airy here, which I don't know if you know, Mount Airy is known as Mayberry. Okay. From the Andy Griffith Show. Okay, yeah. And that is the closest city to us, but I wouldn't qualify that as a big city. Winston-Salem's 30 minutes away. Okay, yeah. And then just beyond that, 45 minutes away is Greensboro.
13:31Okay, I don't know Greensboro, but I know Salem, so we're good. I don't know what I haven't been there, but I've heard of it. So yeah. Yeah. I have talked to a lot of people in your area in North Carolina and South Carolina in the last couple of months because apparently the Carolinas are a great place to have a homestead or a farm. And I assume that's because the soil is good and the climate is good. Yeah, I've noticed that too. We actually follow a lot of people around here.
14:00Um, right, I think probably an hour or 45 minutes away is Polyface Farm, Bull Salton, and then Justin Rhodes is in Asheville area, which is another big name for homesteading around us. Um, I know there's Instagram and Facebook, YouTube shows, sow the land. Um, they're also by Asheville area. And we're kind of in the middle.
14:30of this like the northern middle part of the state. A little closer to the west were 15 minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Okay. So, you're in a really beautiful area, number one. And number two, you lucked out and had a piece of land that you could buy in a really beautiful area. So, that's fantastic. Speaking of Joel and Polyphase Farm.
14:58I actually interviewed him a week or two ago and released the episode this past Monday and he is such a nice man. Oh, yeah. We've been dying to meet him. We watch a lot of his stuff and actually when we did our meat chickens, we used his chicken tractor design. Yeah, he's the, what is it, the godfather of homesteading pretty much. Something like that, yeah. I don't know if you've listened to the interview.
15:27time in between taking care of the kids and getting things ready for spring and summer, it's up on the podbean.com, a tiny homestead page. So if you want to listen to it, feel free. But yeah, if you have a chance to meet him, go meet him. He's very nice. Yeah. He seems like an open door policy with anybody interested in learning about what he's created.
15:58Oh yes, absolutely. He's apparently out of the country this week teaching his methods to people in other countries across the pond. So I'm like, wow, I can't even imagine, I can't imagine number one, flying because I hate to fly. And number two, being so sought after that I would go across the globe to teach. Yeah, that says numbers about him.
16:27Yeah. So, okay, so how old are your kids? Because I assume they're young and that's fantastic because they're going to be brought up in a lovely way. We have a five-year-old who's currently in preschool and he's our oldest. And then we have a two-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy. Oh my, you are busy. That's a...
16:53That's a lot of little ones to take care of and start a business and run a farm and take care of everything. Yes, they keep us on our toes for sure. I mean, it is a little bit limiting when you're trying to focus on like we've been, my husband and I, we do pretty much all the work around here ourselves. Okay, he does 95% of the work. I do maybe 5%. I understand, yes.
17:23And we've been pasturing in those 12 acres and we're down to just needing to wrap wire on the last, what is it, four acres. And when you're trying to wrap and watch the three kids and make sure they're not getting into things they shouldn't be, it slows things down a little bit. But they, just seeing them out here and just running around in the field and...
17:49My youngest likes to go over to the chickens and just watch them and they love it. Yep. And those kids are going to be a huge help in about 12 years. So it's great. I mean, I, again, I've said this before on the podcast, I'm going to say it again. I wish that we had been in a position to do this thing that we're doing here now when my kids were young. We were not. We lived in town. We lived in a tiny house.
18:19It just wasn't possible then. And of course, once the youngest hit 18, the opportunity came for us to buy acreage and move. And I was like, of course, now they're all grown, we can go. So I really envy you guys who are younger and have little ones and can do this while they're young because then they're raised in it. Yeah. Well, do you have grandchildren? Sort of, kind of.
18:49Um, my, my, uh, stepson who I consider my son, I have four kids. I have a daughter, my stepson, and then two sons after the stepson. My stepson and his wife, she has a daughter from a previous marriage and my stepson and his wife just got married in September. So officially I am a grandma and she's, she's like 11 or 12. Oh, I'm sure she loves it. Um, she's been up once like.
19:18Oh my, it was a while ago. It was like four years ago. And so we had just moved here and things were really, really crazy and stressful. We literally had moved in two months before they visited and we had a brand new puppy. So things were a little nutty because I was still trying to get the house situated and know where things were and we had a puppy underfoot and they came to visit and.
19:45It was insanity here when they visited. So I'm not sure she had a great time when they were here, but they are now only about a five to six hour car drive away. So I expect to see them this summer. And then it will be better because we're more settled and the gardens will be going and she can go pick whatever she wants and she can hang out with chickens and hang out with the dog that was a puppy when we met her. So it'll be a little less.
20:14crazy.
20:17What kind of dog do you have? I have a mini Australian shepherd and I have talked and talked and talked about her on this podcast and I always feel weird about it. Her name is Maggie. That's a cute name. Yep, she's been Maggie since before we actually brought her home. Friends of ours are the owners of the parents of Maggie.
20:45when we said we wanted one of the puppies, my friend Jean said, what's the name going to be? And I said, it's a girl puppy. She's like, yeah. I said, Maggie. Maggie has had, Maggie has been Maggie since she was about five weeks old. What made you pick that name? I'm kind of weird and I love biblical names, even though I'm not religious at all. And I have always loved Mary of Magdalene. I love Magdalene.
21:14And so I was like, I want to name the puppy Maggie after Mary of Magdalene. And my husband was like, I don't care what we name her because you're always good at naming things. So, so she's, she's Maggie after Mary of Magdalene, even though I am the least Bible person you will ever meet. I don't know why I keep doing this, but I do it. So I usually proper names. So I understand that.
21:38Yeah, I mean, we should have named her Bandit because if she's out in the yard and she's a good 20, man, not even 20 yards, 10 yards away, she has a white stripe in between her eyes and she has the little brown markings that look like eyebrows above her eyes. And so when she's far away, she looks like she has a mask on. And when I noticed it, when she finally came into her adult coloring,
22:08I was like, I should have named that dog Bandit. And my husband looked at me, he said, it's too late now. I was like, I know, she's Maggie. But Bandit would have been really cute. So I do this all the time. I said, well, Maggie's cute too. Yes, and she is very, very cute actually in person. She's a beautiful dog. She's the black and white tri with the tan points.
22:34And she is just a lovely dog and I don't want to say anything else because I've talked about her so much. People are like, oh no, we're talking about the dog again. Yeah. Does she help you with the chickens? No, no, she does not because she's a gross dog and she wants to eat the chicken poop. That's just a dog thing. Yes. And it just, I'm completely grossed out by it.
23:01And because she's a house pet, she lives indoors and I don't want her licking my face knowing she was eating chicken poop. It's just gross. And there's no stopping her from licking your face. I mean, she must lick your nose if she can get to you. So it's just gross. I don't want her doing it. And we only have 18 or 19 chickens and they have a big run so she can't get to them, but she can see them. So.
23:30She's not, she doesn't really have a job. She's a watchdog mostly. Well, that works. That's a job. Yeah, we needed a watchdog. We live five miles outside of town and we live on a busy highway because of the semi trucks that take, I don't know, the produce from the farms around here in and out all the time. And so I wanna know if somebody pulls in the driveway and she knows immediately and she barks really loud. So.
24:00Oh, that's good. Yeah, she's fabulous. I love her so much. She is my favorite, favorite, favorite thing on earth right now. Just don't tell the kids. Ah, I've told my husband, I've told my kids. I'm like, you're just going to have to accept it. She is my favorite thing on earth right now. And she's the first dog I've ever raised from a puppy to a dog. My husband and I had never had that experience before. Yeah, that does change things.
24:28Yeah, because they're babies. You fall in love and then you're screwed for the rest of their lives. Yeah. So, but anyway, do you guys have any pets? We do. I don't mean animals, I mean pets. Well, we have four dogs, but they're livestock guardian dogs. Yeah. So they're outside 24-7. And then we have our farm cat, Hanks, after Tom Hanks. Yeah.
24:55We had his mom and then we named her Pumpkin. And then my husband and I just get a kick out of that Saturday Night Live skit with Tom Hanks, David S. Pumpkins. And so we named the Pumpkins' son, Hanks. Nice. And then we have a 50% Anatolian
25:2250% great Pyrenees dog named Zeus. And he came with me from Wilmington. And then we adopted a full Pyrenees female named Lady. And they had a surprise litter last year. And we found great homes for all of them, except Sophia was the runt and we have her.
25:52And she's been my mom's favorite and also my daughter's favorite. And then we actually just, I, when we, we've never had puppies or anything before. And so I had told everybody who was getting puppies at, if anything didn't work out, please bring them back, do not bring them to the shelter or anything. We'll take them back. And so we had one brought back to us this past week.
26:20and he was not in good shape. And so he's back here and we're getting him up to the weight he should be and getting his little muscles stretched, but he's doing good. He was actually the, he looked identical to his dad, Zeus. And so when he was a puppy, just because they looked so similar and I assumed he was going to be going to a good home, I had named him Zeus the second just because they were
26:50twins. And now that he's back, we've had to pick a different name. And for whatever reason, Murphy just fits him. And the mom and I called him that. He would come to me. So he knows his name is Murphy now. But that's been a little journey with him. I love Murphy for a name for a dog. Yeah. I really wanted to name him Killian.
27:17We were trying to stick with like, he, he, I don't know why he resembles kind of an Irish Wolfhound look to him. So I was like, well, we've got, you know, the Scottish cows. It's like, maybe we can find a good Celtic name for him. And I tried calling him Killian because it means dealing with strife. He's dealt with that with what he went through and it just didn't fit. And for some reason, Murphy just.
27:46sounded right. You know, when you look at them and you're just like, that's it. Yeah. Um, so when you found homes for the puppies from the surprise litter, when you, when you had to give those puppies to their new owners, did you cry? Yeah. Well, I was attached to a couple of them, very attached. Um, but it's kind of amazing when you find the right home, you just feel good about it.
28:16And there were, I mean, everybody else from that litter went to farms in the area. And I still talk to a bunch of the owners and they send me pictures and updates and, and they all just went to great homes. But this specific family was a young couple and they live in an apartment. And at the time they had had a house with the yard and that's okay with it. And
28:44But them being young, I was kind of unsure about it, but I got my first Pyrenees when I was 20, so I couldn't judge them. So I was thinking I was just being kind of motherly and too worried about it. And, but he did seem to hide behind me a little bit when they had come and were gonna take him, but I thought maybe he's just nervous and in my gut. I should have just trusted my gut.
29:13that it just wasn't gonna be a good fit, but we didn't realize.
29:20what was going on and they had contacted me about two months ago saying that they weren't going to be able to keep them. So we said, okay, bring them back. It's no problem. They changed their minds and then this past weekend they said they're going to bring them back. All the other puppies were at six months about 90 some pounds and he is probably roughly 50 pounds at 10 months.
29:50And you can feel his bones in his hips, his ribs. You can see that he was kept in a kennel too small for him because his spine is curved and his hips are, they sag. So it's just, it's very frustrating. Even his pads on his feet are so soft. They're like a puppy's pads because he hasn't been out to use them. Wow.
30:18I'm really glad that he came back to you. Yeah, it's very, I don't know, it's just disheartening that anybody can do that to anything but you just, you hope for the best and we tried to be so selective about who would get him because, you know, I've had dogs my whole life and I've never gotten rid of them and you just want the best for them but I am glad he's back and...
30:48Sorry, I could ramble about that for forever. No, no, no, that's okay. I'm sure it was just heartbreaking to see him when he came back. But I'm gonna flip it and tell a happy story about giving a pet to some, or a puppy or a kitten to someone and that way we don't have to end it on a sad note. My barn cat had kittens last September and she had six and then she had four because two of them disappeared. We think that probably an eagle or a...
31:18Osprey or a hawk got two of them and We ended up finding a home for one Two of the four passed away from an upper respiratory thing because they're barn kittens and that happens And so we had one one we kept one. Her name is chirp. She still lives here We love her and one of them we found a home for and the one we have found the home for Her name was Rocky
31:47when we named her, because we named all the barn kitties. And this family wanted a kitten. And I was like, which one do you want? We have this one and we have that one. And they picked Rocky. And they came to get her on a beautiful morning. I think it was back in November, I think. And they had two little kids and they looked very excited and they had bought a cute little carrier to bring her home in.
32:17And I was very excited for her to have a home because we don't need a thousand cats here. No one needs a thousand cats. So I knew they're coming. I was very excited. I talked to the mom. She was nice, blah, blah, blah. And they pulled out of the driveway with that cat and I just cried. My husband was like, what is wrong with you? I said, I don't know. I wasn't even that attached, but maybe it's just happy tears. I don't know. And so the next day I messaged her and I said, how's...
32:45How's the kitten doing? And she sent me a picture before she even answered me in words, she sent me a picture of the kitten with her little girl. And she followed it up with, she seems to be settling in fine. And I said, what's her name? And she said, toast. T as in Tom, O, A, S, and T. Toast. I said, toast. She said, yeah, the kids named her and the kids were like four and two or something. I said, okay. Well.
33:14keep me posted on toast because I want to know how she does. And she sent me a picture at Christmas time and toast was all curled up under the Christmas tree. And I was like, Oh, this cat is living its best life. So, so sometimes you can do all the research in the world and all the vetting in the world of people who are going to take your baby animals to their homes. But sometimes you just luck out. Yes. Yeah, I can say.
33:43of all the puppies, I mean every other puppy when the families came to get them and they're, one of them went to the roost homestead and that was Apollo and we had on Instagram there's a page called growing up pier for growing up Pyrenees and I mean they groom them and
34:12They just take amazing care of them. And then another family, they got one of the puppies named Bear. She'll send me pictures. And she actually came back and bought some laying hens. And they're getting started on their homestead. There's just so many amazing families that got them. Even the ones that I was very attached to, I came in and I was like, I'm just relieved. I'm really glad that they're going to great places.
34:43I'm trying to think, let's see, Gallagher's, Pumpkin's, up in Sparta, North Carolina, they got Theo. He was the last male to go. And they've got four other dogs, but he's still spoiled. They are great families out there. Yeah. One of the things that I think is beautiful about this whole farming, homesteading, is
35:12community thing is that that community is what lifts you up when things are when you're not feeling so great about something because you have All these other puppies that went to these other places that are doing great and they keep in contact with you So you know that you did the right thing? as far as you possibly could and You got the one back. So now you can fix him. You can you can help him have a better life
35:41Yes, yeah. Yeah, I do. I can't preach it enough about the homesteading and farming communities. It's kind of a different world when you know other farmers or other homesteaders and and we try to be as welcoming as possible. Anybody who comes to get chickens or anybody who comes to get cows or anything, we have an open door, open phone policy. Just if you have any questions or need any help or...
36:10Um, when we were processing chickens, I, I let folks know like, Hey, if you want to come and you want to see how we do it, by all means, come on by, we know you can help if you want, or you can just stand back and watch. Um, I feel like everybody really supports one another. And, and I mean, I've been lucky in that I don't really have, haven't gotten to the point. I don't know if we're just not big enough yet, but.
36:37having gotten to the point where we're being trolled or anything, it's all very positive people. And it's nice. Yeah, I really hope that you don't get to the point where that happens because it's just, it's no fun. We haven't had it happen to us yet. I figure it probably will at some point. But I really want people to understand in the world that we who are doing this thing with
37:06growing food for other people or for ourselves or trying to be sustainable or trying to leave the earth better than we found it. We really want that to be important and we want that to be something we can continue to do. And when people get trolled or harassed or bothered, it makes you want to give up. So don't do that people. Don't harass other people. It's not okay.
37:34And all it does is reflect poorly on themselves. Mm-hmm. And messes up the people they messed with, but yes, it does reflect very poorly on the person that does the offense, whatever the offense is. And I hadn't really thought about that until you brought it up, but yeah, it's live and let live, honestly. If you don't want to do what somebody's doing, don't do that. But don't make them feel bad because they've chosen that life, you know?
38:04So busy that we don't even have the time to, you know, like if you're busy and you're working and you're doing the best you can and you live in your best life, you don't have the time to worry about others offending you or, you know, like, yeah, absolutely. Okay. So do you have anything else you would like to share? I know you guys will be doing the pumpkin patch in the fall, but is there anything you have planned for the summer for the public to come play?
38:34play to? Not yet. We're still, we're kind of feeling things out. I would just, I don't throw that out there if there's photographers in the area that would like to come take pictures. We'd be open to that. Really I'm just kind of checking out what other people are doing and we're slowly growing it. It's gonna be a lot easier and I feel like we're gonna get a lot more done.
39:01in the coming years because the kids are going to be a little bit older and we'll be able to apply more attention to events. But for right now, it's the pumpkin patch. We always begin it in September and then end about halfway through October. So we're hoping the growing season goes well this year and we've got the cows out there in that pasture right now where our patch is spreading their gold for us.
39:31Yeah. Yep, I bet it is. I hope your growing season goes really well too because this winter has been the craziest thing I've ever seen. And I don't think it was just Minnesota. I'm assuming your winter was a little weird too. I don't think it was as bad as what you guys got. We got a lot of rain, that's for sure. It would be nice to have a little bit of a
40:01You guys got... Whew. We actually didn't get anything, which was the weird part. We only got about a foot of snow for the winter here and that's really unusual. Yeah. So, I don't know. Because I had a minute of being like the lower 48 Alaska. That makes sense. Usually. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. But I'm sure you guys had...
40:29cold weather and winds, right? We had a week where it was really, really cold. One week. Wow. Yeah. It's been unseasonably warm. It's been unseasonably snowless. And we just got a ton of rain two days ago. Thank goodness, because we were cruising toward being in a drought again already. So I'm just hoping that...
40:59Mother Nature settles down a titch and goes back to being moderate and we'll be able to grow our gardens this year here because if we don't, that's not going to bode well for the canning for next winter. Yeah. I understand. I kind of joked last year about wishing we could just have like a pipe going from North Carolina to everywhere in the Midwest.
41:27having a drought because we were just flooded here. Mm-hmm. And it's bizarre. Yeah. My folks live in Maine and my dad basically said they got hardly anything from their garden because it rained so much. Nothing, nothing could grow. Mm-hmm. That's that we had to actually cancel our pumpkin patches last season because we just couldn't keep it dry. You know, it.
41:54They have a big issue with different fungus and downy mildew and powdery mildew and then the bugs and when it's moist out the bugs come and you just, it wasn't an easy year that's for sure. Yeah, I always say that the good years make you really, really thankful because the bad years will just destroy you. Yes, absolutely. And you gotta try. You can't.
42:21You can't give up. You got to try because there's always that hope that the following year will be the year that makes the year before not as bad. Yes. So. That's our main slogan right there, right? Yeah, pretty much. It's a gamble every year and you just do what you can and try to work with nature and sometimes nature wins and sometimes you win. So.
42:49All right, Elizabeth. Well, it's been over half an hour and I really appreciate you sharing your time with me. I know you've got stuff to do. So thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. Yeah, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity. Oh, absolutely. It was great talking to you and getting to know you. Yeah, it was great finding out about what you guys are doing. And I wish you all the luck in the world with your plans. Oh, thank you so much. All right. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

Salonek Farms

Today I'm talking with Therese at Salonek Farms. 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 Therese at Salonek Farms. Good morning, Therese. Good morning, Mary. How are you today? Oh, we are doing great. We're doing great. This is fun. I'm so glad you invited me. Yeah, I have. I have all kinds of questions. Before I get into them, tell me about what you guys do.
00:30Well, we farm in Montrose, I understand you're in Minnesota as well? Yeah, in Lesour. Lesour, okay. So we're just about 45 minutes west of the cities in Montrose, Minnesota, and we raise beef. We have anywhere between 900 and 1,000 head of beef cattle here. And you know, we've...
00:59My husband grew up on a farm not far from here. I, however, was a city girl and I go where he goes, right? And so we've been here at the farm since the early 90s. Yeah, mid-90s. And we bought the farm from his parents. We milked cows for until about the 2000 or so, 2001.
01:27and switched over to raising replacement heifers for dairy farmers, and then ended, kind of landed on beef. And for a variety of reasons, beef isn't as intense as milking cows. And yeah, so that's what we do. Our beef goes, we have a pretty robust, private beef sales. We have...
01:56We work with several processors in the area to sell privately to beef. And then we also sell, obviously, into the major beef markets. JBS in Wisconsin is where our cattle are shipped to. So yeah, that's what we do. OK. So is producing cattle or raising cattle for beef less intense than for dairy?
02:26gets contaminated, you lose all that milk and it costs you money, is that part of it? No, because that's a pretty rare occurrence that that would happen. It's more, dairy animals require every day, twice a day milking. Some people do three times a day, we never did, we did morning and night. And they also are a little bit more finicky.
02:54as far as how you feed them and how you carry. Dairy cattle are hardier, or beef cattle are hardier than dairy. And so, yeah, so that's kind of the difference between, and actually, sadly, dairy farmers are not, they're dropping out the small dairy farmers that are milking 60 to 150 animals. They're...
03:23few and far between because the milk prices vary so much. And that was part of the reason that we got out is our monthly income could vary $15,000. And that was in the early 2000s. And that was just, it was frustrating to us because we didn't have that control. And so milk would go up, milk would go down. And it was just too frustrating. My husband loves.
03:53farming, he loves livestock and he's good at it and he's done it his whole life. But you have to look at the economics of it. And that's why I think you see so many in the last 20, 15 to 20 years, dairy farmers going out and you're seeing the major 2000, 3000 cow dairies pop up because that's really the only way I think you can survive. You know, I'm sure there's people doing it, but for the most part, you're seeing all of that.
04:24all of those dairies just get bigger and bigger and bigger. And it's tragic. There's a lot of empty farmsteads around here where you see, obviously, they had cattle probably for many, many years. And they went out of cattle. And yeah, so. OK. All right. I just didn't know why dairy was more intense than raising for meat. But thank you, because if I don't know, other people don't know either.
04:52I feel, okay, I'm going to say this, this is my opinion and my opinion only. I feel like farmers and teachers don't make nearly the money they should be making. Well, with, it's the control of, I always said to my husband, you know, we would send a cow on a truck, right? And then to be butchered.
05:20then once it gets there, they tell you what they will give you for it. Well, it wasn't in their best interests to give you, if they didn't have to, to give you a high price. So the farmer was kind of like, okay, what are you going to give me for it? And they're not going to be able to take the cattle back, right? It's already been there. So it always kind of frustrated me. And I say to my husband, this was years ago, you guys should unite, you know, because
05:49It just didn't, it never, who else puts their product out there and not knowing what they're going to get for it and then just be stuck with whatever somebody deems it to be valued at and you know, but farmers are, are independent bunch and to not want to collaborate, which always confused me as well. I thought, why don't you guys get together?
06:17have breakfast once a month and share your ideas so everybody can do well, you know, all boats rise with the tide. But farmers are, you know, kings in their own kingdoms. I probably get in trouble for saying that, but. It's been my experience that they, you know, are independent and that's probably what makes them, you know, successful and satisfied with their jobs.
06:47and satisfied with what they do because they do work incredibly hard and, you know, don't always get the recognition they deserve. But it's a very fulfilling life, and I think that's probably what drives a lot of them. Yeah, I think that anyone who appreciates the food that they get from their local growers should hug their local grower when they see them. It's a thankless job, typically.
07:16And I try to thank everybody for anything they do for me, even if it's the tiniest thing, because I think that thanks is a really important word. I also think, Mary, that in going forward, people need to understand where agriculture is going, the demands being put on the farmers, regulatory, et cetera, and where prices are gonna go, beef prices. It's alarming to us as producers.
07:46to see the futures, right? Because that's our bread and butter, right? So we follow that kind of stuff much more so than the average person. And the futures are pretty alarming for cost to consumers. Yeah, tell me about that, because I was reading your Facebook post about that. Tell me more about that. Well, beef prices are rising. The country had a...
08:15very significant drought, especially in cattle country across Texas and a lot of those areas where because of the drought, they didn't have the feed to feed their herds. A lot of them were on grass, right in the open pasture, that type of thing. Well, when there's no rain and no rain for a really long time, grass doesn't grow. And it's cost prohibitive for them to
08:45People say, well then, truck down hay or whatever. Well, when you have 1,000 animals out on a pasture, that's a lot of feed. It's cost prohibitive to bring feed down from someplace that didn't have drought. Therefore, they had to sell off their herds because they couldn't feed them. Well, they not only, they sold off the cows as well. Well, the cows are the ones that produce the next generation. So you see.
09:15You know, chickens, you can turn around and grow a chicken and, you know, I'm not a chicken farmer, but we've had chicks in, you know, 55 days or 85 days or whatever it is, and you've got a chicken that's ready to eat. Hogs are a little longer than that, but not nearly as long as it does the life cycle of bringing a steer to market. So that's why you're going to see beef prices rise is that there wasn't the cows were sent to butcher as well.
09:44So the next generation wasn't anymore. And then you add into that, South America had significant drought as well. And so that affected a lot of beef comes from South America and that affected. So it was kind of a perfect storm in the last couple of years to reduce our beef hurts. And then you look at some of the growing third world countries that are
10:12their middle class is growing and they're demanding more and more beef, which I, you know, which, you know, with exports. So there's just a lot of demand placed on beef and there's less beef around. Okay. We had bought a half from a local butcher like a year and a half ago, and I was not in love with it.
10:37I think it was grass finished and I really like green finish because I'm old school. I like my beef to be green finished because I think it tastes better. And so what I was going to ask you is how does this... I don't even know how to ask this correctly because I know nothing about raising beef. So I'm going to try. What's the difference between growing or raising or finishing grass fed?
11:06versus finishing grain fed.
11:12Well, I'm not an expert in grass fed, but from what I understand, grass fed is leaner. It does have a different taste, but they're also older because, you know, there's not the caloric intake that there is with corn. For instance, a beef steer, we can turn around in about 14 months to finishing weight. And I think grass fed is significantly.
11:41longer than that because they're fed a different grain. The corn fed or grain fed is a richer diet and so they grow faster. Okay, then that might be why. I'm not going to say who we got the beef from because I'm sure that people love their beef. I just don't like it.
12:08I assume that if the animal is older, the meat will be tougher. And that's where I'm running into the issue. It tastes different to me and it's really tough no matter how we cook it. Yeah, to be honest, I've never had grass-fed. And so I don't really know. I only know anecdotally what people say about it. But yes, that's a question many of our customers will ask them is, you know, is it grass? Some prefer the grass-fed. And I think that's a good point.
12:37and I'm not exactly sure why that is, but it's more expensive too. Grass-fed is more expensive. But there's, yeah, it's personal like and dislike, I think, but for the most part. And also grass-fed is a little tougher up here where we live, right, because of winter. Yeah. We can't have them out on pasture. There's, because people say, well, are they out on pasture?
13:06Well, that's a great idea for spring and summer, but it's not such a great idea when it's 35 plus zero. No, no, because once they eat whatever is dried from what had been growing and died off, it's gone. So there's nothing for them to eat. Right, right. Yeah, so you see primarily green feed up in our region, I would venture to guess. OK.
13:35I've been trying to figure it out because I was so excited to buy a half and then ate the first steak from it and I was like, I don't like it and now we're stuck with a half steer of this particular animal. Yay. Luckily, my husband and my son think it's fine. They're not thrilled with it, but they think it's fine. So they have been eating a lot of it and every time they're like, you want to do steaks or do you want to do burgers? I'm like,
14:05Okay, and I eat like three bites and I'm good. So it's been it's been very frustrating and very disappointing for me. And honestly, we're probably going to hit you guys up for a half when we need to buy one again, because I was looking at your website, and I was like, I think we need to go see them. That'll work. Well, that's very nice of you to say. At Salonek Farms, I have I run the private part of the of our farm. And we have about 1200 private customers that we
14:34have serviced and we guarantee our beef and if you don't like it, you can bring it back. We will give you your money back. We never ever want Salonek beef in a freezer that they don't want it in. But I can tell you that that never happens. I make that really clear because integrity in our business is our highest priority. And we always seek to be more than fair and probably maybe.
15:03Sometimes I overdo it by making sure that our customers are happy. We're proud of what we do. We work hard every day to grow the best beef available. When we ship to Green Bay, we get, obviously, they send you what your steers get. We 35 steers fit in a semi. Okay. And then they grade them and we come out 95, 96% of those 35.
15:34animals come out at primer top choice and often a third of the herd will come in at five star reserve which is the highest you can get. So we're very proud of what we do. We save our best steers for our private customers so we are very confident that people will be very pleased with our beef. Like I said, we guarantee their satisfaction.
16:02that's just the way we want to do it. I never want anyone questioning our integrity. Fantastic. I am absolutely gonna talk to my husband about getting the next half from you guys because I really wanna like the next steak that I eat out of the next half we buy. I really do. So you were saying that you were a city girl, so was this a hard transition for you or was it okay? I think I wept.
16:29When I think back on it, I think I wept every day on the phone to my mother because being a city girl, I wasn't used to the dirt, I wasn't used to the smell, and I wasn't used to the work ethic, unfortunately. I'm not proud of that. And so we moved to the farm just after our first born. We have seven children just after our first born. And unfortunately, my husband fell off the roof.
16:59the day we moved in and broke his neck in several places. And that was not a good start. No. We were milking at the time and, you know, God really showed up and he healed and he was able to, you know, eventually get back into the barns. But so that's how we started it off. And so I was feeding him in the living room with a
17:28Yeah, it was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. And we were poor as church mice too, which is not very fun. And yeah, so I did. It took a lot of getting used to. I was used to a nicer home and that type of thing. But like I said, I go where he goes. And having a husband that's satisfied with this work, and doing what he wants to do, and doing what God's called
17:57is, has to be your highest priority. And we moved here, we made it ours, we, you know, continue to grow our family. And it's been a wonderful life. It's been a really wonderful life. One of the things my husband is really gifted in is care is young men that are struggling. Many of them are fatherless. Some are just kind of
18:26struggling in adolescence. Some are, you know, parents are struggling with defiance and that type of thing. And so that's really his ministry here. And part of the reason he continues to farm, because we are in our mid-60s, is that it really provides him an opportunity to have these young men come out to the farm and to hopefully help them to become...
18:56men, good men, for them to see what a good man is and to see the satisfaction of hard work, to spend that time talking to them about issues in their lives that maybe nobody talks to them about. And it's something that the farm provides that opportunity for him to teach him honest day's work, to show them, put a wrench in their hand and show them how that wrench works and to give them
19:25because they have no father at home to show them that. You know, moms, God bless single moms, but there comes a time when a young man, adolescent boy, I think needs a strong man to guide them and help them to make good decisions and that type of thing. So we have done a lot of that over the years and continue to do that. Whoever God brings into our lives, we...
19:54They're welcome here and it's not always easy and we don't make it easy on them, but they are loved and they are guided. Awesome, that's fantastic. And I'm gonna jump the gender gap here a little bit. With girls and boys or with boys and girls, I think that they all need to have really good role models of each gender besides mom and dad.
20:25because women learn from quote unquote adopted aunties and adopted grannies, just like boys learn from adopted uncles and adopted grandpas. And I tried really hard when I was raising my four kids to make sure that the people that we had in our lives who were adults taught the kids things that they knew that we didn't know, if that makes sense.
20:50So yeah, what your husband is doing is amazing. And it's really funny when men, men are a different animal. They can't just sit down over a cup of coffee or a cup of tea and be social and chat about things that are deep. I feel like if they're working on something, they just naturally start talking about things that mean something to them.
21:20And I think these young men crave some guidance. They know, you know, some know that, you know, the path that they're on isn't the best path for them. And it's not like you're in the army now, it's not boot camp, but they respond to that. And I've said to my husband so many times, you can't talk to a girl like that. And, you know, because it is true, it is different. And, you know, you...
21:48want to have those positive role models in their lives and especially for our girls, I don't know if you raised girls, but we have four of them, is to hopefully have them pray for them to choose good men because that is their life, right? If they make a bad choice, that is life altering for the rest of their lives. So our girls have chosen wonderful men that treat them well.
22:18love the Lord and it's heartbreaking for some of my friends to have their daughters in tough situations. So yeah, you're right. It's who you allow your children to spend that time with in their formative years really defines their values and what they will accept and what they won't accept. Yeah. I have a daughter. She is the oldest of four kids. And she...
22:45She managed to find herself a really good man. He adores her. He takes care of her to a fault. And she's also terribly independent. And so she'll call me and she'll be like, mom, I married the right guy. She said, but he's almost too helpful. And I'm like, that's OK. Just that's good. Just tell him that you appreciate him offering the help.
23:15and that if you need it, you will ask. And she's like, okay. And I'm like, honey, trust me, it's better to have one that's too helpful than one that's not helpful at all. Exactly, exactly. And you know, you watch your adult children and they still need some parenting and some guidance. And that's also a privilege as a mom. And really for you, Mary, it shows how well you raised her that she trusts you as a friend to come to you.
23:45give you, you know, be open with you about struggles or whatever, because that's, we still need to be there for our adult daughters and they need that guidance sometimes. Absolutely. And I feel like my kids are my friends to the point that sometimes they tell me things that I don't really need to know and I blush. And I'm like, that's a little TMI guys. And they're like, no, no, no, no, it's not. I'm like, no, trust me, it's a little TMI.
24:14But I love that they feel like they can just open up to me and tell me stuff. And even if it makes me blush, it's still an honor that they are willing to do that. So, and then the other three are boys. And again, men are a different animal. And I have had conversations with my sons that I never expected to have. You know, as they're growing up when they're little and you're like, things I never thought I would say as a mom.
24:44Like, no, no, you can't eat cat poop out of the cat box, things like that. Gross, terrible things that you never thought you'd say. It's now turned to things I never thought I would hear. And I have to laugh. It's just ridiculous. But they're all really, really good kids and I am so proud of them and so glad that they're mine. Yes, it's a blessing. It is. Yep. My kids too, they're not perfect.
25:14We have our moments. There's a good thing there's doors on the house sometimes, but that's part of being a family. And when you have seven, anything could happen at any time. Generally does, especially on the farm. Yeah, my theory has always been that one kid is one kid, but once you have more than one, it may as well be 100. Yeah, and then we have others too. I mean, I can have 12 at my lunch table for sure in the summertime. And I like
25:43that and I like to cook and I like to provide a healthy meal for them because they're working hard and so, you know, there's just a lot of big personalities sometimes. Uh-huh. Yes, all four of my kids have huge personalities to the point that sometimes it's hard to have them all in the same room. So I understand that. Okay, so do you guys do anything?
26:11else besides raised beef? Do you garden? Do you have chickens? Do you do any other kind of homesteading things that farmers do? We do. We just, I was, my mother never garden, so I never really learned how to garden. I have a friend who is a gardener and also a canner and all this stuff. And I said, you know, Sarah, we could have a garden. I would, you know, at the farm, we certainly have enough, you know, land to do that.
26:38So we tilled up this great big piece of land out where we used to have horses and we put in a garden last year and it was more, we bit off more than we could chew. It was a great idea in the spring, right? It's a great idea. And then you get to be late July and it's like, what the heck have we done here? I froze a lot. I didn't know how to can, but I see Sarah's, she just has tons and tons and tons of stuff.
27:07So I'm going to do that. Freezing my tomatoes and all that, that takes a lot of room up in your freezer. And I think canning. And honestly, I think some of the things going on in the world right now, it's not a bad idea to have extra things around and to grow. It's satisfying, but it's also, food security is important. I hate to be a conspiracy person, but.
27:35I don't know, sometimes in the morning I wake up and go, what could have happened last night that will impact the world? And so I am going to start canning as well and hopefully it goes well and I don't know. So it's such a homestead thing to do that it's not really my thing, but I'm gonna try it. It's not hard. I'm gonna say this again, I've said it a couple times on the other episodes that are out.
28:04Canning is not hard. It's just a lot of steps and you want to make sure you have the time To devote to it in one day Yeah, once you start you got to finish. Yeah. Yeah, but it's not hard It's just it's just it's just many many steps to make sure that it all gets done correctly So you don't get botulism from something you eat six months from now Yeah, so you got to follow the steps and you got to be careful, but
28:33you if if you like it the first time you do it you will be hooked for the rest of your life. Well you got to have the stuff for it. I don't have the stuff for it so I got to find the stuff for it which you can get at garage sales or you know estate sales that grandma died and they got all this stuff and the kids don't do it anyway but so I got to keep keep an eye out for the stuff. Yeah absolutely and
28:58I know what you mean about not wanting to be a conspiracy person because I don't want to be that either. But there are some mornings I wake up and I just have this feeling that something happened that I don't know about yet. And I'm almost afraid to turn on the news because so many strange things have happened just in the last six years. And we have always lived like something was going to happen where we couldn't get to the store to get milk.
29:28So when we shop, we always shop for at least two weeks worth of stuff in the house. And we can because we have a big garden and we always have surplus and canning is better than sticking in the freezer because in the freezer it just gets buried. And if you have a shelf full of jars of jam and jelly and pickles and tomato sauce and
29:56satisfying to go open that cabinet and see all those jars of food and be like, okay, we're good for a little while. It's hard to imagine. It's hard to imagine that we would have been thinking that, you know, five or, you know, 10 years ago that we should, you know, I remember hearing about peppers and thinking, well, that's ridiculous. Why would anybody, what could, and now more and more, we're not alone in that where people are, you know, it's, it, you see commercials for
30:2625 years of dehydrated food you can buy on mainstream TV. And so people are obviously concerned about the possibility. And that's a tragic turn of events, I think, for the country, but one that possibly nothing would ever happen, but to even think that possibly something could happen is disturbing to me. But...
30:53And we have the resources, right? And obviously out on the farm, we'll always have what we need. It's the inner city where Cub Foods is their only option. Well, Cub Foods could run out of in hours if there was a major. You know what I mean? So there's some vulnerability that I feel for. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And part of the reason that we live outside of Lesor, Minnesota, is because we wanted to be able to grow a big garden
31:23preserve that food for the winter because it's Minnesota. Things happen like blizzards and ice storms and situations where you can't necessarily get anywhere for three days. Yeah, for sure. And hopefully you have power because we have waters here for a thousand, so that's where we are like, we have generators and whatever, but losing power is a big deal on the farm.
31:48Yeah, we have a generator that kicks in automatically, which is an absolute blessing. Like if the power goes out, we have power back within 10 minutes as long as there is fuel for the generator to run on. It's so wonderful. It just, anytime that, every week the generator kicks on for like 15 minutes Tuesday night so that it runs during the year in case, it just, it keeps everything working. And every time it kicks on on Tuesday night, I'm just like...
32:18Generators running it still works. So it just it just calms me down because the idea of not having power and Losing everything in our freezers and our refrigerator and if the power isn't working We don't have water because we're on a well. Yep. We don't either so yeah, it's it's a it was a There's a word. It was a bucket list thing that we wanted when we looked
32:47for this place, we wanted a generator that just would come on automatically. And our realtor who's a friend, she was like, that's kind of a bigger ask. And I said, if the place doesn't have it, that's fine. But if it does, yay. And she's great. I'm going to be interviewing her in June, actually, because she's a realtor. She knows about the market. And people who are looking to buy a place to start a homestead, she's going to be able to tell them things that they might not.
33:17think of. So I'm looking forward to interviewing her too. But she's great. She basically found us a place that had all the check boxes checked for us. And we love her to pieces. She's now a member of our family, basically. That's very sweet. Good to know. Good for you. She's lovely. I just, every time I get to spend time with her, she's so bubbly and she's so happy and so friendly.
33:44I'm just high for like four hours after she leaves. Those kind of friends are great, priceless. It's really fun to visit with her. And I asked her if she wanted to be on the podcast and she was like, absolutely. I'm like, okay, good. Let's do that. That'll be fun. So anyway, Therese, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.
34:05And as soon as we need to replace our half beef that is getting whittled down, I will be messaging you because I want to try out your beef next time. Well, we'd love to serve you in that area. So you just let us know. And it's been really fun to talk to you, Mary. You seem like somebody I probably wouldn't have coffee with. It's really a privilege to have been on your podcast. So thank you for that.
34:34Thank you so much, Therese. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
 

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.