A Tiny Homestead

Clear Creek Ranch Mom - Why Beef Is So Expensive, and Some Temporary Workarounds

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom about why beef is astronomically expensive right now, and some alternatives to get you through.
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom in  Nebraska. I was gonna say Arizona, I don't know why. And  Leah's been a guest a couple of times on the podcast and she's here today to talk to us about the cost of beef right now.  So good morning, Leah, how are you?
00:27Good morning, Mary. Always good to visit with you. Thank you for having me.  Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for coming back. I love talking with you because you are.  My dad would call you a no bullshit lady. You are.  You are very, very forward and straightforward. And  I almost blunt. Almost. I hate the word blunt because people tell me I'm blunt all the time. And I'm like, that's so mean.  But you're very, very shoot from the hip. And I love that about you.
00:55And if Maggie barks in the background, I'm sorry, we've got the farm stand open, we've got tomatoes in there and people keep pulling in for tomatoes. So.  And it's International Dog Day, so she should have her moment.  It is. Yeah, I didn't post on Facebook about Maggie for International Dog Day or whatever it is because I forgot that that's what it was.  Yeah, I did too.  I'll have to do it later. Be like, my dog's the best dog.  I will die on that hill.
01:23So, um Leah, you are a cattle rancher, right? Yes, ma'am.  And you're in Nebraska, and you know as well as I do that beef prices have become astronomically expensive.  And since you're a cattle rancher,  I thought maybe you could give us all a little insight on what is going on with that.  Yeah.  Well,
01:48It's a long and complicated story. Like many things that go on within our food chain. And even in 2025, the story in Nebraska has been a bit complicated. So when we had our cattle branding the first Saturday in May, I always call that our celebration, our first big celebration of the year. We brand those calves and get ready to turn the cows and calves out to grass.
02:17But that day was anything but celebration. We were in a terrible drought in early May.  And I have a couple of photos that I took that morning.  One of the photos my daughter took of me.  And I  look at that picture of myself. I don't like it because the somberness was all over my face on what would typically be a joyful occasion. And it was me really evaluating the pasture conditions.  we have been in drought.
02:46on and off, some pretty significant drought really, since 2019, which was the last year of overabundant rainfall. If you want to back up even further across the Great Plains to 2012, we had what was called a flash drought across the Great Plains. What we saw then was the beginning of many ranchers starting to cut down on their herd inventory.
03:16So 2012 was that drought. It was terrible in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. And Nebraska was plenty bad as well.  And we included had to make some very difficult decisions that year  as late  summer came  evaluating  our pasture conditions  and our feed and stock to see if we had cattle.
03:39feed that would provide for those cattle and thankfully we did, but we knew if 2013 didn't improve, we were going to have to start selling down to manage our pastures well. Thankfully that turned the corner here, but that persistent drought did not get better in many places. And as fluctuations in inputs continued to plague ranchers, what we really saw as 2013 and beyond to the
04:09it's really been the last 10 years,  ranchers  tightening those inventories.  Couple that with the fact that ranchers  continue to age  and land transition plans have not been great.  Ranchers don't have  a child to pass that operation to and kids inherit and sell off and not necessarily not selling it into production for future ranching.
04:38So the resulting effect is  smaller numbers because of drought, shrinking numbers of ranches,  which translates into shrinking numbers of cattle,  cows in particular, which are the pipeline, if you will, for what becomes the beef in the stores, they're the mamas, make this all happen.  And we won't even  really get into the challenges of imports  and tariffs and unrest.
05:08and uh consumers  making different choices about what they want to eat  as far as their protein choices and those challenges,  but the perfect storm of conditions. So here we are in 2025.  Cattle inventory continues to shrink.  We  are historically at the  lowest  number in a very long time in the United States. That includes cows, the pipeline.
05:37as well as the cattle in  the finishing operations to be butchered to go to the grocery stores, historically low numbers, and the resulting effect  is higher prices.  Now- because  when there's a lack of supply but the demand  remains the same, prices go up.  Yep. that demand has pretty much remained steady.
06:03Our border is currently closed with Mexico because of the concern  of the New World's screw worm. And if you haven't read up on the New World's screw worm,  it is a real concern.  I have  read about it.  I know enough from my grandparents era that when it was last here in Nebraska, it was bad and it was real bad. We do not want the New World's screw worm in the United States  for a whole bunch of reasons.
06:32But so we understand why the border is closed. We can have a whole conversation  some other time about  the need to import or not. I am a big fan of supporting American beef producers, if at all possible. I understand that people should be given choice. I'm a big fan of transparent labeling.  But the bottom line is American ranchers also are really good at what they do. They raise high quality beef.
06:59and consumers like choice, which means they want to be able to purchase the McDonald's dollar value, dollar, whatever they call their value meals. And that beef  is generally not the quality raised in the United States. We raise better beef than that. Good, better, and different. That's the way it is. um So that's why we talk about importing beef of lesser quality. So we raise really great beef. The other part that doesn't enter into the conversation is
07:29the cost of inputs for ranchers  is also  really,  really expensive to raise this beef that you enjoy. And so while it looks like ranchers are making big money right now because your beef is expensive, it doesn't translate into us lining our pockets.  That is simply not the reality for us.  am so glad you said that because I was going to get to that. So that helps. um
07:55That leads me to something I was thinking about last night and I was going to ask later about last now. um Once you sell your beef, your animals, and they're no longer your property,  whatever people do with the meat that's produced from that  sale doesn't impact your bottom line at all. Once  you've  sold the meat, that's it. Correct. That's absolutely  correct.
08:23One of the things that I want to tell people is if you go out and buy,  if all you can afford is ground beef right now, and ground beef is even expensive,  if you go out and buy in bulk and you  actually package that up and put it in your freezer  when it's on sale, you're going to help your bottom line. And I would highly suggest that people do that because  we do a lot of burger-based meals in our house, unfortunately. um
08:52Again, I am kind of burguered out. I'm over it, but my husband and my son are not.  And so when we buy ground beef, we buy it in bulk, we package it up in Ziploc bags, we seal them, we stick them in the freezer  when it's on sale. And that way we can continue to eat.  you're talking and  I don't know entirely who your audience is, but what you just shared, Mary, is what you and I consider normal practice.
09:22starting with the fact that you're eating your meals at home. Yes. That doesn't resonate with a lot of people anymore. it needs to. It needs to. And I had this conversation with my 17-year-old last night on our way home from the college visit when we talked about this interview about where is it appropriate to go when talking about
09:47the  bigger picture here  on the values  of the American consumer.  She said, well, I don't know how you think you can share something that may impact the value system of an American consumer.  I suppose you can share your thoughts or ideas and they might be intrigued  or make them question some of their thoughts or choices  and do their own research,  but you can't tell people what their values ought to be.
10:15You can suggest it, especially if you're concerned about their health, the health of their family and the health of their bottom line. But  are Americans really in a place today where they want to have someone suggest ideas to them? If they wanted to, they would. We talked about  the Mel Robbins, let them kind of theory. I think it's a really interesting topic because the things that I do,
10:42were the things that I saw growing up and the things my mom and dad saw before them.  And making conscious decisions that were within our budget, for instance,  or to be a healthy choice, that was always at the forefront  of family living.  And a lot of that has gone away now in our hustle and bustle. And then in some cases, it's because people are so busy working  to try to make ends meet. What they sacrifice is
11:11They don't have time to be home prepping a meal. And then it becomes this vicious circle where they are even saying, I don't even have time to look at the local grocery store ad for the week and choose the cuts of beef that are on sale because I don't have time to menu plan and I don't have time to  prep my meals at home or I don't have time to eat as a family.  Well, then we're just kicking the can further down the road.  And so again, speaks to a bigger uh concern I have here.
11:40Yeah, the costs of beef are really, really high. Beyond that, um can we adjust to living this way if we're willing to step back and say, there things we can do differently in our lives  to make beef or whatever protein you love still be a really important part of our family living and be okay  financially?
12:10I think we can. I think it can be done with thoughtful, caring, devoted  people who are willing to come alongside consumers and children. This kind of curriculum used to be a main staple  in home economics, instance, 4-H programming. And then it was just what you did at home. it was modeled and you knew it and you took it with you when you were out on your own.  we've lost so much of that.
12:40and it really does have me concerned. what you do is what I do. It's normal for us. The question is, how can we help others normalize such behaviors? By talking about it on my podcast and hopefully people listen and go, how do you do that? Isn't it something that, mean, our grandmothers probably would be rolling their eyes and saying like, can't believe that you're having to even
13:09suggest this,  I do want to say I have friends um whose children have studied the meat science program at the university and something really cool they still do is they go to the grocery store on the weekends and they set up a table.  And when people come down the meat aisle, they offer to help you talk about  what you can do with different cuts of beef, especially the ones that are on sale. Their whole motivational
13:34efforts of being there is to help encourage people to purchase, not just beef,  they do the same with the poultry and the fish and even the unique uh cuts of pork and sheep and goat, lamb,  that is to help inspire people to be unafraid to buy this cut of beef, knowing that you can take it home and do something  manageable that is tasty and a good option to feed your family. And I think that's a win.
14:01The thing that makes me a little crazy, Leah, is that humans are smart. I mean,  there are people who don't have a high IQ. I get that. Not everyone is smart, smart, but humans are smart. If they can go to work and do their job,  they can cook.  it just, makes me  crazy. And the other thing I was gonna say back five minutes ago is that  you don't have to have meat at every single dinner.
14:29You can always do a meatless dinner two nights a week if you want to not have to spend money on meat. It will not kill you to skip meat two nights a week. That's right. You can find lots of healthy protein sources that you do need protein. It's essential to live. But I learned from my mother in the very, very thin times in the 1980s how to stretch a meal.  And again, you can learn how to cook.
14:56And you can make black beans not taste like black beans. I saw my mother do it.  And  that could be quite delicious. And it's not hard and it's not scary once you get over  your apprehension or your  willingness to say, I'm going to put my phone down or I'm going to stop my distractions and focus on what really matters. We all have to eat like of all of the things you have to do in a day. Eating is one of them.  It just requires that.
15:25devotion to finding a way. That's why I'm so passionate about humans being involved in their own food security. It really does matter  and it doesn't have to be in some huge big way. It's in small ways, like I said, just learning to be invested in feeding your own family  because there may be a time that comes where you're going to have to pull yourself up. You're going to have to do it and boy,  wouldn't you rather
15:53find yourself in that position because  you were equipped to do it rather than having to do it. yeah. Learning to cook when you don't have to  is far better than trying to cook when you have to and you don't know  how. You were saying something about black beans. um I fought the red beans and rice trend for a long time. People were telling me I should make red beans and rice and I was like, eh I'm really not into it.
16:23And then a couple of years ago, I was like, I'm going to try making red beans and rice. I'm to look up a couple of recipes and see how you do it. And it's super easy. You make beans, you make the rice, you season it the way you want to. And tada, you have food. And I ended up making it with cumin and granulated garlic and some fresh onion and some sweet peppers and I don't know, stuff. And cooked it up. And it's basically like, like rice aromani, only way, way better for you.
16:53And to this day when I bring it up, I say, hey, we should probably look at making that taco  beans and rice thing again this winter, because we try to do it once a winter. It's not our favorite thing to make, but it's good.  so I stopped calling it red beans and rice because we actually use black beans. And it's taco beans and rice is what we call it because of the cumin. Good stuff.
17:19Yeah. And I don't know why I fought it for so long, except that I really wasn't a fan of beans. But then I was like, well, I like black beans and chili, so maybe I would like it in this. And it worked out fine. So.  Sweet potatoes are another favorite here. make sweet potato chili in the wintertime.  Yes.  Sweet potato. Amazing. My daughter is a Taylor Swift fan.  And the other comment she made last night was she's on social media just a little bit.
17:48It's funny how teenagers have kind of moved away from it. She said it's interesting how, and she works in retail for her summer or for her job after school,  how people are  very happy to get online and complain about the cost of groceries. And  I'll give it to you, they are very expensive. It's crazy. But she said Taylor Swift has a new album coming out in October and we'll have a concert lineup after that. And I don't think you're going to see people complaining about what they're going to shell out to get one of those concert tickets.
18:19I just had the same conversation with my husband only about the Minnesota State Fair. Is it?  The Minnesota State Fair is going on right now  and they have opened up the city streets around the fair so that people can park and you pay $25 for the day.  A full price ticket to get into the fair is $20. So  you're looking at $45  just to get into the fair if you're looking at parking and getting in.
18:47That doesn't count anything else. And I looked at my husband and I said, you know, there are people who can't afford to buy groceries, but 137,000 people  were at the opening day of the state fair.  It's just crazy to me.  it's an  interesting sociological evaluation  in our country. And I'd be so fascinated to speak.
19:13to people from other countries about this conversation in 2025  about our values systems. mean, Americans, thank you technology, but we have definitely become a nation of we want what we want when we want it. Our patience is thin. I mean, I had a friend talk about in the airport last week watching someone be late for their flight. It was their fault and they threw their water bottle at the flight attendant. And it was  their fault.
19:43Our patience is thin. I understand why. We're uh definitely a restless nation right now every day. It's like, what fresh  garbage are we going to have to hear about today? um We're restless. Our patience is thin. We want what we want when we want it.  And where are our priorities?  What are the things that matter most to us? And I think most, if you had conversation, it's, want to be able to provide for my family. I want us to be safe.
20:12I want us to have access to clean drinking water  and good food. But let's be very, very honest, Americans value  expensive entertainment. We want multiple cars and TVs and we want satellite uh channel packages of $200 and we want new cell phones and we want to  be entertained and go to concerts and  have all of these things  and we don't talk a lot about that.
20:41but we are sure ready to go on the attack about what we're paying for our groceries.  Yes, absolutely. And I hope that you didn't take my question to you and messages about the cost of beef as an attack. just want to- Nope, I've been getting a lot of questions about it,  like an explanation or a breakdown. people have actually, I've  been very grateful  to hear, please tell me that-
21:06I'm paying whatever for this roast in the grocery store that some of this is getting back to you because I know during the very bad years,  y'all were losing money every year.  And I thought how interesting that you noticed.  Historically, Mary, we only make money one out of every seven years as cattle ranchers. How many Americans do you think the grocery store worth are thinking?
21:34those other years when they're getting a great deal. Huh, I hope the ranchers are okay.  You know, I actually do think about that and have since I was about 15 because my grandpa's friends had a dairy farm  and I ended up talking with Bea. She was,  I used to think of her as aunt Bea, but she wasn't actually related to us.  And I asked her one time, said, so  if,  if we're buying milk at the store for whatever it was, two and a half bucks a gallon.
22:03back then. I said, what are you making?  She just laughed. Just laughed. And I said, I'm not  being stupid. I'm genuinely curious how this works.  And she said, oh honey, she said, I love you. She said,  just nobody thinks about this. It would be you who would ask me this.  And I laughed and I said, well, seriously. And she said, we make about 50 cents a gallon.
22:34the most grotesque story of how a group of American farmers have been marginalized historically, repeatedly. is what has happened to the dairy farmers of this country. It's sickening. It's just sickening. I said to Aunt B, as I called her in my head, I said, so how can you afford to do this? And she said, well, we really can't.
23:03And I said, why are you doing it? And she said, because we love it. And the word love was so full. just, I had no other questions. I couldn't even think of any, because she was just like, we love it. Yep. I feel the same way. And so what most people do is diversify their risk. So we have row crops, which is a whole other conversation and how bad that is right now. And we have cattle and we have off the farm jobs. And that is the story of most of us.
23:33And again, we look through our lens and forget about the lens of others like the cranberry farmers, the potato farmers, the wheat farmers,  the almond farmers,  every one of us going through our own seasons of awful times and then okay times and wrestling with the same  struggles  collectively. It's feast and then famine and then famine and then famine and then feast and then famine and famine. And you're hoping
24:02that you can just hold on through all of those lean years, being hopeful for that one really good year or maybe two good years in a row. The challenge is we have such little control over our costs  and that is getting to be harder and harder and harder. And that is why we're seeing people leave agriculture altogether  because of those forces that we can't do anything about like skyrocketing property taxes.
24:32um And a great reckoning is coming in this country because consumers are also being
24:44illuminated by um seeing how other countries can  use their pipelines to bring us food cheaper for a whole bunch of reasons that are maybe not as ethical when we talk about what they're paying their labor for.  And they don't have some of those other challenges.  We have our own set of problems in this country too  numerous to list when it labor challenges, taxes, um water.
25:12issues, water access. ah I mean, a great reckoning is coming and that is, again, going back to the value system.  Americans,  what role do you want to play in how you feed yourself?  Do you care? Do you want this country to provide for you? Do you care where your food comes from? Do you want to be a part of it?  And if so, if you decide so,
25:43striking the right balance so that people who are doing the producing can make an honest living at it because by golly, it is really hard um without gouging the consumer.
25:56It's a very, very fine balance.  I have never met a farmer or rancher who said, I'm not willing to pay my fair share. But those who are actually the ones they'd like to make an example of saying, you know, they live high on the hog and get new equipment all the time and new houses and have XYZ, they're so few and far between. And they talk about, well, they're the ones, you know, getting subsidized and  getting all this extra.
26:22I I worked for the USDA and I have a lot of neighbors and friends and I work for a nonprofit that visits with people all the time. And I don't know who these people are.  I'm sure there's some that exist, but by and large, most of the producers that I know, they're just getting by.  And most of the time it's because they're, like I said, working off the farm as well.  It is really not for the faint of heart and it's getting more difficult by the year.
26:51Yes, and that actually leads me into another question about this whole beef situation. If the, let's call it inventory of cattle, at historically dangerous, I think it's dangerous, low, and it takes, it takes what, a year and a half to three years for a steer to be ready to be sold and butchered? Depending on what you do, but
27:1718 to 24 months is probably considered more commonplace,  depending on how aggressively you can push  them. So  if things don't improve,  could we be looking at a  cattle list United States in the next 10 years?
27:39I've heard a lot of conspiracy talk over the last couple of years about what's the end game here. And honestly, I don't know, Mary. I can only speak about what's going on in my backyard. um And ranchers  depend on the renewable resource, which is rainfall, to grow the grass that the cattle need. So  our inventory is down here.
28:07And that's because, as I said, we had to deplete some numbers because of drought.  Our moisture has replenished those pasture conditions. So we're in a position where this fall, the females um will be evaluated and the best ones kept. And the hope is to keep more than usual so we can start replenishing those numbers. What that means for the consumer is those ones that would normally be called feeder calves will not be going on.
28:37to be finished as beef.  So we will keep more to start rebuilding our pipeline, which means in two years,  three years,  we'll start to do our part to try to send more  towards that finishing point.  But for the next two to three years, we're actually going to continue to shrink our contributions to what goes to be finished.  There is  talk about
29:06And again,  I say ranchers are real smart and very ingenious in their breeding programs. They are raising animals that  feed more efficiently. They finish faster. They are growing cattle uh not so big,  but appropriate to their frame size. So they finish faster, which means they're ready to go to be harvested  sooner, which gets them to the grocery store sooner.
29:36but that doesn't solve all of our problems. um The American rancher  is one of the most resilient people types  I have ever met. They will not go down without a However, they will need people to join the fight with them because there's not enough of them. Yeah, that's what I thought your answer was going to be.
30:06In the meantime, for people listening,  maybe  we could all give  the ranchers time to rebuild their inventory  by maybe finding other protein sources  and a really good protein source couple. Number one, fish. Fish is a really good protein source and  you know, it only costs like 20 bucks for a fishing license and  there's a thing called a limit.
30:35And  when you go fishing, you're allowed to catch a certain number  of a certain kind of fish and you bring them home and you freeze them and you stick them in your freezer.  And it's a per day limit, I think, or a possession limit, like total possession limit.  And the other thing that  is really dying in the United States is hunting for deer. My dad is an avid hunter. He just turned 83  and he went hunting last year. He did not get a deer, but he still hunts.
31:05And  venison is a really, really good alternative to beef if you can't get beef.  so,  and my point is, is that  the kids coming up today are not deer hunting.  has a plethora  of extra deer in the state. So the point that there are places that are overrun.
31:30Like they have special hunts in the fall so that people can take more than one deer to get the population down. So if you can learn to fish or you can learn to hunt,  maybe that would be a way to  give  you guys a chance to build your stuff back up because we're not like screaming for beef every time.  I think there are many creative solutions to our challenges. also wanted to mention our friends who raise poultry.
32:01poultry numbers have also been annihilated because of the required um
32:08um amount of animals that had to be destroyed because of bird flu. In many cases, whole flocks wiped, right?  So you'll notice poultry prices are up as well. And I think that is a contributing factor to why those prices are up. But realistically, we need to support all of our protein producers. I have a dear friend who raises sheep. um I am not a huge fan of eating.
32:38uh lamb chops, but I do eat them to support her. We have them for sale in our grocery store.  I have another friend who raises meat goats and she actually has very, very high demand. And not just from our Hispanic population who enjoys  using that meat  in a lot of their dishes, but from others who are being more adventurous.  There's game birds,  the hunting and fishing, as you mentioned.  I don't want to forget about our friends who raise pork.
33:08There are so many viable options for us. And I also don't want to count out  the opportunities do exist for people to buy a share or participate in a co-op  where you can help raise and purchase directly from a producer. You just have to do your own research. And  I have this conversation often. We again, we've become this.
33:33this country of people like convenience. don't want to plan ahead. I don't want to make a list. want to wander around Walmart and just buy whatever I think I need.  But if you want to be intentional and stretch your dollars and use a budget, you can plan for these things and stock your freezer,  shop the sales,  and you'll be all right.  It just requires
33:56shutting away those distractions that we all struggle with, myself included, and being really intentional in your decision making.  And that is what we're all going to have to do to weather the storms  that we're in and what we know we have ahead of us.  absolutely. And  that's part of the reason I wanted to talk to you because I knew stuff would come up like how to get around some of this  pain point of  how expensive things are.
34:24I've told the story a couple of times already on the podcast, tell it in because it's true. We weren't going to get new chickens until this past May. We ended up getting them in March because I didn't want to pay for eggs at the grocery store that were yucky, that didn't taste right to me. And so we ended up getting chickens and we've been selling, we can't keep eggs in the farm stand this summer. We put two dozen eggs out there a day at $5 a dozen and they're gone by the end of the day.
34:52that makes my heart so happy because that means others are recognizing the value of what you have in supporting you. it makes my heart happy too, because I would be swimming in eggs right now if people weren't buying them.  But I just, could not look at another store bought egg. I was just like, there's nothing to them.  They are actually lighter in your hand than the ones we were getting from our chickens  last fall.  And so  if you have room,
35:22And if your city allows it, or if you're out in the suburbs, most suburbs will let you get away with a few chickens. You can be having your own eggs from your own chickens if you want to. if we had room, we would probably have a dairy cow and a steer we're raising up for butcher, but we don't have room. So you can DIY this, you can buy into a herd share, you can buy
35:51beef from the local farmer who has it in their cooler because that's how they do it.  There are so many ways to get around this  insanity about inflation on everything. It's not just beef or chicken, it's everything right now.  you got to go look, you've got to do the research, you've got to find out how to get around it. And that's why I do the podcast so that can tell people things like that. uh
36:20I'm a big fan of history and I'm a big fan of the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Me too. Her  writings apparently now are not without some controversy and I'll set that aside and focus on the positive. One of  my favorite books,  I don't know for what reasons,  has always been The Long Winter because it's truly a depressing story. I always  like to refer to what Laura wrote of her mother.
36:49In the long winter, by all historical actual actual historical accounts, people starved and they did die.  But Laura lovingly referred to the efforts her mother made to keep feeding them through the very leanest of times.  And her mother  absolutely  decided, I will not let my family starve.  Now.
37:19If you walk around in this country, at least to my eyes, I'm not seeing anyone starving. Do we have people who are food insecure? Oh yeah. Do we have real problems with what kind of food is available? Yes, that's a whole other conversation. But the message conveyed was she decided she found a way. And that is the message for all of us.
37:49We have to decide.
37:54what matters.  Yep. And we have to decide what we're going to do about it. Yes, you're darn right. And it takes all of us  to be intentionally committed to figuring it out. We are no longer given the luxury of, I'm going to sit on the sidelines and I don't have anything to add of value. I have nothing to say, I have nothing to contribute.  We all
38:22have the means to contribute something  meaningful to figuring this out.  Absolutely, we do. I just hope other people jump on board because we need everybody. We sure do.  Well, I want to end this by saying that  I think that people don't understand that  once they are buying stuff at the grocery store,
38:46The farmer has already been paid for whatever it is that they produce. So if you buy stuff on sale, you are not hurting the farmer. Don't worry about that. If you need to buy a burger on sale, buy it on sale so you can feed your family. The middle man is doing just fine. In fact, I have some concerns, some transparency issues, but we got to be real honest about that.
39:11For every  action, there is an equal reaction.  what we are seeing is, even in my own local grocery store in Nebraska, we are on a surge, we're catching up with the push to raise the minimum wage.  Again, a whole nother conversation, but  you can't complain about the price of groceries when you're also saying we've got to increase wages.  It's just the natural course of things.  But you're right. The middle people, they're getting compensated just fine.
39:40And whatever you're paying in the grocery store has nothing to do with what the farmer or rancher is receiving. I say this all the time, but I'm going to say it again. You guys learn to cook from scratch. You will save yourself so much money and you will eat better. 100%.
40:03oh it's not hard, you just got to learn how to do it. Once you learn how to do it, you've got it. It's like riding a bike. You never forget how to cook once you learn how to cook.  Yup. uh I love, I adore Jennifer Garner and she has a show on Facebook called her Pretend Cooking Show. I don't know if you've seen it. I have not.  Her recipes are a little fancy for me. Sometimes her ingredients are things  that I wouldn't say, quote, everyday people have access to and all.
40:31But she is so relatable. She's so fun. She's pulling out old cookbooks  that were her grandmother's, et cetera.  And I adore it. And she is doing that. She's a Hollywood type. She could have a home chef. She doesn't.  She is in the kitchen preparing her food  from scratch and feeding her family. If she can do it, others can do it. So more of that. That's what we need to see.
40:59Yes, and even if the thing that you cook doesn't turn out perfect, but it's edible, you can still eat it. made a loaf of, I tried to make a loaf of sourdough. Today's Tuesday, Sunday, and I'm not good at this yet. I've only made one. This is the second loaf I've made. And I followed the recipe with my active sourdough starter and it was not rising the way it was supposed to.
41:24And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to bake it anyway. If it's a brick, it'll go to the chickens. And if it's not a brick and it's edible, I will eat it.  And it was edible. It was underproofed because it didn't want to rise. And  I ate some of it and it's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. When in doubt, bakers can always blame the weather, blame the humidity, blame the fog, blame the wind.
41:48Well, I think what went wrong is it was only 70 degrees in my house because it was cold outside on Sunday. It only got to 67 degrees here on Sunday. think winter is coming early. I'm just having this feeling. We're about due for a hard winter and I don't want to be a worry ward, but I certainly want to make my plans accordingly. We always plan for it to be a bad winter and that way if it's a good winter, we're good. And if it's a bad winter, we're ready. 100%. Smart lady.
42:19All right, Leah, thank you so much for coming to chat with me about this because I just, needed to talk to somebody who's actually in the business who could be honest with me. I appreciate it. Anytime. Well, I'm passionate about it. I'm not as informed on the actual  statistics day by day  of where things are and how they're going. I can tell you because I am a person who has to write a big check to pay the property taxes that at least here in Nebraska, as I said,
42:47There is a great reckoning coming because while we have these really high dollars  for cattle being sold at market, our inputs continue to skyrocket. And what I think we're actually seeing is the devalue of the dollar itself. m people aren't gaining ground. And we need to because one day the numbers are going to tumble, but the inputs are not going to. And then where will that leave us? And it breaks my heart to think that I couldn't.
43:17positively sell this dream to another young person because it won't be possible. I mean, I just can't  bear the thought  that that optimism would have to leave me. So  it's coming. ah It may be upon us already. um There are young people who  are really intrigued and interested in this and
43:45And being okay with the hard work  used to be the biggest part of the battle. But now it is the capital outlay. Being able to manage the risk financially um has outpaced  the worry about being able to get the work done.  Yep,  absolutely.  All right, Leah, where can people find you?
44:10You can find me on Facebook because I'm old fashioned at Clear Creek Ranch Moms.  don't think Facebook is old fashioned. I just think the young kids want us older folk to feel  old. That's what I think.  I did hear. So we've been serving our students this summer and our students are between 18 and 30 years of age. They all say they get on Facebook as a source of reliable information. They just don't interact. They do get on there to find
44:39credible information, which is interesting  that that's the way they put it, but they just don't post, they don't share, they don't do that kind of stuff. But they still like to go online on Facebook to look for credible information.  That really scares me. I don't like that at all.  And maybe they were referring to posts made by about  workshops and educational opportunities, which is where we share a lot of our things on Facebook about upcoming events and things. But  yeah, I was chuckling.
45:08for sure.  Those kids have no idea what it's going to be like in 25 years for them. sake.  I'm very concerned and I appreciate being able to have a real conversation with you because it is getting harder and harder for people to discern fact from fiction when they read what is created by chat GPT  or an AI voice  knowing are you even looking at something that is real or not. Yeah, it's another.
45:38conversation for another day. Yeah, for sure. We should just like schedule a call every five, every week for five weeks to hit the five things we didn't talk about today.  Anytime, anytime.  All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Leah, thank you so much for your insight and your wisdom. And I know you said you're not an expert, but you are wise about this stuff.  Thank you. You are a wonderful place for people together and to
46:08and find community and support one another. Keep up the good work.  I'm trying every day.  And my podcast is two years old tomorrow. Can you believe that? anniversary. Thank you.  All right. I'm going to catch you, You have a great day. You do the same. Thank you, Mary. Bye.
 

Music On The Homestead - Kerry Adams at Lagoon Records

Today I'm talking with Kerry Adams about music, and why it's important on the homestead.
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Kerry Adams at Lagoon Records. think it is in Michigan. Good morning, Kerry. How are you? Good morning. I'm fabulous. How are you, Mary? I'm good. So again, it's going to seem weird that I asked somebody who's into music to be on the podcast about homesteading, but music is a craft.
00:28And music is a big part, has been a big part of Homesteaders for a long, long time. So tell me about yourself because people then understand why I asked you to be on the show. Wow. That's a big question. Well, yes. I've been doing this for about 50 years. So I started back in the Jurassic era and it's, I'm a guitarist or producer. I used to be on tour.
00:55I managed a couple of different artists when we were on tour and I'd be their guitarist. um I've owned three recording studios. I still have one now. um And to me, the music is not a whole lot different than eh cooking the vegetables that you grow or being a painting artist or whatever. It's all art and it all kind of comes from the same place. So I love to play and I love to cook. So it comes from the same side of the brain, I guess.
01:23Um, so yeah, I've been doing this since I was a kid. My dad was an amateur guitarist.  Um, my sister was a published,  uh, pencil and ink artist. So I guess it's kind of in the family a bit.  Um,  so  that's  my thing. That's what I know how to do uh and cook. know how to cook seven days a week for my family. And we try to do  shopping locally and, and
01:51I don't have enough property  to grow enough vegetables and stuff to feed my family. So we do a lot of  shopping locally and farmers markets and things like that. And to me, it's all kind of the same thing.  And I've seen a number of your podcasts and I think they're very cool. So  I'm honored to be here today. Thank you.  Well, thank you for saying my podcast is very cool. I love it, too. uh So you said that you think it's something to do with the brain that actually leads me to it's something that I believe, too.
02:21My dad was a bio med tech for years and he just turned, he just turned 83 in July and he's been retired for quite a while.  And I know that you worked for Ford as an engineer  and I feel like  engineering or wrenching on machines  is something that goes with music.
02:47See, that's, uh, you know, we, I don't know that people know this, but we've kind of known each other for awhile. Um, you're one of the few people, there were old engineers that used to tell me, well, you know, if you're an engineer and musician, that's two different sides of your brain and they'll never connect. You can't do both well. Um, I believe engineering is artistic. Um, it's creative. Like any of those things. Um, if you look at engineering and you say, okay, I got, I either have some new widget I want to design or I have some problem to solve.
03:17Yes, there's mathematics, there's trusted formulas, things you do. But before you even do that, you have to look at a problem and go, okay, what would be the best way to handle this? And so the artistic part is being creative before you even start a project. I think it all, even engineering comes from the same place and the same side of the brain. But having done that for 35 years and being a musician for 50, I think they're actually more similar than they are different.
03:47Yeah, my dad played guitar for a long time and  he is a natural tenor singing voice and his voice is beautiful. I don't know if you heard him sing a long time, but when I did hear him sing, it was gorgeous. So  I think that music and engineering are tied together and I will die on that hill.  Well, thank you. There's not a lot of people  ascribed to that, but it's true, I believe. Yeah, I've known enough people who who wrench on machines, whether it's cars or
04:17radios  or  copiers or whatever that have some musical talent that I really think there's a tie in there.  So anyway, em I am assuming that back many, many, many years ago when people were starting farms that guitars were not exactly easy to come by. And that's why there's something called the flat top box. Yep.
04:45Yes. Um, some of those instruments actually, speaking of being artistic and creative, some of those, uh, if you look at some of the early stuff from the twenties and thirties down in the Delta, which is where a lot of this music came from, um, it, you will see everything from, uh, a, a wash bucket with a stick and a single string. And mean, all those kinds of sort of cliche looking things, um, a lot of this stuff, and there was three string guitars and four string guitars. mean, people.
05:14A lot of times built whatever they needed to do to make sounds, make music. So it's not like you walked into your guitar center and bought a really nice Gibson guitar, right? You had to kind of create something because a lot there, wasn't people making this stuff. So a lot of homesteaders, a lot of people down in the twenties and thirties in the Delta were buying old pieces of guitars or beat up guitars, or if they couldn't afford it, a lot of more making their own guitars. So.
05:43And the same thing is true of basses and fiddles and everything else. There was a whole sort of underground thing where people had to build instruments if you wanted to play music because you couldn't just go down to the music store and buy one. So that's kind of where it all started,  is people built these things.  Yeah. And were the strings made out of like animal sinew or what were the strings back then? you know?  Usually cat gut.  That's...
06:13But like violins and stuff  and violas for years and years and years were cat gut strings, which is basically just cat gut and it's spun until it's really tight and that's what you use.  I think guitar, the most part, were steel strings to a degree. There weren't many cat guts, but that long ago there wasn't steel strings. Somebody was making steel strings, so had to use something.  Yeah. So cat gut as in intestines, is that what we're talking about? Yeah. Yeah.
06:42And to make the bass string, it was just a thicker piece. Is that how that worked? Yes, bass strings are, and you're exactly right. Bass strings tend to be larger diameter and they vibrate at a lower frequency, which is where the bass is. So you would just make bigger strings and a longer neck because the longer a string is, the lower its frequency, even if it's the same diameter. So  if I take a string with a given diameter, it's on a guitar and I made it another foot longer and put it on a longer instrument, wouldn't
07:11create a lower tone. This is why I wanted to talk to you because you know stuff I don't know.  I know just enough to be dangerous.  Okay and also the reason that guitars and fiddles or violins were popular on homesteads is because they are eminently portable instruments. yes it's really hard to go around on Saturday night to the barn with a grand piano. It's just not easy to do.
07:38Yeah, and pianos were expensive to have. Only the rich had pianos. Correct. Correct. So  even if you could only afford a five dollar flat top box guitar, you could go down to  Saturday night,  you know, and have a campfire and hang out in the barn and  play some music and everybody could sing along. that same thing is still true today. You know, there's
08:04There are a few other options, like they have little mini keyboards that you could have speakers in them. You can kind of sit on your on your couch and play,  which is a fun thing to do. But guitars still to this day are historically portable  and  relatively easy to play and work in almost any environment. So yes, they're  it's just a pretty handy instrument overall. OK, can you explain for my listeners how a guitar works, how it makes sound?
08:35Well, are we talking about an acoustic guitar?  An acoustic guitar is just basically there's bracing and stuff inside which changes some of the tuning, but basically it's just an empty box. um And there's actually some guys who build to even to this day called cigar box guitars. So if you think about a box of wood,  a box of wood has basically a kind of a fundamental sound. If you were to cut a hole in a box and yell into it, you would hear your voice come back.
09:03If I take that box and I put a neck on it with some frets and I string some strings over it  and I hit those strings where they vibrate, that wood box is going to amplify that sound out the sound hole, which is what you see on front of most acoustic guitars is a round hole in the front.  That's where the majority of the sound comes out. So the box itself has some resonant frequencies, but inside of it, based on the volume, how big the guitar is, and there's different sizes guitars. um When you hit those strings.
09:30that vibration goes into the box and comes back out the hole, but it's amplified when it comes back out the hole because it went through that box and it vibrated and that's how it gets boosted. So that's basically how an acoustic guitar makes it sound, which is not a whole lot different than violins and violas. You'll see what's called the F holes, which is the F shape cutouts in a violin. The sound comes out of those the same way because it's not a solid box. It's an empty box. So that's how the sound gets amplified and comes out. Cool, because
10:00I know how it works, but I don't know how to explain it to make other people understand it.  and  so the other thing I wanted to ask you is when I was little, my mom says that I was singing before I taught and that didn't go anywhere. Cause then I got told, up a lot. But, uh, but  if someone has a kid that is showing some, some interests or talent for music,
10:27Should they? Should they encourage that? Should they give them all the tools or should they just let them figure it out?  I would say  give them the tools and here's what I  and I've been. I'll I'll give you the example that I tell most parents of kids who are either showing a propensity or not showing a propensity for this.  A lot of parents want to put their kids in a music class, right? Little Johnny should go learn how to play a guitar or a horn or something.
10:57And what I do is when they used to come to me when I was teaching and they would say, Hey, I want my kids to learn how to play. let's just use a guitar, for example, because that's what I play. I want learn how to play guitar. Okay. So we go get him an inexpensive guitar. And then he would come to me and we'd start out with lessons  and I would do that. And then, okay, I'll see you next week. And I'd give him some stuff to do.  And he would come back next week and either know it or not know it very well. And I would look at mom and go, okay, what's going on? She said, well, I had to like.
11:26lean on him all week long to practice.  And he would rather go do whatever he wants to do, play sports, all this kind of thing. I really had to kind of beat on to practice the guitar before he came back this week for  to go through the lesson. And if you go through that a couple of times, I would look at the parents and say, I'm going to be honest with you.  If little Johnny would rather go play sports or  your little daughter wants to go play hockey, whatever she wants to do, I don't care. Invest in that. Because if you have to force the kid
11:55to play an instrument, to practice, to rehearse.  It's not their thing.  Um, when I was a kid, I was only eight or nine years old. My dad had a guitar and as soon as I picked it up, I had no idea what I was doing and I would just sit there and pick on one spring,  just making that kind of sound. I'm sure I drove my parents nuts  sitting in the den doing that, but I would fall asleep every night. My dad would have to take his guitar off me and carry me into bed. I would never put the thing down. I just never did.
12:21And I'm not saying I was a musician. I'm just saying for some reason I was enamored with that instrument. um And if you have a kid that's showing that kind of propensity for that just can't put the guitar or the piano or whatever it is. um And they would rather do that than go hang out outside with their buddies three days a week. Then you invest in that child. Then it's worthwhile.  You don't have to ask. You'll know. You can, you'll be able to tell.  Yeah. If you can afford it.  I are the reason.
12:50Part of the reason that I never learned to play an instrument is because I was very interested in piano. And uh we didn't have the money for a piano. We didn't have the money for any kind of piano like instrument.  guitar, I loved listening to my dad play, but  the actual fingering positions and things for that, I just couldn't figure it out. And I asked him to teach me and he tried and I failed.
13:20So that wasn't my thing. And so  if any of my kids had had any interest in an instrument, I would have moved heaven and earth to get them an opportunity to go learn  it, to have their hands on it. But none of them did. They all loved to sing. And two of them are pretty good and two of them are not. And I'm not saying which ones.  Because they all love  it.
13:46Well, yeah. And the thing is, is nobody actually has to go up and try to be a professional. They just love to sing and every once in they get to sing in the bathroom or they show up at a karaoke contest or they're hanging out with their friends singing. Who cares? But, know, I just believe that, you know, and because I'm a musician, people can say, oh yeah, well, he's going to say that. I believe that music and the arts in school is dramatically important because I think it affects brain development as opposed to not doing it. So.
14:14Yeah. And unfortunately, a lot of those programs have gone by the wayside.  Unfortunately. Yes. Unfortunately. True.  Some are coming back, but it's difficult. And I understand why they cut it, you know, but m there's plenty of studies that have shown the differences in development of kids who were exposed to arts  versus those who have not. m So it's a pretty well documented thing at this point. So I would like to see it stay around. Obviously I'm biased.
14:44Um, cause I think, uh, if you're involved in the arts, whether it's music or painting or cooking or I don't care what it, you know, whatever it is, but being involved in the arts, some metal shop, woodshop, build something, whatever you, like you said, use your hands. Um, I really think that the whole thing about, know, go get a master's degree at college. I think you really need to learn how to do something, you know, having some skills matters, think.
15:10Well, the thing that that makes me crazy is the school that my kids went to. They well, Minnesota in general requires kids to take pre-calculus and trigonometry for their senior year. they but a lot of schools don't have music classes anymore. And I'm like, people, music and math go hand in hand. Why? get rid of music? Well, see, and you understand that because, again, as an engineer, I make that connection.
15:40Music is math and vice versa, right? mean, music is rhythmic. So there's  math to that and music is melodies and tones and harmonies and harmonics and there's math to that. So  yeah, it's much more integrated than people think. But, but if you don't expose people to one without the other, I think you only got half the picture. So. Yeah. And from my listeners who don't know what harmonics are.
16:10I could try to explain it and I would fail miserably. I know what it is because I hear them all the time in everything. But can you explain harmonics?  Well, if you play a fundamental note, that note, let's say we'll use a guitar string that guitar string is vibrating at some frequencies and you hear it and you pluck the note and it goes  and it plays some note.  That note is not just simply that note at that frequency.
16:39um That string also has other vibrations that are occurring inside of that note, which are creating  even in odd order, what's called harmonic notes above that.  And so  what sounds like a simple single note isn't necessarily a simple single note, but it's an enriched note that has harmonic content to it, which is if you've ever heard a really good, really good band or uh Motown singers or whatever.
17:08and they start seeing harmony, right? And so you have somebody singing the root, somebody singing the third and the fifth and all this kind of thing. You hear this beautiful harmony. Most notes on most instruments, even on a piano, when you press a key, it's not a single string. Most pianos, every key, there's three strings to that note.  So it's creating harmonics, which creates a richness to the tone. And when they all stack up, like on an instrument, like a guitar, you got six strings, you strum a full six string chord.
17:37There's not just six individual notes playing. There's hundreds of harmonies and harmonics that are going on, which is where all that rich tonality comes from.  And which is why I love guitar music.  other thing with harmonics is you people hear harmonics in everything everywhere.  We have a Tulane highway out in front of our house and  it's a long straightaway. So people tear through here like motorcycles love our road.
18:07Yeah.  And the things that I pick up on, my husband will never hear because his ears aren't good and he's not  attuned this way. But I hear a certain kind of  semi coming down the road and I'm like, oh, that's that one that works for whoever they have their name on the door. And he's like, how do you know that? And I'm like, because I can hear it. I know what it is.  And ceiling fans have harmonics.  Oh, it's us fans. I can't.
18:37I can't be in a room with an exhaust fan and not hear stuff that no one else is hearing and they think I'm crazy. And you're not. And what you're hearing is if a simple fan is running in the room, let's say a ceiling fan,  those blades are whipping around and they're making a little like a paddle noise. That's what that is. But because that air is being whipped and it rolls over the edges of the fan tips, that creates a different fundamental tone than the fan's blade itself.
19:04So you're hearing the combination of all that stuff, which is what creates the sound of the fan. That's why it's almost like fingerprints. That's why when that truck's coming down a road or a car comes down the road and you just know, hey, I've heard that car yesterday. It's a Mustang. I just know what it is. That's why it's not because it makes a single tone. Even the tires rolling down the road aren't a single tone. It's a if you listen to the hiss of tires coming down the road, it's a combination of harmonics.
19:31that creates sort of a fingerprint sound and some people aren't tuned into it, but your brain definitely is. So that's why you hear that. And that's why you go, oh, I know what the truck is.  You have critical hearing  and it matters. It's fascinating. And it's also incredibly irritating because when I say, you hear that half the people I say it to go, what? There's no sound here. And I'm like, ha,  you're wrong.
19:57Yeah, and so the best thing to do is not even argue the point. Just  enjoy the fact that you can hear that. Oh,  I. I wish I had sort of a half off switch for my ears because  trying to filter sound sometimes is almost impossible for me. um And then harmonies themselves, like when two people sing together. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that when they sing together, there's a third voice that's the third third.
20:26level it's created or three people sing together it's like six  it's it's exponential right yes and again that's that harmonic structure we talked about where a single note isn't necessarily a single note so if i'm singing a note or you're singing a note there's other harmonies in there  i don't mean sung harmonies like two people singing together but harmonic structure that note as your vocal cords  vibrate they're not just creating a single note but there's
20:54higher pitches and lower pitches involved in that note. So now your voice is maybe creating a half dozen different harmonics, which is called majors and minors or thirds and fifths all this kind of thing. Now you get two people singing together. So you've just basically doubled the whole thing. So you put three singers together. Now you got what 18 different sounds that are coming out of three people, which doesn't initially sound like all that. But when you go, why does that sound so rich? That's why it's, it's all that sort of
21:22Because the harmonics that are in voices or guitar strings or a piano note when you hit it are  basically subtle. They're not as loud as the primary, the fundamental note. So it's underneath. And so what happens is you get three people singing together. You know, they're singing a simple three-part harmony, but all that harmonic structure and all three of those voices and all those vocal chords is creating this really big rich tone. And that's where when you hear a band that I don't care whether you're Motown, Country, whatever,
21:52When you hear people that are singing like that, that really know how to sing harmonies, that's when you go, oh my God, it just sounds amazing. And that's fine. Yeah. And harmonics are the thing that make people feel something when they listen to it.  Absolutely. Yes. And a lot of people can't define what it is. just go, God, did you hear those guys singing? It was amazing. Yeah. Well, that's where it comes from.
22:17Yeah, and that brings us back to the music on the homestead because a lot of farmers who have cows will have a radio playing in the barn all the time because it calms the cows down. Absolutely. And so there's a good reason to have music on the homestead. um Music is entertainment. You know, you have a couple of friends over, you got a fire going outside, you sit down around the fire, somebody brings a guitar and everybody has fun singing or listening. Yeah.
22:48And even people that don't know how to sing love to do it. So you know what? Don't, don't criticize it. If  they can't sing on key, who cares? Let them have fun. Um, that's the thing about it. There's no wrong. Just, just sing louder than they do and then you can't hear them. Right.  Yes.  Very true. ah Uh,  it is  a pretty amazing thing.  Um,  uh, not just music for music say, but when you look at the
23:18sort of the mechanics behind all of it.  It starts to make sense and you understand it because you can hear it. um And so  that's a lot of what creates  the sort of unexplainable stuff that people wonder about music. Why does it sound like that? How come it, how can it  even,  even tempos? m You'll notice that some people, and this has been studied even in animals um have what I call
23:46an intrinsic or an inherent tempo. Some people like ballads, some people like a little bit faster songs. They don't know why. They personally don't know why. But that's why you'll see a lot of pop music is done right at 90 beats per minute, because that tends to be the sweet spot for people listen to pop music. Personally, I like people laugh at me because I'm 70 years old, but I still like hard rock and heavy metal music because it rips, it tears. As a guitarist, it's kind of a
24:15default for me, but and I like up tempo blues and things like that. And some people listen to that go, oh my God, that's horrible. How can you listen to that? I would rather listen to something calming and relaxing. If I listen to a slow ballad after about the third one, I'm ready to like get my car and go 100 miles an hour down the freeway. I'm going nuts. So everybody has even an intrinsic or an inherent tempo and groove and feel. And they've proved this even with animals. Elephants sway to exactly one half their heart rate.
24:45when they want to relax. I mean, it's all connected.  People  don't think about that,  but there's sort of science behind all of this stuff.  And so  some people like more melancholy songs. Some people like faster songs and slower songs. They don't necessarily know why, but it's really kind of in your DNA and in your biology,  why that stuff works. Yeah. I also think it's what you're exposed to as a child, as a young child.
25:14Because I really did like very old country songs like Appalachian old  because my dad would play guitar and he would sing songs like  Tom Dooley and songs like that. Hang down your head Tom Dooley. And that's that's very, very old Appalachian ish country music. And and then every time we would go somewhere, he would have the local country radio station on. And this was in the.
25:43late 70s, early 80s, because that's when I started really remembering music, you know, paying attention. And  I didn't like that particular time frame for country music. And I would be like, can't we listen to pop? he'd be like,  when you have your driver's license, you get to choose radio station. Like, oh, fine. So for me, country music was really fun in the  90s. I really liked what was coming out in the  90s. Now I listen to a country station for half an hour the other day  in the car.
26:13And I was like, what is this crap? This is not  music. What is going on? eh Well, yeah, it's see, know,  and people that actually listen and pay attention or  hear these things.  And like back when Shania Twain came out, Mutt Lang, producer and all this kind of stuff, you know, it kind of became rock and roll with a fiddle  or steel guitar. And that's OK. I mean, I like that kind of stuff, too, because again.
26:37it, most of it's up tempo and groove. And so I like it up tempo, whatever. Okay. People like, Oh, that's just pop with a fiddle. Okay. Maybe it is, but I still, it's, it still moves me when I'm driving down the road in the car, as opposed to listening to some really grindy old ballad. Um, but now there's a big movement of foot. Um, and it's a subtle kind of thing, but there are many, and this includes Jen's ears, believe it or not. So there's still hope for the world. Welcome. We can't hear.
27:06classic country because it's this sure isn't it. So now there's this big movement of foot around the 18 to 25 year olds that are going. You know what? What happened to that Clint Black stuff and and that you know all that sort of famous artists that they're listening to. um And so now there's a big movement of foot and I've got. I've got a new client in my studio right now. Who was in Nashville for 20 years and he took a break.
27:33And now he's just coming back and kind of starting his career over again. He's 40 years old. He is hardcore redneck old school country. So I developed a couple of music tracks for him for some lyrics he had written.  And I sent him to him and he goes, that's a bit too rock and roll.  Because that's, that's my DNA.  So I had to sit down and try to come up with some really sort of classic hardcore country music tracks for us to put these songs together. And he fell in love with
28:04Now here's a guy, four years old. He's been around this business for a while. He doesn't want to play all that pop country stuff. wants to that. Like you're talking about that really old school, what we call gut bucket country. That's what he likes. Right. And that's what he wants to do. And that's how he's promoting himself on his website is old school, Johnny little, you know, a classic country. Okay. That's cool. There's a big movement of foot now for people to say, we miss that music. We'd like to hear more of it. So it's kind of cool. Yeah.
28:33Awesome. I can't wait to see something on your Facebook page about it. um So we have like eight minutes left. Where can people find you if they want to if they want to get in contact? Well, yeah, probably on my Facebook page is just Carrie Adams.  K.E.R.Y. um I used to have a website. I took it down because I have more than enough work as a retired guy now. I don't need any more artists.  That sounds terrible, but  I have plenty of work in my studio.
29:00Um, so that's good. basically on Facebook page, which cracks me up. keep threatening to quit Facebook every year, but the problem is, I, there's so much,  um, so there's so many artists that have found me through there that, that if I could get rid of it tomorrow, I probably would, but there's people still find me on there. So I just leave it up.  Um, and like I said, I got rid of my, my, uh, webpage and all that stuff for my studio simply because I had enough work and I didn't need to sort of be throwing the net out there anymore.
29:29So again, Carrie Adams on Facebook, um, you'll see posts on there. put stuff up there about the artists I'm working with. And a lot of times I, if I'm bored, I come down here in the studio and I come up with a little two minute, uh, instrumental track and I throw it up on there just for people to listen to for free. So, my dad would call that noodling on the guitar. Yeah. So noodling is fun. If you can noodle and I've got.
29:56literally hundreds of noodling tracks. So yeah, it's what I do in my life now and I enjoy it.  Awesome.  Kerry, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me about music because I don't think people know as much as they think they might know about it. And there were things that I didn't know either until I started looking into it. So thank you for your time. Thank you very much and have a day.  You too. Bye.
 

Matt The Garden Guy

Today I'm talking with Matt at Matt The Garden Guy. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Matt at Matt  the Garden Guy in Wisconsin. Good morning, Matt. How are you? Hey, good. How you been? I'm good.  Is the weather any improved in Wisconsin today?  I mean, it's been raining like crazy. Fortunately, all that rain that hit Milwaukee and that flooding missed me, but
00:28We've been getting rain like crazy every day and you know the bugs are destroying everything but I think the rain is holding off now. I woke up this morning and the sun was actually out and I was like, oh hello! Nice of you to stop in! It's not here yet, it's still cloudy and 70, I'm just still waiting for it to rain again but yeah we need the sun badly. Yeah, my husband dumped out the uh...
00:56the rain gauge last night and he came in and he said, we got six and a half inches of rain from Saturday until yesterday. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. It's been terrible. I don't want to engage. Sorry. My range actually broke, so I got to try to fix it. So I'm like getting no nothing coming in, but yeah, you don't have any empirical data to work with.
01:22I know. I'm kind of like, need to know how much rain I got, but it's a lot. That's all I got to say. Yeah. Last summer we had a terrible, horrible, no good growing season.  this year it started out pretty good, but with all the rain  and it's been so hot that we haven't been able to keep on.  Our garden is slowly giving up the ghost. And I'm like,  second year in a row, next year better.
01:50We kind of, we kind of started out the same way.  um,  we, we, planted everything, but then we got some weird cold weather and then some really hot weather.  like, I planted a bunch of beets and carrots and all of that and it came up, but then didn't do anything.  but then like it started to, sorry, reseeded and then it started exploding. like I try to get.
02:18I tried to do at least three harvests a year. So I started early as possible and, know, cover it up with frost blankets or things like that. And this year we're only going to get probably two. So, but that's okay. Um, my husband planted over 250 tomato plants. Whoa. And we thought we were going to be rolling in, in tomatoes by now, but because of all the rain and because it's so hot, we're starting to get the blight already.
02:47And once that happens, we're screwed.  so,  and so, um, yeah, our hopes for raking in some money on tomato sales this year are now  kind of down the tubes too. And I'm like,  are you sure we're in the right gardening thing? You know, it's funny you say tomatoes. So like my wife looked at me, I think earlier, I know we were at our friend's house over the weekend and she's like, yeah, we don't have a lot of tomatoes. said, um,
03:13We cut down our crop by half.  So last year we had 10 plants. only got, well, we got six this year. She's like, Oh, that makes sense. Because like  our, our like, I don't know, my, my, my dream or whatever last couple of years is really,  you know, know, canning my stuff and then going downstairs and getting it. like that's been consuming all of our.
03:37tomatoes and all that. But I also want to sell stuff too, but we're not able to do that because we just don't have enough plants outside right now. yeah, it was funny when you say that, you you guys have that many and I'm like, yeah, we had the same conversation, but it was the opposite.  We didn't plant as many as we normally do. And then my wife is like, well, how can we not have any tomatoes? Well, because I cut it in half almost because you asked me to.  It's really hard gardening with your spouse.
04:07And I use the term gardening loosely because I'm not the gardener.  husband. But I help him. I help him plan and I help him  with, you know, he'll say, I'm thinking about getting this variety. I look it up and find out what's required. And I tell him, and then we make a decision  together. he's the, he's the boots on the ground guy and I'm the logistical planning part. So she does all of our harvesting.
04:36because so I'm,  I'm colorblind. So for me, it's hard to really tell when those tomatoes are really ready to pull.  I just, I just gave up. she does all the harvesting, but she lets, you know, the planning, the planting, the,  know,  I've been trying to take on the role of helping like store the stuff or do something with it. Cause a lot of times she was just cutting them up and freezing it. like, we got to look at other ways, but yeah, I like how
05:05I like how  spouses and that do get involved. For the most part, my wife likes gardening, but she can care less. She just wants to reap the benefits of the garden, I guess I would say.  It's like I told my husband when we bought this place five years ago. I said, I am not going to be the one out there on my hands and knees with gardening gloves on doing the stuff. That's not my jam.  And he said, that's fine. And I said, but I will cook or help preserve anything you bring in. And he was like, deal.
05:35So we kind of jumped into the middle of this. Tell me how you got into gardening. Wow, man. Well, I started gardening probably about when I was 13, maybe 12, I don't know. So way back then, grandma lived with us and she'd always garden and I like, I want to try this. you know, I started doing that and then...
06:01When I lived with my parents, I always had a small garden outside and then it just…
06:11It just evolved to where it is now. So I I started at a young age.  And I have  two daughters  and I try to instill that into them too. Like right now, my daughter,  my oldest daughter, she's eight,  goes on nine in January, but  she grabbed some beans and she sprouted them and she's like, I want to plant these in the garden.
06:39But yeah,  I started, you know, early teenager and just always had a garden and then,  um, just expanded and expanded to where is right now. It's taken up about half of my backyard right now.  um, you know, we, we always had people, you know, ask me, how do you garden or what do you do with everything?  um, you know, that's really what made me start Matt, the garden guy as well. Like,
07:09We had some, we had some friends come over and they're like, Oh, I want to have a garden. How do I do this? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, let me, let me, let me help you out. And it just evolved from there.  That's how a lot of things evolve with the people I talked to on the podcast. They basically it's this, it's the thing from the robots movie. think it was seeing or Raleigh maybe  it's  seeing need villainy. Yeah. Yeah.
07:34Yeah, that's what I get a lot of with the people I talk to and it's fantastic. I love that people are so  generous and willing to give of their time and their knowledge.  It's really great because  the world is kind of a topsy-turvy place right now. So it's great that I get to talk to people who are so positive.  I also really like gardening too because to be honest, I am not a fan of what
08:05the world is doing with our food.  And, you know, where I live, can't have, I can't have livestock. I'd have to move to have livestock. And  I would love to have livestock, but I'm not moving. My house is already halfway paid off. I don't owe that much on it. So I'm not moving. So I'm sticking with, you know, fruits and vegetables  and we grow a lot. So,  you know, the biggest thing, again, my driving factor too around
08:33This is,  you know, teaching people how to grow the food that they eat so that they don't have to consume food full of chemicals. that, that, that's a, that might be a touchy subject for some people, but that's what I stand by. you know, there's other ways  to handle it. Now it's a lot of work, but, but yeah, that's just, that's another reason why we have a very large garden because we want to
09:02consume the food that we're growing and we know what's in it end of the day. Yes, the only ingredient in a tomato should be a tomato.  Exactly. Like we don't need to learn the other plastic or whatever junk they put on top of it to preserve it. Right. Yep. Absolutely.  And, as for livestock, um, my husband  said to me this morning, as I'm drinking my coffee and waking up, he's already had a
09:32cups into him. says, remember I mentioned that I might want to look into getting meat chickens and like, yes. And he said, I've been doing some research and I was like, uh-huh. And he said, it'll cost us between two and $5 per chick. It takes eight weeks for them to be ready for butcher. And I was like, okay. And he's telling me all the things that he found out. And I said, here's my only issue.
10:02And he said,  I said,  are we going to actually be able to sell the butcher's? Because  once you get through, my friend calls it tic-tac-titioning, know, the book work, the numbers, the math on the cost. said, we're probably looking at $20 a bird at least.  I said, do you think people will pay that? And he was like, well, if they want really good help.
10:32chicken, then yes.  My did that. She grew chickens and she was trying to sell them. And it's just in our area, nobody's going to spend 20 bucks at chicken. Yeah.  No. So, you know, that whole chicken conversation to my buddy, he lived outside of town and he's got about an acre and he's like, well, I'm going to, I'm thinking about growing some chickens. said, well, can I do it with you? So maybe there's a
11:01future of chicken growing, not in my house, but on my buddy's lot.  going in together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're purely doing it just,  I'm not in it. I'm not in this to sell things. I'm just in it to, put stuff in my body that I'm consuming or what I'm, you know, that I'm growing. Yes. Yes, absolutely. And we would keep some of the chickens for our freezers clearly, but
11:28But he's talking about getting at least a hundred chicks. And I'm like, um, we don't have room for eight, for a hundred  chickens in our freezers right now.  And also,  I mean,  there are people in our area who probably would pay that kind of money for a chicken that was raised ethically and fed  on good things and is going to be good for them to eat. But  I am very hesitant to spend the money to not make it back.
11:58And so, and so, um, I think that could go ahead. Sorry. So for anybody local who's listening local to me, um, email me or message me or whatever, and let me know if you would be interested in that price point, because then I might have some, some data to give back to the husband on this idea. I think ultimately that's what we need is data because like, you know, you probably could, somebody might buy one, you know, here or there, but you need people that are going to buy them, you know,
12:28every couple weeks.  yeah. Maybe you're right. Maybe the market is out there and we're just kind of shooting from the hip. No, this ain't gonna work, but maybe it will work. Yeah, gotta collect some data. Well, I've been hearing an awful lot about people buying chicken at the grocery stores and the chicken is gross. Like,  it's stringy and it looks weird and it doesn't look like chicken is supposed to look and then it doesn't taste right. And  if that's true,
12:56And I don't even know what chicken is going for right now at the grocery store. But  if that's true, they might be willing to pay a little more for chicken that's actually chicken. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Good idea.  But anyway, you're not doing livestock. No, but I'll follow along and listen to you. If you ever get that route, let me know because I am interested in understanding more about livestock. I can't do it here, but my buddy wants to do it. So.
13:23Yeah. And the thing is it's not hard to do, but it's an investment just like anything is. Yeah. And I don't want to throw good money after bad. that the right phrase? It is. I'm okay with it. Yeah. So, but anyway, so do you teach gardening? What do mean teach gardening? Like, one-on-one or what do you mean teach gardening? I know, I know you have the YouTube channel and you have videos there.
13:53So, so my, the math, the gardening guy, the whole purpose of math, the garden guy is to help people grow the food that they eat. And that's my mission.  Um, and the only way to do that is yes, to teach people.  I have, I have YouTube. know, I have Facebook, Instagram and do a little bit on tick tock, but not a lot.  Um, I do have a website, Matthew garden guy.  And  my, my, my hope is to build that out where I have courses.  Um, so.
14:23Like some courses  that I'm actively working on  is,  you know, preserving  and putting it more towards around like canning.  I know canning, some people are scared to do it or just don't know what to do. And that's how I was a couple of years ago. So, you know, I'm just going to take my knowledge and put it into some  courses  and post them on my website.
14:48Another thing that I do a lot in the wintertime. So obviously I'm in Wisconsin. I think you're in Minnesota, right? Yes. Okay. So we get the cold. So  how do you grow all year long?  That's my, that's my, that's my plan right now. So,  um, I did that last year. I grew stuff downstairs.  Um, the thing that I grew a lot was bok choy  and some greens like that. So,  so teaching people, um, one of my, one of my,
15:18you know, past this year,  winter time  is going to be, you know, creating some courses on how to do indoor gardening. So  I think  all of my videos  are geared around teaching people,  you know, how do you do things? And I focus on one specific area in all of my videos.  so, and it kind of goes in like,
15:44spurts of what I'm actively doing. So right now, again, there's a lot of canning going on. I'm showing people in, you know, quick videos on how to can, but the goal is to have these on my website and have things in like a blog format where you can read it  and then you can watch the same video that's attached to the content that you're reading.  So that's kind of the structure that I'm doing when I'm creating these videos and stuff like that.
16:13So  that's fabulous. love it.  Um, you,  the thing with growing stuff inside, we, we start our seedlings inside every year at the end of February because  most things that we're going to put in the garden require eight to 10 weeks before we can put them outside anyway. They're not ready for transplant.  But, uh,  the thing that we've learned is that, um, radishes don't need bugs to produce radishes. They don't need to be pollinated. Nope.
16:42And lettuces don't and chard doesn't and spinach doesn't. And those are the kinds of things that you want in the wintertime. You want fresh greens. Correct.  And we just put seedling trays on our kitchen table and we have grow light, a  long grow light that we hang from our  light fixture above our kitchen table.  And so if we wanted to, we could grow radishes, we could grow carrots if we had a deep enough container.
17:08We've grown lettuces  anytime during the year because they just love being inside because they're protected.  Yeah. You know, you can grow a lot of things inside.  know,  one of the things that we're talking about, you know, indoor gardening and that,  I experimented with  dwarf cherries over this last winter. Yeah. Sorry, cherry tomatoes.
17:37You know, they're about a foot tall and they produce tomatoes. So you can, you know, even tomatoes, can grow those inside. You just might have to self pollinate them or just, you know, tap the flowers a little bit. yeah, there's a lot of things you can grow inside. Now it's just how big of an area or investment do you want to do? know, but yeah, all the greens. Yeah, no problem. Like I said, I grew bok choy inside.
18:06in the basement or the winter time. And we were pulling bok choy and eating it in our ramen soup or, you know, stir fries all winter long. Yep. And it's such a pretty little plant. I mean, it's so nice to have a thing that's green. That's a new growing in the middle of winter. And that's really, that's my biggest focus this winter time. If I'm talking about garden is, you know, I'm going to grow the things that I know can grow, but I'm going to experiment with other things and I'm going to document it and I'm going to teach people and
18:36You know, I'm going to throw that out on my website, you know, Matt, the garden guy dot com and put them out there. Like I have a section just for indoor gardening and all of my stuff, all of my courses, everything is free. I'm not really into this to make a buck. My whole deal is helping people grow the food that they eat. So, know, you go on my website, there'll be, you know, there'll be, there'll be the content out there. Um, you know, one thing with my website too, I don't bombard you with a bunch of ad pop-ups and all of that.
19:06Like I know,  um, you know, kind of switching gears a little bit, no, we do a lot of things. We do a lot of cooking with our food. And one thing that always  annoyed me is when I'd go to a website and look for a recipe and I'd scroll halfway down and I'd get this pop up in my face and I couldn't read the recipe and I ended up just abandoning it and just, you know, got rid of it.  Um, we decided not to do that when we, when we made our website. So, you know, there might be a couple of things on the side, but nothing will pop up in your face to say, Hey, do this.
19:36or, look at this ad. um, well, yeah,  the, the, um, indoor gardening, sorry, jumping back to that.  apologize. I jump around all the, all the time, but I live with one like that.  Indoor gardening.  A lot of, a lot of people are interested about it. Hey, what is this? What can we do? So  yeah, I'm really going to focus on indoor gardening, like training and teaching more people.  There's a lot of things that you used to talk about grow lights. Well,
20:06There are specific grow lights and the height above the plants and all of that. There is a science and if people want to put time into it, will, I'm willing to put the time and effort into teaching people.  Um, the other thing that a lot of people don't know when you, when you grow inside is that you need to have a small fan that can grow across plants because  if you don't, they get leggy and they fall over and they die because they have any, any reason to support themselves.
20:35100%. And you know, I had a, I had another issue. like when I'm growing downstairs, like my basement is colder. So it's like, you know, mid sixties. I have them growing in, you know, the those indoor greenhouses. So I got the fan, but then I also have an issue with a massive amount of humidity. So I'm dealing with humidity and all of that too. So I really got to, I don't know. I might build an area downstairs. That's kind of.
21:04blocked off and that has some, you know, ways to get the humidity out. But yeah, there's a lot of different things for indoor gardening and people might just be, Hey, you're nuts. That's way too much work. First of all, yes, I am nuts. And second of all, it's a winter time. What else am I going to do? Yeah, exactly. The winters in the Northern tier States are long and you will go insane if you don't have something to do. A hundred percent. People are like, well, get outside. Well, sometimes you can't when it's negative 50 and
21:34Burn your face off. Yeah. Like that week in January we had last Wednesday. was real fun.  I was going to say we actually put up a quote unquote heated greenhouse two Mays ago. Nice. And the reason I say quote unquote is because  it's not exactly heated.  we have the, I don't know what the hell  they're called. The containers that people ship liquid in, the
22:05Oh, there's a name for them. Five gallon or 50 gallon drum  or no, they're like a they're like a cube and they're they're in. no idea. They're in a metal cage and I forget this name all the time. But anyway,  we put water in them and the sun heats them up and then they disperse the heat. All right. right.  And that did pretty well until we got below zero temps. That's the problem. Yeah. So like I have have a  I have a  house outside. So
22:34Right. It's a, my hoop house is,  um, eight feet, eight feet wide and 14 feet long.  And it's just got plastic over it. So  it's great until the sun goes away.  The sun goes away.  It, you know,  it gets really cold in there. It's, it's the same temperature as it is outside as it is inside. Yeah. But it does, but you don't get those wind chills in there. So, you know,
23:02You got a 12 mile an hour wind, you're not going to get that temperature inside. yeah, they're, they're. Heated stuff, right? I've always been trying to find different things to eat it. That water drum thing you're talking about might work. It does, but it doesn't work when it's, when it's a really long stretch. the other issue is, is if we have three or four days where it's not sunny.
23:31that water doesn't stay warm. It doesn't absorb the heat from the sun.  So  we call it the heated greenhouse because it extends our growing season into December.  And  we have a place now for the baby plants to go out to sooner in the spring because it's warm enough in March instead of April.  Same thing I do with the hoop house.  I grow into it as long as I can.
23:59And I start as early as I can. you know, if we get a couple extra weeks, perfect.  And for us, the big deal is that we can have a place to put all of our seedlings in the spring because otherwise  we would have seedlings on our kitchen table for three months. And  sometimes I actually do like to use my kitchen table for other things. Well, when you grow 200 tomato plants, that's a lot. That's crazy. That's awesome. I love it.
24:28Yeah. And the reason he planted so many tomato plants is because last year he planted three times. And I think we maybe can 30 pints of tomato sauce out of the tomatoes we did manage to get last year. So he over planted this year. Makes sense to me. I probably would done the same thing. Yeah. And  we're starting to learn that no matter what we do,  something is going to go right and something is going to go wrong in the same season. Exactly. You just got to get over that and just expect it.
24:58And you got to pivot and, this isn't going to work this year, you know, and, and  deal with, or,  you know, work with what you got right now. But yeah, I think that's what gardening is. just gotta, you gotta be able to adapt. A lot of people say, well, it's supposed to be a stress relief. What is just don't let it get to you. Just, you know, that's how I de-stress. I go outside and work in my garden.  Gardening is God's way of teaching you acceptance and patience.  100%.
25:27Second thing is having kids, in my opinion. Oh, same thing. Raising kids is gardening. 100%. You're just gardening a human, that's all. Yep, yep, yep. Okay, we've got like four minutes left. Where can people find you, Matt? Yeah, mattthegardenguy.com. Matt the gardening guy, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Don't do a lot of TikTok, but I'm out there. You know, yeah, pretty much all those platforms.
25:57where you can get me. if people have questions, can they just like DM you or email you? Yep. DM me. You can email me. It's mattthegardenguy at outlook.com. Best thing is just to go, you go on my website, you can send me a message or just go on social media and send me a message. I encourage people to message me. I love helping people. So don't be afraid. Shoot me a message. Awesome. I love that you are such a giving heart. And again,
26:25People on my podcast do this all the time and I'm just so  thankful that you guys come and talk to me and share your knowledge. Yeah. Happy to do that. Happy to  be on this podcast. I'm  really  interested in, you know, seeing how those chickens work out for you. So  let me know when you get something out there.  If they work out. Yeah. If we do it.  All right. As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.
26:53Matt, thank you for your time. hope you have a great day.  And to my listeners, thanks for listening. Keep coming back for more.
 

Family Tree Food & Stories

Today I'm talking with Nancy and Sylvia at Family Tree Food & Stories. You can follow on Facebook as well.
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00:01Today I'm talking with Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely. What a wonderful last name. Thank you. Family Tree Food and Stories.  Sylvia is in Kentucky. Kentucky, you got it. Nancy is in Florida. There you go. So good morning ladies. How are you?  Good morning to you and so good to be with you. I love your voice.  Thank Doing good. Yeah. Thank you.
00:28I always feel weird when people say that because I don't hear it the way other people hear it, but that is totally fine. And what a lovely compliment. Thank you. Sure.  All right. So what's the weather like in Florida, Nancy?  It is warm and a little sticky. It's August,  but that said, we have  lovely air conditioning inside. So the weather inside is beautiful.  It's sunny outside.  And what's the weather like in Kentucky, Sylvia?
00:54I might say a big ditto. It's about 95. It's very hot. The weather's supposed to break. I wish I was in Minnesota where my son lives in Duluth. It'd be a little cooler. He says it's cooler up there. But it's coming our way. So that's good news. Yes. Fall is definitely coming. I heard geese honking the other day and our trees are just starting. The maples are just starting to change. Wow. That's early.
01:20And it's been cooler at night. mean, the last couple of nights it's been warm because we've had rain and thunderstorms, but  it's coming. And I'm not sad to see the summer go. It has been so hot and so muggy here.  That's what Ross says too, up in Duluth.  But you're around the Minneapolis St. Paul area. Is that where you are? I am an hour southwest of Minneapolis.  Okay. All right.
01:44Yep. I am where the Jolly Green Giant started out. yeah, that's right. how cool. That's right.  We did some work on that, didn't we, Nancy? It's been several episodes ago. And frozen foods for sure. Yeah, exactly. ho ho,  Green Giant.  Well, you just gave me a perfect opening. Tell me about yourselves and what you guys do. All right, Nancy, you want to go first?  Sure. So  I'm Nancy May  and  I'm the co-host of
02:13Family Tree Food and Stories podcast. And we are also the co-author of a book called My Family Tree Food and Stories, which is a book that shows you how to take all your family recipes or the recipes that you love, whether it's family or not, and write the stories related to the recipes. Some are good, some are like, yeah, you know, those flops actually make good stories and good fodder for future conversations too.  And there's always a way to fix a recipe and a meal. But let  me see.
02:42I am not the best cook in the world, but I keep trying  and  that's half the fun. But food is an outlet to be creative and  bring family and friends together at the table. In fact, we just had a nice  gathering of some friends at our home the other night and somebody said,  oh, well, I don't cook at home for friends. Why not? Because I much rather do that than meet somebody at a restaurant because that way you actually know who they are as people in your home and whether you want to invite them back or not.
03:11So that's kind of our,  we like them or do we not like them?  And let me piggyback onto that.  I'll tell how we came together, Nancy. That could be an interesting thing. How did Florida marry Kentucky?  We came together because of a local podcaster here.
03:31in Lexington, Kentucky, which is where I am based. And he introduced us in the rest of his history. We just started clicking together. I mean, I guess that's kind of the best word for it. We compliment each other beautifully. I don't cook. I so admire, I own a restaurant, Azura Restaurant and Patio here in Lexington. It's high-end restaurant, lots of seafood, steak, and that kind of thing serves the local racetrack. And that's where
03:59My husband and I love the community of the restaurant.  That's why we got into it. The stories that come in a restaurant and come together  are just amazing. So I've enjoyed my journey with Nancy.  We are coming up on a year, I guess, of our podcast. And our book has been out there for a little more than a year. So yeah, real exciting. I love it. Congratulations on almost a year. And what's the book? What's the name of the book? It's called My Family, Tree Food and Stories.
04:26And it's on Amazon and it's a  journal slash memory book really of being able to look at your family history in your trees.  And really how do you pair those stories around  meals that you had with grandma or grandpa or mom or dad or your sister or brother or even just friends who have become part of your family.  And you put your history together in  the book from appetizers on through to desserts and
04:55even the scoops along the way.  I actually teach storytelling for the Carnegie Center. I'm kind of a weird person. I'm a lawyer by profession.  am a storyteller teacher  and I own a restaurant. you know, I'm the master of miscellany, I guess. But anyway,  the stories  and  we actually feature several tiny stories in the book because we want to show people and give them  instructions on how to put a story together.
05:24Because some people are just so like,  I can't do that. I don't know. And yet, you know they know. You know that they know how to have a conversation. All we have to do, Nancy and I have to do with a guest is just mention food  and they'll take off on a story. Most people think writing a story is some unique thing that not any mere mortal can do. And yet we want to show them that they can. So we did that in several small vignette stories in the book.  Nice. That is awesome.
05:54Nancy mentioned the litmus test for having people over to see if you want to have them over again.  The litmus test in my house growing up is we had a cat  and I think his name, oh, it's escaping me. We had two cats in a row that were almost the same color. The first one was Casper, but I can't remember the second. Jeff, Jeffy was the second one. J-E-F-F-Y.  And  Jeffy, if he didn't like somebody who came in the house, would
06:24would howl at them, kiss at them,  and run back to my parents' bedroom and not come back. And it was typically someone that he had not met before that we didn't know very well.  I kid you not, those people he reacted that way to did not come back to our house.  It might be a handy cat to keep around.  Yeah, he died quite a while ago. He was old. Yeah, he actually died sleeping.
06:52Yeah, he died sleeping in front of my parents wood stove in the mall.  Oh, I think he was like 15 years old.  Wow. Cats go a long time. I've got a 14 year old that's going strong.  yeah, they're, they're good. barn cat by the name of Wonder Woman.  Uh  huh. My dad actually called just Puss Puss like dad. She's got a name. Nope, Puss Puss. And that cat would ride along in his shoulders outside.
07:18Sweet. Yeah, cats live outside. lovers.  Mary, we're animal lovers, you can tell.  We are too. And I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole on cat names.  But  the  two barn cats we have right now, the males,  one is named Satan because he is pure black and  he was pure spite.  And then the second one we have, his name is Fluffy, but he will be a year old in September.  is like a...
07:46He's a golden beige and he was very long haired. And then he blew his coat this spring and he almost naked.  yeah, of course he's fluffy, still fluffy,  but is now ironic. We did an episode on Don  Food  a few episodes ago. then Nancy and I, as horrible coincidence would happen, we both lost our dogs about the same time, Nancy. Oh, I mean, it was horrible. We were both like.
08:15lost at sea.  It was awful. But we've since gotten new dogs.  Nice. Yeah. Replacements just in addition. Just in additions. Yes, absolutely. You can't replace a dog. can only add a new one.  We have a dog here. She'll be five.  Well, she's turned five on August 3rd. I keep thinking it's July. It's August.  And  she's five. And  I can't believe she's five.
08:42I keep thinking she's a puppy and she's not. She's a fully fledged adult dog now.  I know it. You just get so attached to them. Can I ask what kind? I'm sorry. I don't want to take us down that hole either. No, it's okay. She is a, well, she was told she was sold to us as a mini Australian shepherd, but I have spoken to people who raise Australian shepherds on my podcast.  They're like, there's no such thing. She's just a small Australian shepherd. She weighs about 36 pounds.  Perfect size.
09:11Yeah, perfect. And she's not crazy. She's very, very go, go, go outside, but when she comes in, she just is calm. She's fine. She just wants peace.  we picked the right dog. We got her when she was a day shy of eight weeks old.  Oh, perfect.  She was  basically, if I put my two hands together flat, know, pinkies together, she was that big in my palms.  Oh, sweet, sweet. I she was five pounds.
09:41And I'll miss that puppy. I don't miss the craziness that comes with puppies, but oh. No, I'm. We're puppies. Both Nancy and I are in the throes of that.  Yeah. Bibi of Brooksville, where we're deciding, is she really a Bibi or is she like dirt ball?  Three months. Yeah. Four months. She'll be four months in the,  on Wednesday. Oh, you  are.
10:09Yeah, I made it. I'm eight months with Ellie who's a Bernie doodle, but you know, I like the doodles because they don't shed  You guys are brave women because I don't want another puppy when Maggie goes I want to get I want to adopt a dog because I don't want to go through the velociraptor stage where they chew on it Oh, absolutely, and they all have their own diet mine loves paper. She chews up paper
10:36So far no shoes, but I just said that and that means she'll get shoes on it next but they have interesting diets when they're puppies  Yes, they do and they will destroy anything within their reach even something that might kill them. So that's I don't want puppy. the older dog right now. Yeah  Yeah, I don't want a puppy again. It was really fun. I'm glad I had the experience but I'm I'm good on puppies Okay, so we went way down the rabbit hole on animals. That's okay. I love animals, too
11:06But  you were also saying about family traditions and memories that food brings back. And I've  shared a couple of times on the podcast about certain things that I really think of when I think of cooking with my grandma. And she used to make these amazing mincemeat pies with real venison, like from the deer that my grandpa or my dad shot. And  when she got done, she would always have extra pie dough left.
11:33and she made really nice preserves. And so she would let my sister and I work with her after she got the pies put together and she'd roll out the dough and she'd give us a hunk, you know, a ball. she'd say, she'd say, put your thumb right in the middle of it on the pan and press down. Uh One of my favorites. she put like extra sugar in her dough. I don't know why, but her pie crust was always sweet. Oh, yummy.
12:01And so it was this very sweet pie crust and she'd have like blackberry preserves or strawberry or whatever. And she had these special little spoons. I don't know why they were small. I don't know what they were, but they were special. And she would let us use those to scoop the preserves into the pie dough thumbprint. And then they'd bake in the oven for however long, come out and cool down. Cause you do not want to those things right out of the oven. can burn your tongue for a month.
12:28Yeah. Sugar and butter seem to go with grandmothers and cooking. Oh yeah, absolutely. Do you still have those spoons? No, I do not. I don't know who has those spoons. Don't you regret some of the things that like that iron skill that my dad would make cornbread in? Yeah. I wish I'd saved it. Never even thought about saving it. know, George Bernard Shaw was right. Youth is wasted on the young.
12:52Yeah, You don't know that you want to save things and then by the time you realize you'd like to have them, they're already gone. I'm a saver. I'm a pack rat. And that's the hard part. When  we moved from Connecticut down to Florida, we had to get rid of so much stuff because they were going to charge us by the pound to move everything. So I told Bob and his brother that they had to get a U-Haul and all the good stuff that I wanted was going in the U-Haul.
13:21And all the stuff that maybe somebody else could break would be, you know, elsewhere. But still, like his anvil that he wants to, cause he does blacksmithing. Nope. We're not paying by the pound for that thing. But the other day as we were, I was sort of prepping and thinking about what to make for these guests. I ran across all the napkin rings.
13:42that had been passed down through the generations of our family  that we used as kids. And there was one that was always my sister's, there was one that was mine, there was one that was mom's, there was one that was dad's. We had extras for over the generations. But I said, oh my God,  we haven't used napkin rings forever. We have to start using them and cloth napkins always. I'm still like a stick, paper napkins, no, not good.
14:07But those napkin rings always told you where to sit and whose place it was. And you always felt odd sitting someplace else. Yeah. Yeah.  You know, going back to grandmothers and  memories, I remember  the first thing, West Liberty, Kentucky is where my family was  in tiny place in the middle of nowhere. And we'd get there from Ohio. We were so excited. And the first place we'd go was the cellar where for some reason my grandmother had put up, as they put it in the country, had put up grape juice.
14:37in jars, had just stacks of jars of grape juice. And I understood later that they grew grapes kind of wild in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. It interesting to me that it would have happened that way, but it was so good. You know, you're just immediately headed for the cellar. I remember in college in Virginia, in the springtime, they had the wild grapes that were growing on the side of the road. And if you drove by with the windows rolled down,
15:07you could smell those grapes. It was just amazing. I  in the fall, not the springtime,  in the fall when the grapes, but they were so rich.  So there is a thing. There is a thing then. See, that's what they told me about in the hills that that's how they found the grapes.  yeah, yeah, really good. Yeah, it smells like Walters grape juice.  Oh, sweet. My other memory is,  is the book, the story I have in the book, each Nancy and I each contributed our own story.
15:35to the book again as an illustration, but my grandmother was a teetotaler from Eastern Kentucky.  And at Christmas time, made a, we pulled a big trick on her. made a rum cake, didn't tell her what it was  and enticed her to take a big slice and she ate every bit of it and said how much she loved it.  And we were doubled over in another room laughing our  rear end off.  Yeah. Cake caper.  Cake caper. Yes.
16:04My grandmother was not a teetotaler. My grandmother made the rhubarb wine that we had for a while  and was always brought out for special occasions, births, wedding announcements, whatever. And the last bit of rhubarb wine, my dad, yep, my dad, it was a giant cardboard. My dad brought it out of this cellar and it was my dad, my mom, my uncle Ken, which was my mom's brother, Bob and I.
16:32We sort of  announced, you know, we were getting married and my uncle Ken had said, look, do you two kids want to get married? He offered to give us his wife's ring. She had passed a number of years earlier and Bob and I had just been out shopping and he pulls out of his pocket under the table and says to my uncle Ken, it look like this?  And he's like, oh my God.  And my dad's like, what's going on? Well, out came the rhubarb wine and we drank the last.
16:59batch of rhubarb wine. Oh, that's South Central. Wow.  Hey, while we're on the subject of drinking, can I tell my drinking story? Sure.  Okay.  I was in Duluth visiting with my son  and he insisted on going to the local bar in Duluth, Minnesota to watch the wild play. Now as a Minnesotan, you know what the wild is? Uh huh. That's the hockey team.
17:25And so I was like,  oh honey, it's like 10 o'clock at night. The thing starts and I'm, you know, I go to sleep.  No, mom, please go. So we went, I had my one glass of wine. It's all I ever drink is one glass of wine.  And I fell asleep. And suddenly I feel my son, mom, mom, wake up. They're kicking us out because they say you're drunk.
17:47Oh no. mom got drunk in Duluth, Minnesota. It's a great story for my friends. They love it because I'm about as boring as you get, 70 something that I am. I drink the same glass for you. Oh my goodness. Anyway, I was starting out at a bar in Duluth, Minnesota. I'm kind of proud of that. kind neat. I would wear that as badge of honor.
18:13The other story that I've told on the podcast is that my other grandma who lived in Illinois used to make Christmas candies from scratch.  we always called them Christmas candies because she made them at Christmas time and would send us a box in Maine where I grew up.  And she would make divinity, she would make potato stick candy,  she would make buckeye candy,  peanut Potato stick candy? I haven't heard of that.
18:42It's, you know, the butterscotch chips that you can get that are like chocolate chips? Yeah. It's that and potato sticks and peanuts and I don't know. Just a mixture. Yeah. It's of like a Chex Mix kind of thing. Yeah, Chex Mix. But the butterscotch chips are melted so it's all over so it's a melted thing. that sounds good. Yeah. I'm coming to your house. That's where grandma's house. So she used to make those and oh my goodness, what else?
19:12I can't remember. Oh, the coconut nougat chocolate covered bonbon candies. yeah, sure. Yeah, my mother loved those. She would make these from scratch and she would send like a 30 pound box of this to us in end of November, 1st of December for Christmas. Wow. Oh, that sounds good. I look for Nancy to try to make that potato stick thing.
19:37Yes, it's super easy. I had  a recipe, I would get it to you, but I don't have it. bet my mom has it. I will see if I can get it from her.  anyway, like,  God, I don't even remember what year it was. My grandma was staying with my parents because she had  what they called dementia, but I think it was probably Alzheimer's. I don't know if dementia and Alzheimer's are different things. But anyway, she was staying with them and my parents were in their  50s, I think, and she was in her
20:0670s, I  think.  I can't remember. But I got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted to make some of the candy and send it to my folks while grandma was still around to try it. Yeah. And I'm going to cry because it was a big deal.  I made, I didn't make divinity because  divinity is a pain in the butt to make. Yeah.  And it's very temperature sensitive and it's very hot sugar. And I was just like, I don't want to burn myself doing this,  but I made
20:35Peanut brittle, made potato stick candy, I made the buckeyes  and  the coconut bonbon thingies.  probably a couple other things. Fudge, mean chocolate fudge was a recipe I found. And I sent my parents a 40 pound piece of candy.  Oh, that's so neat. And they got it.  And my mom called and she's like,  we can't.
21:02Possibly eat all this candy. said I know give it to the neighbors give it to the people at Dad Works with  Share it and So I said did grandma try it and she said yes She tried one of the Buckeyes and I saw  and she said she didn't say anything but the look on her face was joy Was this joy?  Was she able to help you at that point to tell you know I was in Minnesota and they were in Maine so I see I see
21:29Because I have a similar story when my mother in her final illness I had forgotten that I had not learned from her how to make her prize-winning fried chicken Yeah, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it was November 19th. I remember it well It was her birthday. She died a month later and I went in and she was asleep on the bed I said mamma which was her preferred pronoun at that point. I said because of her she has two grandchildren that my boys
21:56Can you come help me make fried chicken so I can learn how? Oh, she get up, she goes into the kitchen, she puts it on the first stage. And I looked up and I looked in the kitchen and she wasn't there.  And I went back to her bedroom and she had gone back to bed. She had totally forgotten  what she was doing.  And so I never learned to make fried chicken. And that's a big regret because she had such a knack.
22:18with fried chicken. You don't cook anyway, so you've got a restaurant. Maybe that's what happened. At that day I said, no more.  I'm going to own a restaurant instead. don't know what it is with grandma's and fried chicken. The same grandma that made the Christmas candy,  she used to make fried chicken, but she would  use maple syrup in her batter.  So it was a maple syrup fried chicken. And  oh my God, we would go out and visit her.
22:47and she would have it cooking because we'd in about the time it was dinner time.  And we'd walk in the house  and all you could smell was this maple syrup smell and  chicken  skin smell.  oh my God, every time I smell something like that now I'm like, wow, that's grandma's kitchen. Yeah, brings it back. See, my grandmother was  too ill when I was a kid. She passed away when I think it was probably just the end second grade.
23:15But so I remember my grandmother in a wheelchair, yet taking her out to restaurants, my dad bringing the wheelchair up the stairs. This was before like ADA stuff and just the experience of remembering. can picture it like it was yesterday. Her sitting there and worried about the guys, you know, bringing her up the stairs, whether she was too heavy or not. Well, you know, didn't matter, right? know, they were, they were big guys. And, um,
23:41Christmas time and I think was predominantly Christmas time and then my dad's birthday. She would send cases of tomato aspect and vichyssoise to my dad because he loved it. Wow. I remember the Campbell's, one was I think Campbell's and the other was sort of some other kind of brand. But to this day, I don't think I could eat any of that stuff, but he loved it. The cans of those stuff.
24:06coming, dad in underwear. Underwear, good.  And just seeing her smiling at the end  of the dining room table when she was at our house for dinner. those are the stories that I remember my grandmother as far as  food related stuff. Yeah.  And these are the kind of stories that need to go in the book that people buy from you guys.  Yes. That's what we want.  We think this actually is a movement across the country. And you're kind of part of that too.
24:36You know, looking at kind of, you know, they say we live in the age of loneliness, epidemic  loneliness.  And we think, and there's so many movements out there moving in this direction  of cooking. I'm reading the biography of Jacques Pepin right now, because it's his 90th birthday, right, in December.  And it's fascinating story, Nancy. I told you I had gotten the book and was reading it on vacation.  And  he later in life, after his accident, near fatal accident,
25:05uh, actually founded a foundation that works with incarcerated people to teach them to cook because there's something about putting that food together and sitting around the table and conjuring up the stories. There's, again, people don't think they have those stories, but you scratch the surface and they'll start telling you stories about that time I was in an RBNB and Airbnb and the pan fell apart with a lasagna and we didn't know the pan was substandard. know, I mean, there's just.
25:33all those things that we wish people would like capture  and to enjoy food. Not necessarily even if you're not a cook. You know, we had a person on a young woman, Meredith, on our show  in an early episode that had, this is a typical story too of 40 year old in today's world. She got married, mother put together the recipe book and her handwriting gave it to her as a wedding gift. That was Meredith's dream. She got it. She said, as she put it in our show, she said the,
26:03The cookbook still exists or the recipe book still exists. The marriage ended in a year.  So she's now a divorced 40 year old  and  was, bought the book and was filling it out with her own recipes. Then she called me the other day and said, okay, it's 2.0 now.  She said, I'm having my mother write those recipes in my book, in the Family Tree Food and Stories book. And then I'll tell, I told her I would fill in the stories on the other side.  So it's like this partnership.
26:31between this 40 year old single, she has no children, single,  and  not in a typical situation in today's world.  And she's got the book and she's cherishing the book. She's catching on  and  knows she wants, again, her mother's partnership on this. It's really beautiful. It is beautiful. That's,  oh, my heart.  You know, Mary, stories don't need to be food related stories, don't need to be always shared with family. A number of back, a group of
27:01women that I knew, business women, we all decided to rent an Airbnb together and do sort of a business mastermind. And at dinner, what we ended up doing was everybody was charged with making a meal at some point  in the course of our stay together  of  their family or something that was  important to them.  And  one  of them came from a Lebanese background and she talked about how you made the meat, this particular rose water and went on.
27:31So we were able to actually learn more about one another through sharing of the food and the relationships that we had with our families, again, with one another. And we learned so much about the history and the background of each other in such a personal way. And yeah, a bottle of wine here or there doesn't help her either still. And so we were all in the same house. We were working together, but it was really fun to, to, you know, be charged with what's my job if I'm going to make Lebanese food. I don't know.
28:00So we learned a lot about each other  that weekend. I love potlucks.  love it when people get together and bring something to share. Yeah, that is,  that's what we're doing that this Saturday with our  staff of the restaurant.  Just let everybody bring something and not, you know, we'll buy  the main course and  let everybody come and kind of off the clock, have that opportunity to just have a great time.
28:30one of our customers is going to donate his house and pool. Yay. That helps, right?  But,  you know, and the whole history of food is so interesting to us because we want to be tied always to tradition. But our traditions date back as we find out, you know, Ireland is full  of  traditions and mystical kinds of things.  The  story of salmon and all the  kind of
28:57lead into all the foods that we taste today.  And I find myself, Nancy, I don't think I'd shared this with you, but I was always kind of interjecting, maybe I was being obnoxious,  something that we had learned in the course of our work  on the podcast.  You know, like maybe it was a meal at a restaurant that  was a Michelin one star  restaurant.  And we did that in La Jolla.  And I  was able to explain that because we did an episode on it. you  know, it's just
29:26It's interesting because it is, it does fill in some blanks on our traditions and how they've evolved over the years. And people, think, would find that to be interesting and  how new traditions are evolving. Yes. And it can't be a tradition if you don't start it somewhere.  Maybe you can start tomorrow. It doesn't need to start today. It can be just something you came and said, I want to do this. You know, my husband and I have this now a tradition where
29:54we started, I think it was probably about 20 years ago, we figured we'd do a Christmas party. We'd never done a Christmas party in our house before. And we said we wanted to do a gift to friends where they didn't have to cook. So we did the party, an open house. It was the Friday before Christmas Eve. So whatever Christmas Eve fell on, I said, our gift to you is that you don't have to cook. Come to our house, it's a meal, we're opening our house. And that's what we did. We did this huge spread.
30:23And so people would say, are we invited next year?  They left that year before.  like, you know, kind of like the other couple, I mean, we liked everybody who came last weekend, but there were some people who were like not invited back  for good reasons. not in our house, right? Jeffy would have sniffed them out. Oh, Jeffy, right. Well, my stepson and his wife  called my husband, the other, well,
30:53last year  in September and said, Hey, we're thinking about coming up for Thanksgiving. And they're in Nebraska.  And I was like, okay.  My husband  relays the information to me and I'm like, okay, so what am I cooking?  And my husband says, that's the beautiful part. What, do you want to cook for dessert? Because that's all you need to do. They're going to cook. Oh, That's great.  So.
31:22Um, my, my husband and his son, who basically is my son. just didn't carry him. He's the child of my heart, not my body.  did, they, uh, did the whole turkey in the, the thingy outside with the oil.  Oh, like the fried turkey. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. They did that.  And,  um, has my, my son's wife brought, she cooks stuff ahead, which is smart. You can do that.
31:51She brought some fabulous garlic butter mashed potatoes from scratch. Yummers.  And stuffing and  I  think it was green bean casserole that didn't really survive. kind of, it kind of didn't handle the weather on the drive up.  So it got mushy, but it was good.  And  she does not get to cook like this very often because she has a big family and everybody else cooks.  Oh, so she cherished it. Yeah. And she loves to cook and she doesn't get to.
32:20And I understand that because I went through the same thing when I was her age. So it was this wonderful thing that they did for us. And I made squash pie and I think I did an apple pie. remember. Oh, you'll have to try the Z-apple. Is that what you call Right. I made what's called a Zapple pie this weekend, which was on one of our shows. it basically, instead of apples, you use zucchini. I didn't really follow the recipe 100%.
32:50That's okay. I didn't even look at, oh, you got to peel it. My husband's like, you're supposed to peel the zucchini. So people don't know it's zucchini. He's like, well, it's just green apples, but it tastes pretty much like apples, believe it or not. like we just recorded an episode with one of our guests said, man, you've got balls to serve this to people. But it was good. I told Nancy that was among her many talents, balls.
33:19Last Thanksgiving, I made a plan. I went to Duluth to join my son. He's a cook and he does such a great job and he has eight kids and six of them were there. And we cooked and we had the best time over the turkey. And then he's one of these people, he cooks his own broth and, uh, you know, all of it. I mean, he's just like a back to earth or kind of thing when it comes to cooking, but we did this magnificent dinner.
33:47and we slaved all morning and we put it on the table. He has five kids under the age of eight at the time and  not one of them would touch it.  We could have killed them. But anyway,  we enjoyed eating it and he froze a bunch of it, which he's very good at. So anyway, sometimes there are mishaps too. yeah, absolutely. But  the reason I wanted to share the story about my daughter-in-law doing most of the cooking for Thanksgiving is that  when  you're the mom,
34:16You guys know,  you think that you're the one who's going to have to do all the cooking forever. And you got to make room for the other people behind you to do their thing too.  That's what Ross and Ross is a very good cook. So I'm very proud of him. don't know where he picked it up.  Too much micromanagement in the kitchen doesn't make everybody feel like they're welcome.
34:42Even when we have guests, people say, can I help with anything? I'm like,  mm, yes, you can. Here, unpack this one. Cut this, cut that. Right. So I love, I love volunteer sous chefs. Yeah. Right.  Volunteer sous chefs. love that.  I'm never on time with everything. So it's, it's okay.  We're looking for a sous chef. So if either of you are interested.
35:03No, yeah, everybody be waiting for a meal for a long time waiting for music. Two hours later, you have an extra that you'd be making all the money on the wine and the  liquor at your restaurant with  me. They say people are drinking less, you know, and we've seen the ordering of mocktails just explode.  That's  fine. And people want the mocktails now.  And the beer.
35:29And even a wine, I told them that if they served me that wine, just don't tell me it's not alcoholic. Cause I'll just like not like it from the get go, but I wouldn't mind trying it. It's more of a sparkling wine that doesn't have alcohol in it.  we the no alcoholic beer or low alcohol beer. We've got one that's like 29 calories.  so Bob ordered, offered it to one of our guests and she said, that's beer flavored seltzer.
35:57Well, see, that's kind of the way I would be. I don't want to know if because I don't drink a lot but when I do, I want the real thing.  I  don't drink because the last time I drank, I thought I was being smart and I drank water in between each drink because I am prone to migraines and I really didn't want migraine the next day. guess what?
36:23freaking hangover of my life. haven't really had any drink in 10, 15 years now.  Oh, really?  have a solution for some of that. If you ever decide to go back. had friends over the years who, as they were going through the early stages of menopause, they said, yep, it was the sulfates that they found out that was causing the migraines. So  they discovered that you could drink champagne, which doesn't have the sulfates.
36:51So that's how they got around it and they didn't get the migraines.  if you decide to... I love champagne. I can't afford it. Oh,  go to Sam's Club or Costco. can  afford  it. Maybe you're better off just doing a mocktail. But the thing about mocktails is they contain a lot of sugar. I'm trying to stay away from that. So I just drink water with lemon in it or something like that on the days.  is hard when you own a restaurant not to drink.
37:18and not to drink the wine.  could come up with an excuse every day. Oh, I've had a terrible day. I need a glass of wine.  Oh, I've had a wonderful day. I need a glass of wine. It doesn't solve the problems or it doesn't make the day better.  But it tastes pretty  good. It does.  Anyway, that's the thing you grapple with now is,  you know, what's too much of something and what's,  whatever. Uh-huh.  Absolutely. All right, ladies, I try to keep this to half an hour. We're at 37 minutes. So I am going to cut you loose. Where can people find you?
37:49They can find us at podcast.familytreefoodandstories.  uh, or just podcast.familytreefoodandstories. And if you look for my family tree, food and stories in Amazon, we're there as well.  And you're on Facebook and Instagram. Is that right? are on Facebook and Instagram. found us on Instagram. Absolutely. Yes. All right.  Awesome. Great. Thank you.  As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.
38:15I hope you lovely ladies have a great rest of your week. And remember, every meal has a story and every story is a feast. Yay. All right. Thanks.
 

Raised Bed & Container Gardening with Mark

Today I'm talking with Mark at Raised Bed & Container Gardening with Mark. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking to Mark at the Raised Bed and Container Gardening with Mark.  And Mark is in North Carolina. Good afternoon, Mark. How are you?  Good afternoon, Mary. It's good to be with you. It's good to have you. I love talking to people in North Carolina because you guys have the sweetest Southern drawl.
00:28Well, sometimes I, my kids tell me I talk pretty country sometimes. It's really sweet and it's very easy to understand. Sometimes the drawl is so thick that I'm like, excuse me, what did you say? So it's great when I get somebody who sounds like sweet tea and a rocking chair on a front porch. makes me very happy. You said the weather has been raining there. Yeah, we've had a good bit of rain. We've had.
00:56We had a really hot stretch during the summer and then some rains came in and it's kind of been cool for the last couple of weeks.  as my grandfather would say, we had a zizzly zazzly this morning.  It was, you could hear the rain just sizzling as it hit the ground.  yes.  I remember being a kid in Maine and we had a dirt road for a while and then they tarred it.
01:22The first time it rained after they tired it in like August, it was so hot. I could hear it steam. I could hear that noise you're talking about, but I never heard it called a Zizzle Zazzle before. That's great. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, I am a, I'm a newspaper editor is my day job. I'm a sportscaster, which is one of the things I do for fun. And I, I'm a gardener pretty much, I guess it's in, it's kind of in the blood and
01:52I particularly enjoy growing tomatoes. That's my big thing. My favorite food in the world is tomatoes. So a good tomato right off the vine is just the best thing in the world. So I stay really busy. Okay. How's your tomato season been? We had a really good season, but it came all at once and it was just...
02:20Within two weeks and everything was done. don't recall having a season like that in the last few years, but it just, everything produced. They all ripened almost at the same time. We had some  smaller like black cherry tomatoes that  they lasted a little bit longer, but when the rains hit, it kind of ruined them. whatever was left there, they were done.  Just got too much rain at one time.  you know, sometimes those little tomatoes will
02:50If they're near full grown, they'll pop open if you get too much rain. split. Yeah. Yeah. Our tomato season just really kicked in about two weeks ago and my husband planted over 250 tomato plants in the spring. So we are going to be swimming in tomatoes in a week. Oh yeah. That's awesome. Now what kind of tomatoes do you like to grow? He grows. Of course you asked me this and usually I can reel them off top of my head and now I'm like, what does he grow?
03:19He grows early girls. grows, he tries to get sweet one million cherry tomatoes, but I think he just got sweet 100s this year. And the San Marzano tomatoes. I love San Marzano's. I have trouble though. I don't ever get any size on them. I wind up with a lot of kind of maybe they'll grow in two and a half, three inches long.
03:48and be almost hollow inside. And I'm not really sure what's happening with mine on those. They taste great.  They cook up well, but there's just not a lot of it.  I'm not the gardener, but what I can tell you that I've observed with ours is that if it rains moderately and it's sunny reasonably,  it seems to help them have more flesh on the inside. Okay. Because they need the water, but they need the heat too.
04:16Yeah. The, uh, mean, San Marzano probably is my favorite tomato. It's such a good cooking tomato too, but it's got such a good taste because you just got all that flesh too. It's a, it's a good fleshy tomato. It makes something new. Go ahead. I'm sorry. It makes a killer sauce. Oh, it does. It does. Absolutely. Absolutely. I tried a new tomato this year. It was, I just out of curiosity. It's,
04:46It was an Amish paste tomato  and I bought the plants at the farmer's market and I paid a lot more than I wanted to for them, but I wanted to try them and they turned out really well. I'm saving seeds, so I'm hoping to have those next year, but  they were a big thick plum tomato  and it was about twice the size of  the San Marzano, but really, really thick.  we used to grow, or my
05:16My father-in-law would grow something, he called it a hot dog tomato. And it was longer than a San Marzano and just there, you know how you got a little bit of a globe at the bottom of the San Marzano, not a completely straight tomato. This hot dog tomato was just completely straight  and really fleshy. And I was hoping maybe that that Amish paste was, that's what it was going to turn out to be, but it  didn't. I  keep looking for that. And if I ever find that I'm going to grab some seeds because they
05:44They're really productive. They're really thick and a good tomato. They're very, I would say they're similar to the San Marzano, but they're a little bit bigger. We've grown the Amish paste ones. They're really good tomato. If you want to grow something like a San Marzano, but you can't get it. Yeah. So, okay. So your place is called Ray's Bed something. So tell me how that started. Well,
06:14I  started looking at, I've always wanted to write a book. So I  took this online class with thingspublishing.com. But one of the things that they suggested doing was starting a website to help you with  promoting your book. So I  have written a book called A to Z Beginner's Guide to Raise Bed and Container Gardening.
06:43And  so I, you know, the, the, uh, the Facebook page is basically, I use that to promote and I like to interact with people. And I'll be honest with you. I've learned as much from the  people I've come in contact with who's kind of in the gardening field as I ever would have thought. I mean, I see somebody called a naked gardener and I'm, I'm just out of curiosity. I started following that person and they have.
07:13All kinds of great and there's nothing naked about it. It's just, it's just nothing but tomatoes and cucumbers and you know, all good stuff like that. So I try to, I try to post. My goal is always to post maybe five times a week, just some, some little tidbit of information that I can get. I've not done a good job of that recently. We went on vacation, but I like to share things that I find out. And the other thing that I've found.
07:42is I learn as much by kind of doing the research as  I share.  I like to learn, I like to find out more information and that's  kind of what this has turned out to be. you know, got the book launched about a month ago. I'm still looking for people to review the book. So, and I've got some discount prices on Amazon right now. So the price is pretty low. If someone wants to go out and look at the Kindle and
08:11I'd love to get some honest  feedback and reviews on those.  Well, I'll have to add it to my reading list. Yeah, I appreciate that. yeah, I guess one  thing that I would tell you is my  mother used to do a lot of genealogy research. And the one thing that I thought was kind of funny, 95 % of all Plemons, that's my last name,
08:41our farmers  and  up until probably the 1960s or  1970s, it was almost a hundred percent farmers in our family. So  as I say, the  dirt and soil is kind of in my blood and that's kind of where we came from there.  I can remember growing up being out in the field  during the summertime, know, 5.30 in the morning, hoeing.
09:09hoeing corn or hoeing beans or hoeing tobacco or whatever on the farm.  you know, it starts getting, either the day we're already back at the house,  time for us kids to play. but,  so I guess the dirt's kind of in my blood. Yeah, absolutely. I saw your video of your unboxing of your, your, your paperback copies. How did that feel, Mark? It was, it was pretty awesome. I,  I had,
09:39I'd seen a proof copy of it prior to getting it, but you know, just to actually get it in your hand, you know, it's, kind of fun. It's not a big book. It's like 120 pages,  but it's the second book I've written.  wrote a short book about sports casting  back in December.  And it's really funny. Friends and family say, I want to, I want to autograph copies. So I've actually autographed a few copies.
10:07which is kind of  funny to me that someone would want my autograph.  yeah, like say, I've learned as much from writing the book  as,  you know, as I'm I'm giving out.  I've got a long list of references in the back of the book, which I would encourage people, particularly on individual  issues, if they would...
10:34If they have more depth to go and find out more because in them 120 pages in the amount of ground I tried to cover, you know, you just can't get into everything. uh, and the one thing that I've always known and I've from growing up on the farm is, you know, there, there are people who know more than what you know, and don't be afraid to lean on those people. Master gardeners in different areas.
11:04the Cooperative Extension Service.  I'm not sure if they call it that in Minnesota or wherever you may be, in North Carolina, every county has got a Cooperative Extension Service. And it runs through NC State University here. And so, you know, if you want new soil samples or if you need to, if you have questions about plants or you got something funny going on in your garden or, know, you can call up an agent there and they can kind of, you know, give you a good run now. Yeah, we have
11:34We  have Master Gardeners here and we have the Extension Services through the University of Minnesota. they  will help you contact somebody who can answer questions.  As a side note, son has a doctorate from University of Minnesota.  Oh.  He's got a, he did, I think it's,  he's a chemical engineer, research scientist. he got a...
12:02PhD in I think material science. you know which  city he went to college at? He was in Minneapolis. I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, he was Minneapolis. We've been up there a few times. And in fact, I think he went back this summer to visit with some friends up there. But  we loved Minnesota when we were there. It's very, very pretty. Yeah. Well, we were there in summer times and
12:31Well, spring and summer, we weren't there during the wintertime. So we didn't  see the snow or anything. Yeah. We're particularly happy that fall is coming because our air conditioner died yesterday. Like it is dead dead. It needs to be replaced. So the humidity will get you up there too, doesn't it?  Oh yeah, absolutely. So we're going to, it's central air.  And so we're going to put in a small window air conditioner downstairs and that should handle it for the rest of the summer.
13:01Real thankful that didn't die back in July when we had six days of 95 degree plus weather and the humidity was tropical. That would have been really bad. It's miserable when that humidity gets high. We had some days here that the heat index was 110. I think the air temperature was 100, no, not 100, but it was 97, 98, something like that.
13:30Yeah, it's, there's been some real hot days this year.  I don't love it. I don't love summer. Never have.  I love the growing season, but I just wish that it wouldn't have to get so hot to get those great tomatoes. Yeah. Yeah. I know exactly. One of the things I learned when I did my book and  I probably should have known this, but it makes sense. We have a pretty long growing season here in North Carolina. Yeah. And one of the things I found in the research is.
14:00You could plant multiple plantings. probably, here could probably do two plantings of tomatoes. I haven't done that  this year.  I may try that next year, but things like squash, beans,  the cucumbers, things of that nature that have a little bit  quicker lifespan or harvest time. Yeah. You know, can, you can back one right after another. And the key on that typically  is.
14:30Just replenishing the soil and, know, and knowing when to let go of a plant that's just this kind of barely hanging on. I have a tendency to, particularly with my tomatoes,  I treat them like they're people, the plants, and I  kind of feel bad about cutting a limb off of one of them or  a branch or pulling them up.  But I figured, I've kind of figured this out. You pull them up when they're not productive.
15:00put something else in the ground and you can go from there. Yeah, it's like a working document. Anyone who's written a book like you have, you know that you start the document either in a notebook or in Word and you start writing it. It's a first draft and then you go back and read what you wrote and you're like, eh, that can get out and that can stay and I just need to improve this. It's the same thing with garden. Oh, absolutely. like I I'm
15:29My daughter gives me a hard time about this  because I want to let them go as long as I can. And  realistically, I'd be better off, pull them up, replenish the soil, get another plant in the ground and get something going.  realistically here, I've got a growing season until mid-October here. We're in the Piedmont. If I were up in the mountains, then of course we would have a
15:58maybe a couple weeks less on both ends of the growing season. But,  you know, realistically I could get two, two runs of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, something like that. I could probably get two to three and peppers, depending upon what kind of peppers you've got, you can probably get three different harvests off those. could probably do two here in the north. we put our, we put our, it really depends on, you know,
16:25what ability you have to cover something up, how quickly you can get something started, or keep it going at the end. Yeah, our growing season is typically Mother's Day. That's when we tend to get our seedlings in. Through at worst, end of August, first of September. At best, we've gone into the end of October, twice. Oh yeah. Well here, it's...
16:56It's hot through September here. Yeah.  And by hot, mean, you know,  in  the 80s, October  cools off really, really pretty quick.  the, you know, the cold overnight temperatures  is what you have to watch out for if you've got still some, you know, crops in the field. But it's, you know, it's really neat that you get what you can do if  you you listen to people who know what they're talking about and
17:24Follow their instruction and don't be hard headed like I want to be sometimes. But yeah,  no one is ever a master gardener from the get go. Well, and you you're going to have ups and downs. Sometimes the weather doesn't treat you right. Sometimes, you know, the bugs don't treat you right.  There's a lot of things that can happen.
17:52Yeah, you just have to learn from it  and move on.  and it's the learning from it part that's hard because  I'm going to say something not so great. I'm going to get myself in trouble. My husband is hardheaded and he's the gardener and he's got to do something screwy like three times in a row before he remembers that he shouldn't do it that way the fourth time  in the garden. And so
18:18There have been years where we've had really successful gardens and there have been years where we have had really terrible gardens. And  I have started keeping notes in my head about what worked and what didn't. So that when he starts talking to me in January for the plans for the next year, I'm like, this happened when you did that last time. You want to do that again? And he goes, oh, I forgot. I won't do that. So  I try really hard to help. Your notebook's a great idea.  And when I researched my book,
18:49I had not been keeping notes. I'm a runner and I keep notes for my running, but I had not done anything with gardening or anything like that. And one of the things I kept seeing in my research was take notes,  just keep it kind of journal along with it and  you can kind of follow along and you really can pick up a lot that way. Yeah. And then you don't do things like put
19:16leaves and branches in your garden that have seeds from the tree still on them. And you end up with little trees in your garden, which is what happened to us one year. put, we have these sweet gums in our sweet gum trees in our yard and they're, they're just the devil. little, little, the little balls that come on, you step on them at a bare foot, you'll, you feel like, you know, you've got a knife stuck through your foot. I put those in the bottom and they will sprout sometimes.
19:46But most of the time I could just pull those out. not, it doesn't come up to, you know, it's not to the point where you can't really, you know, you can't really work around those.  it's just a thing, but I tried to, I tried so hard to explain to him, he didn't want to put ash tree  leaves and sticks in the garden for compost because they still had the seeds on them and ash trees grow really quick.
20:12And he was like, they'll be fine. They'll compost. And I was like, no, they won't. You're going to have baby trees in your garden. And he did it anyway. And we had like a hundred baby trees coming up in our garden. And I was just like, are we going to do this again? He said, no, we're not. said, good, let's not do this  again. We all learned differently, I think. Yeah, I think so.
20:40I do a good bit of composting and I think that's been one of the things that's helped my gardens more than anything is the composting. I  figured out, you you figure out there's certain things that you can't put in there because it'll just cause you problems. You got to be careful about things that,  we have raccoons here. So, raccoons want to get, they'll get in anything. They'll get in your trash can, they'll get into anything.
21:08You got to make sure that you don't have anything in the compost that a raccoon might like. And I learned that the hard way. And the first composting ever did, I kind of dug a little pit underneath a tree and I was just throwing everything in it and covering it up with black plastic. And it worked really well until the one day I was turning it with a fork and it was turning it.
21:36And there's a big black snake crawls out of there. I said, we're not going to compost on the ground anymore. But know, big five foot black snake came crawling out and he didn't like seeing me and I didn't like seeing him. And he slithered off down in the woods. Yeah, that's not a fun surprise. I keep waiting for my husband to come in the house with bee stings because we have great big compost vials.
22:03I keep expecting him to come in because sometimes he'll throw like apples out there. And bees and yellow jackets love apples. And so far  he's been safe, but I keep expecting every fall for him to come in after he throws some apples in the compost pile and be like, I got stung a hundred times. Okay, great.  So, and it hasn't happened, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.
22:30I usually don't have too much apples left over because I love apples.  I'll throw a core or something in, but whole apples generally don't  make it But you're right about the yellow jackets. Yellow jackets are nasty.  Yeah, we put in like 20 apple trees here when we moved in.  And  we have only had two crops come in. This is second year we'll have apples to actually pick and eat in five years.
22:58And when we put the apple trees in, I was like, are we going to have yellow jackets all over the place? And my husband was like, I don't think so because there aren't any other orchards around. It's all cornfield and soybean fields. He said, and yellow jackets don't really love. Jesus can't think. Cornfields  and alfalfa fields, they don't care. There's nothing there for them. And I was like, okay. And we haven't had any, any bad bugs here  ever in five years.
23:28So that's good. So I'm real happy to have apple trees for the first time in our life. That's been wonderful. We have three honey gold variety apple trees that are producing right now. We'll be picking them  in a month or so because they're ready to be picked in at the end of September 1st of October. So that's going to be awesome. Make some apple crisp. Well, you know,  what is there some the University of Minnesota actually
23:55developed, I think it's honey crisp. Yes. That was actually a product of University of Minnesota Agriculture Department.  Uh-huh. We have two trees, but they haven't actually produced anything yet because they're babies. Well, when they come in, you'll have something really good because that's a really, really good tomato, or really good, I started saying tomato, really good apple. Yeah, we've tried them and they're very sweet.
24:23They're very sweet and they get really big too. Yeah. We bought a variety called a wolf river apple and those get, I have big hands for a girl. My palm is probably a good four and a half inches across. I can't even get my fingers all the way around these wolf river apples. They're humongous and they take a while to get established. Well, I live in the middle of it.
24:51I live in the middle of town and we've got a guy down the street that's got, he planted a little small orchard in his backyard. I mean, he has maybe four tenths of an acre and he's got his apple trees are hanging full with fruit right now. And they're almost to the point of breaking the tree down. Yep. Apple trees are fantastic. It just takes forever for them to get established. I think he's on year.
25:20three, maybe year four  on those trees.  takes a while, but once they get going there, they do great. Yeah. So Mark, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're at almost 28 minutes. Where can people find you? I'm on, like I say, I'm on Facebook with the raised bed and container gardening with Mark.  You can find me on,  I'm on  Twitter at Mark Clemens.
25:49Let's see, my book is on Amazon. So it's A  to Z guide to raised bed and container gardening.  if you Google my name, you're bound to find me. I'm out there. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I really love talking tomatoes with somebody who loves tomatoes. That was fun. That's my favorite food in the world. All right. As usual, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com.
26:17Mark, I hope you have a fantastic day. Thank you again. Thanks, Maris. Good to be with you. Bye.
 

Taste The Local Difference

Today I'm talking with Erika at Taste The Local Difference. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
 
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00:00You're listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Erika at Taste the Local Difference. Good morning, Erika. How are you? Good morning. I am doing great. How are you? I'm good. Where are you located?  I am in Michigan, just south of Ann Arbor. Okay.
00:26Awesome. I'm going to be talking to an old friend on Monday morning for the podcast who lives right near Ann Arbor. So that's kind of funny. That's great. Yeah. What a small world. Yeah. He, he's a musician and he's, uh, older than me. I'm, I'm 55 and I know he's at least 10 years old than I am. So he remembers when, um, music was something you got on records and eight tracks and it should be really fun. Wow. That's cool. Very cool. Yeah. It'll be really fun. I'm excited.
00:56Um, so what's the weather like in Michigan this morning? Thankfully, it is actually pretty beautiful. It has been  quite hot and humid lately, so it's, it was nice. took a nice little walk this morning around my neighborhood and it was, it does seem to be getting a little bit cooler, but you know, what are you going to do? It's August.  It's pretty normal for this time of year.  Oh, for sure. And it's coming.
01:21fall is coming. heard geese calling the other day. Some of our maple trees are starting to turn and that could just be the weather stress, but I really think we might be looking at an earlier fall. So that would be  welcome after this very hot summer we've had. I'm in Minnesota, so it's been hot here too. Yeah, definitely.  When I got up this morning, my husband had opened the kitchen window and the living room windows because our AC is broken.
01:50Oh goodness.  was awake at like 4.30 this morning because I get up early and I got my coffee and I was  sitting in my living room, sipping my coffee and scrolling Facebook as I do. Everybody does these days.  And  I could hear the crickets chirping because the windows were open. It was just such a lovely way to start my day. Yeah, that sounds great.  It really was because usually the windows are closed because the AC is running and you don't want to let the mugginess in.
02:18when you're running an AC. So  there's a blessing to our AC being out. I'm okay with it. It's true. Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and your role with Taste the Local Difference and what Taste the Local Difference is and what you guys do. Yeah. So I am the Director of Impact here.  Which I love. I love that title.
02:41Thanks. love it too.  And, uh, so what we do  is we do marketing for farms and local food and beverage businesses. And that also encompasses things like agritourism,  farmers markets,  restaurants, food trucks, et cetera, know, distilleries, craft beverage, anything along those lines.  And,  um, this is our 21st year.  So.
03:09We started in Michigan, but we work with businesses nationwide. We also have Michigan's food and farm directory, which is really cool. And we are just big believers in local food and local food systems, local food economies, and really uplifting the people who grow and make food and beverage for other folks to.
03:36enjoy. And so we really like to be able to help them with marketing education  and primarily marketing services. So folks can come to us for their websites, their e-commerce, you know, to do  full branding, like if they need, you know, a logo and a brand kit, we do marketing strategy,  email marketing  setup, social media, pretty much the whole gamut if it's under marketing and
04:05Then what my role overseas  is, um, I do a lot of  the marketing education here as well. So I just was teaching a webinar last night for one of our partners.  And, uh, we also do what are called food systems impact partnerships. And so I will work with folks that are from like nonprofits.
04:30governmental organizations, economic development agencies, universities, et cetera.  And  we partner with them  to help support the folks that they work with. So a lot of times these are organizations that are supporting farmers or small food producers.  And  they will work with us to help  either like subsidize marketing.
04:57what is called in  the industry, like technical assistance, which is basically marketing services  and or marketing education. So that's what I do. So like right after this, I have a call with somebody  who is in  Vermont  at a nonprofit that helps farmers and they have a farmer education program. So that call will be all about seeing, you know, if there's a way that we can partner together to help support the folks that they work with.
05:24Okay, since you mentioned that, how much time do you have? Because I don't want to go over.  Until about  the half hour mark.  Okay, cool.  All right.  Minnesota has a website that they use to promote  local produce growers and  some makers, actually, people who make baked goods or  like soaps or things like that.  It's called Minnesota Grown and it is through the state.
05:53So is your thing with Michigan, is  it for the state, is under the state umbrella?  It is actually not. It is ours and we've had it for,  you know, I don't know how  many years  now. I know  many, many, many years  that we have been doing it. We have  also put out a local food guide for
06:17a very long time.  For most of our existence, we put out an annual local food guide. This year is the first year it is  all completely digital.  And that  really goes hand in hand also with our directory. But the nice thing about our directory is it's entirely free to join, to set up an account.  no, we run it, we manage it,  and we actually have licensees in
06:46currently in three other states and we are always looking to expand on that as well. Okay. So is your organization nonprofit? So interestingly, we started as a nonprofit. So we were born out of a nonprofit that still exists that we work with  on a lot of different projects that are  food systems related still.
07:12And then about, I think it was about  six or seven years ago now, for a few reasons,  it just made the most sense to  form, like to basically move away from that  nonprofit formally and become an LLC because, you know, moving into the world of doing marketing services and a few other things.
07:40We wanted to be really like nimble and agile to be able to,  you know, flex with the market so that we could serve  our clients hell really quickly with what they needed. And so, yeah, so we are now technically an LLC, but for most of our existence,  we were a nonprofit. Okay, cool.
08:03All right. So if someone wants to avail themselves of your services for marketing and all the other things that you mentioned,  I need to know if it's affordable for someone to get help from you or if it's not, because a lot of people who are starting small businesses  are not flush with cash as you know. Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the things that we really try to prioritize
08:31is affordability of our services. So we,  when we look through our service offerings and we price them, we price them as affordably as we can in order to be able to, you know, metaphorically, as they say, keep the lights on for ourselves.  Uh, and so,  yeah, so we  really do keep that in mind because we know the folks that we're working with, most of the, like a lot of the people who
09:00are on our team have either farmed themselves or  been very adjacent to the world of farming or  worked in  small food industry and things like that. So we definitely get it. We understand.  we keep our services as  affordable as possible. Obviously, affordability  is  a spectrum. So  one of the things that we also have  a resource
09:30for on the site  is  there is a,  one of our like blog posts  is a resource that is about grant funding. And  so one of the things that we encourage folks to do, and we do this a lot  is whether it's grants or other alternative  forms of funding, such as like micro lending and things like that is  if,  you know, if there are  resources near you that you can
10:00look into, whether it's through your chamber of commerce or economic development agencies, things of that nature  is  see if there are  programs  that you can tap into that meet, might be able to help to subsidize some or all of what you need. So like I said, we partner with a lot of organizations where let's say like a small food producer,
10:28is going through their business bootcamp.  And then  as like a incentive for completing all of that programming, that person gets a stipend to come spend with us.  And,  you know, lot of those comp or a lot of those organizations feel comfortable partnering with us because  we understand and we are trusted, you know, with, um,  like local food specific.
10:57marketing, right? So we get it. We  have a proven track record within the industry.  And so  they know they can trust their investment in partnering with us if they give us a stipend on behalf of one of their program participants. that is one option. Another option is if you are applying for a grant or some kind of other  business award.
11:24You could always, folks can always come to us, talk about services. We can get you a proposal  and then you can  use that proposal  in your grant because having a very specific  list of services that you are going to use the grant on and the price point and everything helps  whoever is  doing the grant,  fulfilling the grant, helps them feel more confident that you
11:51have actually looked into it and are taking it seriously rather than just  giving some arbitrary number of what you plan to spend on marketing. Okay. Phenomenal. I love that. I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but- No, no, no, no. We love to talk about it.  It's not something that we shy away from because we absolutely get it and we totally understand. And  one other thing we have because we know  that
12:20You know, for some it's just, that is still not going to be a possibility  or while they are, you know, waiting to hear  on  funding, there's still things that, you know, they need to do in the meantime, or they're going to want to do, um, or, and, or, you know, some folks just really want to DIY or they, they really want to have a better understanding of their own  marketing. we have a couple of things. So we have one that.
12:48thing that is a really low cost,  but super high quality digital course called Local Food Marketing Academy that folks can go through on their own. you register and you can go through it, you know, from your own home on your own schedule. has templates, has  worksheets, it has a lot of things that are going to walk you through the fundamentals of
13:16marketing your food business. And then,  and that is going to be something, you you can go through it again and again and again, and really feel comfortable and confident  in  doing your own marketing on your own. And then another thing that we have that is completely free is we have tons and tons and tons of high quality free resources. So  on our website, so localfoodmarketing.com forward slash resources, we have
13:45a lot of articles, we have downloadable  guides and we also have  all of our past webinars, the recordings, and then any upcoming webinars we have that you can register for.  so  that is something that we are always adding to and there's tons of good stuff already there.  even if you're like, okay, yes.
14:10You know, what you have is affordable in terms of services, but you're still not there yet. We, we also have alternatives as well so that you're not stuck waiting in the interim. I love that you are making it so that people can get  started. And it's so hard to get started when you have this thing, this dream. Um, our dream, our dream was to have a farm to market garden, a big one.
14:39And we have that now. And it is, I don't even have words, Erica, for when I look out my living room window and see this beautiful, thriving garden that has managed to  support a few people in our community  the last three years because we sell at the farmer's market and we sell from our farm stand on our property. And I didn't have somebody like you.
15:06So we had to figure it out ourselves. Luckily, I have some marketing in my background because I worked for a friend who had a marketing and PR company. So I kind of knew how to do it, but a lot of people don't and they find marketing really scary. so,  so  since we're, I'm talking to you.
15:27I have like three things that I would say you should do if you're starting a small business to get people to know about it. What are three things you would say right off the top of your head? Yeah, so I would say that it is really, really, really good to, you know, when you're thinking about all of the places like that you could, you know, show up.
15:55digitally, right? So I was just teaching on this last night, actually. When you are thinking about  your social media platforms, because a lot of times people will set those up first because it's a bit of a lower barrier than trying to figure out how to set up a website. We are huge believers in having websites, but I know people usually will first go to setting up a Facebook  business page and Instagram and things like that.
16:24Um, make sure that in your  bio that it's that you use all of that  space to be very clear about, know, uh, like what it is that you  sell, where are you located?  Um, any other info that a potential customer might  need, don't just assume that people will know. Right. So.
16:49Um, take advantage of that and any like links of places they might be able to find you shop from you, contact info, whatever the case may be, take advantage of that. The other thing is, is I would say, um, you know, let your network know already, right? Don't assume that your friends and the people in your community know. I would.
17:16go around and let people know. Let your friends, let people... If you're in clubs or other groups and things, know. Tell them about your products. Tell them what you're selling. Give them little samples or whatever it is that have your contact info or website or ordering info, whatever that might be, so that you can start getting the word out in a really grassroots way.
17:45And then think about ways that you can  partner or collaborate with other  people or businesses where your target market is already showing up. So rather than having to do a lot of that heavy marketing lift yourself is kind of go where  your people already are  and try to get in front of them first.
18:12As a bonus to that, would really recommend if you're getting set up with an email marketing  platform, there are some free ones that you can get, if you're below a certain amount of people on your list or very low cost when it's below a certain amount of people.  Already getting a newsletter sign up going with some welcome emails and that way when you're
18:40when you're out and about, when you're doing different things  and people can get signed up, they can maybe like get a coupon and then you can already start capturing that info so that you can  re market to them again and again. Fabulous. I was, I was not actually going to touch on any of those three. I was thinking more low key for my things. So here's my things. Are you ready? Sure. Number one, don't forget that you are always the
19:08face of your brand.  When you are out in public or if you are on  say a podcast like I am,  always remember that your attitude and your energy about your business is what people are going to react to. Yes. you cannot be a jerk in public and expect people to want to work with you through your business. Totally. That's my first one. You are the representative of your brand.
19:37The second thing is, yes, tell your friends that you're doing this because people who love you want to tell other people what you're doing if it's Always, always talk to your friends. someone said, if you meet somebody new  and they say,  what do you do? I always say, well, if I, if I had a jobby job, I don't have a jobby job, but if I had a jobby job,  I would say I work at from my day job, but.
20:06what my passion is, what I love to do is, and this is what I love doing and I explain it to them. Like I love my podcast. I could talk for hours about my podcast and people would probably fall asleep. So always, always, always when somebody says, what do you do? Talk about your baby. Talk about your business. And there was a third one. was it? Um, Oh,
20:33always  label your stuff with your business name. Get some pre-made stickers with the name of your business name  and your website or your phone number or however you want people to get  contact with you  and slap that sticker on everything that goes out the door that somebody takes with them. Because if someone happens to see it, they might  have it stick in their brain and they might be a future customer.
20:59Definitely. I would agree with all of those. And I feel like, I feel like ours really overlap because I feel like it's the same,  like why even thought, you know, with social media is like, honestly, you know, if it, if it's like stresses you out, like it's one of those things, like it's not even
21:20It's not even like necessarily mandatory. It's just, it's the thing that I always think to mention only because it's the thing that people always think about and get really stressed out about. um, but it's, it's also the thing of like, you know, kind of like you said with the labeling, it's the same thing as like using all the digital real estate of the bio, right? It's like, you want people to be able to like attach, uh,
21:48all of the info about you and your product together, right? Wherever they are experiencing you and or your product, like you want them to make that connection so that they can buy it again, right? Or that if they see something and they're like, that looks interesting that they know where they can find it, that kind of a thing.  Yep,  exactly. So if you blend what you said and what I say or I said,
22:14you've got a pretty good marketing plan right there. It's just a matter of knowing how to do it. Definitely, definitely.  And I know we have  a really cool, I don't know exactly what date, you know, this episode is going to go live, but  in about a month from the day that you were recording this, so on September  17th,  we have a totally free webinar.
22:39that  is  essentials for an effective holiday season. And honestly, even though the focus on this is going to be holiday, this is going to help you  year round.  Q4 tends to be a really,  I don't want to say  easy selling time for food  businesses.  It's not necessarily easy on the entrepreneur. It's very busy on the entrepreneur.
23:08But it's typically an easier time to get people to buy because people are anticipating spending money anyways.  So we want to really make sure that folks are set up for success.  And so it's  entirely free. It's  on  localfoodmarketing.com forward slash webinars. You can register there  and  in case you're listening to this.
23:36after that date and it's already passed. Again, all of our recorded past webinars are on localfoodmarketing.com forward slash resources and then just scroll down to the webinar section and it will be there. Do you happen to know how many webinars are listed there? You know, I could look, let's see. it's, I know we have,
24:07Actually, you know what, goes to,  uh, pops over to our YouTube channel as well. So if you are somebody that likes to hang on YouTube,  um, that is where they all populate to as well.  Um, if you just look up taste the local difference on YouTube, they'll be there, but yeah, we have like,  um,  agri, uh, we have one on agri tourism.  That was,  uh, one that we did,  um,
24:37And  that was recent. That was really great.  One that is farmers market focused, building a website,  branding, AI marketing.  We have a lot. There are quite a lot. And that doesn't even include our downloadable guides and then just our other  blog post type articles that we've written.
25:05plenty, plenty, of good stuff. It's really a priority for us to have high quality, free resources for  folks too.  love that, Erica.  If you are a small business looking for information on how to market your business,  you need to go to Taste the Local Difference and check out all the free resources. And then if you need more help, you can always hire them to help you further.  Erica,
25:33I don't want to keep you too long and we're at like 25 minutes. tell me the places that people can find you the easiest online. mean, you've said it, but say it again, please. Yeah. So truly the best place is if you go to localfoodmarketing.com, that is going to have everything there. It's going to have the resources. It's going to have a list of some of our services, uh, like a few examples of our past work. It's going to have more info on our.
26:03impact partnerships that worked at my role overseas. And then it also has a place on there to  fill out a marketing inquiry form. what that is, is you just put in a little bit of info and then it sends an email to our team. And then one of us, know, within a few business days, we will get in touch with you  and we can set up  a phone call or a video meeting and we can talk.
26:31about your business, your goals, services that might be helpful. We can put together a proposal for you. There are no strings attached. It's totally free to chat with one of us about some services and to just get a no obligation quote. And we would love to chat with you. Erica, thank you so much for your time today. You and your business are an invaluable service to people like me.
26:58and my neighbor who has goats and a garden  and duck eggs for sale  and Hi Tracy, she listens to all the time. And I just, love what you're doing. And I know that it's not free, but you are providing a service that a lot of people need and they don't even realize that it's out there for them. So thank you so much. I appreciate it.
27:22Yeah. Thank you for having me. We, we love doing it. Like I said, our, our primary goal is, you know, uplifting local farms and food producers. And it's, it's why we do what we do. And we absolutely love being able to do it. Great.  All right. As always, people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com  Erica. I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope your webinar gets filled up really big. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.  Bye.
 

Her Wholesome Homestead Life

Today I'm talking with Helana at Her Wholesome Homestead Life. 
 
Muck Boots 
Calendars.Com
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Helana at Wholesome Homestead, and I don't know what state you're in.  I'm in Michigan.  In Michigan. So good morning, Helana. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. I'm really excited to have you talk with me because you said that you're new at the homesteading thing.
00:28So first off, how's the weather in Michigan this morning? It's beautiful this morning. It's been really hot here lately, but yesterday we got a nice rainy day, so we definitely needed that. So yeah, today is beautiful.  Here too in Minnesota. I mean, I'm kind of your lateral neighbor. We're a couple states apart,  but good morning neighbor. It's sunny and it's cool. Thank goodness. So it's a great day. I love it. Our weather lady said that she wanted to call it a top 10 weather day today.
00:57Yes, I can agree with that today.  Yeah, so I hear a little one in the background cooing. Do you have a new baby? Um, yes, he's only a couple months old so he's new  Nice and you have another one, right? Yes. I have a daughter who is a toddler  Okay.  Well, hopefully they'll let you chat with me without making too much noise  Notice how I heard the baby cooing and I turned my voice down. That's really funny
01:25Okay, so tell me about what you do at your homestead.  So I am just getting started as we talked about. So basically I just have a garden and this is our second year doing it. So we're in a learning curve with what grows well here. So that's been fun. And then  I've also dabbled in making sourdough bread. That's definitely what got me started in the whole homesteading thing.  Like they always say, once you start doing sourdough.
01:54You kind of go down that road of getting into everything else. So yeah. How is it going with the sourdough? The reason I ask is I have  two sourdough starters on my counter downstairs  and  they didn't rise for like four days, even though I fed them and they're a good month old at least. And I was like, what am I doing wrong?
02:17And then the temperature in the house went up and I fed them and they doubled. And I was like, oh, it's too cool in my house. That's what's going on. So how are you doing with it? I'm doing well. My sourdough starter, I started in February of 2023. So it's two years old now. And yeah, they're definitely very finicky with the temperature in your house. I've always found that if I feed it and I put it in the microwave,
02:45and just let it stay in there. Then I usually have better luck with it rising when it should and all of that. I'm going to have to try that trick this winter because I know it's not going to be warm enough in the house. just know it.  I always feel like such a dork  when I notice that it's doubled in size the way it's supposed to. It's risen double.  Because my sourdough for some reason, I started it from scratch. I built this thing.
03:10There's so many big bubbles that you can see on the side of the jar on the inside. And every time I see that, I just have this big  note of happiness ring in my head because it works. Yes.  It's so exciting when it goes how it should because it's definitely a craft. And especially when you are making like a loaf, that's definitely a craft and a learning curve to like getting the bulk fermentation and everything right. Yeah. And it takes such a long time.
03:39If your loaf comes out like a brick, all you want to do is cry. Yes. It's awful. I haven't had that happen. I've only made one loaf and it wasn't a brick, but it was definitely bagel texture. Yeah. And it tasted great and I love bagels. So I was quite pleased that I didn't come out with a brick. As long as it's edible, that's all that matters, right? Yeah. Yeah. They always say just bake it anyway and see what happens. And I'm like, I'm gonna stick to that. That's good advice.
04:07So what made you get into homesteading? Like what was the impetus that sent you down this path? Honestly, it was when I was on maternity leave with my first child.  I just like started going down the rabbit hole of being more natural living  and trying to make as much as I can myself. So I know exactly what's in everything  so that I feel more confident feeding it to my children and my family. So that's kind of what.
04:34started the whole thing and like I said it started with the sourdough and it just kind of blossomed from there.  I'm really proud of you and you're not the first person to tell me that they got into this because they were having kids  because kids change your whole perspective on the world they really truly do. They do for sure.  Yeah I had my daughter  many years ago she's 35 now  and I was brand new  I had just turned 20.
05:0310 days  after turning 20 when she was born. And I don't know  what I was thinking, but I was just like, oh,  it'll be fine. Everybody has kids, it'll be fine. And after she was born, I was just so  on eggshells for the first month, because I was like, I'm going to break her. I'm going to ruin this child.  I did not. I did not ruin her. She turned out to be a fantastic young woman, but...
05:31There's just this shift that happens where you're like, Oh, I am responsible for another  human being. Yes. It is very, very intimidating. The moment you leave the hospital, you're like, Oh wow. Like I'm the one that has to take care of this little person and no one to feed them and all of that stuff. It's definitely a big learning curve, but it's amazing. It is. It's wonderful. And the one thing I remember from when she was  little, you know, baby little,
06:00is she had a horrible time cutting teeth. And we lived in an apartment building and there were five other apartments in the building. And we knew our neighbors and they knew we had a newborn and they knew she was teething because she was very loud when she cried. And two of my neighbors on two different days came over at about 10 o'clock in the morning because they could hear her crying. And I could not get her to stop crying no matter what I did. And they were like, would you like a break? Would you like me to walk her for you for a while?
06:31And of course, being exhausted and a new mom, I broke down in tears both times and said,  thank you so much. And they would stay in my apartment and just walk her.  And the change in body rhythm and the sound of their voice was enough to get her to stop for a while. That's so amazing that they were willing to help you like that. New moms definitely need that. Yeah, and they were both moms themselves, you know, of older kids. So they remembered too. It's hard work and it's hard learning.
07:00but it's wonderful. so  again, really proud of you for  taking the steps to provide a safer environment for your babies because that's impressive. Thank you.  Yeah, everybody should do that, but not everybody knows how and not everybody has the courage to step into it.  For sure. And it definitely is. It's a lot of work sometimes like when you could just  go to the store and conveniently buy something that's already  ready to go versus
07:29starting it from scratch at home.  So I can see why some people don't do that or they don't have the time.  Yup. So do you cook from scratch?  I try to as much as I can.  Obviously there's sometimes I'm not able to. I do also work part-time as a nurse. So  some days that I'm actually that I'm at work, I have a little bit harder of a time being able to cook completely from scratch. But what I can't cook from scratch, I buy organic from the store.
08:00Nice. Awesome. Um, I'm assuming there's a daddy in the picture. Yes. Okay. Good. Good. Good. I always worry when I ask that question, I'm going to open a can of worms. So yay. That's, that's working out. Good. Yeah. My husband and I actually met when we were in high school. So we're high school sweethearts. We've been together for, well, let's see what almost four, it'll be 14 years this year and we're 28 and 29. So wow. Wow.
08:28I love high school sweetheart stories. That's great.  Yeah. So is he, again, I don't want to sound rude, but I want to know,  is he hands on with the kids? Oh, yes. He's amazing with our kids.  I'm very blessed.  You are. You absolutely are because that's not always how it goes. My husband, my current husband, he's my third husband,  was very,  very into the kids when they were little.
08:57And we share a baby together. He's 23 now. And he would, I would be laying on the couch because it was nighttime and baby was moving and I'm like, I need him to calm down. Cause we knew it was a boy. And he would come over and kneel down beside me on the couch and put his head to my belly. And he would talk to that baby inside of me. And I remember him singing to the baby through my tummy. And it's one of my favorite memories. That's so sweet.
09:27Yep, and he absolutely was changing diapers.  He would give our baby a bottle if the baby needed it because I nursed, but I would also express milk for the baby  so my husband would have chance to feed him too. Yeah. He was just  right in the trenches with me the whole time that they were little. And it's such a blessing because  moms get tired. And when you have, it's hard enough when you have one baby.
09:51but then add in other kids and you're like, wow, I'm going to die of exhaustion at some point here. Yeah, we have two under two over here. So it's been a lot and he's been an awesome help. I definitely wouldn't be able to do it without him. So I'm very thankful that he's as hands on as he is. Yeah. Is he, is he on board with the homesteading lifestyle? Yes. Yes. And he's helpful in those aspects too. This year when we planted our garden,
10:20He pretty much did all of the planting for me since we have two little ones and I was stuck inside and  he goes outside every night to water the garden for me. So yeah, he's super helpful. Awesome. Awesome. You guys are a team.  Um, so what are you growing in your garden this summer?  Oh, we have a lot of stuff. So we have, um, beans, have peas, we have corn. Um, I have some sunflowers, musk melon, watermelon. We have tomatoes, but we
10:48We didn't get a good yield with the tomatoes this year. Um, I figured out that they got something called Fusarium wilt. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, but it's something in the soil that there's nothing we can do about that killed all the tomato plants. So that was unfortunate, but, um, we've gotten a lot of pickles. So I've got to can some pickles for the first time, which was fun. Um, what else?
11:14I think that, we have some asparagus growing, but we planted that last year and it has to, we planted it from seed. So it has to take a couple of years to get a good patch going. But yeah,  it's fun to watch everything grow and see what you make from seed and all that. It's, really cool.  If you love asparagus,  make sure that when that patch really starts to produce,  you only take a little bit that first year when, they start putting up shoots.
11:43Because the less you take the first year, the better it does the next year. Awesome. That's good to know. And value that patch with your life because we have one and I love it. We got our first really good yield  this year after four years. And it is so  good. It's so sweet. I love asparagus.  Yeah, me too. It's like  I grew up on the East Coast. I'm in Minnesota now and I call it landlocked lobster.
12:13because I eat it the same way I would eat lobster. steam the asparagus and then I dip it in melted butter and a little bit of salt and pepper. And so that's my version of lobster because I don't want to buy lobster in Minnesota. No. I'd rather grow my own asparagus. We only had to pay for the crowns once. Right. Exactly. So how big is your garden? Do you know how many feet it is? Oh, my husband had it written down on paper and I cannot remember.
12:42Exactly. But I want to say it's like,  I'm looking at it right now. I'm going to try to guess. I feel like it's like 40 feet by 20 feet. So it's like a good, it's a good size garden.  That's a good starter garden for a small family. Absolutely.  Ours is like 50 feet by a hundred feet. Oh, that's awesome. And it's almost too much work because my husband is the gardener. I am not.  And he has a full time job, but he wants to garden.
13:11That's his habit. So  every day after work from  May 15th till it's done, whether that's September or November, he's out there doing something in the garden. Yeah. Yeah. It is a lot of work, but it's definitely very rewarding.  It absolutely is.  And for him, he gets to have quiet time. That's where he's then  out in the garden after he's done that's  very true.
13:41And then he gets to eat whatever I cook from the garden, because I'm the chief cook and bottle washer. Yeah. That's great. I keep hearing your little one in the background. I'm so jealous. I haven't seen a little baby in a long time. I have him in the baby carrier on me and he's just snoring away. So cute. We should just make a whole five minute stretch of him making cute little baby noises in the background.
14:08It's the best noise to listen to, I swear. Yeah, the second best is chickens cooing and clucking at each other  in the coop. Oh my gosh, chickens! That's what I'm trying to convince my husband to get us next is chickens.  Well, how big is your property? We have like two acres. Oh, you have room for chickens?  Yes.
14:33You should just tell him that the lady you talked to on the podcast today said it's not that hard. Get chicken. Okay. Yeah. He's nervous that it's going to be a lot of work. And I was like, yeah, well, we'll be, we'll be able to figure it out though. Well, how many chickens would you like to have to start with?  I don't even know how many I would like to start with. I don't know what a good amount would be, but I told him that it would be a cool thing to be able to have, um, egg laying chickens and meat chickens. So that way we don't have to buy chicken from the store anymore.
15:04You are not wrong, but, and there's always a but or a,  or an it depends.  If you're not really into the whole butchering the chickens for meat,  do some research and see if there is a traveling butcher, cause that's a thing here for chickens in Minnesota. And there's a guy who actually lives in our town who comes to your property. You pay him.
15:29He butchers the chickens. I  swear he said he wraps them in freezer paper too. I can't remember.  But either way, look into that kind of service because that would probably help  with the first year or so  if you don't want to really dive in whole chicken as it were. That's amazing. I didn't even know that there was something like that that existed. Yeah. And I don't know if there is in Michigan, but there is here. So maybe somebody is doing it in Michigan too.  And as for egg laying purposes,
15:59Chickens lay  one egg every 24 hours.  So you have your husband and you and a toddler and a baby. So I'm assuming you would want at least two eggs for you, your husband and your toddler each a day. So that would be six chickens. Okay. And so what I would do, and I mean, we've done it a bunch of times, is I would actually get probably eight or 10 chickens.  Yeah.
16:27and then you would have eggs to give to family or to sell to people. Yeah, that's a great idea. And it's really not that hard. The hardest part about having laying hens is that you have to clean out the coop at least once every two weeks in the summer  because it will get stinky. Yeah, I can imagine that. But in the wintertime, the thing that works out really great is that if you leave their bedding in and you just keep adding straw or shavings,
16:55it composts and it throws heat so that it's not so cold in the coop in the wintertime. That's very clever. And you can use that and put it in a compost pile in the spring if that's allowed where you are, I assume it is on two acres. And you can use that six months later to put on your garden over the winter and it will compost down even further and then you have great fertilizer in your garden in the spring. Yep. See, we need chickens.
17:25Now, I don't know if you have a building that you can use for a coop already in existence. No, we would probably have to build one. So that's going to be the probably most difficult part.  Yeah. And that doesn't have to be difficult either. And I didn't know I was going to give a talk on how to do chickens today. It's totally fine. I'm going to do it anyway, because you really want chickens.  What you can do  is if you have a place that gives away pallets, wood pallets.
17:54You can make a small coupe with the sides made out of that. And then you put plywood on the outside. Brilliant. And then you would have to figure out a way to roof it. And I would just put up beams and put the tin roof stuff. I don't know what the hell it's called. Lake siding, but it would be for a roof. Yeah.
18:18I know what you're talking about. don't know what it's called either.  Yeah, and it's not cheap, but people sometimes have scraps left over and they list them on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist  or if you have a next door app on your phone.  People have scraps left over from projects all the time and you could do that and that would keep chickens dry. So you could do it on the cheap for now and then if you wanted to improve it,  know, later you could.
18:46Yeah, but basically they just need a place that is ventilated and warm and dry and warm is relative because chickens adapt. We don't have heat in our coop and they handled minus 30. Um, wow. Last winter for a week and none of them, none of them really suffered for it. They were fine. Okay. That's good to know. Now I have more stuff to convince my husband to get us chickens. Yeah. And don't drop a ton of money. If you don't have it, don't.
19:16don't overextend yourself because it's not worth it because those first eggs are like hundred dollar eggs, you know? Yeah. But there are ways to do it on the cheap and still do it so that your chickens are taken care of correctly. And if you like chickens, you can always hang out with them and pet them and talk to them. That's up to you. I love all animals, so I'm sure that I would be doing that. Yeah. There's just there's so many ways to do it as a homesteader that
19:45I'm sure other people have made coupes out of other things, but I know you live in Michigan and it gets damn cold in Michigan in the wintertime. It sure does.  And in the summertime, what we've learned is that if you take like ice packs or ice packs work best, like the ones you get at the store for your lunch pail. Yeah.
20:08If you can find some of those for cheap, I don't know,  we haven't had to do that, but you can freeze those and just put those out in the coop and they will go sit on that to cool down.  Aw, that's a great idea. They sound like such fun little creatures to have around.  They are, and they're stupid, but they're not stupid enough to die on purpose,  usually.  Unlike  quail. Quail apparently have a suicide pack. They like to...
20:36kill themselves for no reason. Oh really?  They startle really easily so if their coop isn't tall enough they will they when they startle they go straight up and they will break their necks. Oh my goodness.  Yep and  lots of people have good luck with quail. I'm afraid we would have terrible luck with quail so we haven't tried it yet. Yeah.  But anyway chicken education 101 here today.  I appreciate all the information.
21:04Yeah, and if you want anything else, just message me and if I have an answer, I will give it to you, I promise, because we've had chickens for over 20 years. Okay, thank you. And a laying hen, a young laying hen right now costs us $23 per bird. Okay. And if you get the laying, I'm not saying it right, if you get chicks, if you order chicks through the mail, they're going to cost you anywhere between
21:33$3 and $10 a piece. Okay. And then you have to wait at least 20 weeks before they start laying. So you're feeding them for that amount of time before you get any return. Is that how you started was chicks through the mail? Absolutely not. We have a friend, we have a friend who has laying hens and she raises them in late winter to sell them in the spring. So when we get ours, they're about 18 weeks old.
22:02Oh, that's amazing. I'll have to see if I can find somebody like that around here.  Oh, I'm sure you can. Michigan seems like a great place for people who are doing homesteading stuff. Yes. So you could easily start any time as soon as you convince your husband that it's okay to get them  and you find a place to buy feed and a waterer. You would be set. And  I'm not pushing you to get chickens. Honest, I'm not. But I know. But if you want chickens, there are ways to do it that will not
22:32break the bank too bad. So that's great to know. I really appreciate it. Okay. And I didn't realize I knew as much as I knew about this. I'm so impressed that I could talk to you about this. You're very knowledgeable about chickens. Apparently might be the only thing I'm really knowledgeable, knowledgeable about, but that's not a bad thing. Yeah. And you're knowledgeable about sourdough. So you actually helped me a little bit too. I'm happy to Yeah.
22:58So you want to get chickens, do you want to get anything else like, I don't know, goats or sheep or a milk cow? Well, I do think that goats would be a cool thing to do in the future.  Eventually, our goal is to build behind my parents' house. They have some acreage and they're going to give us some, so we would have like three acres. And I think once we move out there, we'll probably get goats.  Awesome.
23:28I  assume you said you love all animals. you  ever seen a newborn goat? No.  They are the sweetest thing ever. Oh, I'm sure they are. I don't have any. We don't have room. don't want any.  Neighbors have some.  And  my best friend in high school, her parents raised goats. And so she would call me every spring and be like, your mom  bring you over? Because there's brand new baby goats here. Oh, that's awesome.
23:55I would go and hang out with the baby goats. It was so amazing.  My friend actually just bought a  month or so ago, she was bought an eight week old buck to  extend their breeding genetics for their herd. And she stopped by and he was in a crate in the back of their truck. So I got to pet an eight week old baby goat that day.  Oh, it probably made your day.  Oh, I loved it. I hadn't pet a baby goat in so long. I was like, oh, I forgot they're really shy.
24:25Yeah. He was also hot and he didn't want to come over to me and I just slid my arm right into the crate and I was like, you will eventually come say hi to me. Yeah, you'll warm up. did. He was just as cute and soft as the ones I remember. So it was really fun. But  there's so much good  in this lifestyle. And  if you don't have people in your life who are doing these things,  get some, make some friends. Yes.
24:51Do you have any yet?
24:56I would say I have one that I met through work who  she kind of does some home studying stuff. Like she has the sourdough and she has a garden,  but she doesn't really have much. Oh, she has chickens too. So  I forget she has chickens, but yeah, she's shared some knowledge with me on things and yeah.  Nice. I need more though. Yeah. I was going to say keep reaching out, keep, keep trying to find people who are local to you  because they're going to know things that you don't know.
25:25You're going to know things that they don't know and you can help each other out. Yes, share the knowledge. We just got a mama cat who's pregnant from friends because we needed more barn cats and it's easier to just have a female that produces than it is to spend $50 per barn cat every time. And she spent the night in her crate for two nights when they brought her over and we let her out yesterday morning.
25:52have not seen her since she must be exploring her property. hopefully she's not, hopefully she'll stick around and we'll have baby kittens here soon. How many acres do you have? Three. Okay.  We have three, but the garden takes up a good percentage of what isn't, doesn't have buildings on it. Yeah. So,  so anyway, um, uh, I don't know what else to ask you cause you are, you're very new at this, but I can hear the excitement in your voice and  I'm
26:22So excited to kind of keep track  of your future and see how it goes for you. Thank you. I'm really excited to see where this journey takes me as well. Yeah, you sound so happy and you sound way younger than 28. Well, thank you.  When you started talking, I was like, she sounds like she's 20.  And then you said 28 and I was like, oh, she's got one of those voices. You're going to sound like you're 20 for the rest of your life. Well, that would be amazing.  Yes. Yes, it would be.
26:52All right, so where can people find you, I  have just an Instagram page right now.  It's called Wholesome Homestead. I had to have my username be at her wholesome homestead life. So if anybody would like to follow my journey, feel free to follow my page.  I think that people should follow your journey because you are a  willing student.  I'm assuming that you will take information about homesteading  from anybody and vet it and then use it.
27:21And as someone who's brand new,  you have all the potential in the world to teach other newbies how to do it too. Don't think you don't know enough to share because you do. Thank you so much.  You're welcome.  And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and I really appreciate getting to hear the baby noises in the background.  Yeah, they're very soothing.  They are.  As always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.
27:50Helana, I hope you have a great day and kiss those babies for me. I will. Thank you so much for taking the time to let me be on your podcast.  Absolutely. It was a joy.  Thank you, Helena. Bye. Bye.
 
 

Stephanie's Dish - Stephanie Hansen

Today I'm talking with Stephanie Hansen at StephaniesDish. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Stephanie Hansen at Stephanie's Dish in Minnesota. She's local, yay. I love it when people are local.  And good morning, Stephanie. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. And I would normally ask about the weather, but I'm guessing you're in Minneapolis area?  I am in Ely, Minnesota today. Oh, you're way up there.
00:29of the true North cabin cookbook. It's where I wrote it. Um, we have a summer home here that's on an island in a middle of a lake. And so I kind of do the reverse commute and go back and forth. My husband stays up here most of the summer with our 92 year old mother-in-law. Oh, okay. So you're way up there. So how's the weather up North? It's nice. It's nice today. A little rain's coming in, but it's been a weird summer though. Uh,
00:57lots of smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I'm a gardener  and the garden has started out real slow. I'm finally starting to get beans and cucumbers and tomatoes and those kinds of things, but just kind of a weird summer. Second one in a row. Yay.  I'm so sick of it. I'm praying.  Like I spent the winter praying that this year would be moderate and it's been better than last year, but  it hasn't been the three summers ago summer that was so beautiful. So
01:27I don't know. We're all just going to do what we do.  it's funny how  it seems like September is like the old August  where it's super hot and dry. That's also,  summer is extended in some ways, but maybe starts later. Yeah. don't  know. Climate change, global warming,  weather patterns of
01:51Billions of years, who knows? Either way, we're just all going to still keep trying to grow things because that's what we do.  I'm in Lassour  and it is sunny and cool. Thank goodness because  our compressor on our air conditioner died yesterday.  Oh, I did that last week. Got a new air conditioner and furnace and a home equity loan.  Yeah, that's what we're looking at too. You're in Lassour, the home of the green giant.
02:21Yes. And Sprout. Yes.  Yes. We have the new billboard up that has the green giant and Sprout on it.  I was driving back and forth to Jordan when they took the old sign down and put the new sign up. And  every day there'd just be a little bit more of each character building on each other. That's great.  It's fun. And it's so silly because every small town has something like that.
02:46I didn't know that the Jolly Green Giant started out in LaSore. I had no idea and we were driving down here for the move.  I was like,  oh,  oh, okay. And I had no idea that the guy that started the Mayo Clinic lived in a small house in town in LaSore too. Yup. So there's a lot of history here. And  I grew up, I grew up on the East coast. So when I moved to Minnesota, like 30 something years ago,
03:14I was like, ah, there's no history here. My history back home beats the history in Minnesota. And then when I started learning about Minnesota, I was like,  um,  I'm going to have to amend my opinion. Yeah,  no offense, but it's very,  uh, common to get sort of the East coast, West coast vibes of the Midwest. And then people come here and they're like, Oh, this isn't just flyover country. And particularly when you think about like the food scene.
03:43We are the bread basket. know, much of the grain is grown in the Midwest. Much of the animal husbandry happens in the Midwest  and a cheese making culture happens in the Midwest. So  while we laud the fancy restaurants  from both coasts,  when it comes to like actual food production, we're doing pretty good.  absolutely. And  I'm not dissing on Minnesota. I've lived here a long time. It is beautiful.
04:11And I had the choice five years ago when we were looking for a new home  to decide whether I wanted to move back to Maine. And I was like,  I don't want to. It's expensive. I'm already settled in this state. I know how to behave myself now.  I'm just going to stay here. So it all worked out fine, but very disappointed to find out that we're going to have to drop probably five  to $6,000 on a new air conditioner here in the next week or two.  That is not a welcome Monday morning surprise.  No, but
04:41The good news, well, you're kind of,  I mean, we're probably gonna get, cause state fair always gets super hot.  For me, like getting the furnace done now, I was like, well, at least it won't be 30 below when I realized my furnace doesn't work.  Yeah, we've done that before too. That is not a fun surprise either.  Okay, so now that I've bitched about my  AC problem, cause I knew I was going to,  tell me a little bit about yourself, Stephanie, because you are a woman of  many talents. Yeah, so I started,
05:10out, I guess my career, I started out in advertising  long ago, working in the newspaper business. And then I got into the radio business.  I owned a direct mail and a printing company  and all the way along the through line was sort of  media.  And I really loved food.  And I can remember when the Food Network first started and people were all excited about these shows where people were cooking.
05:39Um, so the food network started and all the way along, you know, we watched the, the Julia child show and we would watch the frugal gourmet on PBS. And as the food scene kind of was building, I said to my, um, station that I worked at my radio station, said, Hey, can I have a radio show about food? And they thought it was kind of fun and said, sure. So I recruited my partner who happened to be the food editor of our city magazine at the time.
06:09And we, 18 years ago started talking about food. The show started out as an hour and then it went to two hours. And we talk about restaurants. We talk about the home cook. We talk about our  cideries, our distilleries, our breweries, and just like food as community, food as culture.  And it really has just been a joy over the last 18 years. And as I leaned into that and sold some of my other businesses, I ended up.
06:37Uh, just like, what am I going to do now? And food just kept coming to the forefront. So I decided to write a cookbook called the true North cabin cookbook during COVID. Um, our radio show was completely changed in that we were still recording it, but instead of talking about restaurants and all the community pieces of food, we ended up really talking about your pantry and cook things. And that was the space that I was most comfortable in anyway. So we really leaned into that.
07:08I decided to write the cookbook.  I wanted to write a book that chronicled this place in Northern Minnesota because it's a pretty unique place. But also I wanted to document a lot of our family's recipes that people would request when they would come to the cabin. So I did that  and it sold really well and people liked it. And there was a kind of heavy narrative arc to it.  And the book went from May through September because
07:34We pretty much opened the cabin from Memorial Day to Labor Day. So after working on the book and having it out for about a year, my publisher came back and said, well, what are you doing the rest of the year? What about October through April? And I really like soups and stews and braises. Me too. I a real Midwestern gal in that way. So I said, sure, you know,  I don't know that the through line of the cabin is there. And they said, yeah, it is, you know, that's kind of in you.
08:03And we do come up here in the winter time. It's not as much as the summer. So that book comes out September 2nd. It is available for pre-order now  and it takes you from October through April. So I did sneak one rhubarb recipe into April, which obviously is a little bit early, but it's funny when I was working on the second book, it wasn't so much my grandma's this and my mother-in-law's that it was more of what I cook at home.
08:29So in some ways, the second book is more of like my true cookbook and the first book is kind of more of a family heritage book. Nice.  Um, rhubarb is great coming out of the freezer in April, so it can be an April dish.  And one of the things I learned about rhubarb, my mom used to blanch rhubarb and then freeze it  and come to find out you don't have to blanch it.  The freezing breaks it down for you. Yes. And there are certain recipes.
08:58I probably have a single subject rhubarb cookbook in my future just because I it so much. And there are recipes that work better for frozen rhubarb.  So like the April recipe that I have is a rhubarb almond bread, which works great with like the broken down  flesh of the rhubarb versus like my rhubarb custard bars. I really think that's best when you have the firm, fresh rhubarb.  Yes, absolutely. So what's the new book called? It is the True North Cabin Cookbook.
09:28Seasonal recipes from a cozy kitchen. It's a volume two. Volume one  is true North cabin cookbook as well. They liked the idea from the publishing standpoint of having the full 12 months together. Maybe someday it'll be sold as a set or something. But I took all the pictures in both books, wrote the narratives, wrote the recipes,  and it's been super fun.  Awesome. I love that.
09:53I used to giggle a little bit about the cabin thing too. I don't now because I have friends that have cabins. The cabins that I grew up being around or being in, they were actual little tiny cabins on lakes in Maine. And then people were like, oh, we're going up the cabin. I said, how many square feet is the cabin? They're like, oh, 3,000. I was like, excuse me, that's a...
10:20big house and they're like, no, that's a cabin. And I'm like, okay.  So there are all these cultural things that you have to learn when you switch from, you know,  one side of the country to the other, or move from either side of the country to the middle. Cause things are different. Yeah. Even like, so our cabin  is it's on a four acre Island, but the cabin itself  is two bedrooms  and it was built in the seventies and it has a porch all the way around the outside.
10:49It is very rustic.  it has an outhouse rustic. Nice. When you're in Wisconsin, they call cabins, cottages. Okay. So even like it's been interesting to translate from the true North cabin cookbook culture to the cottage culture. And when I'm like doing Wisconsin public radio or any of those opportunities, I make sure to talk about cottages  because it is different in their brains too.  And you know, a lot of the big lakes in Minnesota.
11:18You know, Lake Minnetonka that started as cabin culture has now kind of morphed into more exclusive homes.  Um, but up here in  the North on Burnside Lake where we are, it's still very, very cabinet. Okay. Awesome. So there are little bitty cabins too.  Good. I'm glad because there's such, I don't know, they're so  cozy and, and homey and kitschy. And I love that about the little cabins.  Um, so about.
11:4820 years after I moved here, finally decided to learn how to make turkey wild rice soup. I had never heard of wild rice soup growing up because it's not a thing. And I was like, it doesn't look that hard and I know how to make a roux. I think I can do this. And I of course decided to make it when I was having friends who were born and bred Minnesotans over.  And one of them tasted it and they were like, have you made this before? And I said, no.
12:18She said, this is some of the best turkey wild rice soup I've ever had. How many, this is the first time. I said, yes. She said,  no Maynard should be able to make wild rice soup this good. And I almost fell down. literally bowed and said, thank you. So what would you get to claim as a Maynard? Like blueberry season, maybe? Yup. And lobster rolls or lobster bisque. And I never made lobster bisque. Lobster is.
12:45It's not as expensive in Maine as it is in the Midwest, but it's still expensive. So we didn't really do that.  Yeah. I love lobster. I miss lobster so much. I could cry. That's funny. I love lobster too. And I love lobster bisque,  um, wild rice,  you know, and there's a couple, like there's cultivated wild rice and then there's like wild wild rice.  It is interesting because  using them is a little bit different.
13:13One of my probably most popular recipes at Stephanie's dish.com is my wild rice recipe that you make in the instant pot. Instant pot is really great at cooking wild rice. And then in my  second book,  the book that's coming out, there's a beer cheese wild rice soup. I really love beer and cheese  and rice.  So strangely all those things together make a very delightful soup.
13:39Well, the thing that's lovely about wild rice, even if it's cultivated, is that  if you make it in a pan on the stove and you're letting it cook down so it pops open and gets all squishy,  it smells  nutty and warm. And  I  love cooking up a pound bag of wild rice in like November when it's the first really cold, sleety day outside,  because it warms up the house and it smells so good.
14:08I had an opportunity to  record a television show. So  one of the things that's happened more recently in my career in the last three years is I've started a show called Taste Buds with Stephanie. And it was started by the Fox local affiliate here in Minneapolis.  And we were just going to do a 15 minute shows.
14:30that we're gonna air as segments in a lifestyle show and that happened and then it went to YouTube and then they started making half hour episodes and in September of this year, it will syndicate into 82 markets. So all of a sudden this like little teeny food show that we were doing is now in 58 % of the United States, which has been super fun. And one of the shows that I did was with Sean Sherman who is the sous chef. He's a native American chef.
14:59cooks only with Native American ingredients. And we did a Thanksgiving episode where he really taught me about some of their native foods that would be in a traditional Thanksgiving. And we cooked only Thanksgiving recipes that were native. So, you know, we weren't able to use any processed sugar and we made a really delicious wild rice stuffing that went in a squash that was super great that had, you know, cranberries in it and hazel nuts and things that would be indigenous to our region.
15:29It was a really fun episode. loved making that episode with him. That sounds delicious. And I actually made stuffing with wild rice thrown in and some  smashed up walnuts or pecans. I can't remember a couple of years ago. And I just wanted to try it and see what would happen. Cause I'm one of those cooks who  learned to cook later. think I was in my late twenties when I learned to cook. And once I got the basics down, was like,
15:55You know, I think this is like art. I think you can experiment. think if you like certain things, you can maybe try them in other dishes. And when I did that wild rice nut stuffing, it was amazing. And we took it to in-laws for Christmas, I think it was. It wasn't Thanksgiving. And a couple of the girls came over and said, what did you put in there that's different? And I told them, and they were like, that's so easy. I said, guys, it's an art.
16:24And if you have like gluten free people, a wild rice stuffing is a great option  to add to the table because a lot of people will eat it. It's very delicious, but then you don't have to deal with the bread and the stuffing piece. Yeah. And the other thing that I did that year is I used asparagus instead of green beans for the green bean casserole. Oh, yum. And  I didn't tell anybody. I didn't even think about it. And  one of the brothers-in-law came over to me after and he said, he said, what?
16:55I have never liked green bean casserole. What did you do?" And I said, used asparagus instead of green beans.  He was like, I thought that's what that was. And I said, yeah, he said, I love that. So you can surprise people with food. And it's really fun  to see the joy on their face when they hear what it was. It's funny because I have  literally like  so many green beans right now, because they just came in in the garden and I have just bags and bags of them. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with them.
17:25And I was thinking, I should just freeze some and use them in a green bean casserole at Thanksgiving time. Yep.  Absolutely. It's always so much better if you make your own green beans instead of the canned.  I kind of love canned green beans because I know some people feel like it's super nostalgic. Well, my mom used to can green beans from our garden and she would use those. So they're not the  metal canned ones. They're the jar canned  ones. And she actually sent me home.
17:54And when we visited, sent me home with like 15 pints of her canned green beans.  And my oldest son ate like eight of them. He had a pint of green beans a day for a week and a half.  That's funny. I said, you're going to be a green bean. He was like, no, not, not how it works. was like, okay. Well, and  the dilly green beans are always so good too.  So  I love this time of year because things are really, really coming in.
18:22I've said a billion times in the last six episodes that we have tomatoes coming in and we are almost the tipping point of being swimming in them. My husband planted 250 tomato plants this spring. Holy cow. That's awesome. And he's already been asked at the farmer's market if we're going to have enough for people to buy for canning. And  I'm pretty sure we're going to have enough for canning. Yeah. I'm finding that the tomato season this year is a little slow.
18:52Yeah. Yeah, I,  I,  okay, so in the spring, I plant all my seeds, and I have to be really careful because I only have 60 day growing season here.  So I plant all the seeds  and they got waterlogged, there was a storm, and I wasn't home to bring the trays in because I was hardening them off and they had an inch of rain on them. So I lost a bunch of seeds there. So then I went to the garden center and bought a bunch of things.
19:19And I've planted everything and with the smoke, it's just been slow. And now I barely even know what varieties I have because I have such a mishmash. So,  you know, every summer I usually can a ton of tomatoes. do a roasted tomato sauce. I sun dry a bunch. I don't know what I'm going to do this year. I think I might just make like a giant vat of sauce and mix them all together and just call it a tomato sauce here. You're going to drive to LaSore and get some tomatoes from me. That's what you're to do.
19:48Or it's my favorite farmers market, right?
19:53Well, you're always welcome to come visit here. Always.  So  you,  you have the podcast, you have the radio show,  you have your TV show and don't you guest  on, um,  on Jason's show now and then. it's kind of a funny story. Um, so  one of the reasons why I guest on his show is we're friends.  Um, but we weren't friends in the beginning.
20:23We literally so when I was starting out in radio, I started out having my own radio show with another woman and it was an afternoon show and it was talk show.  And after about a year and a half, she got fired and they called me in and said, well, we don't really want to fire you, but we don't know what to do with you. So  I was like, well, what are my choices? And they said, well, we don't know yet. So just keep coming to work until we tell you what's happening.
20:50So for about six weeks, I came to work every day and I would fill in with whatever producer was there. It was very hard actually, because it's hard to do a radio show with people just random every day.  And  finally, after about six weeks, they called me in and they said, well, we  hired a afternoon show and we hired Jason Matheson, but he doesn't want you as his radio partner.  And I was like, oh shoot. So like, does that mean I'm fired?
21:18And they said, no, we just don't know what we're going to do. And that was how I asked for the food show. Yes. So my food life in terms of broadcasting sort of culminated with Jason's becoming, um,  on our television or excuse me, on our radio show. And I was a little salty about it because I felt like, gosh, you know, I got fired for him to get the job and.
21:43So like in the beginning we were sort of like ships passing in the night at events and we were civil and cordial but then I actually like heard him and I started to listen to his show.  And he was so much better at it than I was and it made so much sense why he got the show so I kinda gave up some of that and then I got to know him as a person and he's so generous and so lovely and he really like during.
22:11Right before COVID, we had started doing TV segments together and it turned out we ended up having a lot of chemistry, which neither one of us would have thought we would have had.  And  he and I have done a lot on his show. He's certainly helped me at Fox with my own show. He's been super generous. He's the kind of person that really has the ability to shine the light.  And he does. And both of us kind of do that in our own ways, but
22:38Yeah, he's become like a really, really good friend and been so helpful to me from kind of weirdly auspicious beginnings, right? Yeah. And that happens. It's so weird how,  how you get pitted against each other through no fault of your own. And then you're like, no, I like that person. Yeah. And he's just so generous and, uh, he's been so kind and so great. So  I used to tell the story a lot. I try not to tell the story as much anymore, just because I don't want him to feel like, you know,
23:08there's this essential eternal payback because not he's paid me back 1000 times and more. Oh, yeah. I just I love that.  He is really someone that if he sees something in you, he will help you develop that and I like to be that person too. I've helped a lot of makers along the way and I really get just jazzed. So I like podcasting. I love talking to small business people. I love talking to people that are building and making things. It's just so fun and so interesting to see how people get started.
23:39You and I are going to be best friends because that's why I started mine too. Yeah. I wanted people to have a stage for half an hour at least to talk about what they do because it is so hard when you're a small business to market yourself in a public way, a big public way. And that, that was originally like my first podcast makers in Minnesota. We would have these people on for 10 minutes on a radio segment that, know, maybe they make hot sauce. Let's just say, so you talk to them about like.
24:08why their hot sauce is unique, why it's different, how they packaged it. But it felt like we were only just scratching the surface of their stories  by the time we had to wrap up with them. So I started that podcast so that I could spend more time with people in the food space and makers in general, because it expanded after that. But just to figure out like, how do they do their business? What's important to them? How does it all work? And that show was great. I had it for five years. I had over 300 and some episodes.
24:36And then I just felt like I'd kind of been there and done that. And the stories were feeling same.  So I was getting bored with it. I was like, what am I going to do now? And I was working on the cookbook. So I thought, well, I'll just change it to dishing with Stephanie's dish, which is a little more generic. And then I can talk to cookbook writers and still people in the food space if I want to just  on their journey and what that feels like. So that's kind of how things have evolved.
25:01Yeah. And the best thing about a podcast is it's yours. You can do whatever you want to do.  Okay. So I try to keep these to half an hour, but I have more questions. much more time do you have? Oh, I'm good. Okay. Cool.  Um, so  cooking is like something that people are diametrically opposed about. They either don't want to do it  or they're obsessed with it and they love it. So
25:29How do we get people to come into the middle on this? Because I feel like cooking is such an essential skill.  once you get the basics down, you can like expand exponentially forever if you want. So how do we get people into the middle?
25:47It's a couple of things. I think one is probably talking about what's in food. Um,  I have a sister who is a terrible cook and  she  really, and I, I use her as an example when I write my books and I write for her  because  she really knows nothing about food. She doesn't know about ingredients. She doesn't know about what's healthy, what's not healthy. And so she goes into a store.
26:15And she'll buy something that  is  natural, right? And she'll think like she's buying a good product for her or her family. And she doesn't know like when she reads the label, all the yucky stuff that's in the food.  I,  we can directly trace obesity to the  1970s when we started having a revolution in packaged goods. Oh, yes. And some packaged goods are great.
26:43And it's obviously convenient and I don't want to make people feel bad about cooking. But I think in the  opportunities that you have to make something yourself, you're just going to A, save money,  B, have a better product, C, it's going to be better for your health and your family. And for all the amount of time and energy we spend talking about people's unhealthy lifestyles and obesity and what's in everybody's food. If we just cooked, you can't put.
27:11Even if you cook with like conventional ingredients, you can't put more bad things into something than if you bought it on the store shelf. So just think talking about how do you want your family to eat? How do you want you to eat? You might be eating super simply. That's OK. You might like only have 10 things you can really cook. But if you can learn how to roast a chicken, you know, you've got three meals out of that chicken. At least, yes.
27:39Yes, you can make soup, can make chicken salad,  you can make a chicken salad wrap. Just the roast chicken on the first day you have it.  like when you go to like the store and you buy the,  you know, like if you go to Costco, they have the roast chickens for like eight bucks or whatever.  know, I like a roast chicken from Costco. I'm not opposed to it. I eat those on occasion.
28:03But if you can make your own, you can just taste the difference. The salt is so much less because it's not injected with chemicals  and the skin is different, which I love chicken skin. That's probably like my weakness.  It's different and it's better for you  and you can feel better about eating it.  Yes.  And the same thing with beef. If you like beef, if you get a decent roast and I mean, you can make a crappy roast taste good. It's just hard to do.
28:32It takes time and patience and knowing what you're doing. But if you can get a really good roast, put it in a crock pot for, I don't know, six, eight hours on low and throw in some veggies and a little bit of water and some seasonings. Let that thing hang out all day. Your house is going to smell good when you get home or if you're home, you're to want to eat it in two hours. That doesn't work. And you have some of that for dinner with the veggies and some potatoes or bread or whatever you want to do. That's one meal. And then you can make, um,
29:01beef stew out of it. And beef stew is one of my favorite things. You can't make good beef stew without making a good pot roast is my theory. I do think like the advent of, I mean, our moms had the pressure cooker, but it was so dangerous because they didn't smoke good, right? I think the advent of like the instant pot, the crock pot, the air fryer, the ninja blenders, like we do have all these great
29:29gadgets at our disposal that really make cooking a lot easier. Even like one of my favorite gadgets is my Cuisinart, because you can just whip up a pizza dough,  or you can make a pesto like super easy, or any kind of sauce.  I think we just make cooking super complicated, and it doesn't need to be. And just trying to like simplify ingredients to my refrigerator is literally just full of like condiments.
29:59because I cook all the time, but I do use a lot of condiments. So that's primarily what's in my refrigerator is condiments and produce. What's in my refrigerator is food from yesterday and the day before because my husband really likes something different every day. Oh, is he a mad leftover person? He is, but not the next day. Yeah. And so I'm always making something different every night. So he will nosh on something from the day before.
30:28like later in the evening, which I wish he'd stop doing, but I can't get him to stop. then whatever's left on the third day, we freeze. So we have it for the winter time. Yeah, I am a freezer hoarder. I'm not going to lie. the good news is we actually use it. So I have to force myself because there's just two of us and I still cook. I've always cooked for like six people. It's just the way I do it. I don't know why I try to make less and it always ends up making more. And I end up
30:58freezing a ton. And also like when you're developing a cookbook, you're testing recipes. When I'm doing stuff on the Jason show, I'm bringing food home because we generally don't have enough to like feed the audience. So I just bring that home. I wander around the neighborhood with food, you know, show up with zucchini, I show up with like, whatever I made on the show that day. And if we're making show for the taste buds with Stephanie show or making food, a lot of times we have one already made.
31:25just to speed up time.  When the crew is there, we're maximizing our time. Cause we really filmed that show in my real literal kitchen. So  we're, just always, I have so much food and always  just hoisting food on people.  I love that your neighbors must love you.  They do. have a single, she's not a single mom, but her husband travels and she's got two small kids that lives next door. I feed them a lot.  And then I started feeding kind of another family.
31:55My husband and I are just single people together, so  how much food can we eat? I do have a daughter that's 25 that will come over and raid my house for food, particularly proteins and meat products.  That's fabulous. I love that.  Okay, so  I ask people who cook this all the time, and I'm going to ask you too.
32:20What is the simplest way to get started to learn to cook? Like the basics.
32:28Ah!
32:31I think  doing it. Well, sure. Yes. Like the idea of just actually getting started. I think it starts at,  you know, some people are good about meal planning. So if you're not a cook, I think it feels sort of daunting. So maybe just pick like one recipe or two recipes you want to make a week. Most recipes have enough leftovers where you can get another meal out of it.
32:56So if you cooked two things a week or you batch cooked on a Sunday and made, let's say a soup, a protein and a grain, you'd have like grain bowls. You'd have burritos. You'd have soup. If you just pick two things a week that you want to cook and pick your favorite cookbook or pick a cookbook or go online, whatever works for you. I have tons of recipes at Stephanie's dish.com. can try. I think that will get you started. Just two things a week. Okay. Um,
33:26I always say when people ask me, I'm like, number one, if you're not comfortable trying something to cook something by yourself, find a friend who knows how to cook and ask them if they would let you come be in their kitchen while they're cooking. Because that way the pressure isn't on you. You get to see how it's done. You get to help if you want to. And people who love things love to teach the things that they love. Yeah. And maybe like
33:54Also, I think sometimes  when I go on Jason's show, those recipes are mostly assembly because we don't have a professional kitchen there. So  maybe you add another recipe to your repertoire each week. That's just an assembly recipe, meaning you buy all the separate ingredients and throw that together and that makes something. So whether it's like a grain bowl, a burrito, salad,  um,  finding ways to extend the life of the things that you have.
34:25Also, I think it's funny, but a lot of people that don't like cooking do like baking. They just for whatever reason that's their jam. So I tell people sometimes maybe start with like baking, like start with cookies, start with cakes, start with something that you think you would really want to eat. And that will maybe spark a love or a joy of it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um,
34:52The other thing that I've told people is if they're serious, if they really want to learn to cook, the first thing you want to do is get a saucepan, put some water in it and make it boil on the stove because that is one of the most important parts of cooking to me is knowing the difference between a a rolling boil,  a simmer and just warm water in a pan because you're going to use that a lot.  And I also, I also say learn to scramble eggs.
35:20Once you scramble an egg, that's cooking. You have accomplished the objective. You have learned to cook something. And then if you really like that, you can move forward. Yeah. I think for me, a roast chicken is a skill that I think everybody needs to master. When my daughter was in high school and getting ready to go to college, I was like, okay, do you know how to roast a chicken? Do you know how to  make rice? Do you know how to make an omelet?
35:49You know, just  can we, can we show you how to make a simple fettuccine, like a pasta dish as it were. Yeah.  And with those skillsets, you can really build on them. The funny thing about my daughter  is when I asked her, like, what are her favorite dishes that I make? She will say like, well, mom, never made the same thing twice. So  she doesn't have like those memories, but she has memories of me cooking all the time, but not like her favorite thing. And the way that she cooks now.
36:19I don't love project cooking. Like I don't love something that takes a couple days or that you have to have a like a skill like  filling dumplings for instance is like, man, that might be a little putsy and probably something I wouldn't do. But she does all of that. Like she'll make bagels from scratch. She does all those project based cooking. That's really interesting. What does she do for a job?  She does Rover. So she takes care of dogs.
36:49She does events  and she is on my show on taste buds on occasion.  We have her in the last episode we did, we took a knife skills class together. And I always assumed she had really good knife skills because she likes knives. She's liked knives since she was little, which I know sounds weird, but she did. And I have just terrible knife skills. And it turned out we both learned a lot just by taking a basic knife skills class.  Yeah, my knife skills have a lot.
37:16to be desired, but I don't realize it. when you watch yourself on TV or you see yourself and you know, you just are like, Oh, how I'm holding the knife isn't like how trained chefs are holding knives. And I used to be very intimidated about cooking in front of like TV because I was like, I'm just a home cook. Like I am not a chef. And when people call me a chef, I'm like, no, just a home cook Sally over here.
37:42Because I think, you you go to school, you learn these skills,  and I don't want to take that away from anybody. That's hard work. I just I like home cooking and I like cooking just for food that tastes good for you and your family. And that's kind of my point of view.  I'm the same. I never wanted to go into restaurant tour stuff. I had no interest. I wanted to raise my kids and feed them good food. So I'm a home cook, too.
38:08But taking a knife skills class probably would not hurt me because I'd probably be a lot safer with a knife in my hand and I'm not terrible at it. But you know, you know, you took the class  and it's hard. Yeah. Like, cause you have to kind of practice. So I now have some basic skills, but I still default to my not so good skills just because time energy, you know, but I,  I, it's interesting. I do know now when I'm using the knife, like, Oh,
38:37this isn't the best and so I'm trying to practice to do it right more. Yeah and the one thing that I will add to this and then I'm gonna ask you how we can find you and I'm gonna cut you loose. Speaking of knives, you want to use a sharp knife. not, don't be fooled, a dull knife will hurt you worse than a sharp knife when you're trying to cook. the smooshing of the food. Yeah and the slipping of the knife.
39:05If you try to cut into something that needs a sharp knife, that knife is going to slip if it's dull and you can poke the hell out of your hand and it hurts. sharp knives are great. And the problem is, that most knives that are affordable for home cooks don't hold an edge for long. And so I'm always asking my son and my husband, I'm like, can you please sharpen the knives this weekend? Cause they're getting dull and they're always like, yes ma'am.
39:32That's part of the skills class to like how to use a hone, how to use,  um,  what's the other, the round one. I can't think of the name of it. Steel. Yeah, the steel.  And then there's also this company that I took the class from. He's an entrepreneur. Uh, he owns a store called Vivrant, V I B R O N T and he's created this thing that's he's got a mobile sharpening truck, but he's also got this envelope.
40:00that you can go on his website and get called the sharp how  and you put your knives in this special envelope and you ship it to them and then they sharpen them and ship them back to you.  The number one reason people don't have sharp knives is just the barrier of having someone professional do it or not wanting to do it yourself apparently. Yeah, exactly. And I just I wanted to get that in there because I my mom.
40:26I've had this conversation with her like 10 times in the last five years about the fact that her knives aren't sharp. And she's like, I don't need them sharp. They work. They're fine. And I'm like,  mm.  Yeah. think  before I had sharp knives, I didn't realize the amount  of  progress that a sharp knife makes, but also like just if you're doing repetitive tasks, like I was getting a sore arm.
40:53And it was because I was having to work so hard away from my body with that knife versus if I had a sharper knife, I could use half the pressure. Yeah, exactly. It makes it so much easier. And again,  the right tool makes the job easier. It doesn't matter what you're doing. As long as you're the right tools, you're going to be more efficient at it.  Amen.  Okay, Stephanie, thank you so much for your time. Where can people find you online?
41:20Yeah, so Stephanie's dish.com is probably your first stop there you can find all my recipes links to my books,  links to any events that we're doing because we're getting ready to go out on a book tour.  All the shows that taste buds with Stephanie episodes are linked there. And then on any of the socials. So I'm at Stephanie's dish is really where you can find me on tik tok on Instagram, I do have a YouTube channel  where I do cooking.
41:48And the TV show has its own YouTube channel, Taste Buds with Stephanie, but Stephanie'sDish.com is probably your first stop.  Fantastic. Thanks for having me. was a blast. Again, Stephanie, thank you so much. As always, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com.  And thank you for listening. I appreciate it so much that people listen to this show.  You have a great day, Stephanie. Thanks. Appreciate it. Bye.
 

Dave Jackson at the School of Podcasting - why a podcast is an excellent way to promote your small business

Today I'm talking with Dave Jackson at the School of Podcasting. You can follow on Facebook as well.
“The School of Podcasting” Is a podcast that helps you discover the power of podcasting. It helps you avoid the common mistakes that podcasters make.  From planning, producing, and promoting your podcast along with all the tools and techniques. If you're looking to start a podcast or a veteran podcaster, you can catch some great insights with this free podcast."
"The School of Podcasting is for the person looking to launch their own podcast. They want to do it right the first time. They want to be seen as an expert, reach a global audience, make more sales, know their audience, meet like-minded people, and grow their community.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting in Akron,  Good afternoon, Dave. How are you? Mary, I'm doing great. Happy to be here. Good. I'm so glad you could come talk to me.  And I'm going to preface this whole thing by saying that it probably seems odd that I invited  basically a podcast coach  to
00:29visit with me on a tiny homestead, but some of my guests have asked, you know, have asked me about how to get started because they've expressed interest in wanting to start a podcast of their own. And so it does tie in also because podcasting is a craft and I talk to crafters and  it's an art. It takes practice and it takes creativity. So it's an art and a craft.  So having said all that.
00:56Why, Dave, is a podcast a great way to promote a small business? Well, there's a few reasons. Number one, I always say when you start off, like time everything you do. And that way you can say, oh, wow, this took, you know, 10 hours to do a one hour podcast. And then you can go, do I have 10 hours a week to do a podcast? And if not, either make it shorter, or you're not doing a weekly show you're doing every other week or whatever it is.
01:24So when you can come up with a schedule that you do on a regular basis, you become part of their routine. Like I listen to a show every Friday night. They drop it somewhere around two in the afternoon. And by six o'clock, I know it's going to be there. And I'm off to, this is how I party. I go to Walmart and I do grocery shopping. So, you know, that's how I'm rocking out on a Friday night. But I'm also listening to Adam Curry and Dave Jones on Podcasting 2.0. So you become part of their routine. And I've had people say,
01:52because I publish every Monday morning and they're like, Dave, you're with me on the way, you know, you're with me on the way to the feed store. Or  one guy said, I shower with you every Monday. And I go, that sounds a little weird, but okay. So that's one. So you're seen as reliable. And then when you give them content that they can use, they're like, oh, I,  I like her. She's really helpful. He's great or whatever it is. And then if you can make  a point with a story about whatever you're in your life, then they kind of get to know you.
02:22So now you've got the whole no like and trust factor going. And so when you say, oh, I've got this new soap or I've got these new fragrances or whatever it is you're selling, they're like, oh, I'm going to check that out because  you kind of start this law of reciprocity, which just basically means I've scratched your back with my podcast. Now you scratch my back by buying my stuff. But it is one of those things. know  one time when I was married, I had a 16 year old.
02:50who was dying to get his driver's license. And I found out within 20 feet of that kid, hey, can we go driving? Hey, can we go driving? And so I always say,  in that example, I said, when you start a podcast, you need the passion of a 16 year old wanting to get their license. And so I had people email me, they're like, oh, I have one of those too. She almost killed me last week, you know, that kind of thing. So it's just a way for your potential customers to get to know you.  And then
03:17sometimes behind the scenes stuff, you're like, Hey, we're trying this, this new product, we're not sure if it's going to work.  I know the there's a software company called Evernote, and they had a podcast where you had the CEO, the main marketing person,  and I think the community manager all doing this podcast together. And how often can you send in a question and have it answered by the CEO of a company?  And it was interesting because they had a segment like
03:47tell me how you're using  their product. And people would leave a voicemail  and without knowing it,  it got to turn it into a commercial. Cause they're like, oh, I tried this new thing and I didn't realize I could do this. And then the note would do this and there it was on my phone and this is amazing. So it's built in testimonials in some cases.  And I know  for me, I've had people that have just emailed me and said, wow, that really helped me do blank.
04:14Or, hey, will you talk about this? So sometimes you get an idea of like, oh, I didn't realize that my audience wanted this. So it's just an open communication with you and your potential customers and you're building trust and reliability along the way.  Okay. I agree with everything you said and I have a couple other things to add because I've been doing this for almost two years. And what I have found is that  number one, you are in control of the information that goes out about your business.
04:45And  you are the one who's excited about your business and the infectiousness of that is so  great to come out of your own voice for people to hear. And I feel like that's really important too. Yeah. The actress Aisha Tyler,  she was on Friends. She was the voice, one of the voices in the Archer TV show.  She's producing now, but she did a podcast and she did the whole thing. Like she recorded it. She edited Naudacity.
05:13She published it and she was speaking at podcast movement. And she said, you know, the one thing I really love about my podcast. And we're all like, what? And she's like, it's mine. She goes, it's a hundred percent mine. She goes, if I want to make it longer, I can't. If I want to make it shorter, she goes, and people go, well, you have your house. And she goes, do you really? She goes, cause unless it's paid for, it's still owned by the bank. And she goes, and if you're married, it's yours and your spouse's. She's like, this is mine. It is a hundred percent mine. And she goes, there's very little you can say in life that this is mine.
05:43And so she just loved it and you are in total control. And that's why I always tell people they, they kind of get stuck or they get worried about changing things. Like, your podcast is a recipe. It's not a statue. So if you want to make it shorter or you want to do gas, you don't want to do gas, whatever it's your show. can do whatever you want.  Absolutely. And considering that I spent  good God, 20 years living in a little small house, raising four kids  and
06:09trying to keep my husband fed and in clean clothes for work the next day.  Having something that's  mine as a woman is  amazing.  It just, you're right.  It's mostly women. Women don't have a lot that's just  theirs. We share almost everything with someone.  And so having something that is just  mine,  wanted to feel bad about feeling selfish about it, but I don't because...
06:37It makes me a better person and what I do helps other people. So there's nothing selfish in that. Absolutely.  Okay.  So I want to ask you a question that maybe no one's asked you yet, cause you're always talking about how you don't get very many new questions. I'm going to try.  Who do you think in the world of people whose voices have been recorded, who do you think has a really good voice? I have a reason for asking when you're done.
07:05Boy, that's a great question. I mean, there's,  I think his name was Vince Fontaine.  He was the in a world, you know, that guy. Yes. So everybody jumps to that. Who else do I think has a great voice? When I think of talking,  Howard Stern has a really deep radio guy, but that's kind of one of the reasons why podcasting took off  is when it first started back when I started in 2005.
07:32People weren't talking like this, everybody. All right, let's do it. Traffic and weather, like we talked normal. So that's one of the things. Those are two people that jump out. I'm trying to think if I listen to anybody else, there's a friend of mine that does the real Brian show that just, always comes across, you know, it's butter for your ears kind of thing. But those are a few off the top of my head. Okay. Well, I think that people think of James Earl Jones. I think that they think of, oh,
08:00I had his name this morning because I was thinking about this. Morgan Freeman. People like Morgan Freeman. was going to get to him. But  is it Tommy Lee Jones that played in... He was in The Fugitive. And  Men in Black. Yeah. Love his voice. And Helen Mirren, the actress.  She has the most beautiful voice to my ears.  And the reason that I ask is that you don't have to sound like those people to have a podcast.
08:28No, I remember Dr. Dave from Shrinkwrap Radio. was at an event and he was in the line behind me. We started talking and Dr. Dave sounds a little bit, there's  a basketball coach named Doc Rivers, but they gotta sound like this.  And Dr. Dave from Shrinkwrap Radio, goes, who's gonna listen to me? I sound like this. And I go, dude, the beautiful thing is that's your natural voice. That kills me to do that. But  I was like, I go, you sound like that naturally. And I go, and nobody sounds like you.
08:59You know, Todd Cochran from  Geek News Central. This is Todd Cochran. goes, look, I don't have a radio voice. This is the way I sound and this is what I'm going to do. So welcome to Geek News Central. I'm glad you're here. This is Todd Cochran. And he said, look, that's how I sound. so the, know right now, authentic is a word that everybody's throwing out, but that's because there's a lot of fake stuff out there. And when it's authentic, it really resonates. And so, yeah, you don't have to sound. I know people say, oh, you have a radio voice. And I go, it's just what.
09:25The good Lord gave me, I didn't do anything to, you this is the way I sound. You can take my mom and dad, but other than that,  it's, it's really more the content than how you sound. mean, if as long as it's not distracting and what's even  more interesting about that,  um, there's a guy named Michael Hyatt that did a show with Michelle Kashokton. was great. And Michelle, unfortunately kept battling cancer and eventually had, I guess, cancer in her tongue and they, and they cut half of it out.
09:55So when Michelle came back and I'm not making fun, but she had that S's saying, so where it sounds like this. And I thought, I'm never going to be able to listen to a podcast like this. And it was just a weird thing where after about two minutes, your brain just ignored it.  And I was like, well, good on you. Cause I could see where a lot of people like, I'm not going to do that. sound, my S's are kind of different now. I'm like, they're different, but I can, you know, I'm not hanging up on you. You know, it's not something where I'm like, oh, my ears, can't take it.
10:23You know, we all, mean, people from the South sound different than people in the North and people from Africa. all have different accents and all. It's not a big deal. And, uh, I'm a big fan of all sorts of accents. It's so much fun. mean, one of the things I love the most about doing my podcast is I talk to people everywhere. I talked to two or three people in Canada last month. I've talked to people in Australia, in England and Australia. I always try to make sure that I hear their voice before I confirm I'm going to chat with them.
10:53because if their accent is too heavy, it is really, really difficult to understand. And so I kind of vet those because I'm like, if I can't understand them, sure as hell people aren't going to be able to understand them any better than I can.  Um, so yeah, you don't have to be a certain kind of voice. You just have to have fairly clear diction. And sometimes you don't even have to have that. And you have to have heart and you have to be genuine, I think. And so.
11:22I guess my next question is how easy is it to start a podcast? I know how easy it is because I had no idea what I was doing when I started two years ago and I figured it out. But go ahead and tell me how easy it is.  it's it's you have a lot of the skills  and and  one other last thing on your voice, you're going to hate it because when you talk, you listen through your ears and your skull. So your skull,  the technical term is bone conduction. But when you hear your
11:49voice through just speakers and not your skull, it's going to sound less bassy. And so you'd like, not bad. It's just different. But in terms of easy, you buy a microphone, you have to figure out what you want to talk about. And people like, I don't know anything about audio. And I'm like, okay. Um, do you, have you ever used Microsoft word? And they're like, yeah. And I go, so if you have a sentence and you don't want it anymore, what do you do? And they're like, well, I highlight it and delete it. go, well, guess what? In audacity, if you
12:18see something you said and you don't want it,  you highlight it and you delete it. I go, if you're in the car and your jam comes on, so you crank up the radio and then the phone rings, what do you do? Well, you turn down the radio if you're in a state that you can answer the phone and you answer the phone. And I go, congratulations, you know how to mix audio. Cause you had to turn down the radio enough to where it wasn't, you know, if you're letting it play in the background, cause it is your jam, you know, so you can turn that down. If you've ever
12:46attached a photo to an email, then you can upload an MP3 file to your media host. So I'm not saying that there is no learning curve. I'm just saying it's not half as hard as you think it is. really isn't.  Yep, exactly.  Is it,  again, I know the answer.  Is it expensive to start a podcast? I always say it's about the price of an Xbox.  The microphone,
13:12that I recommend a lot is this is a Samsung Q2U that goes for around 70 to 80 bucks. And then you throw in, and it always depends on what you're doing. If you are, have more than one person in the same room with you, I recommend a piece of equipment called the Zoom Pod Track P4. That's around 160 bucks. So I usually say it's, it's about the price of an Xbox to start. And then the beauty of it is the longer you do your show,
13:41you know, now it's like, oh, I spent $300 the first year, I spent, you know, you know, $20 a month the next year, and that was it. So over time, it starts to, you know, not so much depreciate, but you know, the the artwork I designed, I don't know, probably five years ago, you know, and at the time it was I hired a real graphic artist, and I paid him, I think, two or $300. And that was a chunk of change.
14:09But that was five years ago. So now it's down to $60 a year for that artwork. So it's, like anything else. I mean, when you start up a business, you've got to put money out for, you know, a display case maybe or whatever it is. There's always money to start. And then from there, hopefully you bring in some results so that it pays for itself. Okay. Well, I only spent about, I bet I only spent about $50 total when I started mine.
14:39Yeah. And I probably have spent,  I would guess $400 in two years. Yeah. I mean, if you're doing a solo show, you know, you buy that microphone, there's your 50, 60 bucks. Um, you can use free media hosts. Not my favorite thing. Cause free is a horrible business model and they tend to go out of business, but there are places like red circle that have a free option. I'm really not a fan of Spotify, but I love them as an app.
15:06And I love them as a music service, but as a podcast service, I wish they'd kind of go back in their lane. But Red Circle is a media host. My favorite media host is Captivate and that's 19 bucks a month. If I go month to month, and I think it's 17, if I go,  if I buy a year's worth of hosting. But if you're doing a solo show, that's it. You could use Canva, which is free to make your artwork.  And you, most media hosts have a website  built in, which is okay. It'll get you going.
15:35I'm assuming you already have a website for  your business so you can just embed the podcast into that. And yeah, so you can easily get going for a hundred bucks or less.  Yep.  And that's why I love it because I needed a project two years ago and I didn't want to spend tons of money and I didn't want to spend tons of brain  space and time.  And I was like,  I'm going to start a podcast. And my husband looked at me like I was nuts because he's like, don't even like your voice. And I said,
16:04No, but it's a challenge and I need a challenge right now. And he said,  Oh yeah, you always do better when you're focused on a project. And I was like, yes, yes, I do.  Maggie is barking in the background.  That's my, uh, my mascot. And since it's a tiny homestead podcast, we don't, we don't get bothered by Maggie Barking.  We're used to dogs barking.  Yeah. And, and roosters crowing.
16:29and birds singing and frogs chirping and it's all good. just, it's so,  it bothers me more than I think it bothers my listeners.  She's such a good watchdog, Dave. I love her so much. That's what you mean. I talk about her all the time. It's sickening.  Um, okay. So what else was it going to ask you? Like I said, I was very nervous about chatting with you because you are a podcast coach. And so
16:58Now I'm all flustered. have a friend of mine. She's known as grammar girl  and there's nothing more nerve wracking than sending email to grammar girl the whole time. You're like, wait, do I use a comma here or a semi colon? So I know how you feel.  Yeah, it's really weird. I haven't been this jittery about a podcast recording in,  Oh my God, a year and a half.  Um, so she's going to keep barking. Somebody's probably at our farm stand buying,
17:24tomatoes right now probably that's probably why she's barking her head off. A full disclosure Dave is my coach. actually finally invested in myself so I could learn some things I didn't know because one of the things I've discovered over the last two years is that sometimes you can do it yourself and as a homesteader we do a lot of do it yourself but sometimes it really helps to have a fresh set of ears or eyes on what you're doing and gives you an honest opinion back. Yeah absolutely.
17:54Instead of just mom.  Well, yeah, I, uh, I just hired a coach. do  occasionally off and on. I'll, bring somebody in just because  I mean, I'll give you an example. I had a  member of the school of podcasting email me and she said, Dave, you know, I love you, but, I'm like, oh, that's, that's not good when there's a, but after that,  and, uh, she's like, you have a typo  in your show. And I'm like, well, which one I have like for podcasts. And she's like, no, no,  in the school of podcasting. And I'm like,
18:23wait, but what episode? She's like, no, no, it's in the show. And I'm like, no, there's no way. And so I went in to look at it and there it was school of podcasting planned launch, grow and monetize.  And I'd forgotten an E and I was like, I can't believe I never saw that. And I was like, well, congratulations, Kim, you're, you're now in every, you know, presentation I do about that. So yeah, you don't know what you don't know. And a lot of times you're too close to,  to see it. So it's always good to have a
18:52another set of eyes to look at to check things out. Yeah, and we're all our worst enemies and we're too close to the things that we love to do. And so you put those two things together and there's always going to be something you miss. mean,  I've made a cake before and forgotten to put the sugar in and I cook all the time. Yeah, that would be different. So it happens and  it's ridiculous. And you're like, how was I that dumb that I didn't put the sugar in the cake? Not so.
19:20You're a coach and  your rates are incredibly reasonable for what you're teaching, especially the fact that people can get hold of you and ask a question at any point in time. Coaches can charge anywhere from $50 an hour, which is too little, I think, to hundreds and hundreds of dollars an hour. And you don't do it that way. Well, I do. just, if you're smart, you would never
19:48buy my services that way. If you want to hire me, it's 200 bucks an hour.  I love my backgrounds in teaching. I've been teaching people technology since the fax machine, basically.  it was  just one day I was, you know, I'd go and I'd knock on doors exactly, well, you know, electronic doors, you know, via email. And I'd, you know, I'd answer a bunch of questions for people and then they'd
20:13Finally, eventually they would hire me for an hour. I'd answer every question they have and I never hear from them again because I solved their problem.  And that's fine. But  I, my favorite thing being a teacher that you want is a willing student. And so I was like, well, I love to coach.  And it dawned on me that my quote high ticket item, right? My one-on-one coaching really wasn't that high ticket. Cause by the time I knocked on that door and answered a few questions and answered a couple more questions. And then they finally, it's like,
20:42You know what? It's, yeah, it's 200 bucks an hour, but it wasn't an hour. It took me three hours to get them to hire me for one hour. And I was like, well, that's dumb. And I was like, let's raise the price of the school of podcasting a little bit and just offer unlimited coaching. Cause that's what I love to do. And so it's worked out great. People stick around maybe a little longer than they used to.  They typically don't leave anyway, but if you want to, of course you can always do that. There's a 30 day money back guarantee, but I get to coach now right before I was on this interview. just.
21:12was helping Nancy  do some stuff and captivate that she didn't know was there. And so to me, that puts more gas in my tank than money in the bank. I got money in the bank. I'm not starving by any means, but to me, I've always been a person that just loves to help people. And I remember there's a pretty popular podcaster named Jordan Harbinger,  and we were sitting next to each other at an event and this guy came up  and
21:40I had a couple of questions and I answered them and he looked at me and goes, wow, he goes, that is just your jam. And I go, what? He goes, you really just love helping people. goes, you totally lit up while you're answering that guy's questions. And I go, that's just, I don't know where that gene came from. I go, but that's what I just love to do.  I love that you love to do it. And I love that you want to help people with it because  you can love to eat chocolate cake. It doesn't mean that's going to help anybody. Right.
22:08Well, I think part of it was when I was growing up, my dad was a long distance truck driver. So he wasn't, he wasn't missing, but he also wasn't there. He would get home on Thursdays and leave on Sunday. So he was home part of the week. But I remember once I was at a church event and it was a whole thing. If you remember where you would tie your inner legs together and then you would race together. I had a three-legged race. I think that's what they call that. And all the kids were doing this with their dad. Cause I think it was father's day or something, some sort of picnic thing.
22:36And I just remember sitting on the sidelines going, how come I'm the only guy here without a dad? And, know, I want to have a pity party and go eat worms. And so I just remember that feeling of being on the outside.  so anytime somebody's like, well, I would, I would love to start a podcast, but who would listen to me? Like, I'm just, you know, and I was like, Oh, I know that attitude. Somebody will listen to you. And so, uh, you know, and as I get older now, I have more respect for my dad than I did when I was, you know, 18.
23:05Cause I'm like,  as I travel around, I'm like, Oh man, I can't believe he did that as a living. But nonetheless, for me, I don't want anybody feeling like they're on the outside. Right. Exactly. And that's what makes you the person that you are. And I appreciate it. And I know that the people that are in the community  at the school of podcasting appreciate it too.  Um,  so  the great thing about podcasting is that it doesn't have to have a certain format.
23:33You can do a solo episode and talk about whatever you want to talk about. You can do it like I do it with interviews because I don't want to talk about myself. I really do like feeding off the other person's answers.  You could start a podcast reading the encyclopedia, literally the books, the last version that was ever printed out loud into the mic and use that as something that people have put their kids to sleep with.
24:02You know, you could do anything. And if you hate it, you just don't do it anymore. Yeah. I mean, it's, as long as it's not copyrighted, you're, good to go. And that's why a lot of people now are taking books like Winnie the Pooh,  which is past its, you know, whatever, statute of limitations or whatever they call it for a book. And like that's allowed now to be read. And so people are doing that.  And yeah,  it really is open to do whatever you want. And
24:32I've started probably in the 20 years I've been doing this, probably over 30 different podcasts. And yet I'm doing four. So that means 26 of them, either A, like I did one show for about 10 years. I did another one for about 12. But I remember I did one for about six episodes. It was called the customer service show because one of my backgrounds when I'm not teaching is in customer service. And I had this idea of, I'll start a customer service show. I'll put myself out as an expert and I'd won awards for my customer service and blah, blah, blah.
25:01And I did about six episodes and it dawned on me customer service was my job, but it wasn't really my passion. And after about six episodes, I just sounded like a grumpy old man. I went into McDonald's today and nobody even said hi, wah, you know, just complaining about everything. And I was like, yeah, okay. And so that's when I learned. Yeah. Sometimes your passion isn't your job. So you don't always have to do a podcast about your job.  I did one show.
25:27that was gonna be based on audience feedback. It was called the Dates From Hell Show, where you would share your  horrible. And somebody dared me to do it. It was myself and my ex-wife, and we had this conversation. And somebody said, this would be a great podcast. Well, we both had maybe three stories. And after about six episodes, we started finding other people's stories and we're telling them like, hey, here's the phone number, call in your thing. And then it dawned on me that what's that number one fear among humans? Oh, that's right.
25:55speaking in public and oh by the way while you're here can you throw yourself under the bus because you had this horrible dating experience and so we just didn't get hardly any feedback and that that show just died because there wasn't any content but I was like okay note to self if you're gonna do a crowd  you know basically  a show that's based on crowd feedback  you need a crowd first  so  you kind of there's a great quote I think it's
26:23Nelson Mandela that said, either win or I learn one of the two.  so, you know, in some of these cases, you're like, oh yeah, that doesn't make any sense. So, and then you don't beat yourself up. You're like, okay, well, let's, let's pivot and try it a different way.  And  the Nelson Mandela quote reminds me of something that I say all the time and that failure is not failure. It's a learning opportunity. Yep. And if you can't learn, why are you here? Right.
26:53Because otherwise you're just doomed to repeat things over and over and over. You know, why don't we touch the stove a second time? Yeah. We learned. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.  The other thing that's great about using a podcast to promote a small business is that if you're like, we are here, we are a seasonal business. Right now,  we have tomatoes coming in and we're going to be drowning in them next week. They just started ripening up last week. And  I literally do.
27:23I put out an episode every morning, Monday through Friday at 7 a.m.  And I try to work in what's in season and what's in the farm stand. So lately it's been, oh, we have tomatoes in the farm stand. Oh, we have eggs in the farm stand. And people who are local who listen know and they come and they buy their eggs and their tomatoes from us, which works out great. But if you have a new line of something you're producing, if you have a book coming out, if you're going to be on the local TV station,
27:52You can say all that on your podcast and it is totally free game. Absolutely. There's a, if you come to Akron, Ohio, where I'm based, there is a  ice cream stand called Stricklands and it's about, I don't know, four blocks from my house.  And they now have a website and you can go and see what, cause they change their flavor every day to something new.  And I would love if they had a podcast that I could subscribe to and they're like, Hey, welcome. It's.
28:20You know, August 9th, 2025, this week we've got, you know, Oreo cookie on Monday, pineapple on Tuesday, you know, just to keep me informed. Now that audience is never going to be ginormous, but it's not about having a big audience. It's about having the right audience. And so, like you said, your local listeners will subscribe to your show because you're saving them, you know, time. They're like, oh, tomatoes are finally in. I know here in Ohio, there's Dussel's corn.
28:48And we're all dying. Like, is the corn in yet? Is the corn in yet? Well, if you had a podcast saying, hey, guess what? Corn's in. You know, then I know it's time to drive out to Hartville and get some corn. Yep.  Absolutely. It's, it's,  it's one of the best ways to communicate information  real time, quote unquote, there is right now, because I used to be able to get my news from our cable TV provider, but then they decided that
29:15We didn't need cable TV anymore. So it's really our internet provider.  And they were like, your network stations are going away. We're not offering that anymore. And I was like, what, really?  Okay. And we didn't even want them to begin with when we moved here five years ago. They were just part of the package.  I know some businesses, especially real estate people will start a hyper local show about just their small community brought to you by them.
29:44Basically, they're their own sponsor and because they want everybody to know that, if you are buying or selling a house, you know, go talk to Jim or whoever. And so they'll do this hyper local show because the only people that would listen are people in that area, which is great. Cause that's who he or she is trying to get ahold of. So yeah, there are lot of different ways you can, can use this. It all doesn't have to be like, hi, I'm, you know, Sheila, the real estate person today. We're to talk about real estate. Well, is that what your target?
30:14customer would listen to, know, maybe make it more about,  you know, the area. And then the other thing you can do is if you are doing something, maybe you're selling some sort of canned goods that have a shelf life, you can say, oh, the peaches are in the cans. Wait till you see these are delicious. You got to see them. We've got pictures on our website. Well, now you've created a brain gap  and a brain gap is where your brain hates it when somebody goes bump, bump, bump, bump, and you're like,
30:42please say bump, bump, that's how that ends. And so when you give them something and they're like, oh, it's, know, they're perfectly orange with a little bit of red and the fuzz and whatever it out, you're, you're describing this. You're like, really just got to go to the website to see it. You can see it at whatever your website is. There are going to be people that like, I've got to see the end of this. I got to go see what these look like. So it's another way to drive traffic to your website. It sure is. And in the selfish space that I find myself in a lot with my podcast,  I
31:11didn't have anyone to talk with about homesteading because I didn't know anybody who was homesteading. And  once I started asking people to come talk to me about what they did at their homestead or what they bake or what they make,  I could geek out with people of like minds and  oh my God, what a gift. Oh, absolutely. When I always say if you do a solo show,
31:36you grow your influence. And this is where you just talk to your invisible friend across the desk that you're excited to tell them that tomatoes are in or whatever it is. So there's that. And then if you do  interview shows, you grow your influence.  And this is where, like you said, like for me, who else can I geek out about podcasting with? Some of my best friends are quote my competition because they do the same thing I do. But when we get together, we're like, Oh, have you heard about this new microphone or whatever it is?
32:03And so, yeah, you grow that, that network  and that really comes in handy. Cause I don't know if you've  ever run into a situation where you run out of something and you can call up another farm and go, Hey, we're out of so-and-so. Can I borrow, you know, such and such from you? And, know, it's always great to have that network of friends that you can rely on. And especially if somebody comes to you and says, Hey, do you guys sell this kind of product? And you go,  no, but my friend does, you know, so it's, it's not always.
32:33What you know, it's, or how's it go? It's not always who you know, but who knows you or something of nature. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Yeah, that's it. And so,  you know, and there are people that when I first started, my very first podcast was for musicians.  And  I just started reaching out to people that I grew up listening to thinking, oh, they're not, they don't even know what a podcast is, let alone they're not going to come on mine.
32:58And one of them was the drummer for Rod Stewart and he was the drummer for Ozzy Osbourne and all these other people, really famous guy, been doing it forever. And he just put up a website that would teach people how to drum. Well, I had a bunch of drummers in my audience and I reached out and I said, Hey, I do this podcast thing and I see you have this thing. I think my audience might be interested in that. And the next thing I know I'm on the phone with them, recording an interview. So it's amazing. You  would think.
33:25And they would, if I didn't have a podcast, he'd be like, get out of here, kid. know, Hey, can I talk to you for 20 minutes and pick your brain? He'd be like, get out of here, kid. bother me. But if I say, you want to come on my podcast and get in front of my audience of people that you're trying to get in front of? They're more than likely to do that. So, and if they say no, that isn't always no, it's not now. I have a friend of mine named Pat Flynn and he had the nerve to keep having children. And every time I had asked him to come on the show, he's like, ah, I can't really book anything because
33:54you my wife's about ready to give birth and I was like, Oh, okay. And eventually he had a product come out. He wasn't giving or his wife wasn't giving birth to anybody and he came on my show. So sometimes if you get a no, it's not a no, it's not now. Yup. My dad's favorite joke about people, about women being pregnant and he would never say it to the people that were  with the impending baby.  He would say, don't they know how that happens?
34:21I'm like, please don't ever say that to the people that are expecting because you take all the joy out of their  impending childbirth. don't. It's like, would never. And I'm like, well, you probably shouldn't even be saying it out loud because the minute you say something out loud,  you're probably going to say it at the most inopportune time. Well, and that's the beauty of podcasting. People worry about, oh, I'm going to sound stupid. Well, only if you don't edit out the stupid stuff.
34:47So I'm not perfect at all when I record. There are times when my mouth decides to leave early and I just, you know, I pause for 10 seconds and then say it again and cut out the bad one and keep the good one. And, you know, so,  and sometimes I'll interview somebody that's, I thought they were going to be a great guest, but they weren't. And I'm like, okay, well, we'll keep the good stuff and leave the bad stuff. So, you know, when you're putting your tomatoes out and some of them have a
35:13weird black hole in it and you know they're just not really okay you edit those out you put the good ones out it's kind of the same thing. Yep when I when I'm done talking with you my husband went to the farmers market today to sell some of our tomatoes and I said please either buy or trade for cucumbers because all our cucumber plants died this year because it's been so wet and he came home with six cucumbers so I bet you can I bet you know what I'm gonna be eating after I get them talking with you. There you go.
35:43Yes, I am. I'm so excited. I haven't had a garden fresh cucumber since last year at this time. I'm so excited. Yummy. Yeah, I  we live.  We live the life here. What what you hear on my podcast is our life. And it's so fun.  A friend of ours has a mama cat who is pregnant right now.  And she was my friend was just going to bring us three kittens back a couple of months ago for barn cats.  And
36:12They didn't socialize the kittens. They haven't been able to catch them. And so she's bringing me the mama cat who is due with babies in a couple of weeks.  And mama cat's gonna have her babies here, which is totally fine. That gets us some more barn cats.  And I said, do you want the mama cat back? And she's like, no, we have three females. You can have one of them.  And the female cat's name is Smokey. I haven't ever seen her before. So we're gonna have a new cat arriving here tomorrow.
36:40And the reason that I share the story is our dog has experienced three barn cat litters in the last two years.  And there have been no kittens here this year. And this spring, she was looking at the pole barn like, are my friends?  Because every time they come out of the pole barn, that's when she gets introduced to the new babies and she's very much a mama personality. And the kittens love her. So my dog is gonna be really happy in about three weeks.
37:08Yeah, when there's new kiddies around and these are the stories that I tell and it's our life And when I ask other people about their lives and how they do it I get to hear other stories like that, but they're always  Different and that's what makes it so fun and so special Yeah, and the only people that know what it's like It are people that are doing the same thing you are. I had of a friend Haley Radke does a show
37:37It's called adoptees on and it's all about being adopted.  And she was telling me once how she goes, well, if you watch the afterschool special, you know,  the, people are looking for their biological parents and they find them and it's this, Oh, I've been looking, you've I've never, I've thought about you every day kind of thing. She goes, that's not always the case. Sometimes they'll spend three, five years tracking down their parents only to be rejected again. And that hurts just to say it.
38:04And she goes, and the only people that understand what that's like are people that have gone through it. And so the only people know what it's like to be a homesteader are other homesteaders. Cause you can try to explain it to it, but until you're down in the trenches, you know, you just don't know what it's like. And then there is that, I don't know, I guess peace did like, okay, I'm not the only crazy person that's out here chasing chickens around the yard or whatever it is you're doing that some days when you're like, Oh, why am I doing this?
38:33And you see, I did that. Here's the trick on how to catch a cat that you can't get to or whatever it is you're doing. Uh, it's the same thing with podcasting. Everybody thinks we're, we're weird nerdy geeky people. And then you get together at a conference and you're like, Hey, look, it's a whole bunch of nerdy geeky people. I don't feel so weird right now. So yeah, you, you, you love that connection to people that, that get it. Cause there's only way to get it. And that's because they're doing it too. Yep. Absolutely. All right, Dave, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're like.
39:02Ten minutes past that by now.  When we're done recording, don't leave because I need your file to upload. You know how this works.  tell me where people can find you. Yeah. You can go over to schoolofpodcasting.com is my main website. If you want to see everything I'm doing, you can go to powerofpodcasting.com. Awesome.  As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  And thanks, Coach. I appreciate you visiting with me. Oh, thanks for having me. This was great. All right. Have a good rest of your weekend.
 
 

Practical Prepping with Mark Lawley

Today I'm talking with Mark Lawley at Practical Prepping. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Mark Lawley at Practical Prepping in Alabama. Good morning, Mark. How are you? Good morning, Mary. Doing well.  How's the weather there this morning? This morning, it is fairly nice. We're at 83 degrees right now, which is a whole lot better than that 98 we were at last week.
00:30Oh yeah, no doubt.  It is exceedingly muggy in Minnesota this morning to the point that we had ground fog in our door yard this morning. We have had the exact same thing. I just looked over here at the weather station and we've got 76 % humidity here right now. Yeah, it's so gross. I can't wait until mid-September. Yeah, I'm ready for Thanksgiving.
00:55I'm not quite there because I really do want our tomatoes to keep producing because we are going to be swimming in tomatoes by midweek next week. Well, we have some grandsons playing football and it's just not some, there's something not right about sitting at a football game wearing a t-shirt.  You need to be wearing a jacket. And so I'm looking for football weather at least.  Yeah. It's been.
01:21I mean, I don't want to spend 20 minutes talking about the weather because it's boring, but the last two years have just been insane. And I really, really, really would like Mother Nature to become more moderate for next growing season because it has really messed with our farm.  Yes. And not just the growing seasons and such, but you look around at some of the things that have happened this year.  The floods, the earthquakes, the
01:50The fires,  the wildfires are somewhat normal. We're accustomed to having those.  But we've been having more  floods. We've been having,  and in places that never flood, we've had hurricanes 200 miles inland that have caused floods,  caused major power outages that have lasted four to six weeks in some areas.
02:16And  that's one of the reasons that we are trying to get people to be prepared. Yes, absolutely.  And since we're talking about the weather, that actually was a really good lead-in to this particular episode. So tell me a little bit about yourself  and what you do. Well, I'm retired law enforcement  and  have a long history of being involved in disaster relief.
02:46I talk disaster relief, I've been on many disaster relief scenes coming in,  in a number of capacities. And one of the capacities is chainsaw teams and mud out teams and such as that  to help folks to recover afterwards. And what we actually do is we teach people how to be prepared for life's emergencies. That's what we do. Yep.
03:16And really what we do from a prepping standpoint and you do from a homesteading standpoint is we live like our great grandparents and grandparents did  in a lot of areas. Now, they didn't have all the modern conveniences that we have,  but they prepared food for the winter.  They had tools if something happened.
03:41I have a house on the old home place where my dad grew up and where I grew up as a small kid. And when dad grew up, that was a working farm. When I grew up, it was a hobby farm.  you didn't,  if something broke, you didn't just jump in the truck and run to the store.  You had to have on site what you needed to fix it or to deal with it.  And  it was just life for them. And so what we try to do.
04:12is pretty much have everything that we could need. Well, to give you an example, last year I had a limb fall, poked a hole through the roof. So I got my ladder out, I got my things out, I went up there and I patched the roof. And about six months later we had a new roof put up.  But I had those things to be able to do that. Something breaks, I want  what I need here.  And I learned some of that from my dad.
04:39You need to have whatever you need to fix a problem at home.  If it breaks at 10 o'clock on Tuesday, on, Saturday night.  And that's plumbing, that's electrical, that's whatever. But I also have the skills to do those things. Yeah. I'm going to jump in just for a second.  I am so  baffled by the fact that so many young people don't have.
05:09this information, you know, as part of their upbringing because  I'm 55. Okay.  My dad just turned 82 on  July 30th  and he acts like he's 55 still and he still acts like he needs to be ready for anything coming down the road. And he does, everybody does. Right. And  they taught  my siblings and I how to prepare for things that we couldn't see coming. Right.
05:39And  I taught my kids because they watched me do it when they were growing up. how in heck did we lose this? Well, we're two generations  into  soft. Let me call it that.  We're two generations into  being able to just call a plumber, call an electrician, call somebody, go to the store and get it, you know, whatever.
06:07but  we're into the quick fix. I joke about, we live in a microwave society.  When my dad popped popcorn, that was a 20 or 30 minute process for us to have popcorn once a week, one night a week. And  it was good. It was good popcorn.  Well, today we have these packets of popcorn that are not all that bad, but you pop them into the microwave for 90 seconds.
06:37And you know, that shortcuts the process quite a bit, but then here we are, we get impatient with it taking 90 seconds for our popcorn to get ready.  So that's why I call it a microwave society.  We're into instant gratification and we want that popcorn right now. We don't want to wait that 90 seconds. Yeah, which is just crazy.  I,  I understand that this is a thing that, that people
07:06do. And we used to have an air popper, you know, the one that you plug into the wall. And I don't like it that way. I like it in a pan that has oil in the bottom and a little bit of salt and some corn kernels and you throw them in and you put the lid on and I like listening to it pop. And that may just be me, but it tastes really good when it's done. I think it tastes better. I really do. the, and Krista and I will do that once in a while.
07:36But more often, if one of us wants some popcorn, we'll pop one of the little mini bags  into the microwave and do that.  Yep. I don't do that because there's stuff in there that I don't really know what it is and I don't want to put it into my body. will pass.  I'm becoming more and more that way,  but I've not completely made that transition.
08:02Yeah, and  it probably won't kill you, but I just, don't know. I like doing things from scratch and that's just,  it's just me and my family.  I was gonna say that I was listening to your podcast, one of the newer ones about food storage, you know, for having stuff for three to seven days or whatever it was.  And  one of the things that I didn't hear in that podcast  is  where
08:31you can store stuff. Have you covered that on your podcast? We have covered that. We, when Krista and I first married 10 years ago and moved together and we were more or less starting over, we lived in an apartment for a couple of years and we did an episode on prepping in small places. And one of the things that we did in that apartment is we stored under beds,
09:01We stored literally behind the couch, we had two of these  columns that we had used in a display somewhere and we had a large glass top that went on top of those. So we put that behind the couch and Krista put a cover over that and we slid the couch back against it. And so we had all of that room  under that particular table to store things.
09:28We did the same thing with the round table that our television sat on. We put a floor length  covering on it and we use the area under that table. But under bed storage is great. We stored in pretty much every corner in the closets. We stored things in the top of the closet.  Some things we actually stored in the back of my pickup truck that was in
09:57the parking lot, like 20 pound bottles of  propane. They got real snippy about you having 20 pound bottles of propane at the apartment.  I bet they did. I stored those. I had a locking cap on the pickup, so we stored those in there. And they just rode with us anywhere we  went. We found all kinds of storage places.  You can store under furniture.
10:26I've known of some folks dedicating a couple of drawers out of dressers or chest of drawers and  using those for storing food.  You can store a lot in a small space. I didn't go back far enough in the episode to find it, but I just wanted to ask because that's a big thing for people who live in smaller spaces. Oh yes,  definitely. And the other house that we have that's on the
10:53old home place, the entire house is only a thousand square feet.  and I raised a family there, but we had to have kind of unthought  of  storage.  We stored a lot of things  under the back porch. Now it was enclosed. Now I say the back porch, it was closed in,  but we stored things under there. We stored things in the top of the closet in the laundry room. So,
11:22You just have to get creative with it. Yep, absolutely. And I just wanted to hit on that because  I lived in a really small house  with my four kids and my husband up until five years ago.  And  we always bought things extra and put them away in case we needed them. Because  Minnesota gets real cold, real icy, and real snowy in January. And sometimes you can't get out of your driveway. And so we've always planned ahead. We've always been.
11:51Preppers in the true sense of the word, we are preparing for stuff that is going to happen. Right.  And in Alabama, it doesn't take inches.  Half inch of snow and the city shuts down, but we're not equipped to handle it. And it happens really rarely. Okay. It's not like this happens every year. Right. But every five to 10 years, we'll get one that will
12:21have a lot of ice in it and  maybe we're stuck inside for a week. So we were like you, we want to be able to not have to try to get out. Yep.  Absolutely. And the other reason that I was very much looking forward to talking with you  is I saw on the news either yesterday or today, I can't remember,  that because of the tariffs that are going into place, coffee is going to go up.
12:51And  I,  I am a coffee fiend addict. Pick any word that says I love coffee.  I'm right there with you.  Yeah. I don't measure what I drank by cups. No. I drank a pot in the morning and a pot in the afternoon.  I used to, I have no cutback. I drink about a half a pot in the morning  and a cup in the afternoon because
13:16It was starting to make my stomach hurt and I was too jittery and I'm like, nope, I'm not young enough to keep putting away two pots a day.  I promised the sheriff that I would never see the public without having had at least two cups of coffee. So that's, that's how people stay alive. Yes.  Either way,  anyone who loves coffee should probably start buying an extra bag or two when they go shopping.  Cause you can still get it at the price it's at now.
13:45Another short period of time. Yeah. period of time.  Yeah. I'm very sad about this because I don't want to give up coffee if I don't have to. Well, that's one of those things that I will find a way to afford the coffee.  They're just certain non-negotiables. Good coffee. And I want the good stuff when it comes to toilet tissue. don't want the cheap stuff.  So we will find a way.
14:15Yup. I'm also concerned about salt and sugar  because salt and sugar are really, really important things in your diet. They make food worth eating.  And I don't know  if there is a really good  sugar, cane sugar producing place in the States because I'm not, that's not what I focus on.  And I don't know about salt, but I'm guessing we import a lot of salt and sugar.  We do.
14:44Now I do know  when I was a kid, there were a number of folks that raised  sugar cane and they actually had the cane mills at home that were driven by the donkey  and they would make  sagam, we called it,  sagam syrup.  And it makes a great sweetener. does change the taste of some things, but
15:11grandmother used to use it all the time when she was cooking cakes.  She would use that instead  of sugar. so  there are some alternatives, but I don't know about salt.  I don't think we produce any salt in the United States. Yeah, I'm going to have to Google it. I could be wrong on that. Yeah, I don't know, but I...
15:38really feel like we all should maybe start stocking up on the things that are everyday  usage, like coffee and salt and sugar, because it's going to get real spendy here real soon. And that's what we've said for years.  We talk about storing food and we say over and over and over again,  stock what you eat.  That way you will eat what you normally eat.
16:08Rather than going, and I don't have anything really against the emergency foods, the freeze dried, they have their place, but  that you don't want to have to dig into that because of a tariff. You don't want to have to dig into that because of a 10 day snowstorm. Right. Or a week long snowstorm. When we wrote our second book, Practical Prepping for Everyday People,
16:36was doing some research and at that time, think this has changed now because people are waking up, but at that time, 45 % of households in America did not have three days worth of food in the house. Yeah. That'll get us in trouble. That'll get us in big trouble. Yep. I can't imagine that. We haven't lived that way in over 25 years. I can't.
17:06I cannot begin to imagine that we have, I don't want to go into too much detail, but we probably have enough food to last at  least three weeks, if not a month. And that's just because of the way that we do it.  It would get really old and really boring after the first two weeks. Well,  it wouldn't for us and we could go a lot longer than that,  but it would not get boring because we store what we normally  use.
17:35And Christa can make things from scratch  using what we have.  She can pull out a recipe book and she can pull out canned vegetables. She can pull out, you know,  dried meats or canned meats, things like that. So she can feed us what we normally eat.  And  here for a while, what we've been doing, we've been trying to eat through some of our preps and
18:03One of the things is she's pretty much when, when she does grocery runs, she's buying perishable. She's buying bread and fresh fruits,  fresh vegetables.  but we do have those things canned if we could not go. Yep,  absolutely. And we have, we have some things canned.  we don't can a lot of green vegetables because my husband doesn't eat them.
18:29And so there's always some for me, but we don't do a lot because he's never gonna eat them and I can't eat enough of them to rotate them out. But yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. It doesn't really matter. I just feel like there are so many things up in the air right now in the world that if you aren't thinking at least a month to six months down the road right now, you're kind of doing it wrong. Yeah. Yeah.
19:00If you have to go to the store when they mentioned the snow word, you're doing it wrong. Yeah.  Unless it happens to be the day that you go to stock up every two weeks and then you're doing it right. Well, when we go to stock up, we're down to where we normally are.  when, um, Krista and I were both diagnosed with COVID at the same time, early  on,  and the county said,
19:29You can't come to work for five days  and Krista couldn't work for five days.  And so we looked at each other and said, wow, we're stuck in the house together for five days. And  it was a bad case of sniffles  is really what that particular one was. Now I had, I think I've had it five times, something like that. But the first time in  December before they really identified it, I was pretty sick with that one.
19:59My son and I were too, actually.  But  a couple of times there, it was like, oh, okay. And one time they had to tell us we had COVID and I wondered if the test came preloaded with COVID, but that's a different discussion. Uh-huh.  But  we didn't have any problem during that. mean,  us going five days without going to the grocery store, that was nothing.  That really, I mean, it's just, okay, what do you want to eat today?
20:29And we had what we'd normally eat stocked up. So we advocate  and I tell folks, know,  FEMA  and what have you recommend three days. Red Cross recommends having three days, 72 hours. And 72 hours is a good start. But if you go back into the fifties and early sixties,  the civil defense had a program called Grand Malice Pantry.
20:58And they encouraged every family to have two weeks worth of food. Now, where did we drop off of the two weeks? And  I understand what that program was for.  And it was really to show  the foreign  actors that, hey, America is preparing to  survive a nuclear war. had the duck and cover drill, so you're not quite old enough.
21:27probably to have done those. I actually got under the desk and put my hands over my head, my rear end sticking up in the air. And that's how we joke about, I bought a nuclear shelter and it's an old school desk. But what it did is it said, hey, we're preparing to survive a nuclear attack.
21:56Yeah. It wouldn't do any good if you were anywhere near the blast, but if you were certain distance away in school and all it did really was blow the windows out, you were kind of protected under that desk. You really were. So, you know, if they dropped it 75 miles from you, 50 miles from you, it might actually protect you. But  we joke about that today,  the duck and cover.
22:24and  Burt the Turtle.  And if your listeners aren't familiar with Burt the Turtle, go to YouTube and look up Burt the Turtle.  It's cartoon  things that we actually watched in school and it was about surviving nuclear attacks.  have a question for you. That was when you were a kid. That was when I was a kid. Did it give you nightmares? No, not really.  Okay, good. And here's the
22:52One of the reasons behind that  is that  my dad was good about saying, look, this is probably not going to happen. But on the other hand, they're teaching us what to do to stay safe.  So we were  old enough to understand that we're doing something to keep us safe, but we weren't old enough to understand that getting under the desk is useless.
23:22Uh, we, we did not have nightmares. I don't know of anybody that actually had nightmares about that. Okay. Well, I feel like I grew up in the golden age of being alive because I started kindergarten in I think 1975, 76, and I graduated in 1988. And I, I mean, we talked about the cold war, but that was starting to ease up.
23:49There were no getting under the desk drills. had fire drills. Everybody does, but that wasn't scary because that was just like, okay, yeah, we're going outside. It's a drill, whatever. The thing that was scary for me is when my kids started having to do the lockdown drills at school and that will scare the living hell out of you as a parent, especially when it's not a drill. When you get the message that your school is actually under lockdown, whether there's an  active shooter or not. And so.
24:19Like I said, I feel like I grew up in a  golden bubble of feeling like the world was safe. And it probably wasn't any safer than it is now, but it felt that way. Yeah. I don't know that it's any safer today.  Probably the closest we've ever come was the Cuban nuclear,  the Cuban crisis.  And I do remember that. Yeah.  I had already graduated high school when you went to kindergarten.
24:48Yeah. But, um,  yeah, I'm old. Okay.  Um, some of the guys that I used to work with. not old, you're experienced. Well, yeah.  Some, some of the guys I used to work with thought that I was in,  thought that I was in the revolutionary war.  And they joked around. I told them when I went to the police academy, they taught us where to park our horse when we got to the car.  And, you know, very important.
25:17tie up your horse so he doesn't wander off. Yes. But  that, I do remember a lot of things that a lot of this generations today  may have studied in school  or may not. In fact, one private school  has me come and talk to the history class because I actually did duck and cover drills  and they don't
25:43Even their parents didn't do that. They have to go back to their grandparents for that. But I have a, you know, I have a granddaughter that turned 33 yesterday. So yeah, I'm kind of on the old side, but it's fun getting old fun. Old folks and clowns can do a lot of things that general public can't get away with. That is true. And.
26:10getting older is a privilege denied to many. I hope to get old someday. Yeah, I'm shooting for 106. We'll see how it goes. Yeah. I would tell you what my dad is shooting for, but I don't talk politics on my podcast. I will tell you afterwards.  He me the other day and I was like, that's not a long time  to shoot for. You want to live to be like a hundred, right?  He said,
26:37If I manage to get another three and a half years, I'll be thrilled. was like, okay, good.  As far as politicians, if I could live long enough to see an honest politician. That would be sweet, wouldn't it? What would I be 500 years old?  I hope it's sooner than that.  I really do. Yeah.  All right, Mark, I try to keep these to half an hour and I want to make sure that I get your
27:02what you're doing to get the information out to people. So you have your podcast, you have blog posts, what else?  We have a Facebook group with 115,000 members in that and it's called, it's called Practical Prepping.  That's a free group.  We have a newsletter that will go out later today. That's a weekly newsletter.
27:27We've designed courses to teach people to be prepared,  how to do things. One that we're finishing up now is building a get home bag.  We have built  a getting started in food storage  and coming up in September, September the  4th, I believe it is, we're doing a live webinar  that  is  teaching you how to get started in prepping.
27:57And building a 72 hour kit. Now this is not a get home bag. This is not a bug out bag. This is how to build what you need to survive 72 hours at home. This covers the power being out and the snow storm and you can't go out. That's kind of the  idea there. I asked the question of people you wake up tomorrow morning, there's 48 inches of snow on the ground.  No power. You're not going anywhere.
28:26How long can you keep your family fed and warm? And that's what we're about.  And  everything is at practicalprepping.info.  Just  one word, practicalprepping.info. And you can sign up for the newsletter there. There's a waiting list at practicalprepping.info forward slash workshop.
28:53because the registration for that will open August the 14th, I think. But you can get on that waiting list and we'll email you when we do that. So  we're just trying to get folks to be prepared. You have a very good heart and so does your wife. Well, thank you.  I want to have you back when Krista has time to join us  because
29:18Your wife has the most beautiful voice and I think that people would love to hear her thoughts on all of this too.  Not only does she have a beautiful voice, she is a lot better looking than I am. So those that do video really prefer having her than me.  I was going to tell you before we started recording that you two are a very handsome couple.  photo on your Facebook page. was like, wow, are they cute?  Well, thank you.
29:48That was shot at the Huntsville, Alabama Space and Rocket Center  under a Saturn rocket. Nice. And that was actually a selfie and it turned out to be one of the best photographs of the two of us ever made.  It looks like a studio portrait. Well,  I did photography for a number of years, so I'm pretty good with Photoshop. I can put hair on me and I can take wrinkles off women.
30:16I can take 20 pounds off of anybody. So  I didn't have to do much to her at all, but  it's almost virtually unretouched. She did some things with the background, but we do appreciate that.  She would enjoy this and you would enjoy talking with her. She  can talk more about the food storage and what we store and how we store and how she rotates. One of the things that she does, now we
30:46We call it our prepper room. It's just a closet that was built so that the air handling unit for that  heating and air unit could be in there and not be right out in the public area of the house.  And it's just a large closet. So she uses that, there's shelves in there.  And so she has her small pantry in the kitchen that is her kitchen pantry.
31:13And when she runs low there, she shops our prepper pantry. And so she goes and she gets what she needs there. And then from the store on the next trip, she'll replace the things that she used from the prepper pantry.  And it goes to the back so that it's first in, first out. It rotates  and she'll rotate through it in well less than a year.  Probably every six months or so that everything in there.
31:43Almost everything in there turns over. There's some things in there that we don't have to. Some rice, some beans, things like that, that will last almost forever. Infinite shelf life. That's actually a good tip if you're going to start storing food for prepping. You want to make sure that you actually use it as you go because stuff will go bad.
32:12It will.  And,  you know, they call it a best buy date on the can. That's when it's supposed to be at its peak. Yeah.  But  can goods even will last  years beyond that date. And a lot of people don't realize that, but it will last years beyond that date.  Tomatoes or high acid food is one of the exceptions. You don't want to go too far past that.  No.
32:42No, you do not. reasons is the acid will eat into the lining of the can and  you wind up with other issues.  you know, we've got a lot of that kind of information on our website as well. I  love it, Mark. I'm so glad that you were willing to come chat with me because all of this is really important and it's so sad that we've lost all of this history and skill regarding  how to take care of ourselves. Yep.
33:12Exactly. And  being self-sufficient. Now we're not really homesteading here. We have grown some of our own food. We actually did not do a garden this year because of some other issues,  but we're about to build a greenhouse  and Krista wants to try to grow some winter vegetables in a greenhouse. So we've got the  space here and we've got a
33:38concrete pad that's not being used and it just looks like an ideal place to put a greenhouse. So that's one thing and next year we're planning to have a large garden here.  Our in-laws, my in-laws, this was actually their house. They passed away a number, several years ago and we purchased the house from the family  and father-in-law had a huge garden out here. I mean, he fed everybody he knew.
34:06out of that garden and it was just the two of them here. But I don't know that we're going to go that big. mean, he had about a third of the property in garden  and we just, you know, we want to do a small garden for us and family  and  start putting some things up that we can, that we grew. And then like you said earlier, you know what you're eating. The ingredients are beans and water. Yep, exactly.
34:36Okay.  Tell me your sort of tagline about no zombies, no whatever. Oh, oh, the introduction to the podcast.  And Krista always does this, but it's  the podcast where there's no bunkers,  no zombies, and no alien invasions. And then we drop a little,  when no bunkers, you hear this door slamming,  no zombies, you hear this zombie squeal.
35:05Uh huh. And no alien invasions. That is actually a little clip from one of the  1950s alien movies.  So it's just a  real cute thing.  And then she says it's just practical prepping because we're not prepping for zombies. Right.  If we ever do have zombies, we'll address it. We'll deal with it. I can only hope it's the slow walkers, not the runners.  Oh, you and me both, darling.
35:36But  it just, you know, it's about the practical stuff. We prep for next Tuesday.  We don't prep for, you know, nuclear holocaust and all of those kinds of things.  The reason I asked you to tell me is because I heard it and giggled, but mostly because if people want to learn about practical prepping,  you can go to practicalprepping.info  and get information without feeling like the world is going to end.
36:02tomorrow,  and that maybe you'll be prepared for something that is going to happen tomorrow. Somebody said  one time that, y'all just pedal fear.  You haven't listened to the podcast or looked at the website. No.  We don't pedal fear. We pedal peace. We want people to have the peace. It's like when we had COVID, we went,  When the shelves were empty, okay. You know, we've got what we normally eat.
36:33That's just, it's personal responsibility is what it is, Mary.  Absolutely.  We have to take care of ourselves. Yes. Because help's not coming. And if it does come, and in a lot of disasters, it is coming. But I can tell you, you're on your own for the first 72 hours anyway.  I've even heard FEMA say that, you're on your own for the first 72 hours. So we've got to be our...
37:02our own providers, we've got to be our own first responders, we've got to be our own medics, we've got to have the things to address whatever could happen to us in a disaster.  Absolutely.  All right, Mark, thank you so much for your time. Again, people, if you want to learn about prepping,  go to practicalprepping.info and you can find all the Mark and Krista Lawley stuff you ever wanted.  And you can find me at attinyhomesteadpodcast.com.
37:32Thank you so much, Mark. I appreciate it. You are very welcome. And if people have questions,  drop us an email. We're glad to answer questions.  There's even a way to put up an audio message on the podcast if you want to ask a question on the podcast and we can answer it there. But we communicate with people all the time answering questions.  Glad to do it. All right. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you, Mary. You have a great day too. All right. Bye.