A Tiny Homestead

Self Sufficient and Homesteading Community Forum

Today I'm talking with Susan and Jasmine and Sean and Teresa at Self Sufficient and Homesteading Community Forum. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00After listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This Homestead Holler Shoutout is to our friends over at Freedom Rain Farm in Buffalo, Minnesota. Their new little farm shop is the perfect spot for seasonal fresh goat milk products if you're local to the Buffalo area, while their online shop makes it super easy to order shippable items right to your door. From natural handcrafted goat milk and talo sauce to grass-fed talo skin care and beautifully arranged gift boxes.
00:29Each product is crafted with care and love. Check them out at redomarinefarm.com or follow their Facebook page to stay in the loop. Let freedom reign. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I am talking with Susan and Jasmine and Sean and Teresa at Self-Sufficiency and Homesteading Community Forum is the name of their Facebook page. That was a lot to say.
00:56Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Great. Awesome, we're doing good. Good. I don't, where is everybody located?
01:09Um, Sean and I are located between Bloomfield and Ottumwa, Iowa. Okay. Um, I'm not far away. I'm over by Drakeville. So I'm about nine miles away from them. This is Susan. Okay. I'm about 160 miles from them. I'm located north of Ames, Iowa. So very much central Iowa. Okay. So you guys are all my Southern neighbors in Iowa, cause I'm in Minnesota. Is it really sunny in Iowa right now?
01:39Yes. Yeah, here too. It's, it's just gorgeous and it's supposed to hit 50 again today for the third, third day in a row, fourth day in a row. So that's a nice change from last week. I assume it was very cold in Iowa too. Yes. Yeah. I think, I think we might be rolling into spring, you guys. I think it might be happening. I'm going to hope it is anyway. I hope so. Now if we can just get rid of all the mud, that would be wonderful.
02:08Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if mud season was like the next couple of weeks and then the end of March and April and May when we all need to get in our gardens was dry? Yes. Well, not too dry, but not muddy. That would be great. Yes. Okay. So tell me about, well, I don't know how to do this. Whoever wants to go first, tell me about yourself and then the next person can and the next person can and then you guys can tell me about what you do. Well, kind of what information do you want to know?
02:38Um, just do you guys have gardens and stuff at your places too, or not?
02:49I'll go if nobody else is jumping that way we can get it. My name is Sean. I'm the husband of Teresa. Daniel is my oldest son. Matthew is my youngest that lives at home, our sons. And we've been interested in home studying for quite some time. We've got a goal to be off the grid within the next, no.
03:19year, year and a half, possibly even sooner. The good Lord blesses us. I am the camp manager of Forest Lake Baptist Camp outside of Atoma. I'm also a pastor for Cedar Community Church in Cedar, Iowa. We are avid outdoorsmen, my entire family. In the wintertime, we trap. In the summertime, we...
03:48We do a lot of foraging. I would say close to maybe 90% of our food comes from what I call God's grocery store. The woods, we have gardens, chickens. Our next goal is to get a milk goat. And just working towards becoming off the grid and...
04:13going and doing whatever is, you know, God wants us to do and requires us to do, but He'll also meet our needs and give us the desires of our heart. Yep, go ahead. But as John said, you know, we do want to become full-time, well, somewhat full-time homesteaders. Obviously, you know, we still have a job, but as well as all that, you know, we homeschool our two sons, they're 16 and 18.
04:42You know, I, I am in charge of the kitchen here at the camp. I'm like the program director. So we have a lot of things going on, but I think our biggest goal is we just want a simpler life. And so right now in this time of, of waiting, I would call it waiting. Um, we're learning skills. We're trying to learn as many skills as we can from other people, from other homes setters, from other self-sufficient people, and, um, just build a network of people.
05:12they can help each other. Awesome. Okay, Susan, do you want to go next? Sure. So my husband and I actually farm. We grew up, both of us grew up on farms. He grew up on a dairy farm up by Oskaloosa. I grew up down here by Drake'sville. So we have actually the agriculture side of it where we row crop and do hay. And then we have two herds of cattle. We have Angus and we have Highlands. And we actually
05:41call our business Hall Highlands. We are just getting into direct to consumer meat. We are, we're not organic, but we try to stay as natural as possible. So we use Dr. Paul's products. You know, we don't vax, we don't have hormones, we don't use antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. So that's, we do that on the ag side. And then I also homeschool.
06:06our son and then we have an extra kid that showed up here a few years ago and she loves the farm and she never went away. So she actually works for us. And I am a big proponent of natural health and so I am a certified herbalist. I have, I'm certified in multiple other modalities for natural health. So we do a lot of herbs, of course canning. I mean, that's, you kind of grew up with that being on the farm, gardening, you know, all those sorts of things. Which just slides right into homesteading. We have one milk cow.
06:36So we just, because we're already ag, a lot of the stuff is still encompassed within home studying. And yeah, we just really enjoy being out here and doing those sorts of things. Fantastic. And that leaves us with Jasmine. So Jasmine, go ahead. Thank you. So I'm from central Iowa. I was raised on a farm over in Grundy County, and now I live one county over in Hardin County.
07:07Again, really raised in that traditional self-sufficient model of my great grandparents, their homesteading efforts gave me the foundation with the food preservation and the gardening and the natural medicine to carry that knowledge with me into my adult life.
07:37It's an unpoisoned lifestyle. My husband is a chiropractor. I am an alternative health practitioner. A lot of people in Iowa don't know what that is. It's very similar to what Susan said. I'm a certified herbalist and my modalities are natural health, nutrition, massage therapy,
08:05The things that make the body do what the body was designed to do, which is live healthy. We can develop resistance to disease through nutrition and exercise and quality self-care. So that's the primary source of income for our household. My husband and I share a practice in Story City, Iowa. And we try to practice what we preach. I grow a lot of our food.
08:33We have an orchard and chickens. I co-op with my best friend who lives about a mile and a half down the road for some beef cattle. So we are really picking Susan's brain this year on natural cattle care because this is new territory for us. And I really think that, like Teresa said, our mission as a group is building that networking
08:59learning skills from people who are well practiced in the homesteading arts and the natural living craft and really trying to fulfill God's purpose as a community. Even though we're so far apart, with modern technology, that's becoming easier. Like you're demonstrating today with your broadcast. So that's where we're all coming from, is just building that holistic lifestyle and the community to...
09:28teach each other, share with each other, network, and build self-sufficiency. Okay, so you guys are all in the homesteading community realm here in your own lives, so that's great. I don't have any livestock here except for chickens. I'd love to have a cow, but we don't have room for a cow, so we don't have one. But I wanted to get this in before we get into the community forum stuff.
09:57We had our first egg this morning from our 20 week old chickens that we just got two Saturdays ago. So we're very excited. They're beginning to lay. They're excited. They're beginning to lay and we've had chickens before. This is just a brand new bunch because we culled our older chickens in the fall. So it's a bunch of it's a it's a flock of 12 and they're the ISA brown variety. They used to be called ISA reds, I think.
10:27I looked it up and they were supposed to start laying between 18 and 22 weeks and they're 20 weeks old. So dead center, 20 weeks old and first egg. And it was really funny. My husband went out to feed the chickens this morning. When he comes in from feeding the chickens and giving the barn cats food and water, because you have to feed your barn cats a little bit in the morning and get them going. Most people don't realize that, but you really should give them some food. Usually when he comes in, I say, is everybody okay? And he didn't answer me.
10:55and he walked in the living room and held out his hand and he had this pretty little egg in his hand. My heart literally thumped, you guys. No joke. So we're going to have eggs again. Thank God. Because I don't, I assume you have seen the price of eggs at the grocery store right now and I don't want to pay that. I would rather have our own chickens and pay for the feed. Oh yes. Yes, yes. So that's our nod to homesteading here.
11:23And they're better eggs too. Yeah. The quality is better. They taste much better. Yes, they do. Um, we've been buying eggs for three and a half, four months at the store. And I had really been just avoiding eating them because I didn't, I'm not a big egg eater anyway. And I made a, a, uh, can't think. Egg salad sandwich, like three weeks ago from the store, bought eggs. And.
11:53I threw away half the sandwich. It just didn't taste right. I was like, this is not what I want. And so I am so looking forward to the first egg salad sandwich, you know, week and a half, when there's enough of our chicken eggs to do it with. Yep. So anyway, little silly thing from our homestead. So tell me about this community forum. And I saw that you have an event coming. So tell me all about that. Anybody. I don't care who.
12:25Well, can I add something to this about the community thing? Oh yeah. This group. Sure. We have other members that are not here. And, uh, but the neat thing is how we all came together and we just started networking and working really as a great big family and you know, it is a, it's a godsend to us that, you know, we have such a huge family.
12:53that wants to network and come together and share our knowledge with others and learn their knowledge and make it, that's what homesteading is all about. Not one person can ever get all of this and keep it in their head. Right. And I am just really thankful for each and every one of our board members that is on this committee to make this work. Because without them,
13:23this would not work and we're a team. And it is very, very, um, re encourage is encouraging to me watching how this team has worked together in the last year. And so, yeah, I just want to say that about our group. Yeah. Many hands make light work as a, as a saying for a reason. Mm hmm. Right.
13:50Well, I'm really glad that you are expressing your appreciation for the group because sometimes people in the group, some people don't really get told that they're doing a good job and they leave. So it's really good to let people know that you value their work. Well, and I think that as a group, we're really blessed because I feel like we all genuinely really like each other. I mean, we really genuinely all like each other. We all have very similar mindsets.
14:20sure we all have different skills, but we genuinely like each other as people. Even if we weren't part of this group doing this together, I think we would still like each other. We would still be involved in each other's lives. Yeah, definitely. Nice. So, you've built a family around this group or the group, the family, however it worked. So tell me, tell me about the community that you've started, the forums.
14:49Well, self-efficially during 2020, when COVID hit, supply chain issues happened all over. And I kind of got to thinking, you know, we have this technology to network with people. And having met Sean and Teresa previously and attended a Homesteaders oriented event
15:20They have skills that I don't have. I have skills that they can learn from. There's got to be more people in Iowa with this mindset that I can learn from or that are producing things that I need. And then I came across this meme on Facebook that was a picture of an elderly woman smack in the middle of her garden, in front of her barn, and it said,
15:46Grandma survived the depression because she knew how to do things and her supply chain was local. And I thought, Eureka, if I can create a page on Facebook to make a local supply chain where local producers and Iowa homesteaders can meet, so to speak, then we can all do business with each other.
16:14and we can create a local supply chain. And Sean and Teresa and obviously Susan have the same ideas. So being that we were like-minded and technology gives us the advantage of being able to get together even long distance, you know, we came together and now we have Facebook pages with thousands of members. And...
16:40Other groups have created expos and events. And so we're playing off of their model a little bit as far as creating the event that we're working on. But we've decided that our mission is going to be different because our mission is not profit oriented. Our mission is basically the biblical version of community drawing together.
17:10And together we can stand as a self-sufficient network. And so that idea of fellowship, that idea of community, that's why we called it a forum. We want to invite people with knowledge and interest and the products they create to come and share their skills, teach what they know, learn from others.
17:37And that was really the direction that we wanted our event to go. And, you know, and, and with that said, you know, none of our speakers are getting paid. They, the only thing they're getting out of it is we're not charging them to attend the event. They get to come share their knowledge and then learn from other people, other skills. And, you know, we want to keep it very.
18:06reasonably priced for people so that it's not hard for them to come. We want to be able to make it affordable and just about the community of helping each other. Obviously, we have to charge something because, you know, where we're going to have the event, we have to pay a usage fee for the facilities there. So we do have to make a little bit of money to cover those costs. But none of us
18:33about money at all. It's all about community and helping people learn from people. Yeah, and whatever you're charging for people to come to the event, it gains them education and it gives them an entree into a different community they may not be part of yet. So I think it's worth it. So what's the event entail? What are you guys going to be doing?
19:06So I have just been finishing and finalizing our current schedule. The lineup as is right now. We have a lot of different classes we're going to be doing. Them about an hour apiece. We have a lot of different things that we're going to have. We've got rope making,
19:36Rendering fat. We're going to do some round tables, especially for things like canning and dehydrating. Because we know that there's a lot of people out there who are kind of rebel canners, if you will. And if you do the official classes, everything has to be just so. And this is going to give people to actually jump in and share what they do also. Cast iron care.
20:06Beekeeping, sourdough, soap making, a couple of different animal nutrition, cattle care and animal nutrition, herbal remedies, gardening.
20:26and have more knowledge than others. And so for that reason, you know, we brought in a lot of different people who are gonna share just the things that they know. And then we're also gonna have vendors that are gonna be in our main area. And I do believe we're going to have buckskinners there to show what the buckskinners do. And then on Saturday, we're also gonna have like a Dutch oven contest. Nice.
20:56So it's basically an expansive homesteading crash course. Nice, that's exciting. Have you done this before or is this the first time?
21:12Well, yeah, we did this before prior to this. We belong to another group and we've actually had this be Teresa and I's third year of doing this. But we all decided to do our own this with this group of people because
21:40We are, this group of people is like-minded. And I'm not going to say much more than that, but we've been in this three years. And, you know, you can, it's more of a community networking and sharing our skills with each other. Yeah. The reason I asked is because when it's a first time event kind of thing, there's always jitters and there's always.
22:10I don't know, kinks to work out. And I feel like after you've done an event like this, it's a lot easier the second year and then the fifth year is like a cakewalk. Well, and I think that, you know, as we have, you know, two of the members that aren't here today were part of the original group with us as well. Um, but I think that, well, that was a great thing that, um, this group.
22:38that we've created now or that we've all come together and created, we all have a very much like-minded mindset. We're all about community and helping people help each other and I feel like that God has really blessed this event for us and is blessing this event because it feels like this event is coming together easier and faster than the previous ones we've done.
23:09And I mean, it's just like we're having people reaching out from all over the place. We had to turn people away to do classes because we ran out of space and time. We had to say, you know what? We can put you on the list for next year, but we don't have a space because we had so many people that wanted to be part of it. And that's not a bad problem to have. But we just feel like it's been very blessed by God because we feel like.
23:37we're doing it for the right reason. And he's gonna honor that for us to have a good event to help people. Yeah. And none of us about any of us or what we're doing and our skills. And obviously it's taken all of us to put it together, but none of it's really about us. It's about helping other people. Okay, so is your attendance completely full now? Well.
24:03We're not gonna sell tickets ahead. They're just gonna pay at the gate. So we really don't know how many people. We feel like we'll have several people, but we really don't know. But we do know that who's supposed to be there, God will bring there. And when is the event? I thought I saw May 2nd and 3rd, but I could be wrong. Yes. Okay. So May 2nd and 3rd, you guys are gonna be very busy.
24:32It's I'm guessing that's a Saturday and Sunday. It's a Friday, Saturday. Okay. Cool. I I'm so I'm not even envious and jealous is the wrong or the wrong words, but I'm excited for you guys that you're doing this because it sounds absolutely wonderful. And the people who attend are going to gain so much everything just by going.
24:59And that's our goal, to be honest with you, is to share knowledge and learn from them. Mm-hmm. Yup. So I don't even know if you guys know the answer to my question here. How much time do you think you have sunk into making this happen?
25:21A lot. That's a lot. Yeah. I mean, I spent a lot of time, a lot of legwork, a lot of calling people, talking with people, a lot of, you know, passing out flyers, putting it on different groups to advertise it, just a lot of things. But you know, Jasmine and Susan spent a lot of hours working on the schedule. And I mean, Jasmine did like.
25:49hours of work trying to get it all just right for us because that's a skill she has scheduling. That's not something I have. I would have been like, oh my gosh. But you know, just, but you know, and that's the good thing about our group too is we all have different skills. So it's been good that way, you know? Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah, that's been great because while I am able to put a schedule together, I do not have the skills to create it.
26:18in a readable format that can be advertised on a computer. So Susan totally took what I put together and magically changed it into something that's actually usable. So that's one of the blessings about our group. We are like-minded and like Teresa said, we all have different skills. So what one person can take and mold a little bit into something useful
26:48the next person on our committee can mold it a little more into something even more usable. And I think God knew that we were going to need that. So He put us together. And like Teresa said, He's given us a mission. And that mission is to develop a homesteading, self-sufficient community. And I think our committee itself really shows no one person can do it all.
27:17you need different skill sets. So I'm really grateful to have spent time with this committee and learned from them. And I think that's such a appropriate foundation for the event that we're doing. Yeah, I just want to jump in and say that I am so impressed with how complimentary you guys are of each other and both words, C-O-M-P-L-I and C-O-M-P-L-E.
27:46because you're very good about giving compliments to each other, but I feel like all of your skills compliment each other.
27:57Well, it's all of us together, working together. And God brought us all in each other's paths and for a purpose. And to be quite frank, I encourage everybody to come, give it a try. For $10, what do you got? What do you have to get in the gate? And you're going to walk away with a ton of knowledge. A ton of knowledge.
28:24You can't, you can't YouTube these kinds of things. Um, you know, and what you're going to walk away with is a network and a group of people that, you know, six months down the road, you find something that happens to you, you can call and say, Hey, I don't know what this is, but Hey, Teresa knows how to do this or Susan knows how to do this or Terry and Tonya know how to do this, she always say in that networking. And getting quick answers.
28:54You know, and shoot, I do that to Jasmine anyway. I mean, if I got something, I need a question about something. I call her up, hey, what do you think about this? She gives me her, her knowledge, you know, and, and someday I'll repay that to her when she calls me and says, what kind of mushroom is this? Don't need it. Absolutely. Um, I think the best thing.
29:22in the world about being human is that we all have some form of community. I have very few close friends and it's partly because we moved four years ago and all of my friends have jobs where they live and it's half an hour away from where we moved. So I don't see my old group of friends very often but we still talk through messages or on the phone. And if I know that somebody that I moved away from knows something,
29:51You can bet your butt I'm going to call her and say, how do I fix the zipper on my brand new coat that broke? Because she's, she's good at that. And I'm probably not going to fix it. I'm probably going to run it up to her and have her fix it. But, but if I could, if I can fix it and she can tell him, talk me through it, I'm going to ask her, of course. But the thing that we've gotten away from is community. I mean, there's all of these McMansion.
30:19quote unquote communities and no one knows anybody in those communities. No. And I- Most people do. Yeah. I hate it. Yeah. And one of the areas that, I mean, I love that about this group. Everybody's got their niche. I can, we can ask each other, talk to each other, share with each other. And it's so amazing. But even in my own life, you know, one of the places that I see so many people struggling right now is like-
30:48young mothers. You know, back years ago, you had such a community where, you know, grandmas and aunts and neighbors and everybody was willing to come and help. You know, they had tricks up their sleeve with the kids, you know, young families, all these different things. And we don't have that anymore. And I would love to see, you know, besides just home studying at large, just community to start to grow and find roots again. And I'm hopeful that we're seeing a move back towards that.
31:18direction. But that was the other reason that we wanted to keep the prices low on this. And then anybody under 15 was free was because we want to see these young families. We want to see these kids coming in and trying things, you know, making ropes or watching because these were things that we got from grandmas and grandpas or neighbors that used to do stuff like this. And there's not that much out there anymore.
31:45I'm going to jump in. The other thing is, is that I'm old enough to be a grandma. I have a step-grandchild right now. She's 11. And I feel like a lot of people my age, I'm 55, did not like, I mean, they may have seen their grandparents do stuff, but they didn't actually learn it. And so it's really hard to pass on what you don't know how to do.
32:12So I love that you're inviting kids in to learn these things. Well, exactly. Cause Susan and I have talked about it many times. I'm 51 and Susan obviously is younger than I am, but we talked about it many times that there are, most of the people our age and younger don't know how to can. They don't know how to do any of those things because they either didn't get taught or they weren't paying attention, you know? And so...
32:40And it's such an amazing skill. And, and you know, I find it rewarding because, you know, to be able to walk in my canning room and see all this stuff that I did that, you know, that that's. And, you know, and I, and I know what's in that jar. I don't like, I don't have to worry about what's in it. I know what's in it because I put it there. The only thing you have to worry about is if it's got spots on the lid that are going to kill you. And I'm sure that you know what to look for.
33:07Yeah, but you know, I mean, but most people wouldn't have a clue how to do it, or they'd be terrified to even begin to figure out how to do it. So, you know, if we can help them even just a little bit get over that, that fear of trying it, and, you know, give them that little push forward to give it a try, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's worth it. Yes, there's a reason that it worked for hundreds of years, and it still works.
33:37Um, it's really funny. We had a little girl who would come to with her mom to our CSA thing here a couple of summers ago and her little girl was like five, I think. And she wanted to taste something right out of the garden. And the mom said, is that okay? And I was like, yes, even if it has dirt on it, it's probably not going to kill her. I said, we don't spray, we don't spray anything.
34:05on our plants, it's fine. And just wipe it off. And her little girl just picked, I don't know what it was, I think it might have been a green bean or something. So clearly something you can just pick and eat. And she bit into it and she was like, that's not like the canned ones. And I said, no, because it hasn't been canned. And she said, it's crispy, chewy. And I said, yeah. She says, I want to grow these. I said, good.
34:34Talk to your mom and dad about growing those. And I was just so excited to see that light come on in her eyes of, oh, this is what it tastes like before anything happens to it. So it's- Building off of what you said about the McMansions, there are so, so many housing developments and places where people don't grow anything.
35:03Uh-huh. And that part of our movement is to teach, maybe plant the seed of the self-sufficient mindset. You cannot grow everything you're going to need yourself, but you should start growing something. Like you said, Mary, these skills were grandma skills. And fortunately for me, my gram and great gram raised me. So that's where I learned.
35:32didn't have a choice but to learn. It was expected of me that I would be helping in every aspect, from the planting and sowing to the harvesting and then the canning and preserving. So these skills haven't been taught and we want people to learn these skills. We want to plant that self-sufficient mindset. Like Teresa said, when you open that jar,
35:58you know exactly what's in it because you put that in it and there's nothing in there that you can't pronounce. So that's part of our mission is to create that movement toward the self-sufficiency, the homestead minded, doing it for yourself in a very pure way and networking with people who can contribute to that holistic life.
36:26The more I'm picturing both of my grandma's kitchens when I was growing up, and both grandma's, one was in Maine, one was in Illinois. Both grandma's kitchens had all of their tools kind of out and displayed all the time, everything they used all the time. And the juxtaposition between their kitchens and the kitchens that we have now, it's crazy.
36:50The chasm of disparity between what their kitchens look like and what people expect a kitchen to look like now is so different. Yeah. And I'm totally into like grandma core anyway, so like my kitchen has stuff everywhere. Yeah, you should see. But we use it, so it goes both ways. You should see mine right now. We've got jackets on the back of chairs around the table because it had been cold. That haven't been hung up yet.
37:18We've got a table full of seedlings started for the spring planting. And there's little baby basil plants sprouting and there's peppers and we have tomatoes planted, but they haven't started yet. And, um, my counter is almost clean of dirty dishes. Cause I've already done dishes once this morning, but I always feel bad because when we bought the house, clearly it was empty and that kitchen, our whole house was remodeled before we even saw it.
37:48So the kitchen is just gorgeous. It's like a modernized country kitchen. So the cabinets look like old cabinets, but they're brand new. But they did keep the original cabinets over by where the kitchen table is. And those are just the flat faced made out of wood cabinet doors. They're not fancy. I love my kitchen. Like I could rave about my kitchen for days and you would tell me to shut the hell up after two minutes. But.
38:17But I always feel bad because my kitchen is always a mess because that's the room we do everything in, you know? And I got up this morning, came downstairs, looked at my kitchen and went, oh my God, I need like two days straight to get this thing looking like it did when we moved in. And then I stopped myself and said, but it's not supposed to look like when we moved in, we live here now. And that made me feel a little bit better. So I am going to stick with the grandma core thing.
38:46and it's okay to have a clean colander sitting on the counter. I'm okay with that. Absolutely. Those kitchens are the healthiest kitchens because they have realistic expectations. My kitchen's always a mess too because I'm always doing stuff. With everything else we have going on, sometimes the kitchen table doesn't get cleared off, so there's mail. We have jackets on the back of our chairs too.
39:15But I think there's a quiet comfort that comes in a home with a busy kitchen. The centrifugal meeting place for a family. When we were raising our kids, we ate supper at the supper table because sometimes that's the only quality time you spend with each other. I'm with you. I've frequently said I need three of me to clean the house, keep up with everything else, and go to work.
39:46I really agree that that messy kitchen is a cozy, safe, comfortable, healthy place where your family actually likes to be. Because if they didn't like to be there, it wouldn't be messy. Well, my- Well, yeah, exactly. And you know, if a kitchen is like, in my opinion, like if a kitchen's neat and perfect all the time, is it really being used? No. You know?
40:14No, it's not. And my favorite thing about our kitchen is that it's the size of a, I don't know, it's probably the size of a small great room, a living room. So it's bigger than a galley kitchen by probably four times. And we have an island in our kitchen because it has very little counter space on the outside walls.
40:37And that island is the most wonderful thing on earth because my husband and I and our adult son who still lives with us all love to cook. So if we're gonna make a big meal, like it requires chopping vegetables and doing prep and stuff, we can all stand around the island and work together and talk. And it's my favorite thing about my kitchen. Yep. Those memories will last the rest of your life. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.
41:06I have a son who is currently in culinary school because from the time he was a little tiny kid, he wanted to help in the kitchen. And now he's creating a legacy for himself with those skills because he was, well, he was expected to help out, but his own interest in it really grew. And so now I'm thinking back to when he was a little tiny kid and here he is in college going to be a professional, you know? Yeah.
41:36Yep. Good job, mom. You did great. All right, guys, I try to keep those to half an hour. I would love to make it two hours, but that probably won't go very far with my listeners. So I'm gonna let you guys go, but thank you so much for the discussion today and your time. I appreciate it. Now, so we leave this up? Yes. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you.
42:06Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Now, would you like us to send you a flyer or like online? Do you want me to like send you a flyer or anything like that? Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, if you could, that'd be great. So I can share it in the show notes thing. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you guys. Have a great day. All right. Thank you.
 

Clear Creek Ranch Mom Catch-Up

Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom. She has some exciting things on the horizon after experiencing a health scare.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Leah at Clear Creek Ranch Mom, and this is a catch-up episode. I interviewed Leah back last March, and her episode is originally called Clear Creek Ranch Mom. Go Fig!
00:29So good morning, Leah. How are you? Good morning, Mary. Good to visit with you again. You too. I, it's funny. A lot of the people I talk to on the podcast, I, I don't necessarily ever talk to them again, but I have like six people that I check in with and I keep up with and you're one of the six. So.
00:48I feel blessed. Thank you for thinking of me. Oh, you're welcome. And it's really hard to miss because you have been doing a lot and you've been sharing on Facebook a lot of all the new things you're doing. So give me a real quick who you are and what you do. And then I want to talk about all the new things you've been doing. Sure. Leah Peterson. I am from Custer County, Nebraska. I am blessed.
01:14to live on and help operate a multi-generation family operation in Custer County. We raise cows and crops and kids, I like to say. Additionally, I am an executive director for a small nonprofit in Nebraska where we apply for federal grants. So if you hear that buzzword of late, you know, that comes with a whole bunch of rain.
01:40Cringing and curling your toes, we use those federal grants to help provide education and technical services for farmers and ranchers in Nebraska. So I've been doing that for a little over two years. And then, you know, I'm just that busy lady as a volunteer service oriented person in my community and then doing stuff for Clear Creek Ranch Mom too. Okay, awesome. Before we get into all the new stuff you're doing since you brought up the federal grant thing.
02:10One of the things somebody told me the other day when we were discussing this, it might have been my dad, I don't remember, was that if you had submitted an application for a federal grant and it's up in the air right now, there are also regional grants and local grants out there that aren't necessarily funded by the federal government. So if you're still looking, those are good alternatives to look into.
02:37Absolutely. There are also so many donors, charitable groups out there that care about causes that you care about. Someone told me last week, it's as simple as trying to spend some time listening to public radio. If you'll notice on public radio a lot of times that your news breaks or your commercials are sponsored by some of those foundations that exist out there, and those people are also looking for opportunities to help fund projects.
03:05and education. And so we have been looking under some of those couch cushions as well as we try to diversify some of the funding sources that we look to to help us keep on with our mission, which is to bring quality, solid education to farmers and ranchers. Yep. So that's an alternative or those are alternatives and you're not completely screwed on this right now.
03:31I don't really want to talk about anything to do with government right now. Amen. The chaos is making me really nervous. I just talked to my folks this morning and they're, my mom is not in her 80s yet. She is two years away and my dad is 81 and they're very smart people and I love them with all my heart. And when I freak out about things, I talk to them and I said, so what do you think? And my dad said, hang in there.
04:00I said, that's it. He said, yeah, hang in there. I was like, okay, I'm going to take you at your word, dad. Thanks. Absolutely. That's all I got. Hang in there guys. Hang in there, get off social media and go sit down at the dinner table with your neighbors, your friends and have one-on-ones and that will help center you, bring you back to center and help you feel more calm and assured that things will work out and be all right. Yes. Or read science fiction. Yeah. Or read.
04:29romance novels because at least it gives your brain something else to focus on. Yes, or dad jokes. We're big fans of dad jokes in this family. Yes, exactly. So, okay. So, back when I talked to you a year ago, we talked about ranching, we talked about what's proper etiquette, asking questions about ranching. I will remember that. Whoops.
04:54Now I know if I'm going to ask somebody a question that I don't know is a good question to ask, I say, I do not know if you can answer this or if you're comfortable answering this. If you're not, that is fine. And that way I'm covering my bases because I felt like an idiot after I realized what I'd done with you. I know. So for those who don't know, I asked Leah how many head of cattle they have and that is an inappropriate question, but I didn't know it at the time. Whoops.
05:23So now I know. So since then, you had a health scare. And ever since you got through your health scare, I've seen all kinds of new things popping up on Facebook about what you're doing. So do you want to talk about that and what it prompted? Sure. Well, I am like a lot of women in agriculture who, in spite of your best intentions, find that it's very easy to be distracted.
05:52distracted, it's very easy to put others' needs ahead of your own. So kids, husband, livestock, putting them first. And I'm guilty of that, both time-wise, money-wise, putting myself down on the priority list. It was actually my dentist who had been twice a year reminding me of the importance of
06:19not just getting my teeth cleaned, but paying attention to other stuff when it comes to the aging process. And of course, your dentist is right in your face. And he said to me, because he takes care of cleaning farmers and ranchers' teeth all day long, I would imagine, I should ask him, that he probably has sort of this rehearsed can speech that he gives them often, which is, you know, I'm looking at your face, I'm looking up close at you, and I think you should see a dermatologist. So he'd been after me.
06:48several reminders. And in particular, he cleans teeth for my folks, right? So he knows us, he knows some of our genetics and stuff like that. And he was always kind of ragging on me about my lips in particular, and I'm very fair skinned and blue eyed. I think you just should get those looked at. So I did. I finally, I made an appointment and I did. I went in March. And I think right after we did our first visit before you aired the episode.
07:17and met with this wonderful dermatologist specialist. She's not a dermatologist, she's a nurse practitioner who specializes in skincare. And she works with farmers and ranchers. Most of us have really high deductible insurance or no insurance, so she works on a cash basis. Nice. Ranchers love to hear those kind of creative solutions. And she was so thorough and so kind and explained everything.
07:43I mean, I pay attention to my skin. I'm so fair skinned. I've always covered up. I've always worn hats because I burn so easily. And even so, you know, these spots showing up. And so we started doing biopsies. Of course she started with my lips and she's like, you know, I really, I'm not too concerned about them, but I'm seeing some other stuff that concerns me. And, you know, I just started to sweat because I'm like, the stuff that doesn't look suspicious at all. You're telling me it concerns you.
08:10Sure enough, she said, you'll get a letter with your pathology results. If I call you, you need to take my call. Sure enough, two weeks later on a Monday morning, promptly at 8.01 AM, my phone rang and I knew it came up on my caller ID. And I am certain I said a naughty word. We were just starting into the thick of calving season and my world stopped. And your world doesn't stop.
08:38very often during calving season. I mean calving season dominates your existence, your family's existence. And she said, I need you to sit down and I need you to listen to me. And basal cell carcinoma, I knew that word because my mom has had several of those cut off or burned off over the years. I know that you do an easy removal of those. They're pretty common skin cancer. So we started with that.
09:08And then she said, but we got to talk about something scarier than that. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't know what else there is when it comes to skin cancer. And she said the word melanoma. My heart stopped to marry because I know two people who have died from melanoma. And it was because they waited. And I didn't even realize that I didn't know that much about it, except that I knew melanoma is a killer. But I thought it was, I thought it looked different.
09:36than what it looked like on me. I didn't realize it can start with the tiniest of spots and then quickly get into your lymphatic system and spread. Life stopped. She says, we got to move and we got to move on this now and I don't care what you've got going on in your own life. We got to get more biopsies. We got to see what we're dealing with. Life stopped. Through March, April, and May of 2024, which is historically for most farms and ranches in America, the busiest months of the year.
10:06I was going to doctor's appointments when I was supposed to and my husband was going with me. Again, that's like a double ask during that time of year until we had finished the last rounds of removals and pathology reports to say, you're clear, but your life has changed now. You're going to come see me every 90 days. Again, who has time to go to the doctor every 90 days? Well, this girl does.
10:36this darn thing sneaked up and appeared really out of nowhere so quickly, which just tells you melanoma doesn't mess around. I'm so glad that you're still in the world and you're not sick. Thank you so much. Yeah. And she, you know, I would like to interview her myself because she's so compassionate for farmers and ranchers who often feel like they're sort of misunderstood or not seen or heard.
11:05affording their healthcare, which is the thing that I love, the thing that sustains life and gives life to our farm and ranch, which is the sun will also kill you and that you must respect it. And even with being careful, it got me. Now it got me on the face and I've always worn thick glasses, strong prescriptions since I was two years old and we'll never know if that helps, you know, it pulls more light onto my face because in the time since I had another spot pop up.
11:35across my nose to the other side that looked and mirrored exactly identical. So I rushed right in to get it removed and it came back just as a beginning. Just that fast though, Mary. Like a lot of cancer. And then there's the cancers that silently getting you from the inside and you don't realize it. But I thought how foolish am I that I could see it.
12:01you know, and I could hear it to know that it had to be a priority. And yeah, it awakens something in me, which is we farmers and ranchers, again, we so focus on work ethic and dedication and loyalty and getting the work done and the place comes first. There are real consequences to those philosophies. Mm-hmm. Of course there are. Your health and your relationships at the top. Those are the consequences. And at age 45.
12:29And I have had some pushback a little bit because people are really much their gatekeepers, right? They're gatekeepers of the reputations. They have it as these stoic solid hard people It is very difficult for some of us to speak and say things like I need to take care of myself today And especially as a woman Women have a hard time putting themselves first and it's it's been since time began
13:00Since time began. And you know, sometimes I like, are we really doing it to ourselves? Maybe it's not community or people around us doing it to us as much as we think they are. But, you know, I had to reconcile my last cancer surgery was on the kids' last day of school in May and I missed it. I've never missed it. It's a celebration of sorts. I did not want to miss it. I wanted to reschedule. She couldn't reschedule. So I missed it.
13:29No one said anything to me, but I was kicking myself on the inside until my youngest said, mama, I wanted you to get yourself taken care of today. Yeah. And I'm going to sob here, but now you will be around for the first of the other or the ending days or the marriages or the proms or whatever's coming down the road. Yes. And she knows when she's a grownup that her mama will say, you take care of yourself.
13:59Let me help you take care of yourself. Yeah. And you know from personal experience that that's terribly important. So I don't want to cry through the whole episode. So tell me what that has inspired you to move forward with because I know you're doing some awesome things. Thank you, Mary. Well, you know, I've spent, and I'm going to be the emotional one today too, I've spent a lot of my life being afraid to speak.
14:29my story or my truth because of fear of judgment or being wrong. And I am a, I'm sensitive by nature. I've met, people don't realize that about me, but I am. I, I often tell my oldest, you don't see me cry because when I start, I can't stop. So I guard myself that way. Um, but finally giving myself permission to say.
14:55The things I would like to say and I what I always hope is kind and respectful as much as possible and inclusive. But say the things that need to be to be said to speak up for those who feel like they don't have a voice or they haven't been able to find that voice and hope that in doing so I can encourage them if they need to be encouraged. Or encouraged and brave than enough to use their own voices.
15:25Mary, I have a little board in front of my desk. I print out and keep track of people who wrote me to say, I went to the dermatologist. I'm not giving myself credit. I don't want it. The only thing I can say is you never know when your words, your story, your sharing, being vulnerable with people will encourage them in a way you have no idea.
15:54how you can positively impact or touch a life. And everyone is capable of doing that for another human being. Yes, and it can be the tiniest thing. Like there was a lady at Panera back years ago when I was starting to go bray and freaking out about it. And she was the hippest older lady I had ever seen in public. She had the most beautiful jacket on. She had like...
16:21slim fit hands on, she had the coolest shoes, she was just really cool. And her hair was short and wavy and white. And she was beautiful. And I walked up to her, and I'm really shy, I don't walk up to complete strangers very often. But she was putting her stuff in the trash can and I walked up and I said, I absolutely love your hair. And she took one look at my stripe in my black hair and she said, I love yours too.
16:50And I teared up and I was like, thank you. I said, I can't wait until mine looks like yours. This half and half thing is driving me crazy. And she just had the biggest smile on her face. And so it was this little tiny thing that I did. And it didn't change, it didn't keep her from getting cancer and dying, as far as I know, but it was a little tiny smile thing that I did. For you, you are doing something that
17:18probably is saving lives. So it doesn't matter how big or little, just try to make a good impact in the way you can. That's right. It doesn't cost anything to be kind and to share. And of course for me what hit closest to home was trying to encourage my siblings to get to the dermatologist and get checked out. Again, all of us are just so guilty of getting busy prioritizing.
17:47ourselves slips down the list. And I missed my last appointment with a dermatologist last week because I had influenza in our home and couldn't do it. It is on my to-do list, just right up there with getting my taxes done for 2024. Don't we hate it? Why do we human beings feel like we don't learn our lessons unless it's the hard way a lot of times? Because we're busy and we're distracted. Yep, busy and distracted.
18:17Yeah, that's the thing that kicks everybody or we just ignore things. If I ignore it, it'll go away. Yes. I'm really good at that. It's not true. I need to not do that anymore. Okay. So what I've been trying to get Leah to get to in the last five minutes, but she's not doing it is Leah is a very talented writer and she writes these beautiful essay snippets, I call them on her Facebook page and
18:43I love them. She tells these stories and I read them and I either guffaw or I cry or I take a big deep breath and go, yup, that's right. And she also is getting into public speaking. And I love this for you because I watched the video that was posted of your speaking engagement a couple of weeks ago, a week ago, whatever it was. And you were nervous, but you were fantastic. Thank you. Yes, I was so nervous. And
19:13I have done public speaking for a long time. I did high school competitive public speaking. That was a long time ago. I've done small groups. This was a unique challenge because it's a huge event. So when I say huge, I don't just mean number of bodies, but like the pressure to make it be good because it's such a great event in the state of Nebraska celebrating 40 years of Nebraska Women in Ag, a dynamic setup of speakers and workshops.
19:43and I was the keynote to close the event. Yes, you were. Yeah. I hyped myself up into thinking that I was not going to be able to meet the expectations given how great it had been and the weather had been so terrible. Women were anxious to get going and go home. So they had told me 45 minutes. I knew that wouldn't be appropriate. I was myself looking at my watch thinking I'm anxious to get home to my family and help.
20:11put things back together after such a vicious Arctic blast we'd endured. And so I was nervous. And then when I saw my father sneak into the corner of the ballroom in the corner of my eye and my mother was at a state or she'd been there with him, um, I had to pivot and I couldn't look that way because
20:34Well, I wrote about it because I'd cry because he's a baby boomer and I am the next generation. When you know, you know. The relationship dynamics between the generations are different and it's hard to explain that. That's why I wrote about it again a week later. I wrote about it, which seemed to resonate with many who said, yes, this is my experience. It is my experience. It doesn't make me stop longing for.
21:03dad that would say I love you but showing up 70 miles down the road does mean that he loves me. Absolutely. The thing that I really wanted to say about your speech as the keynote and the last speaker of the thing is that I felt like you were the dessert after the really good meal probably because you were very earnest but you were also funny. Thank you.
21:31As I get older, I find myself being funnier. So I think my teenager rolls her eyes. Her boyfriend tells me I'm funny. Yes, and I felt like that was appropriate because the content of the event was so wonderful. It was heavy. It's a heavy time. Of course, I mean, it's heavy for all Americans right now, but it's particularly heavy for women in agriculture in spite of really good markets and stuff. It's just heavy. It's all heavy.
21:59always heavy right now, it just seems heavy, heavy. I thought that humor would be appropriate. But let me say that when I entered into certain components of that 20 minutes that I spoke and I didn't see it coming, I mean, I practiced on a small group of women and my husband several times, the emotional response from them took me by surprise. And so that's…
22:24that also drove a bit of my nerves in particular when I pulled up the picture of the from the mom cyclone. And I selected that one because it was a picture that people recognized. It had something like 25 million views or something. And I saw some women kind of do like a, like it was like a blast from the past. And so they recognized it but hadn't put it together that it was mine. And it had been on the front of many papers and magazines that
22:53the following weeks that it was me that had written and shared that, but also it drew back drew up their own memories from 2019 from that bomb cyclone. And after the event concluded as I was packing up and we were done to go home, how many of them embraced me to, to thank me for for helping remember that event, but in like a positive way. There were some women that said though it was hard. Some PTSD is a very real thing.
23:23and several that said I had an instant emotional response because I haven't revisited those memories and then you brought it right in front of my face and I had forgotten how hard it was. So that was, it was a, like I said, it was a unique experience to see the tears in the audience when I didn't expect that. At the end of the day,
23:50My goal was to connect with them and I feel like that mission was accomplished and then help them connect with one another because while we've been together for two days and while we women in agriculture do feel interconnected on so many things, it's very hard to get to that state of authentic vulnerability where you actually are saying me too and you're
24:21flesh that out together and you establish trust and credibility and you feel like you're in that safe place to do that. And that's what I, that was what my goal was. And it blesses my heart when I see women exchanging phone numbers and email addresses as they go home because they're doing that. And there's so few of us, Mary. Yeah. We will not survive without that community.
24:51Yeah, and I feel like that's true of any community doing good things. I mean, I don't know if there are still communities doing bad things. I mean, biker groups used to be accused of doing bad things. And I don't know if they're even still around. But when you have people, it doesn't necessarily have to be women, it tends to be women because for ones who are very social. But when you have a group of people focused on something that is good.
25:21whatever it is. You guys are all lit up. You have ideas. You share them and amazing things happen. And the other thing here is that you are very good at pulling the heartstrings and pulling people forward to hear what you're sharing. Thank you. I get that from my mother. And I know I sound like I'm a fan, you know, a raving fan.
25:47And I am a fan, you know, I really like you. I like what you're doing. I really love how you write. I love the history that you're sharing of your farm and other places, but you're good at this and you need to do these things. And I feel like you finally have your own permission to get out of your own way, to be able to pursue these things that you love to do. Thank you. I too, I appreciate that so much. And.
26:15I had this conversation with a friend who works in ag and advocates too is sometimes we in agriculture, people think because you're self-employed or similarly that you have all this free time. And to be very truthful, I mean, I've had people say, Leah, you owe it. You owe it to the community. You owe it to citizens or consumers to do these things.
26:44And I am pleased to share and to research and to give and to write and to speak like you do, Mary, how you advocate. But it does come with a cost. And I don't just mean in dollars and cents. It can come with a cost because we're a very private, sometimes prideful community. There are consequences of sharing sometimes. And...
27:13If someone said, do you want to make a living doing some of this? I'd say, I would be delighted if you'd like to help pay my gas mileage and cover my time to put together a speech for you or write a column for you. I'm getting braver at asking for that because I don't have any more time to give away, so to speak. And yet advocacy and just being inherently.
27:39knowledgeable enough to help is so important to me and that's why I'm asking others to take time to be knowledgeable as well. Like when I wrote the other night about that very unfortunate sign at the airport restaurant to just have awareness and enough advocacy skills that if you're in the aisle at Walmart and you hear someone saying something that's incorrect that you be brave and you help them see that.
28:07If they will hear it. And you're right. And today it concerns me that I was, I mean, I was blessed. I had an internship in the Nebraska Unicameral in college. Nothing fancy. I made copies and shuffled papers and open mail and helped write summary reports and greet guests. And I saw the senator I worked for and all these other senators get into spirited.
28:37debates and disagreements at times and then sit down and talk the next day over coffee. And I saw people change their minds with my own eyes. And I just feel today like people have just dug in their heels. They are reluctant to open their eyes and their ears to listen and listen well and intentionally. And it seems impossible.
29:07nearly to change a mind anymore and I don't feel like it used to be that way. Yeah, I okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna agree with you to a point. But back in my younger days, I actually used to like people. I used to be social. I used to sit down with folks more than one at a time and have a cup of coffee and chat. And there were people then that weren't.
29:33They were intractable is the word I would use. They didn't want, they didn't want to hear anything that wasn't there. Already known paradigm. And the thing that I find with people like that is they're not, they're not willing or they're not ready to hear what it is you're trying to share and they probably never will be. So when I meet people like that now, I do my thing. I chat, I listen.
30:01I take their their viewpoints into consideration. And when we part ways, I say, it was really nice chatting with you. You have a nice day. And then I try not to go around them anymore. It's just, it's not worth it. It is a waste of their time. It is a waste of my time, but I still try just like you try. Um, so, so we've talked a lot about you and you taking care of you and you trying to help other people.
30:31And you also had posted about the wildfires in Nebraska. Were there wildfires in Nebraska near you? Yes. Um, so I was commenting to my husband that I don't recall there being as many wildfires during my youth. And this is not a commentary about climate change or changed weather patterns.
30:57I think it's important today to remind all of ourselves, including myself, that when I was a kid and even up in through the 90s, access to information was limited. I got my daily news from the newspaper. Actually our community newspaper was published twice a week. I watched the, in the morning, I watched the news and weather with my parents before I went to school.
31:26Otherwise, I had no news for the rest of the day, right, until maybe the six o'clock or the 10 o'clock. I watched the weather report. Access information was more limited. That's just a fact. So if there were wildfires, there certainly probably were. They just weren't reported on like they are today. We're literally being fed information minute by minute. And I don't think that that is a positive for us.
31:53human beings, I think it's too much, it becomes noise, and then you can't separate out important from non-important. So, I am certain we had wildfires. I remember a very vivid memory in the 1980s. We actually were at Sunday dinner with cousins up in the very far reaches of Northwest Custer County and the railroad started a wildfire. And I have vivid memories because the young teenage cousin of mine became in charge of all the kids and the adults went to fight fire. So yes.
32:23horrific fire again last week. Some of it's a credit to today's ranchers. They're doing so much better at managing their grass that they have good grass, standing grass. As we go into spring calving, it's all brown so that they have good cover for these cows as they start calving. The unfortunate side effect is it's a high fuel load because none of it's green yet. There's lots of fuel to be had. We also have some invasive problems like with
32:52Those boogers love to light up and burn and they burn hot and they can rekindle after weeks. But yes, we had over 6,000 acres burned in Custer County last week, literally started within 36 hours after the snowpack had melted away because there wasn't a lot of moisture in it and then the winds cranked up. And people that had lit their burn piles when we had snowpack, those things flared up on and on and on.
33:18on and on and so we ended up with some state and federal resources here to finally tamp them down. I think Friday was their last day of operations and now we go into March which is also a tough month for wildfire because as we lose snowpack and we get winds you know we're just at risk so we could use rain we could use snow however we can get it because the risks are great and of course I'll see.
33:47Long-term forecast shows us in a persistent drought condition through May, which is hard to hear because we were dry going into fall. Hard to say what we're looking at. If I had a crystal ball, I'm sure I wouldn't be a rancher. So hopefully people have stockpiled their feed well. Inventory on cattle is down across the country. So for people who cold hard.
34:17hopefully they're okay. Hopefully they've got enough feed going into spring and grass will come and they'll be all right. But the obvious side effect of that is of course increased prices on your beef because inventory is down and will continue to be down because now it's expensive to get into the business. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to say something not so good. I'm not. I'm so beefed out, Leah. Oh my God. I think we might've talked about this back when. But
34:45My husband and my son would live on beef every day if we could. And I swear to God, if I have to look at one more pound of ground beef, I'm going to throw it at my husband. And as I say that, we're actually having sloppy joes or tacos tonight. So I'm... I hear you. I feel you.
35:06I just want it to be spring or actually late spring, early summer when I can go out to the garden and cut some lettuce and some chard and some baby spinach and have a salad. There you go. And I'm not Catholic, but I love the spring because I love seafood and I enjoy a good fish sandwich to mix up the mundane. And yes, and I grew up eating a lot of pork actually. We couldn't afford to eat our own beef. The 1980s was the family's...
35:36hog business that got us through those really hard times. So we had pork most days of the week. And now we don't because my husband has diverticulitis and pork is not his friend anymore, which is sad for me. But yeah, I like to tell people, I advocate for all my friends who raise all kinds of protein, all of the ruminant animals, all of the poultry, the fish farms, and I have excellent, excellent responsible.
36:06super duper people in the dry edible bean business, for instance, and we need them. We need all of the choices for people. What I can't stand is when one party attempts to put fear or belittle a different producer in order to boost your bottom line. That has never worked. Consumers don't like it. They get confused by it. Then they set the whole thing down and then we all lose. So that's what gets to me.
36:36If you are being a, what, now this has a loose definition to some, a responsible producer. If you're a good steward of the land and a good steward of your animals, um, don't you dare be putting that person down and their enterprise down. There's that's ridiculous. And, um, when these self-righteous, vegan, radical people start going after all of us. Um,
37:02You know, I just say that's why people hate Americans, because most of them are Americans that are that way. You're trying to dictate the choices of the whole world and their pets. Yeah. Yep. I met a, I met a missionary once who lived in Inner Mongolia for a period of time where nothing grows in the soil because of the arid, bitterly cold terrain environment.
37:31They live on what they call the keto carnivore diet, basically. Yeah. Except for when they can import a little bit of, I think, some rice or something to go with it. You know, your self-righteous comments would mean the destruction of an entire group of people. And again, and how many are starving or have insufficient access to food, and you think you should dictate what they eat? I mean, that's the stuff that really gets me fired up.
38:01Oh, absolutely. And I can't stand beets. Okay? My mom would pickle beets. I'm with you, girl. Oh, they bled into the mashed potatoes and turned to pink. That too, yeah. But the only way I could eat beets is if I ate like one pickled beet out of the jar that my mom would can. And my mom to this day doesn't understand why I don't like beets. And I don't like beets because to me, they taste like dirt. If I wanted to eat dirt, I'd go get a spoon and eat it out of the garden.
38:31I don't care that she loves beets. It's fine. Enjoy them. Eat all the beets on the planet. It means I don't have to. Right. So, so yeah, it's just I wish that I'm gonna sound really Pollyanna ish again. I wish that people would live and let live other than like killing people. Don't kill people. I'm not comfortable with living and letting you kill people. That's not okay. But, but just.
38:59try to have some compassion and some patience and some understanding and then everything would probably be slightly better. Now to end this podcast, I got a couple housekeeping things that I wanted to share with you and share with listeners. I started a new thing. The episode that went out this morning has something called the Homestead Holler at the beginning of it. And basically it's a shout out to...
39:24anybody who wants their business name and what they do and where they can be found. You know, just a little snippet at the beginning of the podcast. And I thought this would be fun. So if anybody listening has some kind of homesteading, farming, ranching, growing things, making things, business, and you want to be part of the Homestead Hall or at the beginning of every, not every episode, but an episode, just contact me and we'll get it together.
39:52That's awesome, Mary. There are so many Facebook groups for homesteading. I follow some of them. Now I can just think of a ton of them that that would be great for them to participate because they're doing good work. Yeah. And I was just going to call it the tiny homestead shout out. And then I was thinking about it. I was like, no, homestead holler. It's a shout out. So it's a holler. It's a homestead holler. And then the other thing I wanted to say is our chickens that we just got a couple of weekends ago, they're 23 weeks old now.
40:21They're starting to lay. We got 12 of them on purpose because we can't use that many eggs a week, but we can sure sell them to people around here who don't want to pay $9 and $10 a dozen store. And so we can pay, we can sell them for less than that and we will have them. So I'm very excited about this. They, they just started laying last week and I'm so mad because one of them.
40:48had given us an egg a day for like four or five days in a row. And then two days ago, my husband went out and there were two eggs, which means two chickens are laying in the morning. Nothing this morning. I'm like, girls get it together. We need eggs now. Play him some music is what I've heard. A little music. You know, Mary, what you just described to me though, I was trying to relay that.
41:15You know, when I was a teenager, my job was to get the eggs. I took turns with my siblings. Yeah. And it took it for granted, right? The activity of doing that. If you have ever watched a young person in particular get to have that experience for the first time and connect the dots, like these light bulbs, it's my feeling, my opinion, that if every human being could be connected to their food like that,
41:46we would see the world be changed overnight. Oh yes, back when we first got chickens, when we weren't supposed to have chickens, when we lived in town, we had four chickens. And my son was, oh my goodness, my youngest was probably 13, I think. It was a while ago, and he's 23 now. And he actually saw one of the chickens lay the egg.
42:12And he came in the house and he was like, is that how women have babies? Yes. I was like, well, it's a little more complicated than that. But yeah, pretty much that's the chicken having a potential baby. He's like, that looks easy. I said, yeah, no, women having babies is not easy. Trust me.
42:36And I said, if you really want to know, Google it because that's all I got. I'm not going to tell you about your birth other than the fact that it was fast and it was the least painful one of the three I've done. There you go. Yeah. And he just looked at me and I'm like, honey, I said, chickens have a bunch of eggs inside the bodies and they develop into the size that you saw come out. I said, eggs don't wiggle, eggs don't kick.
43:03I said, you had hiccups, you would kick, you would roll over. I said, it's a whole different thing. It's like, Oh, and I said, yeah. So, so yes and no. Then he just laughed. But yes, that connection of where your food comes from is it's incredibly important. And I'm part of the reason that I'm again, I started this podcast for a lot of reasons, but
43:32I want people who are curious about food to be able to come and listen to the people who are actually raising the food or growing the food. Because so many people who have been generous with their time and allowed me to ask them questions have said so many things on this podcast that even I didn't know about. I'm not a farmer. Yeah. It's complex. It's diverse. It's...
44:01yet it's cultural and it's cultural specific to areas of the country and it's everywhere. It's easy to get caught up in like, what's my view out my window and out my back door? I hear from these lovely people who maybe they tap the trees and they make maple syrup. Maybe they're raising unique forms of poultry for consumption because people like Cornish
44:29different kinds of specialty crops that grow that I buy and consume without thinking. And the unique thing is that every one of them is deeply grateful for the opportunity they have, deeply appreciative for those opportunities. They recognize how hard it is. They recognize that it's not easy to get started. They feel alone a lot of the time. It's hard to connect.
44:58but also how intrinsically they believe that being connected to agriculture in any way, shape or form possible is life-changing and life-giving. And one of the most favorite stories I'd like to tell is I met a woman who lives in the state of Louisiana. The state has adopted a like make every public school ag model.
45:24and they got grants and they brought in elements of agriculture to the schools and they require the children to participate in some level. So they've got greenhouses, some have livestock, they've got some enterprises going. And what she told me is that every school that has implemented this ag track, this ag focus where every child has some chores, has some connection to the work going on, their truancy problems.
45:54absenteeism, discipline problems, and grade problems. Gone. Wow. Gone.
46:03That's phenomenal. That tells you how powerful it is. And my opinion is if we can start with them when they're little people, then we're set for life, rather than trying to teach an adult who never grew up and experienced any of this. Yeah, and who may not even want to and will be forced into figuring out how to feed themselves. Mm-hmm. And doesn't know where to start. Yeah.
46:29And I mean, I have a whole table right now full of seedlings downstairs in my kitchen. You're ahead of me. You need to get started. Yeah. And every, every February my husband gets the itch. He's like, we need to get seeds going in the seed trays on the table. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to lose my kitchen table for eight weeks. Okay. And I'm always kind of bothered when he brings it up because I'm like, it's only February, what, and then he plants the seed because he's the gardener, he loves playing in the dirt.
46:59And the sprouts start to come up and I see these little green babies on my table and I'm like, oh my God, they're so cute. Doesn't it do, it just does something to your spirit, doesn't it? When you see it. Yeah. And then the basil ones come up. I am a big basil fan. Love basil. And the basil babies come up and I wait to see how many actually germinate because if there's only like six, I'm not touching them because we need them to go in the garden. But if there's like 60 of them, I wait till they're about.
47:28Yeah, an inch tall. And then I pinched the top off and taste it because I needed to remind it of what fresh basil tastes like. And my husband will notice the one that doesn't have me and he'll be like, was it good? Yes, it was. And I will wait until they are ready to take any more. And he just laughs. He's like, you always are so.
47:53irritated when I'm like, okay, I'm taking over your table, but boy, that first basil seedling that you eat, you're like, oh, that makes it worth it. And then the other thing I was going to say is back at the beginning of January, I came down with COVID. First time diagnosed, haven't been sick with anything since December of 2019. You can guess how miserable I was for a week. And I had just interviewed a woman who works at Sunnyland Farms.
48:23and I can't remember where it's in the south, and they grow pecan trees. And she was kind enough to send me a pecan pie, and then a couple days later, I got like two pounds of fresh pecans. Oh my goodness, what a gift. And that pecan pie was the only thing that I wanted to eat that week. And my husband didn't really love it. He doesn't really love that kind of sweet and sticky.
48:48and my son wasn't into it either. So I basically lived on pecan pie one piece a day for five days. More for me. And then those pecans came in. The reason I'm bringing this up, because this is one of the things I learned from her, pecans are not supposed to be bitter. They're supposed to be bright and nutty and yummy. I've never really liked pecans because the pecans you buy at the store are bitter. Yes. And it's because of the way they're stored.
49:17They're supposed to be kept cold. I had no idea. I didn't know this. I swear to you, Leah, those pecans that she sent me, they were just pecan halves. They were like eating potato chips. They were so good. Wow. I want to buy more from her, but I can't afford it right now. And the other thing about pecans that I didn't know is they are a huge source of antioxidants. Uh-huh.
49:47I did know that. So I learned like a whole bunch of things from her and then had it proven to me that pecans can be really yummy. And I'll add to your list because I just learned this in December. Pecans grow exceptionally well outside of Tucson, Arizona. That is where I saw groves and groves and groves. I couldn't figure out what I was seeing from the road. So I asked someone and they're like, oh, those are the pecan trees. I said, huh? We're in the desert. They're like, yeah, they grow here. And I said,
50:15Is anyone harvesting them? Yeah, a lot of them just hit the ground here because they don't have anyone here to harvest them. Someone planted them and had a business years ago and then it's just not where it's done now. So I'm like, because I noticed they were beautiful, these beautiful straight lines, right? These rows on the side of the road. I'm like, let me out. Can I fill my bags? They're like, I don't think they'll let you fly with them. Yeah. But I was like, that will do the work to harvest those things. I had no idea about the refrigeration. That makes a lot of sense.
50:46Yeah, so now I'm an addict, but I can't afford to buy them from her. They are worth every penny but they are not cheap to acquire. Maybe one day you'll become an additional to the podcast. You'll do a YouTube channel. You can go to her when she's harvesting and do a whole experience day. That would be really fun. That would be awesome. That's an idea. All right, Leah, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
51:12It's been my pleasure and I am so grateful for people like you, Mary, that always offer encouragement. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm speaking into a void or if I have anything to add of value that is separate from the noise because there are so many wonderful, powerful, educational, inspirational voices out there that I wonder if I have anything to add to that. So the feedback is helpful and I appreciate it. And I...
51:40I feel called to be a soft place, a safe place to gather. I could get really passionate and talk about a lot of issues, hard hitting, important, scientific, research-based stuff, and I don't feel called or led that way. I want to be a soft place, a safe place, and hope that maybe we can stir hearts if we can't.
52:06change thinking that if we can stir hearts, then maybe we'll make some positive moves and that we can then just also be an encouragement to those that are in the trenches. And yes, one of my goals is to get out and do more public speaking, putting on that brave hat and going out and doing it, connecting with all these wonderful people I've been talking to for the last seven years. It's time to get out and meet some of them and hear their stories and be able to share those or empower them to share them.
52:35I would love to talk with anyone who's looking for a speaker to come their way and get that opportunity to do that. So I appreciate you giving me a voice to let me do a little self-promotion. Definitely. It was my pleasure. All right. Thanks, Leah. Have a great day. Thank you, Mary. Thanks.
 

Natural Living Fair

Today I'm talking with Amy at the Natural Living Fair.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today's Homestead Holler is a shout out to the Grounded in Maine podcast. Amy Fagan is the host, and she focuses on the many ways to live a sustainable life. You can find Grounded in Maine on Instagram or at groundedinmaine.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Amy.
00:29at the Natural Living Fair. Good afternoon. I get so confused because I record at 10am and 1pm, typically, and the light is pouring through the window in my room where my desk is and it looks very morningish right now. So good afternoon. Sorry about that. Good afternoon. I don't know where you are, but we have a ton of snow on the ground and so everything is so bright today.
00:55Yeah, I'm in Minnesota and we have maybe a dusting on the ground. And I saw that you guys down in the South were getting pounded with snow. And I was like, you know, we've gotten maybe eight inches all winter and they're getting more than we've gotten all winter right now. It's insane. Isn't it? It's not right. I don't love it. And especially up here, we need the snow for insulation for the plants to, to do their thing in the winter time. They need time to rest.
01:25And we had hardly any snow last year either. So this is getting to be a problem. I'm very concerned about what our gardens are going to do this year. Yeah, you know, for us, we get worried in the summer, because it's so hot and dry now. It's not like it used to be. And we're dealing with mid-summer drought after drought after drought. Yeah, I guess we're just going to have to see if Mother Nature adjusts to the new weather patterns, because this is. OK.
01:54I can't worry about it anymore than I already do, or I will just call it. Sure. All right. So Amy, I want to know about your Natural Living Fair because I was reading the article that was linked on your Facebook page and it says you've been doing this since 2015. So tell me about yourself and the Natural Living Fair. Yeah. So I have a farm in South Clarksville. It's called the Sunday Morning Flower Farm. And I...
02:23grow primarily flowers for summer CSA, which stands for community supported agriculture. So when you think CSA, often you think, you know, like a bushel of vegetables that you pick up from a farmer in the summer. And we kind of do that with bouquets. You can pick them up at our farm or we deliver them. And so that's the main thing that we do with our farm. And then in the spring...
02:50I throw the Natural Living Fair, and you're right, it's since 2015. This is the eighth one that we're going to be doing. We took kind of a pause during when COVID first started. And we just feature farmers and artisans and any type of craftsperson, small businesses that kind of deal with the more natural living genre. And we just all meet up.
03:18one weekend. It's the last weekend of April every year. And we just bring the community out and we sell tons of plants and all kinds of fun stuff. It reminds me of the Common Ground Fair that Maine holds every year, except the Common Ground Fair has been around for a long, long time. And it's huge. And I don't know that you guys are huge yet. No, we're not huge.
03:47The location that we have, I think we could be bigger if we wanted to, but I really like the size that we are. We're kind of perfect just serving our community. We have between 50 and, really between 40 and 70 vendors every year.
04:05And really the location that we have it at is gorgeous. It's at the Tanglewood House in Clarksville. And we have, it's like, it's an old historic building and the grounds are beautiful.
04:20keep it. I'm sorry. Are we still here? Yeah, we're good. Okay, I got a phone call. I'm so sorry. It's important to me that we keep it there because the ambiance is so perfect and I want people to come away from the fair with just a peaceful feeling, you know, that they just left something good. Yeah, that's Clarksville, Tennessee, right? Yes. Okay, is that the same Clarksville in the song? The last train to Clarksville?
04:49I think that's Clarksville, Indiana. Okay. I don't know. It's been running through my head all day when I saw where you were and I'm like, I don't think that's the right place. I think that's everyone's first thoughts. Yeah. Great song. Fun song. I love music. So anything, any word can trigger a song that will just haunt me all day. It's insane. Okay. So when you say natural living fair,
05:14I'm assuming that a lot of your vendors sell herbs, they sell soaps, they sell lotions, they sell balms. What else do they sell? Yeah. We also have, like I said, a lot of farmers selling produce, flowers, plant starts. And then I really define the term natural as just kind of working in harmony with what's always been here.
05:42And so we have a lot of artisans, we have woodworkers and metal smiths, we have beekeepers. I'm part of the master gardeners here in Clarksville and we have a lot of gardeners. We have some local food trucks and we have live music. We give free booth space to children, maybe if you know a young entrepreneur. And then...
06:11Just anything that's for, you know, most people can't start a factory on their own. They can't open a giant business. But what most people can do is learn time-honored skills and traditions. And we want to support the people that are doing that. Okay. So did you? Tell me, tell me more about...
06:36why you started this? Because I don't know that you got real in depth on that at the beginning. I think it was just a passion. I really love anything to do with natural living and farming, and I love getting my community together. That's very important to me to build community with the people around you, because I think that we've gotten so far from that. And that was it.
07:03I just, you know, I was with one of my friends and I thought we could, we can do this. We can do this. And we did. And here we are. And you're saving. Sure. So, yeah. So, do you mind telling me how you did it? Because I feel like it would be really cool if every fairly large town or city did something like this. And if somebody wanted to take up a mantle in their area, how would they go about starting something like this?
07:34It was completely grassroots for us. I had a friend who knew something about this, and they said, well, maybe we have it at Tanglewood now, which is a beautiful venue. The first one that we ever did was at a church, and we donated the proceeds to a school that was opening. So it's come a long way, but really it was just me and a few of my friends getting together, and someone…
08:03We just we reached out to the community and we called small businesses and and we all just Brainstormed for days and got a little got a little event together and then it's just grown slowly from there So it's it's not it's not um Rocket science or anything you don't have to be Fancy or super smart or I don't know connected to set something like this up
08:33No, no, I mean it helps to have connections of course, but if there's a will there's a way and all you need is the desire to get it off the ground. Awesome, okay. Well I think that maybe some listeners might be inspired to try doing this in their area. Well I hope so. That would be awesome if they did. I am not inspired to do it
09:03people and I really don't want to be at anything like this. It would freak me out. I would be just buzzing and just like talking. But I'm sure that somebody out there is very people oriented and very service oriented and would want to try setting something like this up. So I'm hoping that they do. Okay. So how many people do you think attend this?
09:29So it really just kind of depends on the weather every year. We've seen fairs with horrible weather where we've only gotten about 300 people. And then when the weather is great, we might have up to 1500. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Quite different. Yeah. But 1500 people is nothing to sneeze at. That's, that's a good number. And so I assume it costs money to attend this. It is free. Oh, is it free?
09:57Yeah, it's free. So we, the venue that I'm working with now is wonderful and they really share my vision and they want community to come out. And so they, they give me a very affordable price. And then the only money that comes in is from that what the vendors pay for their booths. Wow. Yeah, we really don't make a lot of money doing it. It's just important to us to keep it going.
10:24Yeah, no, that's fine. I just was assuming there would be some kind of admission fee, but that's great because that means anybody can attend. And I assume that people come with their kids and their kids learn a lot while they're there. Yeah. You know, a lot of the booths have activities for kids. I have a booth myself for my farm and we always let kids start seeds or pot up little tiny plants for free. You know, we do things. Last year we had a...
10:53portion of our booth it was called rejuice reuse recycle and we let kids plant in old juice boxes So it's fun. It was kind of a way to you know, get a second life out of them and teach kids about recycling You are so cool When you said that you wouldn't want to be there because of the crowds I completely understand we have the
11:21The property has historic cabins on it, and the owners let us use it. And one of the cabins we reserve is a quiet space. So I tell people, you know, if you're a nursing mom, or maybe you have a kiddo with autism, or a sensory needs of your own, that's a place where you can just go.
11:43fair. Nice. I'm kind of going to go off track here for a minute, but it's something that was interesting and it ties into what you're saying. The airport here in Minneapolis, I think that they now have a sensory room that they built, they set up in the airport for people. Wonderful. And it was on the news and they had a lady who was talking to whoever
12:13and they had the video in the room. And it is so pretty. Like it's all blues and greens and it's quiet and it has like sound absorbing stuff. So it's very quiet. And I thought, what a great idea. Even if you're not on the autism spectrum. I know lots of people who are very anxious about flying and that room would probably help before they had to get on the plane. So I loggered.
12:42I love it when organizations or businesses set things up like that for people. It's great. Yeah. So I have to stay off topic for just a second. I have three neurodivergent kids and so we often need a lot of quiet space. I was working with the... Clarksville has a downtown farmers market that runs through the summer and I helped set up a sensory booth.
13:09at the downtown market too. And I'm really hoping that, you know, with the right.
13:15I guess marketing, we could get all of Clarksville to just implement some more of those because the neurodivergent population is growing so fast. And even if you're not neurodivergent, it's a busy world. There's a lot going on all the time and I just love advocating for that. Everyone just needs a little more peace, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And my quiet space is where we live.
13:45My house is typically pretty quiet and we live on three acres and we're surrounded by cornfields. So it's very nature soundish outside. And I'm beaten on the subject a lot lately, but we just got chickens again. So in the mornings we'll hear the chickens talking to each other again. Isn't it great? I love it. I do. I did not really care that we got rid of our chickens back in the fall because they're not my favorite animal.
14:12But I really did notice that first month or so after we got rid of them that I wasn't hearing them cluck and murmur to each other in the mornings. I missed it. I really did. So they've been stuck in the chicken coop all week because it's been freaking cold here. So they're going to get to come out into the run this weekend and then they're going to be able to free range starting next week. It's going to be warm again. So I'm going to hear my chickens talking to each other again. I'm very excited about this.
14:42We also have chickens and they are very calming. I love their little noises. Yeah, it's so funny because the last time we got chickens, I went over with my husband where we get them from and they were in their little bins in the back of the SUV on the way back. I didn't even turn the radio on because I wanted to hear them talking to each other in the bins and my husband was like, what are you doing?
15:08I said, listen. This is me time. I said, they're having a conversation back there. You're missing out on all the gossip. And he just laughed at me. But it may sound really weird that I really enjoy the noises they make, but they're just, they're very calming as long as they're not squawking. The egg laying squawk is a little disconcerting that, you know, it's like, oh, that was definitely an egg laying sound. Okay. Yeah, that's a loud song they have. Thank you.
15:35But when they're just murmuring to each other, it is just, it's almost like a babbling brook kind of relaxation sound. Oh yeah, I can see that. So got off on neurodivergent stuff. And honestly, I have no idea. I assume I am neurodivergent on all kinds of levels. I've never been diagnosed. But every time I talk with friends who are, they're like, you must be, because you don't like crowds. You don't like loud noises.
16:03you refuse to fly, you have all these key things that would make you on the spectrum, but you've never been diagnosed. I'm like, no, I have just coped my whole life with things that make me not comfortable. Yeah. I'm in the process now of getting all those things diagnosed. And I will say that information is key. I think that the more you know, the easier your life can be.
16:33So, you know, a diagnosis doesn't matter for a lot of people, but I have come to find that it matters for me. So that's what I like to tell people, you know. Info is everything. Oh, yes. I think forewarned is forearmed is forewarned or however that saying goes. Yeah. The more you know, the more you know. And the more you know, the more you can learn about what you don't know yet.
17:03I love education. Good way to put it. Yeah, I love education. Part of the reason, I mean, I have a lot of reasons I started the podcast, but a big reason is because I wanted to learn from other people about what they're doing because then I can implement some of those things I learned into what we do here. And it has worked like a charm, I'm telling you. So I'm sure you get to talk with, you know, so many different people and you just get
17:30the very best info they give you in a short amount of time? Yes, exactly. And it's so funny because people tell me things that I would never have even thought to ask about, let alone know about. And there's times where people are like, I tried this thing and it didn't work. And I'm like, I can tell you why. Because I know, because I tried it. So it's this very nice give and take of information and education. I really do enjoy it. Yeah.
17:59biggest issue I have with the podcast is scheduling and we had a little glitch today. I thought you were on the East Coast because I thought Tennessee was Eastern time. Well, half of it is. And half of it is, but you're not on that side. And back months ago, I interviewed a lady in Australia and then I interviewed a lady in New Zealand. And trying to figure out the time zones, you know, what time is it there versus what time is it here? We all had to look it up. We didn't know.
18:29So yeah, it's happened a bunch of times and the worst thing that happens is somebody doesn't show up and I go, where were you? And they say, but I'm this time zone. And I'm like, oh, well, that makes sense. So I usually try to say, are you available at this time, central time? And that way they realize I'm central time. And then we figure out. So it's always interesting. But.
18:53This natural living fair thing sounds like just a ball. And 20 years ago, when I wasn't quite as bothered by crowds, I would have been there with bells on. I think it sounds like a lot of fun. Well, I really am really proud of it. I have a lot of fun. You should be. That was a huge undertaking for you, I feel like. And it sounds like it's been a really big success. So good job. I had a really good community when I started. And I think that was a big part of it.
19:22Yeah, and you had people to help, I assume. Yeah, in the first few years, I had some help. And then I just kind of took it over. It becomes habit. It's not as difficult anymore. And you've already made so many connections. And you've been there. You've done that. So I do it mostly alone now. But most of my time is actually taken up with my farm.
19:52I'm lucky that I've had so many seasons under my belt now. It's second nature. Nice. So, I have one more question about the fair and then I would like to talk to you about your farm for a few minutes. So when, it's in April, so I'm assuming the weather in Tennessee is usually lovely in April if it's not pouring. Right. Okay. So people get to come to this thing and the weather's nice.
20:22and they get to bring their kids and they get to buy things, they get to learn things, they get to eat things, I would guess. Yes. And so they must just be walking around smiling the entire day. It's hard to have a terrible time. Yeah. I mean, weather permitting, it's fun. It's all shaded. Everything outside is shaded. The grounds are kept up beautifully. They have a restaurant on site called the Mad Herbalist. It's a tea bar where you can get...
20:50you know, seasonal food and it's in central Clarksville. It's just, it's so accessible and peaceful. Yeah, it's hard to leave. For me anyway, it's hard to leave having a bad time. Okay, well I think anybody in your area who's into plants or natural stuff or food ought to go visit your fair because I think that that would be really fun.
21:20Okay, so tell me about your farm, because I didn't realize you have a farm. I do. So in 2019, we moved from the city to the very, very south Clarksville, and we got just under six acres. And we started that year, we had, we fenced off a little part of our yard. It was about 4,500 square feet, and we just said, this is going to be our garden. And it went really well.
21:50And in 2021, we built a greenhouse for seedlings. And I realized that I can grow enough for us, but I can grow it enough for a lot of people. And so we thought, why not just till up part of this yard over here and plant a little flower patch? And so then we had the garden, and we had a little patch in the field.
22:18And then last year we got approved for a grant from the NRCS, which is the natural resource and I think it's conservation service. And so now we have a very long greenhouse. We have our seed starting greenhouse. We have the garden. We have the field in which we plant in. And we just have a lot more space than we did when we started out. And so we started a CSA bouquet.
22:45Like I said earlier, it stands for community supported agriculture. So in the winter and the spring, people buy into that. They'll say, I want X amount of flowers, X amount of weeks, and then they pay for that. So let's say you want 10 weeks of flowers throughout the summer. You either come pick them up on Sunday mornings at our farm or you have them delivered.
23:14sometime throughout the week and I just I take them all over Clarksville. And this year I think we're planning on adding vegetables. So we'll be serving you know our little part of the community with the stuff that we grow here and you know we're we're not certified organic but we don't spray we don't spray any of our stuff and we have bees that pollinate it all and
23:42I don't know, it's just our little slice of piece here. Yep, I understand, we have one here too. Yeah. So the great thing about the CSA model is that people subscribe in late winter, early spring. That means that the person that is supplying the flowers or the produce or whatever it is has the money that they need to buy the stuff they need to grow the things that they're going to be giving back.
24:11people who subscribe. And I'm not, the only reason I'm saying this out loud is because I'm not quite sure that people understand why it's a subscription service. And that's really the point of it is that say we wanted to do our CSA again, we did it for two years, we're not doing it anymore. My husband has a job that takes up too much time and he would rather sell the farmers market. But when we did the CSA, we would take the money that
24:40for the subscriptions in the spring and we would buy our seeds. And whatever we could start in February, March, April in the house on the table, grow lights, again we're doing that this year. That's what those seeds would be going into is the little pots on the table. And then if we didn't have, if we didn't want to do the starts from seeds, some of that CSA money would go to getting seedlings from a nursery.
25:09so that they could just go right in the ground. So I just, I want people to understand why you pay for it ahead of the season. Yeah, yeah. So I always tell people that farmers really don't have a winter income. Right. And so it's hard to put money into something when there's no money coming in. So.
25:34Yeah, that's why I say that people are basically kind of buying into our farm for the year. You're supplying the startup that is going to allow me to grow the flowers that I then return to you. So it's very harmonious and it seems very intentional. I really like just how basic it is. You give me money, I grow your things. Yeah, basically we're doing the growing work and they get to just come get it. It's very...
26:03It's like a convenience store except that the food is so much better for you or the flowers are so much nicer. Exactly. People don't realize the carbon footprint on grocery store flowers. They all come from South America. They're flown in on jets. By the time they get to you, they might already be a week old. That's why they're only lasting three or four days versus a locally grown...
26:30you know, bouquet of dahlias you might get two full weeks out of. Yep. And often they're, I mean, we don't undercut the competition, but we are often a little cheaper than the grocery store for the quality. So. Yeah. Um, my husband used to get me a bouquet or two of flowers for Valentine's Day. And I asked him this year, I said, can, can you not get me flowers? And he looked at me like I had sprouted another head out of.
26:59And he said, why? And I said, because I said, the last couple of years, you've bought me flowers at the grocery store because you're on your way home. I said, and half of them are just yucky. The minute I put them in there, try to take them out of the plastic, they're gross. I said, it has nothing to do with you. It's not your fault, but I don't want you spending money and having to throw away half of the stems. And honestly, I'm going to have
27:29So I don't need flowers in February. It's fine. I said I would rather just have like some food from somewhere that I didn't have to cook. Yeah, exactly. And he was like, oh, okay, cool. I said, and it's going to be cheaper for fast food because once in a while we splurge on fast food. We're homesteaders. We still now and then want to have a gross burger. Yeah. And I don't mean gross. I mean, I mean dive bar burger. I know what you mean.
27:54And he was like, oh, so we're gonna spend like 25 bucks instead of the 50 on flowers. I was like, yes, that would be nice. And you know, when you think about like a local farm, what you can get, how many flowers you can get for $25 that are gonna last you two weeks that are, a lot of them, you know, a lot of the stuff that we plant, even our cut flowers, we plant because native pollinators love them. And so you're not just supporting.
28:23your farmer, you're supporting your entire ecosystem that is then going to in turn give back to you in another way. There are so many good things about farming and homesteading if you're doing it the way that we're doing it. We did sunflowers, started growing sunflowers three years ago and not like for sale, but just because they're pretty. And we're so smitten with them that we're probably going to grow like a whole...
28:53couple of rows this year because they're so pretty. You can bring in a sunflower and put it in a vase as long as you get it before it's like you know twice the size of a dinner plate. Yeah. And they're really pretty. And the other thing that we've done is cut the basil when it's blooming and put that in in our flowers too. So that's a thing that we do too. All of our bouquets have fresh herbs in them.
29:19Whether it be a form of basil, you know, we grow a lot of like cinnamon basil and lemon and lime basil for that purpose Even Thai basil just smells great in a bouquet or we have chamomile or oregano something, you know A lot of people I think don't realize that a lot of cut flowers don't have a smell. Yeah, you know because What usually smells also has a lot of pollen that's gonna drop on your table. Mm-hmm
29:47And so by putting those fresh herbs in a bouquet, when people just naturally bring it to their nose to smell it, they still get a really pleasant experience. Absolutely. And since you said Thai basil and cinnamon basil, I keep thinking that Thai and cinnamon basil are the same thing. I know they're not, but they smell so much alike that they could be the same. They are very similar. They don't taste that similar though. Yeah.
30:15Yeah, we grow cinnamon basil and I love it. The Thai basil, I don't know. I don't love it as much as the cinnamon to cook with it. So, but anyway, I try to keep these to half an hour and my voice is going, I don't know why. So I'm gonna let you go, but thank you so much for your time today, Amy, I really appreciate it. Absolutely, it was great to meet you. You too, have a great afternoon. Thanks. All right, thanks. Bye.
 

Red Dog Ridge

Today I'm talking with Tina at Red Dog Ridge. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like information regarding the documentaries mentioned, click here. 
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today's Homestead Holler is a shout out to O'Connor Family Acres in Le Sueur, Minnesota. They offer duck eggs, goat milk, and soaps are coming soon. You can find them on Facebook at O'Connor Family Acres. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment.
00:26Today I'm talking with Tina at Red Dog Ridge. Good morning, Tina. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. Okay, first thing I wanna know is why is it Red Dog Ridge? Well, because we have sheebas and we live on a ridge and we were trying to figure out a name for the farm and we at that time had a litter of puppies and then we were overrun with red sheebas. So the sheeba in you. So.
00:54My son was like, what about Red Dog Ridge? Okay. Awesome, I love that. I hear really good things about the Shiba's, but I've never met one in person. Are they really nice dogs? They're temperamental dogs. They're a bit of drama queens. They can be nice. There are ones that are very nice, but ours are not. They're not real friendly to others, but they're real loyal to their families. Nice. I know they're beautiful.
01:23That's about all I know and I've just never known anyone who has one. Everyone I knew or know has German shepherds or labs. So, so those are the ones I'm exposed to the most. Okay. We also have a lab. So, labs are usually pretty cool. The ones I've met have been really friendly and really silly and I love them. Okay. So,
01:52Tell me about yourself and what you guys do at Red Dog Ridge. It's my husband and myself and I have three children, two daughters and a son. We own 20 acres in the Houston, Missouri area. We raise mini jerseys, red bourbon red, red bourbon turkeys, chickens, cooney cooney pigs. We sell meat.
02:22or chicken, pork and beef. We just opened a farm store where we sell milk and eggs and a few little homemade items. We just have been here about four years trying to get established with the communities.
02:38Okay, was this a COVID decision? No, no. We had bought the property. It was completely raw. We bought the property in 2019, right before COVID had hit. And then during COVID, we were we traveled full time for 20 years before this property. And we always knew that we were going to buy property, we were looking, we have been, you know, back and forth across the United States and up and down.
03:07probably 14 different times. So we looked all the way from New York to Arizona for what we were wanting. Finally settled on Missouri because it was pretty middle of the country and my husband's an electrician and my son's a lineman so they can get to the bigger jobs anywhere pretty quickly. But settled on Missouri and then during COVID we were over in Nebraska working.
03:36And we came here on weekends just to kind of make it, you know, we put in an RV park for our RVs because we knew that, you know, we weren't going to be having houses for a while. And we just started building it from there. Nice. So what had you traveling for the previous 20 years? My husband and first off, my husband's work, he only did like oil refineries, coal plants.
04:05large hospital jobs. So I mean, we went to the big jobs all over the country and we homeschooled our three children. And then my son, he wanted to go into becoming a lineman. So he took three and a half years into his apprenticeship and then we traveled together once he graduated and he went to transmission jobs and you know, we took smaller jobs, but we went to places we wanted to see and explore.
04:35Well, I'm going to say that sounds like fun. I don't know if it was, but it sounds like it was fun. It was a blast. For 20 straight years, we were just nothing but tourists. So, I mean, it was no responsibility. We didn't have a home, you know, back in the sticks and bricks, we just were full-time RVers. And we saw, I mean, we've seen, we've been to every state except for Hawaii. And we've seen a lot of amazing things, met a lot of good people.
05:02So I'm going to stick with fun. That sounds like a lot of fun. I'm, I'm, I couldn't do it. I am such a homebody. I love coming back to the same place when I leave. So, so for me, it would be really strange. So that leads me to my next question. Is it really strange that you've been in one place for four years? Oh yeah. It was a, it took a lot to get used to, but that was originally why we started RVing was my youngest daughter. She did not like.
05:30packing up and moving and changing friends. So we got RVs, so her bedroom, her house, was always the same. It was just outdoors that was different. Yep. And we loved coming back, that our home was always with us. But yeah, coming back to a sticks and brick house and staying put for a while, it was really organic. We came back in 2021 to build my son's, he built a shed house, half shed, half house.
05:59We came back to just oversee that project. They were putting the shell up and we never left. We were supposed to leave three weeks later to go to, I think it was back down to Texas, but we were like, you know what, we're just gonna kind of hang out here for a little bit longer and haven't left yet. Wow, okay. So you've been doing a lot in your interim stay for four years. Tell me what you've been doing.
06:27Oh, well, we've built four different residences. We've built three tiny homes. And like I said, my son has a shed house that's over 2000 square foot. We have the cows, so we've fully fenced in our entire property. We've put in water, our septic, electric, built chicken coops, built turkey coops. We've, you know,
06:57put in roads, cleared pasture. We've been busy. Yeah. Busy is an understatement, I think, because I looked at your, um, your website and your Facebook page and, uh, busy seems like a very weak word for what you've been. You have been straight out go, go, go. And, uh, the one picture that really stood out to me, I think it was yours was the pregnant pig laying on her side. Oh yeah. Yeah. She looks very uncomfortable and I don't know when that picture was taken. So I'm assuming those babies have been born and already.
07:26They're in the world. She had her babies, well, she had her third litter with us three days after Christmas. And so we have 18 piglets that are just a little over a month old. They're just the most adorable little things. But yeah, she was very, very, pigs are only pregnant for three weeks, or three months, three weeks and three days. So it's a short gestation, but she was very uncomfortable at the end.
07:56Yeah, my second baby when I was pregnant with him, he was a big baby. By the time I was due with him, I was done with being pregnant. It was a good thing too because when he was born, he was 9 pounds, 12 ounces. Oh my goodness. I was very done the day he was born. I can relate to your pig. It is not easy at the end. Honest to God.
08:23No, she barely did. She doesn't want to move. She didn't want anything. Bring me my food. That's what she wanted. Uh huh. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing I want to say about pigs is piglets may be the most adorable baby animal ever known to man. I say the exact same thing. I love my cows. I will literally take a bullet for my cows, but piglets are the most adorable babies and the cooney cooney piglets with their big ears and their short little snouts. Adorable.
08:53Yeah, and then they just grow up to be pigs and I don't have the same feelings about adult pigs that I do about baby pigs. Yeah, yeah. The girl pigs are like, man, you guys are ugly. Adult pigs are not nearly as cute as the babies. And I always joke that babies are cute so that we don't eat them, even human beings. And with the baby piglets.
09:18I know that that's an end that piglets can meet from their moms. So I don't think they're cute so their moms won't eat them. No, that's true. That you have to be careful that the moms squish them and then eat them and that's kind of sad. But yeah. Yup, exactly. So I've asked this of a couple of people in the last year or so I've been doing the podcast and I don't always necessarily get an answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Can you tell me about an average day at?
09:48at the Ridge? Well, everyone else here goes off to work. They still have regular nine to five jobs. So it's just me. I keep it kind of flowing here.
10:05I check fences, I collect eggs, I mean we have a lot of animals, 67 chickens, just those, so you know someone's always got something going on. I milk cows, that's you know every day twice a day.
10:30Bake, we have, we offer baked goods in the store. So I bake the special of the day. Today it was garlic pull apart bread. So that was this morning. We eat pretty, what we grow. So a lot of everything is homemade, which takes a lot of effort and time. It's just, you know, mundane chores. Uh-huh.
10:53Garlic pull apart bread sounds wonderful. We're having pizza and salad for dinner. And I was like, hmm, I don't think I have time to make garlic pull apart bread. But boy, if I did, we'd be having that too. It smelled so good this morning. I was like, you know what? I think I'm gonna whip up spaghetti for lunch. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of garlic. Everybody who knows me knows that if they're like, we're gonna do Alfredo, I'm like, okay, put all the garlic in it. All the garlic, yes.
11:20We keep trying to grow it and I found out from somebody on the podcast that the reason it's not doing well is because our Dirt is too dense. We need more We need more peat or sand in our our lovely loam. Yeah, we didn't we couldn't grow garlic either I mean for like three straight years, I never got a garlic crop and then I had to put it in a raised bed That's what we're gonna be working on this spring
11:44because I would really like to grow our own garlic. I'd like to really grow a lot of our own things looking at the way things are going with inflation right now. So. Yeah. We've got a really nice, lucky hero. We've got a great guy down in Houston that goes to the farmer's market every week and he is just like a green thumb and he grows everything. So what I can't grow because I'm a struggling at best gardener. I go and get it from him.
12:14Are you a struggling gardener or are you a learning gardener? I'm on the struggle bus. It does not come easy for me. I'm learning, but I'm definitely struggling sometimes. So a little secret, even the most fantastic successful farmers are on the struggle bus sometimes growing things. So you're not alone. I promise you.
12:37I had a question when you were talking and I forgot it because that's what happens to me. I keep saying this, I'm listening to you guys when you talk and I'm like, I have a question and I hear what you were talking about and I lose the question. I should keep a notebook beside me, but I really don't want to hear. I'm bad at this. Okay, so the store that you guys have, did you build it and then stock it and then open it? Is that how that went? We
13:06We got a, my, it was, I mean, it was really kind of her, but my cousin gifted us a cabin. I think it's like a.
13:18maybe a 12 by 20 cabin, a shell of a cabin. So we put it out front and we separated it into three separate areas and framed out some walls. And we just put a, it's just a little store. It's only about 150 square feet. But I mean, we are met with a lot of happiness from people around us. We're out pretty far. We're about 17 miles to the nearest small town. Oh wow.
13:46hour and a half to anything with decent shopping. So there have been a lot of positiveness that we've received with that you know that they finally have some you know good choice of meat. Eggs sell out every morning by nine o'clock. Doesn't matter how many I said out there they are always gone. It's a
14:13It was a struggle there for a little bit trying to get it built in the ice storms and the snow storms and everything, but we did it. Yeah. So it's on your property? Yeah. Nice. So it's like a farm stand, but it's a store. Yeah. Well, we can only sell raw milk in Missouri off our property, either deliver it or on farm. Yeah. And I was going into the farmers markets for two straight years. I've been going to the farmers market in town and taking orders and then having people
14:42come out here to buy it. And I was like, you know, it's just easier if I, it's stocked in the fridge, what we have every day, and people just come at their leisure to pick it up. And on their way, I mean, people have become such introverts that the unmanned farm stand is really popular. So they, there's a cash box or they can Venmo their payment and they go and get what they want and then they leave. Okay, now I have a question. In Minnesota,
15:09If a farmer wants to sell the raw milk, they are not really allowed to bottle it and just sell the milk in the bottle. You have to bring your own container and they will fill it for you. That's different in Missouri? Yeah, it's different. We can sell raw milk. I sell it in glass jars on farm only. So it can be bottled in whatever we have and then they can pick it up. Okay.
15:38I think what I said is accurate about Minnesota. I may be wrong, but every time we've gone to get raw milk, which doesn't happen often the last time we did it was three years ago, we brought our own mason jars so that the farmer could just pull the milk from the tank. I would have to look into it again, but that's typically how it's done here. So does he pasteurize it or he just puts it in a holding tank, a cooling tank? It's just a clean holding tank.
16:08And the last I checked, like three years ago, the farmer has to be really sure that his tanks are clean, that the little stick that he draws the milk from the tank with is clean. It's a thing. So there's some real regulations here in Minnesota about it. Yeah. Thankfully, Missouri is pretty free on most things. That was one of the reasons why we chose Missouri. Not a lot of restrictions out here where we are at.
16:38Mm-hmm. Are you in the southern part of Missouri or the northern part or the mid part? It's more mid-southern. If you're riding, riding between Springfield and St. Louis and you go down.
16:54south a little bit. Okay, so what's in an average winter? I mean, we haven't had an average winter in three years, but in a normal winter, what is the average low for you guys? We have, you know, we've like I said, we've only been here all going on four years. And every year we've hit one year we hit an actual negative 13. This winter so far, we've had a negative two.
17:24maybe two or three weeks of real cold temperatures. So do you have a longer growing season? Is the frost date? The frost date is still, which I think is we're in zones.
17:39Zone six? Yeah, we're in zone six. I think our frost date is February, February 15th. Wow, okay. All right, so you have a far longer growing season than we do up here in the Arctic tundra. Yeah, we can usually grow into, everybody says, you know, until late October, but really I think until early December. I was still getting peppers in December. It's still 40, 50 degrees out there, so.
18:10You know, every time I talk to somebody like you, I think we picked the wrong state to stay in when we moved over four years ago. Yeah. We moved half an hour from where we lived before. And we threw around ideas. We threw around Wisconsin. We threw around Iowa. We threw around Northern Missouri. And we just couldn't leave Minnesota. For some reason, just could not drag our feet out of the state. Well, it's beautiful out there. Yeah.
18:39We were in Clinton, Missouri for a while. We were going to go up into that area, or Clinton, Wisconsin. But, I mean, we traded. You know, Missouri's not, in my opinion, it's not real pretty, it's not real mountainous. So you trade that for the niceties of the weather. Yeah. And I keep hearing from people who live in Missouri that they really like it there.
19:07I said to my husband like a month or so ago, I said, I think we picked the wrong M state. And he said, do you mean we should have moved back to Maine? Because it's where I grew up. And I said, no, we should have moved to Missouri. And he looked at me like I had three heads. And I said, honey, I've talked to a bunch of people from Missouri on the podcast. And they all say, it's really pretty and it's a good place to grow veggies. And he says, too late now. He said, I can't move again. I'm like, okay, that's fine. We don't have to move again.
19:37So when did, I'm sorry, when did you open the store officially? Officially in February 1st, but we were, two weeks ago we had, we were kind of accepting people coming in, but officially it was open February 1st. Okay, and how did that go? Was it fun? Was it exciting? It was, yeah, it was a lot better turnout than what I thought. We were very steady. I mean, I guess people would say it was real busy, but it was, we had about 22 people show up.
20:06So, I mean, it was a steady flow in and out, sold out of almost everything. Like I said, we tried to meet people the first day to just, you know, the people we hadn't met before. And we just got really a lot of positive feedback that people were wanting what this had to offer. Well, congratulations. I'm very excited for you. That's really good to hear that people understand that what you're doing is important.
20:36Yeah, I think that, I mean, I really do think that there's a need. And I mean, I think across the country, if, you know, we just shorten the supply line from our food to our actual tables, you know, we'd be better off. Absolutely. Amen. I can drive, I think it's a 20 minute drive to a place that sells chicken and beef and lamb and eggs. And
21:04It's a farm. I can get all that in one spot and we have a garden. So, you know, from, from mid June till the first part of October, we're pulling veggies out of the garden to eat all the time and we will have our own chickens again here in the spring so we don't have to buy eggs. Oh my God, Tina, I hate buying eggs at the store. I know. And we put, um, why, you know,
21:32I didn't know a lot about chickens when we first started. Thankfully, it seems like God put the right people in my path that I needed. I talked to this old Amish woman that she runs a store just maybe 10 miles down from us. And she said the best advice she could have with chickens is add to your flock every spring. That way in the winter you don't buy eggs. She's like, it's like, it's a dagger to your heart to go and buy eggs when you have chickens sitting outside.
22:00Oh yeah, absolutely. And we made a poor life choice. We got rid of our chickens back in September or October because we had like 10 or 12 chickens and they were getting old and lazy and they were only giving us a couple of eggs a week. And my husband was like, I'm not feeding chickens that don't produce all winter. And I said, that's fine, call them. So he did. And this is before the egg prices really spiked and we're really regretting it now. We should have just gone and gotten some laying heads.
22:30to build up the flock, but we didn't do that. So this spring, we're gonna get six chickens that are already laying, and we're also gonna get like six or eight chicks. Baby chicks. And raise them, so they'll start laying 22 weeks later. Yeah. But my point being about being able to drive 20 minutes to get most of what we need is if I knew somebody closer and I probably could find somebody, you can.
22:59You can stock your house and your freezers and your pantry without having to go to a grocery store, but you have to know where to go. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, like I said about that farmer's market in our downtown Houston area, there is the guy that sells the vegetables. And I mean, he has everything, everything you can think of, he has it. Wintertime, he's growing lettuces. He's got high tunnels. So I mean, if you go to the farmer's market there, you can stock up on all your veggies.
23:28There's a lady that goes there, she has a wonderful beef and dairy herd, and she just got accreditation to do dairy products. So she makes her own raw milk cheese and other dairy products. She sells it there. She brings beef, she brings cheese. You could literally do everything at the farmers market, stock your whole pantry, and buy a birthday gift.
23:55But people, you know, they just seem reluctant to want to go there.
24:02How come?
24:06I'm not sure. I mean, we are so maybe indoctrinated that we have to go to Walmart. We have to go to the local grocery store that, you know, that's where our food comes from. I don't know. I'm not really sure. They run ads. I think people are aware it's there, but I don't know. Huh. That actually surprises me because we have a very small farmers market in the town that we're part of. And people come to that every Saturday morning. I mean,
24:35If there's something else going on, like if the state fair is going on, the farmer's market's going to be slow. Yeah. There's no question. But, you know, on a normal weekend, there's a lot of people who go to the farmer's market and they spend money. It's crazy to me how much money they do are willing to fork out. And it makes me really happy because we have a very robust, thriving, and we're going
25:02bunch of people who are creative and who either raise animals or grow produce or make things. And they come and they sell their wares. And it's such a nice little community of people who are trying to help each other, you know, symbiotic relationship thing. Yeah. I mean, I never really kind of experienced, we didn't frequent farmers markets a lot while we were traveling. I wish we
25:30But yeah, it's beautiful that everybody there and they're so helpful to each other. Any one of those people, if I needed assistance, they would come and help me. They might not know me very well, but they're just really amazing, nice quality people that go there and just try and sell what they're creating or growing. I wish that more people would frequent it. Yeah. I'm just blown away that they don't.
26:01It's in your town? Yeah, it's in Houston, Missouri. That's the closest small town. It's about a half hour away from us. They do have a good amount of people that go there, but really not the amount that should. Huh. Okay, I'm going to have to chew on that and see if I come up with any ideas for you to get more people to come because I love games like this. I love puzzles. Okay.
26:30So what's your plan? Are you going to keep doing what you're doing? Are you happy staying in one spot? Oh yeah, yeah. We are definitely happy. We are, I mean, we've been looking at other properties, maybe growing. You know, when we bought this property, we did not realize how much we would like the, we always knew that we'd have animals for our own consumption. But we, I really enjoy the cows and I love the pigs. So we're thinking maybe a larger property.
26:59Maybe one day or you know, I don't know. We're not sure expanding probably bigger. This is the plan
27:10Awesome. Awesome. I'm glad to hear that because we need people like you to keep doing what you're doing, especially right now. And even if the world wasn't as topsy-turvy as it is right now, we would still need people like you because we need good, locally grown food to keep ourselves healthy. Yes. Yes, I agree with that. I agree 100% with that. I think if just more people would just grow a little bit, you know, maybe we could get rid of
27:39a lot of the problems that we have. Yeah. And honestly, I feel like people like you and people like my husband and I and all the people I've talked to on the podcast over the last year are very good at bringing people together, whether you do it on purpose or not. And we just need people to talk to each other and hear each other right now. Yes. Yes. We sit there and say that all the time. I don't have to agree with you. I mean, there's several people that surround us that are doing what we're doing. We don't have the exact same.
28:09reason that we're doing it. But I don't care. You know, I'll work with you. You need help. I need help. You know, let's just make a community and let's back to more, you know, God's design of life. Uh-huh. Yes. Where people do things that they're good at and they share and they barter their services and they learn from each other and they get along to a point. That would be really, really nice. Yeah.
28:37I don't have to be your best friend, but we can get along. We can agree on certain things. So, find common ground. Absolutely, Tina. I agree. So, I want to end this podcast, number one, by thanking you for your time, Tina. I really appreciate it. And number two, people, listeners, whatever, if you would like to buy things like Tina is doing and selling.
29:06or the people at the farmer's market are putting out, all you really have to do is ask around, ask the people that you know, because I know that somebody you know, knows somebody who either sells at the farmer's market or makes things or grows produce or raises animals for meat, you just gotta ask. Yeah, contact your Chamber of Commerce. They know where the farmer markets are. So, yes, go see what they have to offer.
29:32Yeah, I just realized that for the last year, I have been talking with people all over the United States and two people, one person in Australia, one person in New Zealand, one person in Canada. And I have never actually said, hey, if you want to get into this, here's how, how dumb am I? So anyway, that's how you do it guys. So if you want to support your local growers, you got to find them. Find them. Yes, find them.
30:00And they're usually at the farmers market trying to build up their clientele. Yep. Or they have the little roadside stand or the little farm stand or the store and they usually have a sign at the end of their driveway with an arrow that says go that way if you want good stuff. Yes, stop here. Stop here. Turn here sweet corn. Exactly. And stop. Stop and patronize them. Yes, please.
30:25All right, Tina, thank you so much and good luck with your future endeavors. All right. Thank you very much. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

Wonderful Thyme Farms

Today I'm talking with Bailey at Wonderful Thyme Farms.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Bailey at Wonderful Thyme Farms. Good morning, Bailey. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. And you're in Iowa, right? Yep. Eastern Iowa. Okay. Is it cloudy in Iowa right now?
00:29Yeah, it's pretty cloudy right now, but it's a pretty nice day. It's almost 50 degrees. So after we're done here, I'm headed out to get a few things done after I get done with work. Nice. Um, it's very cloudy here in Minnesota today, but it is, I think it's pushing 50 degrees too, so, so it's a nice reprieve from last week with the, uh, brutal frigid temperatures we had for a week. Absolutely. Yep. It's really nice to see the snow melting and
00:58be able to get outside and get some things done. Finally, yes, exactly. And I don't see it getting really cold again. So I think, I think, carefully I'm saying, I think we're through it. I think, I hope. Oh, Iowa usually surprises us at some point after, after we think it's all done. So I won't hold my breath until it's May 30th, probably.
01:24I'm talking about the brutal, your face hurts and your nose freezes when you go out cold being over. I think we're through the worst of that. Hopefully. Yeah. From my lips to God's ears, I suppose, but I hope so. Okay. So tell me about yourself and what you do. My name is Dr. Bailey Goose. I live on a small homestead we purchased last year.
01:51Um, before that we were renting a different homestead. Um, my partner, uh, two bonus kids, one kid, uh, two dogs, several chickens, more in the incubator, uh, we run this, uh, small homestead in Eastern Iowa. Uh, my partner and I both work full time, um, off the farm as well. So right now we're kind of in a building year.
02:21We're looking to get a bunch of projects done here, but I am a USDA veterinarian. I was in private practice for a few years before that. So we kind of have an eclectic mix of interests and hobbies and careers and everything else here in Iowa. Okay, well, since you are a veterinarian,
02:49Before we're done talking, I want to talk about bird flu, but we'll get to that in a minute. How did you decide you wanted to become a homesteader? How did you decide you wanted to buy property and have chickens and things? I grew up on an acreage. My parents have an acreage not too far, actually, from where we live now. And I kind of grew up with that whole...
03:17interest, but my mom always had a garden. When we were younger, at least when we got older, and we were quite busy with sports and activities and 4-H and all those things, she kind of had to let that go. But it was definitely a part of my upbringing as a child. My friends had different ag-related families, so one of my best friends growing up.
03:42lived on a dairy, so I spent a good amount of time on a dairy when I was a younger kid. I had friends that had chickens and I always thought that those were so cool. My dad wouldn't let us get chickens when I was little. So I kind of came into the homestead space a little bit naturally. It's not too far of a jump from being a large animal veterinarian to wanting your own livestock and wanting to be fairly self-sufficient.
04:11I've always really enjoyed gardening. So I've always had either a couple tomato plants when I lived in the city or some herbs in my window. So when I got the ability to have a bigger scale garden, I started planting one and then it's gotten bigger every year since I started. So as they do. Yep. Absolutely. So I guess I was kind of.
04:39born into the seeds of it and I kind of have let it flourish the last five years for sure. And luckily my current career and job really lends itself to being able to be flexible and be able to do this kind of on the side. I don't work a whole bunch of overtime or anything and my partner's job is pretty flexible and we don't have kids.
05:09every single sport yet. So just some sports. We do the best we can making it work here. Okay. All righty. The reason I ask is because it seems like there's people in two camps when it comes to getting into the homesteading thing. They either have seeds planted when they're little,
05:31Or they just get sick of the corporate grind and they're like, I need something completely different and they get into gardening and chickens and they're like, oh, I want to do this. Oh, for sure. Chickens and gardening is a gateway drug to the full effect homesteading. So we're not, we're not, we don't have enough space to have everything yet. So we are sticking with our poultry and our gardening and
06:00We're planning to put in a farm stand this spring so we can offer fresh baked goods, fresh eggs, fresh vegetables and fruits. We have some plans to put in several fruit trees this spring. The homestead we're at has a couple of apple trees, but I love fresh fruit, so we would like to put in about 10 additional fruit trees. Hopefully in 10 years we'll get some fruit.
06:30Um, it might be sooner than that. You would be surprised. Um, do you like peaches? Absolutely. Okay. I don't know what variety of peach trees my husband bought a year or so ago. What, what, uh, of saplings, but we got peaches the first fall after he put them in the previous fall. Oh, perfect.
06:53And they're a cold hardy variety. I just don't know what the name of them is, but I'm sure you could look up cold hardy varieties for peaches. Cause I'm assuming Iowa doesn't, isn't really warm like the Southern States in the winter time. So no, no, we got to have cold hardy things up here or down here for sure. I know it's for South of you, but we're still pretty cold here in the wintertime. Mm hmm. Yep. And I'm telling you, we didn't do anything to these peach trees. We didn't spray them. We didn't fertilize them. They just got.
07:22They just got into the hole in the dirt and dirt piled in around the trunk and these peaches were delicious I got half of one my husband brought in I think six and my son ate four of them my husband ate one I bit into the one I had and was like this is fantastic He half of it set it on a plate on the counter and when I came back it was gone And I was like where's my peach and my son looked at me said I ate it. I was like oh great
07:52And this is not a little kid either. This is a grown adult son. So they were really good. I just want to buy peaches from a direct farm to direct consumer, fruit truck every spring and preserve as much as I can. We really enjoy peaches in this house and there's nothing better than open up a fresh can of peaches in the winter time to
08:22to enjoy instead of having to go to the store and buy a can of peaches. Uh-huh. Yep. I'm actually gonna send off an email either later this afternoon or tomorrow to the fruit truck people and see if they will talk to me on the podcast because I looked at their website and they work with farmers. They don't work with factory farms. They work with farmers. So I want to find out how that all works. I have it on my calendar to uh
08:52Go pick up some strawberries from them in a couple of weeks. So, I wish we could. Our, our fundage right now is a little, little tight and we just can't splurge on strawberries this year. I'm so sad. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Um, and they're selling them in different size boxes this year. They have two different size boxes and it just depends on the size of the box as to how much it's going to cost.
09:20And I think it's the same price per pound, but it's just different sized boxes in our area. Yeah, we have strawberry plants here, but I'm ready for some farm fresh strawberries. We are almost out of strawberry jam as well. So I will be buying a couple of big boxes and putting it in the strawberry jam. And that's one of the products that I sell out of.
09:47out of our farm as well as our jams and jellies and stuff like that. Yeah, and for anybody who has no idea what we're talking about, the fruit truck, their website I think is myfruitruck.com. And basically this place transports fresh fruit across the country from wherever it's grown to all different states. And you can just, you literally...
10:12let them know that you want it and you show up at your local fairground or wherever the heck they're going to stop to do the drop. And you bring cash or a check and you go home with fresh fruits. And sometimes they sell pecans and things. So it's a really neat way to do it in the winter, especially in the springtime right now.
10:35So that's what it is. Myfruittruck.com I think is the website. But if you type in fruit truck in Google, you'll find it. Okay. So I want to talk to you about the bird flu thing because I just watched a video of Joel Salatin talking about the bird flu situation that he just put out a couple of days ago. And he was saying, and I know that he is a radical thinker. I interviewed him on the podcast a while back.
11:04I know that not everybody thinks the way that Joel thinks. But Joel was saying that in most situations when there's a flu, you let the flu run its course and then you keep the animals or the people that survived it and you use them as a source of immunity. And that's not really what's happening right now. So do you, number one, do you know anything about the bird flu?
11:30Uh, yes. Um, unfortunately in my capacity and my role as a USDA veterinarian, we are, um, we are required to direct you to the public information officer to discuss official, uh, bird flu. Um, and they would be definitely happy to help you or talk to you. Um, they are the ones that are.
11:59contracted and in charge of speaking to the public on all matters of bird flu and USDA. So unfortunately, in my official professional capacity, it's not something I can discuss, unfortunately. Okay. Well, can we make it a broader question that isn't really USDA? It's more how can I keep my backyard block healthy? Absolutely. So there is a...
12:29website. It is and it is a USDA sponsored program. It's called Defend My Flock. And it gives pretty straightforward biosecurity suggestions to backyard chicken producers, backyard poultry producers, to help keep your birds safe. So that I implement a lot of those biosecurity measures here on my own flock. They have some, it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty, if you think about it,
12:59you know, the virus comes from migratory waterfowl. So being able to keep migratory waterfowl away from your backyard poultry is usually the number one recommended thing that you can do. So if you have a pond, unfortunately, you have a greater risk of spreading that to your birds. But
13:27There are some great pointers on that website on how you can, you know, just down to making sure you just have specific shoes to go out to your coop and they're not the shoes that you go to the gas station with, you know. You can pick up a virus on your shoes and take it home. So I have a pair of coop shoes that only get worn into the coop. If I've been out and about for my job, I come home right away.
13:53and change my clothes before I go out and do anything with my birds. So it's just pretty straightforward. No, not expensive biosecurity suggestions on the website. And that's defendmyflock.com. And that's a great resource for backyard producers to try to help keep your birds safe.
14:21Do you want to get a drink of water before we continue or are you okay? I grabbed my Stanley here.
14:32I had COVID at the very beginning of January and I canceled like three days of interviews because I just couldn't talk without coughing. So I understand what you're going through with the hacking. I get it. Yeah, absolutely. I have not been diagnosed with COVID this year yet, but I had it last year. And my daughter was pretty sick a couple of weeks ago with influenza, I think, and RSV. So
15:01It has definitely made the rounds in this house. So I think if you, if you haven't had COVID this year, you've had influenza A, if you haven't had influenza, you had RSV. If you haven't had any of those three, you've just had a head cold. I think that this year was the year that everybody actually got out and about and got exposed and their immune systems were actually down because everybody was so to themselves for three years.
15:29I also think that if you have not gotten any of those, you've gotten norovirus because that's also been going around as well. Yeah, we haven't gotten that in this house. Thank God. I remember back when my kids were young, my youngest had just started kindergarten and my daughter is 12 years older than he is and there were four kids. So they all came down with some kind of norovirus in the same three days.
15:57and they were all home from school for like at least two or three days. And I did so much laundry. We were one bathroom household with four kids. It was insanity. Luckily, my husband and I did not come down with it. So at least there were two functioning adults to take care of the kids, make sure they were getting cleaned up, make sure everything was getting washed in the washer, dried in the dryer, folded and ready to go. Because
16:25If one of us had been down, I don't know how we would have handled it. It was really bad Okay, so I Didn't realize that you wouldn't be able to say anything about bird flu because of your job. I'm sorry about that I wasn't trying to you know, like start anything It's just it's just protocol so Yep, and you mentioned the no-brainer things but some things people don't think about
16:52We had that situation happen this weekend with our chickens. We just bought 12 chickens two Saturdays ago. And they're going to be 22 weeks old in two weeks. So we should have eggs in two weeks, or at least begin having eggs. And we had a possum outside the coop, the run. And we're homesteaders, so my husband dispatched it with bird shot. And.
17:20I talked to my dad the next day and he was like, was that lead shot or was it steel shot? And I said, we don't, I don't think we have any steel shot for ammunition. So I'm pretty sure it was lead. And he said, just a heads up. He said, you don't want to use bird shot anywhere where the chickens are going to get to because they will eat it. And then you can't eat the eggs because they now have lead in their systems. And I was like, Oh my God, I never would have thought of that.
17:48So needless to say from now on, if we need to dispatch a critter, we're going to use steel shot, not lead shot, because our chickens do wander the property now and then. Yep. And that should, it should have been a no brainer, but I didn't even think of it. Well, when you're worried about a predator getting after your chickens, it's not something that comes to the front of mind. No, no, hadn't even thought of it. And the fact is my son does target practice.
18:18you know on the property because we have a berm and we have the room to do it and he's been using lead shot and I'm like oh god my chickens might be eating lead that's great. So anybody who didn't know about this yeah you don't want your chickens eating bird shot because it will make them sick and you can't eat them or their eggs because it'll make you sick. So learn something new from my 81 year old dad who I think knows everything he's like
18:48Well, dads are good for that. Yep. And what he doesn't know, he'll pretend he does know. So I'm just snowed. I just think he knows everything. Okay. So you said you're a large animal vet. And I assume that means like not. Oh, there's a word. You deal with cows and horses and do dogs count or a dog small animal?
19:17I was in a rural area practicing and I saw everything. I kind of specialized in large animals, so cows, horses, sheep goats. I saw an occasional pig, but not very often. Mostly cattle and horses, you know, lots of dogs and cats as well. But that was kind of the area was cattle, sheep goats, horses.
19:46And then we had a small animal veterinarian in the office as well, who saw a lot more dogs and cats. Okay. So when you're... Go ahead. And then I left private practice and I went to work for a different division of the USDA. I worked for the Food Safety Inspection Service or FSIS. And I worked in a beef slaughter plant for almost three years doing, overseeing food inspectors. And...
20:14making sure the animals were healthy that went into our food chain. And then I left that position with the USDA and came to this position now. What an interesting job. The, the, the inspection part. I, I, I know nothing about that and I don't want you to tell me anything because you probably can't anyway. But, uh, I think that that would be really interesting. What is your background? Like, did you go to college for this?
20:43Uh, my degree in undergrad, I went to Iowa State University. I did a couple of years at a community college just to save some money. Um, and at my bachelor's degree is in, um, animal science. I have a dairy science minor. And then I went and applied for vet school and I got into vet school. So I went four years, uh, Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, uh, and graduated from there with a.
21:11Dr. Veterinary Medicine. Wow, that is a lot of studying, ma'am. I'm very impressed because I did not go to college because I couldn't stand the thought of sitting in lecture halls for four years at least. I just couldn't. So I did not, and that's why I do a podcast. That's why I don't do what you do because I would fail miserably at what you do. So when you say large animals, do you go to the farms to treat them or do they get brought into the building or how does that work?
21:41Uh, most of the time, and when I was in practice, we would go out to the farms to see the animals. On occasion, they would bring calves into the building for if they had a rough calving or they found them and they were really cold. We were dealing with some hypothermia type things. They would bring them into the clinic sometimes, but most of the time we were going out to farms to see the animals or to vaccinate the herd.
22:11castrate all the young animals, depending on what time of year and what our clients needed at the time. Okay, cool. The reason I'm talking to you about your job is because we have a veterinarian group here where I live. And they do small animal and large animal. And we freaking love them. They are so great with our dog.
22:39They were great with one of our cats. And I feel like being a veterinarian is a really special calling because yes, you get to interact with these beautiful animals, but you also have to deal with a lot of messy situations. And it's not the easiest thing in the world. So I really respect what you do, and I really respect what our veterinarian does because she has been nothing but.
23:07gracious and kind and helpful. And even when it's bad news, we haven't had any bad news about our dog, but I know that if there's bad news to share, I guarantee you she is just as soft-hearted and kind, but straight up as she can be. So I really admire what you do. So tell me about your plans for your homestead because this podcast is really about homesteading, veterinarian care is part of that. But...
23:35What are your plans for your homestead? You intend to make it bigger or more or actually maybe get some goats? Well, you know, if you can keep water in, you can keep a goat in. So I think if we chose a small room and it would probably be a sheep and, uh, or some sheep, just depending, um, on the breed, there are a few, uh, bigger. Breeds of sheep that I, I'm pretty big fan of. I like doorpers.
24:04And I like Katadans as well. I like the idea of not having to sheer them. Right now we just don't have the infrastructure, the fencing necessarily to have those. So that's a next five year project. We would like to get bees next year. We just bought this property and moved in in September. So we are
24:32gearing up for putting in three big gardens this spring. The property has immense huge numbers of flower gardens. That's what the previous owners, that was their wheelhouse. And this place, this property was in Better Homes and Gardens twice in the 90s. Just because flower gardens are extensive and they're beautiful. Flower gardening is not my number one
25:01a wheel thing in my wheelhouse, but I am planning to take a master gardener course so I can be a good conservator of the land and the gardens. I think they're beautiful. So we're going to put in three big gardens for vegetables. Like I said before, we're planning to...
25:27put in a farm stand so we can sell direct to consumers. We live not too far off of a highway, so we have a lot of cross traffic, people commuting to and from work. We have plans to put in a duck and goose house to keep them separate from the chickens because everybody knows if you have ducks, you have a mess. So we would like to keep them separate from the chickens and have...
25:57duck eggs available for purchase. And since I do so much baking as well, I like duck eggs in my products as well. Like I said before, planning to put in several fruit trees this spring. We have some cosmetic things that we need to get done to the house. We'd like to put a deck on the house. And I know that's not homesteading necessarily, but...
26:26You know, we live here, so that is something that is going to make our life infinitely more convenient if we can walk out of our screen door and go right out to the garden and harvest right away in the morning before it gets too hot in July. Yes, let me stop you for a second. A deck is homesteading because part of the joy of homesteading is being able to have a glass of iced tea in July on your deck and look at your homestead. So it is part of it.
26:56Go. Yup. We have plans to, since we have moved our previous farmers markets that we attended are kind of too far away to make it reasonable to attend those. So we're looking for some new farmers markets to attend. I do also direct to a couple local restaurants for produce.
27:26Yeah, lots of big plans. Not probably in time to get it all done. But we have, you know, a this year plan, and a five year plan and then a 10 year plan. We also have 51 meat chickens on order for April. So we need to build a chicken tractor to be able to have those out in the yard, instead of in the coop with the rest of the of the layers. I have
27:5517 pullets in our brooder right now. I have 20 eggs in the incubator with the price of eggs. I just decided I'm going to fill my incubator all spring so I can have a good supply of eggs coming this summer and this fall. And then if I have extra roosters, they'll go to be butchered with the meat chickens. So.
28:23Do you have any idea on average how much a meat chicken chick is going for this year? Just one? I can. Let me pull it up in my email. I can tell you how much I paid for them. I ordered them in December before... Everything went crazy? I know a lot of hatcheries are reporting shortages of chicks. Yep.
28:54And we're lucky enough here where we live to be able to drive to the hatcheries and pick them up. We ordered 51 and if you go ordered over 50 you got a discount. Yeah, 3.26 apiece. Okay, so not terrible. They haven't like jumped to $10 a check. That's good. No, no. The reason I ask is we have friends who are going to be if they can get them.
29:21they're going to be getting some meat chicken chicks here in whenever they can find them. And I just messaged her yesterday and I was like, do you know how much they are? And do you know if you can even get them? And she was like, I haven't gotten that far yet. I was like, okay, that's fine. Just let me know. Because they were going to go in with us and raise the meat chickens at their place because we have them laying hens here. So I was just curious about that. And yeah.
29:51This whole egg situation, we live like maybe half a mile from a chicken place where they have laying hens. It's not a huge farm, but I would call it a factory farm, more than a farm farm, because they have chickens. We know they do because every time they clean out the area where the chickens are, it's very stinky. And I said to my husband, I said, I'm very, very concerned about them.
30:21getting bird flu and somehow it travels to our chickens half a mile away. And he was like, we've lived here for four years. He said, we've had chickens most of four years and everything's been fine. He said, I don't think you have to worry about it. I said, okay, let's just be aware and be careful. He's like, yeah, I would rather not lose the chickens. We just thought that would be bad. Right. Uh, I would be more concerned about, you know, virus coming out of the sky from migratory waterfowl versus.
30:50neighbors. So yeah. Luckily we don't really have any water within three miles of us. We have we have the Minnesota River which is like five or four and a half miles east of us and there's a little I don't know nature area about two and a half miles from us.
31:13But the waterfowl don't tend to fly over our property and if they do, they're way, way, way up. They don't stop and visit. So hopefully we will be fine. Good. Good. That's great. Yep. I'm real happy about that. And we don't really have very many critters that show up on our property either. In the little over four years we've lived here, we've seen two deer. One of them had a fawn with her, which was beautiful. And we've seen one raccoon way out in the cornfield.
31:42And we've seen lots of possums. Possums really like to come visit our house. I don't know why. Well, they are little egg stealers. That is what they really like to do. So. Yup. And I know there's lots of people who are like, possums are harmless. You shouldn't kill them if they're on your property. You should just catch them in a live trap and take them away. And I'm like, if we were doing that, we would be taking 20 possums away in spring. You know?
32:12So they're gonna meet their demise at the end of some kind of rifle and that will be the end of that story. And if people don't like it, I'm really sorry, but that's how we do it here. So that's the way it goes. All right, Dr. Bailey Goose, I try to keep this half an hour and we're there. So I'm going to let you go. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. Thank you.
 

C&M Homestead

Today I'm talking with Morgan at C&M Homestead. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Morgan at C&M Homestead. Good morning, Morgan. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Is it still super cold in South Dakota? You know what's warming up? The last couple of days have been bitterly cold, but today...
00:27The sun is shining and the temperatures are warming up. So hopefully we're done with that little cold snap. Well, considering I'm your neighbor to the east in Minnesota, we're in the same boat. The sun is so bright this morning and I think it's actually above zero right now. I think it is here as well. I think we're maybe at like four degrees maybe. So not far above, but it's above zero. So that's good.
00:52Yeah, last I looked at my phone, my weather bug app was telling me it was minus two, but that was at like five o'clock this morning. So I don't know what it is right now. Okay. So we've done the obligatory weather check-in because that's what I do with all the podcasts and tell me about yourself and what you guys do. So I am the C or I guess the M of C and M Homestead. My husband would be the C, Corey. So probably about two years ago, we...
01:21decided that we wanted to do better for ourselves and kind of that's where the whole bread, baking bread started. I started kind of taking the deep dive into sourdough and it's just kind of transformed since those two years ago. But about a year and a half ago, we moved out to my grandma's farm. And so we rent now from my mom and dad, a house and two.
01:48two acres and we've kind of just turned it into our own little paradise out here. We started with some chickens and it grew to ducks and turkeys and we had a couple of friends who could no longer take care of some of their animals. So we inherited some geese and it just kind of seems to keep growing out here. And it's just fun to watch our boys. We have a
02:14nine-month-old, a four-year-old and a 16-year-old. It's his birthday today. And it's just fun watching them be involved in caring for the animals and seeing the four-year-old come into the house with a handful of eggs. And he's like, Mom, look what these chickens did. So it's just fun. We kind of just wanted a slower lifestyle for ourselves from in town in Aberdeen. And so we moved out here.
02:43We're just slowly kind of making transitions to being able to be more self-sustaining. Awesome. Happy birthday, 16-year-old. Yeah. And boy, do I know what it's like to be a boy mom. My first child was a girl, but the next three were boys. So it was basically a boy household once she moved out. Yes. And it's a lot. It's a lot to be the only girl in the household. It is.
03:10They are like, what do you mean you want to paint your nails? Like, let's go outside and like play trucks in the dirt. And I'm like, oh, all right, we'll do that. Let's go. Yeah, mom, just run a brush through your hair, pull it back in a barrette or a ponytail holder and let's go. Yes, I understand completely. Yes, they are all about being outside in the dirt with the chickens, in the duck pond with the ducks. You name it, they want to do it outside. Yes.
03:39Yes, I have a husband who's like that too and he is chomping at the bit for this weekend because it's actually supposed to be not freezing tomorrow and Sunday. And when he got up this morning after he got his coffee, I said, so should I just plan on you being outside all weekend? And he said, yep. Didn't even bat an eye. So it's a male thing. It's not a kid boy thing. It's not an adult male thing. It's just a male thing. Boys and men like to be outside. Most of them.
04:09And if they don't, then they like to be in a room with a desk and a computer playing video games or coding things. So they sure do. So when you started making sourdough bread, I need to know, did you kill your starter when you first started it at least once? Did you burn a loaf? I got to know the failures and the successes. So no, I did not kill my starter. I made my own starter. Okay.
04:37I had great success with it. I didn't have any issues kind of going through that process. I have a couple of friends in my mother-in-law who've made starters multiple times and they're like, it died and I just, I don't know how, but it's very common. So I must have been very grateful and I'm very grateful and I was very lucky that I didn't have that problem. But have I burnt a loaf? 100%.
05:08have quite the following for our Facebook page and we do some drop-offs for bread. And last week I was just struggling with my sourdough. It wasn't rising the way I wanted it to. I had to push back some orders because they weren't rising and they were like two inch pancakes. So I just took a little bit to like kind of figure out like what was changing. I don't know if it was the temps. I don't know if it was just that it wasn't.
05:38The starter was more hungry than what it usually is, and so I needed to adjust the feeding ratios, but we did some adjusting and I got it figured out and it's now making beautifully risen loaves. Awesome. I always joke that cooking is better living through chemistry because all the reactions that happen in cooking are chemistry.
06:03And I did really well in chemistry in school. I was miserable at physics. So I'm really glad that I like to cook, not like do rocket science, because I would fail. But yeah, the ratios and the temperatures and the time all impact how things work. So sometimes it happens. But I mostly wanted you to tell me that you had burned a loafer too, because people think that excellent cooks were born excellent cooks.
06:33And that's not true. You have to learn and you have to practice and sometimes things go wrong. They do and that's one thing that I really struggle with. I very much so like wanna produce a good loaf of bread or whatever I'm making, bagels, to my customer. But I also would maybe say I'm a little bit on the perfectionist side where if it doesn't look perfectly like I want it to, I'm like, I can't do that, nope. And my husband has been like, Morgan, there's nothing wrong with that loaf.
07:03There might be a little crack in it where you didn't want it to crack, but it is fine. It'll taste just as good as if that crack wasn't there. So I've had to adjust a little bit of my expectations of you can't have a perfect loaf and what is a perfect loaf? But I've also had some very imperfect loafs where I've, the timers went off and I got busy with the kids and forgot the loaf in the oven. So had to restart.
07:29Yes, and the perfect loaf is the loaf that somebody bites into and just hums as they taste it. Yes. That's the perfect loaf right there. Okay, so I've said this on the podcast a billion times, but I'm going to say it again because you and I have never talked. I don't make bread. My husband makes the breads. He is excellent at yeast breads. I am terrible at them. I have attempted to do it like two or three times in my...
07:56in the last 30 years and I have screwed it up all three times and he's really good at it so he's the one who makes the bread. I make quick breads like dessert breads and cakes and cookies and brownies. I make a killer brownie like he will never attempt the brownies I make because he's like you do it perfectly and like good you make the breads I'll make the brownies recover. But not everybody bakes the same things not everybody loves to bake the same things. So do you do other things besides sourdough?
08:27I do not. I sourdough is kind of my realm. My husband though will bake bread with the like yeast and he will do he'll do a little bit of like the baking if it uses something other than sourdough. I usually stick to the sourdough. It's what I know. And he told me he's like, you should try just making some like regular bread. And I get intimidated by it because I'm like, I don't.
08:57I don't know how to do that. Well, the big difference between making a sourdough loaf and a yeast bread, like, I don't know, a honey oat bread, is that the sourdough, you've already got the yeast. And with the yeasted breads, you have to bloom the yeast. And that's my downfall because I always kill it. No matter how careful I am at following directions, I always kill the yeast and I do not know why. So
09:26It's a different process and I get it because I have not tried doing sourdough yet and I keep saying I should, but I haven't. I suspect that if I did a sourdough starter and tried making bread with that, I would probably be fine. But I can't keep the dry yeast in the packets alive to save my life when I try to use it. I would say you should give it a shot. I feel like sourdough is very forgiving. Whether depending, I mean for...
09:52I feel like for the most part, depending, no matter what stage you're in, I feel like there's usually a way to bring it back. I mean, maybe not after you've burnt a loaf, but like the inside might, the inside is still probably good. But I've had our 16 year old help a couple of times with the bread or like mixing it and he doesn't always pay attention to what he's doing. And so we'll have a very hydrated.
10:21low for a mix of bread and water and it's like, buddy, this is going to be, well, let's add some more flour because this is going to be a soupy mess if we leave it this way. So I feel like with sourdough, it's very forgiving. It's just, you know, kind of figuring out consistencies as well. Yeah. Okay. So on that note, tell me how to make, how to do the starter, how to get it started. Oh, so I would start with...
10:50maybe a half a cup of water and a half a cup of flour and you mix it together and then you let it sit for 24 hours and then you'll take half of it out and you'll just feed it that much again. Half a cup of water and a half a cup of flour, mix it all together and let it sit again. And you do that for about, I think seven days and then on day seven, you start doing like double feeding. So you'll feed
11:18that ratio in the morning and then that ratio again at night and you take out half every time you feed it. So that's how I started and it seemed to work really well. I started with bread flour. There's a higher protein in the bread flour than in all purpose flour. But now I've kind of used it interchangeably. Some of it I have bread flour I use and sometimes I just use all purpose flour.
11:48Bread flour is a hot commodity here in town. I have a couple of other friends who also bake sourdough. So if they're out of bread flour at our local grocery store at Kessler's, I know who's got the bread flour. So can you do it with all purpose flour? You can. Okay. Yep. Does it change it? Does it make it slower or anything?
12:14I think because of the lower protein in all-purpose flour, it could take a little bit longer, but I've had other people who've only used all-purpose flour and have no issue with it also. So I think what it comes down to is like, what kind of wild and active yeast is already in like the environment, and then the temperature, I think warm plays a huge role in the...
12:39sourdough starter, just like the yeast when you make it. I mean, you don't want it too hot, but you also need it warm enough to where it rises. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna commit because I will if I come if I say I'm gonna commit, I'm not gonna do it, but I'm gonna try, try Sunday this weekend to get some started. And can I just use like a quart mason jar and doesn't have to be covered?
13:06I would use, yeah, a court mason jar would be great. And what I started with is just a paper towel over the top of it. So there's some breathability, but also like nothing's fallen in it. Okay. Yeah, we have, we're really blessed here at our house. We have Asian beetles, you know, okay. And we have a, it's a finished, it's not a finished basement. The part where all of our, our gadgets, our water heater and stuff like that is a cement
13:36but the other half is just dirt. So the Asian beetles have figured out how to get into our basement and they come up through the vents. And I really don't want an Asian beetle flying into my starter, that would be gross. So. I don't blame you. So that's why I asked about covering it. Yep, so I did the paper towel and then I usually put like a rubber band around it just to kind of keep the paper towel snug on there, but yet there was that breathability. Okay, awesome. Well.
14:05I'm going to have to get a jar and grab some of my all purpose flour because I don't think we have any bread flour in the house right now. And I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it Sunday. I'm going to take a photo and I'm going to post it on Facebook and that way there's some accountability. There you go. Because I've been saying for six months I should do it and I keep saying we're never going to make enough bread to make this worth it. But what's the worst that happens? I do it. I make a loaf of bread and I'm like, this really isn't my thing. Yeah.
14:33Well, there's so many other things that you can use sourdough starter for. My mom took a bread class or a sourdough class here in Aberdeen and she got sent home with the starter and the stuff to make the like a recipe on how to make bread. She's never made the bread, but she's found how to make discard crackers. And so her and my dad love making crackers, sourdough discard crackers.
15:03So there's a lot of recipes that don't just, that aren't bread that you could use a starter for as well. Yeah, somebody was telling me they made sourdough starter cookies. Yes, I make some chocolate chip cookies. Yeah, I was blown away. I was like, you're using a yeast thing in cookies. Don't they like get huge? So depending on like where my starter is, because I've used it active and I've used it at where it should be fed.
15:32And when it's active, it gets a little bit more, it's a little thicker, it doesn't spread out as nicely as it does with inactive starter. But the cookies are great, my kids love them, my husband loves them. I made some of our regular cookies without the sourdough and no one was interested in them. They wanted the sourdough ones.
15:58Huh, in my house a cookie is a cookie is a cookie. As long as it's sweet, it's gonna be gone. The boys are gonna eat them, they'll be gone. Okay, so we've spent like 15 minutes on sourdough stuff, which is fine, but sourdough is a big thing right now. So I've talked a lot about sourdough on the podcast. So what else do you guys do? So the other things we do right now are, we raise our own chickens and sell eggs.
16:28This was the first year we've had chickens and we did get some meat birds and so we butchered those in May of last year and we plan on doing that again. And we also raise our own turkeys and have butchered them. What kind? Do you know what kind? What breed? The turkeys were, I believe, broad-breasted turkeys. They were beautiful. They got really big.
16:58when we butchered them, I think the biggest one was almost 40 pounds. Oh, that's a big bird. Yeah, yep. That was after everything was done. That was the... Dressed and got it. Yep. So that was... They've been very big birds. We have some ducks as well. We raised ducks.
17:26But right now, I mean, the biggest thing that we are looking to do is we have a couple of friends who've reached out who want us to raise some birds for them as well, some meat birds for them and butcher them so they can have some fresh locally grown chickens instead of buying the chickens from the store. That's a good plan because the chickens from the store suck right now. They do. They definitely do.
17:51Yeah, I'm totally off chicken. My husband and my son love chicken thighs. They like them baked or pan fried. Yep. I will eat something else that day. They make dinner for themselves and I buy something else. I want nothing to do with it right now. Yeah. That's how bad store-bought chicken is right now for me. Yeah, we haven't had to buy chicken in a while.
18:21teen birds that we butchered and dressed. And I think we only have a couple left. So I'm getting a little nervous because obviously we're going to have to raise some more before we can butcher them. But I don't know that we'll buy chicken from the store. I think we'll just go without chicken for a while until we can get some more of our own. Or find somebody else who's raising chickens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned us.
18:50I've only had duck once in my life in a restaurant dish, and it was a rice pilaf with some shredded duck in it. So basically, I'd never had duck because you couldn't even taste the duck in it. And so a friend of ours gave us a duck, put it in our freezer, I don't know, it was past fall, and we finally pulled it out and thawed it out and cooked it. And I had asked my friend what duck tastes like.
19:19And she said, it does not taste like chicken. And I said, okay. And she said, it's actually a much, much, much darker meat. I said, okay. I said, no, no promises. Cause I'm really not into any kind of foul meat right now. I'm just not. And she was like, okay. So we made it and I tasted it. And to me, it tasted like a really good steak. And I was surprised because that was not what I was, I was expecting to taste.
19:46So for the listeners, duck is not the same as chicken or, or, um, I don't know, quail or any of those birds. It's just not. It's a totally different meat, totally different texture. Yes, agreed. It is not anything like chicken. No. Or turkey or yeah, it's, it's got its own, its own kind of flavor. Yeah. It's, it's like, it's like red meat.
20:12It's really weird. I was just dumbfounded because I bit into it expecting I don't know what. And as I'm tasting it and chewing it, I was like, oh my god, this is like a steak. This is really weird. Okay. All right, we'll go with that. All right. So, um, you said you have three boys. Are the three boys into the whole homesteading thing? Um, I for the most part. Yes. Okay. They um,
20:42The four-year-old loves it. The 16-year-old goes back and forth with his interest in it.
20:53He was much older, obviously, when we moved out to the farm, since we've only been out here about a year and a half. So he definitely was more used to the city life, being able to go hang out with his friends, being great in town, not having to drive 30 minutes to get to town. So he's hit or miss. There's some days he loves it, and there's other days he would much rather be in town. Okay. Well.
21:21The little ones, they're more into it. Well, the littlest one probably isn't, but the middle one is. Yeah, the four-year-old loves it. He is all about being outside, picking vegetables in our garden. This fall, he was all about that. Of course, he had to use some kind of truck to be able to pick the vegetable off of the plant and put it in another truck to get it up to the house.
21:51He was outside in fresh air. He was eating stuff right off of the plants, which I just love to see. And the nine month old, he, we had a couple of nice days in, let's see, the end of January, beginning of February. And so we took him out in the stroller and we had the ducks and the birds out and he loved watching the chickens and the ducks just kind of roam around and do their thing. So I think he'll really enjoy it too as he gets more
22:22able to move around by himself and as he gets older. Yeah, he's not going to know anything different. No, no. So it'll be interesting for you to see how he grows into it versus your 16 year old who got kind of thrown into it. Yeah, we've had kind of them in all different stages. I mean, Mason, the oldest one, he's kind of got thrown into it. Theodore, the four year old has.
22:48had a little bit of like city living, but also was still like fairly young enough to like, not really, you know, he knows, cause he knows where we lived at in town and he talks about it, but yet like, so he's kind of like the in between and then all of our the youngest, this is all he'll know. Uh-huh. Yep. I sort of understand it because when we moved to our place over four years ago, we had been living literally in town. We were a block.
23:18and a half from the main street in our little town. And my son, who's 23 now, he had a job at a comic book store and he loved it. And his boss loved him. And we had the opportunity to finally get out of town and, you know, have some acreage and a nice house. And we talked to our son and we were like, um, we really want to go now. We really want to jump. We're in the position to do it. Is this going to be a problem?
23:48And he was like, absolutely not. Let's go. And that first couple of months we lived here, I think that he really missed his job at the comic book store because the comic book store was also an arcade. And so he was always seeing his friends there and he was getting the chance to check out different comic books for free and he just really enjoyed the job. And the reason I mentioned this situation is he just went a couple of weekends ago to that shop.
24:18to hang out with a friend and he walked in and his old boss was there and he was like, hi, and my son said, I think he wants me to come back and work and I said, yeah, well, that's probably not gonna happen right now. So yeah, it's really, really hard when as the adults, you need to make a decision but your kids are old enough to have input into their opinions on that decision.
24:46So yeah, I really felt bad for a little while about pulling him from that town where his friends were and where his job was. But I was like, we're the grownups. We got to go. If you don't want to go, you can stay here with somebody. It's up to you. So it's tough, but he loves it here and he loves being outside with his dad. He loves helping with the gardens and the cutting the wood and all the things we do.
25:13Yeah, and that's how Mason is as well. He definitely misses that in town life, being close, able to ride his bike over to his friend's house. He just got his driver's license a couple of months ago, so we're working on getting that taken care of because he's got to drive for so many hours with an adult. But yeah, he loved being able to ride his bike over, but also he definitely loves being able to go outside and just kind of that.
25:43silence and peaceful quietness of being out in the country where he didn't get that in town. I feel like Mason is definitely sometimes like an old soul just wants peace and quiet and he's kind of my he's my old man child. So he just he's fun. It's fun to watch him kind of grow into an adult and help out here and he comes up with some really good ideas of
26:11what we can do with chicken coops and how we can put them in the area that we have them. And so it's fun to watch that thought process kind of evolve too. Yeah, yep, absolutely. Watching your kids come up with new ideas or learn something new is one of the most beautiful moments of a parent's life, I swear. So.
26:38Okay, so what's the plan for the future? Are you guys gonna make this more, bigger, stay the same? How's it gonna go? So for the future, what we would kind of like to do is, like I said in the beginning, right now we're renting from my mom and dad, and we're renting just two acres. So we weren't for sure if we were gonna like living out of town. So we actually have our house still in town that we use as a rental. And so we are...
27:05Our future plan would be to sell the house in town and maybe look for something that's ours that we're not renting that has a couple more acres. Because we would like to expand. What that looks like, we're not 100% for sure yet, but we do have plans to expand and grow our business and our homestead lifestyle.
27:32We're just not for sure what that all looks like yet, but we're definitely excited to see how it will evolve. Yes, and evolve it will. And it might evolve in ways you didn't expect because I feel like that's what happens to homesteaders. I definitely would agree. It all started with the sourdough bread in town. I'm telling you, that's where it started is I started baking bread in town and then we were like.
27:58we need to move to the country and then we did and then we ended up with chickens, ducks, goats or not goats, geese and we just want more. Well our homesteading thing that we're doing now started because my husband's mom gave us some iris plants and some I think lilies back oh my god over 20 years ago from her house that she was selling.
28:27We had like a tenth of an acre lot and we had this little space in front of our bedroom windows that were fronted between the windows and the sidewalk. And I was like, well, we can put lilies and irises in there. And my husband was like, okay. So we transplanted those and they did really well. And I was like, you know, we have a small backyard. We could actually dig that up and put in some food gardens. And he was like, okay.
28:52And he dug him out and rented a tiller and tilled it and put stuff in and it did really well. And we were trying to raise four kids on one income. So saving money was important. There was a lot of cooking from scratch and a lot of learning how to make things instead of buying things. That's where our homestead stuff began. And I never really thought about how it would all culminate in this three acre.
29:18property with a house and a pole barn and a garden, sorry, yeah, a farm stand and now a hard-sided greenhouse and there's going to be a high tunnel style greenhouse next to the shed. And I mean, it just bubbles up. It's like you blow up one balloon and there's 16,000 balloons that come off that one balloon. A hundred percent agreed. A hundred percent. We've talked about just several different things that we would like to do or like to see.
29:48Um, as we kind of evolve, we've talked about doing, um, like, uh, like a little flower farm or like a little lavender farm. Yeah. Um, we've talked about maybe getting some pigs or some other animals, but for right now we're just kind of holding tight until we know what, how we want to evolve and what that looks like and what fits best for our family.
30:16Yep, absolutely. And I'm going to end this podcast on a really weird note. I think that when you have success in the home studying things you're trying to do, it is the worst and best thing because the worst thing is that you gain confidence and you're like, we can do anything. And then you do anything and something fails and it really, really can destroy your confidence.
30:46You feel like you can do anything, which means nothing can stop you from trying. It does. It gives you a whole different sense of self-confidence with just trying to figure it out whether it fails or not. You've learned a way not to do it, but there's how many other ways that you could do it. Yes. And the more confidence you have, the more self-sufficient you become, the less dependent you are on.
31:15the outside world and the outside world is a lovely place and people are great and you know, good to have friends. But being kind of independent and knowing how to do things is terribly important. Yes. Yep. So that's where I think we're going to end it. Morgan, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I appreciate it. Thank you. It was fun. Bye. Yep.
 

Dailey Farms - Goatmilk Dairy

Today I'm talking with John at Dailey Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with John at Dailey Farms. Good morning, John. How are you? Morning, Mary. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on today.
00:21You're welcome. I'm sorry we had some technical difficulties. I don't know what's up with this app, but sometimes it works like a charm and sometimes it fights people. I think it's more about me not figuring out technology fast enough here. Well, that happens too. Yes, yes. All right, so you're in Illinois, right? Correct. We're just on the western side of Illinois here, zone six if you're planting. And yeah, we're a dairy farm.
00:50Nice and you're a goat dairy farm, right? Mm-hmm, yes. Tell me all about what you do. So about 2015 I decided to have a major career change. I was a desk jockey working in the tech and biotech world and had a career, came to a crossroads and I said I always wanted to be the million dollar question. What would you do if money were no object? I always wanted to be a farmer. And...
01:21One of the major reasons that came up and so here we are and I was over in Australia and I have lactose issues and they're like, oh, you can't have milk? Yeah, you can. You can just drink goat milk up until that point. I've been drinking almond water and coconut water and oat milk and all the different alternatives and was not a big fan of that. So...
01:51I said, why isn't anybody doing this in the States? And so I said, maybe I should be the one doing it in the States. So here we are. Yeah. Did I miss it? Did you grow up in Australia or were you just over there? Oh, no. I was, so when I was transitioning careers, I took a little sabbatical and spent a couple weeks over there visiting a friend. And that's when I came across all the people over in the, down in Australia, sipping on goat milk. Okay.
02:21Now I understand. I apologize for not clarifying. I'm born and raised in Illinois. My mom was born in Illinois and then she moved to Maine when she was like 19 years old. So wow. That's a big move. Yeah. She met my dad, fell in love with him and was like, I go where you go forever. So all right. That's pretty neat. Yeah. I have one of my old roommates moved to Maine and they are now a chicken. They're doing chicken farming.
02:51Which is funny because we're both in the tech world. We both decided to become farmers. It happens. I, my husband loves, loves, loves gardening and loves having chickens. I do not. So I do a podcast and he raises, takes care of chickens. It works out great. Um, that's a good deal there. And my dad actually was a, a, uh, electrical engineer.
03:18by trade and then became a bio med tech. Oh, wow. And now he's 81 years old, living on 14 acres in Maine and raising chickens and has a border collie. So there's something about that thing. I think so. Or maybe the romantic idea of being the gentleman farmer as well. I don't know. He's my dad has always been a gentleman. And I mean that with all due sincerity. He is the nicest man you will ever meet.
03:49So he would have been a gentleman either way. Fantastic. Mm-hmm, best man I know. Well, I don't know if I'd qualify for the gentleman part, but I definitely am farming out here. Hehehehe.
04:03No. Okay. So I saw that you have goat milk soap and it's made with lard. Sorry, tallow and lye and goat's milk. And I also saw that you sell goat's milk that is pasteurized at your local store. So my question is, do you use the just the raw goat's milk for your soap or do you use? Yes, for the soap we can luckily use the
04:31It does not need to be pasteurized. But with the process of saponification, which is what makes soap, soap, the temperatures do get up there. So it's slightly pasteurized. Pasteurization is just something the French figured out to make white to make wine and have a longer shelf life back in the 1800s.
04:57It was a beautiful thing for farmers at the time as well, because it also extended the shelf life of the dairy products they would take to market. Long-winded answer, but during that saponification process, while I'm making my soap, the temperature on that milk does get up at now the same temperature range as traditional pasteurization. The milk you see at the store.
05:25that doesn't need to be refrigerated. That's been ultra high temperature, pasteurization method, which is several hundred degrees, full other can of worms. Yeah, we make soap here too, and we actually burned our table at one point, because the saponification process gets super freaking hot.
05:51And if you don't put a towel down between the bottom of your soap box or whatever your mold is and your table, it will, it will leave a mark. It all scorched. Yes. And when you're working with that lye, it's remarkable how, you know, fast, if you're not ready for that chemical, it's like, it's not ready for the, you know, the lye to do its thing, that temperature shoots up very fast.
06:19Mm-hmm. Yes, it's not I always tell people they're always like I'd love to learn how to make you know raw soap Or whatever they want to call it and I'm like, it's not hard. You just have to be careful that's When I have people over and they see me making myself that like it looks like the guy from Breaking Bad with the glasses and Your gloves and your apron. I'm like, well, we're we're dealing with some science and some chemistry that's
06:49You know, pretty serious stuff, but you know, under under control scenarios, it's doable by the average person, no doubt. But like you said, you just need to be careful and cross your T's and out your eyes. Yeah, it can hurt you. But if you're careful, it can make some wonderful things for your skin, as I know. And as you know, and as all your customers know. Oh, yes, it's.
07:17And once they start using it, they find it hard to switch back to regular stuff. It's interesting. Mm hmm. Yup. We were out of hours for about a month and I basically begged my husband to make a new batch because I was like, I can't use the store bought soap with all the things I can't pronounce because it makes my skin itch, please make some new soap. And he did. Yes. What a gentleman. What a nice guy.
07:44Yes, yes, he is a wonderful man and I showed him what it was doing to my skin on my arm and he was like, oh my god, you have like dry skin on your arm. I said, I have dry skin all over me. I need our soap back. He was like, okay, I'm on.
08:03Thanks. And if you have all your supplies ready, you know, it's just time and curing. And that's the other thing is the patients, at least on my part, it's just the patient. I give them a pretty extended cure time. I don't have any instant cure with just the three ingredients. So I have a one month, at least a one month wait on mine, depending on how fast and all that fun stuff, you know, how fast it's curing.
08:30Yeah, we give ours four to six weeks. If I can wait the six weeks, I will. But if I want it in four weeks, it's going to get used in four weeks. So Yeah, I think that's the that was even at first speaking of the learning curve. I was always nervous, like, you know, all my instructions and everything I had studied on it says, you know, you have to allow it this minimum amount of time. And I was like, if you touch that, it's gonna hurt you. And I was very careful. But I learned that yes, it's not gonna
08:58be the end of me if I do it right at that cutoff point. Yeah, and what most people don't know about Lysol is that the reason you let it cure is because it has to get rid of some of the moisture. If you don't let it cure, then the bar gets all soft and squishy in the shower or the bathtub and it goes away faster. That's why you let it cure. Ah, yes. Well, hey, I'm learning new stuff every day. I thought it was all the
09:26All the stuff mixing together, I had to do its magic and harden more. No.
09:35Oh, please go ahead. No, it will not hurt you. We cut our bars 24 hours after they've been poured. And then that starts the drying process. But really what it is, is the soap bar will last longer, more uses, if it's dried for at least four weeks. Ah, I gotcha. Fantastic. Yeah, you can touch lye soap 24 hours after it's done its job,
10:05Good to know. And it won't burn. The fun thing is I enjoy cup logo.
10:13Okay. Good to know. Yeah, I have a couple of clients that have all, it's a wonderful thing because I enjoy always learning new stuff like this. And then I have a couple of clients who are very, very knowledgeable. One even worked at a dial factory for 20 years. There's been a wealth of knowledge and teaching me some of the other things. Just, it's a whole world of you can.
10:43You can do the basics and make yourself soap or you like you said, you can really. Um, get down into the, the, the chemical processes and you know, like, it's like a science experiment, basically. Yeah. And we make our soap differently than you do. We don't use milk or goat's milk or anything. We use essential oils in ours and we use coconut oil and olive oil and all those wonderful things.
11:11Olive oil that's why when I first started I was using olive oil as one of my bases and I still have the one of my Batches I made I still have two bars left and that was from like seven years ago They're still good. I don't know. I don't know what I had some sort of magic and I didn't write it down. I wish I didn't know Yeah, there's all kinds of recipes on the internet that will will give you new ways to make so
11:40Yes. Okay, so enough about soap. Tell me about your goats. I've talked to a lot of people about goats on the podcast, but tell me about your goats. Our goats, I ended up coming back here during the career change, working, I spent a year on a dairy farm, goat dairy farm, who was producing milk for Mount Cheve, which was a, at the time they've been bought out since they large cheese producer. So they would, you know,
12:08have tankers come and get all their milk. So I kind of learned my, earned my stars there. And I have alpine goats. And they're known for their high protein content and the high milk production. I figured if that was, if I was gonna be bottling and selling milk, I'd like to have the goats that make the most milk naturally. And yeah, so from there, I,
12:36Got approved. Got a facility built. Found my own space. Got to Milken, got approved to be grade A and here we are, Easy Peasy. Okay, Easy Peasy sounds really nice but I bet it wasn't as Easy Peasy as you're making it sound like it was.
12:57It did happen to take 18 months. It took a year and a half to get approved to be grade A with visits from the USDA and the inspectors and, you know, rebuild like changing outdoors and adding, you know, the room had to have an office, it had to have restrooms, it had to have extra sinks. So there was quite a bit of construction on top of what I initially thought would make the cut and getting the equipment.
13:26just as so to get it to where I'm comfortable operating it. So there was a few wrenches thrown in the mill before I got her up and running just the way I like it. But at the end of the day, you're just getting milk in the bottle, but you gotta get approved to be testing it and all these fun things. Yeah, how many goats do you have, John?
13:54Right now I am, where did I, well we just had babies. So there's 32 new babies at the moment. There's still a couple coming. And that's on top of my 61 goats. So that would put me in 93, I believe was my count last night. Nice, that is a goat herd. It's a full house right at the moment. So.
14:19During kidding season, we can each go, essentially have triplets and I could have, you know, 180 goats in there.
14:28but only a few twins and a few singles. Okay. So I'm guessing you're not milking by hand. You are machine milking. I have, yes. I have an individual pump that does the same thing that those giant, you know, rotating turrets do, you see on YouTube. And one at a time. And I think it allows for, you know, good inspection of the animal. And
14:59and still make things somewhat timely. I've tried doing two at a time and I end up spending the same amount of time just fighting back and forth with the two of them. Okay. Anyone who's listened to my podcast up till right now knows that I love baby goats. So the idea of over 20 baby goats in one season just makes me giggle. I love it. They are in full 100% cute.
15:28cute mode at the moment. They're, you know, cleaned up and fluffy and exploring and bouncing and twisting and doing all the fun baby goat stuff that first these first couple weeks. And that's kind of how I differentiate myself from the pack. A lot of, um, yeah, let's say my friends from my, I'm my Amish buddy. They'd pull the kids and bottle feed them and get milk in the goats right away. I keep the kids on the nannies on their mothers.
15:56to have mother's milk for several weeks before they wean. So it's kind of a different way of doing things, but it's how I get it done.
16:07So is it like with dairy cows where they do the calf share, where the calf can nurse and then you can also milk? Is that the same thing? Yes, I can do that. Towards the end of it, at the beginning, I'm kind of letting them have free rein and just keeping an eye on the mom to make sure she's okay with it. But yes, they can be milked twice.
16:37as personal preference at that point. Uh-huh. And I guess if it's goats, it's a kid's share, not a calf's share. But you know what I'm saying. Correct. There are a lot of interchangeable words there. We can't have no offense taken. We'll just call it baby animal share. And that'll cover the whole thing. OK. So I had a question. Oh. Can you sell raw?
17:07goat's milk in Illinois or does it have to be pasteurized? Now, once if you plan to sell in stores or at the farmers market, it has to be pasteurized. Now, there's people who have a license to sell raw, off-farm, direct, but that's all they can sell. They can't make additional products to sell in stores, so on and so forth.
17:32If someone wanted raw milk from you, can they come to your farm and get it from you? Or is that not allowed? No, all the inspectors frown upon it and it's not allowed because I am running the grade A and they don't want those crow mingling. They don't want the dangerous raw milk to be near my good pasteurized milk. But that's just, I like that I'm a proponent of the raw milk movement.
18:02I believe on a lot of its attributes. But I think I found the happy medium where I pasteurize at the lowest legally allowed temperature, at the lowest temperature for the shortest amount of time to do its minimal interference with that, with the enzymes and the things like that advocates are looking for. Okay.
18:28It's so weird because so many states have so many different laws regarding raw milk, whether it's goat or sheep or cow. Oh yeah.
18:39And even until I got into it, I had no idea how much went into that. But it is, there's, there's quite a bit of, uh, regulatory things and just differences state to state, which is why I'm right on the border of Iowa. And Iowa is a great market and everybody, you know, a lot of my customers come from Iowa into Illinois. You know, like, why don't you just sell in Illinois and Iowa? Well, I'm licensed in Illinois.
19:09So I cannot cross state lines and I can't just say, well, I wanna sell in Iowa too and get licensed. I have to become an international seller at that point and be licensed in every state. So I looked into that, you know, I know the rules for Alaska, Hawaii, Delaware, Puerto Rico, Florida. You have to be able to, you can do one state or all states. Okay, I see.
19:39In Minnesota, the farmers can sell goat milk, cow milk, whatever, as long as people come to their farm with their own container. Yes. And that's what, that's some, and some states where they do let you do raw milk, you have to bring your own, some states say bring your own bottle. Some states say, yeah, there's a myriad of.
20:06Very interesting things like that like if you have your own bottle, that's gonna make all the difference Yep, okay. So we've talked about goats. We've talked about soap. We've talked about rules Did I see that you just became engaged? Yes, I am recently engaged. I am Pretty longtime girlfriend here, Kayla. We're excited. We haven't set a date. We kind of have to work around the milking schedule Yep
20:35That's exciting. Well, congratulations. Thank you very much. I love love. I love, I especially love new love. I've been married for over 20 years and that new love becomes, I don't want to call it old love, but it becomes, it becomes a, it becomes a deep love, if that makes sense, like a deeper, more everyday, more, less insanity.
21:05It evolves a bit. Yeah, yeah. My husband and I have been married for over 20 years. And now when he goes to work in the morning, it's like, I love you, drive safe, have a good day and a quick peck on the lips and out he goes to work. And then when he gets home, the way I express my affection is that dinner is ready when he walks in the door or at least 10 minutes after he walks in the door. Always. It's not that I missed you all day. It's the dinner is ready. You must be hungry. Would you like to eat?
21:35Yes, so for sure. Yes, we get to enjoy that honeymoon phase love as I said, yeah and enjoy it Fall. Yep. Enjoy it because it lasts about five years and then life life becomes life, you know As a dairy farmer I look forward to having a nice schedule Yeah, that's
22:06Go ahead. We like having that structure and that reliable schedule, at least the milking schedule. It kind of spills over into life. Yeah, routine is good. Did I also see that you lost a farm dog and that you now have a new farm dog? Yeah. Well, we had lost one farm dog and then another had become injured.
22:34his replacement had become injured. So I got another dog to team up with him. So now I have Paw Paw and Jack Straw. Oh, I didn't know about Jack Straw. He is 11 months old and he's a little hot with me at the moment and he just got snips. Yeah, good job. Good plan. We're still making friends again. Yeah, they don't appreciate that very much. And they're Pyrenees, right?
23:04Pyranids, great pyranids, yes. Excellent livestock, gardening dog, known for their, you know, guarding the herd, late night prowling, watching the farm. Just a classic livestock. They're bred for this. They're in their elements. Yes, they're wonderful dogs. Our friends have two right now. And they are big dogs, but they are big loves. So it's always nice to be around them.
23:34They definitely um, by me for my attention, but um, they're learning to get along as brothers as well, which is fun and challenging. And are they, are they good about the goats? Are they good with herding them? They do a nice wide herd is their style. So it's a pretty good size circle watching the goats.
24:04But yes, when I leave, I know that they're in good hands. Never had any coyote issues out here yet. Knock on wood. Very nice. Okay. So I have another question about the goats that just popped into my head. If you have 30 something new babies already, and you have a few more do, do you keep, do you keep all of those or do you sell them? A lot of them get to find new farms.
24:34Either have them just for maintaining their farm and the fences and like him having them as livestock pets and others that are full scale milk operations, one few. And yes, so that's who's getting the. You know, but I will keep some of the girls from the moms who are, you know, high producers and my facility can handle about 75 full grown goats.
25:04So that's where I like to keep it. Yeah, I mean you could have hundreds of goats, but you would run out of time and energy. And you know, space is an issue. They can start getting some illnesses and things of that sort. If they're too compact, I strive to keep the goats living as close to as they would in nature on my farm.
25:32you know, obviously with the human hand intervening, but as close as I possibly can get them to, as they would be in nature here on the farm. Okay. And how many male, how many bucks do you have? One man does all the work out here. Wow. Elvis is his name and he's a second year buck, son of a Bojangles and he's...
26:00He's the lucky dog who has a lot of work on his plate in the fall.
26:08He's a busy boy, yes. And that was the other question I had. Do you just have one season of babies or do you do a second round of them? I do one breeding. So he's withheld all year and then when they go into their fall heat is when I expose them to the buck. Okay, cool. Yeah, cause some people do have two sets of babies a year, but it's a lot. It's a lot to try to handle all that. And it's...
26:37And it's something I would like to do, because I've been a seasonal producer, I have to reintroduce my, a lot of my customers have to be reintroduced every year to the product. Whereas somebody going year round, it's just their year round and they continue purchasing and so on and so forth. But breeding year round would allow me that opportunity to have the year round milk. But my facility.
27:05is set up just for the seasonal production. We would need quite a bit of build out for, to be able to.
27:16have it have it done that way to be year-round, excuse me. Uh-huh, okay. All right, I meant to mention this before we started recording and I didn't when we're done recording, don't leave because I need your file to upload from your side too. I will edit that out. And John, I try to keep these to half an hour but I really feel like we've gotten what I needed out of this. I'm so thankful that you had the time to talk with me because this has been really interesting. I found out new things today.
27:47Well, I appreciate you having me on and taking time to give us the invite. And this is the first time I've ever been on a podcast. So I'm very excited. Was it fun? Did you enjoy it? I had a great time. Thank you so much. Good. And you got to get out to Illinois to come out and have some chocolate goat milk or some plain goat milk and some soaps and see how I stack up. Yeah. Chocolate goat milk sounds really good. Oh yeah. You can give that a quick plug. I did.
28:12I scored a top 10 finish in the World Chocolate Milk Championships. So how did that work? How did you even get into that? Through some of the dairy letters that I get through the USDA, I saw that they had milk tasting competitions and butter tasting competitions every year. And I said, hey, there's one for milk and chocolate milk. So I was interested to see how my chocolate milk stacked up against the competition. And um...
28:41So I signed up and did all the paperwork and mailed off the first set of samples. And it was all these, I was mailing bottles of milk for like two weeks, two months, making sure they have, everybody had a chance to taste it and got her going and, uh, scored really high, which I was very impressed with. So that, that leads me to the last question. What kind of chocolate are you using the flavor? Your chocolate milk? Oh, the top secret I use.
29:10I spare no expense. I use a very high quality. I worked with a local chocolatier who's been making custom chocolates for 25 years. And I tasted chocolates from all over the world. And the one I locked down is pretty good stuff, I believe. And maybe that's what does it, but it's real, it's a real 100% cacao. And it gives it a very unique flavor in that. So maybe that's what I can just.
29:38divulge is it's a hundred percent cacao and it's a um real cane sugar not too much magic but um Where you source your chocolate from I feel has a difference I would I would imagine it probably does so top 10 percent. Is that what you said? Oh, no, it's a top 10 out of everybody top down out of everybody. That is amazing. There's a few hundred in there So I felt really um Really honored for that one
30:07Well, congratulations twice in the same podcast. That's pretty cool. Appreciate that. All right, John, you have a fantastic day and thank you again. Thank you, Mary. You have a great day.
 

Qwazy Quail Farm

Today I'm talking with Aaron at the Qwazy Quail Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Aaron at Qwazy Quail Farm. It's really hard to do two QWs in a row. Good morning, Aaron. How are you? Good morning. Doing good. How about yourself? I'm doing great. You're in Ohio? Yes. We are in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, which is just east of downtown.
00:29Cleveland by about 12, 13 miles. Okay. Is it super cold there today? It is very cold today. Um, I think it's supposed to be in the teens at the highest today. Well, you've got us beat cause I don't think we're going to see above zero again today in Minnesota. It's been so freaking cold.
00:50But that's okay, we're gonna get through it and it's gonna warm up next week. And I looked at the long range forecast and we're looking at spring temperatures in about two weeks. I'm very excited about this. Yes, I know all of my birds are very excited about the warmer weather also. Yeah, and I wanna hear all about your birds. So tell me about what you do, Aaron. Okay, so what we do here is we raise Coturnix quail, Bobwhite quail, and we also raise a small flock of chickens. So the...
01:18Bob white quail we here in Ohio, because they're a native species, you have to have a special permit for those. So we have about a dozen of those right now, just getting into them. Um, as a, I'm not sure exactly what we're going to do with those birds, possibly get into a conservation program with the state of Ohio to repopulate them as due to environmental factors, uh, some farming practices, um,
01:47predators, things like that. The Bobwhite quail population has dwindled drastically here in Ohio. So I think they're beautiful birds. The sounds that they make are, it sounds like you're almost at a zoo or something like that. It's really cool sounds. The Coturnix quail, we raise several colors of those, which we raise jumbo whites, jumbo Egyptians, jumbo
02:15And then we have some Celadon and we have some black quail, which the black quail didn't come to the United States until around 2019 and they came from Germany. So there's a lot of people that are starting to get into them. Um, there's some people that have concerns. They have something called a yellow gene, which I don't get too much into the genetics. Um, I've attended a quail con last year, which was in, uh, Miami'sburg, Ohio.
02:45And they had people, quail enthusiasts and farmers from Canada. And many, many states here in the United States attended that. And they have that every year in the fall. And so there you can meet like-minded quail farmers, people that are doing this as homesteaders, all kinds of different backgrounds in quail, but we specify or specialize in the quail for egg production and for meat.
03:14We raise many of the jumbos because another thing we do is when you go to a pet store and you're getting some treats for your dogs, you want to make sure that you're offering them the best that they can get. And a lot of times these pet stores will have ingredients that have other stuff in there that's not necessarily the best for our pets. And it was just recently I had run out of our quail treats that we make.
03:42And both of my dogs ended up getting extremely sick and coughing up and puking up blood and chunks of their innards. That was from a chicken treat that said it was all natural. And when I went and looked up more information on this company, they've got a lot of lawsuits and I almost lost both of my dogs. So what we do here is we raise the quail. The ones that are going to be processed for meat or for dog treats, they go to
04:12a chicken or poultry processor that's USDA and Department of Agriculture really inspected. They're down in Baltic, Ohio called Pleasant Valley Poultry. And we take them down there and get our birds processed. We bring them back here. We put them in storage. We have our warehouse license so that we can also sell meat to grocery stores, to markets, to chefs and things like that. So.
04:39But we've got a lot going on here and sometimes I don't know how I find the time to do anything. I was going to say you're pretty deep into the quaildom going on there. A couple things. My dog is actually allergic to chicken so she never gets any kind of poultry. We actually had to switch out her dog food because it turned out that the chicken in the dog food was making her sick to her stomach. So we don't do chicken here for the dog. We do chicken for us. Chicken is great.
05:09But what I really want to get into is your expertise on quail raising, because I have talked to a lot of people on the podcast who happen to have quail or they're just getting into it, but they're not really expert or deep into it yet. And it sounds like you are. So if somebody wanted to start raising quail, what is the basic beginning and setup to do that? It can be extremely simple to get started.
05:37You can start off as simple as a plastic tote that you can get at any of your hardware stores like Lowe's, Home Depot's, Walmart, Target. And then you can get, there's two different variations of heat sources. One is a heat lamp. And then the other is like a heat pad. I don't recommend the heat lamps simply because if something were to happen on accident where that heat lamp would fall into the bedding, not only could you kill any of the chicks that are in there.
06:06but it has a potential for starting a fire very, very easily. Yeah. Um, so I recommend the heat pads and you can get those at stores like tractor supply, you can get them online on Amazon, a lot of other places that sell poultry products. So for, you know, 15, 20 bucks, you can get the, um, the tote for another 20, 30 bucks, you can get the heating pad. Um, and then for bedding for the first.
06:36two weeks, 10 days to two weeks for Quail. I found that putting something as simple as like paper towels or those blue towels that you can get at places like AutoZone for shop towels, putting those down, because if you don't put anything down, what can happen is the chicks can get what's called splay leg and that's where their legs kind of split and you can spend money to buy devices to help them with that.
07:05It just depends on what's the purpose that you're raising these chicks for, for yourself. Just to have just a few. Did you want to get into it as a business? There's a lot of things that go into first. I guess that's the very first step. Okay. Very first step is why? Why do you want to get into raising an animal? For one. Then two is do you have the time and the resources? Quail can pretty much take care of themselves.
07:33They're very hardy birds in the winter. So if your long-term goal is to move them outside, you can do that. Um, coturnix quail have been bred over for thousands of years to be domesticated. So they're not great, um, brooders. So you, you want to eat the eggs or do you want to hatch them? Uh, but they're not going to sit on the eggs like a chicken would. Um, and if you wanted to.
08:03raised down for meat. I would recommend like some of the jumbo breeds and with Coturnix quail, there's really not a different breed of Coturnix quail. There's just different colors and that's almost limitless on the types of colors, but the jumbo breed is going to be good for egg laying and it's going to be good for meat. So a good dual purpose bird and Coturnix quail go from hatching
08:31to maturity in 10 weeks. So it's extremely fast. They eat about three cents a day in food. So about a dollar 30 somewhere right around there. Um, from the time they hatch till they're ready to be processed. Um, and then, uh, water, water is extremely important to quail. They have a high body temperature and so they will drink water a lot. So I would go with, um,
08:58Any type of water that you can find on even Amazon or anywhere. Um, so people use mason jars, um, and then feed. I always start off with a 28 to 30% protein crumble mix, like starter feed. That, uh, is really good for helping them to develop their feathers. Feathers are 80% protein. And so you want to make sure that they, um,
09:26really get as much protein that they're going to need in those early couple weeks. Yep. Okay. So the other thing I really do want some answers on real quick is how how much does a mature quail weigh? A mature quail will average if you're going with just a standard size around eight to ten ounces. Yeah. Once you get over ten. So not even a pound. Correct. Yeah. And then the jumbos
09:54can get anywhere from 12 to 22 ounces. Okay, so here's the big question I have for you. And I promise you I'm not being a smart ass, I'm just playing devil's advocate a little bit. Sure. Why do people raise quail if there's so little? I mean, do they taste really good? Are the eggs really good? Because the eggs are tiny as well, right? Yeah, so the eggs, for one, to start off with those, the eggs have...
10:23a higher protein ounce per ounce than chicken eggs. Um, they chicken eggs or quail eggs are less likely to can contract, uh, salmonella. They have a membrane on them that's a little bit different than the bloom of a chicken's egg. So there's been some research, not a lot, but there's been research out there where quail eggs were less likely.
10:51to get salmonella. So that's a good health thing to do or to take into account. And again, the maturity. So my chickens would take about four to seven months before they start laying eggs. The quail will start laying eggs at eight weeks. Quail eggs are more nutritious than chicken eggs, but they're also a little bit harder to find. And so again, that goes
11:21you know, why would you want to raise quail and it's what do you want to do with them? If you're looking for the meat, the meat is obviously because it's a smaller bird you don't have to cook it as long and so the taste of it, people have asked me does it taste like chicken and the answer is simple, it's no. It tastes like quail, it's a little bit different. Now anytime you are cooking any kind of food
11:48The seasonings that you use are obviously going to make a big difference. But when you're just eating just, um, unseasoned quail and unseasoned chicken, to me, the quail seems almost like a little sweeter than chicken meat. And for people who are allergic to chicken eggs or to chicken, quail is a good alternative because the proteins are a little bit different in quail meat than chicken, and I've had people that have told me that they couldn't eat chicken.
12:17So they tried the quail and they had no problems with it. Of course you would always want to talk with your doctor and healthcare professional first, but that's typically the feedback that I've gotten from people. Okay. And like I said, I really wasn't trying to like poke holes in your, your story. I just, I just don't know. I've never had quail and I've never had quail eggs and I may have to go find somebody who has some and try it.
12:43We thought about raising quail here at our place and we looked into it. And we had so many irons in the fire at the time we decided not to, but one of the big reasons we decided not to is that I kept reading about the fact that quail are very good at killing themselves. So have you, have you had that experience? Okay. So quail, it really depends on the ratio of males to females. It depends on how much space they have, their environment.
13:14If you have too many males in with your hens, it's, they will become aggressive and they will start pecking them. When they're breeding, they will grab them by the back of their neck and they'll, they'll mount them. And sometimes people will think, Oh, well, my quail are harming them. And that's just their breeding, but you can also reduce that. That you're going to get into overbreeding. So what you want to do is anywhere from one.
13:42What the way I do it, I do one male to six hens. And so I don't have a problem with that. When I very first got started and I didn't know how to sex the birds, I was just putting birds in the cage and didn't know that much. So once I learned how to be able to sex the different, um, the men, male from the female one to six is a good ratio for me. The hens don't seem to get overbred. And then the next thing to deal with as far as.
14:11how much space do they have. I use hatching time cages and I believe it's like 12 inches high. I'd have to look up at the dimensions. But you don't want to have too much space in there. If you have too much space, they can become a little territorial. You also don't want to mix different species of quail, such as Bobwhite quail with Coturnix quail.
14:41Because there has been a lot of people that will talk about violence between the two species of quail. But in general, they're not going to attack each other. They're not going to kill each other unless it has something to do with environment or a bad ratio of hens to roosters. Okay. I actually have read about them, like startling and hitting their heads on the top of the
15:11the enclosure and breaking their necks. Does that happen? Absolutely. Again, environment is key. So if you're going to have an aviary that's outside, um, one thing that I've, I've seen people do to help prevent that or to reduce that is they'll hang like palm leaves or things from the top of their aviary because they do get spooked very easily and, um, that has happened where they'll fly up and break their necks.
15:38So the cages that I use are 12 inches high. And so they don't really have that opportunity to jump up and really snap their neck or anything like that. Um, it is possible. You just got to check your environment and make sure that you're preparing it for them. So it's the same as, as, um, taking on any livestock. You need to do your research and figure out number one, why you want to do it. Number two, if you can afford the outlay to get set up to buy the livestock and
16:07the time and the constant expense of feeding the livestock. Those are the things you need to consider. Yes? Yes. Okay, cool. All right. So, um, you also have chickens like, like laying hen chickens. Yes. Yes. So we raise black Jersey giant chickens. Um, the reason why we bought those is, um, I had done some research and found that crows or they resemble crows when predator birds like hawks and things like that are flying by.
16:36And before I had black jersey giants, I did have a problem with the hawks and there's one eagle that's not too far from our property and they would swoop down in particularly the quail because the quail were much smaller. So black jersey giants became our choice for the fact that they're a larger bird. They can get up to 15 pounds right around there and 12 to 15 is pretty
17:06They're great birds, except I might not say that about my rooster. He can be a jerk sometimes. All roosters can be jerks sometimes. Um, but no, they're very cold hearty. The adults, I haven't lost any adults. I did have some juveniles that we lost this year when the weather dropped to negative numbers, but all of the adult hens have done very well. And, uh, they're, they're just a fun breed. We have names for some of them.
17:35based on their behaviors and things like that. So we raise them mainly for egg production, but also once they get to some of their older years where their egg production will slow down, then they're a good dual purpose bird for me. Nice, I have never heard of this bird before. Are their feathers black? Yes. Okay. They do have white Jersey giants, but the black Jersey giants tend to get a little bit bigger.
18:05And so having dual purpose, that's why I chose those as well. I'm going to have to look these birds up because now I'm curious. I want to see what they look like. Um, we just got 12 of the ISA brown chickens playing hens this past weekend. We've had them before. They're very calm. They're not aggressive. They're actually kind of friendly for anyone that doesn't know.
18:28And we're very excited because we had gotten rid of our chickens last fall because we didn't want to feed them through the winter and we weren't going to get any more chickens until like April or May. And then we realized that the eggs at the grocery store are incredibly expensive right now and that's if we can find them. So we decided to get chickens early this year. Yeah. The same thing's going on here in Ohio. Egg prices, somebody just posted they were at the store and they were 8.99.
18:58Um, here in my area, um, what I asked for is $4 a dozen and ours are pasture raised. Um, a lot of times people will go to the store and there's so many selections. Well, this says cage free. This says farm fresh. This says, um, pasture. This says free range. A lot of times people are just not familiar with what all of the labeling actually means. And for ours, ours are pasture raised. Wait, what that means is they have free reign to wander the property.
19:28any grass, bugs, berries, anything out there that's more natural for them to eat. Sometimes I'll even catch my chickens up in the trees. I always try to snap pictures of that. But pasture raised is a much healthier feed for the birds. It's easier on your wallet because you don't have to supplement with feed as much. And then, um,
19:51That is, those are the ones that I see the eggs going for nine, $10 a dozen. I charge $4 a dozen here in my area. And then what I do is I also offer an incentive for my customers that if they return the egg cartons to me and they're undamaged to where I can reuse them, then their next dozen will be $2. And the reason why I do that is because it cuts out the cost of me having, having to repurchase additional cartons.
20:20But yeah, eggs are a hot commodity right now. And it's also been in the news here recently that they are now limiting the number of dozens of eggs that you can purchase. So two dozen per customer. And it's hard for me to even keep up with the chicken egg orders. Oh yeah, I'm sure you're swamped in people. Have you got any eggs? Can I get eggs from you? Yeah. All the time. Yep.
20:49Our chickens that we just got are 20 weeks old right now, 19 weeks right now. So they should be laying in the next week to three weeks because they usually start at 22 weeks this three. And, uh, I'm very excited about this because I have not been baking at all because, you know, baking usually requires eggs and I'm really looking forward to making a chocolate cake in March. Well, I would definitely recommend trying quail eggs in your next baking then.
21:17The reason why, another benefit to quail eggs, they have a higher yoke to white ratio, which that helps with binding of all of the stuff that you use in baking. Um, I have some people that will not use chicken eggs ever again after they tried using our quail eggs for baking. And because of that yoke, being a larger, um, size in ratio to the whites, um, is.
21:44That's why I have so many people that want to buy the quail eggs is for their baking. That's so funny. Cause I have a friend, hi Tracy. She listens to the podcast all the time. She likes it when I call her out. She has ducks and she's told me that ducks are really duck eggs are really good for baking as well. So with ducks, they have a higher, uh, yoke to white ratio.
22:07Well, I'm going to have to trade her some chicken eggs for some duck eggs and try making a cake with duck eggs and see if it makes any difference in how it comes out. So back to Quail for a second because I feel like we're bouncing between chickens and Quail. Does Tractor supply or I don't know what stores you have where you are, but we have a place called Baumgards and they sell chicks in the string time.
22:31Would Tractor Supply sell quail or is there not a place where you can actually go during chick days to get quail babies? I had checked with Tractor Supply a few times and even offered to sell quail chicks there. That is a corporate decision and I have not seen quail offered at any Tractor Supplies here in Ohio. Okay. Generally you have to go to breeders and the thing with quail, you really want to make sure that you're finding a good quality breeder.
23:01Yeah. I got started simply by going to the fair and I found some, that's how I got started, which was an interesting story because I went to get a rabbit and come home with no rabbit and six quail. And finding a reputable dealer for quail is, is key.
23:24I don't think I know of any stores there. McMurray Hatchery might be one place where you can buy them. That people might be more familiar with. But there is a huge Quail community out there. There's even a Quail University that offers a course for people that are wanting to get into Quail. Okay. And then there's a here in Ohio.
23:50down in the Miami's Berg area where I was talking about that quail con is a farm called my Shire farm and they have a lot of different breeds there. If anybody's ever interested, they could send me an email through our website and I can offer a lot of breeders. I myself have not sold eggs to where or chicks where I've shipped. I do have a lot of customers that will come here to the farm and
24:20or young chicks. But I don't like to ship simply because quail can be, they're not as hardy in shipping live chicks as you would chickens. So buying hatching eggs, which then you have to have an incubator. So, again, knowing what you want to begin with. If you do want to find quail chicks, if anybody wants to email me also,
24:49They can contact me and I can get them in contact with a breeder that's a trusted breeder Who has the time and experience and the knowledge of raising quail? That's going to be closer to them or as close as possible I'm connected with a group of farmers in almost every single state in Canada We really are a really cool knit group of people. I believe you I think you're very cool
25:17So the one thing I do, I do want to say, because I don't want people to think that it's just as simple as going out and buying a bin and throwing some birds in it and feeding them because it's not, you have to take care of them. Right now, I feel like there's a lot of people in the United States who are like, we should just get like four chickens and have our own eggs and that would be cheaper. And what I want to say is if you don't, if you're not already set up to get chickens,
25:46You know, if you already have a coop and the watering apparatus and the feed and everything, and all you have to do is go get the chickens and put them in the coop, you're not going to save yourself any money right away on getting chickens. You might save yourself some money on eggs if you started quail because it sounds like it's a lot less expensive to get started. It is. I would say your first.
26:14egg, even as a, if you get into quail, your first egg is probably going to be about a two or $300 egg. Right. Because the birds are going to cost money. You do need a coop that's appropriate and that can cost anywhere. The tote and the heating lamps, that's just the basics just to get started with quail. One thing that you have to keep in mind is quail grow very, very fast. Within two weeks, they can start flying around your house.
26:44Does this set up in your house? Yeah, and So you do want to get a cage and there's so many different designs and everything out there on YouTube I Started out with a rabbit hutch But you definitely are gonna want to have a cage and that's why I always say any animal that you're gonna raise It's always best to do your research online first. There's a lot of good YouTube videos out there
27:14It's less space. You can keep, um, about a thousand birds in, um, a small garage if you wanted to. Um, because a lot of the cages, uh, can hold anywhere from 20 to 30 birds each. And if you have tiered, um, it's very easy to have a hundred birds and in a, a two foot by.
27:44even four foot space or six foot space. So that's one thing to consider is that quail do not take up as much space as chickens. And then you do wanna make sure that you're prepared ahead of time. You can't just go out and buy some chickens or quail and come home and think, oh, well, this is gonna be really simple. He said just to get a tote. Well, that's only gonna last you a couple of weeks. Now you need the cage. Yeah.
28:10And you can build them yourself. It's very simple and it can be fun. Something you do with the family and the kids is to build a little coop for them. Another thing with quail, um, they do poop a lot, way, way, way more than chickens. So what you can do with that is we put it in a compost, um, pile, and then we'll throw it in our garden the following year. Um, one other thing I'm getting into.
28:39I just bought these about two weeks ago, is mealworms. Because I'm always trying to find ways to save money. And you can buy some mealworms for 15 bucks or a kit for 50 bucks. And they will lay hundreds and thousands of eggs and just keep this cycle going. And the quail, they love the mealworms. So do chickens. Yeah. And it's high in protein. And so I'm starting off small. I've got about.
29:0810,000 mealworms and I'm gonna see how that goes. If it saves me money, I'm all for it. Yes and the other thing is that I'm assuming you can't let the quail free range like you can chickens because they'll just take off. Yes. Yeah. And they can't survive on their own because they're the Coturnix quail, like I said, they've been domesticated. They can't hatch eggs on, they'll lay the eggs but they can't hatch them on their own.
29:37and they cannot fly as far away as like the Bobwhite quail. Their wing structure is different than Bobwhites and it's not meant for them to be flyers. So they can just get away from a short distance but the coyotes, cats, things like that will just, they won't last long and that's kind of cool. Yep, exactly. And I was gonna ask you back 20 minutes ago when we were talking about this and I forgot.
30:05Do quail have to have a rooster to lay eggs or are they like chickens and they'll just lay eggs without the rooster? They're just like chickens. They will lay eggs without a rooster. My quail will lay one egg every single day pretty consistently. The big thing with them is if you're going to be raising them inside either a barn or something like that is in the winter months, they need about 15 hours of light in order to be efficient egg layers.
30:34And so in the winter times when the sun goes down sooner, I will use LED lights to help with the production. But they'll lay an egg a day and they're really good at producing eggs. And how long do quail live? About six years. And do they lay that entire six years? Yes, as they get a little bit older, it can slow down. My quail, none of my quail
31:05are really older than six months because I do use them as a dual purpose. Yep. Um, so about six to eight months is the longest any of my quail live. Um, I don't raise them as pets and I have nothing against people who do. Again, they can be great pets. Some people will breed specifically for, um, their, can't think of the word right now, but their behaviors, so you can't breed them per or for their behaviors. There's a.
31:34a farm in Tennessee, I think, Kentucky or Tennessee, called Thieving Otter Farms. And the lady there, she will breed them for their temperament and they can be very docile. But no matter how you breed them, they can still be very, very flighty and very scared. But you can breed for more docile birds. If I was that tiny a bird, I would be afraid of everything too. Oh yes.
32:04They're so fragile. They're so small. Okay. I had a thought while you were talking and now I have to remember it because I got sidetracked by seeing this little bitty bird in my head. Yeah. I don't remember what I was going to ask you. It's gone. I do this all the time. Usually it's 20 minutes in today. It's 32 minutes in. And on that note, I try to keep this half an hour. So I'm going to let you go, Aaron, but thank you for all the information today. That was fantastic. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, if anybody wanted to contact me, you can.
32:34throw the website in there. It's just Quazy Quail Farm. And Quazy is Q-W-A-Z-Y QuailFarm.com. And that's our website and people can reach out and leave me messages on there. And I usually get back to people within 24 hours. And I apologize. The website is not the fanciest. I'm not a big web designer or anything like that, but they can contact me there with any questions.
33:02Awesome. And I will put that in the show notes when this comes up. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Aaron. Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

Sustainable Driftless, Inc.

Today I'm talking with Julia at Sustainable Driftless, Inc. You can follow on Facebook as well. If you'd like information regarding the documentaries mentioned, click here. 
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Julia at Sustainable Driftless Incorporated. I think it is Inc., so incorporated. Good morning, Julia. How are you? I am good. I'm good. I'm glad to be here with you. I'm so happy to have you on because I...
00:28I have been to the Driftless area in Wisconsin once and it's gorgeous, but I don't know all the history and the stories behind it. So I'm very excited to talk to you. You're in La Crosse, Wisconsin? I would say La Crosse kind of geographically might be roughly the center of the Driftless region. I'm actually in the, I call it the suburbs of a very rural area. It's where I live on an 80 acre.
00:58Homestead. Ooh. But I travel all over the Driftless region. Today I'm in Madison, Wisconsin. And we just do a whole lot of stuff out there in the Driftless. Okay. Well, first off, can you tell me what your part in the organization is and what the organization is? Okay. Let's see.
01:26About eight years ago, I collaborated with somebody else that I had been working with on another not-for-profit. These two guys have produced mysteries of the driftless through the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, Tim Jacobson and George Howe. And the three of us got together and we formed Sustainable Driftless with the purpose of kind of shining a light on the area
01:55basic idea is that if you love something, you'll treat it well. So what we're, our attempt was and is to get people to love the driftless region, to see what is around them. There are lots of people that have lived here their entire lives and don't necessarily recognize how precious and fragile and gorgeous it is. I think you have to go outside the region to recognize how special it is sometimes.
02:25But we're shining a light on that. We produced Decoding the Driftless six years ago, which won some Emmys and worldwide accolades. And I think it's one of the number one documentaries that is shown on public television throughout the nation. And what that has done is it kind of...
02:51gets people kind of into what this special place is all about. So we've continued on with that, and we had a terrible unexpected loss of George Howe about a year ago in a farming accident. And my role as one of the original founders and vice president, and now also is to find new ways to...
03:16shine the light on the area and to uplift other organizations that are in this area that do work on sustainability and environmental and wise and smart development of the area, water quality issues, soil issues. We just want to get all those individual groups working, not necessarily working together, but aware of one another and having the general public be aware of everybody because
03:46It's a really exciting time and it's a really exciting story to see this kind of efforts for biodiversity and home setting and gardening and all kinds of good stuff. Okay, that helps. Thank you. So for those who are listening that don't know about the driftless area, can you explain what it is?
04:12The driftless area is a very unique part of the Midwest. And what it is, is over the two last ice ages, I think the last one was 10,000 years ago, there was no glacier drift as things melted. There was no glacier scraping this area. So you're not going to find drift from...
04:41Far away.
04:44that has landed in this area because the glaciers went around both times. And it's kind of like an amoeba-shaped island that encompasses 32 counties in Wisconsin, southwest Wisconsin, western Wisconsin, a bit of Minnesota, southeast Minnesota, and northeast Iowa, and a little tiny bit of Illinois. And it has karst geology, which makes it very interesting.
05:15It has what geology? Karst geology, which is kind of limestone. It's like the Swiss cheese of rocks. So the rain and the water that, and this was once underwater as everything melted, but the rain and the water that falls on the hills and at this area and the valley percolates through kind of a
05:40Swiss cheese, I would say, imaginary rock system. So the water kind of goes through it and absorbs all those minerals and ends up in a very abundant water supply in the area. Okay, thank you. I just missed the word and I didn't understand what you said. Okay, so one of the things that I either understand or misunderstand about the driftless area and people who grow food
06:09is that you're not supposed to use man-made herbicides or pesticides or fertilizers. Is that true or is that just something that I somehow got stuck in my brain? I think it's not necessarily a law, but it is kind of a momentum of the people that live here.
06:37Now, for instance, you've probably have seen on your grocery shelves the wonderful company Organic Valley. Yes. And those products, that group was formed in the late 70s, a bunch of hippie organic farmers. And they have changed the world, I think, when it comes to getting people to understand the value of organics. And that whole culture, I came to the area.
07:06gosh, 25 years ago. So I'm a newbie. But when I came to the area, I began to learn all about this. And about 15 years ago, I was involved in disaster recovery, I was the development, redevelopment and disaster coordinator after these gigantic floods that were happening to this small town. And I got to know the population and it is a very interesting mix
07:36kind of a hippie culture from the 70s, which really got that organic aspect going. A lot of Amish farmers, which also is very natural, and kind of the old school farmers, dairy farmers that, you know, do a great job and are learning along with everybody else. But just because of the geology and just because of the precious nature of this land, it was a natural to have that kind of...
08:04organic sensibility outgrowth in this area and it's just getting larger and larger all the time. Awesome because I am big believer in not using any of the man-made stuff if we can avoid it here in our our little garden at our place in Minnesota. And yeah, instead of using man-made fertilizer, we use chicken poop from chicken coop from our chickens. And lady, those are the best things that we pull out of our garden when we use the chicken poop. It's great.
08:34Right, right. Another good fertilizer is trout poop. Yep.
08:43Well, it is really great fertilizer. And it is best if you can create that cycle. The first organization that I was involved in was Clearwater Farm, and it still is going. That's over 25 years old. But that was all about getting kids connected to the land and understanding where the food comes from and having free range chickens and having compost.
09:12And we did the compost awards because that's when you take something that's kind of messy and icky and you turn it into something great. And I think composting is just the best way to go. It just improves soil health and that improves your yields and does no harm in the process. Exactly. You're working with nature, not against her. And that's really important.
09:38Had I realized how many times I was going to hear and say the word compost and how many times I was going to hear and say the word poop on this podcast when I started over a year ago, I might have rethought my life choice because it's so funny to me that I'm saying poop in a public forum. It's very funny. I know. There's other ways of saying it, but I think poop is kind of an acceptable friendly way. I think it's a great word.
10:05to use because everybody poops and everybody knows what it is. So right, right. And there's even a book for kids called everybody poops. So I think we're okay. I think it's fine. Yeah. All right. So the documentaries that you were talking about, how can people watch those if they don't have access to public television on their TV sets? You can access it through Vimeo. V-I-M-E-O.
10:34and you'll be able to download. We also have another film coming out, and it's just a short film. I think it's about 30 minutes long, and that's coming out in the next couple months. So there'll be a lot of push for people to see that as well. Again, you see it, you love it, you're more likely to protect it. And that includes how you manage your homestead, how you manage your household.
11:02things that you feel are important policy wise, where you buy your food, if you buy your food, if you have a victory garden, which I love that. And those encompass chickens too. So yeah, that film will be coming out as well and will be able to be downloaded. I think the launch is intended to be this May. Okay, awesome. Cause I will figure out how to put that in the show notes so people can find what you've been working on.
11:31And, uh, speaking of Victory Gardens, we just got our, our reas- most recent batch of Victory chickens this past weekend. We had gotten rid of our old chickens back in the fall because they were really getting old and lazy and not giving us very many eggs and we didn't want to feed them through the winter. Yeah. And we weren't going to replace them until May. And then my husband was kind of making noises that he was very unhappy with the cost of eggs at the store if he could find them.
11:59And I said, let me get hold of our chicken dealer as I refer to her, she's a friend. And I said, do you have any laying hens for sale? And she said, we do. How many do you want? And I was like, well, I'd love 200, but we really are interested in his like 12. And she's like, I got you covered. I was like, okay, good. So we have brand new laying hens. Like they're not even laying yet. They'll be laying mid-March. That was awesome. So we're very excited to have new chickens again.
12:29because we go through this about every four or five years. We get it. Yeah, yeah. And the thing about the whole chicken and egg issues these days, again, we're getting into bird flu and huge flocks and increased prices and all that kind of stuff. And you don't have to have even 12 chickens to have a great supply of eggs and a really enjoyable way of accessing and connecting with.
12:58nature in the land around you. I love going out to the garden and just clipping herbs for dinner. It's such a simple little thing or that perfect tomato or my greens or whatever. And having just a few chickens of your own that are well cared for and get that, reap those benefits I think is great. And then you also get chicken poop which is nice.
13:25Yes, exactly. And the reason I jokingly said 200 is because we live in an area where people would want to buy eggs from us. And so if we had 200 chickens, we could actually be making some money from the chickens. But that would be a lot of work and that would be a lot of chicken food. I think it would actually like bury our garden. So we're not going to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Everything is balanced, right? Yeah, exactly.
13:52And I love that you mentioned clipping herbs from your garden because right now it is like, I don't know if it's even warmed up enough to mention the number, but at 721 this morning it was minus 21 degrees here. Yeah. And I don't have any herbs in the herb garden right now under the snow because number one, there is no snow where I live. We have like a dusting maybe. And we ripped out our herb garden last year because my husband wanted to start over.
14:22So there's nothing out there. But many years ago, when we lived in town, I had a small herb garden and it had snowed enough that there was a good foot and a half of snow out there. And it was probably February, probably right about now. It was really sunny out and the edges of the snow were starting to melt where my herb garden was and I really wanted fresh time.
14:46And I said to my husband, I said, can you duck out while I'm getting this ready and see if there's any green time under the snow? And he looked at me like I was insane. And I said, honey, I said, time is a cold weather herb. I said it will continue to grow under the snow if the conditions are right. And he was like, okay, I'll go look. And he came in with like four sprigs of bright green yummy smelling thyme. And I teared up. I was just like, oh, thank God it was there. I don't have to.
15:15I don't have to eat crow on this and oh, it smells so good in February. So I totally get what you're saying about being able to go out and get herbs from your garden that you grew. Yeah, yeah. We also, in our situation, we also have a modest, not a large at all, greenhouse. And I always plant tomatoes in the greenhouse and I plant them outside. And the ones that I love about the greenhouse is I can get, I'll have fresh tomatoes.
15:44Thanksgiving. That's always the goal. That I still have tomatoes by Thanksgiving. And then it just gives you those extra months in the season if you can get it started. So I'm hoping to play out there, which is it's warmer inside there and get it started with some cold weather plans right now. And those tomatoes just keep coming up and it's always so great. But it's funny to me that,
16:13preserving food and everything. I have not been good at that. I've been good at freezing it, which is kind of silly. I should be canning. But it's just the ability to go out there and just grab some fresh stuff that you grew yourself out of pots or your garden bed or your little greenhouse or whatever. It feels really, I don't know, nurturing for your body and soul. I think it's a good thing, really, really good thing.
16:44I am referring now to the Victory Garden because I do feel that it's a way to push back and have some hope and feel, I don't know, more joy in this world. It's just to reconnect. We have been disconnected for a really long time and I think it's a good thing. Yes. And right now, especially in February in a northern tier state, anything that can make you feel magical and nurtured and content is a good thing.
17:14Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. For me, all this growing things, it doesn't matter whether it's animals or produce or flowers or whatever. I understand that it's nature. I get it. It's what has always happened because nature abhors a vacuum. If you yank everything out, she's going to put something else where you yank the stuff out. But it's also just this very magical, whimsical
17:44fantastical thing that you put a seed in the ground, you put dirt over it, you water it, and something beautiful comes out of it. It's so magical to me. And you're right, if you love something, you will take care of it. Well, we love our plants, we love our cats, we love our dog, we love our chickens, now that we have them again. And wonderful things happen here at our little homestead every summer. It's really good.
18:15I've lately for me one of the I just want to ask you a quick question. Um, I just read an article and I think raccoons are fascinating creatures and they're so cute and they are so destructive and every once in a while we'll have a raccoon party that will, you know, just rip apart things for the heck of it. And it's like, why are you guys doing this? You know, you've got, you've got 80 acres to play in. What the heck.
18:42And it's not even they're eating anything. It's not like they're hungry. They're just coming to mess with you. And then I read an article that they're more prevalent in the city. Do you have a raccoon problem, even with three acres? We have seen one raccoon way out in the cornfield since we moved here just over four years ago. Wow. But we also don't have anything for them to eat.
19:12The cats eat all the cat food that we give them in the morning by night, so there's no cat food for the raccoons to get into. We have a shed that all the feed is in, but it is locked up tight. No animals can get in there. I think mice can get in there, but other than that, a raccoon is not getting in the feed shed. We also live in the middle of a big old cornfield that surrounds us and a cornfield across the street from us.
19:39And if it isn't corn, it's soybeans, and if it isn't soybeans, it's some other green plant. So there's not a whole lot of food resources for raccoons here. Right, right. But the reason they like the city is because all of the trash cans and the dumpsters are there and they can climb up. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. So that's probably part of it. Yeah. Yep, that's part of it. So what do you do with your 80 acres?
20:08Um, my partner who I've been with for 15 years originally came to the area in the 70s. And um, I have to take a sip of water just a moment.
20:24And at the time they grew tobacco. They were actually farmers and there was a big tobacco area at the time. But over time farming is not the priority. We've got huge wildflower areas, ponds. And he originally, he started a little brewery for a bit.
20:54and then got out of that. And now what we've done is kind of in my advocacy work, we looked into bottling our water only in glass with a limited amount kind of trying to lead the way that that's the way it should be done. Like a craft harvesting with limitations that is based on like a.
21:20of rainfall that falls on the area because we don't want to hurt anything. And we also preserve the water that does come down and comes through very often based on how the water is managed. It just goes through the land too quickly and that destroys the soil. So we're working on harvesting but we're also working on
21:45soil and water management and we're also working on the limitations and trying to put that out there. The name of the brand is Driftless Fine Water and it's a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little company. And we've won four international awards for our water and that's the water management that my partner Jack has been working on for the last 40 some years. And there are no chemicals in the area, there's nothing in that water.
22:11And we feel that that's our harvest. We've got gardens and some horses. And just enjoy it. Just enjoy it. So that's my thing is to get away from. I want the world to get away from single use plastics. I want the world to get away from even
22:38wanting bottled water because the water supplies that we all have are so good. That's not necessarily the case even locally, depending on how the land has been managed. But in our case, we've been blessed with that and we're sharing it. So. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. When you mentioned single-use plastics, when anyone mentions single-use plastics to me,
23:05It reminds me of when my husband used to take his lunch to work from the leftovers from dinner the night before because he was very cool with that. He didn't want to go buy a burger at McDonald's. He wanted the good stuff. He would actually take our silverware with him in his lunch box. It wasn't lunch box. It was a soft sided lunch pail. He had a Ziploc bag that he would put the silverware in. That's a single use plastic too, but it's not plastic silverware.
23:35And he would take real silverware from the house in that bag and then put silverware back in the bag when he's done with it, bring it home and just wash the silverware with the dishes and take it with him again the next day. And one time- That's just so sane. It's so reasonable. Yeah. And one time I was like, it's so great that you're not, we don't buy plastic utensils. And he was like, well, I'm using the plastic bag.
24:04put the silverware in and I'm like, okay, but at least we're trying, you know? Right. And I think that's the thing is that we can get a little too hard on ourselves for stuff. But we also forget that everything you do can make a difference. And if there's a lot of people doing that good thing, good stuff will happen. You know, it made sense to have plastic.
24:31well, it doesn't make sense to me at all. I think bamboo is even a better choice. But re just washing your stuff and all you've had to do is you bring it back and forth. That's it. And what a great choice that is. And the same thing for me. I mean, I travel so much and I got in this habit and I think it affected, it did affect my health. And that also is kind of a driver of why I want to have, I want to be part of the solution of saying yes.
24:59all natural water, no chemicals added, nothing is in there, nothing taken away. Yeah. This is the good stuff. This is what it, this is what we should aspire to. This is what we want to be able to have. But the thing is, I was in this habit where it was like, okay, I'm, I'm gassing up and I'm going to the next spot and I'm stopping at my favorite quick trip. And I've been to a lot of quick trips and they are great stores, but I don't need to be buying.
25:28plastic bottle of water and if you really pay attention you can start to taste it and then these forever chemicals are in our systems and they're they're everywhere not at our place luckily, but yeah, it's We've done this to ourselves and we can back out of it by just making just simple easy choices and there's some days You need that plastic bag and there's some days that there's no other solution except for to you know purchase this or that that
25:57is in plastic, but just that mindfulness of, I just want to reduce, even by a bit to start, all this packaging. I mean, I actually feel sick when I see there's so much packaging and there seems to be more packaging and less food within that packaging. It's like, we don't have to do it this way. We can do better. And we don't have to feel guilty that we can't be perfect because nobody can be perfect.
26:25There's so many great options these days to make it easier to do better for all of us and the environment. For sure. And my theory on this whole thing that I was talking about is that at least he was eating the food that was leftover from the night before that I had cooked from scratch so it was good for him. And that wasn't ending up in the trash can.
26:48And he wasn't buying, you know, a double cheeseburger and fries and a soft drink at a fast food place and all that packaging was ending up in the trash too. Right. So I think I won the debate on whether we were being sustainable or not that day because I pointed that out to him and he was like, oh yeah, I suppose one small plastic bag is better than all the packaging from the fast food place. And I was like, yes. And the fact that you're not going to have a heart attack anytime soon is probably a win too.
27:19And you're going to be happier because good food helps us in so many subtle ways. Um, and bad food pulls us down. So lucky him to have you doing that. That is, that's a wonderful thing. That is a great thing. Well, it's a habit because we had four kids, we had to feed on one income. So it was a lot of cooking from scratch going on in my household when they were growing up and.
27:48I still do it because I really like to cook. It's just something I always do. But there are so many ways to be sustainable and it always feels like it comes back to food and maybe it does. Maybe that is the root of sustainability. I don't know. But... I think it's... Yeah. I think it's food and biodiversity. Having a small yard.
28:16that's full of pollinator supporting plants and you're not having to mow it. One, an easy solution as you go larger and maybe you're a manager of larger pieces of land like three acres or 40 acres or 80 acres, there's more that you can do to support not just what's on your land, but your whole area. And the more people that do it, the more sustainable things can be.
28:45And then my background, take it a little bit further, you've got the food systems and you've got land management and you've got pollinators and you've got water and soil. But then what happens when we want to grow our small cities or land that is, would be ideal to have housing on it. There's all kinds of blockages typically in policy and I know this because my career has been in design and community development.
29:15that prevents the ultimate neighborhoods and communities. And it could be something as much as the zoning prohibits a chicken, or there is no provision for trails, or there is no provision for green space. And then the yards are what the yards are, and you must mow. There's just so much that can get in the way
29:43If we just stick with the same way we've been doing things, they can get in the way with sustainability and our choices and the buildings we build and how big they are and what the materials we use. There's lots of choices that can alter how something goes. I was involved in a neighborhood many years ago and what we did is we oriented the housing sites so that the potential for solar on the roof could occur.
30:11And then in the legal documents, it wasn't something that you couldn't have. And you could have solar if you wanted to. And if you built it, you built it with a chase that would allow you to, with a kind of an easy plug-in, things could, things would work for you. And those kind of forethought ideas do drive us to sustainability because not everybody can have a homestead, but maybe they can have a healthier.
30:41community neighborhood that is being built. And trees are planted and we're insisting that, everybody plants three trees. I was involved in that for quite a while. And that makes the difference. That makes the difference in our water quality, our soil health, our enjoyment of our communities. So there's a lot of choices that can be made by the individual to make a huge difference, I guess is my.
31:10summary statement. Oh, absolutely. And I, okay, I don't know how it's going to be received, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Um, where I used to live, there were a lot of new developments going up of, you know, the McMansions or the townhouse or whatever. It was, it was a minor part of our decision making to not live in that area anymore. And, uh,
31:35A lot of the fields that I had gotten used to seeing in the 20 years that we lived there were going away to these developments. I was like, if I was going to build a development in my wildest dreams, I'm not into it at all, but I was just thinking about it. I was like, if I was going to build a development, I would want to make sure there were trees just like you. I would want to make sure there was a place for the kids to play that wasn't just a plastic
32:05I don't know, silicone or whatever. Exactly. And I would want to make sure there was a place that was open for people to put in little gardens because that's important to me. And I was like, but people are people. If you made room for gardens, people would like be dumb and fight over the spaces or they would be mean and destroy the plants or whatever, because people are people. I want to have hope that.
32:33If there was a place like I'm talking about and there was space for gardens, people would like have pretty gardens and share their produce and talk and visit and learn things. But I went to high school. I know how people can be. Yeah. I have a, can I tell you a quick story? Yes. Okay. I moved to Wisconsin almost 30 years ago. And I moved into what I thought was one of the best.
33:02suburban neighborhoods in this small town in Alaska. And we were right up against two farmsteads, two farmsteads with older gentlemen, and the one was going to sell it across the street and the one next to us, he needed to sell it for a variety of reasons. And the developer had an option. And I went to the developer and I said, just like you just said.
33:29You know, we need to have trees, and we could do this, and there needs to be a central place, and why can't we have that barnstead in the middle? And he said, for five bucks, I'll give you five years, see if you can make it work. Yeah. And in the meantime, he said, write up what you think could work in terms of how this neighborhood gets managed. You know, you can do better. You can do better than just planting large and small vinyl boxes. We can do better here.
33:59And I worked with this developer for, I think it's about 13 years. We worked on about five different neighborhoods. The Clearwater Farm was developed and it had a place for people to have their little garden spaces. And it had the animals and it had programming and just people getting connections and we created the trail system. And it's like, we built it.
34:27And at first he said, this will never fly. We are not going to be able to sell these expensive lots that are right next to where roosters are going to be crowing. And the response was, yes, we can. And the results were those were the most desirable lots. And the developer made more money by allowing this to happen than if he would have done his original plan. So it can work. It can happen. Yeah, it can happen.
34:57It can happen and the people that are involved in the farm, even though they don't have chickens in their bed, their own individual backyards, they are part of a larger community that has been a neighborhood that has been created. That in exchange for their going over there once a week to do their shift of, you know, shoveling and cleaning and caring and water hauling and all that good stuff in exchange, they get those eggs. So. I love it.
35:27That's, I feel, should be the future as we develop, is to provide for that space for those kids to understand where the beans are coming from and, you know, roosters can be annoying and stuff like that. And the eggs come from chickens and milk comes from cows, yes. Right, right. I am so glad you told that story because when I was thinking about this development in my head.
35:55you know, my dream development building practice. That's how I would have done it. And I was like, it would never work. So now I know it could work if that was what I was going to do. Oh, it can definitely work. Uh, that, that farm, that small little farm, which is only three acres. And it is surrounded by, um, wetlands and then bluffs nearby where you can kind of walk up a trail to the top where the dairy cows used to go and sun themselves.
36:23But it's a tiny little space. And I'm not saying it's huge in production, but what I am saying is it gets people connected and appreciate what our farmers do, and maybe even grows a few, grows some skill sets for some kids and some families, but thousands and thousands of people have benefited from this little effort. And that developer had the sense to say, okay, we'll give it a try. And it worked out to be a win-win for everybody.
36:52over the years. So I just feel that, okay, we proved that. Let's keep going. That is phenomenal, Julia. I love that story. Thank you for sharing it. All right. So ma'am, I try to keep these to half an hour and we're at 36 minutes. So I'm going to let you go, but thank you for coming to talk to me today. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for inviting me. This has been fun. All right. Have a great day, Julia. You too.
 

Erin Anderson Coaching - How to handle the unknown

Today I'm talking with Erin at the Erin Anderson Coaching. You can follow on Facebook as well.
If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 
https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes
00:00This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Erin at Erin Anderson Coaching. Good morning, Erin. How are you? I'm great. How are you, Mary? I'm good. It's a really bright sunny day here in Minnesota, but it is cold. It's really cold here.
00:26Yeah, it is in Utah. It's not bright sunny either. We've got the clouds, the cold, and the uncomfortable. We had that yesterday. Today it's just nice to see the sun pouring through my window because yesterday was just gray and I'm not even sure we got above zero. If we did, it wasn't by much. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. That's kind of where we're at right now. But you live in one of the most beautiful states in the whole 50 of them.
00:54I love Utah, but you know, I've been to Minnesota too, and I've been to Montana and a lot of the 50, like the western half of the 50 states I should say. There's just beauty all over. There really is. Yes, I agree. I agree. I have done a lot of road trips between Minnesota and Maine over my last 20 years. And I grew up in Maine, so my parents and my family still live there. But
01:20Yeah, it's always a joy for me to do a road trip from here to there because it's always just so pretty. And I don't like flying, so if I'm going to travel, it's going to be by car. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. I get that. Okay. So, Erin is a coach, a life coach, I guess is what I would say. Life and business. Yeah. And that might seem weird for a podcast, I mean a Homestead podcast, but it's really not.
01:46Because there's a lot going on in the world that Erin might be able to help us understand and work through it herself. So Erin, tell me about yourself and what you do. Yeah, so let me tell you this much. I'm a homesteader myself, so there's that. We have 28 chickens. We built them literally a chicken Taj Mahal out in our yard. And so, you know, we gather our own eggs. We have family that raises dairy cows. And so,
02:15you know, we can get our own dairy and things like that. So like we totally, totally understand like the homesteading thing. But what I love to do, um, is I love helping women, especially women, entrepreneurs heal from residual trauma. Uh, because you know, there's, there's so many things that women can do, uh, especially in the homesteading community, like we're, they're creators.
02:44those women are massive creators in the homesteading community. And when we're being plagued with residual trauma, often what I see happening is we're not able to live our best life. We're not able to create the things that we want to create or even, you know, do the things that we want to do because we're always plagued with this. But what if, you know what I mean?
03:14And so the thing that I love to do is I really love to help women heal those things. So that way they can turn around and they can create everything that they want to create with confidence, knowing it's going to work out, like knowing it's going to work out, not wondering. And believing in themselves because there's something beautiful about a woman.
03:43who is really in that creative energy. Hmm. Absolutely. I agree. And the thing that's hard about living in the, the after effects of trauma is that you cannot move forward and extend the energy you're extending on feeling bad into doing something good. Yeah. Yes. It's, it's really hard. And
04:10The reason I wanted to chat with you is because right now, there's a lot going on that is making people feel kind of anxious. And one of the things that's going on is people who have homesteads are kind of concerned about their funding. People have farms or homesteads or ranches because a lot of funding comes from the government and there's some stuff going on in the government that people are worried about. They're not gonna get funding to do what they're usually supposed to do. So,
04:38How do you handle that as the person who is anxious about your future? So number one, you've got to get really close with your money story, right? When you are dealing with the anxiety of, oh my gosh, I don't know if I'm going to have that funding. I don't know if I'm going to have this. And you're feeling that there's a reason. And again, like it's.
05:06probably has something to do with some type of trauma. There's several different types of trauma. But I would guess that if you're dealing with a lot of money trauma or these fears around money, you're probably dealing with something in childhood, like some sort of childhood or developmental trauma, or it can also be a societal trauma. So if you think about like things happening
05:36in your community, things happening in your world view, right? And it can also be a combination of both, and most likely it is. So just simply understanding, what are the constant stories being given around you? Now, in the US of A right now, and this is where a lot of people love to do the homesteading, right? We do have a really big story out there about money.
06:05and how money is scary, money is not showing up. We're always hearing about the low economy or scary, scary, scary, scary things, right? Yeah. Now, I wanna say that it's not like those things aren't real, okay? But our challenge is not always just to live in the fear, but it's actually to check out of the fear, right?
06:34And you need to understand first and foremost, what it is you want to create. So we're hearing, okay, I want to create this homestead. Well, what does that homestead look like? What are the funds you're going to need to do that? But the real thing that I want to hone in here is what stops us is the belief that you can't create that money, that you have to rely on the government, that you have to rely.
07:04on someone else to bring that money in. And the truth of the matter is you don't. I mean, if you take a look at Mary right now, and I have no idea what you're earning every year or even every month, Mary, but- We'll just use me as an example, yes. Yes, we're just gonna use you as an example. But you have a passion about homesteading, right? This is why you started your podcast. Absolutely, yes. Right? And-
07:33people are listening, right? And when you get people listening, that's called a lead, that's called somebody that's a follower, right? When you're getting leads, when you're getting followers, that's a type of relationship. And it's from those types of relationships that we create cash influx. And it's usually a fairly consistent type of cash influx if we are consistently making great offers.
08:02Right? So what I'm saying here is if you're a homesteader, well guess what? You are probably somebody in a great big huge group of people that has information that that entire group needs. If we're sitting here talking about like the economy,
08:29going bust if we're talking about all this fear well guess who the people are gonna want to listen to? Halmsteders. Uh-huh yes absolutely keep talking. Yeah right because what are they asking for? They're asking for self sustainability right? You guys have something valuable to offer.
08:58So the question isn't about whether or not, you know, you guys can create the money with the government or all of the things happening with with the homesteaders, right? The question is, is what connections, what relationships do you need to create and how can you serve them? Right. Okay, that brings up.
09:26Now the second piece of this, okay, you need to ask yourself, does that light you up? Does that excite you? If not, okay, that might not be your thing. So what is it that does light you up? What is it that excites you? What gets you happy? Like obviously, like I'm sitting here, I have just talked now for the last six minutes straight about creating money, healing your stories,
09:56I'm passionate about this stuff. Guess what happens because I'm passionate. People love what I have to say. They connect to that passion. It's a trust building exercise for them. People buy from people that are excited about what they have to offer. They buy from people that are well versed in what they have to offer. It creates trust, right?
10:25And so we're told to like people buy from those they know they like and they trust and that they trust right and so when again we find that piece that we really really love so like maybe your thing is chickens right and you were really good at raising chickens you're really good at making sure that flock is just the happiest maybe they're out in the barnyard right now doing some sort of tap dance for you right like
10:55You got that piece down. Well, how many people are starting their own flocks right now, right? How many people want this type of information? If you guys listen to Revolution, it's. It's a podcast all about like how to connect with your rooster. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
11:24Got it. Revolution revolution. Right. Yep. Because a lot of people are out there. They're like, I don't know how to deal with this rooster. He's super aggressive. He's he's like trying to kill me every time I walk outside. And. There's a lot of misinformation. Well, guess what? These homesteaders figured this out, and they also figured out how to connect with their roosters. So what did they do? They created a podcast. They created a course.
11:54And they're making really, really good money. They are very well known. These people's, I think it's like Sarah Franklin, Sarah and her husband are the ones that created the Revolution podcast, right? And because of that, they're creating income for their sustainability. The thing we run into when we are worried about what somebody else can give us is that we are putting
12:24our safety in the hands of someone that may or not may not be able to provide it. Okay again that comes back down to your to your trauma stories and I'm not saying that you have to revisit like really painful trauma. Studies have shown that that's not something that's really helpful all the time, but you need you do need to be able to decide what your story is going to be now.
12:54Right? Yes, absolutely. Yes. And check into that, lean into that. What does that look like for you? Who do you need to connect to? And start working through a lot of these stories because I guarantee, I guarantee, like, honestly, I I am kind of shocked. You know, the people that I know that are the most self-sufficient are the homesteaders.
13:24Right? And so if you're worried about what the government is going to give you...
13:29I really, really would invite you right now to step back for just a minute and ask yourself why are you feeling like you have to rely on them? Right? There's something else. There's something better. Yeah. Well, the other thing that I was going to bring into this conversation is there's a
13:58There's a business coach that has a podcast that I listen to as well. Her name is Charlotte Smith, and she's really about farming. And she was saying on her podcast that don't let immediate emotion drive your actions, that if you can just get through the first 90 seconds of whatever intense emotion you're feeling, it will let go of you and then you can start making decisions past that.
14:28first rush of feeling and is that something that you know about too? Oh yes. Oh yeah. So basically what she's saying is it takes 90 seconds for the hormone or the chemical reaction of an emotion to burn out of your body. That's what she's talking about. So if you think about like a really really funny joke right? Like obviously enjoy the joke, laugh it off, don't time it and see how long it takes you to laugh.
14:57They found that it takes roughly around 90 seconds for that emotion to kind of burn out of the body Unless we retrigger it. Okay So, you know if we're wanting to talk about emotional stability here and again emotional stability that is a great topic for Homesteaders because you guys sure is. Yes, really is you guys are very very stable people and you love stability
15:26And so one of the things I would tell you is as you're sitting there in that emotion, give it that 90 seconds, just breathe through it, you know, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Right. Give it just a few minutes. Experience that emotion, experience that emotion, experience that emotion. Okay. After you're done experiencing it, this is some of the questions I would have you ask. And that is, okay.
15:56what is it that I was feeling? Can I say in just a few sentences like what that emotion was? Well maybe it was anger, frustration, sadness, guilt. You know there's a lot of emotions that are uncomfortable for us but if you understand too that emotions aren't scary they're literally literally the the pathway between your subconscious and your conscious.
16:24They're there to get your attention, that's it. And they're trying to get your attention so that way you can set some boundaries and you can create some safety actually around yourself. Emotions, especially negative ones, tend to not come up as much if we are very, very boundary to ourselves. And so...
16:50When you're experiencing anger, like anger is a really great example of this, right? We might ask ourselves, okay, so I was feeling angry. Why? Why am I experiencing anger? So we might say something along the lines of, well, I feel angry because I've been betrayed, right? I've been betrayed by my neighbor. I've been betrayed by the government. I've been betrayed by.
17:16Excuse me, maybe my ex-husband, I've been betrayed, I've been betrayed. Or maybe it might be a business partner. Or somewhere there's some anger because of something that has happened to you, right? Okay, so why does that make me feel angry? Well, everybody feels angry when something like this happens, right? But why does that make me specifically feel angry? I'm not asking about everyone else. I'm asking about me specifically.
17:47Right? Yeah. I don't like being betrayed. I don't like it when they're not listening. I don't like having to rely on the government. I don't like I don't like I don't like. And in this process, you start to find like some really good keywords and phrases start coming up. And if you pay attention to those keywords and phrases that keep coming up, you're actually going to start noticing.
18:16um maybe what your fear or the discomfort actually is like what is the actual voice of it right what's what's driving it yeah really what's driving it okay so let me kind of give you an example um from my own personal life if if that's okay like i've been doing you know coaching and emotional resilience and you know healing money stories and things like that for like the last
18:46And about two years ago, I had somebody that I was fairly close to turn around and betray me, in a sense. I had something really, really distressing happen between me and another one of my relationships. And what that relationship did was inappropriate. It was not okay, right? It was actually...
19:16kind of of a sexual nature, not okay. And I decided to create some distance between me and the other person, naturally, right? But then this other person came into the picture and took the person that had hurt me, their side, okay? And they started calling me a narcissist. They started telling me
19:46other people that I was horrible that I didn't deserve the things that I'd had. Like all of these really, really horrible, horrible things about me. This person was so angry because I had distanced myself from this other person. Right. And I was mad. I was really mad. I was like, are you kidding me? Like, seriously? Like, how dare you?
20:15And I even offered to talk to this person that was calling me all these names and taking the other person's side of things. And they didn't want to have anything to do with me. I'm just good with words is what they said, right? And narcissistic and so I'm going to twist what they say. What? That's not me at all. That's not the way that I work. But I noticed I was feeling really, really angry, right?
20:44And I'm the type of person that likes to move through my emotions really, really quickly. But this time, it was sticking. And it stuck for a while. And I was like, why am I so angry about this? What is it about this person that makes me feel so angry? Right? Mm-hmm. And so I got really curious about it. And...
21:11I've learned some really, really great lessons about it. Like, number one, I'm Christian. Totally believe in God, totally believe in Christ. And as I've been like, as I started praying about like this specific situation, I started learning more about love, right? And the action of love. That doesn't mean giving this person a pass. As a matter of fact, that's not loving at all.
21:41Because people do need to learn from their mistakes. They need to learn from their actions. But it's not always my job to be the teacher. That's the point. But I had to ask myself, do I have the capacity to still love this person? Even if it's from a distance, can I actually look at the good things that they do? The actual good things about this
22:10Yeah. Now, that was a little bit of a pill for me to swallow because I didn't want to. I wanted to see them for the horrible person they were. And like, how could they write? Like that's what I wanted to feel. But that's not in alignment with who I am. Right. That's actually in alignment with their vision of me, not my own. And so when I started asking myself, do I have that capacity to love anyway?
22:41I started looking for the good things and all of a sudden some of this anger died down.
22:47Because I started setting this boundary that even though somebody might look for the very worst things in me, I'm going to look for the very best things in them. For my own good. Right? And so you can hear that boundary. And the second boundary that came out of this was I also noticed like I was saying saying something over and over in my head like I'm holding this proverbial poop bag.
23:16Right? Right? And I'm like, okay, well, I need to clarify, like, what does that mean? Right? Well, I noticed that what I was really saying was I didn't get the opportunity to speak up. They didn't let me. And so I got thinking about that. And I was like, you know what? That's not okay. And so I sat down and I wrote a letter.
23:46this person and I edited it and rewrote it a couple of times because again I really love the fact that I'm a loving person I see the very best in people and I also love the fact that I'm a respectful person right and so I want that to really come across in the letter not for their benefit from my own because I'm staying in my boundary right and so I wrote this letter
24:16and I sent it and I don't know if they got it, I don't know if they read it, like I have no idea. But all of a sudden, the rest of that anger left because I am not afraid to use my voice. In whatever way I possibly need to use it, I'm not afraid. So the other boundary that came out of this was that no matter what,
24:46I choose to speak up. Uh huh. Whether somebody else is okay with it, whether somebody else is comfortable with it, it doesn't matter. I choose to speak up. Right? In whatever way I need to. And so this is what I'm saying, like when we get really really good at listening to our emotions and we just get curious about them, we find our divine self inside of them.
25:14because they will speak to our actual inherent boundaries. I love being a loving person. I love valuing my voice enough to not let it be silenced. I love the fact that I'm a respectful person. Even to people that choose not to respect me, that's fine. I can still be respectful because that's who I am. And so a boundary...
25:42When we're working with our emotions this way, we can actually find a true boundary because a true boundary is never about like what another person is doing or what they're going to do or what they aren't doing even, right? It comes down to a hundred percent who we are and what we choose to do. Yes, and since that was so much about boundaries, I'm gonna admit something.
26:11I did not quite understand that boundaries were not just about like, okay, so and so does this thing that I don't like, so I'm putting up a wall. That's not really a boundary. I mean, it is, but it's not, I don't think it's the kind of boundary you're talking about. And I also didn't understand that boundaries are something that we set up for ourselves. Yeah. Do you see what I'm saying here? Yes.
26:39And you know, this is why a lot of people really struggle with boundaries is because they're not well taught and they're not well understood. Right. Kind of like you're talking about when when people are saying things like, well, I just need to set a boundary, but I feel like my boundary is being walked all over. Well, it's actually because you didn't set a boundary set an expectation. Right. Yes. Thank you. Right. Yes.
27:04That's the difference. And I'm not saying like all expectations are bad, but the problem is, is when you live in expectation, you also live in disappointment. You sure do. I learned that one too. Right? Like, truly. But if you are living in intention, this is the power of the do. Right? You keep the power of the do with you. I'm actually writing a book about this very
27:31concept here. It's called the seven pillars of living the unashamed life, right? And the first pillar is actually intention and the adversary to intention is expectation, right? But people find and you hear them talking a lot about like how they feel like their boundaries have been trampled on or their boundaries have been broken. But again, like I said, it comes back down to not knowing
28:01actually. So I worked a lot with women in betrayal trauma, right, and they would talk a lot about boundaries. And they would say things like, well, if he looks at pornography again, then I am leaving. And I would always ask them this question. I'm like, okay, well, that sounds like a really strong boundary. But how do you plan on acting on that? Do you have the financial capability to act on that?
28:30place to go if you act on that. Do you have like all these pieces like do you actually know what that looks like for you to leave? And then guess what? Husband looks at pornography again and they don't follow through with the boundary and so all of a sudden they feel guilt. Or like husband love bombs them and then they feel guilty for saying that and so with that boundary quote unquote came a ton of guilt. Yeah. Right?
28:59A boundary doesn't do that. A really good boundary will not leave you feeling guilty. It'll leave you feeling empowered. Right? And this is one of the things that I really am passionate about teaching people is it all comes down to you and how you are going to choose to respond in a way that actually makes sense to you, right? And when you get this idea of like what a true boundary is,
29:29happening is you start bringing your control back to you. You are the one not controlling the other person because that's not like it's not possible and it's also exhausting. But you start being able to control the right person and that's you and staying in your lane, staying in your boundaries, right? And not leaving those boundaries because somebody is angry or somebody expects something out of you.
29:58You understand your limits. So when you understand your limits and your boundaries and who you are and you choose to live in that lane, well, what happens when somebody else does something inappropriate is it doesn't pull you out of that lane, if that makes sense. So here we have, like I said, a group of
30:25homesteading people that listen to your podcast, right? And like you were saying at the beginning, some of that fear about, you know, whether or not the government is going to help or whether or not they're going to have the funding or whether or not whether or not whether or not, right? This is actually one of the results of living in that expectation, right? Well, what if your
30:54What if that's the boundary? Well, you might say something along the lines of, well, I've never done that before, right? But that doesn't mean that that's still not possible. What it means is you've got to connect with people right now that are creating the money you want without having to rely on government assistance, without having to rely on people that aren't reliable necessarily, right?
31:24You've got to learn to start thinking the way they think. There's plenty, there are plenty of Facebook groups out there right now that are full of people that are earning six, seven, eight figures. Right? Go join one of them. Right? Start dreaming, start thinking about what you can actually create. You know, taking a look at
31:54millionaires. They didn't become millionaires by thinking they could create it. Right, yeah. Right? They actually believed they could. And then they had a vision for what they wanted to create. Right? Jeff Bezos, he's actually a billionaire, right? Wanted a shopping center online that literally had just about anything you could think of for the very best prices, right?
32:25That's what he created. This is part of the reason too why so many people trust Amazon for delivering their goods. Like you can even buy your groceries from Amazon and have them delivered to your door just about anywhere you're at. Well I can't. I live too far out in the country for that ma'am. OK. But yes almost everybody can. Almost everybody can. Right. But even then like.
32:52You know, there's still like we're still so connected as a world, right? Uh, you know, I have another podcast called the other side of the struggle healing from betrayal trauma. Um, that is a global podcast. It has over 12,000 downloads and it was something that I've done from the comfort of my own home. And though I might not be as remote as you, Mary, I'm still, I still live in a fairly remote place. Right. Last year.
33:20because I was coaching women through trauma and helping them create more money in their businesses. Because of it, my business hit six figures, right? I just did the taxes. We saw it. This year it's scaling to do even more. And the thing of the matter is, I didn't have to rely on the government to do that, right?
33:48My business coach, she lives in Australia. But yeah, I can get on and I can do a call with her or a voice chat. We've got tons and tons of apps, ways to connect. We are more connected now than we have ever been. This is the point, you actually can use this to your advantage. There's so many things out there that you can do from the comfort of your own home.
34:17There's people that are blogging about homesteading, making six, seven figures doing it, right? There are people that, like I actually had a gal that was making, oh, I wanna say about $5,000 a month, simply writing greeting cards from her home and sending it off to companies. Uh-huh, yep. Right? Money is something that we absolutely can create, but it won't happen if you are identifying
34:47Right now, if your boundary is, I have to rely on the government to create what it is I want. Right? Mm-hmm. Your boundary needs to be, I can rely on myself to create what it is that I want. Yes. Absolutely. I agree completely. And I'm so glad that I asked that question at the beginning because I have, I have seen so many Facebook posts from ranchers and farmers just not panicked, but just concerned, you know?
35:16So I'm glad that you were willing to tell me this stuff because we're good here at the Lewis household. We're fine. But a lot of people that I talk with or I see, you know, that I'm connected with, they're worried that they're not going to be fine. And I worry with them because they're people I care about. So yeah, I did want to go back to the boundaries thing real quick. Okay.
35:43The other thing that I've really learned since we moved here a little over four years ago, we did not live on a homestead four years ago, we lived in town, is that boundaries are also a thing that you have to put up for yourself against yourself almost. I'm going to explain this. We got barn cats when we first moved here and two of them were like, I don't know, six month old boy kittens, they were brothers.
36:12One was a silver tabby, one was an orange tabby. And I had always wanted a silver tabby. My whole life I have wanted a silver tabby cat. And I finally had one. And I never got to pet him. He was not into being around people because he was a barn cat. We got him from the Humane Society. And he got hit by a car. Oh. A couple months after we got him.
36:36And I lost my mind. I sobbed, I cried, I was angry, I was upset that whole day. And the next barn cat that died, I was like, oh, well, it happened again. And I swore and I slammed a cabinet door. I didn't ruin my whole day over it. And so, I guess what I'm saying is that the first time something happens that makes you hurt or angry or frustrated, you're gonna feel it.
37:06But then your brain says, OK, maybe don't fall in love with the barncats because they're not here for a long time, they're here for a good time. Right. You see what I'm saying? I can actually really connect to your story, but I want to add this piece to it. What a great opportunity for you to actually clarify what it is you want. Right?
37:30Like you're sitting here saying I want a silver tabby barn cat, like I want a silver silver tabby cat. Well you got one that was a barn cat right? Yep. So I connected this story because a few years ago we had this adorable little dog. She was fantastic, she was so well behaved. Like if she was still here she'd probably be sitting right here by my foot.
38:00just totally chill, just such a good dog, right? And she literally fell into my lap. Like I'm not even joking, she really seriously did. Like I had a friend that couldn't keep her anymore and so she put the dog in my lap and said, take her home. So we did and we kept her, but it ended up, we had her for about three years and then she passed away because
38:29her little heart was just too big for her body. Yeah. That's what we found out. Right. So she literally died of a big heart. So we grieved over the loss of our little dog. And I went out and got another one. And because I said, I just wanted a dog for my family. Well, this dog, she was cute. She was adorable. Very sweet little dog. Very sweet, but she was insane.
38:58Yeah. Like there was no amount of didn't matter what you did. You could not calm that dog down. We, we would like, we live on a half acre right here where, where I am, but it didn't matter how many times she threw the ball, it didn't matter how many times you went running with her, it didn't matter what you did. She still wanted more. There was no way you could live life doing anything else. And so it ended up that, uh, I had to actually chain her.
39:27once in a while because if I wasn't out there with her, she'd be taking off, chasing cars, chasing other kids, chasing animals, chase, chase, chase. Like, and she became a nuisance in a sense to other neighbors. Sure. So I had to chain her up until we could get a fence built for her. But what ended up happening is just shortly before we had her for a year, she was tugging so hard on her collar.
39:55that the caller literally snapped, she ran out on the road, she got hit and killed, right? Yeah. And I, we were very sad because even though like she was insane, we still loved this dog, right? But it gave me the opportunity to get even clearer with what it is I wanted. I realized that one of the things that I wanted was I wanted a dog, yes.
40:22But I wanted one that was smart enough to know when it was playtime and when it was time to calm down. I wanted a dog that would go on walks with me, but one that could actually stay right by my side. That was trainable, that wasn't insane, that could sit down and just enjoy a day with me, right? That could be really, really playful, but also really, really calm at the same time.
40:52really good with kids because I'm a mom of six kids here, right? Got to be dang good with kids. And he's got to understand commands. And, you know, and I had a list of things like I really, really clarified what it was. I wanted and then I even threw in. It would be great if I could get this dog either for free or for trade. Right. Well, go figure.
41:22I had a friend who breeds Australian shepherds, right? And I was telling her what it was I was looking for and she's like, I bought the exact dog for you. And she traded me in essential oils and now we've had Topaz, he's used my dog now for nine years and he's everything, literally everything I've ever wanted in a dog.
41:47See, the thing is, is when we get really, really clear too about this is something else I teach, right? When we get really, really clear about what it is we want, it also sets the boundary for us to receive that exact thing, right? Is it like manifesting what you want? Yes. Yes, okay. Yes, and I will tell you that has happened so many times in my home.
42:15I remember my husband, you know, we're all about food storage too. And he said one day, he's like, you know what? I want to increase our food storage by a year and a half. And it would be great if I didn't have to pay for it. Well, then one of his friends said, hey, guess what? There's this guy in the neighboring town. He just passed away.
42:41He has about 15 years worth of food storage and the family's giving it away. And so my husband went and literally picked up about a year and a half worth of food storage for free for our family and a family of eight people, you know, there's six kids and me and him. So that's a lot of food storage, right? He did this with his job.
43:05You know, he worked about an hour away from where we lived, and he did that for 18 years, driving every single day up and back, right? Two hour drive every day. And he said, it would be awesome if I could actually get a job, this exact job closer to home. Well, there was only one position, and it was already filled, and the gal that had it came up to me one day, and she was like,
43:34Hey, you know what, actually, I think I want to move up north where your husband's working. Do you think he'd want to trade jobs with me? And it's just going down to getting really clear and talking about what it is we want. And the thing is, is what you'll notice will happen is these certain beliefs start popping up. So like one of the things I've been saying recently is,
44:02I'm Erin Anderson. I'm a seven-figure business coach. I drive a Ford Explorer and I take my family on amazing vacations, right? These are the things that I'm manifesting right now. These are things that I want and I noticed like there's things that are coming up in my story such as whole seven-figures Business coach that's a lot of exposure Right like published author I got
44:30my book coach, she's a New York Times bestseller and she's like, this is going to be huge, right? And I'm sitting there a whole exposure. That's what I'm feeling right now. And I'm like, okay, guess what I got to do? I have got if this is what I want, and this is what this means, and that means I've got to get on the podcast. Thank you very much, Mary Lewis. You're welcome. And I need to start being more
44:59I need to be more visible. I need to see like allow myself to really be seen. Allow myself to even be judged a little bit, right? Like I've got to allow that kind of thing so I can become comfortable with it. And then what happens is now I move past that onto the next little pothole in my road, right? That next fear.
45:27and I can start facing it. And so when we actually sit down and we say, we're like, really what it is, say Bruce Banner, I don't know, right? My name is Bruce Banner and I live on a 10 acre farm and I own a 50 head of cattle. I'm creating, I don't know, say $10,000 a month.
45:53I don't know what the realities are of that, right? But the thing is, is when you sit there and say these things out loud, over and over and over again, you're just going to start noticing like those little potholes that keep coming up. Maybe it's, but the government promised, right? Yeah. Or maybe it's, well, where in the heck am I going to find that type of money? Right? Well, that's a relationship issue. We've got to start asking ourselves, well, what kind of relationships do I need to start creating?
46:23to create that kind of cash because all money is is it's a manifestation of the type of relationships that we have. Right. And it's the type of relationships that we create. This is why you know I can create a six figure heading up to seven figure coaching business right is because I'm creating relationships with my clients. My son you know he works
46:53He had a certain relationship with the owner of that diner so that the way they would pay him, right? What types of relationships do we actually need to create so that way we can also create the cash that we want? Where are those relationships going to be? And how can we be visible in those areas? And so these are the things that we need to start asking ourselves if we want to start creating more cash.
47:22Um, you know, again, like homesteaders having a stash of gold and silver, that's probably really important to you. But right now the way to get gold and silver is through a cash influx, right? Making sure you can buy that and putting it away. And so, you know, the, the thing that I really, really want to point out is it doesn't really matter what's happening in the world. I mean, we've been through COVID.
47:52there's a good chance that something worse could possibly come. Shh. Don't say that. Sorry. Don't say that right now. But my point here is, is you can still create. It doesn't matter what, excuse me, I'm losing my voice a little bit, but it doesn't matter what's out there. Your superpower is creation. It was from the get go. It was from the beginning. And even if say the dollar fails.
48:21Well, then what is valuable? Right. Maybe it's potatoes. Maybe it's eggs. Maybe it's eggs, right? Yeah. Like 28 chickens. Like, right? That's what we're dealing with right now. Maybe it's toilet paper. Who knows? You're going to be a rich. That's what the valuable commodity was back in, back during COVID. Yeah, you're going to be a rich lady, Erin, off of 28 chickens. I, you know what? It's, it's.
48:46Yeah, we actually are already having a lot of people, they're like, so you got any eggs? Uh huh. Yeah. So they're dealing under the table anyway, but like, you know, yeah, it's, you, we have value. Value is always measured by something. It doesn't matter if it's gold and silver. It doesn't matter if it's a dollar. It doesn't matter. There's always value measured by something. And when we tap into that, we find.
49:17great relationships and freedom. Yep. It's so interesting that you were saying, exposure, oh no. And I'm gonna tell the story and then I'm gonna let you go because we're already at like almost 15 minutes. Oh, thank you. When I started toying with the idea of starting the podcast like over two years ago now, I was very, very hesitant to even like dance around the idea.
49:46Because I was like, I've spent my whole life being told to shut up since I was little. And I was like, nobody's going to listen. I have a terrible voice. It's going to be bad, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the things you tell yourself. Right? But I desperately needed a project. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do three recordings with three people and we'll see how it goes. That was my boundary for myself.
50:14If it doesn't go anywhere, it's okay, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and it will. That's what I did for myself. And over a year later and over, I think, 250 episodes later, here we are. Love it. And so I really feel like fear is the great killer of everything. Yes. And hope is the great producer of everything. Yes. So. And it so is.
50:44And you know, I can totally connect to that too, because, you know, I started the other side of the struggle healing from betrayal trauma back in, I want to say 2020, 2021, around that time. And same thing, I was like, exposure. Okay, but I'm doing this. And
51:11that podcast at this time has 125 episodes and 12,000 downloads, right? And then I get the soul nudge to jump ship, even though that podcast is still up and so you can totally go listen to that, but I jump ship and now I'm doing Bold Heart's Big Moose. Which I listened to this morning and good job. Well thank you, thank you. That makes me feel so good.
51:37Honestly, because it's still a fairly new podcast. It's like maybe six months old. Yeah But I really wanted to talk about more of this type of a thing like like let's talk about the boundaries It's like talk about healing trauma, but then let's also talk about like creating cash Let's actually open that up and right and dreams and dreams Yes, and I also have to say Mary that
52:06My first thought of your voice, because this is an audio podcast, is, oh my goodness, what a fabulous voice. Truly, it's so relaxing, and it draws people in just the very tone of it. And so it's so funny, isn't it? That whatever we've been told in childhood, if we're told something enough times, long and loud enough, we tend to believe it.
52:35But it's not true all the time. Right. Actually, most of the time it's not because until we actually get out there and challenge it, cause see, I get that. I was, I was told, you know, as a kid that I probably wouldn't ever be a great singer and I've been now asked to sing in some of the greatest places in Utah. Right. I've, I've sang on Temple Square. I've sang at a Bravonell hall. I've, I, I have a voice too for singing.
53:05We don't know until we challenge it. You know? Yeah. And so get out there, challenge the fear. You might actually prove it wrong. Yes, and I'm gonna add to that and then I'm gonna cut you loose for the day because I'm sure you have other things to do. Get out there and challenge it, but also if there's something you love to do, if you love to draw or paint or I don't know, crochet things.
53:34Do that. Do the thing you love, whether you've been told that you can't do it or not, because really who says you can't? Right. And there's always somebody out there that actually will pay for your work. Mm-hmm. That's what you ask for. Exactly. So people, get out there and do what you love because sometimes it's really, really worth it. And usually it is. It's, yes. Exactly. All right, Erin, thank you so much for your time today. I do appreciate it.
54:03Oh, I appreciate you, Mary. Thank you so much for having me. What a fun podcast. All right. Have a great day. You too. Thanks guys.