A Tiny Homestead

Stephanie's Dish - Stephanie Hansen

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

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

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

Practical Prepping with Mark Lawley

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

Wild Roots Nature School

Today I'm talking with Miss Jenny at Wild Roots Nature School.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  Today I'm talking with Miss Jenny at Wild Roots Nature School in Indiana. Good afternoon, Miss Jenny. How are you? I'm wonderful. Hi, Mary. It's such a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to have you.  The reason I'm calling Miss Jenny Miss Jenny is because I'm sure that's what her little
00:28humans call her at school.  Or Miss Jimmy.  Those that can't quite pronounce Miss Jenny, they'll say Miss Jimmy.  I love it.  love what you're doing because I love  little kids. Teenagers are a whole different ball game, but little kids are adorable. Yes, they are. My little sprouts make every day so much brighter.  But I have a teenager too, so  I'm balancing  both of them.
00:58in life right now. So yeah, and they both have their stellar moments, but  teenagers are hard.  It's really hard to know  what kind of mood they're going to be in,  what kind of reception you're going to get to something you say. It's just a whole different thing. It sure is.  So anyway, what's the weather like in Indiana today? It's absolutely gorgeous. So it's a little bit of a breeze, the sun shining.
01:26The birds are chirping.  It's great. It's not so humid and hot as it has been over the last couple weeks. So I think things are cooling down a bit.  Yeah, the Midwest has gotten its butt kicked in the last couple of weeks with temperatures and humidity.  I'm in Minnesota and  it's still muggy here, but it's not hot today. So that's helping. Yes, it's quite a relief. Yeah.
01:53have said before and I will say it until the day I die. hate high summer. And for me, high summer is mid-July till the end of August because Minnesota is so crazy from in that timeframe. We never know what the weather is going to be. We could have the most beautiful 65 degree day with a breeze or we could have 105 with tropical dew point or we could have a tornado. You never know.
02:21So summer is not my favorite season. Spring and fall are my favorites and I wish that we could just do six months of spring and six months of fall. That would be perfect for me.  And the mosquitoes add a whole new challenge to  being outside all day. Yeah. And the black flies. We don't  have too much trouble with that, but the mosquitoes  run us out of here sometimes.  We have black flies every spring and
02:49my husband will come in and he'll have blood dripping down the side of his neck because they bite him behind his ears. Oh no. Yeah. And they don't, they have, they must have some kind of anesthetic thing in their saliva because he never realizes he's been bitten until I'm like, um, you might want to go get a wet cloth and wipe your neck. And he's like black fly. Oh my goodness.  So yeah, it's, uh,  nature is wonderful. It really is. But there are things that you have to deal with to
03:18get that wonder. So, absolutely. right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I am the founder of Wild Roots Nature School, which is a nature-based home school nestled right in my own backyard, right here in Indianapolis. It's a play-based
03:43program where kids are welcome to be wild and free and barefoot and kind of have the freedom to choose how they want to play most days. So it's a emergent type curriculum where I follow the lead of the child in the interest of the children. so if we find
04:13a caterpillar that will lead to discussions on the life cycle of a butterfly or  right now you can probably hear them.  They're very curious about the cicadas  and  lots of lots of cicada shells  in every pocket  that I find.  So  yeah, it's a mixed age group of  kids ages three to six.
04:43And it's just, you know,  I grew up like the barefoot running around with my friends and my sister in the fields making  friendship soup out of weeds and pine cones. And  I think that  not many kids have that opportunity to learn and play outside every day anymore.
05:10Um, there's such a big focus on kindergarten readiness and, um, academics that they just can't play anymore. There's such a, so much pressure to be prepared  for school.  So  we slow it down a bit and focus more on just playing and learning through play and, and  they're learning  all the time.  And it's, it's just beautiful. Lots of giggles and, um,
05:40Yeah, they just have a blast. Lots of light bulb moments too. Oh yeah.  Yep. So we have chickens and kittens and  currently we found three  black swallowtail caterpillars when we were harvesting our carrots in the garden one morning.  So we've put them in an enclosure and we've been able to  observe the life cycle and
06:09Unfortunately, we were on vacation last week, but we came home to three chrysalises.  So we should have some butterflies emerging soon. So that's exciting.  We talk about the life cycle of  lots of animals and plants  quite often. So that's really cool.  I love that. Yeah.  I was outside all the time when I was a kid. My mom in the summer,
06:39Basically, she would be like, go out and play, come back at dinner. Exactly. You'd hear the whistle and you'd have to run home. Yeah. And you could do that back then. And I grew up in a little tiny town in Maine. So  we weren't too worried about us kids getting into trouble when we little. And it's funny because we had a  big old swamp behind our house. It was like,  I don't know, maybe a quarter acre of forest. And then there was a swamp.
07:08And  behind that swamp was more acres of woods and then there was a lake. And as a mom of four grown children,  I don't know that I would have been comfortable sending my five-year-old out the door where there was so much water, but we all survived it and I loved  it.  knew the difference between a red pine cone, I'm sorry, red  oak acorn and a white oak acorn because my grandpa taught me that white oak
07:38Acorns are edible and they actually taste good.  Don't eat a red oak acorn because you will pucker up for a week because of the tannins. Good to know.  Yeah, and you can make flour out of either acorn.  I don't know enough about the red one to tell you, but the white oak acorn makes excellent flour.  And I got to see deer just walking through the woods. I got to see bunnies.
08:07I got to see porcupines, because there's porcupines in the woods in Maine,  and you really don't want to get up close and personal with them, but they're really fun to watch. And it was just a wonderful way to grow up and to learn. And even as a teenager and a young adult, I spent a lot of time outside. So there's something really special about nature.  because you're doing this, do you know any of the scientific backed stuff about
08:36what nature does to kids? definitely  research is showing that being outside and grounding yourself as a child  is  definitely decreasing  obesity  and  depression.  I know when I get out in nature, I'm  always much happier  and
09:04very active. so those are two huge benefits to being outside in nature most days.  And again, the more and more research is coming out regarding all the academic pressure that children have to be prepared for kindergarten. And it's just, it's showing that it's not necessary and their, and their brains really aren't ready to hold a pencil  or to start reading.
09:34or  you have to build those fine motor skills.
09:40in your hands before you can pick up a pencil and write. So  we still, we still  learn the ABCs and one, two, threes.  It's just not heavily focused on in my program. They have so many, many, many years  to be in school and learn. And they learn a lot of that when they go into kindergarten.  um, yeah,  I think there's tons of benefits to a nature-based program.
10:10For sure. So how many hours is, are the kids at school a day with you? You know, when I might, I have a teenage son who's flying the coop here in a couple of weeks, he's, he's going to college, but when he went to preschool, it was so difficult to find a preschool that worked within
10:40the eight to five hours.  I know most of the preschool programs here in Indianapolis, they start at nine and you have to pick up at 3.30. And I'm just like, how in the world do  parents  juggle it all?  And so  I really  designed my program to  cater to the working families, the eight to fives.  So a lot of my students are here all day.
11:09arriving sometimes at 730 and stay until 5, 530. So the days are long  for me, probably not for them,  but  most of them don't want to leave when it's time. yeah,  and I think the parents are  very grateful for  the flexibility and the hours that I provide for them.  So is it just you? It's just me,  yes.
11:37It's me and  it's a micro school. So I typically only have around six children  at a time. And my husband is so supportive. He works outside of the home, but  the work is never done. And so he's always ready and  willing to help wherever he can and  puts up with all my crazy ideas. And  I tend to...
12:07tend to go all out when it comes to birthdays and holidays. it's late nights hanging up  decorations and  all the things. So he's wonderful. I could not do it without him.  OK, number one, that is fabulous. Keep him, husband.  I'm sorry, let's change that. Spouses that support each other are a  miracle.  There are so many people who don't have that blessing.
12:36And number two,  your students must feel so special and so loved if you put that much energy into this. I hope so. And I  think they do.  I have had one student with me for almost four years. So it's kind of bittersweet. Today is her last day.  She's going to public school, kindergarten tomorrow.
13:06And  so she  will be leaving. So it's going to be kind of a sad afternoon to say goodbye. But it's never goodbye forever because they always come back and visit and  on their holiday breaks and such. But yeah, there's so much love and  you can just feel it when you come here. It's just a magical. It's just magical. It's like I said, most kids don't have the opportunity to learn.
13:35and grow up like this. And  the small class size helps  with that close knit community feel and we're like a big family.
13:49That's so awesome. I love it. I love what you're doing. little girl is going to go through so much culture shock in the next week or so. Oh, I know. She's going be like, aren't we going outside? No, not yet. I know. I know. And it really is quite sad that they only get, I don't know how much actual time kindergartners are spending outside, but it's probably not much. Maybe 30 minutes a day.
14:20And even some preschools centers here in town are only allowed an hour, which is just.
14:30Yep,  I have to be really careful about what I say next because I didn't really appreciate the public school system for my kids.  And I have to be careful about what I say because I respect teachers  so much. It is such a hard job  and I think it can be really thankless some days and that's terrible.  But  I also think that
14:58The system put in place to educate our kids from first grade through senior year  is  not correct.  I feel like if a kid is good at something, they should be allowed to pursue that thing, whether it's singing or math or writing  or lawyering or doctoring or whatever.  And our public school system  is
15:27basically trying to churn out people that are sort of, kind of half-assed prepared for life. I don't feel like that really serves anyone. When I was in school, I had the same teacher for freshman and sophomore year for my English class. And she was fabulous. And she knew that I had a talent for writing.
15:54I did not choose to go to college because I was so burnt out on trying to get straight A's  in advanced placement classes. I could not stomach the idea  of rolling right from high school into college. And she caught me in the hallway one day at the end of senior year and she said,  I would be happy to make you or write you a recommendation for Thomas College,  which was a famous college in Maine, still is probably, for people who wanted to pursue writing. And I politely declined.
16:24And she said, why? And I said, because I'm not going to college. And she had tears in her eyes when I told her that.  And she said, why? And I said, because I can't do it. I said, I have been pushed and pushed and pushed and I have done my absolute best to get the best grades I possibly can.  And I am just burnt out. I can't do this another year in a row. And  she said,  I understand.  Still had tears in her eyes.
16:53And I didn't go to college and I don't regret it at all. I'm good.  I learn  so much from books and from people and from the world that I feel like I've gotten three degrees in something, but I just don't have a piece of paper to prove it. So it's, it's hard with my kids.  They were all  very bright people  and I can still remember my youngest. He's a boy.
17:22We went in for a parent teacher conference and his  teacher, he was in third or fourth grade, was like, he is not at  grade level for reading. And I said, that doesn't surprise me.  And he said, why not? And I said, because it takes a special book.  There's a unique book for every kid that hooks them into reading.  And then all of a sudden, all the synapses go,  hey, this is fun. And they start becoming avid readers.
17:52I said, I went through it in first grade. My daughter went through it in first grade. My oldest son went through it in  sixth grade. Oh, wow. I said, I think boys come to reading, loving reading a lot later than girls do. And I they all learn on a different level at a different time. It does eventually click. Yeah. And so the teacher was like, well, we should probably get him on an independent  education program thing.
18:22And I said, absolutely not. And he looked at me like I had lost my marbles.  And I said, I am the mother. This is my child. I said, you need my permission to get that started.  I said, I do not give you my permission. I said, he will probably be reading at grade level by next year. And he said, OK.
18:47He said, I'm just telling you what I'm seeing. And I said, I'm just telling you what I've experienced in raising four kids.  I I appreciate your opinion.  And if I really thought there was a problem, I would be all for this. said, but I don't think there is, and it's not going to hurt him to not  be on an IEP program. And he said, okay. And I said, okay. So the following year, my youngest picked up the book, Aragon.
19:15by Christopher Paolini, I think is his last name.  And he sat down and he opened the book and I said, you're ready? And he's like, why? And I said, this is gonna change your life. And he looked at me like I was not.  And he started reading and he devoured that book. And after he would close the book, after he read some, I would say, tell me about the story. And he would tell me the story. I'd already read it. He was comprehending it.  He was getting it. He was loving it.
19:44and he's been an avid reader ever since.  In the process of him  reading that book, he had chosen that for the thing at school where they get points for something to keep track of their reading level.  Like, book it, I think. Yeah, something like that, yeah. And he ended up getting all of his points for the rest of the year, which was like five months, you know, it was five months left to school.  All of his points for the rest of the year. And at the end of the year, he got a little  certificate.
20:12that said that he was the highest, I don't know, he was the one who had come the furthest in reading that year. And he came home just waving that thing at me. And I said, did you take this to your teacher from last year and show him? said, I sure did mom. Good for him. I said, good. And I called the next day and the teacher happened to be the one from the previous year. And I said, I absolutely am not calling to say I told you so. I said, because that's rude.
20:42I said, what was Cameron's face like when you saw that certificate in his hand? He said he was glowing.  said, sometimes mama intuition is true. He said, that's better than I told you so. I said, yes, it is. that's awesome that you advocated for him.  And  I have a similar experience  with my teenager. He went through public school and had an individual education plan. And yeah, I just.
21:10I'm with you. mean, the teachers are overworked and underpaid and the system  is broken.  And I have a five year old who's in  a student at Wild Roots  and  currently and  going through that with my first born son, I said, not again, you know, we're not doing this again. So he'll be home with me and we'll home school  and  he's excited about it.
21:40Yeah. And like I said, I wanted to be really careful about how I frame that because I  have the utmost respect for people who teach.  is an amazing skill that I don't really have. I mean,  I try, but I'm not set up  to teach a bunch of people at the same time. just not, it's not in my,  it's not in my blood. It's definitely not for everyone. Yeah. It's a hard job and it's a special skill.  again,
22:10utmost respect. I have a problem with the actual education  system. Yes, I have referred to it as state mandated daycare for a long time because that's how it feels to me. Yep.  and yeah, it's so regulated and you don't have the freedom to  follow the child's interests  and  build a curriculum based off what they like or have them choose what they want to read and
22:40Uh, yeah, it's just...
22:44It's unfortunate and hopefully they make changes in the next  couple years to make the system better. until then,  Hudson will be home with mama.  Good. You do what you need to do for your child because that's most important thing.  Also,  what was I going to say? What's the feedback from the parents in your program?
23:14Oh, they're all just  so grateful  to have me and the dedicated. They see me, they appreciate me  and  our communication throughout the day and even  through the evening and on the weekends.  It's very, we talk a lot and,  you know, we talk a lot about the day and what they've done. send lots of pictures and they just, they love that. And the reason why I
23:44started my business 18 years ago is because I didn't want to be away from my child every day. And I just can't imagine how difficult that is to have to trust somebody to raise your child all day.  And so yeah, they're forever grateful for sure.  Do the kids go home and tell mom and dad or mom and mom or dad and dad or just mom or just dad because that's how families are now. Yes. And I'm not being a smart ass. That's how families are now.  Did they go home and tell mom and dad about the
24:14the butterfly chrysalis or the frog that they caught or do you know? You know,  this age is kind of,  you'll ask them what they did today and they'll be like nothing.  But I do think that because I do share so many pictures  with the parents that they can  prompt the conversation with, oh, it looks like you did this. And then that will prompt a conversation about what they did today or  what they learned.  But yeah, they.
24:44I hope they talk about how much fun and how much they learn on a daily, but I haven't really gotten a whole lot of feedback about whether or not they do share with mom and dad or mom and mom. Yeah. Okay. I was just curious because I was one of those kids that I would come home from school or from an outing or whatever. And I would be like, did you guys know? And then tell them the thing I learned. Yeah. And no joke, like five out of 10 times.
25:14my dad, who I consider to be the smartest man I know, would look at me and say,  no, I actually had never heard that before. Tell me more.  And whether he had or hadn't heard it, I don't know, but he  would either feign interest or he would actually be interested and want to know more. And that was really great.  know, I'm  aside with, you know, I'm learning aside with them.  We learned this
25:43stuff, the life cycles and being able to identify trees and we learned that maybe in third, fourth grade, but you forget it, you know, so it's so much fun to relearn all of, I mean, there's so much to learn. There's so much knowledge identifying mushrooms and  trees and  it's just, it's really fun  to learn again. Yeah. And it's funny to hear you say learn again, because I am
26:11Like I always say I have got to know ITIS. Like I have perpetual curiosity. Yeah. And so for me, I'm always, always, always learning. Like there is no, again, it's just a continuous cycle of information in, oh, that's cool. What else is there to know? It's for you. And it's part of the reason I started the podcast because I was like, Hey, if I talk to people who are doing stuff in nature, I'm going to learn all kinds of things I don't know yet. And I'm 55. I want to learn until I die. And an empty nester, right?
26:41Almost. Okay.  Yeah, the youngest,  he doesn't like me to talk about this, but he has a mild form of epilepsy. And so  he cannot be by himself. Yeah.  And so he's still here and I'm okay with that. He's great.  He loves to cook. He earns his keep by helping out on the farm. He's great.  So it's one of those things.  Yeah.
27:09It's so helpful because I'm 55, his dad's 56. And we had a whole bunch of logs brought in to be cut and split for our wood burning boiler for heat in the wintertime. And he's been out there just busting his hump helping dad with the wood. And he gets the eggs from the chickens and he puts them in the farm stand for sale. And he does a whole bunch of chores for us, which is so helpful. Oh, I bet. Yeah, it's exhausting work, especially at 55.
27:39Yeah, and I know it's nice to have that help Yeah, and I mean if I had taken better care of myself in my younger years instead of being down on the floor with four kids playing Are you there? Oh, I'm here Okay,  if I hadn't spent like years raising kids and being down on the floor with them  on my knees playing blocks and Legos and stuff  I probably would be in better shape, but I don't regret doing all that at all. Yeah  So it's just it's great to have an able-bodied kid
28:09who's here all the time and he's a terrific cook. He makes,  makes, what is it? He debones chicken thighs and then he fries them like fried chicken and  I won't do it. I hate working with hot fat. It scares me and I watch and I make sure that I'm there, but he does such a great job and I don't even like chicken thighs, but  he makes them so good that I will eat them.
28:36That is too funny because my oldest who's 18, that's his specialty too. And he just cooked the same thing a couple nights ago for us. And I'm with you. I don't really like handling raw chicken and I'm not, I don't really like to fry things, but when he takes, takes the lead and cooks for us, it's so good. Yeah. And it's so, I don't know. I have such pride that I did it right. Yeah.
29:05Yeah, it's nice to be served every once in a while. Yeah. And the thing is, I invited all of my kids into the kitchen when I used to cook. I'm a little teary.  I  just wanted them...  The rule in my house was that they needed to know how to do their own laundry.  They had to be able to do dishes by hand and get them actually clean.  And they needed to be able to cook at least one meal and one dessert that they would be proud to serve to their friends  before they moved out. I love that.
29:35And all of them can do it. Even my daughter who decided to go vegan for a while,  she can cook a good dinner and a dessert for her friends. That's awesome. We cook, we're in the kitchen quite often and  we  try to use our produce from the gardens. We have an overabundance of  cucumbers and  tomatoes right now. So think everybody's a little tired of the cucumber.
30:03cream cheese sandwiches.  I'm  jealous because all of our cucumber plants died. Oh no, you didn't get any?  Nope, they got the blight because it's been such a weird summer here again in Minnesota. been so bizarre. Yeah, it's been rain for three days and then hot sun and then three days of rain and then hot sun and cucumbers do not do well with that. They get wet and moldy and they blight and they die.
30:31Mine are on their way out, but at least we  a pretty good harvest beforehand. Yep. So I've given my husband notice that if anyone at the farmer's market this weekend when he's there selling our tomatoes  has cucumbers,  to please trade  our tomatoes for cucumbers. Because I have not had a garden fresh cucumber yet this summer. Oh my goodness. We need to change that.  Yeah.  I love cucumbers. I was so looking forward to the first cucumber.
30:59And he came in the other day and he said, we're not getting cucumbers.  I said,  I said a bad word. And then I said, excuse me. And he said, they're dead, honey. He said, they're, they're not going to produce this year. He said, I know you're going to cry.  And I'm proud of myself. I didn't cry.  I didn't slam cabinet doors. I didn't stomp around. didn't act like a toddler.  I just said that that's okay because somebody will have them at the farmer's market. And I love a good trade.
31:29Yeah, he grandies that I'm so proud of you. He said, I knew you were going to be able to handle it. I'm like, yep, that's fine. But it's the second summer in a row with no cucumbers because last year was bad too. I'm like, last year it was bad for us too. So it's a thing and everybody tells me and I tell everybody gardening is a crap shoot. You just don't know what's going to happen. It really is. We started seeds in a greenhouse for the first time this year.
31:58And that was so much fun because you got to kind of get started a little bit earlier and  harvest happened a little bit sooner than if we would have waited. So it  was really fun to be able to watch the kids plant the seeds and then be able to watch it grow and grow.  Yeah, kind of like they are. They're just growing too fast.  Yeah.
32:25I know and it's it's a blink in the eye miss Jenny. It really is. know. I know. I But I have to let them fly. Yeah, it's so hard. I don't want to cry on my podcast today. I'm trying really hard not to. But it's so hard. And when they get married, it's like what? Oh old enough to be married? That's crazy. So and I don't.
32:52This is sound really dumb. have a grandchild, but she is a step-grandchild. Love her like she's just my own biological grandchild, but she's not related to me biologically. And she's 12. I never saw her as a baby because my stepson hadn't met her her mom yet. Yeah. So I haven't gone through any of my  biological children having  babies.  And I don't think I'm going to because the other kids don't want babies.
33:21I'm actually good with this because it hurt enough to let  my  own babies go. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to be like, oh my God, my grandchild is having babies. What?  You know? I don't even want to think about it. It's just not. Time is so weird.  coming back to  little Leonora, who's leaving today after  caring for her for four years,  when any of my preschool kids
33:50leave and we have to say goodbye. There's one of my favorite books. I usually gift them and it's called Miss Maple Seeds. And there's a line in the book that  our conversation reminded me of. And it says, take care, my little ones for the world is big and you are small, but never forget even the grandest of trees  once had to grow up from the smallest of seeds. I love that.
34:18Yeah, I just, really speaks to my heart about just really how much care you have to take with these tiny little seeds, these little kids that you're molding into little humans. And I'm just so proud of each and every one of them when they, when they walk away, it's like, I did that. I helped do that. You know, it's so, it's such a rewarding job.
34:49I love that for you and that is not the snotty, I love that for you. I absolutely love that for you. And I'm so proud of you for what you've chosen to do. It's a beautiful location. Thank you. It's definitely tiring, but very rewarding. And I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life. And not everybody can say that. So I'm just very grateful.
35:14Yeah, you've found your calling and you are living it and you are helping other people to become  functioning adult good people. Yeah.  So keep doing that because we need more of those.  Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do.  All right. Where can people find you, Miss Jenny?  I am on Facebook. You can look up Wild Roots Nature School and you can check out the magic there.
35:41I'm kind of behind on the times when it comes to social media and such. But I'll get there one day. You're too busy raising little human beings. And every time I touch a computer, it just doesn't cooperate. I've learned what I'm good at and what I'm not good at and stay away from the computer as much as possible. I understand. I am learning. I am learning. Yeah, it took me a long time to figure out things on the computer. And then it made sense and it was OK.
36:11Computers are finicky beasts when they work great. They work great when they don't they really don't and thankfully my very supportive husband who I've already bragged about today is in  IT so  He can help me with all things computers, but For now, I'm gonna stay as far away as possible That is very convenient and very helpful. Yes. All right, as always people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast calm
36:38Ms. Jenny, I appreciate your time today. Thank you. Thank you. It was such an honor to be here. Have a great day. Thanks. You too.
 

Cookies In A Bag by Danette

Today I'm talking with Danette at Cookies in a bag by Danette. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.
00:11Today I'm talking with Danette,  well Danette,  at Cookies in a Bag by Danette  in Kentucky. Good morning, Danette. How are you?  I am fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. And it is Danette. It's not Donette, right?  My mother actually  born and raised Danette, because I was going to be Dan if I was a guy, but I'm not. So I was Danette. But I actually am kind of.
00:36I a bit when I was about 18. I went off to college and I changed it from Danette to Dinette. So just the same name but just slightly pronounced different. yeah, so, Dinette. Cookies in a bag by Dinette. I just hate it when I pronounce people's names wrong because I have very Oh, you're so fun. I have very easy names. I have Mary, I have Evelyn for my middle name, and I have Lynn for a nickname. And those are all really easy.
01:04That is. Okay. So what's the weather like in Kentucky this morning? Fantastic. Absolutely beautiful. It poured and rained all evening yesterday. Um, but it's fine. It was in the evening and that means I don't have to water plants today. Um, but I love the rain in the evening and at night because it just makes everything green and lush and beautiful. And we've had a great week here in Paducah, Kentucky. So no complaints from me. Good. Cause I know it's been really hot.
01:33everywhere and I'm in Minnesota. It is a lovely day outside. is sunny. It is cool. There's not even a breeze. don't think. Great. That's awesome. I'm happy. for us. gardening. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I really wanted to talk to you because you do cookies in a bag. It is a really simple concept. It really is. But I had never thought of putting it in a bag.
02:03I had heard about the jars, but I hadn't thought about a bag. So tell me about yourself and what you do. Well, if you look at my bags, they're actually shaped like mason jars. So this really is sort of what you said. This is a very simple concept, but hopefully done well. And it has just surpassed my wildest expectations. went into business. Well, actually about 2004, I was like a big
02:33PTO president at my children's elementary school and we had this fundraiser called shop till you drop. It was brand new and you know the first year for anything is the hardest.  And so we were trying to get vendors to come into our gymnasium  and pay $50 for a table.  And  you know, like we had  the local Pampered chef lady and then we actually had businesses. We'd reach out to like a local  gardening center and have her bring her stuff in. And so, you know, I was.
03:00just using my very best persuasive skills and  it was going pretty good but we had a few empty spots and several of my friends said, oh my gosh, Jeanette, why don't you set up a table? You're a fantastic baker. And this was in between Christmas  and Thanksgiving. So like a week after Thanksgiving. So three weeks until Christmas. And they're like, why don't you sell your cookies and cakes? And I was like, well,  I appreciate the fact that you think I'm good enough to do that, number one, but nobody wants.
03:29cookies three weeks before Christmas, you know?  They want them at Christmas.  And so I was like, gosh, how can I give people what they want,  but when they want it? And I'd always seen those little glass jars, you know, like the, I want to say they used to sell them in our farmers market.  There was this Amish lady there who always sold baked goods.
03:52And so I was like, oh, that's cute. I could kind of do something like that, but I really don't want to deal with glass jars or anything. That seems like a pain and things could break. And I was like, how can I do this in a more simpler manner? And so I came up with these little cute clear plastic. Actually, my colors are all red and white with polka dot and stripe. And so I came up with these cute little plastic bags, not the ones I have now, but they were just like a cellophane bag.
04:21with a flat bottom and I filled them with my contents.  Like these are my homemade recipes. Like literally I created or came up with or my mother handed down to me every single recipe that I sell.  And so I just had four or five recipes and then I would put the chips on top. So I mixed everything in. It wasn't like the layers like the, that used to be in the glass jars. I mixed everything together and then I put.
04:47the chips or the toppings or whatever on top. So it would kind of look cute. And then I had this adorable little red bow and I set up, I don't know, I made a hundred or something and I was like, oh my gosh, how's this going to go? My kids were all in elementary school. They kind of helped me at the sale and it went great. They sold everything out and I was like, oh my gosh. I think at the time they were like $5. This is like 2004.
05:15people after it was over with I was like, okay, well that was fun. And then people started calling and they're like, I loved those. Can we get a Miss Teacher gifts? know, and anyway, so it's sort of, we sold  several hundred that season and I was just kind of like, wow.  And so we  came back and we did it again the next year and I did that for about five or six years while my kids were at Clark Elementary.
05:38And honestly, was a real business. I had a business license, but it was very part-time. It was just seasonal and it paid for Christmas. And, you know, cause I was stay-at-home mom at the time and my kids, you know, it was just kind of fun little thing to do. But it sort of started picking up and it was kind of taking away from a little bit the joy of the holiday. Like I was making cookies and setting up mixes late at night, quite a bit after a couple of years. And so when my kids,
06:08I finished elementary school, I went back to work and I was like, okay,  cookies are done.  We put it to bed and I went back. a teacher, I still am actually,  full-time educator. I just kind of put it to bed and I was like, well, that was fun. That was a little entrepreneurship thing I had for a while  and I went on with my career and things went great. All of a sudden, about three years ago, a lady downtown,  I'm sorry if this story is really long.
06:38So there's a lady downtown in Paducah, Kentucky. name's Susie Koiner, sort of a mentor of mine.  She owns a fantastic, unique,  everything you didn't know you need. It's called Barbecue and More. It's a spin-off of the barbecue festival that she started here in Paducah, Kentucky that's kind of turned into this big, enormous event.  But anyway, she has a store called Barbecue and More on Third and Broadway downtown. And she was like, Dinette, you need to bring your cookies back. Now, mind you, I'm now...
07:08you know, at the time, 52 years old, very well established in my career, trying to become an administrator and my kids are gone. You know, I've sort of found the freedom and the fun of an empty nest and I'm like, what? Oh, you're cute. Like, thanks, but you know, I'm good. Like I'm very busy and fulfilled with my career. And she just, every time I would be in her store for like a year, she's like, Danette, you need to bring your cookies back. Nobody had cookie mixes like you did. She said, I've been looking for them.
07:38For different things that would be equitable and she said it just doesn't exist and I was like, huh?  Ah,  know,  okay. Well, thanks. I just took it as a compliment and a couple months later another friend of mine who had kind of been on the Who had been one of the vendors of very long time ago in 2004 her name is Christie Brinkley She owns the silver chicks also real close to me lives in my neighborhood  She is in Paducah and she was like you need to sell those cookies again. They were so
08:07And I was like, that's so weird.  But I was like,  you guys, you're sweet. And I just kind of blew it off. And so then the third, the straw that broke the camel's back,  who a girl named Brooke Grace Riley, she's out of Mayfield. She owns an online boutique, but she's also a business coach.  And I'd been following her just a tiny bit online. And she sent this email that I felt like she was sending just to me. You know, she said,
08:37God  has given you  a gift  and you are meant  to pursue the gifts that he has given you. He wouldn't give you something that is not purposeful and of value. It's like sort of stop running away from it, stop fighting it, but like go for it. know, like you only live one  fabulous, wonderful life.  And I was like,  oh my gosh. I was like, why is this happening to me?  I'm living this.
09:06Fabulous fun life and my husband and I are you know We had three great kids but they were grown and you know now we could Travel and do whatever the heck we wanted to and I was very invested in my career and all this just kept you know popping his head up and I was like What is God trying to talk to me about? Why would he want me to make cookies in a bag again? But anyway, so I clicked on her link and I was like, oh should I join her class and I didn't I was like
09:33I'm just gonna, she said,  I only accept people every six months. And I just was like, oh, I'm just not ready. And so I clicked the six months and it's ridiculous how long it took me. But anyway,  the next six months came, the email came and I was like, I'd been thinking about it and people had still been talking to me about it. And so when she popped up again, I'm accepting people.  I was like, oh,  okay, I don't understand this. I really don't understand this. What is the...
10:00purpose. Like, God placing this on my heart? Is he placing people in my life to keep telling me about this? I don't understand, but I'm just going to move forward in faith and we're going to do this.  It's just cookies.  So  it's just cookies. What could possibly go wrong?  And so I started,  I'm a different person, you know, like I'm
10:21I'm grown, like it's 20 years ago since I had this little cookie thing and I was like, I'm just a more mature person.  I'm gonna go on social media. I really need to not rebrand, but sort of. Like it was much more professional and serious and it was my product was going to go into a store, not just me selling it out of my kitchen.  And so, and I had to get  a commercial kitchen.  mean, I have  the state came in and actually,
10:50I'm considered a manufacturer, so I had to have people come from  the State Department and inspect my kitchen and all this stuff. This took three months of paperwork. I designed my product. I found those cute little adorable bags that I just love, and they're a resealable Ziploc bag, which I'll talk about in just a second.  I  love those bags. They're so cute. I love them.  And so  I  came back with my traditional, my triple chocolate chip cookie that I'd always have.
11:19I had my oatmeal cookie, this time we turned it into an oatmeal caramel crunch. And then I had developed a new recipe, my double chocolate espresso, which I think is the hidden gem in my business. It's the most fantastic cookie. I absolutely love it. It's my son's favorite. And I started with those three and I had to buy a box of, this was in April, two years ago. So I'm a little over two years old and I had to buy a box of those bags and there were 1200 of them in that bag.
11:47And at the time I was like,  oh,  sweet, Jesus, please be with me on this venture. was like,  the lady who, Susie wanted three dozen in her store, which was very gracious of her.  And I was like, wow, it's gonna take me two or three years to sell this box  of bags and use them all up. I have 1200 of them.  And so we put them in the store. I jumped on social media.  I listened to my business coach. I post four times a day.  use
12:16Facebook, Instagram, I had a little bit of TikTok, but I really don't mess with TikTok much. Anyway,  and I just started posting about my three little cookie mixes and talking to people and showing them  all you have the entire batch of cookies is in the bag. I use great ingredients. I use Ghirardelli chocolate and just quality, know, Dutch cocoa, just good stuff the way I would want to eat. Like these are the cookies I feed my family. And all you have to do is add a stick of butter and an egg.
12:46That's it. You dump it into your mixer. literally takes two minutes and you have cookie dough. And then you can do whatever you want with it. Make little ones, big ones, pan of cookies, whatever. And so it's the simplicity of the product, but they actually are quite delicious. And so we put them in her store. I jumped on social media and I will tell you within two months that box of 1200 were gone. That is amazing.
13:16Mind-blowing and I was like no way and people started coming out like people who used to buy it in 2004 they were like, oh my gosh, tonight you're doing cookies again I loved them and I was like no way I couldn't believe people remembered first of all, I was so it was so humbling but I was just honored I was like, wow, I never thought it would be and I was like, that's cool. That's great So, you know, we'll have a little paducah cookie business
13:45And I would go down to hand out samples and people just kept buying them. And then all of sudden other businesses in town were like, we love those. Can we carry them? I was like, okay, I guess so. Take my, give me your money, please. Yes. And so then towns around and then all of sudden, like a lady out of Alabama wanted them and a lady from Vermont wanted them. And I was like, where did you see my stuff? And they're like, Facebook. was like, wow. And it's free. Facebook is free.
14:14You know, like people complain about sometimes,  oh, the algorithm and, you know, doesn't show me what I want and all that stuff. But for me, it has been the greatest success.  I have been very consistent. I try to put information out there that people want to see and hear.  It's a little difficult. You have to be brave to get on there and do lives. But you know what? Like, so what? Like, just do it. People.
14:41You know, we just love authentic people and whatever, you know, and people have been so gracious and kind to me. And I have gone from zero followers to 75,000. Wow. In the last just a little over two years, I've had a few reels like take off and just do really well and you you pick things up, but oh my goodness, like I cannot, it's just astonishing really. And I feel so blessed and my product is in
15:11probably 30 stores, primarily in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois,  my area-ish.  But it is in, like I shipped some off yesterday to Vermont,  a home garden center in Vermont  that had heard about them from Montgomery Gardens right here in Paducah. They're just friends and they talk and I'm just like,  this is wild.  And from that  first year, I started in March or April. By the time we finished Christmas, I had sold 7,000.
15:39of those little cookie mixes.  And the reason why you and I love that little bag, I love how it looks, but also the mix is in there. You just add a stick of butter and an egg, dump it into your mixer,  and then  I actually make my dough into dough balls and I put them right back inside of the bag. The bag is a resealable Ziploc bag and I throw it in the fridge  and I love to use chilled cookie dough because
16:03So many wonderful things happen to chilled cookie dough. It gives your butter a chance to set back up. It also soaks up your sugars and your flour.  that sort of makes for just a very mellow,  even textured cookie.  And it just kind of develops the caramelization flavors. And it's just, love a good chilled cookie. I just let it sit there in the refrigerator for a few days before I bake them.  And so that bag is actually useful.  It's cute and it's useful.
16:33Yeah, baby. That's my story.  And  I love that you just talked nonstop for about, oh, I would say 12 minutes  because it shows how passionate and excited you are. And  here's what I want to tell people about your product. I haven't tried it.  I've never met you before,  but basically what your product is, like the box cake mixes at the store.
16:59You know, you buy a box of cake mix, you throw an egg and some veggie oil or whatever in it, and you make a cake. The difference is that you don't have a whole bunch of preservatives and flavors and stuff that's not good for you. And I love that because there's so much crap in manufactured It's a clean product, very plant-based, honestly. I use the best ingredients that I can find.
17:28But the chocolate makes a difference as well. And then I always whisper to people,  use salted butter. I'm a huge advocate.  I know like all these fancy bakers will, you know, use unsalted butter because you can control your salt.  But gosh, I love salt in my sweet.  I like flake sea salt on top of stuff too. I love it. So I use salted butter in all of my cookies. I tell people that when I'm giving them samples.
17:55you're tasting what you're tasting is made with salted butter. You can do whatever you want. But you know, most people have salted butter in their house  and this, my product is delicious. It is easy. It is the cleanest. think no, you know, the chocolate chips are not old. There are no oils in this. There's no preservatives in it,  but  you're getting  sort of like, you're just getting a clean product, but it's just, it's simple. And so people already have salted butter. So that sort of
18:25blends in with the simplicity of the entire thing. You have to go buy anything special.  And the other thing that I love about this  is you don't have to deal with a glass jar  when you want to make, if somebody has grandkids and they want to make cookies with your ingredients,  you don't have to worry about a glass jar on the counter. Yes,  you're exactly right.  And nobody wants to deal with that later. So yeah. And this is the perfect
18:54like stocking stuff or gift at Christmas time  because you know that you're going to have your grandkids on spring break or your kids even. And you get this at Christmas time. It's good for a long time until you open it. is. have a shelf life of a year. They have a shelf life of a year. All of them. I'm going to send you some. You're going to send me your address and you can try this.  I would, I would be happy to try that stuff and actually do a podcast about it with you again. All right.
19:24But point being, was going somewhere with this. Oh,  not all schools have spring break in the same month. I know when I was growing up, we had February break and we had April break. And so if you give these to people at Christmas time as a stocking stuffer, or you give them like eight of them in a box  and wrap it up as a present, you've got a variety of things that you can do with the kids when they're on break and you're not...
19:50having to spend the time measuring all the ingredients out and making a huge mess. And that is a bonus. That's true.  And I have, I do have a website. It's just cookiesinabag.com.  And people, ship all over the United States actually.  So you can order them and I will ship them straight to your door and you can  give them a try as well.
20:14I am typing in your website right now because I want to see it. www.cookiesinthebag.com and now we started out with three and then we've added several cookie mixes since then because my original store, Susie was like, we got to keep spicing it up and we added one at Christmas. So my originals are triple chocolate chip, which just means it has three different kinds of chocolate in it. My oatmeal caramel crunch, which I love. It's my best raw cookie dough. I don't know if people are...
20:44reject eating raw cookie dough but I love it.  And then my third one is double chocolate espresso and then since then,  we've added a peppermint crunch. It's a chocolate cookie with Andy's peppermint crunch in it that was for Christmas.  After that, the next spring, we added a sugar sprinkle lemonade. It's like a  – it's a it's a lemon sugar cookie with sprinkles in it. So cute. That's the one I want. I love lemon cookie.
21:12And then recently we added strawberries and cream and it has real freeze dried strawberries in it with white chocolate chunks. Fantastic. Just a whole different vibe. And then I do have one brownie mix. It is called a chocolate fudge brownie. It's made with sweet Ghirardelli cocoa. It's excellent. You melt your stick of butter with an egg and I, there you go. So I have six cookies and one brownie. And I'm working on working on two right now.
21:40to maybe roll out at the holidays.  you know, just always a little something, but it's cookie fun. Yeah,  absolutely. And  what I love about this  so much, Danette, is that this is  so  simple.  I I know it takes time. I'm not saying that you're making tons of money doing nothing because you are absolutely not doing nothing,  but it's a simple concept. actually helps people.
22:09It gets kids in the kitchen with their parents and grandparents to learn how to cook.  I mean, it is very simple cooking, but it is definitely teaching them about the chemistry of cooking.  is because they get to unwrap the stick of butter, they get to crack the egg, and they get to dump the ingredients. And that's really all we really want to do, isn't it? Yeah. Like you want to just crack the egg with butter, and then you don't have to measure out the baking soda and the baking powder and...
22:37You know, it's all there done for you and that they get that's the best part about it The stories that make me smile  are when people come in and they say I gave this as a gift and or I received it as a gift and I absolutely loved these  but though the ones I really love are the ones where the kids bake with mom or grandma and families are spending time together in the kitchen  creating good memories  Like I had when I was growing up and like I got to experience with my own kids. So that's
23:08That's what I love, love, love about it. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sitting here being like, why did I not think of this? And I could still do the same thing. We sell stuff at the farmers market. I don't think I could ship it because I don't think we can ship anything from Minnesota until 2027. I think they finally changed it.
23:34But I could do this and I wouldn't be any competition for you. Our local people would be thrilled. They'd love it. So it's something to consider amongst my podcast and my cleaning the kitchen and cooking dinner for the family and keeping clean clothes happening.  You know, I have things I got to do, but it's certainly something that I would consider doing. But point being is that this is an excellent gift for anything. I mean, you could do this for  a young
24:04couple who are getting married.  could  gift  it as birthday present, anniversary present, don't know, Easter, anything. Anything that requires a small, fairly inexpensive gift. This is perfect.  absolutely. And Susie Coyner, Barbecue and More, downtown, she does individualized
24:26Baskets that she puts together for people you come in you're like, I have a friend who loves strawberries and then you get a little Strawberry tea towel to go with it and you she wraps everything up and  she does exactly what you were talking about but yeah sky's the limit like if you love cookies and  You know, I these are all my recipes. They're my original recipes. I'm going through the process of getting my my company's being trademarked  Yeah, you know just doing all the things here but sure this is not
24:56I did not invent cookie mixes, the concept of a cookie mix. I just made them my way with my recipes  and it has just been the most phenomenal blessing and people have been so gracious and it has just been  just a  really fun little experience with entrepreneurship and being a little local business and women supporting other women.  Just met a lot of really great people through this.
25:25And it's been a lot of fun. I'm just  following what I feel like I've been called to do. So.  Well,  huge congratulations on this, because  it sounds like you were mildly reluctant to take the step, but it's a good thing you did.  The other thing that I want to say is that cooking is not just a women thing. Men cook too. Boys cook too.  And I say grandmas and moms.
25:54but it could be grandpas and dads too. Yeah. So my son can make his own cookies, you know? Yeah, absolutely. With this. Yeah. And honestly, can do all the things men can do if they want to. I think the only thing that men can't do that women can do is actually give birth to babies. Yes. This world has become so much more
26:23big and open to everybody being able to try everything and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
26:31I agree and I appreciate you doing what you're doing and bringing light to some of us little business people out there. So I'm so happy to talk to you and meet you.  I am really happy to meet you and talk to you too. And thank you for saying that because  I started the podcast partly because I needed a project.  My youngest was going to be moving out youngest of four and I was like, I can't go through empty nest syndrome without a project. I can't.
26:59But I also really wanted to give people like you and homesteaders and crafters a floor, a stage to be able to tell about what they do and why they do it. And it has been the joy of my life for over 300 episodes to be able to talk to people about what they do. Nice.  I love it. Yes.  Be brave. Love it. Be brave. You get one wonderful, beautiful life. Just go for it.
27:28Go for the friendships. Go for the experience. Take the trip. Eat the cookie, I say. You  love the outfit, do it.  If you wanna go try something, go on a trip. Do bungee jumping. Be brave. Whatever it is you feel called to do, you really have one shot to do it.  when my mother passed away several years ago  of cancer, and so we had her.
27:57four intentional months with her when she was passing. And I remember she was really happy with some of her life and then she had many regrets. And I didn't do this and I didn't do this and I took her on a couple trips when she was sick and she had a little scooter and everything, but we did it. And I just thought that was seven years ago. And I was like, I don't wanna be that person when I have lived a full
28:28blessed life and hopefully helped a lot of people and  just, you know,  enjoyed myself and had purpose and done what, you know, God has called me to do. And I thought,  I don't want to, I don't want to, when I'm passing, like, I don't want to have that conversation that my mother had, like, I wish, I wish I had.  I was like, you know what, you just, you do have to be brave. And like on social media,  I mean, I am, my face is on there. I'm talking to people, I'm talking to.
28:56Thousands and thousands of people and I don't know them. I don't know how they'll react and you know what  but I'm not doing anything wrong I'm trying to be kind  and share  and you just kind of had to go for it and people are generally so kind and gracious  and You know, that's just what you just got it. Do it Be brave if you're listening to this and you're on the fence do it.  Yeah, do it  Absolutely. Try it. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. But it does work. It might work big
29:26With the whole eat the cookie thing, I'm going to make a suggestion. Eat the cookie, yes. Do not eat 100 cookies at once because what happens is you get sick and you will never want to eat that cookie again. Well, and you might get FAT, which is not really fun. I'm far more concerned about being sick on a food that I liked because I've done it twice and it took me years to try those foods again.
29:53Don't OB on your favorite thing because you won't want it again for a long time. I'm going to take a second because we're talking about cookies. My husband brought me home some lemon cookies from the farmer's market two weekends ago. And I keep meaning to mention this on the podcast and I keep forgetting, so I'm going do it now. Our local farmer's market is fantastic. The lady that he got the cookies from, her business is called Spare Time Baker, think.
30:22He brought me home these little tiny lemon cookies. There were six of them. And he knows that I love lemon, everything lemon. And I was like, okay, they better be good. Because if it's not good lemon, I'm going be very sad. And he just laughed because I say this about everything that has lemon in it. Because sometimes it's good lemon and sometimes it's chemical lemon. that's gross. Right. Yes, yes. And so I bit into one of them and he watched me and I smiled around the bite. And he's like, oh.
30:49I take it she's good at lemon cookies. said, yeah, I bet she's good at all cookies. So for the record, everybody who's local to me who listens to the podcast, if you have the chance to get cookies  from Spare Time Baker at the Lowest Sore Farmer's Market,  do it. It'll be worth it.  Nice.  I actually found,  took a long time developing my lemon recipe, but it's actually dried ground lemon in mine  that has the lemon flavor because I agree there's
31:18This  fake lemon is not good. It always smells like it's going to be good, but you taste it you're like, this is not real. Yeah. It's gross. No. Yep. You're right.  So I just wanted to give her a shout out because I was so excited to have lemon cookies because I don't eat cookies very often, partly because  I don't make them very often because they'll be gone. My husband and my son will eat them  and I don't buy cookies because cookies at the store.
31:47are never very good and they're always way more expensive than they should be. are. Really, it's the quality of the ingredients though that concern me the most. Yeah, yeah. yeah, I understand. And I have one more question before I  let you go. How many cookies, like average size cookies, does one of your bags make? Great question. Get that all the time. Each bag makes a batch of cookies, but I say about 14.
32:17large bakery style cookies that you would go to a bakery and get, you know, like five, four to five inches in diameter, four inches, so about 14, 15 of those.  Now you can make little teaspoon cookies and I can get like 70 little party cookies out of one batch.  If you make those  great big gourmet, thick, huge seven ounce, you know, six ounce cookies, you're only gonna get like six out of a bag.  So it just depends on what you have going on.
32:46Okay. The reason I ask is because I know how much your bags of cookie ingredients costs. you  willing to share that? Because I want to say something about it.  While they sell on my website for 10.95. I  think so. Yeah. 10.99, something like that. Yes. The reason I want to make the point here is that that is a really  reasonable price for a batch of cookies. Like really reasonable. Because you're paying less than  a dollar a cookie.
33:15Yes. if you go to a bakery, yeah, you're not gonna, you're gonna pay a more than that,  You absolutely are. And you don't know what they put in it. With this, I'm pretty sure you have a label that says exactly what the ingredients in that bag are. That is true. So it's all good. Everything here is good, Dinette. I love it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right. So tell me where everybody can find you.
33:42Well, I am on Facebook and Instagram and just type in cookies in a bag by Danette. That's me. So just the whole thing. No spaces, no dashes, cookies in a bag by Danette. You can come follow along and I share recipes.  I love to share old recipes that are about cookies that I don't make,  but I share techniques, fun things you can do with my cookie mixes. Like you can turn them into,  you know.
34:09bar cookies or you can turn them in. you sometimes I'll make a peach cobbler and I'll take my oatmeal caramel crunch cookie dough and put it on top of the peach cobbler  or of the peaches and turn it into a cobbler. Like I just  give you fun tips about what you can do with my mixes or how to make cookies, even just how to use how to chill cookies or just, you know, what the best pans are like just anything to do with cookies. I just have all kinds of fun  information if you are interested in baking.
34:39It's all there on Instagram and Facebook. And then my website is cookies in a bag dot com.  And you can order any of my mixes and we will ship them directly to you. I just got to order this morning from a company in Louisville, Illinois, called Glamour Farms.  And she runs a boutique, an online boutique. And she picked up my mixes about a year ago and
35:04They're doing fantastic with her. So when people are buying clothes, they're buying cookie mixes, too  So we're shipping out a couple hundred to her pretty soon So there you go cookies in a bag by Danette try it Yeah, this was such a joy You  are so bubbly and and the love that you have for what you're doing is just coming through so strongly I have  I have loved this conversation
35:34I'm a teacher so you know we always have to kind of keep it keep it  keep it pumping for the sweet little children so they're always interested.  Oh yeah but if you didn't love it it wouldn't be ringing like it is so I'm so happy for you. Well thank you.  As always people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Donette thank you again for your time. Thank you. Thank you for listening I appreciate it  and everybody have a great day.
36:03Yes, happy baking. All right, bye. Bye.
 

Hillside Harvest Farms

Today I'm talking with Brittany at Hillside Harvest Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.
00:10Today I'm talking with Brittany at Hillside Harvest Farms in California.  Good afternoon, Brittany. How are you?  Good. How are you doing? I'm good. I had to think about whether it was morning or afternoon because you're in California. Yes. They're an hour behind us, so it's afternoon now.  We're actually two hours. And I was so nervous. I was not going to figure out the time change.  But it's 11 o'clock, so we're still morning here.
00:36Okay, well good morning to you and good afternoon to me. How's that? Thank you. Perfect. How's the weather in California today? We have actually had like a  fairly mild summer. So it makes me a little nervous what our August and September is going to be like into October, because we'll be like 110 into October. So I'm a little nervous, but the summer has been great so far. Awesome. My daughter used to live in LA. lived there for
01:06like over three years.  then she made a lateral move to Florida. Oh my gosh.  I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Well,  you'll still have oranges and lemons. That's good news. Uh huh.  Oh yes.  It is  kind of a gray day here in Minnesota. It's overcast and  it's not really muggy, but it's not really not muggy if that makes any sense. Uh huh. Uh huh. And it's not hotter than hell. So that helps.
01:35That's always nice.  Yes. After the week we put in last week, I'm very happy to have it be cooled down.  Yes.  Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well,  we live in  Paso Robles, California. We moved here about  three years ago. My husband and my two boys.
01:57We're, my husband and I are both from California, but we went to school in Utah and lived there for quite a few years. And then we're able to move back here to California, which we were really excited about.  Um, we don't live in typical California. We're very rural.  Um, and  just, it's, it's so beautiful out here. about an hour from the coast in central California and wine country.  And  just love being out here. We're on about three acres and.
02:26have goats and chickens and pigs and ducks and about an  acre garden and a little farm stand down at the bottom of the driveway. And we just have so much fun doing all that.  Very nice. And California is an odd state because  you've got high fashion, you've got Silicon Valley, you've got  the, assume the wine industry is pretty big. You've got.
02:54citrus fruits that are pretty big.  And then you've got all the agriculture. Yes.  So there's so much agriculture. I love it. We actually just went to  Tahoe over the weekend. It's about a six hour drive.  And besides just the quick drive through  Sacramento, we were just driving through orchards and vineyards and  just it was almost completely agriculture and it was  such a fun drive and I love it so much.
03:24I forgot a big one. have movie production out there too. Yes, we do. Uh-huh. I know. It's so, I love how diverse the state is.  And it's really cool. I love being in a small town. It's about three hours to our closest international airport. It was really funny when we moved from Utah to California, everybody was like, what are you doing?
03:47Like it's just, you're just going to be moving to the city. And I'm like, I don't think you understand where we're moving to  in California. Like it's so much smaller than where we're living now. I don't, I don't think you quite understand where we're going. Yeah. And I'm,  I don't necessarily want to make the podcast all about Mary today, but Minnesota is,  is odd like that too. When you hear Minnesota, when anyone hears Minnesota.
04:16They make Minneapolis St. Paul, which are the two biggest cities in the state.  And they're right next to each other. But southern Minnesota is cornfields, soybean fields, and alfalfa fields.  And northern Minnesota is pine trees and the boundary waters and cabins. so it's funny to me when people immediately assume big city when they hear Minnesota. like, no, there's...
04:43There's very little acreage that is big city in Minnesota. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It's so funny. Yeah, but it's great. We love it here. Last year, we opened our farm stand for our first year, and that was so much fun. And it was just a little trailer last year. And this year, we built a greenhouse and a little shed. So that's been a lot of fun.
05:10I do a lot of canning and preserving and we grow a lot of our own meat  and  my husband's family, have a 40 acre avocado ranch in  a little town called Cayucas that they have, they raise steer.  So we have our own meat, our beef  cows that we raise. so it's,  it's a lot of fun.  do you have access to avocados whenever you want them?
05:38Yes, and it's glorious  because where we're at in Paso, it freezes and  during the winter not a ton, but we do get into those freezing temperatures every so often. So we can't grow avocados here,  but when we go down to the beach, we will snag avocados every chance we get.  am so jealous. It's amazing.  I haven't bought an avocado in probably a year because they're expensive. Oh my gosh, I know.
06:07I might have to add that to the grocery list for the weekend because now that thinking about it, it would be really nice to have some avocado and salad. That would be great. I know. It's so fun. I'll just grab a grocery bag and just fill it and then give it to all my neighbors when they come back. It's like paradise out here. I love it. I'm so glad. I love it when people love where they live because for the longest time, I did not love where I lived. I lived in town, in a small town.
06:34right off of Main Street, and I've said it before, it was noisy, it was dusty, and it was busy. And I'm one those people who really loves quiet and peace.  So when we moved, we moved to  a three acre acreage, four miles outside of  a town half an hour away. And yes, we have big semis that go by during the day because we're on a main stretch between two towns. And right now everybody's getting ready for corn harvest. Oh yes.
07:04But that's different noise than  ambulances and church bells and the train going through town.  Oh yeah, for sure. We've lived all over. My husband's in construction and so we've lived  in Las Vegas and we lived in Salt Lake City and we've lived in lots of different cities and  I do not like it at all.  My dream has always been to
07:32live on a farm. grew up working on my uncle's dairy farm in Idaho and  always begged my parents to have some sort of garden. And I was an FFA and  just always dreamed of having some sort of farm that I was able to live on. And it's  just something I always dreamed of. It was funny when we  moved to our first house in Utah, we were on a little half acre.
07:59and I was so excited to finally have my dream garden and we moved in December of 2019 and I'd been planning for this for years and that spring of 2020 when I could finally get my garden in was of course when COVID hit and I had to make sure everybody knew that I was not doing this because of COVID. I was not jumping on the bandwagon. I had been planning on doing this for so long. So it wasn't just because of COVID that I was doing it.
08:28And so it was  quite the experience. Well, even if you were jumping on the bandwagon, it's not a bad bandwagon to jump on. It really isn't. you've been, sounds like you've been an agriculture girl from the get-go. So good for you. Yeah. It's been so fun.  So what do you grow?  I grow just about everything.
08:55I go through all the seed catalogs and I just want  one of everything.  I initially when I started was only interested in growing  vegetables and fruits.  And then my sister wanted, she lives in Utah. So when I was planning out my garden, she really wanted to get into it with me as well, but she wasn't as interested in the vegetables. She  really wanted to do flowers. So she and I started doing flowers as well.
09:25would do  cell bouquets. And so she really got me into flowers. So I also do  flowers as well. And I sell bouquets and  centerpieces. And  so she kind of got me into doing that. So I really just have an assortment of everything out in my garden, which is, I just love it. Do you grow  wild flowers or do you grow like,  tall cutting flowers?  A little bit of
09:54everything and I  really just let everything I'm really my big thing is I let everything go to seed. really just like everything going crazy. So there's wild flowers and  cut flowers  and just a surprise and so there's things that you know they pollinate and I just  don't ever know what's gonna come up and what it's gonna look like. So every year it's just  kind of a surprise.
10:24And,  but then of course I plant, I'll start plants from seed in my garage. then, so I have things that I know that I'm going to get. And then I also have all my surprises because I just let everything go to seed. Because I'd rather have those plants coming up than weeds coming up  in the garden. For sure.  Yes.  Oh my God. We have been fighting weeds like you wouldn't believe this. Oh my gosh. It's  ridiculous.
10:53Yeah, they killed our cucumbers  between the constant, well, I don't want to say constant rain because it's way better than it was last year.  But we've had like two or three days of sun and then two or three days of off and on rain and then two or three days of sun. the cucumbers really hate that kind of weather.  We will have no cucumbers to sell this year. I'm so sad. However, the tomatoes are doing fantastic. We're going to be swimming in tomatoes in about a week.
11:20We're just starting to get ours. I just got my first big harvest of tomatoes and I'm so excited. We keep getting people asking for when are the tomatoes gonna be ready? So I'm excited to get those out in the farm stand today probably actually. You will probably relate to this story then. I have been waiting as patiently as I am capable of for the first six tomatoes to come in from the garden.
11:49that I could make the first batch of bruschetta this summer. my gosh. Yes. We had that for dinner last night and my husband happened to pick up a watermelon when he was shopping. Oh my gosh. had bruschetta and then watermelon for dessert last night and I am not kidding you. My heart was so big. I was like this is is living. are rich. It's heaven. There's nothing better. Yep. And I think
12:18I think that it's wonderful that you grow produce, but you also grow flowers because  produce feeds the body, but flowers feed the soul. yeah,  most definitely.  Nothing makes me happier than just coming in with,  know, you have your food, but then just the beauty of the flowers just makes you so happy  and  seeing all the different colors and  the varieties and it just
12:48It feeds your soul. Like you said, it makes you so happy.  actually have a weird question. don't know.  I don't know what California is like when it comes to perennial flowers. Here,  we start out with tulips and daffodils and the little short iris varieties, they come first.  And then those kind of die off and the peonies start to bloom. And they have like, I don't know, we had a month.
13:16of bloom time this year because of the different varieties we have in. then the  lilies start to bloom after the peonies are done.  And then the hostas start to bloom around  mid-August. And that's about a three week bloom. And then we're into fall. Does California have that kind of progression or can you grow pretty much anything anytime?  So what's crazy about California  is you pretty much
13:45have every single zone in California.  so the zone, I am in zone nine.  And  I'm still I were in our  third season of growing here and I'm still learning.  I came from zone seven in Utah and I'm still trying to learn it's crazy. So I have plants that I thought were annuals that are here are perennials like my snapdragons  and
14:15um, stock  and  just a whole bunch of flowers that were annuals in Utah here are perennials and they will just grow all winter long.  And  so it's, it's been such a learning experience  to figure out. So I will get it barely have, I barely have enough chill hours for tulips. Sometimes like this last winter we didn't get as many freezes. So my tulips didn't do as well because they didn't get enough  freeze time.
14:45But we will get  some winters, we'll get enough freeze time for tulips. My daffodils, I did get some daffodils, which was awesome. Like I said, I'm still learning  in this area,  but it's so funny because you just go 40 minutes  towards the ocean and it's like zone 10. And so it's just  so all over the place here that even  within our county, there's like four different zones.
15:14So  it's  just  such a learning.  Even  where I'm at in Paso Robles is so different than where in the city of Paso Robles. It's just so different. So it's just a learning. You just have to learn where you're at. So I'm still learning, even though we're in our third season, I'm still learning for exactly where my house is, how everything grows.
15:43And so, and it just depends on  the year too. So hopefully this year will get a little bit colder of a winter so I can get more tulips.  Because tulips are some of my, just my favorite flowers. And that's one of the things I do miss from Utah are the tulips.  So I'm really hoping I can get some good tulips this next season.  Like I said, the daffodils did pretty good.  The summer, my zinnias do amazing.
16:11The Zinnias just love it because we do get really hot summers all the way into October. Like we generally don't get our first freeze until the end of October. Yep. And so the Zinnias do really well, Dahlias do really well all the way through the middle of October. And yeah, I just lost my train of thought. Hopefully that answered your question. I'm not sure if it did. I just kind of started rambling.
16:40No, that's  fine because I didn't, I mean, I know that California has some really diverse climate situations going on, but I didn't know to the extent that you just told me. So that's awesome. learned something new today. Also, our zinnias did not come back this year. We had a bunch last year and they didn't come back. And I think it may be that it was too wet.  I don't think, I mean, we've had a few,
17:10heat wave streaks like three to five days where it's been really hot.  But I don't think  they like Minnesota as much as I wanted to think they like Minnesota. I it stays hot enough long enough. Yeah, the Zinnias definitely like dry weather and where we are at, we basically don't get any rain from  April until October, which is one reason the grapes do really well here.
17:37So, because  when it rains real heavily, the grapes will split. So the grapes do really well here because  we basically don't see any rain from, like I said, April until October. Which is crazy to think about. think that the good news on that is if you need to water, you can.  Two springs ago, know, so 2024.
18:06It rained and rained and rained all of May and two weeks into June here. my gosh.  And they keep saying you cannot pull the water out of the ground, but you can water when there's no water. Yeah. So our garden was just  a terrible fail last year. I am so excited to be able to have tomatoes for our community this year because we had  not nearly enough.
18:32last year. can't even imagine having to, yeah, it's so nice being able to regulate the water  and just water when it's needed and then just turn it off.  It's quite nice.  It's a gift. And honestly, I've said this so many times in the last year since all that rain fell, but our garden was  soup for about a month.  You couldn't
19:01You could not go out there and put your foot into the actual garden because you would go up to your ankles.  my gosh. It was disgusting. And we were very mad. We were very, very mad about it.  Oh, I bet that's awful. Yup. And this year my husband has been, he's the gardener. I always give him all the credit because he's the one does all the work in the garden. I help him plan it, but I don't do the work.  He has been just  happy as a pig in mud.
19:31this year because there hasn't been a whole lot of mud. Uh huh.  Oh, perfect. So yeah, it was, it was a very, very long,  miserable summer last year. can't even imagine.  Yup. And he, we still had stuff to sell at the farmer's market because we make things too. And people would be like, are you going to have tomatoes for canning this year? Cause the year before we were selling hundreds of pounds of tomatoes and he had to tell them, no,
20:01And every time you told them no, he said it's the same face every time, honey. He they just look at me like,  ah, nobody else has them either.  You know, it's so sad. And it's just something about those tomatoes. That's just what  everybody, they just want those tomatoes, man. Like there's something about those garden fresh tomatoes that everybody looks forward to every year. Well, they taste good.  I know they there's nothing like them.
20:31That's for sure. The other thing about tomatoes is that they're so versatile. mean, you can make salsa, you can make tomato sauce, you can make tomato paste,  you can make spaghetti sauce and can it so that all you have to do is warm it up. Yes.  We have struggled. My youngest, he has really struggled with eating. He's very
21:00He gets very nervous about trying new foods, but he loves  my canned spaghetti sauce. And so that has been a lifesaver of  one of his quote unquote safe foods that he will eat is the canned spaghetti sauce. Funnily enough, he will eat most things that come out of the garden, which has been  just amazing seeing him get excited about like, are the peas coming up?
21:25He gets excited about the carrots and he loves going out and picking the strawberries. And so that has been  so fun watching that because he just gets,  it's been so hard  with him getting so nervous about trying new foods, but he does get so excited about the jams that we make and he loves helping out with that. And I don't know  where we would be with his eating if it weren't for the garden and his excitement with.
21:54with seeing it grow and the process that it takes to make these things. It's just been,  like I said, I don't know where we would be without it. It's been a huge blessing is what it's been. yeah. Oh yes. And  that is phenomenal. And he likes your homemade spaghetti sauce because mom's love is put in there too. Yes.  That's for sure. Blood, sweat and tears,  Yeah. People joke about
22:22love being the secret ingredient.  it's not a joke. It's for real.  It really is. The passion and the  time and the love that people put into making things from scratch is a real thing.  It  really is. And I will die on that hill. I promise you. Yes.
22:46I can't stand the spaghetti sauce that you buy at the store.  will never eat it again.  I know.  I couldn't get to canning last year. had a death in the family and so we  just ran out of it and we had to get some from the store. I like,  can't do this.  We're just going to have to wait until I can make some more.  We're not having spaghetti for the rest. Until the tomatoes come again.
23:15I cannot do it. How old is your son, the one who's hard about eating? He's seven. he's been getting better. We've gone to a few different therapists, but it's been really difficult. But yeah, he's seven now and it's been a very difficult journey. Is it a texture thing that gets him?
23:45No, it's funny because there's no rhyme or reason to it. think just what it is, is he has a desire, he wants to eat and try new foods. But when it comes down to it, he just is just terrified to try it. Like he just gets scared. And it's almost heartbreaking because I am such a food is just life for me. just food is everything. And so it's been so hard.
24:15watching it  and not knowing how to help him because  it's really just all fear-based because he'll talk about it and  things he wants to try and then just when it comes down he'll have the spoon in his hand and ready to try it and he just  is just  it's just a mind like he just gets scared to try it  but luckily he likes  pretty much something in every food group
24:44So he's,  he hasn't had any like growth, like impairments or anything like that. So  he's been fine there. But like I said, it's just,  it's  just like a mind.  Oh, just a mind scared. So it's just really trying to work through that is, is where we've, what we've been working on. the good news is that he will probably outgrow it at some point.
25:14I don't know if you've tried this, it's something I learned with my fourth kid when he was, you know, a year or so old.  The rule with that one, because  I hadn't thought to try this with the other three, was that he had to give it a fair shot of a new food.  And if he genuinely did not like it and could not swallow it, he could politely spit it into a napkin. Or if we were at home, he could just get up from the table, go to the trash can and spit it in the trash. And he was the most
25:43Venturous eater now. Oh my gosh. That is awesome.  I know we've tried. I'll have to try that Yeah, because if he felt like he didn't have to actually swallow it he was okay with it Yeah, but if we were like no you have to swallow it. He wouldn't do it It's to the point that he would to the point that he would throw up. Yeah, I'm like this is dumb This  does not have to be a battle like it's it's been quite we've tried so many things we we haven't tried that
26:12He'll have his drink that he can have.  So he's gotten real good about just taking his drink. Like I said, we're making progress, but it's been such a journey.  Well, if you can handle letting him have that  choice. I know. That's a good idea.
26:35being able to get it out of his face the minute he realizes that this is really not for him.  It might make him less afraid and it sounds like it's a fear thing. it really is. And like I said, it's just been so hard to watch. never thought, because neither my husband or I are picky eaters at all. And I was like, our kids won't have any problems with that. But. Uh-huh. That's  not how it always works. Same as last words.  Has he had a chance to try pesto yet?
27:04hasn't  and I've made it. I need to try it this year because our basil looks so great right now. So I need to pick some and try it.  But we'll  yeah, I need to we'll try some basil pesto. That's a good idea. We'll have to try some of that. That's one of those pasta dishes that you have like once in a great while.  And because it's such an unusual taste, it's really good.
27:31like once every six months, you wouldn't want to it every day. That's a great idea. He's so funny with pastas because he likes spaghetti. We're really trying to get through like pasta in different shapes. It's the same thing in just different shapes, but he hasn't gotten past like he'll eat spaghetti, but he won't eat bow type like any other shape. It's just spaghetti. Like that's the only shape he'll eat. So we'll have to try that.
28:00pesto with just the spaghetti.  I'm going to tell you a secret. I'm 55 years old  and  I don't like the thick spaghetti. I like the angel hair spaghetti better. So funny.  So I mean, I'll eat thick spaghetti, I don't love it. I really like the angel hair and part of it is because it cooks quickly,  but it's also just a lighter feeling in your stomach when you eat it. That's true. So
28:28And I'm so thankful that I get to talk to people on the podcast about their kids because I have a granddaughter, she's 12,  and she lives in Nebraska and I don't get to see her very often.  And my son grew up with all my tricks. So I don't really need to teach him any of the secrets that I tried on them because he knows them. So it's always nice when I get to share something. I love learning. I always am trying  just any tricks.  just, mean...
28:57all the tips and tricks.  So that's awesome.  feel like I'm the fairy grandmother to a bunch of kids I've never met. It's perfect. I love it. It's kind of great.  It's kind of great because I don't have to change diapers  and  I don't have to cook for the kids, but I can at least help the parents.  It's kind of a win-win right there.  I really do love it. I'm kind of poking fun, but it's always nice when something I learn can help somebody else. That's great.
29:26All right, Brittany, I didn't realize we're going to get into a food discussion. I know it's It's perfect.  It's totally fine because it's about produce and it's about making things. So we're on track.  Where can people find you?  I'm on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube  and TikTok. We're trying to get a website put together.  but yeah, right now I'm on  those social medias  and yeah.  Alrighty.
29:56And  I meant to ask 15 minutes ago when you're talking about the flowers,  I scrolled down into your Facebook feed a little bit, but I don't remember seeing pictures of your flowers. Do you have pictures of your flowers? Yeah, there should be pictures on the,  I know we posted some of like the zinnias and some of the bouquets  on that should be on that Facebook and Instagram page.  So people, people want to see your flowers. can just go find them. Okay. Cool.  All right.
30:24fantastic as always people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com and that's probably going to be changing by next week because I'm trying to revamp our tinyhomestead.com website so I don't have to have two separate ones. So for now you can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com but starting a week from now it might just be a tinyhomestead.com. We'll see how much I get done. Thank you so much for your time Brittany I really appreciate it. for having me.
30:54Have a great day. You too. Bye.
 

Apocalypse Acres

Today I'm talking with Jess at Apocalypse Acres.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jess at Apocalypse Acres in Florida, and you can hear the birds singing in the background. How gorgeous is that? Good morning, Jess. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. Thank you so much.  How's the weather, Jess?  Right now, it's beautiful. It's the perfect temperature to go outside and get stuff done, but that doesn't last very long.
00:27probably have like another half an hour before it's almost unbearable to be outside. you're killing that half hour with me. I'm so sorry. Oh, no. That's okay. It's worth it. Okay, good. Um, I'm in Minnesota and it is cool and sunny and like a tiny little breeze happening. So that's kind of a welcome relief. Nice. We always have a breeze because we have, we have a big like 40 or 50 acre
00:54pasture next door to us and it just happens to be that the wind is always blowing across that. So even when it's not really windy elsewhere, we always have a breeze. And so even when it's really hot, it still feels pretty good here.  must be nice. It's been real sticky hot in Minnesota up until yesterday. Yesterday was gorgeous and today's  looking to be pretty nice too.  Okay. So why is it called Apocalypse Acres? Well,  when I first moved here,
01:22And I've been here for five years now.  I was travel nursing up in Wisconsin actually, and I lost my travel nursing contract because of COVID. So when I moved in here, it was about two, not even two or three months after the COVID lockdown started and happened and all of that was going on.  And it felt very like post-apocalyptic kind of at that point, or like things seemed really crazy.  people still weren't going out in public and people were still really focusing on like trying to
01:52try to homestead for a purpose  of not, know, because the shelves were empty in the stores and things like that. So  Apocalypse Acres just ended up kind of making sense. And the reason we chose that type of a name is because growing up, my grandparents had a 10 acre farm called Pickery Acres. And so we kind of just put a spin on that.  Okay, um, on the whole COVID thing.
02:17I was talking with a friend like six to eight months into it after lockdown started in March of 2020.  I said that it was the quietest apocalypse ever. I had no idea the first apocalypse I experienced was going to be so quiet.  In a good way. It was nice, wasn't it?  Yes. And I've said this a few times on the podcast, but I'm going to say it again.
02:46COVID was a  horrible thing to have happen, but there are so many amazing things that came out of it. And I hear about them all the time from people on the podcast. Yeah, things have changed for sure. It was like a weird tipping point for everybody. Hold on one second. I'm so sorry. Alexa, stop. And I hear about things all the time and there's negative things too, like some stores and pharmacies and things like that not being open 24 hours and not planning to ever open 24 hours again.
03:16Um, but I think that there are quite a few positives too, that kind of outweigh, you know, some of those negatives. Yeah, it was the craziest time and I'm glad that we're mostly through it. I actually had COVID diagnosed for the first time in January of this year. That was not fun.  And, uh,  I slept like 18 hours a day for four days in a row, and then I was fine. So  I got the very pale version of COVID.
03:45Yeah, for sure. I had the bad one, but then I had it most more recently too. And I also had it when I was pregnant, which was really scary.  Oh, not good. Yeah,  but back to kind of the apocalypse thing, I think.  We, my wife and I, we go to Wasteland Weekend, which is out in California every year or every other year as we can. And it's a five day it's kind of like Burning Man, but it's post apocalyptic.
04:13Costumes are required. It's fully immersive. No one's really on their phones and you go camp, primitive camping in the desert with like 1500 other people and it's fully like Mad Max, Furiosa, like, you know, a dystopian society. And so we want our farm to be kind of like that. So we've actually filmed a couple of movies here on our property  and we've, we actually won an award for like set design and production for a movie that we filmed here called Hinders.
04:44That is so fun.  You're very talented. And  I had no idea that you did that. That's amazing.  I would love to talk about filmmaking. And if I was a filmmaking podcast that I would have you back, but I'm not.  what,  so what do you do at your homestead? Well,  our main crop, I guess, is super hot peppers. So we grow super hot peppers, and then we make hot pepper jelly. And then we make spicy fruit
05:13jelly also.  like peach Carolina Reaper, we have one called the hateful eight, which is eight different super hot like Carolina Reaper style, like super high Scoville rating, I have to cook it with a respirator on or I'll have an asthma attack, kind of super hot peppers. So we grow those, we have a bunch of them, we have a  growing clientele that likes to come get them from us.  But we also have like a co-op in town that wants to carry them as well.
05:42And so we're trying to branch out into some more like mid-level heat that are tolerable for most people because the super hots are tolerable for like 1 % of people.  And then we also have chickens for eggs and we're growing some other vegetables and things like that too. And then we also have some rescue animals like our wild boar who  we've had for almost five years now, but we got him when he was about two days old. So  we're just, we kind of have our hands in.
06:11a few different pots over here, but the peppers is the main thing. Okay. Regarding the hot peppers, my son would love your jellies. I would die if I ate them because hot peppers make my throat close up and I can't breathe.  Yes, I have asthma and they really bother me too. I can eat up to a certain spice level, but the super hots, I don't even taste my jelly. I have people that do that for me.
06:41Yeah.  Yeah, a couple of years ago,  I  was eating something with just  fairly mild jalapenos in it. And  I felt really weird, like my lips got cold and then they went numb. And then I felt like I couldn't breathe and I had no idea what was going on. So I just kind of put my head down, tried to breathe and I was fine. I came out of it. And then a week later,  my son had made something I didn't know, but he had put, um,
07:11ancho pepper powder in it  and same reaction and I was like oh my god I've developed anaphylactic shock reaction to hot peppers this is not great and so I went about a year and a half without eating even barbecue sauce because I didn't know what was gonna cause it to happen again  and about six months ago I tried barbecue sauce again and I could eat it and I was fine so I think I may be
07:39getting through whatever that is. But it is really disconcerting as an adult to find out that, I now have another thing on the list I cannot eat or I will die. Yeah, that's really scary, especially like you said, having something that you don't even know has that in there or not even knowing for sure what it even is. I mean, it could be like the actual capsaicin oil, which would be interesting, but I've not ever heard of that happening. That's so, so weird.
08:07Yeah, I was not impressed. And I remember the second time it happened,  my husband was sitting across from me and I was like, I feel like I can't breathe. And he's like, you're talking. And I said, yeah, but  I feel like I'm hitching in my chest. And he was like, stop eating that right now.  And I did. And he said, put your head down like you did before. And I did. And he said, just try to breathe in as much as you can. And then.
08:36blow it out and I was like, okay.  And that one scared the hell out of me because I actually for a moment or two could not get my breath back in and I was like, okay, is this really how I'm going to go out?  Wow. Yeah, that's something I'll have to ask around and see if anyone else has that experience with. Yeah. And I've had weird things happen all my life like that after my second child was born.
09:04I developed an allergy to strawberries of all things. Could not eat strawberries for like two years. That stinks. So I don't know what is with me, but I have very strange biological makeup apparently. Yeah, that's frustrating. It's very frustrating and thank God I'm not allergic to dogs or cats because that would be the saddest thing ever and I am not. So if I have to be allergic to food, there are workarounds, but I can't imagine not having my dog.
09:32Yeah. Okay, sorry. didn't mean to make that all about me, but yeah, allergies can come on even when you're 53, which is what I was when the pepper one happened. So do you sell your jellies? Is that what you said? Yeah. So we used to do a lot of farmers markets in the area. And for a while I was doing like contract nursing because I'm a full-time hospice nurse.
10:00And so for a while I was doing contract nursing and working part time and then doing a lot of farmers markets and things like that. And it was going really well.  Um,  and  I don't want to like be depressing or anything like that, but about a year and a half after moving into onto apocalypse acres, my husband died.  Um, he was 34. was 37 at the time and he actually took his own life. So  that kind of threw a wrench in things in a really big way for me.
10:29because we've rented this place for five years. And so the plan was to move on to it during COVID and buy it as quickly as possible and tear down the house that was on here and build a new one. Well, we got the appraisal on this place probably three weeks before he died.  And then after that, I was like, oh my gosh, I don't even know what to do anymore. So him and I made a lot of the pepper jelly together  and recipes and hot sauces and  things like that. And then I just had to take a break after he died.
10:58Understandably.  Um, so within the last year and a half or so, I've been trying to get back into it, but it's kind of slow going. So we started out with spicy honey, which is another thing that we do with the peppers.  Um,  and, but I started working full time, so I don't have as much time now. I wish I did.  Um, yes. And so  on to  a better topic. Um, I'm really trying to kind of.
11:27ramp up our pepper production and get back to making pepper jelly because it really did really well. We had an Etsy page, we sold a lot online, we shipped a lot out, but then we kind of lost our momentum when that happened. Well, yes,  I'm sure that that was  hell for you to go through and I am so sorry for your loss. And honestly,  I hate that statement. I like the Jewish blessing of may his memory be a blessing. Yeah.
11:56I like that. So yeah, I really like that one and I'm not even Jewish, but I heard it and I was like, that's beautiful. I like that one much better.  Um, okay. So  I'm trying to think of things.  You're in Florida and I know you guys have  alligators or crocodiles. One of them. We have alligators. Yes. And we have water on our property. So we have a creek that runs through our property pretty much right through the very center of it. And then at the front of our property, we have like a little retention pond area that looks like a green swamp.
12:26Um,  we, our property is actually in the green swamp, which is the main Florida aquifer that free that feeds the Everglades. So the aquifer is here. And then when the water comes out here, it flows south to south Florida and fills up the Everglades.  So we live in that swamp. And so we've had some crazy stuff happen.  Um, like during hurricane Milton, our property flooded somewhat bad. Like when we got home, we couldn't get up to the house. We had to kayak.
12:53the animals that we had taken with us on the kayak back to the house.  And there was fish swimming in our yard.  But thankfully the part of our property with our house on it and all of our animals stayed dry, it's up by the creek that floods a little bit.  But yeah, there's alligators and otters and a lot of snakes.  We haven't seen too many venomous ones, but we've seen coral snakes and water moccasins.  But the alligators are a very  regular occurrence.
13:23So do you just get used to having them around? Because if I had an alligator go in my yard, I would freak out. Well, I love it. So prior  to this and prior to nursing, I was actually a vet tech and a zookeeper. So I used to work at Gatorland in Orlando as a zookeeper and I learned how to wrestle alligators and care for venomous snakes.  so being out here in the country where that stuff literally lives on my property is like the coolest thing in the world to me.
13:54And so I get like the best of all of these worlds, like all kind of wrapped into one.  And I know I mentioned earlier that we rented this place for five years, but it was a five year struggle to buy it. So we actually just closed on it in June and it is now ours and we don't have to go anywhere.  Congratulations. I know how that feels. Um, we're coming up, well,  July  31st, five years ago, we closed on our place that we live at now. And I actually posted about it on Facebook.
14:24because it was a big deal. We worked and saved and scrimped and planned and manifested for like 15 years to finally find our place. And we've been here for five years and we love it. So I understand how you feel. Yeah, it was really, really hard. We literally, it took us a year from the time that we first got our pre-approval till the time that we closed. It took us 11 months.
14:49And it was the biggest nightmare. was so scary. And we thought for most of that time that we were going to have to leave and try to figure out how to take our whole homestead with us when there is nothing else available here to rent or buy. Like it's just, it's not out there. This is the perfect spot. I'm like, I want to spend the rest of my life on this land. I do not want to sell it. So I mean, buy it. I don't want to leave. I don't want to go. I want to stay here. And so we ended up being able to finally make it happen.
15:18Two years ago, I married my wife and  she so my husband died by suicide and her partner died by suicide and her and I have known each other for like 12 years. So one thing led to the other and things have been perfect since and now we have a 16 month old son  and our little family because I have a 16 year old from before. yeah, so everything's good and now we own this and we don't have to go anywhere. you know,
15:47Gosh, it's been  quite the adventure getting here.  I am sending you the biggest hug from Minnesota to Florida.  Thank you so much.  So you said, did you grow up in Wisconsin? Yeah. Yep.  I'm Ojibwa. And so I grew up in Wisconsin, but my family all lives on an Indian reservation in Northern Minnesota, actually, in Duluth. OK. OK, actually.
16:13So my sister and my mom just moved there last week and I'm kind of jealous because I wish I was up there a little bit,  but only at this time of year when it's nice because  I don't want to go back to the sun. So I to the snow. So I moved to Florida when I was like 19 or 20 and I just never looked back. I love it. The hot, I love the tropical. I love the snakes and gators and the fact that there's lizards and tree frogs everywhere. I think all that's great.
16:39You've ended up exactly where you were meant to be. I'm so excited for you.  The whole alligator and snakes thing.  Do you lose your chickens to the alligators or do you have them fairly well locked up so they don't have any chance to get hurt? The creek is probably a hundred yards from  the animals.  And so my water buffalo goes and swims in the creek, but the gators are smaller than him, so they don't bother him.
17:07and they don't come up by the chickens, thankfully. We do have a bobcat here and there once in a while, so we do have to be really careful about the chickens, but I've never ever lost a chicken to a gator or a snake. But I do have snakes that go in my coops because, and they eat the eggs once in a while, and I just call it my egg tax because they keep the rodents away. So we don't have any rats, we don't have any mice, but we have snakes. So that's totally fine with me, it's just not fine with most people.
17:37Mm-hmm.  Well, I'm kind of impressed because we have, well, for the first time ever in five years, we had a mama raccoon with three babies show up a couple weeks ago. they ate four of our chickens. Raccoons are terrible. Raccoons. Chickens, yeah. They're brutal. So raccoons  ate our chickens, but you have not lost a chicken to an alligator. So how dumb is that?  Well, we did just lose a chicken and a duck to a raccoon not long ago, which
18:07was really irritating, but  it happens. Yeah, I had heard of it happening, but I didn't believe it. Another crazy thing was that we have silky chickens and silkies are just really known for being dumb. chickens are dumb in general, but silky chickens are even dumber and they were free ranging. And now we can't let our silky's free range anymore because the vultures were picking them off. And I didn't know vultures ever ate live prey. I thought they just ate dead stuff.
18:37No, I think they actually fall under raptor definition. think I didn't know that until they ate a couple of our silkies and I was like, where are our silkies going? And then my daughter caught the vulture actually sitting right over by the coops, like waiting for them to come out. So that was a surprise. But the chickens are all much safer now. Now that we know. Good. We have we have ospreys we have
19:07bald eagles, have hawks, we have  turkey vultures. I don't think we have just regular old vultures. We have turkey vultures here.  And we had a litter of like seven barn kittens born a couple summers ago. And then there were five and then there were four  and we couldn't find these kittens.  And we think that probably one of the raptors picked them off because they were little and they had just started coming out of the barn. Oh, that's so bad.
19:38Yeah, so raptors will go after the most,  I don't know, convenient, easiest food source that's in front of them. Yeah, and silkies can't see above them. So they just  don't have many survival mechanisms.  And so now they stay in their  run and coop all the time. Yeah. And  are silkies the ones that have the feathers on their legs? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we don't have those fancy ones. We just have the ISA brown.
20:07laying hens. Oh, they're good layers though. They are. They're really good layers. My son went out and got the eggs yesterday and he came in and he was like, one of our chickens laid a golf ball and the egg looked completely round.  He says, he says, how does this happen? I said, I don't know. Mother nature is crazy. I don't know everything. Well, that's what keeps it interesting.  Sure does.  Um, so is your 16 year old part of the homestead? Yeah, she,  uh,
20:37chose to take care of all the chickens as her main chore. So I was talking to someone earlier this morning and they're like, yeah, our teenagers like to try to make the chickens like them more. And that's what she does. She'll buy them treats with her own money and she'll go sit in and take a chair in the run with the chickens and just sit in there with them and let them eat out of her hand.  She loves the pig. He's like 450 pounds, wild boar, big old tusks. And she goes and plays with him and you know,
21:05She was in his mud puddle with him the other day. I'm not even joking. There's like a whole photo shoot of it.  But yeah, she likes it here  most of the time.
21:17Okay, cool. Um, I always ask because kids aren't necessarily as into it as their parents are. And we didn't get our place until my youngest was in 19, I think. And so, um, the older three never have lived here on the property with us and they've come to visit and they're like, it's really pretty. And my
21:44my,  I always stumble over this. He's my stepson, but he might as well be my son. He and his wife just moved to Nebraska two winters ago and they now have their own one acre place that they're quote unquote homesteading. And this is the first summer he's been able to start a big garden and he's so tickled with it. That's great. And then you guys have more stuff in common. you, do you talk more or talk about it?
22:10I swear he calls his dad like two or three times a day. gosh. love that. That's great though.  Yeah. And I, it's funny because I will, I will  interject into the conversation after I ask if I can hijack it for a minute because he's on speaker.  Oh my gosh. And, they're like, yeah. And I ask him questions or I tell him something about here and he's like, that's so cool, mom, blah, blah. And then I'm like, okay, I'm out. Keep going.  And they will talk for an hour and a half at a shop.
22:38Oh my gosh, that's awesome for them. Yup, and considering that that particular child of the four was  difficult, it's the nicest word I can use, he had some things going on and it made him  more difficult and he knows that. He came to me and apologized when he was an adult because he was kind of a pain in the butt. I hope my daughter does someday. I'm holding a pope.
23:06Yeah, but it just, made it hard to be close back then in teenage years. And so I'm so  thrilled that my husband and his son have this  really tight, really close relationship. It's so good for them. I love it. So they're bonding now more than they did then, but hey, better late than never.  Oh, absolutely. If you can bond with your parents at any point in your life before they're gone,  do it. It's really important.  Um,
23:35Okay, so what's the nearest big city in Florida near you? Oh, Orlando.  We're actually, we're really in a really nice location. So Tampa is almost exactly an hour and Orlando is 45 minutes. So we're really centrally located to go to either of those places. And then Gainesville is about an hour north of us. So I love where we live.  We're in Orlando pretty regularly and we're in Tampa pretty regularly. Okay, awesome. So you're not
24:05It's not like you're off-grid stranded in the middle of nowhere. And  for the people who enjoy that lifestyle, good. But I worry a little bit about people who are  way, way out because if something happens,  if that's bad, it's going to go real bad. That's true. I'm grateful that we're not. My wife is just born and raised in the city in Orlando, so I don't know that she could handle that.  This was a perfect compromise.
24:33So I've lived here for five years, but she moved in two years ago just after we got married. And it's been like a whole culture shock for her, but she loves it. And most of the chickens are actually hers.  But yeah, so we're, have like a gas station about two mile, two and a half miles away. So we're not out out, but it really feels like it where we are. Like from  our house, we can barely see another house.
24:59Which is nice because we only have five acres so we don't have another property right next to us. Yeah, we can only see one house from our property, but our nearest neighbor is actually a quarter mile away.  The reason we can't see more than one house is we're surrounded by a 10 foot tall cornfield right now. Oh my gosh.  That's cool.  Yeah. And it's funny because the corn has never grown this tall in the five years that we've been here and they just started planting corn three years. It was alfalfa.
25:28And the corn has done exceedingly well this year in this field. And I wonder if they tried a new variety because this is craziness. My husband was over by the apple trees  and that corn is a good three feet taller than he is and he's five eight. That's nuts. Cause I grew up next to corn fields too. We don't have corn down here. It's really weird.
25:54Having grown up in I think it's weird. It's too hot. I've tried planting corn and it just shrivels up and dies every time I try, no matter what I do to it. I was gonna guess it's too wet, but yeah, the heat makes sense, because it doesn't really know. Yeah. hot heat, yeah. And when I've tried growing corn in the past, it's actually gotten dry, just because even though it's wet,
26:16It's so hot during the day and then it'll downpour in the afternoon. But like the heat during the day and the beating sun just like shrivels everything up. All of our tomatoes died this year and I was talking to some other farmers in the area and they're like, no one has tomatoes. I don't know why it was just too hot, too dry for too long. I wish you live closer because I could give you tomatoes every day until mid September at this point.  It's my husband planted over two months.
26:43My husband planted over 250 tomato plants this year. That is insane.  Drowning in We're going to be  swimming in them here in about a week and a  half. we have people who want to buy pounds and pounds for canning. So it's all going to work out. But last year our tomatoes did terribly because of the weather here in the Midwest. It's a crab shoot. Yeah.  It's such a weird gamble. Yeah, it really is.
27:15But either way, it's a worthy gamble because I am so excited that I get to have my first batch of bruschetta probably tomorrow.  Nice.  Yeah, that's exciting. With our own basil and our own tomatoes, and that is always the best kind. Yeah, for sure. I don't have basil. I'm not really great at growing herbs, but  I know people who are, so that's fine.
27:41We have a really nice community set up here with people that try to barter as much as possible. And  we're trying to intentionally just build community, the whole apocalypse acres thing. Like, I do think that in our lifetime, the crap is going to hit the fan  and things are going to get crazier. And so I have people that actually have directions to our house printed out in case they can't use their GPS  that are planning to come here if they have to. you know, we're not
28:09preppers by any means, but the option's always there. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with being a prepper. I, I have such a hard time with this because preppers are people who prepare and that can mean preparing for a snowstorm in the middle of winter in Minnesota and not being able to get out your driveway for a week, or it can mean going much, much further and prepping for an apocalypse.
28:39And I think that everyone has to come to their own  definition and their own way of prepping. So  it's okay if you're a prepper. Jess, it's fine. Be a prepper. I love it.  That's a good way to put it. We  don't let it control our lives.  But obviously we have hurricanes here and the last hurricane last October, Milton, hit us really hard. We're still cleaning up from it.
29:08So we know what it's like to not be able to even get to our property because the power lines were laying over the front of it like we couldn't get home at all. So yeah, there's definitely a little bit of what if we know we need to be able to survive for about a week  on our own out here with no power and no water because our well pump doesn't work when the power is off.
29:28Yes, my daughter lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. Oh, and when the hurricanes, yeah, when the hurricanes came through last summer, last summer, right? Last fall. Last fall. Yeah. The second one or the first one, she called me and she was like, so just so you know, we're probably going to get hit by the hurricane. And I was like, yes, are you ready? And she's like, oh yeah, it'll be fine. And I said,
29:57I would say her name but she doesn't like it when I do that.  I said, daughter of mine, I said, you were raised in Minnesota with blizzards and ice storms and terrible thunderstorms. I said,  what do you think maybe you should be doing right now? And she said, probably going to the grocery store and stocking up on things that we can cook without heat or without power. And I said, yes.  And she said, and probably  getting some bottled water in the house. And I said,  yes.
30:26And she said, probably some other stuff too. said, yes. Do you want to go do that? She was like, yes, I will talk to the husband right now. We'll go stock up. said, that would be good.  Make your mother's heart stop racing. Please go do the things you know you're supposed to do in case of emergency. And she was like, I will. I said, OK. And she's 35, Jess. She knows this.  Oh, yeah. But you don't want to have to go to the store. You know it's when you guys are getting a blizzard. You don't want to have to go to the store when everyone else is panic buying everything too. It's awful.
30:56Yeah, and the worst experience I've ever had with that, and I've told this story too, but whatever. they did the, I swear it was March 30th of 2020 that our governor said, hey, really don't go anywhere if you don't have to. And if you do wear a mask and wash your hands and blah, blah, blah. And we shop every other weekend and stock up because it's Minnesota. You don't know what's gonna happen with the weather and you don't know if you're gonna be stuck in your house for a week.
31:25And so we were very used to that and we went to Sam's Club  and I'm telling you the panic and the anxiety  all through people's bodies at that store that day.  It was just, I don't even have a word. It was unnerving. That's the closest I can get. And you could hear people talking amongst themselves, you know, their shopping groups  saying, what do we do? What do we buy?
31:54if we're going to not be able to be shopping the way we  usually do. And I looked at my husband and I said, I think we should probably just get our stuff and get out of here.  And he said, he said, me too. We got out to the car, looked at each other and I was like, we are one step away from people rioting. This is really scary. And it didn't happen,  but people were  so upset and didn't know what to do with themselves. It was awful.
32:24Yeah, I think it was a really eye opening moment to realize how precariously our society in the United States is balanced. And how  one thing, even if it's not a big thing, could throw everything off to the point where people do start wiring or doing who knows whatever else. So it was eye opening for us. And so that's, yeah, kind of how this all started. Yeah, and there's
32:51Okay, I want to reiterate there's nothing wrong with being prepared for things that you can't see coming.  And  there are things coming that we don't know about. That's how the world works.  And  if you're smart in this day and age, you will know your local growers and producers and be able to buy  within a five to 10 mile radius of yourself.  If the supply chain goes down, that's those are the things that I really want to hammer on for today.  Yeah, that's a really
33:21concise way to kind of put it and so we had  yesterday we had a farmer over at our house who's starting a community exchange in a CSA who wants us to have our peppers and things in the CSA and pepper jelly.  Who is trying to do that within five to 10 miles I think is pretty close to his radius that he wants to do.  Just starting more community and being more intentional about actually seeing people in person and not just interacting on social media.
33:51because we've gotten really complacent.
33:56Yeah,  absolutely.  So  where can people find you Jess online? Yeah, we're doing mostly everything right now on Facebook.  So apocalypse acres on Facebook, our logo is a little calf in a gas mask.  And  we also have a TikTok account which went crazy viral with a spider video that I hope I never have to see again because I've seen it like 200,000 times it's been viewed by like 18 million people and it's been shown on like
34:24other podcasts and things and I'm so sick of hearing it.  But our TikTok, if you search Apocalypse Acres on TikTok, we're on there too. We also have an Instagram, but we don't use that quite as much.  And we're trying to figure out like where best to put our pepper jelly online because  Etsy is not the greatest spot for something like that. So we're figuring it out, but it'll be on one of those places.  Oh, awesome. So you'll be able to ship it. Awesome. Great.
34:51All right, as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  thank you for taking the time to talk with me this morning. And I,  you work nights, so I was very excited that you said yes. Yes, it was perfect. I drank lots of caffeine and I'm still up. actually made bread after I finished working at eight o'clock this morning. So I'm about to go in and have some fresh bread that's hot, still out of the oven. And it was a pleasure and I really appreciate you asking me. This is really fun.
35:21All right, have a great sleep, Jess. Enjoy your sleep today. Thank you so much.  Have a good day. All right, bye. Bye-bye.
 

Wildflower & Bone Co.

Today I'm talking with Lauren at Wildflower & Bone Company.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Lauren at Wildflower and Bone Company in Oklahoma. Is that right, Lauren? Yes, it is.  Okay.  Good afternoon, Lauren. How are you? I am great. How are you?  I'm good. What's the weather like there? We are actually extremely hot right now.  think we've...
00:30for the last five days.
00:34I am so sorry to hear that. Today is the first day in probably five days that it hasn't been unbearably muggy in Minnesota.  Oh my. So I'm taking a big deep breath of  much less wet air today. Yes.  Yes. We, my boys want to go outside all the time and  I hate having to tell them not right now.  Yeah. Unfortunately tomorrow we're going to be under a, a wildfire smoke.
01:04thing again from  the Canada fires. Oh no.  Yup. So you you can't win for losing, but I guess you take  the gifts you're given.  If that's a gift, yes.  Well, today is. Today is really beautiful  and not hot. And I don't have to have the AC running in my room right now  where I'm recording. And that's a good thing because otherwise you would just hear the hum from the air conditioner.
01:34Right now our air conditioner cannot keep up. Yeah, we had a day like that a couple weeks ago where it was set for 72 and the house got to 78. Yep. It's ridiculous. I think I have it at 70 right now and it's 75. Yeah. I'm not gonna lie. I love spring and I love fall. And if we could just stay, you know, have six months of spring and six months of fall, I would be thrilled.
02:04I agree with that.  So  I'm, I'm very much looking forward to September. I just have to get through August  to get there. That's all. Yes.  Okay. So you're a crafter. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Okay. So  I am 29 years old.  Um,  I taught  elementary school for about six years,  um, resigned. And then I'm currently going back to school.
02:32to be a speech pathologist. So about 10 years ago, I picked up my first skull. We own a ranch or partial owners of a ranch. And I painted one and then just put it to the side. probably five years ago, I had someone reach out to me asking me to paint something for a silent auction.
03:00for a cancer patient.  And  so for the last five years, I've done that. And then I had so many people reach out after this last silent auction  that I decided, let's go out and make it a business.  So I'm going to school full time,  a stay at home mom of two  and  starting a business. an artist who's starting a business. Yes.  Very nice.
03:30I have a quick question about your speech pathologist thing. a speech pathologist someone who does speech therapy with people or what did you do or what do you do? Yes, it is for speech therapy. Okay. And is it,  I don't know how to ask the right questions about this. Is it for people who have hearing loss? Is it for kids that have tongue ties? How does it work?
03:58It kind depends on the area you specialize in.  Generally, a speech pathologist will work with all sorts of patients. So elderly with hearing loss,  children who are born deaf,  tongue ties are very common.
04:17The audiologist side, which is a whole nother degree, are the ones who really work on the hearing.  A speech pathologist  basically makes it just so they can communicate in everyday life, whether that be  AAC, which is assistive devices,  or teaching them how to speak.
04:45Okay, well, as someone who started a podcast almost two years ago and is highly entertained  by the way that people talk and how they pronounce things,  the minute you said speech pathologists, I was like, ooh, what an interesting job.  Okay. So,  um, a podcast that's only audio is terrible for, um, talking with crafters because crafters want to show
05:14the things that they make.  But if people would like to see your work, they can go to your Facebook page and I would highly recommend that because the skulls that you paint are beautiful. Oh, thank you very much. I do have an Instagram as well, but it's also wildflowerandboneco.  I do post there quite a bit as well.  Yeah, the photos that you have posted on both Facebook and Instagram are just stunning.
05:44I  saw the name of your business on Facebook, that's how I found you. And I was like, wow, Flora and Bone, what's that? And I scrolled down and I was like,  oh my God, I wanna talk to her.  Okay, so  what,  like I'm terrible about these crafter interviews because I'm not an artist.  I used to draw, I used to paint when I was a kid, but I haven't done it in forever.
06:13What kind of designs do you do?  I will honestly do absolutely anything.  One of my favorite pieces that I've ever done  was for  a friend's  late grandfather. And it was one of his pictures  that I pasted onto an Aztec skull.  I have created an Oklahoma State University. I just finished up with
06:42an OU one. I do a lot of floral,  pretty much anything.
06:50Okay,  um,  I, when I saw them,  I thought that a day of the dead,  um, steer skull would be really cool. Cool.
07:03That would be really cool. Because they're so colorful. Yeah. And it is the skull of a dead seer. So mean, Day of the Dead would be appropriate. Yes. So maybe you'll get a  request for that sometime.  I would be happy to.  Have you always had a talent for painting?
07:26Painting started in college.  I've drawn  since I was really little. have an aunt who is insanely talented and she actually got me into it.  So I've drawn for a very long time.  And then I started painting in college for fun.
07:51Okay.  Um, I have a little tiny aside story I would like to share with you. My dad  used to draw and he used to do charcoal drawings.  Oh my gosh.  And he's,  I don't think he's done it in years. He's 82 tomorrow and he did this absolutely gorgeous drawing of a hawk and
08:16You know what a hawk looks like. There's all the gradations in their feathers of different colors, the beige and the brown and the black. Yes. And he did it in charcoal. And I swear to you, your brain would tell you that it was all the gradations of color, even though it was only charcoal. That is amazing. Yeah. My dad is so talented. It is ridiculous.  It's like when God created him, when his mom and dad
08:45managed to conceive him, God said, let's give him every good thing possible. Oh, I love that. He sings, he plays guitar, he's an artist, he  used to tie fishing flies and they were beautiful. I mean, this man has had more artistic outlets than probably anybody I know  and  never really  went anywhere with them. He just did them because he loved them.  Oh my gosh.
09:14Yeah. And his job was entirely technical. He was a biomedical technician,  which is someone who basically works on the machines that keep people alive at the hospital. Yes. That was his job. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So,  um, engineering and artistry go hand in hand in the brain. And so I feel like if you have any artistic talent, you're probably good at engineering.  And if you are good at engineering, you probably have artistic talent.
09:44could see that. I've noticed it with a lot of people in my life.  I had a friend who was a lawyer and lawyering is not engineering, but it is word engineering.  And he played guitar beautifully. I have another friend who used to work for Ford Motor Company.  Again, fantastic guitarist. Oh, wow. So yeah, there's something in the wiring of the brain.
10:12where those two things go hand in hand a lot of the time.  It sounds like there's some sort of connection there. Yeah, it's,  I mean, I don't, I can't say scientifically that it's there, but in my  lived experience, it's something that I've really noticed.
10:31So, but anyway, I think that  artistry and crafting are just beautiful things to be blessed with. Had  I had the chance to be taught by someone in art beyond high school, I think that I might have pursued that a lot more.  I'm one of those people who can draw anything once.
10:59But if I try to do it again, I can't do it again. But there's a thing for that. You're one of the kinds. Mm-hmm. Yep. So instead, I started a podcast because it's a lot easier and a lot less expensive.
11:17It does sound like a fun job though. It is fun. It's really fun. I really love talking with you guys.  Okay. So  I don't want to ask a rude question and I always feel like I'm being rude when I ask certain things.  Does this business support itself or are you still in the red?  I am currently  still in the red,  which this
11:46didn't fully take off until I'd say March  around there. okay. So it's fairly new.  I'm still very new.  And I made a big purchase  on the Longhorns,  which  I'm still trying to recover from.
12:09Yeah,  um, again, I don't want to ask a rude question,  but what does one longhorn skull cost you? They range.  So if I were to go buy a single skull today, depending on their horn length, so their tip to tip length, you're looking anywhere between five and  a thousand dollars.  Wow.  I purchased  nine of them.
12:40So I, and I cheat myself for sure on the price of my Longhorns specifically. So right now I just finished up this OU custom and it is, I believe it was 60 inches tip to tip and it is $600. Wow. Okay. And, and for anybody who's bad at math, 60 inches is five feet.
13:08It's my longest that I own right now  is 81 inches tip to tip. Wow. Wow. Are they heavy? They are very heavy.  So we actually take. OK, so on skulls, the horns you see on the outside are called horn caps, so those are just a protective cover  inside their horn  bone.
13:37is generally as long,  maybe a few inches shy  of their horn cap. So to cut out weight, we do cut their horn cores  just to make them a little bit lighter. And then you have the sanding and polishing, which  on  a long horn set takes somewhere between four and five hours just to get them pretty.
14:07Uh huh. And then  the painting time and...
14:13There's a lot that goes into it.  Well, yes, it wouldn't be called artistry if it was easy. I am blessed with a husband who does help me a lot.  He's actually the one that does the horns.
14:30He's been the biggest help.  That's a good one. Keep him.  Yes.  Okay. I had a thought and oh,  if someone had, okay, I grew up with hunters. Both my parents hunt deer  and I'm married to a hunter who hunts deer. And I have a kid who's the youngest who hunts deer.  If someone had  a  deer skull,
14:55with antlers that they wanted you to paint. Is that something that you would do? Yes, absolutely. So. So it's a commission kind of thing, right? I mean, they bring you they bring you the skull and they're like, I would love to have you do this. And then you quote them a price. Is that how it works? Yes. So I've done I've actually only done one deer and it was a floral piece. But it was the gentleman's own skull and he brought it to me.
15:26and I think I had a three day turnaround on it.
15:32Three days, that's all? Three days,  yes. Wow.
15:37Like how many hours a day of those three days did you do?  Collectively, that one probably took me four to five hours. And I mean, I have a two and a four year old running around. So my work is very spread out. Uh huh. Yep. That's what happens when you have kids.  But what a great outlet for you. Yes.
16:03because I remember when I had a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 4.5-year-old, and a newborn, and I didn't really have an outlet. And my outlet was basically crawling into bed and trying to get to sleep and reading a book to drop off. Yep. That was what I had back then. They're all grown now, so I sleep a lot better. I can't say I'm not looking forward to those days.
16:28Yes, and I'm going to tell you the same thing. I tell everyone who has little ones, enjoy every minute of it. I know it's really hard being in the trenches,  but you'll never get this time back.  just, just try even to suck up the not so great moments because you will miss them. four year old actually starts school in August and  I can't say it doesn't make me hurt a little bit.  Yeah, it's amazing how
16:57fast it goes. So weird question, is the four-year-old curious about what you're doing when you're doing your work? Oh, yes.  Will actually, he goes with me  to,  we call it skull hunting,  and  he'll go with me to go through our pastures and stuff.  And honestly, he'll sit next to me with his little watercolor palette and paint alongside me. So.
17:24He's definitely interested in the art side of things.  I love that. That is so sweet. And obviously the reason I ask is because kids want to model what their parents do, what they see their parents doing. Yes. Good job, mama.  He actually told me the other day, he's like, well, mom, you sell the skulls so I could paint the leg bones and the jaws.
17:55And I said, you do what you want to do, Bubby. Bubby, I love it. Bubby. I miss my kids when they were little. Like, I'm glad I don't have to be up in the middle of the night for two hours keeping a seven month old entertained because he won't sleep. I don't miss that at all. But I miss the funny things that they say and they do.
18:20He came up to me, I was painting horseshoes yesterday and he came up to me and he goes, oh mom, these are the best ones you've done yet. Cute. And he means every word of it. Oh yeah, he's told me that he doesn't like, there was a skull that I did. He's like, yeah, I don't like that one.  Uh huh. I said, they're honest. it doesn't stay here, so.
18:47Yeah, kids are so honest. It's like you want them to gain a filter, but before five years old, you're like, huh, maybe you don't need a filter right now.
18:59Once they hit their teen years though, you know, it's good if they have a filter. Yeah.  Yeah. I had to work on that a lot with myself  and with my daughter. For some reason, we girls tend to think in words, many more words than boys do. Yes. And I think we have a harder time  tamping them  or,  um, as a word I want.  Honing them to the point where they're not quite so  sharp.
19:29I guess dulling them, actually. Dulling them so the words aren't so sharp. Yes. I was terrible. I had such a sharp tongue when I was a teenager. I should not have said half the things that came out of my face when I was 15 to 18. I tell my mom all the time how sorry I am. Oh, I do too. I do too.
19:55There have been so many times that I have called her out of the blue and been like, I was thinking about this thing that I did when I was 16. I'm really sorry. And she's like, I have completely forgotten it. I don't remember it. Yes. Say, I think every kid says that at some point, but the first time my four year old told me that he hated me was like, so that's how that feels. And yeah, it called my mom and I was like, I'm so sorry.
20:24Yeah, I had to explain to one of the kids that  basically when you say you hate someone, it means that you wish that they weren't alive, that they had never been born.  Yep. And they didn't understand what they were saying when they were saying it. And the minute I explained it that way, it never came out of their face again. I mean, you try that one.  Right now he tells me that I'm not his best mommy anymore. Uh-huh.
20:52Which is the equivalent of saying, I'm disappointed in you, mom. I'm like, that's fine.  At least I'm doing something right. Yeah. Yep. Being a mom is the most wonderful, thankless job on the planet. Yes. And I loved every minute of it and I still do. And I probably will until the day that I die. So  we're gluttons for punishment, I think sometimes.
21:19But I love that he is interested in what you're doing and that he's trying to be like you, because you're setting a great example for him with your artistry. Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, and you're giving him as much of an outlet as you get out of it. Yes. And kids need something creative. They really, really do. Yes, they do. I feel like, well, just in teaching experience.
21:46Kids don't have any imagination anymore. They've all been lost in the technology and.
21:56They can't just sit and play anymore.
22:03Yeah, and it's the same thing with the grownups too. Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, go ahead.
22:14Go ahead Lauren. Oh, it's instant gratification. mean everything is at our fingertips now and we can't just be in a moment. Yeah, I mean my husband is the gardener here at the homestead and I am so thankful for the 100 foot by 150 foot garden that we have because otherwise he would be watching YouTube videos 24 hours a day.
22:43And when I watch him work in the garden,  I see his body relax. I see his shoulders come down. And he takes a moment when he's done doing whatever he's doing and stands back and just gazes over the garden.  I'm so thankful for that because that's so good for him. Yes, it is.
23:10And  YouTube is great and podcasts are great and movies and books are great. Yes.  But not if you are constantly bombarding your brain with it. I agree with that. And I don't want to bash technology. I am sitting here in front of my computer talking with you in Oklahoma and I'm in Minnesota. Technology is amazing. Yes. But I don't think that we should overdose on it.
23:39100%. So, and I know what it's like to create. I used to crochet. I used to make scarves for my kids. I used to do cross stitch  and cross stitch is so  Zen.  Just,  that repetitive motion  and seeing a picture come to life from string and a piece of cloth is amazing. Yes. I have a niece that is
24:08into those  sorts of things and  she brings it to church with her even and just sitting there watching her it's amazing.  and the thing that's funny about cross stitch is it's great until you screw it up. Oh. And then you have to pick all those stitches back out to get back to where you were and that is not fun. But nope. I don't have the patience believe it or not for
24:38those kinds of things.  Well, I didn't think I did either, but funnily enough cross stitch and crochet  are very quiet  activities and raising four kids, my house was always really noisy. Yes. So if I had an hour where I was still awake after they were all in bed, it was really nice to just sit down and do something quietly with my hands.  Oh yeah.
25:08And anybody who's listened to the podcast knows that I really do love peace and quiet because I also grew up with two siblings. And so anything that gives me a chance to breathe and have quiet is always welcome. I'm missing the days where I can go to bed with the quiet reading a book. Right now I'm  until  midnight or after on homework. So.
25:34Yeah, and like I said, enjoy every second of it because it's gone so fast. I mean, I don't want  to pound on that too hard, but I'm telling you, you will miss it. I swear to you. It feels like I blinked and my baby's turning five in a month and going to school.
25:53Yeah, it's crazy how fast time goes. Now on the flip side of that, you have a beautiful outlet for a business.  when your kids hit teenage years and they're off doing their own things,  you will have a thriving already grown business, because you're growing your business while you're growing your kids.  That is the hope.  Oh, I think you will.
26:21That is definitely the goal.  Yeah, because I feel like art never goes out of style. mean, the style of the art may go out of style, but people always want something pretty or beautiful in their home. Yes. So your job probably won't go anywhere. And I don't think AI  can paint a seer skull  the way that you can.  I...
26:50Some of these AI images are getting little scary.
26:56Yes, but it will never have the heart that you put into it.
27:02Say the blisters from cleaning, cuts. Yeah, and AI doesn't feel. There's no love in AI. Yes. So people who bake things, there's a certain magic in really good baked goods, and it's the love that the baker puts into it. And the same thing with art. I agree with that, yes.
27:31So you have set yourself up so that when your kids start leaving home, and I don't want to make you cry, you won't hurt quite as bad with the empty nest syndrome because you will have grown another baby that is staying with you and it's your art.
27:48I like You know? Yes. So keep doing the thing and keep putting your beauty into the world because it's really important. Yes.  And we are at 30 minutes. Lauren, where can people find you online?  You can find me on Facebook at Wildflower and Bone Co.  and Instagram also Wildflower and Bone Co. OK.  Thank you so much for talking with me about how
28:17you do this and why you do this  because I was looking at the pictures and I'm like, how in hell does she do this? And now I have the secrets. Now I know how you do it.  as always, people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com  Lauren. hope you have a beautiful day. again, thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. All right. Bye.
 

Farm Fresh Wife

Today I'm talking with Julia at Farm Fresh Wife.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Julia at Farm Fresh Wife in Pennsylvania. Good afternoon, Julia. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What's the weather like in Pennsylvania? Is it hot? Oh my goodness. It is think around 90 some degrees, but the humidity has been around 95 to 99%. So it is
00:29kind of gross.  I'm so sorry. The good news is it has finally broken here in the upper Midwest in Minnesota. So  maybe in a couple of days it'll be bearable in Pennsylvania. Uh, it says next week it's supposed to be around 70, like upper seventies and a little bit of rain hopefully tomorrow. So I'm looking forward to that. I think the whole freaking country is ready for it to not be so hot and sticky.
00:55Yeah, my kids have been spending more time inside. They go from the pool to the house.  That's about it.  Yeah. And let's just start this off with congratulations on the newest baby. Well, thank you.
01:09I saw pictures on your Facebook page and he is adorable. He is really good. I can't complain. All of my kids have been really good sleepers and babies and so far he's been really well behaved for us so I can't complain.  You are so  lucky. My youngest kid, I birthed three and I have a stepson.  My youngest baby that I birthed did not sleep through the night solid until he hit kindergarten.
01:39Oh my goodness. My little brother was like that. He was  the worst baby. And of course, my room was next to my parents' room at the time and he would wake up like every half an hour. So I dreaded that when I wanted to have kids, but I can't say much  now. Like I know I'm lucky. Yeah, you really are. And I mean, we're all lucky to be privileged to be moms, but  if you get a baby that sleeps through the night, you are very blessed.  Absolutely. Okay. So.
02:07Tell me a little bit about yourself and Farm Fresh Wife. So  I am 29.  My husband and I have known each other for 13 years. We've been married for five years as of July  11th.  We have a farm out in Jonestown, Pennsylvania. We raise beef cows.  I have obviously the dairy goats.  But actually before I started my business, I worked in healthcare.
02:38After we had our second child, I was working full-time nights  and I just kind of got tired of it.  I came home one day and I said, I'm buying Dairy Goats.  He goes, do you have a plan? I said, no, not really. I said, but I found two on Craigslist and I'm going to go pick them up next week. He said, okay.  Then I started making soap in our garage  and I watched a lot of YouTube. I talked to a lot of people. I even took a couple classes.
03:07That's just kind of how it started. was really just on a whim that I was like, I want to do something for myself. I grew up in a family of business people. My mom used to have a garden center and she does gourd crafts and she's been doing that for 20 some odd years. And my dad has done construction and landscaping for a very long time since he was like 16. So having a business or like
03:36being business oriented has always kind of been a part of me. I  worked for both my parents growing up.  So it just, kind of was more appealing to me than having to wake up every day and work for somebody else and leave my kids at home. And, you know, it was kind of like, it turned into like a vicious cycle where everyone was tired and, you know, they needed mom and mom wasn't home. I was working 12 hour shifts.
04:02And then it was like, hi bye to my husband. You know, we weren't going to bed at the same time or we weren't waking up at the same time because we worked opposite shifts. So it was kind of just like taking a leap. know, at this point I'm three, almost four years into it. And now I'm referred to as like the goat soap lady and I love it.  It like, tickles me pink that people actually know who I am and they come looking for me at craft shows and stuff now.  And it's actually, it's helped.
04:31you know, cover a couple extra costs here and there. And I get to be home with my kids and do extra stuff here on the farm too.  That is amazing. And the entrepreneurial, that's a hard word to say for anybody, is strong in you because of your parents. And that's great.  Um, when you said that you've been making soap for four years, almost everybody I talked to on the podcast  makes some
04:59form of skincare or soap in, you know, whether they do it to sell it or whether they just do it because they like to do it.  I'm astounded that Procter and Gamble is still in business. Yeah, I,  it was funny though, cause COVID was, you know, that was kind of the turning point. That's when my oldest son was born.  And like I said, it was just, I worked in healthcare for a long time. I started in the nursing home, went to the hospital, but it just, really took a change.
05:28and a turn for me because I  did  nursing classes in college and I was just about done.  And then I decided I was like, just, I don't love it like I used to. And I needed something that kind of gave me that spark back.  I mean, I love being around people. I love helping people. I actually had a gentleman come and find me at a show recently and I do make other products. I make tallow because we have the beef cows and that was kind of  just a spin off of my other
05:58stuff that I was already doing, but this gentleman came up to find me and  he had a skin issue that developed from taking medication and he said he was like, I just love this stuff. He goes, buy every other week from the lady that sells your stuff at the market and I just had to meet you face to face.  it just, it really made my day. And it's kind of funny because the things that have happened in the last year, mostly has been such a blessing.
06:28I couldn't have asked it to happen any other way. I've met so many incredible people just through craft shows and even my neighbors. We have a couple people that work bees out at our farm  and I've just become really good friends with him and his wife. And I use a lot of her beeswax and her honey and some of my products and she takes stuff to market for me because they go around and they sell all over the place. But I've grown to be really close with them.
06:57And then funny story,  she was actually at a market  and unloading some of my stuff and she dropped a whole case of tallow that she had bought from me.  And she had messaged me that night. She was like, I'm so sorry. Do you have like extra lids? Do you have extra labels? And I'm like, I'm really sorry. Like I can replace the labels and you know, but I can't really do anything else because  I didn't have extra stuff that day. And about a week or two later, I got a very random message.
07:27And this lady just so happens to live like three minutes down the road from me. But she messaged me and she said, Hey, she said, very random. She goes, but I found a jar of your tallow next to my van at church this past Sunday.  And she said, if someone comes and tells you that they're missing one, please tell them I'll reimburse them because I've used all of it. And I'd love to buy another one.  So, and she actually just opened a farm stand. she has.
07:52you know, since then has reached out to me and she has put some of my soap in her farm stand. So it's just when I say that I couldn't have asked for a better outcome this past year, I truly, truly mean that. And I mean, I thank God every day that things have happened the way that they have because it, it really has changed the dynamic of my home. And with my kids, my kids get to see that I work really hard every day and I, try to put my best foot forward and it's.
08:21a lot of it's for them, but a lot of it's also for me because it makes me feel good. So if mom feels good, everybody feels good, right? Yeah, happy wife, happy life is  kind of the same thing.  I'm really glad that you shared that story because the world is so stressed out right now and so chaotic  and everything seems like it's upside down. So you just gave an illustration of the fact that there are still really good people in the world.  Oh, absolutely.  I mean, it
08:50It baffles me a lot of the times,  you know, when you have an off day that it seems that somebody manages to step in at sometimes the worst, but the best times.  And again, like I, I just, can't stress it enough. mean, I, put a lot of my faith into God and I, truly believe that he's always listening. So a lot of these things could never have happened without that.  Yep. Absolutely.  Um,
09:18So what other, you said you have beef cows. What else do you have?  So we do raise chickens.  I have a donkey. We have a pony.  Mostly we started with just the beef cows and doing hay. My husband actually grew up on our farm. So he's been here his entire life.  About three years ago though, we switched gears a little bit because we had a lot of older cows and we used to raise primarily Angus, but we went to Semitols.
09:47Um, this last time when we bought,  um,  and we really, mean, I, I like them, their temperament has been great.  Uh, they calve fairly easily and we've had the last three years of  having the herd that we have, they've worked out pretty well for us. So we're, hoping that we can grow, you know, more for the community  and for family and friends and be able to.
10:15get to a point where we can butcher some more and provide meat in our area.
10:21I love that. I really stress on the podcast very, very often, probably too often,  that people who grow things need to, I mean, I don't want people who grow things to give them away. But if you grow a garden or you grow animals and you have extra, selling it to the local community is the best possible thing you can do because that gives the community  a chance to find out about you.
10:49and it gives them a chance to support you. And it's a symbiotic relationship that really needs to happen. Oh, absolutely. I'm a very big believer in small business, supporting other small business.  And  that's what makes the world go round. And you think about it, like back in the day, was so many mom and pop shops. And you had to rely on your neighbor  to get through. And I wish it was more like that today.
11:16And I'm hoping from what I see anyway, our community around here has been fantastic. Like I said, the people that have bees out here, they're great people. They're super nice. They also work super hard. it's,  they have that understanding of, you know, what it's like to be working day in and day out. And same with the lady down the road. She makes sourdough bread, but she works  very hard as well. I mean, she's  working night and day and she also has four little kids. So I.
11:45I can totally relate with her on that. But it's funny because we all found each other kind of on a whim.  And it's just the relationship that has blossomed over the last couple of years and even the last month or so that I've known her name's Bethany who lives down the road here.  It's just,  can't stress that it's been really good for me and for my kids to meet these people that also work.
12:15very hard or do similar things  because I want my kids to grow up also knowing that things aren't handed to you.  That it's,  you definitely have to work for, for things  that you want. And it makes you a good person to know that.  Well, yeah. And it,  it's more than just being a good person. It's, it's knowing that you're capable  and having a giving spirit or heart or however you want to say it.
12:45that's really important for self-esteem. Oh yeah, absolutely. I agree with that 100%.  And shout out to Bethany from a tiny homestead podcast and Mary and Julia, thank you Bethany for being awesome.  Um, hopefully she'll listen. That would be fun.  Uh, you mentioned that you sell your soaps in a local store.  I  actually have never looked into that for the stuff that we make here.
13:12Are there laws in Pennsylvania that you have to abide by to sell in a store or do you just have to do a contract with the store? So I know there's, it's kind of touch and go. Like you have to stay up to date with things. I know when I started initially, like the labeling requirements were different. You have to have certain things on your label to be considered, like able to sell.
13:41The one store that I sell in, it's a farm store.  But as long as I follow the guidelines for the labeling and there is no  set in stone FDA guidelines,  then it's okay. But  we are looking into possibly getting into our local grocery store, because it's a very small family-owned store. So that is something else that I'm looking into.
14:07But like I said, it's kind of touch and go because  since I've started, I know a lot of things have changed as far as the labeling and  the handling. Like you have to make sure obviously like you're in a clean area and the sanitizing and  I know it's different all over the place.  Like when I was started too, I looked into just laws all over the world because I was curious  and like in England, they have to have every recipe tested and approved before they're able to sell out of their home.
14:38So it's kind of funny how it varies from place to place.  But it's fairly, I would say, like an easy, simple process as long as you are following. You you get on every couple months and you're like, okay, maybe I need to change this or maybe this is out to date. I can update that. It hasn't been very hard.  Yeah. We have...
15:03We have a really robust farmers market every Saturday starting in June and I think they're running through October this year.  And so we sell our stuff at the farmers market and out of our farm stand on our property. And we're almost out. Like my husband just made two batches of unscented cold process lye soap two weekends ago because he was like,  we have sold almost all of our soaps. I was like,  Oh God, no, because that takes four to six weeks to cure. Yep.
15:32He said, yeah, I'm going to be making soaps over the next couple of weekends. I said, I'm okay with that. And I said, are you going to make the coffee scented one? He said, not, no. He said, making the unscented first. said, cause I haven't made any in over a year and I'm out of practice. So he made unscented and I'm sitting here looking at them on the drying rack as we speak. love that. I made soap today, this morning actually.
15:58I'm trying to,  I have some shows coming up, but they're fairly  close together in the next couple months. So I figured when the baby naps  and the other baby naps, I can try to get some of my work stuff done in between being out in this heat and little kids cooperating. So  I try to squeeze that in when I can.  Do you just have the two? No, have four. There's,  yep.  My oldest just turned six and then  the second one just turned four.
16:28And then the other one is one and a half. And then our youngest  is going to be two weeks tomorrow.  You are unbelievably busy. I can't believe you're awake enough to put a sentence together.  Lots of coffee.  Lots of coffee.  Yep. I survived on coffee,  um, with my kids after I stopped nursing them.  Um, I don't know what the, I don't know what the doctors say  now,  but
16:57they told me that like one six ounce cup of coffee a morning was fine if I was nursing, but anything above that was not good. Yeah, they change that all the time, but I drank coffee throughout my pregnancy, which I know a lot of people are like, I would never, but I didn't overdo it. It was like one cup of coffee and I started drinking coffee. I think when I was 15, 14, actually, I used to.
17:25I worked on a dairy farm, but our milking time was 3.30 in the morning. So I needed something and that was before energy drinks and  all that stuff. But I rather drink a cup of coffee than the other stuff that they have out there.  Well, coffee doesn't have all kinds of chemicals. You can't pronounce in it.  That is true.  I  really, okay, I'm going to make a very strong statement here.
17:54hate energy drinks.  To me, they smell like a compost pile smells.  And my sons, all three of them  love them. And they crack those things open and all I can smell is compost pile. I'm like, take it out side and drink it. Yeah, they have page done a lot. I can't stand it. I'm like, why can't you just make lemonade or iced tea? And they're like, because it's not the same. And I'm like, no, it's better.
18:25That is true. Yeah, I don't know. My husband likes those Celsius drinks, but I've been on him about that too, because I'm like, you know, you're not a spring chicken anymore and you shouldn't be drinking all this. But yeah, no, spring chickens probably shouldn't drink them either. But I get on with it now. I was like, we're a little older and we have kids and you know, I don't, that stuff always worries me though too, especially
18:50working in the hospital. We had some fluke situations where people have heart palpitations because they're drinking energy drinks and it's 100 degrees outside and they didn't drink water that day either. So they're pumping themselves full of caffeine and then they fall over in their yard and yeah, I get on him. He says that my cure for everything is drink water, drink water. I said yes,  I know. I tell you that for everything, but it does help  most things.
19:17You tell him that because it's true. Yes. And I have a story about energy drinks that I will share. My daughter was like 14 or 15. She's 35 now. And she had had, she drank like three or four energy drinks in one day. Oh wow. And she, she ended up in the emergency room for six hours because of what was in those energy drinks. She got herself
19:45She got herself dehydrated. I don't know how that worked with energy drinks, but there was something  in the energy drinks that she reacted badly to and because she drank so many of them, she was passing out. Oh, wow. Scared the living hell out of me. I thought she was going to die. Yeah, that is scary. But I've seen that more times than not working in the hospital and these young kids,  especially young kids, because they don't know.
20:14the risk factors with this stuff.  And  it's just, it's crazy. That's like the, the vaping thing that was,  that was scary too. We've had  numerous patients come in because they can't breathe because they get so much moisture in their lungs because they're vaping. And it's just, it's crazy. I mean, these things that they put out there for young kids to be having access to it baffles me.  And I think sometimes I
20:43I try to remind myself not to be a helicopter parent, but I also like to use  caution. And if there are things I can talk to my, especially my six year old, like she's at that age too, where she has questions about everything.  Like for example, we, my  husband's grandfather  used to smoke. So she was like, what is that? You know?  And it was more so like, okay, well we stand outside when he's doing that and  it's not really good for you, but.
21:11Um, it was, you know, you can't tell  an 80 some year old man to stop smoking after he's been smoking since he was 14 or 15 years old.  but yeah, telling him he's going to kill him is probably not going to hold much weight.  No, he, he told us during COVID cause he ended up very, very sick. He told us that whiskey and a cigarette was the cure for all.  So  very stubborn old military man. I said, well,  if I  said, if I end up with COVID, I'll
21:40I'll take that into consideration, but I don't think that's going to work for me. So yeah, yeah, I kind of take a live and let live approach with people like that. And I'm sure that he has redeeming qualities and he is a decent human being. But for me, I would be like, yep, I will take that under consideration. And that would probably be the end of that discussion. Um, okay. So.
22:04So really quick, because we're already off track, but we'll just stay off track for another minute. Your 29, was DARE, the DARE program, was that still in school when you were in school? Yes, it was. OK, so I remember it being a big deal. We had a little unit on it in health class when I was, I don't know, 15, 16. And it was all about don't do drugs. And really, I wonder if maybe the DARE program should now have
22:34don't vape and don't overdo on energy drinks included in the DARE program.  Probably. I feel like they should add in some things back to school.  just I have younger brothers, they're 10 and 13 years younger than me.  And just some of the stuff that they tell me at school, like they kind of, they went off track with a lot of that stuff too. Like they, some of their courses, I feel like don't even pertain to real life.  I really wish that.
23:01They would do more in school, even as far as like agricultural stuff. When I went to high school, our school didn't offer like the 4-H and stuff like that. So actually when I got started into my animal stuff,  I had to go to Lancaster, which is  45 minutes from where I grew up. And I was actually a part of the fiber arts 4-H and I used to do the sheep to shawl at the farm show.
23:28And I went to sheep shearing school and I did a lot of different things, but like my parents always had at least chickens or like a random pig that we would raise for a couple months and then we'd butcher it. But we weren't really big into ag, but I always  really liked it, which is why I've started milking.  I used to walk to the farm up the road and I milked for them because I couldn't drive. So it was  about two, three miles up the road. I'd walk up there or the other boy that I milked with, used to pick me up, but
23:58My mom actually, she wanted Angora goats in the worst way. So  one of my 4-H leaders,  actually, she had Angora goats and she had Angora rabbits. So she went away for a week or weekend and asked me to feed for her. And I said, okay. I said, well, don't pay me. said, do you have any goats for sale? And she was like, yeah, I have like one or two. And I said, listen, I will feed for you. And if this weekend's not enough, I'll feed for you another week or weekend.
24:28I'd really just like to get these goats for my mom.  And  she was like, okay, you know, that's, that's cool.  So I worked for her and I  got my mom, her first goat,  she got freedom. And then the other one was star because they were born around like fourth of July.  But  I started my mom off with her first two goats.  And then  about a year or two later when I could drive and we had a trailer.
24:55I found a cow and a calf pair, a Jersey cow,  and  I went bought my mom a milk cow. And now  she has  three Jersey cows that just had three calves  and she has, let's just say a handful of the Angora goats. Because girl math, you buy one, you end up with 10.  Yeah. So I kind of got her started on her stuff too, but it's funny because
25:24We just, we relate on a lot of different levels. Obviously she does like the fiber and I do the milk goats, but it's, it's fun because we compare notes a lot of the times and it's something else that we've been able to bond over  the last couple of years.  I mean, she has a small farmstead and well, I say small, but my mom works really hard and her garden is a hundred feet by a hundred feet.
25:49that woman would be out there on her hands and knees covered in dirt all day every day because she loves it.  But I guess I can get it legally because she's hard-headed and  works very hard and I think I get it from her.  You come by it honestly. I do.  I was just talking with my dad this morning and they have five chickens right now.  And  he said a couple of them are getting old.
26:16And I said, oh, well, you're going to get some more laying hens. And he said, I think I'm over it. He said, I'm 82. He said, getting down the hill to feed them when it's icy is getting to be dangerous. I was like, really? You're going to get out of them. You're over it. He said, I think so. He said, I think when they're done, I'm done. He said, I will just get eggs from the neighbor. And that was hard to hear. Yeah. You know? what?
26:45Yeah, I completely get that. My husband's grandmother is actually going to be 87 tomorrow. you know, she cracks me up though, because I feel like our kids keep her young. She literally lives right across the yard from us. So they go over and see grandma and she rides around in her golf cart. And that woman, mean, now, again, like I said, she'll be 87 tomorrow, but the heat gets to her.
27:12So like before the kids go over and bug her, I'm like, maybe we should call her first and make sure she's not napping. But kind of the same thing as my husband and I,  were like, you know, she kind of did slow down in the last year and  it's, hard to see that.  Um, especially cause she has all like, since I've known my husband, I've always just known her one type of way. And that's just like, she's been cruising around, doing her thing, gardening. Um, she loves her flower beds. She loves flowers in general.
27:42She has the greenest thumb in the entire world. That lady was like literally stick a stick in the ground and a tree will grow. I'm like, Oh, okay. You know, but yes, I love the older generation and especially talking about things that have to do with farming. we have a lot of people around us. Like I said, the community here is great, but we have a lot of older farmer friends that are just fantastic. And it's just funny.
28:11to hear their stories or to hear how they think about things or how you should do certain things. And I always have to tell my husband too, though, I said, you you have to sometimes keep up with the times. Like sometimes it's okay to let that old tractor go because it doesn't quite run like it used to. And sometimes it's okay to change the way things are. And, you know, you have to do what you have to do. But some of the old school ways, I mean, they still hold true. So I do respect that, but it's.
28:40It's just  funny to see how different things are from then till now.
28:47Absolutely, and one of the taglines that I play with all the time is  doing old-fashioned things in newfangled ways. And I think that's what you're doing and what I'm doing.  And my dad is still doing old-fashioned things in old-fashioned ways, and I'm really proud of him for that.  So I try to keep these to half an hour, but I have a couple more questions if you have time. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, okay. I don't want your husband to be...
29:12saddled with the babies for too long. God bless him for giving you time to talk with me.  What do you sell for products? Because I would like people to know what they can get from you. mostly is the soap,  the goat's milk soap, then the tallow. I make chapsticks, bath soaks,  and some odds and ends things. I started making some beeswax melts this year too. And sometimes I make bath bombs. They're not my favorite.
29:42They're not my favorite either. I  started with those  and I really like them and then it was kind of like,  don't love them, so why am I still making them? And I  think that also kind of  changed my direction with some things too because you don't want to do things that you don't like because then you won't want to do them.
30:04And that's kind of where I got to like, it's okay to say no,  I do have people that are like, can we get bath bombs or, you know, can you make this and sometimes as a business person,  you do have to say no.  I mean, there's times where you can save no for a better day, but I've just learned to that when you do work for yourself, in order  to keep it where you like to work for yourself, and you like to make the products that you make, it is okay to kind of change things up a little bit.
30:34I also  make  sugar scrubs.  So I try to keep a variety of things just because I know that you're not going to want to buy 10 bars of soap at the same time unless you're stocking up for something or Christmas. I know that's a big thing where people want to buy some stocking stuffers.  So I tried to keep that in mind too when I started making extra products.  But primarily, like I said, it is the soap.
31:03And I really enjoy that. So. Okay. I got a couple of things based on your answers.  Bath bombs are a pain in the ass to make. They either turn out exactly right or they fall apart. Yes, absolutely. That's, uh, yeah. I tried, I tried twice making them just for the hell of it. And  I  was like, absolutely not. This is not something I want to screw around with because the,  the,
31:30Return on investment is just not good enough. No, and it's hit or miss. I've had days where I have made 80 and they all turn out great. And then I have days where I'll make five or 10 because it's something I wanted to whip up quick and then they all blow up, like you said. Or I had an issue where they actually got so dry and I don't know why, but they got so dry from sitting that they just like crumpled. And I was like, oh, yeah, OK.
31:59And then that's all product that you have to throw away. And it's terrible. It's kind of like when I first started making soap, though, like  I would cry after every batch until I finally got it. Like it's one of those things that you do have to practice. And it's like science. It's a lot of fun. But  when I kept screwing up over and over and over again, like I knew it wasn't going to come the first time. But like it was like every time I tried, I'm like,  I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.  And
32:27But it's funny because I look back now and I look at when I first started and I'm like, oh my gosh, my soap was horrific. It looked terrible. But I thank my friends that bought stuff from me to support me because I don't know that I would have continued if it wasn't for them. But it looks a lot better now. So that's,  that's all the practice and the crying, I guess that got me over that hump and I figured it out.  the stick to itiveness and the  determination to get it right. Yes.
32:56Oh, I don't like to be wrong. That is one thing that I mean, I can admit when I'm wrong, but when I want to be good at something, I will keep trying and trying and trying until I'm really good at it. Yeah, I understand. Okay. And then the tallow is the tallow tallow lotion or is it more like a sap? So I do a tallow balm and a whip tallow.  Primarily the whip tallow. So it's more of like a lotion.
33:25But that has, I started with the tallow balm. I really liked it, but it seemed to be more of like a fad and a request for the whipped tallow. And actually the more that I've made it, the more I've also fallen in love with it. But it also helped with like my collaboration with the community as well, because I started adding the honey in it from the bee people here. So it's kind of,
33:55It's cool that we can support each other that way. And I found more ways to do it. I also use her beeswax and her honey and some of the chapsticks,  uh, as well as, uh, like the sugar scrubs. And I make a soap with their honey in it as well.  Nice.  Awesome.  Can people,  will you ship if people want to buy it from you? Oh yeah, absolutely. And you're on Etsy?  Yes. It's paused till  August 1st. So.
34:23two days from now,  but yes, I have Etsy as well. Okay, I'll make sure I link that in  the show notes or the show description, whichever one makes more sense to people listening.  I heard the other day when I was learning about podcasting, because I've been doing this for almost two years and I'm like, I still don't know enough,  is that people get confused about show notes versus show description and they're the same thing. So I will make sure that it's linked to your Etsy shop. Thank you.
34:51Yep. And where can people find you online?  So I do have Facebook. don't really, I don't use Instagram all that often, but it's Facebook or Etsy.  Um, and we are working on a website, but that is not currently in the works right now.  All right.  This was fabulous, Julia. And again, congratulations on the baby and the fact that he sleeps really well for you. I'm so jealous  and,  having three other kids and
35:21staying a sane human, sane question mark human.  And as always, people can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. I hope you have a great day, Thank you. Thank you too. Bye.
 

Sow The Land

Today I'm talking with Jason at Sow The Land. You can follow on Instagram as well.
 
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00:00You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Jason at Sow The Land in North Carolina. Good morning, Jason. How are you? Good morning. Doing well. Thank you for having Good. Thank you for being here. I know that you all are very busy people and I really appreciate the fact that you take time to talk with me.  How's the weather in North Carolina this morning?
00:29This morning  early this morning.  It was very nice  Before the Sun comes up, know or right before it's about to come up. It's really nice But like right now  we've had a pretty good heat wave here this week  You know, I think  high of 95 which that's pretty hot for us because I'm we're kind of more in the mountains  And humidity is there  still
00:55But other than that, know, it's sunny. We got a little bit of rain, maybe five minutes of rain yesterday, which we needed. But other than that, it hasn't rained here in a good week or two. Okay. Well, I'm in Minnesota and it's been very hot here and we've gotten over five inches of rain in the last four days. Which I mean, it's better than last year because last year it was a drought by now. We had hardly any rain. Yes.
01:23That was us too, I believe. Yes, that was us too. We had quite a bit of rain in the beginning of this summer, which was nice. I think that was kind of like normal.  But yeah, I remember last year we had a good drought. Yeah, and the thing is the rain has been fabulous for our over 250 tomato plants. I just ate the first tomato yesterday and they are so sweet. They are fantastic. Yeah, nice. But...
01:48but all the off and on rain pretty much did in our cucumbers and we have  no viable cucumber plants this year. I'm so sad. Oh man, I know. Yeah, it's always sad times.  So I begged my husband the next time he's at the farmer's market, because we sell our stuff at the farmer's market. I said, next time you're there, trade tomatoes for cucumbers, please. And he said he would. So we're good.  And it is the first day in
02:15Oh, a week or so that it hasn't been sweaty, sticky hot at 5 a.m. So I'm counting my blessings. Yeah, that's wonderful. It really is. I record in my upstairs bedroom and I can't have the air conditioner on when I'm recording because you would hear the hum. Oh, yeah. And the last few interviews I've done, I've been like, oh my God, it's so hot upstairs without the AC. So thankful that it's cooled down finally, because it's been gross.
02:45Yeah. Okay. So tell me about yourself and about Sow The Land. Yeah. So we have a homestead farm in Western North Carolina. We as in me, my wife and my daughter, she's now a We've been doing this since 2016. We first started when we first moved out in North Carolina, we started at one and a half acres and then
03:15lived there for six years and now we're on 14, which we've been here about three years now  and  where we grow  a lot of our food, not all of it, but  you know, currently we have  a 72 foot high tunnel that we grow in plus  a 1200 square foot outside garden and then  some raised beds.  We also have raised pigs,  cooney cooney pigs,  which
03:45If you're not familiar with them, they are probably the cutest pigs that you'll ever see.  And they're very easy going.  If you're new to pigs, they're a great pig to start off with.  And they're very gentle on the land.  hear they're sort of friendly too. Oh, they are. You could train these pigs  easily to follow you around.  You know,  we butcher them for meat.  I mean, that's a little hard because they are cute.
04:15You know,  but we breed them here too. And  we've had them since we lived here. So  I guess in three years, we have a breeder pair and we breed them. then  we also had two,  we raised  two steers here.  do, geez, this year, think we've  almost 300 meat chickens this year that we're raising.
04:43You know, we have 40 egg layers  and we move everybody around  on pasture, in the woods,  constantly moving  these little pig and chicken structures everywhere.  And we also have our own YouTube channel and the whole time  while doing all of this, we film  what we're doing.  it's kind of been, you know, as we're learning this lifestyle,
05:13kind of sharing what we're learning  and just documenting that for folks who want to watch what we're doing.  Well, good on you because trying to video the things that you're doing takes time and patience and skill. So I'm really proud of you for sharing it. It definitely does.  It's a whole other aspect that some people, know, when you're watching us doing something, you kind of don't realize that that's what we're  You know, and it's just so, you know,
05:42Editing videos, it takes time, filming, a camera around. It's definitely not easy, but I've grown to love it.  It's just another aspect of what we do. Yes, I feel like once you get the system down and it becomes second nature to you, it's a lot easier. But what I want people to know is that being a content creator and
06:09trying to do that around homesteading or farming is a whole different ballgame. There's so many pieces that people do not know, number one, about homesteading and farming,  and number two, about content creation  and the skills that it takes to do both. Oh yeah, you gotta be  the one-stop shop pretty much.  I film myself, I edit the videos, I still do that.
06:39the actual raising the animals, moving the animals, growing the food,  building the things that need to be built and fixing things and filming yourself doing it.  And then figuring out like, you know,  platforms to use and figuring all that side of things and how often do you post and  what do people want to see? And, you know, it's just,  it's like, I'm the marketer also, you know.  You have three full-time jobs. Yes.
07:08I have a quick question about the content creation stuff and then I want to get back to your story of how you got here. What's the shortest video you've done on YouTube that you've posted? Well, they have YouTube shorts now, so it's like a minute long if you count those. I remember when we first started, I was doing YouTube shorts before there was shorts. I was kind of treating YouTube as kind of Instagram stories. I would just go around.
07:37you know, really quick with my phone and just a little clip of something like me moving a chicken tractor, which is like 30 seconds or 50 seconds or something.  And I would just post that.  I would say those earlier videos are probably the shortest ones I've done and I still have them up on my channel.  Other than that, would be the YouTube shorts that I do every now and then. Okay. Well, let me ask the opposite question. How long is the longest video you've done?
08:06Longest video I believe is almost two hours. So what I've been doing for the last few years, well more than that, probably like last five years or so, I'll do like kind of like a, I guess a best of like catching people up at the end of the year of like what we did throughout the whole year. I'm kind of in one big giant like movie. And I'll do that at the end of the year and those videos
08:35do really well for me.  And it's just kind of taking all the footage that I've done throughout the year and footage that I've already posted in a video or  and some of it I have not. I just never made it to a video.  And so I would just put it all together and like I think last year was almost two hours long  that you're just making like one giant movie.  I like doing but it's just
09:03It's like I start editing it in October and I have it out by January 1st. That's how long it takes me. I was going to say an end of year recap is a perfect example because I was going to ask you how many hours it takes to get that finished two hour video. Oh yeah, start in October and I'll have it done by like end of December. You know, I'm not working on it 24 seven, you know, it's just kind of off and on. can try to get to it.
09:31It just, takes much longer than the two hours that people see is what I'm trying to get at. yeah, like a typical video, like on a, just a regular video, it'll take me maybe four to six hours to edit that one, like what, 20 minute video? So. Yes, exactly. It is a skill and it is work and it is time and it is passion. And I want, I want listeners to know that this is not just fun. It is fun.
10:00But it's work, it's real work. know, if everything, yeah, I say like I've said this before, like it's the most hardest and the most rewarding thing I've ever done.  Exactly. Yeah. And I'm not going to sit here and lie to you. When I do the podcast, I do very little editing because it's just a conversation. Unless someone says something  inflammatory or  uses one of the bad swear words.  I don't have to do a whole lot of editing.
10:28My time is involved in finding people to talk to.  that takes time. It really does because everyone is living very full, very busy lives. And  I feel honored when people say yes, because I'm nobody. I'm just me. If you want to spend 30 minutes yapping with me  about what you do, I'm thrilled to have you. That's great.  OK, so  now we've talked about all that. How did you get here?
10:56How did you get to where you are? Because I know your backstory, but not everyone does.  Um, so me and my wife, my wife and I were originally from Southern California, which is just outside of LA. And we lived there our whole lives. And we met in high school.  Um, it never lived anywhere else. That's where all of our families from and still live. And, um,  it was,  I had just turned 30 years old, which is now she's
11:26I it's like 15 years now. I had just turned 30 and I think it was in 2010 and I got diagnosed with cancer and that was the reason that what started all of this, where we're at today. And I don't think if it wasn't for cancer, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing now. I don't think we would even know that this whole other life would exist for us.
11:55And that kind of like changed our mindset of like, how do we want to live, you know, after getting a diagnosis like that, you know, I did  six months of chemo, lost my hair and everything. And  after that, I was in remission ever since.  And, you know, no  crazy surgeries or anything. And that was just so totally unexpected.  It was during that time is when we
12:26started talking about nutrition and, man, should we be eating differently and all these things? prior to that, we just kind of had the, you know, grew up the standard American diet, you know, just regular folks, not just doing our own thing. And, you know, I worked in an office job. I was a computer drafter. So I draw up blueprints for a company and my wife, she worked in the fashion industry. And so it was during that time. And then
12:56You know, when I was going through chemo, we just started looking at just different things of what we should be doing better. And I remember the last oncology appointment is when I had my last final CAT scan to determine like, you're officially on remission, you no more chemo. So I asked the doctor, I was like, okay, so what now? You know, it was such an emotional roller coaster time.
13:25Cause you just don't know what's, you know, very question. You don't know what's going on. You're just kind of following whatever the doctor's saying. This is what we got to do. And so much emotion that at that time. And so I always thought like, that's it. You know, am I supposed to be taking, I don't know, vitamins or follow a nutrition plan or something. And the doctor just looked at me and was like, no, you don't gotta do anything. You know, just go. She said, go back to your normal life.
13:54It'll be like never happened. And it was almost like, I looking back at it now, it was almost, I felt like we were, we wanted a doctor to tell us how to live, you know, like how to, I want that doctor to tell me how I should be eating. after she said that, it just didn't make sense to us. Like, there's no way, like, just go back.
14:23Like it never happened.  so that's when we started to kind of figure it out for ourselves of what we should be eating and not eating and cutting out of our diets and,  you know, we should be more active.  And that kind of snowballed into wanting to grow our own food because we never had done that before.  Didn't even know anybody who did that. Honestly, I don't think we've had friends or family that had any kind of garden.
14:50Definitely no kind of farm animals, no chickens or anything like that. So we just figured if the only way we're going to really know what's in our food, if we start growing it ourselves. we had a backyard and we had a of a couple of raised beds and there was some, know, bought some plants, tarts and started growing our own food. you know, growing that first tomato plant was like amazing. It was so empowering. And, know, and then when you
15:16have it when you eat it, you're like, oh my gosh, this tastes nothing like the grocery store. It was amazing and we fell in love with that and we just kept on trying to learn and figuring it out like how to grow food and growing cucumbers and growing kale, know, and just stuff like that. Then we had our daughter right after that and you know, we would kind of joke around. I remember joking around like, you know, we had like six raised garden beds and
15:45We ended up getting two chickens  for eggs.  And we is pretty cool. Like raising a couple of chickens, we have a little garden.  And then we started joking around with like,  wouldn't it be cool to have more land? You know, we're like, yeah, maybe we could, I don't know, raise a couple of cows or something. I don't know. And it was like, kind of like a joke that we would say because, you know, we're in kind of LA and it like, there's no land around here.
16:15During all that time of questioning our food, we were kind of questioning our jobs. What we wanted to do, like, was this job, this is it? I went to school and I got a job because I went to school and my wife was in the fashion industry and she eventually quit to be a stay-at-home mom. And so she was already at home and
16:42And me, I wanted out of my office job. I was there for 17 years of doing the same exact thing, sitting down in front of a computer,  in the office, in a cubicle. And that was kind of eating away at me.  And slowly, I didn't want to be sitting down anymore. I wanted to be  working with my hands  in the soil or building something.  And so  slowly,
17:09Probably a good six years after from 2010 to 2016, we started getting rid of our stuff. Like we collected a lot of things and we weren't living very minimally. But as we started to talk about this, hey, we might get land somewhere. I don't know where or if that would ever happen. Because also our family lived, we all lived like 30 minutes at least from each other, right? Like there was no way we're going to move away from them.
17:39That's why it became kind of like a funny joke, but  slowly we started to get rid of stuff because it's just stuff didn't matter anymore.  What mattered is our health and us being healthy and happy as a family. so we started getting rid of stuff.  We had bedrooms of furniture that we never went in. We got rid of furniture. We got rid of things on the walls,  collections that we had.  And next thing you know,  we
18:09pretty much just had maybe a couch and a kitchen table. And when we got rid of lamps, we got rid of everything in our house. we said, okay, I think we're pretty serious about possibly moving somewhere for some land. Because we also went down to one car, we were trying to live more minimally, try to get out of some debts that we had. And we're like, all right, let's sell this kitchen table.
18:39And so we did and then shortly thereafter, we sold our home.  And that was the first home that we bought together after we got married. And we're like, okay, we're going to, the plan was we're going to go, because my mom lives like kind of on the next street over. So we're going to live with mom for a year  and  we're going to continue to save and figure out where we want to be as far as.
19:06We knew we wanted a little bit of land, even just an acre we're looking for. And we're going to go look and see what we find. And that took a big step because, you know, I didn't want to move back in with mom, right? I feel like we were taking a step backwards after all this, you know, this college and having careers and stuff. And so that's what we did. We sold that house and we paid off some debts.
19:34with that money that we had saved and we had  money saved and  lived with mom for a year. And during that time, we kind of like looked around. We wanted to stay in California because that's where all our family and friends were. And that's really what we knew.  And then we started venturing out. We'd take a little vacation throughout the year,  know, New Mexico, Arizona, just kind of just looking around.  And, you know, we came to realize California is super expensive.  There is no way we
20:04we could have  afforded anything.  And at the same time,  I wanted out of my office job  and I didn't know how to do that. Cause I wanted to, the plan was I wanted to be at home,  like kind of working on our own business. don't know what that was, what that would be like at that time. And  we kind of wanted to work for ourselves and be at home. Cause my wife, also wanted to  homeschool our daughter.
20:33Okay. Can I, can I stop you for just a second? When you were living with your mom, was your daughter already alive? Yes. She was, uh, three and we left when she was four. So she got a whole year spending time with grandma. Very nice. Oh yeah. Yeah. That was hard too. Like when we left California and we're taking the granddaughter away too. So that has been difficult. Yeah.
21:01But  the memories that were made are so special, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, my mom, she she loved us having been there, you know, like she was like, stay longer.  So after,  I don't know, it was, mean, that whole process was like, of getting rid of stuff, you know, after, after chemo to sell in her house and then looking for a place is like about six years. then around 20, end of 2015, we knew,
21:31family that moved out to the Asheville, North Carolina area to kind of do  what we wanted to do was like grow food, have a little farm.  And we had never been past New Mexico, you know, like we've never been  on the East Coast at all. And so they would tell us about this area and we're like, oh, we have to go visit. So we went to go visit on vacation for like a week  and we didn't look at even  look at properties. We just went to just go see
22:00what was going on in North Carolina. We had no idea what the weather was like or what.  So we went to go visit and  we just fell in love with the area.  Even the short times we were there, the people that we had met and  just the community that was there. mean, a lot of people doing what we wanted to do and  a of little small farms.  I think it was just so much different than California as far as weather.  There was water everywhere. There was no droughts.
22:30You know, super green.  And so,  we came back home in California and  I think six months went by and we're just still not sure what to do.  We did not want to move that far away because we'd be that's like the furthest you could possibly go of moving away from family and we didn't want to move away.  But you know, was, we felt like we were just drawn to  move out here.  And so, another, you
23:00my job's like, okay, what am I gonna do with my job? Like I gotta work, like when am I just gonna quit?  And so,  you I looked for places or do little jobs out here while I was in California and I couldn't find anything.  Nothing was coming up and it was just kind of frustrating at that time. And so I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna quit. I'm just gonna quit. Like I could do that. I'm an adult.  I can make these decisions,  right?
23:29And so that took a lot of  just man, I guess guts  to trust in the process.  so I eventually quit the job  and  with the very little stuff that we had,  well, I should go back to that. All these are like happening on all these steps that had to happen.  So before I quit,
23:58I told my wife, I was like, okay, we're never gonna really know if we're gonna even find anything over there in North Carolina. So, I'm just gonna go for the weekend and go look at properties. So, she trusts me enough to go by myself. Like on a weekend, I saw like 15 properties and I saw one that was one and a half acres. It kind of checked everything off the box that we were looking for, you know, it was affordable.
24:27The only thing it had a single wide mobile home on it, which,  it was  abandoned, know, it needed a ton of work.  And, but it was  kind of everything else was,  was what we wanted. And so we eventually  bought that and then came back, quit my job, put in my two weeks.  And with this little stuff that we had, we,  moved  all three of us, we moved out here and.
24:57The plan was just we'll figure it out.  If it's meant to be, it's meant to be.  At that time, like YouTube, like filming ourselves wasn't even in my radar. Like I didn't even think that was a thing.  All I knew is  we wanted to work from home somehow and I didn't know how to do that. And so  I maybe I'd do, I liked woodworking,  like making things and  you know, that might be a thing.
25:27that I do  and it has been.  And so,  eventually I thought, well, know, eventually the reality is I'm gonna have to go find a job somewhere.  So,  we had about  six months  of savings  where I knew like if I didn't work for six months, we would be fine. And so, I think about three months went by, you know,  after coming from a job that you got paid every single Friday and you had, you know, paid vacations,
25:57paid sick leave, paid insurance and all this stuff and all of a sudden that was gone. And three months went by and I did not not got paid. Trying not to freak out. And so I went to go look for place, our job and you just can't find anything really. So it was during that time, our family was super supportive of us moving out here.
26:27But also at the same time, I felt like they really didn't understand why.  And so, I would take these little  videos with my phone and like email mom, email grandma, hey, this is our garden or here's our daughter. Like she's  starting her own little garden, you know.  Just kind of what we're doing for the day.  And then that kind of got old after a while. And so,  I thought, how about I just put it up on a YouTube channel? I'll just put these little short clips or whatever I video and...
26:57that'll be, they could watch it whenever, know, mom, here's our YouTube channel, go ahead and watch whatever, you know, stuff I post.  And then it just kind of grew from there. Like other people started watching us, which was wild.  Um,  and I think we started the YouTube channel maybe a year after we moved here.  Um, and that kind of grew to what it is today. And then,  um, yeah, we just sharing  what we're doing  and, and we,
27:26The plan was we didn't want to, I didn't want to work for somebody else.  We wanted to work from home and work for ourselves and  we wanted to grow as much food as possible and  just be healthy. And we've been doing that ever since.  Okay. So  you ended up moving to 14 acres after that.  And are you selling what you're growing? Yeah. Last year was the first year we started selling
27:55like a pastured poultry or chicken meat. And then we started selling pork too. So at the end of last year, we started doing that, just growing, you know, just raising some extra than what we're doing for ourselves. And then this year, we started, you know, we're starting getting more into selling chicken and also turkeys. So pork, chicken, pork and turkeys right now, we started growing a little extra. Now we're not going...
28:23I'm not going super crazy and doing thousands of chickens or anything like that. It's just, you know, maybe a hundred or two extra a year and just try to sell that and see where that goes and see how that works and, you know, see if we even like doing it. Mm hmm. You are the first person I think I've talked to, Jason, who basically jumped off the cliff praying there was a river underneath of it. That's what if I for a long time,
28:53It felt like I was  drowning  where I'm like lost at sea and there's nothing around and I'm just like trying to tread water here. I'm just trying to float and then just grabbing onto things that go by and seeing if that's the thing I'm supposed to be doing.  And it was really just  I said yes to a lot of things like everything that came my way I'd be like yes, I'll do that.
29:21you know, or just like spread the word around.  Cause we didn't know anybody out here.  We didn't have family out here.  So just trying to  latch onto something to help us  grow, you know, to help us figure out what am I supposed to be doing here? Like what am I going do for work? Like that's, you know, reality is yes, I have to, we have to pay bills. Like we have, we have those things.  So it's just trying to say yes to everything and  just seeing what works and
29:50It's still kind of like that. mean, I'm  saying less yes to things, but  I'm still saying yes to a lot of things.
30:00keep saying yes because that's where the beauty is. Yeah, I think it was within those yeses that  kind of you understand or for me I understood like what I like doing, what I don't like doing, what's working, what's not working and I'm still saying yes to things  and just trying to figure that out because I also feel like it took a lot of effort, right? Like it took a lot of effort to move out here.
30:26Selling all our stuff and just quitting our careers and just leaving. That took so much emotion and physical effort. Then once we got here, it was I felt like what now? Uh-huh. Like is this it? We did it? Like okay, we could just live happily ever after? Like  I feel like no, that can't be it. Like we still need to live and figure this part out.
30:55And  I still kind of feel that way. Like I'm still trying to figure it out. Like is there something else I should be doing out here? Like the reason why we move or is doing these videos,  is that the thing? Is that the reason? Yeah.  Yeah. And you made a huge  leap and I can completely relate to the we did it. Is this it? Yeah.
31:22Because almost five years ago, we left a home that we lived in for 20 years to move out in the middle of the cornfields and soybean fields. and the day that we actually were officially moved in, I went outside and looked around at our 3.1 acre property and went, Oh my God, we did it. What now? It was that big, weird, hollow chest thing of
31:52Holy crap. Yeah, we did the thing.  What now? I know it's such a wild feeling. I mean even for the longest time to a few years after we moved out here.  I felt like I did something wrong.  You know, like I felt like almost I had this feeling that someone was going to drive up on my driveway in the yellow and tell me like how dare you do that? How dare you just leave?
32:17you know, that's so irresponsible of you. Why would you move your four-year-old daughter out here and not know anybody or family? Like, I had those thoughts in my brain  and  slowly,  you know, I just, you know what? There's just, why are we here? We're here to grow food. Like that's initially why we're here.  And so I  think just the act of just  living our day and just  not forgetting the why.
32:47has helped me get through that. I don't think that way anymore, but I think that helped me get through that part of it. It was like doubt, right? It was doubt telling me, no, you can't do this. How dare you? Yeah, I went through a feeling of being selfish because  part of the reason that we moved is because we lived right in town, in a small town. We were a block and a half off of the main street in a small town. And it was
33:16noisy and it was dirty and it was busy and I am not that person. I need quiet. need peace. So 20 years of my life, I lived in a place that I really didn't want to live in,  but it was really great for raising kids because everything was within walking distance and the schools were good and we had four kids.  And so when we decided to move, I was like, it has to be outside of town. I cannot be a townie anymore.
33:46And we had really good friends in that town and we still do. And some of them come visit us. And when they first came, they were like, Oh my God, it's so  pretty.  And it is pretty,  but I don't really care that it's pretty. I care that it's quiet.  And so I had, I had a good four or five months of feeling really selfish and  privileged because we were in a position to get the thing that I
34:16really needed. Oh yeah, I understand that. I know, it's such a weird feeling to you.  Yeah, I think after a while, you know, our family, they visit us now. Now they're like, I think the first couple visits, they're like, okay, I get it. You know,  after the good food that we have, that we've raised and they eat that and it's like, oh my gosh, this is it. You know?  But it took a little while to get there.
34:42of uncertainty when we first moved out here of like, this going to work? I don't know. But you know, slowly we're just, you know, you just got to keep at it, keep moving forward. And I also can relate to your family starting to get it because they ate the food that you grow. My husband talked to his dad this past weekend and one of the first questions his dad asked was,
35:07How are the tomatoes coming along? Because my father-in-law loves bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwiches. Nice.  Yeah. So he is ready for the first two tomatoes that we can spare. Right.  I know. One time we're cooking a half a hog that we processed here ourselves. And we raised this pig ourselves. And  my dad was like, are you going to cook that half a hog? He's like, he lives in Arizona.
35:33I'm like, yeah, we're gonna do it on this date. He's like, all right, I'm flying over just for that weekend. He was literally here for like two days just to eat this half a hog. And he flew back and it was kind of fun but it was cool. That's adorable. I love that.  Okay, so Jason,  I try to keep these to half an hour and I knew this would probably run long because you have a big story behind your life  and I wanted to hear it.
36:04So here's the thing, cancer is a big,  scary,  awful thing to go through.  But I feel like in your case, it was a beautiful wake up call. Yes, it was. And like I said, I mean, I don't think we would be living this lifestyle at all if we didn't get it. And so I thank God  for cancer every day.  But at the time, know, at the time it was very uncertain and very scary.
36:33It was just  trying to keep moving forward really and just figuring it out. Yeah, it has led us to beautiful things in what we're doing today.  I am  so happy for you and I'm so glad you're still in the world to share your gifts with your community  and your family  and especially your daughter who is what? 17, 18 now? No, she's about to turn 14. Oh,  okay. Well, either way, good.
37:02Good luck with the teenage years with a girl. It's not as hard as you think it might be. Yeah, it's been fun raising her completely different environment than what me and my wife were raised, you know. But it's been fun and she loves it. mean, this is all she knows now. yeah, she's grown up with the chickens. I think that's gorgeous. I think that is a wonderful thing. All right, Jason, where can people find you?
37:32You can find us on sowtheland.com. We're on Sowtheland on all the things.  YouTube, Facebook,  Instagram.  Yeah, and our own website, sowtheland.com.  I also  have our own podcast.  I do with two other  guys and it's called Homestead Shop Talk.  Oh, okay. I'm going to have to go find it. Yeah.
38:01Awesome.  All right.  As always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  And Jason, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It was fun. All right. Have a great day.